Fathers

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What the Fathers say

1 Corinthians 11:22

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

"What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? Or despise ye the Church of God, and put them to shame that have not?" Seest thou how he transferred the charge from the indignity offered to the poor to the Church, that his words might make a deeper impression of disgust? Here now you see is yet a fourth accusation, when not the poor only, but the Church likewise is insulted. For even as thou makest the Lord's Supper a private meal, so also the place again, using the Church as a house. …

Homily on 1 Corinthians 27 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

If you do not intend to eat all together, then why do you not eat at home? For when you turn the Lord's Supper into a private one, eating by yourself, you show contempt both for the church and for the place. The poor are troubled not so much by the fact that you do not feed them, as by the fact that you put them to shame, exposing their poverty, while you yourselves recline grandly and drink to excess. Having rebuked them for their error, he softens his speech. …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗

Western Saints

Thomas Aquinas

Then when he says, Do you not have houses, he looks into the cause of this sin. First, he excludes a reason, by which they could be excused. For it is not lawful to apply to profane uses the house of God, which is set aside for sacred uses. Hence the Lord, when driving the buyers and sellers from the temple, said; "My house is a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves" (Matt 21:13). …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