Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
First, in order to commend himself to the Corinthians above the false apostles, he recounts his rapture into the third heaven.
Second, verse 7, lest he be exalted thereby, he says a thorn of the flesh was given to him: for virtue is perfected in weakness.
Third, verse 11, he excuses himself from self-love, since they themselves compelled him to praise himself, when he ought rather to have been commended by them — for his patience, miracles, gratuitous preaching, charity, and solicitude.
Fourth, verse 17, he refutes the calumny brought against him, that deceitfully, not through himself but through Titus, he gathered money from the Corinthians.
Fifth, verse 21, he fears that, on coming to them, he may find some entangled in dissensions and other vices: whom by this very thing he tacitly admonishes, lest he be compelled to chastise them with mourning and grief.
Vulgate Text: 2 Corinthians 12:1-21
1. If I must glory (it is not expedient indeed): but I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. 2. I know a man in Christ above fourteen years ago (whether in the body, I know not, or out of the body, I know not; God knoweth), such a one caught up to the third heaven. 3. And I know such a man (whether in the body, or out of the body, I know not: God knoweth), 4. that he was caught up into paradise, and heard secret words, which it is not granted to man to utter. 5. For such a one I will glory; but for myself I will glory nothing, but in my infirmities. 6. For though I should have a mind to glory, I shall not be foolish: for I will say the truth. But I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth in me, or any thing he heareth from me. 7. And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me, there was given me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan, to buffet me. 8. For which thing thrice I besought the Lord, that it might depart from me. 9. And he said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee; for power is made perfect in infirmity. Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may dwell in me. 10. For which cause I please myself in my infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak, then am I powerful. 11. I am become foolish: you have compelled me. For I ought to have been commended by you: for I have no way come short of them that are above measure apostles, although I be nothing. 12. Yet the signs of my apostleship have been wrought on you, in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds. 13. For what is there that you have had less than the other churches, but that I myself was not burthensome to you? Pardon me this injury. 14. Behold now the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burthensome unto you. For I seek not the things that are yours, but you. For neither ought the children to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children. 15. But I most gladly will spend and be spent myself for your souls; although loving you more, I be loved less. 16. But be it so: I did not burthen you: but being crafty, I caught you by guile. 17. Did I overreach you by any of them whom I sent to you? 18. I desired Titus, and I sent with him a brother. Did Titus overreach you? Did we not walk with the same spirit? did we not in the same steps? 19. Of old, think you that we excuse ourselves to you? We speak before God in Christ; but all things, my dearly beloved, for your edification. 20. For I fear lest perhaps when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and that I shall be found by you such as you would not. Lest perhaps contentions, envyings, animosities, dissensions, detractions, whisperings, swellings, seditions, be among you. 21. Lest again, when I come, God humble me among you: and I mourn many of them that sinned before, and have not done penance for the uncleanness, and fornication, and lasciviousness, that they have committed.
Verse 1: I Will Come to the Visions and Revelations of the Lord
Verse 1. But I will come to the visions and revelations of the Lord.
Verse 2: I Know a Man in Christ Caught Up to the Third Heaven
2. I know a man in Christ, — a Christian man, that it may be clear, says Theophylact, that Paul was caught up by the grace of Christ, not by the help of a demon, as Simon Magus was carried up into the air.
Above fourteen years ago. — From this it is deduced that this rapture of Paul happened about nine years from his conversion, which happened in the year of Christ 36. Paul therefore was rapt in the second year of the emperor Claudius, the year of Christ 44, which was the ninth from his conversion; in which year, by command of the Holy Spirit, he was ordained together with Barnabas as Apostle and doctor of the Gentiles, Acts XIII, 2, evidently a little before he began this Apostolate. This is clear because (as I said at the beginning of the epistle) Paul wrote these things in the year of Christ 58, which was Nero's second year, from which if you count back 14 years, as he himself here says, you will fall on the year of Christ 44. Therefore this rapture did not happen in the year of Paul's conversion (Acts IX, 12), which was the year of Christ 36, although some have thought so with St. Thomas. Theophylact notes the modesty of the Apostle, in that for fourteen years he kept silent about so great a matter. Secondly, if Paul was so great and of such lofty contemplation 14 years before, how great therefore was he now, when, increased in age, grace, and merits, he was writing this epistle.
