himself to prefer to fulfil his Christian calling in the condition in which that calling found him (1 Cor. vii. 21). Even as a slave, if he has become a Christian, he is Christ's freedman, i.e. one led by Christ to true freedom; while as a Christian, even if he become free, he remains Christ's slave (ver. 22). The opposition of slavery and freedom in the relationships of the earthly life is, for the Christian, removed by the higher unity of real bondage and freedom; it is for him a thing relatively unimportant, as he has to serve Christ with true. freedom in that condition, by fulfilling the duties which the existing rules lay on him. To have in view any removal in principle, or any transformation of the whole relationship through the advancing dominion of Christianity, could not possibly come into the apostle's mind with his expectation of the nearness of the Parousia.

(c) In living fellowship with Christ there is removed not only the distinction of pre-Christian religions and of natural social classes, but also the distinction of sexes (Gal. iii. 28); but this removal, it is self-evident, applies only to the religious territory, or to the relation in Christ in which one is equal to another, because each is equally dependent on Christ alone.3 For the social position of the two sexes to each other, Paul continues to abide by the relation of dependence on the part of the woman, arising from the original law of creation. The woman was created from the man, and this not incidentally, but because she was created for the sake of the man (1 Cor. xi. 8, 9; comp. Gen. ii. 18-22). Hence the man alone was created after the divine image immediately, and wears the likeness of God's lordly authority given him, Gen. i. 26 (ver. 7: Eikov κаì dóžα Oeоû); while there appears in the woman but the reflection of this lordly authority (yun Séğa avôpés), inasmuch as all she is, she is only through the man; all the power she has in the house, she but receives from

3 To be sure, Paul in a certain sense acknowledges also a natural equality of both sexes, by which each equally requires the other, and neither therefore is simply independent of the other; and he states explicitly that this equality continues in the Christian state also (iv xupí: 1 Cor. xi. 14). For the woman was created from the man, and the man, again, is ever born from the woman; both rest therefore upon a divine ordinance (ver. 12: rà távra iz roũ Quũ), by which the man can be without the woman as little as the woman can be without the man (ver. 11).

It now follows from this Kepaλn) of the woman, the If it is said in the context man (§ 92, a, footnote 4),

him, and exercises in his name. that the man is the head (ver. 3: woman is simply subject to him. that Christ is the head of the naturally it is not meant thereby that He only indirectly, and by the intervention of the man, is the head of the woman, and that her relation to Christ also is different from that of the man; but it is only thereby pointed out, that the man, therefore, has no absolute dominion over the woman, but that he too is simply dependent on Christ, and is bound to exercise his lordship only according to His will.

(d) The relation of the two sexes to each other is realized completely only in marriage, and the apostle in these statements has mainly in his eye the married woman and her husband; but he refers to the same thing also in questions which do not relate to marriage at all, or not exclusively, and which we have hence now to look at. The prescribed covering a woman's head with a veil, Paul regards as a symbol of authority (éžovoía) which the man has over the woman, according to note c (1 Cor. xi. 10). And hence, while the man is not to cover his head, because he would thereby deny the lordly authority given him by God, by assuming the token of subjection (ver. 7), yea, while he would thereby dishonour his head (ver. 4), the woman would, on the other hand, dishonour her head by uncovering (ver. 5). A healthy feeling of decorum declares against this baring of the head (ver. 13: πρéжOv éσTív), and this on the ground of a natural law, which has given the woman her long hair as a sort of natural covering (vv. 14, 15). If the apostle, in dealing with

For the same reason long hair is regarded as a shame to the man, but an honour to the woman (vv. 14, 15). The cutting of the hair characterized the shameless courtesans (ver. 5). If the woman will lay aside the veil which covers the head, she may also lay aside this natural veil; and the latter, according to all feeling of propriety, is regarded as a shame, and so also is the former (ver. 6: aisxpóv istiv), by putting the wife on a level with the courtesan (ver. 5). It is peculiar to this method of arguing in particular, that the apostle puts the covering of the woman's head in the twofold point of view, a sign of dependence on the man, and also a sign of shamelessness. The desire for freedom is at the same time to him a rejection of natural modesty; only by subjection to the husband is the honour of the wife secured,—the relation of subjection in marriage can be despised only in the interest of shameless harlotry.

this question, speaks of a public appearance of women in the Church assemblies, at which they prayed or uttered prophetic words in public, without expressly condemning it (vv. 5, 13), he did so only for this reason, that with the veiling of the head there required, any such public appearance was even à priori excluded. On the other hand, he expressly declares (xiv. 34) that, according to ordinary Christian custom, the woman had to be silent in the Church assembly (ver. 36). To speak in the church contradicts as much the natural feeling of propriety (ver. 35: aioxpóv éσTiv) as it does the subjection of the woman to the man required, Gen. iii. 16 (ver. 34). For he who speaks or prays in public is, at least for the time, the leader of the Church assembly (comp. § 41, d), he rules it; and as there are men also in it, the natural subjection of the woman is thus thereby inverted."

§ 95. Marriage.

Fleshly intercourse of the sexes, apart from marriage, is not a matter indifferent, but a misuse and a dishonouring of one's own body (a). If the apostle regards marriage, in opposition to the prevailing unchastity, as the institution appointed by God for the satisfying of fleshly desire, he thereby by no means excludes any higher honouring of it, as a fellowship of relationship with God concluded in Christ (b). Existing marriage is not to be dissolved, and, wherever a separation has occurred, the possibility of a reconciliation is not to be destroyed by a second marriage, and least of all on the part of the Christian in the case of mixed marriages (c). Paul for himself, from ascetic grounds, in view of the near approach of the end, prefers to be unmarried; but he regards marriage as not only allowable, but as in the circumstances even enjoined (d).

