1 Corinthians 7:21
Wast thou called, being a bondman? care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
Open 1 Corinthians 7:21 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Servus vocatus es ? non sit tibi curæ : sed et si potes fieri liber, magis utere.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Δοῦλος ἐκλήθης; μή σοι μελέτω· ἀλλʼ εἰ καὶ δύνασαι ἐλεύθερος γενέσθαι, μᾶλλον χρῆσαι.
Haydock's commentary
On verses 17 to 22
But3 as the Lord hath distributed,...and called every one, &c. St. Paul proceeds to other points of discipline, that persons converted may remain and continue in the same employments, and lawful state of life as before, that it is nothing to the purpose, whether before his conversion he was a circumcised Jew, or an uncircumcised Gentile, circumcision being no longer of obligation in the new law. If any one that is converted was a bond-man, or a slave, let him not be concerned at this, but use it rather,4 which many interpret, let him rather endeavour to be made free, though St. Chrysostom and others understand, let him rather remain content with his servile condition. Perhaps it was an admonition to those new converts, who might imagine that their Christian liberty exempted them from being servant of men. However, he gives them this great comfort, that such an one is the Lord's free-man, that is, whoever is a Christian, and in the grace of God; but he adds, let him not be a slave to men, that is, not follow their sinful ways, nor consent to any thing that is criminal. (Witham)
All consists in doing the will of God, by loving him with our whole heart; without this, all is illusion. To attach ourselves to exterior practices contrary to the order of God, is the superstition of circumcision; to despise what comes from God, is the pride of uncircumcision.
3 Nisi, &c. ei me, it bears the sense here of but.
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St John Chrysostom The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom on Timothy, Titus, and Philemon, Argument
I wish it were possible to bring into the cities those (servants) who are without. “What,” say you, “if he also should become corrupt.” And why should he, I beseech you? Because he has come into the city? But consider, that being without he will be much more corrupt. For he who is corrupt being within, will be much more so being without. For here he will be delivered from necessary care, his master taking that care upon himself; but there the concern about those things will draw him off perhaps even from things more necessary, and more spiritual. On this account the blessed Paul, when giving them the best counsel, said, “Art thou called, being a servant? care not for it: but if even thou mayest be made free, use it rather” ( 1 Cor. vii. 21 .); that is, abide in slavery. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Pammachius
6. I ask my detractors to open their ears and to realize the fact that I have allowed second and third marriages “in the Lord.” If, then, I have not condemned second and third marriages, how can I have proscribed a first? Moreover, in the passage where I interpret the words of the apostle, “Is any man called being circumcised? Let him not become uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision? let him not be circumcised” (a passage, it is true, which some most careful interpreters of Scripture refer to the circumcision and slavery of the Law), do I not in the clearest terms stand up for the marriage-tie? My words are these: “‘If any man is called in uncircumcision, let him not be circumcised.’ You had a wife, the apostle says, when you believed. Do not fancy your faith in Christ to be a reason for parting from her. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Pammachius
7. In another passage we have discussed the reasons which led Paul to say: “Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment of the Lord: yet I give my judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be faithful.” Here also, while we have extolled virginity, we have been careful to give marriage its due. “Had the Lord commanded virginity,” we said, “He would have seemed to condemn marriage and to do away with that seed-plot of humanity from which virginity itself springs. …
St Jerome The Letters of St. Jerome, To Gaudentius
3. What then, I reply? Is youth to run riot that self-indulgence may afterwards be more resolutely rejected? Far from it, they rejoin: “let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide. Is any called being circumcised,”, that is, as a virgin? “let him not become uncircumcised”, that is, let him not seek the coat of marriage given to Adam on his expulsion from the paradise of virginity. “Is any called in uncircumcision,”, that is, having a wife and enveloped in the skin of matrimony? let him not seek the nakedness of virginity and of that eternal chastity which he has lost once for all. No, let him “possess his vessel in sanctification and honour,” let him drink of his own wells not out of the dissolute cisterns of the harlots which cannot hold within them the pure waters of chastity. …