Whether in the body, I know not; or out of the body, I know not. — Although the Apostle asserts that he knows nothing certain on this matter, yet B. Thomas, II II, Question CLXXV, art. 5, and others probably hold the opinion that the soul as a form remained united to the body: for otherwise Paul would have died, and would soon have risen again; but it is not fitting for God, when He raptures men into ecstasy, to kill them; indeed in that case this would not have been a rapture and ecstasy, but a slaying and death, and many miracles would have intervened here; which we multiply in vain, since without them, more sweetly and naturally, he could have been rapt remaining in the body, as other Saints have been rapt.
Caught up. — "Rapture," says St. Thomas, "is an elevation from that which is according to nature, into that which is above nature, by the power of a higher nature." Whence the angels and the blessed souls are not rapt when they see God: because although they are elevated above nature, yet they are not alienated from that which is according to nature, that is, from the natural state of the soul which is in man, by which through the bodily senses and phantasms it may know and understand the objects of its perception: in rapture therefore the soul is alienated and abstracted from the senses and phantasms, and thus Paul was abstracted from these; otherwise he would have known himself to be in the body. This abstraction, however, says St. Thomas, can come about by force of disease, when it is so great that a man falls into faintness and alienation of mind; or also by the power of demons, as happens in the demoniacally possessed: but it is not called rapture or ecstasy unless it is brought about by divine power, by which, namely, the mind, abstracted from the senses, is elevated to the contemplation of supernatural things.
Even to the third heaven. — It is asked, which heaven is this? First, hence Basil, homily 1 on the Hexaemeron, teaches that there are not one, as Chrysostom said, nor two, as Theophylact said, but at least three heavens. Others add that there are only three; for the third here, they say, is the highest. But all the ancient Astronomers will dispute with these, who establish at least eight; and the moderns, who establish at least eleven heavens.
Secondly, Divine Thomas, II II, Question CLXXV, art. 3, to 4: "In another way," he says, "by the third heaven can be understood some supermundane vision, which can be called the third heaven for a triple reason. In one way, according to the order of the cognitive powers; so that the first heaven is said to be a corporeal supermundane vision, which is made through the senses, as was seen the hand of one writing on the wall, Daniel V. The second heaven, however, is an imaginary vision, such as Isaiah saw, and John in the Apocalypse. The third heaven is said to be an intellectual vision, as St. Augustine explains in book XII On Genesis according to the letter. In the second way the third heaven can be called according to the order of knowable objects, so that the first heaven is said to be the knowledge of celestial bodies; the second, the knowledge of celestial spirits; the third, the knowledge of God Himself. In the third way the third heaven can be called the contemplation of God according to the degrees of knowledge by which God is seen: of which the first pertains to the angels of the lowest hierarchy, the second to the angels of the middle, the third to the angels of the highest." Thus far St. Thomas, so that Paul was rapt to the "third heaven," that is, to the third and highest hierarchy of angels, and there, existing with the Seraphim, he most clearly saw the essence of God, and from there conceived that ardor and fire of charity with which afterward he set the whole world on fire.
But I respond that it is called "third heaven," that is, the highest, namely the empyrean, which is the seat of the Blessed. Whence in verse 4 it is called paradise. It is called "third" by a Hebraism: for the ternary number signifies all things, and the completion of a thing, or the highest; for three is all things, of which it is first said that they are all: for not of one or two, but of three we first say that they are all. Hence the Poet: "O three and four times blessed," that is, supremely blessed. Amos I, 3: "Upon three," that is, all, "crimes of Damascus." And here in verse 8: "Thrice I besought the Lord; thrice," that is, very often, up to the last, until He answered me: "My grace is sufficient for thee."
Secondly, and more simply, as St. Thomas teaches in the cited place: "The first heaven is sidereal, the second crystalline, the third empyrean;" or rather "the first heaven is aerial, the second sidereal, the third empyrean." So Theophylact, Julianus Pomerius (in Theophylact), Damascene book II On the Faith, chapter VI, and now others everywhere: for in Scripture, by the common phrase, the air is called heaven, whence the birds are called those of heaven, that is, of the air: therefore the air is the first heaven, namely the aerial; all the celestial spheres are the second heaven, namely the ethereal; but the third is the empyrean. Whence Cajetan wrongly, rejecting the empyrean heaven, holds that the third and highest heaven, in which the Blessed dwell, is the crystalline in which are the waters, which in Genesis 1 and elsewhere are said to be above the heavens.
