Purging the Christian Community of Open Sinners (1 Corinthians 5:9–13)

The Apostle expresses this instruction by requiring not to associate with any sinner from among Christians, nor even to eat with him. This means—to regard him as cast out from their community. Therefore he concludes: expel the wicked—every such wicked one—from among yourselves.

1 Cor. 5:9. I wrote to you not to associate with sexually immoral people.

In what epistle? — Now everyone says: in an epistle which the Apostle wrote before, but which has been lost. But our commentators all hold that this is spoken of the present epistle, alluding to the previous words: “Let such a person be removed from among you, cleanse out the old leaven.” So Theodoret, Oecumenius, Theophylact. Here are the words of St. Chrysostom: “When the Apostle said, ‘Should not rather have mourned, so that the one who did this might be removed,’ and ‘Cleanse out the old leaven,’ the Corinthians might have thought they had to avoid all fornicators; for if the one who sinned communicates his contagion to those who have not sinned, then much more should they flee from those sinning from among the heathen; if one should not spare one’s own for the harm he causes, then much more those of others. But if they had begun to avoid pagan fornicators, this would have restricted them and provoked the heathen. Therefore the Apostle makes a disclaimer and says: ‘I wrote to you not to associate with fornicators, and not with any fornicators of this world.’ He uses the word ‘any’ in the sense of a disclaimer.”

This explanation can be accepted.

1 Cor. 5:10. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.

Making this disclaimer: “not with any fornicators,” he links others to them and other open sinners, and says that he commands not to associate not with sinners of this world, that is, from the heathen, for otherwise one would have to seek another world: “Since then you would need to go out of the world.” How is it possible, he says, that a man with a house and children, fulfilling public duties, being a craftsman or a soldier, with such a multitude of heathen, could always avoid fornicators? “By ‘fornicators of the world’ he meant fornicators from among the heathen” (St. Chrysostom). The thought that these are strangers, not ours, lessened the evil influence of the sinner on a Christian’s soul. With the acceptance of faith, separation in the soul took place from all that was pagan and from the heathen. Christians even in thought held that a heathen and a great sinner are one and the same. Therefore the sinfulness of the heathen could not lead them astray. It seems the Apostle mentions this in order to then more clearly single out open sinners from Christians.

1 Cor. 5:11. But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is sexually immoral or greedy, an idolater or verbally abusive, a drunkard or a swindler. Do not even eat with such a one.

There, he says, is what I meant when I wrote to you!—Do not associate, do not enter into relations, do not have close fellowship with one who, though bearing the name of a Christian, gives himself over to open vices. “Do not even eat with such a one”—meaning ordinary hospitality, neither invite him to yourself nor go to him and enter into dealings with him. Theodoret remarks: “If one should not have fellowship with such people in ordinary food, then much more in the mysterious and divine meal.” And by the course of the discourse it is clear that if they themselves are not to associate with such, then they too should not allow them to associate with themselves; and if this is in the ordinary order of life, then all the more in the ecclesiastical. Thus the Apostle determines: regard such as estranged from Christian society, the same as excommunicated, like that incestuous man—cast out as old leaven. The Apostle sets forth as the reason for this—so that they might not be infected, not become leavened by them. Christians should be so holy and so faithful to the commandments that it should never even occur to them that one could sin while remaining a Christian. If open sinners remained in their society, then this zeal for moral purity would be greatly shaken by the thought that, apparently, Christians too could bear the name and not be in deed such as the name requires. To prevent this common weakening, the Apostle commands to cut off fellowship with such persons.

Among such he includes a fornicator, a greedy person, an idolater, one who is verbally abusive, a drunkard, a swindler. The very names give us understanding of them. A fornicator is one who openly commits fornication; a greedy person is one who, through unjust trade or usury or some cunning, grows rich and becomes miserly and stingy; an idolater—must be one who eats food offered to idols without discernment, as the holy Paul will explain later; a verbally abusive person—one who is quarrelsome, irritable, slanderous; a drunkard—one who drinks beyond measure and acts shamefully; a swindler—a thief in various forms. Earlier he mentioned only a fornicator, a thief, a greedy person, and an idolater (1 Cor. 5:10). Here he added—a drunkard and an idolater, though these verses should be in direct correspondence. One may conclude that not all those to be shunned are enumerated here either, or excommunicated from Christian society. Therefore it is permissible to generalize the Apostle’s position: every open sinner should be excluded from Christian society.

