Fragments on 1 Corinthians
Fragmenta in epistulam i ad Corinthios · Ὠριγένους εἰς τὴν πρὸς Κορινθίους πρώτην ἐπιστολήν
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Contents
Only the fragments on 1 Corinthians 7 (Jenkins's sections XXXIII-XXXIX; marriage, abstinence, remarriage, separation) are published; the rest of the fragments are not yet on the site.
- 33.1Origen explains that Paul answers the Corinthians' letter about spouses who were attempting continence by praising chastity while protecting the other spouse, and that the mutual debt and mutual authority of 1 Cor 7:3–4 show the equality of husband and wife.
- 34.1Origen argues from Moses at Sinai and the priest's question to David that married people should abstain for a time before prayer, and much more before receiving the eucharistic bread.
- 34.2Origen explains that refusing the marital debt without agreement is “defrauding,” that abstinence belongs to times of prayer, fasting and menstruation, and that marriage between believers is a gift of the one God against Marcion's prohibition of marriage.
- 35.1Origen rebukes those who exclude the twice-married from communion, allows second marriage as better than burning though not good in itself, and on 1 Cor 7:10–12 holds that a husband must not keep a wife who has committed sexual immorality, while the one who separates must remain unmarried or be reconciled.
- 36.1Origen argues that a believing and an unbelieving spouse influence one another for good or ill, so that one should either not marry or marry only in the Lord, and notes that 1 Cor 7:39 permits a widow to remarry “only in the Lord.”
- 37.1Origen reads Paul's words on circumcision and slavery in 1 Cor 7:18–24 as figures for the married and the unmarried: the man who has cast off his wife should not marry another, the married should not cast off his wife, and celibacy and marriage are in themselves indifferent.
- 38.1Origen continues reading the slave and the free of 1 Cor 7:21–24 as the married and the unmarried, and notes that other interpreters take the passage literally.
- 39.1Origen distinguishes commanded duties from voluntary counsels such as virginity, notes that Paul calls chastity “good” but marriage only “not sin,” and on 1 Cor 7:27 says the married must not seek release nor the released seek a wife.