THEOSISJohn Chrysostom
Paul says, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons” (1 Cor 10:21). He did not forbid both cups. No, he acknowledged the holy cup as holy and rejected the unclean and vile one. So also the Savior says, “You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt 6:24). It is impossible to serve both God and the demon at the same time.
“But what the Gentiles sacrifice,” he says, “they sacrifice to demons and not to God” (1 Cor 10:20). Do not turn, then, to what is opposed to God. If you were a king’s son and, while sharing your father’s table, wished to leave it and share the table of criminals and prisoners, would your father permit it? On the contrary, he would strictly forbid it, not because that table could harm you, but because it dishonors your nobility and the royal table. So also those who sacrifice to idols are base slaves, guilty and condemned prisoners, kept for grievous punishment and worthy of countless torments. How, then, are you not ashamed, like gluttons and slaves, to rush toward the table offered by these criminals and to share what is set forth? This is why I turn you away from it.
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The intention of those who sacrifice, and the character of those who receive, make what is offered unclean. “But I do not want you to have fellowship with demons.” Do you see the love of a caring father? Do you see how his very words express great goodwill? I do not want, he says, you to have any fellowship with them, the unbelievers. Since he had spoken in the form of counsel, lest any of the more obstinate should disobey and think himself entitled not to do this, after the words, “But I do not want,” and “judge for yourselves,” he then pronounces a decisive decree: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table and of the table of demons” (1 Cor 10:21).