Mystically St. Bernard, treatise On the Degrees of Humility: The three heavens are the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity; likewise three virtues and gifts by which we ascend to Them and to the summit of grace and glory, namely humility, charity and perfect union. "For," he says, "those whom the Son first humbled by word and example, upon whom then the Holy Spirit poured forth charity, these at last the Father receives in glory. The Son makes disciples, the Paraclete consoles friends, the Father exalts sons. First, He instructs as a master. Secondly, He consoles as a friend or brother. Thirdly, He binds as a father binds sons. From the first conjunction of the Word and reason, humility is born. From the second conjunction of the Spirit of God and the human will, charity is effected. And finally the Father glues to Himself the glorious bride, so that neither reason is permitted to think of itself, nor the will of its neighbor; but the blessed soul delights to say only this: The king has brought me into his chamber. Do you think that Paul did not pass through these degrees, who testifies that he was rapt up even to the third heaven?"
You will ask secondly, whether Paul was truly and really rapt into the empyrean heaven, so as to exist there locally; or whether only imaginatively or intellectually, namely so that through imagination it would seem to him that he was in heaven, and would see the things which are done there, although in body and soul he remained on earth? Some hold probably that he was rapt not truly, but imaginatively, because he calls this rapture visions and revelations of the Lord, in verses 1 and 7. For God can bring it about that I, existing in Belgium, may see those things which happen in India, indeed even the things which happen in heaven, I may see, I say, either through the intellect, or through the imagination, or even with the eyes of the body, namely by elevating them and concurring with them above nature, and thus strengthening and extending the visual power, so that it may extend even into heaven: for if that power can be extended somewhat beyond natural strength by spectacles and medicines, and if naturally from here we see the stars in the firmament, why should God not be able to augment and extend these powers further and further? Thus he agrees with St. Anselm, that by corporeal sight he discerned through a wall those things which were happening behind the wall, by impressing their likenesses upon his eyes. So St. Diethelmus, in Ven. Bede, and others through imagination saw the pains of Purgatory: why should not Paul also have thus seen the empyrean heaven, and the things which were happening in it?
Others, and perhaps more probably, hold that he was truly and really rapt into the empyrean heaven. First, because in Greek it is not ἐξέστη, that is, he was carried into ecstasy, but ἡρπάγη, which signifies merely and simply that he was caught up and snatched away. Therefore he suffered not only ecstasy but a real rapture.
Secondly, because Paul doubts whether his soul was rapt with the body or without the body; therefore he presupposes that it was truly and really rapt: for in a merely imaginary vision there is no doubt, but it is certain that not the body but the soul alone is rapt through imagination.
Thirdly, because there he truly heard secret words, namely so that, as the future doctor of the world, he might appear to come forth from heaven, and there narrate the things seen and heard which God wished him to communicate to men, and bring heavenly wisdom as if from heaven to men: concerning which more in verse 4.
Now if the rapture of the soul was real, and since the soul is joined to the body (as I said at the beginning of this verse on the words, whether in the body), it seems that Paul's body too was rapt with the soul into paradise: for this is equally easy for God as to rapture the soul alone, and is fitting and worthy of Paul, who was to be the heavenly doctor and Apostle not only of the Jews, as Moses, but of all the Gentiles, so that he might come forth wholly from heaven and from God's address, as if another Moses.
Verse 3: Whether in the Body or Out of the Body, I Know Not
Verse 3. Whether in the body, or out of the body, I know not. — St. Athanasius, sermon 4 Against the Arians, thinks that Paul knew the manner in which he was rapt, but said "I know not" because he could not reveal it to others; just as Christ, Mark XIII, 32, says He does not know the day of judgment. For although He knows it in Himself, yet with respect to us He does not know it; for He cannot make it known to us. But others better take the words "I know not" simply, as though Paul truly and properly did not know whether he was rapt in the body or outside the body, and his simple narration demands this.
Verse 4: Caught Up Into Paradise, He Heard Secret Words
Verse 4. 4. Into Paradise. — Ambrose, Oecumenius, Haymo, Anselm, and Theophylact think that Paul was rapt twice, first into the third heaven; secondly, higher into paradise: but on this view the third heaven would be the heaven of the Moon, Sun, or stars: yet what would Paul have done there? Hence others everywhere say that there was one and the same rapture, and that the third heaven and paradise are the same.
