For no man ever hated his own flesh, but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ doth the church:
ουδεις γαρ ποτε την εαυτου σαρκα εμισησεν αλλ εκτρεφει και θαλπει αυτην καθως και ο κυριος την εκκλησιαν
9 Church Fathers comment on this verse
Having said, “as their own bodies,” he added, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it,” that is, he cares for it with great diligence. But how is the wife the flesh of the husband? Listen: “Behold,” Adam said, “this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23). And not only this, but it is also said, “and they shall be one flesh.” “As Christ also loved the Church” (Eph 5:25, 31): he returns to the former example.
Here it is shown that God’s design cannot remain unrealized, and that no one can foresee better than God. Nor can anyone love what another has made more than his own. Therefore the Apostle says, “No one ever hated his own flesh.”
If some member suffers, we do not cut it off, but try to heal it. In the same way, the Apostle says, you must care for your wives. “As the Lord also does the Church.” He nourishes and cherishes her, offering her His own Body and His Blood as food.
Third, they must express their love in care for the wife as for their own body: “to nourish and cherish her, as the Lord does the Church, because we are members of His body. Of His flesh and of His bones.” By this, among other things, the Apostle reminds all husbands of the biblical foundation for their love for their wives. For the wife “was taken from the body of her husband,” “flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones” (Gen 2:23).
As obedience is chiefly enjoined upon wives, so love is chiefly commanded by the Apostle to husbands.
Perhaps the tyranny of pagan husbands and the looseness of women not bound by marriage contracts gave the Apostle a special occasion for these admonitions.
But one may also think that obedience preserved in the fear of God will itself awaken love in wives, who have a natural inclination toward their husbands (Gen 3:16).
“The wife must above all preserve obedience to her husband, because the wife’s attempt to take dominance disrupts family peace. The husband must above all love his wife, because selfishness on his part makes family prosperity and sweetness impossible” (Bishop Theophan).
“Imitate the Master’s care. Show toward those who live with you in marriage the same care that the Lord showed toward the Church. For Christ the Master did not refuse even to die for His bride, in order to cleanse her, make her glorious, smooth away the traces of old age, and show her free from every vice. Therefore you too must have the same love for your spouses and take care for them as for your own body” (Blessed Theodoret).
“Do not turn away from your wife because of her lack of attractiveness. She is God’s creation. Do not praise her for beauty either. Such praise, such hatred, and even passionate love belong to corrupt souls. Seek beauty of soul. Imitate Christ the Bridegroom. Let us seek neither money nor outward nobility, but nobility of soul.”
“But how is the wife the husband’s flesh? Listen: ‘Behold now,’ Adam says, ‘bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh’ (Gen 2:23). Eve is flesh from Adam’s flesh.”
“As the whole human race was born from Adam and Eve, so from Christ and the Church is born the whole multitude of believers. Forming one body, it is again placed into Christ’s side, having become one flesh with Him.”
“The Lord Himself prayed about this: ‘That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us’ (Jn 17:21)” (Chrysostom).
Such also must be the husband’s love for his wife. It must reach the point of sacrifice itself, but only in cases where such sacrifice can bring the wife true salvation.
Husbands must love their wives all the more because wives constitute their body, a necessary part of their being and personality: “He who loves his own wife loves himself.”
And if the wife is the husband’s body, she may rightly be called his flesh. But to be an enemy of one’s own organism is madness.
On the contrary, every man provides it with necessary food and protects it from harmful influences, nourishing and warming it.
So also Christ acts toward the Church. He is for her the bread of life (Jn 6:48) and the good shepherd (Jn 10:11). He acts likewise toward her individual members, who all together have come from His flesh and bones.
If a husband's love for his wife is so natural, there would seem to be no need to speak of it. Love is always present, yet it often loses its proper meaning. Sometimes a husband loves his wife, yet treats her like a thing.
The Apostle reminds such a man: see, she is a part equal to you, for together with her you make one whole. Sometimes a husband looks at his wife with excessively sensual eyes.
The Apostle reminds such a man: she is your body, but not for bodily pleasures. Have a rational love for her, as the law also commands one to relate rationally to the body. One who relates rationally to the body nourishes and warms it, not for fleshly pleasures, but because it is a necessary instrument for fulfilling the aims of life, as blessed Jerome says.
Guard, nourish, and warm your wife as an instrument, yet not a mechanical one, but one that acts freely, as a helper and coworker. The Apostle's aim is not to dispose husbands to love their wives, for this happens of itself. His aim is to transform this love from something natural into a moral law and duty.
It must not be violated by any whim of the heart, but must preserve its force for the whole of life, like the union of soul and body. Above all, his aim is to transform it from fleshly love into spiritual love, to spiritualize it.
He does this by pointing to the rational relation to the body, and especially by pointing to the relation of Christ the Lord to the Church. Everyone nourishes and warms his own flesh. Nourish and warm your wife also, but as Christ the Lord nourishes and warms His Church.
By the words "nourish" and "warm," the Apostle signified all-sided care. By pointing to Christ's warming and nourishing of the Church, he defined the qualities and aims of this care.
For what purpose does Christ care for the Church? That she may be holy and without reproach, as was said above. One must suppose that the Apostle also understands similar aims by nourishing and warming the wife. He does not mean only feeding her, clothing her, and giving her shoes.
Blessed Jerome offers this thought: let wives also strive toward complete pleasing of God, that they may rise into the perfect man and cease to be wives. Then, taking the Apostle's words figuratively, seeing the soul in the husband and the flesh in the wife, he says: let the soul so train its flesh that it too may see the salvation of God.
Finally he brings both together and says: "Let husbands warm their wives, and souls their bodies, so that wives may be transformed into husbands and bodies into souls, and so that the distinction of the sexes may cease. As among the angels there is neither male nor female, so let us, who are to be equal to the angels, begin already to be what we are promised to be in heaven."
Still, one must not lose sight of the fact that the Apostle explains the duty of love only from the Christian point of view. He sets forth the example of Christ the Lord's love for the Church both as a model and, perhaps, to clarify mutually the relation of Christ the Lord to the Church. He applies what is known in the natural order to the supernatural order.
Yet it is also true that nothing like the way Christ nourishes and warms the Church exists, or can exist, in any natural order. Here he does not mean what the Lord said about His care for the Old Testament Church: "How often I wished to gather your children under My wings" (Mt 23:37; Lk 13:34), though that too has its place.
He means something more special, closer, and more essential. For Christ's union with the Church is not external, one beside the other, but most inward, one in the other.
Eve came from Adam, yet she stood outside him, and their union remained psychic, as is the union of husband and wife. The Church also comes from Christ, but she does not stand outside Him. She has Him within herself, penetrating everything in her and living in her whole being.
The Apostle expresses this in the following text:
How much honor is given to the flesh by the name of the Church! “No one ever,” says the Apostle, “hated his own flesh,” except Marcion, “but nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ also does the Church.” But you, Marcion, are the only one who hates it, depriving it of resurrection. Then you must hate the Church as well, since she is loved by Christ. But Christ loved the flesh also, as He loved the Church. For no one will hate the image of the bride. On the contrary, he will guard, honor, and crown it.
When the Apostle writes, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it,” he means the body joined to a rational soul. This is also to be understood from the Apostle’s words: “So husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies” (Eph 5:28), and so forth.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 18 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS