Verse 2
2. To avoid fornication The translators have inserted to avoid, as the italics show; but incorrectly. The Greek means, Nevertheless, on account of the fornications; that is, the prevalent licentiousnesses, as in Corinth.
Own wife A clear implication against polygamy. Indeed, through the whole chapter the Christian law of one with one is assumed. The present words of the apostle at once abolishes the ascetic view, which holds all sexual union as based in unholy corporeal matter to be unholy. Romish monasticism, which was really based in that view, is hereby invalidated from its very foundations. Stanley notes the different phrases of the apostle’s Greek for his own, την εαυτου , and her own, τον ιδιον . The former Greek phrase is not, in the New Testament, interchangeable with the latter; intimating, apparently, a deep difference between the proprietorship of the husband from that of the wife.
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