You will say: Why then after the rapture into the third heaven does Paul say he was rapt into paradise as if higher? I answer, because in the most vast empyrean heaven there is separated paradise, that is, the place of the Blessed, as a more noble and eminent part of heaven; so that he may in some way intimate that he not only saw the highest mysteries by intellect, but also drew ineffable pleasure thence by will: for paradise in Greek and Latin signifies this, namely a place of pleasure.
Note: Paradise is not a Greek word, as Suidas would have it, from ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀρδεῖν, that is, from irrigating, as if a watered garden; nor, as others say, from παρὰ τὴν δεῖσαν ποιεῖσθαι, that is, from the collection of herbs, as if a herbal garden; but it is a Persian word, as Pollux holds; or rather Hebrew, signifying a garden planted with pleasant trees and fruits, as is clear from Ecclesiastes II, 5; Nehemiah II, 8, in Hebrew; Canticles IV, 11: "Thy emissions are a paradise of pomegranates;" therefore פרדס pardes in Hebrew (whence the Greek and Latin paradisus) is derived from the root פרה para, that is, brought forth, fructified, and הדס hadas, that is, myrtle: because the myrtle refreshes by smell and taste, and excels in gardens; pardes therefore is a garden of myrtles; from there the name was transferred to any pleasure gardens, woods, and groves, and finally to any most pleasant places. Whence here the third heaven is called paradise.
You will ask whether Paul here saw the divine essence. St. Augustine, epistle 112, chapter XIII, vol. II; Clement, book V Stromata; Anselm, St. Thomas, II II, Question CLXXV, art. 5, affirm it, and it is probable: for he was rapt into paradise, that is, the place of the Blessed who see God. Secondly, for that reason he heard secret things which it is not granted to man to utter, and, as it is in Greek, ἄρρητα, that is, ineffable; for the rest, besides the divine essence, it is permitted to express in words.
You will say: Then he ought to have said that he saw things, not heard words.
I answer: By a Hebraism, to hear words signifies to see things, says Theodoret; therefore just as in the Prophets vision or seeing, and hearing, are the same, so also in blessed minds.
But the contrary seems more probable: for properly to hear, even for a separated soul, does not signify clearly to behold a thing, but to receive the speech of God, an angel, or a man; for otherwise he would have said clearly: I saw ineffable things, I saw God. Secondly, because in 1 Timothy VI, 16, it is said of God: "Whom no one of men hath seen." Thirdly, because if he saw God, he also saw his own state, whether he was in the body or not; which however he here denies. Fourthly, because here he sparingly recounts his visions, and out of humility he teaches in verse 6 that he holds back the greater things. So St. Gregory, book XVIII Morals, chapter V; Jerome, Cyril, Chrysostom and elsewhere other Fathers and Scholastics. See Ludovicus Molina, part I, Question XII, art. 11, disputation II. Finally, because Scripture more clearly intimates of Moses that he saw the essence of God, and yet I have sufficiently shown clearly on Exodus XXXIII that Moses did not ask to see the essence of God, nor, if he had asked, would he have obtained it: for in verse 20 the Lord plainly answers him in the negative: "Thou canst not see my face; for man shall not see me, and live." And only in the last verse does He grant him to see the back parts, that is, the sign of the body assumed by the angel who represented God: for Moses asked that God, or rather the angel taking God's place by covering himself with a cloud and speaking with him through the cloud, might explain it, so that he could see Him clearly and speak face to face with Him. The angel answers him that man's eyes cannot bear, nor be able to see, His face, but only His back: for that face assumed by the angel was most radiant, and of such wondrous light and august majesty that it represented God and God's glory in some manner; therefore it surpassed the splendor of the sun, which a man cannot gaze upon with eyes direct and unaverted, without being rather struck by it and as it were blinded: it follows that much less could this face of the angel, far more splendid, be seen by Moses without his being immediately blinded by it. But on the back of that body assumed by him the angel had so tempered the light that the sight of Moses might bear it. Whence he permitted his back parts, that is, his back, to be seen by him: by which Moses was wonderfully refreshed, and so suffused and sprinkled with light that his face equally shone, and seemed horned with rays of light as if with certain horns, as I said there. This vision of Moses, therefore, was corporeal: for with bodily eyes he saw this body of the angel from behind: Moses therefore was far from the vision of the divinity and divine essence. If Moses was far from it, therefore so was Paul, who speaks much more obscurely and humbly of his vision.
