Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world.
10. Since you would have required. It is as to this clause especially that interpreters are not agreed. For some say, “You must sooner quit Greece.” Ambrose, on the other hand, says, “You must rather die.” Erasmus turns it into the optative, as if Paul said, “Would that it were allowable for you to leave the world altogether; “The rendering of Erasmus is as follows...
Here the apostle advises them to shun the company and converse of scandalous professors. Consider, I. The advice itself: I wrote to you in a letter not to company with fornicators, Co1 5:9. Some think this was an epistle written to them before, which is lost.
Commenting on 1 Corinthians 5:9-13
Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world,.... By "the fornicators of this world" are meant, such as were guilty of this sin, who were the men of the world, mere worldly carnal men, who were never called out of it, or ever professed to be; in distinction from those that were in the church, that had committed this iniquity; and the apostle's sense...