It is reported commonly that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not so much as named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father's wife.
Ver. 1. As is not so much as named] To wit, without detestation. The apostle seems to allude to Antiochus Soter, who married his step-mother Stratonice, being first like to die for love of her, as Erasistratus the physician told his father. (Aelian.) Of this incestuous marriage came Antiochus Theos, or Antiochus the god, so called of the Milesians, because he did put down their tyrant Timarehus. This god was poisoned by his wife Laodice.
Among the Gentiles] In Mexico and those parts, whoredom, sodomy, and incest (those Spanish virtues, as one calleth them) are common without reproof; the pope's pardons being more rife in those parts than in any part of Europe for these abominable filthinesses, whereout he sucketh no small advantage. (Sir Fra. Drake.) Notwithstanding, the Indians abhor this most loathsome living; showing themselves in respect of the Spaniards, as the Scythians did in respect of the Grecians, whom they so far excelled in life and behaviour as they were short of them in learning and knowledge. Who hath not heard of the abhorred incest of the house of Austria? King Philip II could call Archduke Albert both brother, cousin, nephew, and son. (Spec. Europ.) For all this was he to him either by blood or affinity; being uncle to himself, first cousin to his father, husband to his sister, and father to his wife; and all this by papal dispensation. The Papists themselves write with detestation, that in Rome a Jewish maid might not be admitted into the stews of whoredom, unless she would be first baptized. (Espenc. de Continen. iii. 4.)
That one should have his father's wife] Ethelbald, king of West Saxons, with great infamy marrying his father's widow Judith, enjoyed his kingdom but two years and a half. (Daniel's Hist. of Eng.)