He heard secret words which it is not granted to man to utter. — You will ask what secrets Paul saw or heard in paradise. I answer: These are narrated in a book which is entitled the Apocalypse, that is, revelation, of Paul: but this book is falsely ascribed to St. Paul, and is full of fables. So St. Augustine, tract 98 on John, Bede, Theophylact; and Epiphanius attributes this book to the Cajans in their heresy.
I say therefore that nothing can certainly be said here, since Paul kept silent about it; yet it is permissible to opine that Paul saw and heard wondrous things concerning the nature, gifts, grace, glory, and orders of the angels, says St. Gregory, hom. 4 on Ezekiel. Whence St. Dionysius, On the Celestial Hierarchy, from the doctrine of St. Paul, describes the orders of angels as if he had beheld all things with his own eyes. Again, he heard marvelous things concerning certain divine attributes unknown to us here; he saw moreover the glory of Christ: for he was taught the Gospel by Christ, Galatians I, 12. For he was rapt that authority might be added to him, lest he be less than the other Apostles who had seen Christ in the flesh and had been taught by Him, says Chrysostom. Theodoret adds that he saw the beauty of paradise, the dances and joys of the Saints, and heard the manifold and modulated voice of the heavenly hymns. Whence afterward he in wonder exclaimed: "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, what God hath prepared for those that love Him."
Secondly, and rather, he seems to have heard secrets concerning the secret, reason, mode, and order of divine reprobation and predestination and the calling of men, especially of the Gentiles and provinces to be converted by him: for Paul everywhere marvels at this secret, Romans XI, 33, and elsewhere, and this most pertained to him, and he was soon to be sent for this. So Baronius.
Again he heard, as it seems, certain secret mysteries of Christ's redemption and of the Gospel: for this he says he received by revelation, namely in this rapture, from Christ, Galatians I, 12. Finally he heard, as it appears, secrets concerning the economy, governance, and success of the present and future Church: for this pertained to his state and office: for he had now been designated doctor and rector of the Church; and thus he calls them ineffable, both because they were forbidden to be uttered, and because we cannot in speaking match and fully explain them.
Verse 5: For Such a One I Will Glory; But for Myself, Nothing
5. For such a one (ὑπὲρ τοῦ τοιούτου, for such a one, namely a man rapt by God) I will glory: but for myself I will glory nothing. — He speaks of himself when rapt as of another, distinct from himself and his natural condition, in order to avoid self-love, says Oecumenius.
Save in infirmities, — calamities, sufferings. Note: By a Hebrew metonymy, infirmity is everywhere here put for sorrow: thus the Hebrews put "to be infirm" for "to grieve," because it is the cause, or effect, or both, of grief. Concerning which again, in verses 9, 10. So Micah IV, verse 10, it is said: "Be in pain and labor, daughter of Sion, as a woman in childbirth." Where for "grieve" in Hebrew is חולי chuli, that is, to be infirm. So Hosea IV, 3: "Therefore shall the land mourn, and every one that dwelleth in it shall be infirm (that is, shall grieve)." So Isaiah LIII, 3, Christ is called "a man of sorrows, acquainted with infirmity." Which two in reality are the same, and so according to Hebrew custom the latter explains the former. For a man of sorrows is one who knows, that is, experiences, infirmities, that is, sorrows. So Psalm XV, 4: "Their infirmities (that is, sorrows) were multiplied; afterward they hasted."
Verse 6: I Forbear, Lest Any Man Think of Me Above What He Sees
6. But I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth in me, — namely, lest anyone should think me an angel, or some god, as the Lycaonians, who said of me and Barnabas: "Gods made like to men have come down to us," Acts XIV, 10. Note: He could have reported more marvelous things about himself, but he covers and obscures them through zeal for modesty and humility: for all the Saints, says Anselm, not only do not at all desire glory beyond measure, but even shun this very thing which they have deserved to be.
Excellently does St. Bernard, epistle 18 to Peter: "We praise," he says, "lyingly; we are delighted vainly, so that both those who are praised are vain, and those who praise are liars. Some flatter, and are feigned; others praise what they think, and are mistaken; others glory in the praises of both, and are vain. He alone is wise who with the Apostle says: But I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth in me, or heareth anything from me."
