Severian of Gabala

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500

135 passages across 12 books of the Bible · Who was this?

Commentary

20 of 135
  1. 1 Corinthians 7:32
    Here Paul explains why virginity is preferable to marriage. It has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of sex. Rather it is a question of anxieties which prevent the mind from concentrating on the worship of God.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  2. 1 Corinthians 7:40
    What Paul means is that she is blessed if she marries and has a husband to protect her, but she is more blessed if, for the sake of piety, she refuses marriage and devotes herself entirely to God.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  3. 1 Corinthians 8:6
    The Father is one, just as the Son is one. If the Son is called Lord, that does not make the Father any less Lord, just as when it is said that God the Father is one, the Son is no less God.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  4. 1 Corinthians 10:13
    Paul did not pray that we should not be tempted, for a man who has not been tempted is untried, but that we should be able to bear our temptations as we ought.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  5. 1 Corinthians 10:14
    You see that everything Paul has been saying up to now is to reinforce this single point.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  6. 1 Corinthians 10:25
    The conscience referred to here is not the conscience of the one who knows that idols do not exist but the conscience of the one who sees somebody else buying food which has been sacrificed to idols and thinks that it is wrong for that reason.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  7. 1 Corinthians 10:31
    Do everything with care so that others may glorify God through you and not be scandalized.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  8. 1 Corinthians 11:3
    Since man did not make woman, the question here does not concern the origin of woman. Rather it concerns only [the relation of] submission. The nature of God and Christ is the same. Similarly the nature of man and woman is the same.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  9. 1 Corinthians 11:4
    There is a difference between ancient and recent prophets, as follows. The ancients prophesied about the redemption of Israel, the calling of the Gentiles and the incarnation of Christ, whereas recent prophets prophesy about particular things or people, as Peter prophesied about Ananias, for example..

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  10. 1 Corinthians 11:7
    From this we learn that man is not the image of God because of his soul or because of his body. If that were the case, woman would be the image of God in exactly the same way as man, because she too has a soul and a body. What we are talking about here is not nature but a relationship. For just as God has nobody over him in all creation, so man has no one over him in the natural world. But a woman does—she has man over her.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  11. 1 Corinthians 11:19
    Paul is not talking here about doctrinal error but about moral failures.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  12. 1 Corinthians 12:2
    Paul shows that there is a very big difference between Christian prophecy and pagan soothsaying. Pagans do not address the unclean spirit but are possessed by it and say things which they do not understand. The soothsayer’s soul is darkened, and he does not know what he is saying, whereas the prophet’s soul is enlightened and reveals what the prophet has learned and understood.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  13. 1 Corinthians 12:3
    When the demoniac Legion acknowledged Jesus as Lord, he did not do so in a believing sense, but he merely confessed his knowledge of the lordship and rule of Christ over all things.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  14. 1 Corinthians 12:8
    The utterance of wisdom means understanding what God has said through the prophets and evangelists and communicating this to those who are listening. The utterance of knowledge is the revelation of things which have been forgotten, which someone learns for the first time and then shares with others.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  15. 1 Corinthians 12:14
    Paul says this in order not to overlook the humbler members of the church. For even if someone is lesser by nature, he still belongs to the body of the church.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  16. 1 Corinthians 12:27
    We are not individual members who elect to join together to form a whole but rather organic members of a wider whole, which is the whole body.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  17. 1 Corinthians 13:1
    The tongues of angels refer to the different languages spoken on earth since the destruction of the tower of Babel. As Moses says in Deuteronomy [32:8]: “God has set the boundaries of the nations according to the number of angels.” It is therefore the task of each angel to defend the distinction of nations. The tongues of men on the other hand are languages which we learn; they do not come to us naturally.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  18. 1 Corinthians 13:3
    The one who loves fulfills the law. The one who fulfills the law is well respected. The one who is well respected receives a spiritual gift.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  19. 1 Corinthians 13:8
    Love never fails, which means that it never falls into sin.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

  20. 1 Corinthians 13:13
    Love is the greatest because it is the fulfilling of the law.

    PAULINE COMMENTARY FROM THE GREEK CHURCH

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