(a) It was one of the most difficult tasks in reference to fleshly relationships to make Gentile Churches understand the

Not even under the excuse of asking questions, that they may receive instruction thereon, are they to utter a word in the assembly. If they wish to get instruction, their home is the natural place for that; they may there ask their own husbands (ver. 35), by which the apostle no doubt presupposes that, in case their husbands cannot answer these questions, they may obtain advice in the Church assembly.

right way of looking at Topvela, i.e. the fleshly intercourse of the sexes outside marriage. This, by the Greeks and Romans, was regarded as a matter indifferent. Hence the apostolic council (Acts xv. 20, 29) had already required of the Gentile Christians abstinence from fornication (§ 43, c), because it stood for them mainly on the same line with those forms of abstinence which only Jewish customs required. It is clear from 1 Cor. vi. 12, 13, that even at Corinth there was as yet an inclination to excuse the tendency to fornication, so deeply rooted, by ascribing to it a character of indifference. Paul therefore declares with much emphasis that fornication not less than adultery and unnatural fleshly lusts exclude from the kingdom of heaven (ver. 9), and places it thus quite on a level (ver. 10) with other forms of heathenish lusts (§ 62, a; 69 d). But he wishes here, too, to oppose it not by a simple prescription of the law, but he shows in detail that fornication is no indifferent matter, and is incompatible with the presuppositions of the saving doctrine of Christianity (§ 87, d, footnote 9). He shows, namely, that it is different in the inatter of fornication from that of partaking of meats which are no doubt indifferent (1 Cor. vi. 13; comp. § 93, c). For while in the latter, besides the perishable food only, the Koiλia is in question, which perishes in the glorification of the body, in fleshly intercourse (Gen. ii. 24) the whole body is, as it were, surrendered to the harlot, so that the man becomes ev σua with her (ver. 16); his body is a μéλos Tóρvns (ver. 15). But now as the body does not perish, as the xoxía, but is restored in glorified form at the resurrection (ver. 17), this latter indulgence has no transitory significance like the former, but an eternal significance; it belongs to the Lord, is destined to become the organ by which the Lord works (ver. 13: τὸ σῶμα . . τῷ κυρίῳ, καὶ ὁ κύριος τῷ σώματι). The body is to become, according to § 92, a, a μέλος Χριστοῦ, and it is inconsistent with this destiny that it should be made a μéλos Tóρvns (ver. 15). Fornication is therefore the specific sinning against one's body, because by such stains it is defiled, and rendered unworthy of its high destiny (ver. 18). The same thing is clear from this, that God by the indwelling of His Spirit has consecrated the body to be His temple (ver. 19), and has thereby withdrawn.

it from all such profane misuse. It belongs to us, therefore, to glorify in our body Him who has redeemed us, and to whom we therefore belong, by keeping it clear of such defilement (ver. 20).1

(b) If the God-appointed ordinance of marriage seems to be put on a level with fornication in this, that in both a fleshly intercourse of the sexes takes place, then that given in marriage is distinguished à priori in this, that it is put in the point of view of mutual duty,—a duty the husband owes to the wife equally with the wife to the husband (1 Cor. vii. 3). There is therefore a surrender of the power of disposal of one's own body to be at the pleasure of the other (ver. 4); but this takes place by the divine rule, which has made fleshly intercourse to be an essential point in the effecting of marriage (Gen. ii. 24; comp. 1 Cor. vi. 16). If Paul holds the πρόνοια τῆς σαρκός to be in itself warranted (Rom. xiii. 14), then the fleshly impulse is in itself in his view warranted, and marriage is the divinely appointed institution for its satisfaction (1 Thess. iv. 4, 5).2 He looks on the capacity of complete fleshly continence as a special gift of grace, which every one does not possess (1 Cor. vii. 7). Hence Paul desires that, with a reference to the actual incontinence existing at Corinth (ver. 5), and for the avoidance of the sins of unchastity, each one (scil. who has not this

1 There seems then, to be sure, too much, and therefore too little, to be proved; for if the specially objectionable thing in fornication is the giving up of the body, which takes place in fleshly intercourse, to a human being instead of to God and Christ, then marriage, too, seems thereby to be condemned, as the same thing equally happens in it. But it is clear from this that the apostle throughout regards it as self-evident that marriage, according to the passage from Genesis (ii. 24), cited in 1 Cor. vi. 16, is a divinely appointed institution, which requires the giving up of the body to another (vii. 4), and within it; this cannot be inconsistent with the giving of the body to God and Christ (comp. note b).

He here looks upon marriage as the means by which the individual obtains in the act his own vessel, i.e. his organ for the satisfaction of the fleshly impulse, in which he consecrates the woman for the performance of a divine rule with him, and does him honour (iv ày,acpâ naì ), instead of misusing and dishonouring it in lustful passion, as happens in fornication. Hence he desires (1 Cor. vii. 5) that marriage intercourse should be suspended in marriage at most but for a short time, and in consequence of mutual agreement, in a way for ascetic ends, in order that thereby incontinence may not be tempted to unchastity.