Verse 7: A Thorn of My Flesh Was Given Me, an Angel of Satan
7. And lest the greatness of the revelations should exalt me. — Hence it is clear that Paul, as the heavenly doctor of the world, had many and great revelations, and was as it were accustomed and nourished by them. Some of these Luke describes. The first, by which Paul was converted, Acts IX, 3. The second, by which he was called into Macedonia, Acts XVI, 9. The third, Acts XVIII, 9, by which at Corinth he was bidden to evangelize constantly against the Jews. The fourth, Acts XXII, 17, by which he was sent to the Gentiles. The fifth, Acts XXVII, 23, by which he learned that he with his companions would escape shipwreck. Whence St. Augustine understands of Paul that passage of Psalm LXVII: "There (namely among the Apostles) is Benjamin in ecstasy of mind," who was of the tribe of Benjamin.
There was given to me a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me. — "There was given," not by the devil, but by God; not that God is the author of temptation, but because, the devil being prepared to tempt Paul, He permitted it, and that only in the species and matter of lust, in order to humble him. So Augustine, On Nature and Grace, chapter XXVII. "This monitor," says Jerome, epistle 25 to Paula on the death of Blaesilla, "was given to Paul to repress his pride, just as in a triumphal chariot to the triumphing victor a monitor is given suggesting: Remember thou art a man." As also to the Pope when he is inaugurated, with tow lit and quickly extinguished, it is sung: "Holy Father, thus passes the glory of the world." Whence the best remedy for escaping the temptations of the flesh is humility, if you ground and humbly cast yourself down in it the more, the more God exalts you with His gifts and graces: for if you yourself do this and forestall, God will not need to apply this sting to keep you in humility. See what is said on Romans I, 24.
Sting of the flesh. — Tertullian, book On Flight in persecution, chapter II, reads "stakes." It is asked, what is this? For if it is a sting, how does it buffet like a fist-blow? How is it an angel of Satan? Augustine answers, On Nature and Grace, chapter XVI, that he does not know what it is. Two things here are certain: First, that it was a vexation of a demon: "There was given to me," he says, "an angel of Satan to buffet me," in order to vex me. Whence he prays that it would depart, or, as in Greek, ἀποστῇ, that is, desist. Second, that there was something like a thorn fixed in his flesh, which constantly pricked and tormented him.
But in particular what it was is not certain. First, Anselm, Bede, Sedulius and Jerome on Galatians IV, 13 (where the Apostle acknowledges in himself an infirmity of the flesh) think it was bodily ailments, either a perpetual headache, as Jerome holds; or pains in the bowels (iliac pains), as others in St. Thomas hold; or a kidney infirmity and gout, as Nicetas holds in oration 30 of Nazianzen, which he gave on the death of St. Basil; or, as others say, a stomach ailment; or some other disease. Whence also St. Basil in his Rules at greater length, last chapter, and Augustine on Psalm CXXX, think this sting was a disease sent upon Paul by a demon, just as upon St. Job: but nowhere else does the Apostle complain about his diseases, and diseases would have been a great impediment to him in his preaching and propagation of the Gospel.
Secondly, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Theodoret, Oecumenius, Ambrose, Erasmus think this sting was the persecutions and adversaries of Paul, of which there follows in verse 10; but these were external stings, not of the flesh and internal; and concerning these he is wont to glory, not to complain.
Thirdly, others more probably hold that Satan often attacked Paul with blows and lashes (as also at times St. Anthony and others); so that pain remained in his body as it were a sting from the buffetings and blows received from the demon: for this is plainly and properly what the words signify; but then he would have said more openly and orderly: There was given to me an angel of Satan to buffet me and goad me; nor would Paul's noble spirit so complain of this, which, being loftier than all beating by men and demons, is wont to glory in it.
Fourthly therefore, others commonly hold that the sting of the flesh was the motions of concupiscence and the temptations of lust; for this concupiscence is fixed in our flesh like a sting or a stake, so that it cannot be uprooted in this life. Whence in Greek it is called σκόλοψ, that is, a stake, a sharpened stump, a goad, a dart, a sting, τῇ σαρκί, that is, in the flesh, namely impressed and fixed, and, as the Syriac has, a sting in my flesh; our (Latin) version translates, sting of the flesh, that is, inhering in the flesh, in the flesh, and excited from the flesh.
