1 Corinthians 7:3-5

“Let the husband render unto the wife her due, and likewise also the wife unto the husband. 4. The wife hath not power of her own body, but the husband; and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body, but the wife. 5. Defraud ye not one the other, except it be with consent, for a time, that ye may give yourselves to prayer, and come together again, that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency.”

The reading of the T. R., due benevolence, is a paraphrase substituted for Paul's real words, the debt, with the view of avoiding what might be offensive in the latter in public reading. This verse confirms us in the idea that among some of the Corinthians there existed an exaggerated spiritualistic tendency, which threatened to injure conjugal relations, and thereby holiness of life.

Vv. 4. This verse justifies the direction given in the preceding. By the conjugal bond, each spouse acquires a right over the person of the other. Consequently each alienates a portion of personal independence. Hence precisely the καλόν of celibacy.

Vv. 5. In this verse there is reproduced the direction given in 1 Corinthians 7:3, but in a negative form: Defraud not, to exclude expressly the contrary opinion, and at the same time to limit this prohibition, nevertheless under certain conditions fitted to remove the danger of the restriction. The interruption of the conjugal relations authorized by the apostle may take place on three conditions: 1. mutual consent; 2. temporary duration; 3. the aim of securing spiritual meditation; and the particle εἰ μή τι ἄν, unless it is, by which Paul authorizes the exception, is immediately determined by two restrictions, one of which gives it a purely contingent or doubtful (ἄν) character, the other a limited (τι) character. To prayer T. R. adds fasting; but this is an interpolation arising from later ecclesiastical usages.

The reading συνέρχεσθε or συνέρχησθε, in the Byz. documents, instead of ἦτε, is due to the same cause as the variant of 1 Corinthians 7:3.

Among the Jews, also, it was customary to prepare by temporary separation for acts of particular solemnity (Exodus 19:15; 1 Samuel 21:4; comp. Joshua 7:13, etc.). The spirit, by asserting its dominion over the senses, becomes more conscious of its own proper life, and by this concentration on itself, opens more profoundly to the communications of the higher world.

All these restrictions are suggested to the apostle by a double fear; on the one hand, the natural incontinence of his readers (ἀκρασία from ἀκρατής, one who is not master of himself), and on the other, the working of Satan, who fans carnal desires with his breath, and thus brings about from the smallest occasion the cause of a fall. These occasions were frequent at Corinth; there was one especially, of which the apostle will afterwards speak, participation in idolatrous banquets.