2 Corinthians 11:4

ἀνέχεσθε (BD 17) is more probable than ἀνείχεσθε (אD3GKLMP): ἠνείχεσθε (Rec.) has here scarcely any authority; comp. 2 Corinthians 11:1.

4. This obscure verse has received an immense amount of discussion, and it would be confusing to reproduce the numerous suggestions which have been made respecting it. No explanation can claim to be certainly correct; but, without violence to the Greek, the following interpretation, which fits the context, can be extracted from the words.

The verse is a sarcastic explanation, put in the form of a supposition, of his fear lest the serpentlike teachers should seduce the Corinthians from the simplicity of the Gospel.

εἰ μὲν γὰρ ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἄλλον Ἰησοῦν κηρύσσει, κ.τ.λ. for if indeed the comer is preaching another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or ye are receiving a different spirit which ye did not receive, or a different gospel, which ye did not accept, ye are doing well in bearing with him. The μέν, ‘indeed,’ ‘really,’ prepares the way for irony. Although ὁ ἐρχόμενος was a familar expression for the Messiah (Matthew 11:3; Luke 7:19-20; John 6:14; John 11:27; John 12:13), and might indicate that these Judaizing leaders were setting themselves up as a kind of Messiah, yet even in sarcasm S. Paul would hardly suggest that. More probably ὁ ἐρχόμενος means one who comes from the outside, who is ‘not of us’ (1 John 3:19), but an intruder: he is an alien, with alien principles and alien tendencies. But the expression is generic: the singular does not point to an individual, any more than τις, or τοιοῦτος, or φησίν (2 Corinthians 10:7; 2 Corinthians 10:10-11) does so, but to a class; as we say, ‘the Boer,’ when we mean the nation generally.

The three aorists should not be rendered as perfects (‘have preached, accepted, received’); they refer to the time when the Corinthians were converted to the faith. The A.V. rightly distinguishes between receiving (λαμβάνειν) the spirit, and accepting (δέχεσθαι) the Gospel, the latter being necessarily a voluntary act, the former not. The meanings of λαμβάνειν and δέχεσθαι often overlap and mingle; but δέχ. commonly implies welcoming and appropriating. The Vulgate distinguishes also, with accipere for λαμβ. and recipere for δέχ., for recipere rather than accipere implies appropriation: Peneus accipit amnem Orcon, nec recipit (Plin. IV. 2 Corinthians 8:15 § 31), i.e. does not mingle with it. But neither the Vulgate nor the A.V. distinguishes between ἄλλον and ἕτερον in the change from ἄλλον Ἰησοῦν to and εὐαγγέλιον ἕτερον, the one meaning ‘not individually the same,’ the other, ‘not of the same kind.’ A similar change is obliterated in the Vulgate and the A.V. of Galatians 1:6-7, where see Lightfoot’s note. Whether the change of word means little (1 Corinthians 12:9) or much, it ought to be marked in translation. Here the change from a person to what is impersonal may have produced the change of adjective: comp. Acts 4:12.

It is worth noting that S. Paul says ἄλλον Ἰησοῦν and not ἄλλον Χριστόν. It was about the character of the historic Jesus of Nazareth that the teaching of the intruders differed so widely from that of the Apostle. They would narrow Him down to a national leader, enforcing the letter of the Law. He proclaimed Him as the Saviour of the world, delivering from all bondage to the letter (see Gore, Bampton Lectures, p. 61). Hence the difference of the spirit and of the Gospel as imparted by S. Paul and by his opponents. On the one side, the spirit of ἐλευθερία (2 Corinthians 3:17; Galatians 5:1; Galatians 5:15), of χαρά (Romans 14:17; Galatians 5:22; 1 Thessalonians 1:6), of πραΰτης (Galatians 6:1), of υἱοθεσία (Romans 8:15; Ephesians 1:5): on the other, the spirit of δουλεία (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:24), of κατάνυξις (Romans 11:8), of the κόσμος (1 Corinthians 2:12), of φόβος (Romans 8:15); so that the Gospel which they preached was no ‘glad tidings of great joy to all people,’ but a dead reiteration of legalism.

Respecting ἀνέχεσθε or ἀνείχεσθε see critical note. If ἀνείχεσθε were original, it might be corrected to ἀνέχεσθε to agree with κηρύσσει. But if ἀνείχεσθε be adopted, we have a change of construction; for it would suggest a previous ἐκήρυσσεν: moreover it represents the contingency as less real than ἀνέχεσθε does. In any case, ‘ye might well bear with him’ (A.V.), is wrong. See Winer, p. 383. The καλῶς is wholly satirical. ‘It was truly a fine thing to put up with such people as that, and refuse to tolerate the Apostle who had brought you to Christ.’

It is, however, possible to take καλῶς literally, if καλῶς� is made interrogative. ‘If he who comes proclaims another Jesus … is it seemly that you should bear with him? Can to act thus be to act καλῶς?’ The thought goes back to the betrothal. If one who has been betrothed begins to think of some one else at the suggestion of some new προμνήστωρ, this is not acting καλῶς. Comp. the use of καλῶς, in a very similar context, in 1 Corinthians 7:37-38. The dominant idea is that of disloyally receiving some one or something new, when faith has been pledged to some one or something old. If this view is adopted, the γάρ of 2 Corinthians 11:4 takes up the idea of shameful disloyalty: ‘Shameful it is, for is such conduct καλόν?’ For the thought comp. Galatians 1:8.