Ephesians 5:3

πορνεία δὲ καὶ πᾶσα ἀκαθαρσία : but fornication and all uncleanness. The better order ἀκαθαρασία πᾶσα (LTTrWHRV) throws the emphasis on πᾶσα, = “fornication and uncleanness, every kind of it”. The metabatic δέ carries the exhortation over to a prohibition expressed in the strongest terms, which is levelled against one of the deadliest and most inveterate temptations to which Gentile Christians were exposed. The term πορνεία is to be taken in its proper sense and is not to be restricted to any one particular form the license practised at heathen festivals, concubinage, marriage within prohibited degrees, or the like. The moral life of the Graeco-Roman world had sunk so low that, while protests against the prevailing corruption were never entirely wanting, fornication had long come to be regarded as a matter of moral indifference, and was indulged in without shame or scruple not only by the mass, but by philosophers and men of distinction who in other respects led exemplary lives. ἢ πλεονεξία : or covetousness. Here, as in Ephesians 4:19, πλεονεξία is named along with ἀκαθαρσία. In this passage, as in the former, most commentators take the two terms to designate two distinct forms of sin, viz., the two vices to which the ancient heathen world was most enslaved, immorality and greed; while some understand πλεονεξία to be rather a further definition of ἀκαθαρσία and give it the sense of insatiability, inordinate affection, sensual greed. The noun is found ten times in the NT and the verb πλεονεκτεῖν five times. In some of these occurrences πλεονεξία can mean nothing else than covetousness (e.g., Luke 12:15; 2 Corinthians 9:5; 1 Thessalonians 2:5). But the question is whether it has that sense in all the passages, or has taken on the acquired sense of sensual greed or overreaching in some of them. That is not very easy to decide. The association of the word πλεονέκτης with sins of the flesh (e.g., in 1 Corinthians 5:10-11) is urged in favour of the latter application (cf. Trench, Syn. of the N. T., p. 79). But it is argued with reason that the use of the disjunctive ἢ between πόρνοις and πλεονέκταις there and the connecting of πλεονέκταις with ἅρπαξιν by καί point to a distinction between the former two and an identity between the latter. So, too, in Colossians 3:5 the noun πλεονεξίαν is differentiated from the πορνείαν, etc., by τήν. On the other hand, the passages in Romans 1:29 and 2 Peter 2:14 seem to suggest something more than covetousness, and it is also to be noticed that the original idea of these terms was that of having or taking an advantage over others. In 1 Thessalonians 4:6 the verb πλέονεκτεῖν is used along with ὑπερβαίνειν in this sense, with reference to the sin of adultery. The present passage is probably the one, so far as Pauline use is concerned, that most favours the second sense, and it must be added that even the argument from the force of the disjunctive ἤ must not be made too much of. For in chap. Ephesians 5:5 we find πόρνος and ἀκάθαρτος connected by ἣ. μηδὲ ὀνομαζέσθω ενὑμῖν : let it not be even named among you. Cranm., Gen., Bish. render it “be once named”. The strong neg. μηδέ gives it this force “Not to speak of doing such a thing, let it not be even so much as mentioned among you”. The partial parallel in Herod., i., 138, ἅσσα δὲ σφι ποιέειν οὐκ ἔξεστι, ταῦτα οὐδὲ λέγειν ἔξεστι, is noticed here by most. καθὼς πρέπει ἁγίοις : as becometh saints. The position of sainthood or separation to God, in which the Gospel places the Christian, is so far apart from the license of the world as to make it utterly incongruous even to speak of the inveterate sins of a corrupt heathenism.