1 Corinthians 5:9Meaning & 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.

In what epistle? In this very one. For when he said above, “Cleanse out the old leaven,” hinting at the man who had fornicated, as was shown, these words already made it clear that one must not mix with fornicators. But since they might think they should withdraw from all fornicators, even those among the Greeks, he explains which fornicators he means.

Paul indicates that he had already written earlier and urged them not to join themselves to people of evil life. Since it was clear that they had not understood what he wrote, he explains, saying: “Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world,” but with the one who, “being called a brother,” remains a fornicator.

“I wrote to you in the epistle not to mix with fornicators.” Not in another epistle, but in this same one, for a little above he said: “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” Then he explains what he wrote about.

“I wrote to you in the epistle.” Chrysostom and Theodoret understand this to mean this same Epistle and see here a reference to the preceding verse. Yet it is better to understand it as the Epistle to the Thessalonians (2 Thess 3:14), where the Apostle forbids association with those who do not obey his Epistle.

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 what epistle? Today everyone says: in an epistle which the Apostle wrote earlier, but which has been lost. Yet all our interpreters suppose that this is said of the present epistle, alluding to the preceding words: let such a man be removed from you, purge out the old leaven.

So say Theodoret, Oecumenius, and Theophylact. Here are the words of St. Chrysostom: “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, that is, pagans, be avoided.