Unit 4 rem close

so that the one who did this deed might be removed from among you.” Origen says: Neither God nor his divine disciples always use kind words toward hearers, nor always harsh ones, but sometimes these and sometimes those. Since, then, Paul’s word had a rod and also a spirit of gentleness and kindness, he asks the Corinthians, not wanting to use the harsher too rashly and quickly—not that the rod comes without love, but that love is hidden in the one holding the rod and does not show the love in the severity of the rebuke. Then he adds the cause of such a question, saying, “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you of a kind not even among the nations.”

We learn that we must be charmed concerning sexual immorality lest we fall; and another lesson, so that those not aware of sexual immorality in themselves, yet aware of those gathering who fornicate, may not be puffed up—knowing that they too are sinners because the one gathering with them is a sinner. For he charges the whole church about one who fornicated, and charges their puffing up as not according to reason, especially because a fornicator is still among them. And third we learn that there are differences of sexual immoralities, so that there is a heaviest and another lesser and another still lesser. Therefore in God’s judgment fornicators are not simply judged, nor will they receive the same condemnation for having fornicated; but quantity and quality increase the punishment, and choice and time.

In Corinth, then, someone contracted an unlawful marriage; he took his stepmother. But the Apostle calls such a marriage sexual immorality, and of a kind one does not even hear among the nations—to teach us that if ever we marry unlawfully, the supposed marriage is not counted to us as marriage but as sexual immorality. Then leaving him he brings the charge against his company: “And you are puffed up and have not rather mourned, so that the one who did this deed might be taken from among you.” He rebukes all as having received him badly. For when the one who sinned is in the midst and we who seem to ourselves aware of better things are puffed up, it is said, “And you are puffed up.”

:3–5: “For I, though absent in body yet present in spirit, have already judged, as though present, the one who has done this thing. When you are assembled in the name of our Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.” Origen says: Not for destruction of the soul, not for destruction of the spirit, but for destruction of the flesh—for so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord he is handed over. For Paul cast such a one out, not knowing that he would repent and turn, but wanting to discipline him. For it is one thing to cut someone off as incapable of repentance and turning, another to put him off for the present and cast him from the flock, as a shepherd casts out a sheep with mange so that the pasture of that wound not spread over the whole flock.

So let those living badly be healed outside the flock, confessing and mourning their own sins, bringing the things of repentance in fasts and mourning and weeping and the like. For they are handed over to be disciplined so that their flesh may be destroyed—that is, the mindset of the flesh—not so that he may touch their soul, not so that he may drive them out of their minds, not so that he may do anything else, but so that he may receive authority only over their flesh, not I giving the authority but the power of Jesus in me.

From the better part he named the whole salvation, lest he say “and spirit and soul and body be saved in the day of the Lord,” but “the spirit be saved,” naming from the better the salvation of the whole human being. For as one to be saved he orders him received into the church in the second letter. To be absent in body and present in spirit belongs to Paul and those like him; for he said elsewhere, “For though I am absent in flesh, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing and seeing your order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.” But none of us can say, “I am present and see the church’s excellences or the order and the firmness of faith in Christ.”