Christian society should be pure. As soon as someone falls into sin, he should be cast out. In the early times sinners indeed were cast out; and those who, repenting, sought again to share in fellowship, though they were received, subjected themselves to strict trials and had to pass through several degrees of repentance to be received again into full communion. This was the wise apostolic discipline. The multiplication of sinners has made its execution impossible. Now if you try to enforce it: drive them all out. And there is no one to enforce it.

1 Cor. 5:12. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?

“By ‘those outside’ he means the Gentiles, and by ‘those inside’—Christians. ‘To me,’ he says, ‘it is no concern what happens to those outside. It is as if to say: they are outside my laws. It is inappropriate to impose the laws of Christ on those who are not of Christ’s household. For ‘whatever the Law says, it says to those who are under the Law’ (Rom. 3:19)” (Theophylact). Since he is writing laws of judgment over Christians, one can understand by “judge” to mean: it does not befit me to prescribe laws of judgment for those outside. But here also his practice of judgment is defined; why the words ‘what have I to do with judging?’ can be completed: what have I to do with you in judging those outside? or: what have we to do with you? In his person he represents all Christians judging, or the whole Church, whose authority extends only over her children.

“Do you not judge those who are inside?” He says: “do you judge?” and he entrusts this authority to them. Therefore one can here rephrase the discourse thus: do we not judge those inside together with you? Photius in Oecumenius says: “We correct our brothers when we examine their affairs and pronounce judgment upon them, for the purpose of correction, and from those (the Gentiles) we have already separated ourselves.”

In these words is indicated the reason why the Apostle gave the rule earlier not to associate with manifest sinners only from among Christians, but not from among the Gentiles. For he says: these are outside, and those are inside; but we can judge only those inside, not those outside. But if here he speaks of judgment, then it must be understood that the non-association with sinners from among Christians should come about as a result of ecclesiastical judgment. Through this whole short section runs the thought that Christians themselves must preserve their community in purity and holiness, and in the case of the appearance of anyone not measuring up to the standard of the others in this regard, they should expel such a person from the community by means of their own internal judicial process.

1 Cor. 5:13. God judges those outside. Purge the evil person from among yourselves.

And in writing to the Romans, the Apostle says that those outside, the Gentiles, though without the Law, shall nevertheless receive judgment—they shall receive it not according to written Law, but according to the law of conscience (Rom. 2:12 et seq.). He says the same thing here, that God judges them, that is, that God is their judge. Every rational creature bears the conviction that it is accountable to God and will receive judgment from Him according to the laws which He has placed in their conscience. Gentiles were deceived in their understanding of God, but on this point—about God’s judgment upon them—it was operative even with them. Therefore the Apostle’s thought is this: we judge our own here and now ourselves, and through this, disposing them toward repentance, we save them from God’s judgment, but the Gentiles do not have this intermediary corrective judgment; there awaits them directly God’s judgment. Holy Chrysostom says: “So that from his words ‘what have I to do with judging those outside,’ someone might not conclude that the Gentiles will remain unpunished, he points to another judgment—the Terrible One. He says this both to terrify the outsiders and to comfort his own, and to show that this temporal punishment saves one from the eternal and infinite, as he said in another place: now ‘we are being judged and disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world’ (1 Cor. 1:32)”.

“Purge the evil person from among yourselves.” “Evil”—not just the man guilty of incest, but every evil person, every manifest sinner. This saying is taken from Deuteronomy (Deut. 17:7), and by it the Apostle confirms his ordering about the expulsion from Christian society of manifest sinners. The Old Israel was a type of the new, and those material laws of that time were types of the spiritual laws of the Church of Christ. There great sinners were stoned to death, and the Israelites thus purged the evil from among themselves. In the Church of Christ, the evil person is purged by his excommunication from communion both in the mysteries and in external relations, for the purpose of not only cleansing herself of the evil but also of correcting the evil person himself. By bringing this saying, the Apostle both justifies his ordering, that it should indeed be done thus, and at the same time displays the distinction of the new Israel from the old. Holy Chrysostom says on this passage: “The Apostle borrowed this saying from the Old Testament in order on the one hand to suggest that in such a case (having purged the evil) they themselves will gain the greatest benefit, having been freed as it were from a dangerous infection, and on the other hand—to show that this is not a new invention, but was even commanded by the ancient lawgiver to expel such people. However, there it was stricter, and here it is more merciful. At this point one may justly ask, why there the lawgiver allowed criminals to be executed and stoned to death, but here it is not so, but he leads him to repentance? Why is it so prescribed there and differently here?—For two reasons: first, because those called in the New Testament are called to greater efforts, and consequently have need of greater forbearance; second, and more justly, because the lightening of punishment more readily disposes them to repentance and correction, whereas with those of the Old Testament it would have led to greater corruption.”