Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 10:5

λογισμοὺς καθαιροῦντες κ. τ. λ.: casting down, as if they were centres of the enemy's force, reasonings (St. Paul's message, as he told the Corinthians at 1 Corinthians 2:4 was not ἐν πειθοῖς σοφίας λόγοις, but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”; he ever regards the Gospel as a revelation, not a body of doctrine which could be reasoned out by man for himself from first principles not, to be sure, an irrational system, but one which is beyond the capacity of reason to discover or to fathom to its depths), and every high thing (carrying on the metaphor by which the “towering” conceits of speculation are represented as fortifications erected against the soldiers of the Cross) that is exalted, or “elevated,” “built up,” against the knowledge of God, sc., which is revealed in Christ, and leading captive (for αἰχμαλωτίζειν the more correct Attic form is αἰχμαλωτεύειν) every thought into the obedience of Christ (cf. 2 Corinthians 9:13). All through this passage the Apostle has directly in view the opposition of gainsayers at Corinth, and so it is not safe to interpret his phrases as directed without qualification against the claims of the intellect and conscience in the matter of doctrine. Yet it must be remembered that he regarded the message which he preached as directly revealed to himself, and not derived from tradition or interpretation, and hence as possessed of a certainty to which the demonstrations of philosophy, however cogent, could not attain. All Truth must be loyal to “the obedience of Christ,” who was Himself “the Truth” (cf. 2 Corinthians 13:8).

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 10:5

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