Fathers

1 Corinthians 5

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It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and such sexual immorality as is not even named among the Gentiles, that one has his father’s wife. You are arrogant, and didn’t mourn instead, that he who had done this deed might be removed from among you. For I most certainly, as being absent in body but present in spirit, have already, as though I were present, judged him who has done this thing. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you being gathered together, and my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, are to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole lump? Purge out the old yeast, that you may be a new lump, even as you are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed in our place. Therefore let’s keep the feast, not with old yeast, neither with the yeast of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners; yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters; for then you would have to leave the world. But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person. For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within? But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”

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What the Fathers say

1 Corinthians 5:3

Eastern Fathers

John Chrysostom

"For I verily being absent in body, but present in spirit." Mark his energy. He suffers them not even to wait for his presence, nor to receive him first and then pass the sentence of binding: but as if on the point of expelling some contagion before that it have spread itself into the rest of the body, he hastens to restrain it. …

Homily on 1 Corinthians 15 ↗

Theophylact of Ohrid

Notice the indignation. He does not allow them to wait for his arrival and only then bind the fornicator, but hastens to stop the evil, the contagion, before it spreads to the entire body of the Church. He said "being present with you in spirit" in order to compel them to pronounce the judgment and at the same time to frighten them by the fact that he knows how they will judge there, and that the spirit, that is, the gift of discernment, will reveal to him everything they do. …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗

Dionysius of Alexandria

Moreover, we did not withdraw from the visible assembling of ourselves together, with the Lord's presence. But those in the city I tried to gather together with all the greater zeal, as if I were present with them; for I was absent indeed in the body, as I said, but present in the spirit. And in Cephro indeed a considerable church sojourned with us, composed partly of the brethren who followed us from the city, and partly of those who joined us from Egypt. There, too, did God open to us a door for the word. …

Epistle X - Against Bishop Germanus ↗

Western Saints

Thomas Aquinas

Then when he says, For though absent in body, he supplies for their failure by pronouncing sentence against the sinner. In regard to this he does three things: first, he shows the authority of the judge; secondly, the method of judging; thirdly, the sentence of the judge (v. 5). As to the first he does two things: first, he shows the authority of the minister, i.e., himself. …

Commentary on 1 Corinthians ↗