Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like: of which I tell you beforehand, as I have also told you in time past, that they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
All Commentaries on Galatians 5:21 Go To Galatians 5
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Revellings. This seems to teach that immoderate indulgence in the pleasures of the table is a mortal sin, as it excludes from the Kingdom of heaven. On this I remark that some Theologians hold from this verse that gluttony and lust are mortal sins, not only if they impair the use of reason, but if they be excessive. They rely on the case of the rich man in the parable, who was condemned, not because he was a drunkard, but because he fared sumptuously every day; on the words of Isaiah ( Isaiah 5:22), where woe, i.e, eternal damnation, is threatened against those who are mighty to drink strong drink; on the fact that excess in eating may be more than bestial; and they ask why should gluttony, so degrading to reason as it Isaiah , not be a mortal sin, if pollution is.
But the common opinion of doctors is in favour of a milder view, viz, that excess in eating is not a deadly sin, except when it seriously impairs the health, or causes some disease; or when a man eats with the object of vomiting, so as to commence again—and even this some hold to be not a deadly sin.
1. Note that revelings represents the Greek word κω̃μοι, which stands for the lascivious words and actions of drunkards, for obscene Song of Solomon , dances, and kisses. Hence Bacchus is called Comus, and κωμάζειν is to revel, or to be wanton. Cf. notes to Romans 13:13.
2. If the word is to be understood of banquetings, then it must be also understood of them in their most extreme and finished form, when men sit at table till they are overcome with excess. Cf. Isaiah 28:8. As in the preceding words the Apostle subjoins variance to wrath, and heresies to seditions, and murders to envyings, so here he subjoins revellings to drunkenness, the second member in each case showing what the first tends to end in. Cf. Proverbs 23:20.
1. As to the opinions referred to above, I remark as follows. (a) to fare sumptuously is by itself a venial sin, and becomes mortal only when it leads to vomiting and similar excesses. (b) It also becomes a mortal sinner per accidens, i.e, when it is united to drunkenness, lust, slander, cruelty, and contempt for the poor. This last was the sin of Dives.
2. The denunciation of Isaiah 5:22 is directed against those who mix their drinks so as to make them more intoxicating, and who make a point of making themselves and their guests drunken, and think their hospitality disgraced if they fail in this.
3. Undoubtedly gluttony is a base thing in itself, but so are all our bodily functions; but they are not entirely contrary to right reason, unless indeed they deprive reason of its power to act. The case is different with aberrations of the generative powers. The act of copulation is ordained for a special end, and in its proper method. To defeat this, or to elude the end, is to go contrary to the workings of God, and is therefore a deadly sin.
