1_But I had determined _Whoever it was that divided the chapters, made here a foolish division. For now at length the Apostle explains, in what manner he had _spared _them. “I had determined,” says he, “not to come to you any more in sorrow,” or in other words, to occasion you sorrow by my coming. F... [ Continue Reading ]
2._For if I make you sorry _Here we have the proof of the foregoing statement. No one willingly occasions sorrow to himself. Now Paul says, that he has such a fellow-feeling with the Corinthians, (313) that he cannot feel joyful, unless he sees them happy. Nay more, he declares that they were the so... [ Continue Reading ]
3._I had written to you. _As he had said a little before, that he delayed coming to them, in order that he _might not come a second time in sorrow _and with severity, (2 Corinthians 2:1,) so now also he lets them know, that he came the first time in sadness by an Epistle, that they might not have oc... [ Continue Reading ]
4._For out of much affliction _Here he brings forward another reason with the view of softening the harshness which he had employed. For those who smilingly take delight in seeing others weep, inasmuch as they discover thereby their cruelty, cannot and ought not to be borne with. Paul, however, decl... [ Continue Reading ]
5._But if any one. _Here is a _third _reason with the view of alleviating the offense — that he had grief in common with them, and that the occasion of it came from another quarter. “We have,” says he, “been alike grieved, and another is to blame for it.” At the same time he speaks of that person, t... [ Continue Reading ]
6._Sufficient. _He now extends kindness even to the man who had sinned more grievously than the others, and on whose account his anger had been kindled against them all, inasmuch as they had connived at his crime. In his showing indulgence even to one who was deserving of severer punishment, the Cor... [ Continue Reading ]
7._Lest such an one should be swallowed up by overmuch sorrow _The end of excommunication, so far as concerns the power of the offender, is this: that, overpowered with a sense of his sin, he may be humbled in the sight of God and the Church, and may solicit pardon with sincere dislike and confessio... [ Continue Reading ]
9._For I had written to you also for this purpose. _He anticipates an objection, that they might bring forward. “What then did you mean, when you were so very indignant, because we had not inflicted punishment upon him? From being so stern a judge, to become all at once a defender — is not this indi... [ Continue Reading ]
10._To whom ye forgive_. That he might the more readily appease them, he added his vote in support of the pardon extended by them. (326) “Do not hesitate to forgive: I promise that I shall confirm whatever you may have done, and I already subscribe your sentence of forgiveness.” _Secondly_, he says... [ Continue Reading ]
11._That we may not be taken advantage of by Satan. _This may be viewed as referring to what he had said previously respecting excessive sorrow. For it is a most wicked (330) fraud of Satan, when depriving us of all consolation, he swallows us up, as it were, in a gulf of despair; and such is the ex... [ Continue Reading ]
12._When I had come to Troas _By now mentioning what he had been doing in the mean time, in what places he had been, and what route he had pursued in his journeyings, he more and more confirms what he had said previously as to his coming to the Corinthians. He says that he had come to Troas from Eph... [ Continue Reading ]
14._But thanks be to God _Here he again glories in the success of his ministry, and shows that he had been far from idle in the various places he had visited; but that he may do this in no invidious way, he sets out with a thanksgiving, which we shall find him afterwards repeating. Now he does not,... [ Continue Reading ]
15._A sweet odor of Christ _The metaphor which he had applied to the knowledge of Christ, he now transfers to the persons of the Apostles, but it is for the same reason. For as they are called the _light of the world, _(Matthew 5:14,) because they enlighten men by holding forth the torch of the gosp... [ Continue Reading ]
16._And who is sufficient for these things? _This exclamation is thought by some (349) to be introduced by way of guarding against arrogance, for he confesses, that to discharge the office of a good Apostle (350) to Christ is a thing that exceeds all human power, and thus he ascribes the praise to G... [ Continue Reading ]
17._For we are not. _He now contrasts himself more openly with the false apostles, and that by way of amplifying, and at the same time, with the view of excluding them from the praise that he had claimed to himself. “It is on good grounds,” says he, “that I speak in honorable terms of my apostleship... [ Continue Reading ]