1st Corinthians Chapter 7 verse 8 Holy Bible
But I say to the unmarried and to widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
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But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, It is good for them to be even as I am.
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But I say to the unmarried and to the widows, It is good for them that they remain even as I.
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I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I.
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But I say to the unmarried and to widows, it is good for them if they remain even as I am.
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And I say to the unmarried and to the widows: it is good for them if they may remain even as I `am';
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Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 8. -To the unmarried; including widowers. In my 'Life of St. Paul,' 1:75-82, I have given my reasons for believing that St. Paul was a widower. It is good for them. It is an expedient, honourable, and morally "beautiful thing," but, as he so distinctly points out further on, there might be a "better" even to the "good." Even as I. In the unmarried state, whether as one who had never married, or, as I infer from various circumstances, as a widower (so too Clemens of Alexandria, Grotius, Luther, Ewald, etc.); see my 'Life of St. Paul,' 1:169). Tertullian and Jerome (both of them biassed witnesses, and with no certain support of tradition) say that St. Paul was never married.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(8) I say therefore.--Better, Now what I say is, . . . Widows are here joined with those who have not been married, otherwise discussion might have arisen as to whether the Apostle had intended his advice for them also. It has been curiously conjectured (by Luther amongst others), from the passage where St. Paul recommends widows to "abide even as I." that the Apostle was himself a widower. This, however, requires the word "unmarried" to be restricted to widowers, which is quite inadmissible; and even if such were admissible, the deduction from it that St. Paul was a widower could scarcely be considered logical. The almost universal tradition of the early Church was that St. Paul was never married, and unless we can imagine his having been married, and his wife dead before the stoning of St. Stephen which is scarcely possible (Acts 7:58), the truth of that tradition is evident. (See Philippians 4:3.) "Even as I;" that is, unmarried.
