1 Corinthians 5:10Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

When the Apostle said, “instead of rather mourning, that such a man might be removed,” and, “purge out the old leaven,” the Corinthians could have thought that all fornicators must be avoided.

For if the one who sinned communicates his infection to those who have not sinned, then all the more must those who sin among outsiders be avoided. If one’s own man should not be spared because of the harm arising from him, then much more should strangers not be spared.

If they admitted this, they would have had to avoid pagan fornicators also. Since this is impossible, and such a demand would only provoke them more, the Apostle makes a qualification.

He used the word “altogether” to express the commonly known nature of the matter. The meaning is this: nevertheless, I do not forbid you to associate altogether with the fornicators of the world, that is, with the Greeks. Otherwise you would have to seek another universe. Indeed, when so many Greeks live in the same city with you, how is it possible not to associate with them?

Not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous; otherwise you would have to go out of the world.

The Apostle corrects the understanding of those who thought that, at his insistence, they ought not to associate with unbelievers, or covetous men, or robbers, or idolaters, rather than with brethren. For this reason they received among themselves without indignation the man who, instead of a wife, had his father’s wife. The Apostle says that if you mingle with such men, it is better for you to die. For a swift death is better for evildoers than a long life of torment in sin.

I am not laying down anything difficult for you, for I do not command you to separate yourselves completely from those who are strangers to the faith. That would mean sending you into some other world.

Having strictly forbidden all communion with fornicators and other ungodly people, the Apostle nevertheless specifies that he commands such separation “not altogether with the fornicators of this world” and other ungodly people. “For then,” he says, “you would need to go out of this world.” Rather, he means those “who, being called a brother,” that is, belonging to the Christian community, “remain a fornicator, or covetous,” and so forth. “With such a one do not even eat,” that is, do not share bread and salt, lest through ordinary association with these hardened ungodly people you be infected by their impiety.

In teaching the rules of a Christian’s relation to manifest sinners, the Apostle instructs them not to have communion with them. Earlier, in verses 2-5, the Apostle wrote that they should remove them from themselves. Now he instructs them not to associate with them.

But this would mean that Christians themselves must withdraw, since it was impossible for them not to have dealings with pagans, who were all sinners. Therefore the Apostle explains that his prohibition concerns only manifest sinners from among Christians.

Even with them, he means not to enter only into the closest union, expressed, for example, in eating food, and especially mystical food.

In making this qualification, “not at all with fornicators,” he includes other manifest sinners with them. He says that he commands them not to associate, not with the sinners of this world, that is, from among the pagans.

Otherwise they would have to seek another universe: “For then you would need to go out of this world.” How is it possible, he says, for a man who has a house and children, who fulfills public duties, who is an artisan or soldier, always to avoid fornicators amid such a multitude of pagans?

By “fornicators of the world,” he means fornicators from among the pagans, says St. Chrysostom. The thought that the sinner was a stranger, not one of ours, lessened his evil influence on the Christian’s soul.