Second, 1 Corinthians 7:[34]: “and he is divided.”
Second, 1 Corinthians 7:[34]: “and he is divided.”
§ 358. (II) “The Latin Vulgate translation of 1 Cor. 7:33[-34] reads: ‘The man who is with a wife is anxious about worldly affairs, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or a virgin contemplates the things that are the Lord’s.’ The Greek codices read much differently, for they connect the words ‘is divided’ with what follows in this way: 
, ‘the woman and virgin is divided.’ Blessed Jerome in Contra Jovinianum, bk. 1, declares that this reading is not of apostolic truth.” We respond. There are found three readings of this passage. The first is the one in our common Greek codices and is followed by Basil, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius, Augustine, and the Syriac version: 
. Oecumenius explains it as follows: “
[“is divided”], that is, they do not have the same concerns but are divided in their pursuits.” Robertus Stephanus has another reading in the margin: 
, that is, “He who takes a wife has anxious concern about worldly affairs, how he may please his wife, and is divided. An unmarried woman and virgin contemplates the things that are the Lord’s.” Robertus finds this reading in two copies, to which the reading of the Latin Vulgate version corresponds. Here the 
is explained as “he is distracted with his thoughts, anxious and concerned about worldly things,” as Ambrose has on this passage. “He is divided,” that is, he cannot devote himself to divine matters and also do the will of his wife. The third reading is peculiar to Ambrose, who reads it this way: “But he who is with a wife is concerned about the things that are of this world, how he may please his wife, and is divided. The woman and virgin is divided.” And he adds: “She is divided not in nature but in act.”
From this it appears: (1) That it is not true that the reading of the Vulgate version does not appear in the Greek codices, because it is found in two texts. If you say, “Why, then, is it not retained, since the repudiated reading is occasionally accepted in the Greek codices?” we respond that the fourteen texts of Robertus Stephanus that have our reading must not be regulated according to the two [which do not], but the two according to the fourteen. (2) In Advers. Helvid., c. 12, and Ad Eustoch. de servanda virginit., Jerome reads the passage according to our texts. In Advers. Jovin., bk. 1, c. 7, he reads it differently, but there he is suspect because he is quite hostile to marriage. Beza testifies that he found our reading in every ancient Greek codex except two. (3) Both senses, properly explained, are fitting. Our reading, however, has more authors, so it is also to be preferred to the reading in the Vulgate version. (4) Even the context of the passage confirms this clearly. In vv. 32-33 the different concerns of celibate and married men are described. It is fitting, therefore, to connect the different concerns of wives and virgins to those, that is, they are set apart by their concerns, that is, their pursuits and activities.