You will say: How then does he call it "an angel of Satan," that is, a minister of Lucifer, or, as Cajetan translates from the Greek, an angel Satan; for Satan is indeclinable, and is every case among the Hebrews.
I answer, by "angel of Satan," or even "Satan," he calls the demon himself, who arouses and inflames this sting and concupiscence; or rather the sting itself and the concupiscence aroused and inflamed by the demon Satan, that is, by his own and his chastity's adversary, so that it is a metonymy by which the cause is put for the effect, and the author for his work. For the demon, by stirring up the humors, by inflaming the blood, by exciting and inflaming the spirits subservient to generation, by setting up shameful images before Paul's imagination, would arouse the concupiscence as if dormant, almost mortified by so many labors, fastings, and hardships, and stir up and sharpen it toward the shameful motions of lust. It is proved secondly, because that this concupiscence was in Paul, is clear from Rom. ch. VII, v. 23, where on account of it he laments and groans equally with, and more than, here. Hence too he chastises his body, 1 Cor. ch. IX. Thirdly, because if it had been anything else, he would have explained it clearly; but now he conceals a matter so shameful and embarrassing, and metaphorically calls it a goad. Fourthly, because this goad was given to him for the purpose of humbling him; but nothing humbles the chaste and lovers of virtue so much as this temptation of the flesh, and nothing so restrains them so that they work out their salvation with fear and trembling, and continually fear lest, due to the fragility of their flesh, they fall in a temptation so dangerous and inclined toward consent: for in illnesses, beatings, persecutions, and other hardships they rather glory and exult, especially if they suffer them for Christ and for the faith and glory of Christ, as Paul was suffering.
Fifthly, because these temptations of the flesh do not properly wound the Saints, but "buffet" them, that is, inflict shame and grief on them, as one who has received a blow from a companion is suffused not so much with pain as with embarrassment.
Sixthly, because against these he so urgently and so often asks and beseeches that he may be freed from them; in other trials, he would have asked not for deliverance, but for strength and constancy; for these alone are conquered not so much by enduring bravely as by fleeing. Therefore he asks to be delivered from them, and he hears: "My grace is sufficient for thee:" which in this matter alone is necessary, and must be assiduously implored by those who are tempted, that they may resist and overcome a domestic enemy, lurking in their own bowels and ever waging war.
Finally so think St. Augustine, sermon 2 on Psalm LVIII; Jerome, To Eustochium on the keeping of virginity; Salvian, sermon On the Circumcision, which is ascribed (but falsely) to Cyprian; Haymo, Theophylact, Anselm, Bede, St. Thomas, Lyranus, and others; and it seems to be the common opinion of the faithful, who from this passage call the temptation of lust "the goad of the flesh": and the voice of the people is the voice of God.
But what Hugh Cardinal adds, that this temptation of the flesh in Paul arose from his familiarity with the beautiful virgin St. Thecla, whom, after baptizing her, he led around with him, is false and fictitious. For Paul led no woman around with him, as he himself teaches in 1 Cor. IX, 5. And even if he had begun to lead her around, he would still have been bound under pain of sin to dismiss her, since she would have been the occasion and tinder of so great a temptation and trouble for him. Again, what need would there have been for Paul so urgently to pray to God that this goad might depart from him, since he could most easily have dismissed her himself? Add to this, that this little tale is taken from a book entitled "The Travels of Paul and Thecla," which St. Jerome, Tertullian, and Gelasius reject as if apocryphal.
Erasmus and Faber object, first, that the goad of lust would have been unbecoming and unworthy of so great an Apostle, and especially of one already an old man.
I reply: In the fallen state it is not unworthy, indeed it is useful. See Gregory, Book XIX of the Morals, ch. V and VI, and from him Anselm, who shows by what useful and prudent counsel the elect are balanced as it were doubtfully between raptures and elevations on the one hand, and infirmities and depressions on the other; now lifted up on high, now as it were sunk into the abyss, lest they fall either into pride or into despair; but rather walk by a right path between the two into heaven. Whence that this concupiscence was in Paul is clear from Rom. VII, 23. That it was and is in Saints already old men, experience confirms. For so Nazianzen often complains of the evil of his flesh, as in epistle 96, and in the Poem on his own flesh, and on the calamity of his soul. Add, that Paul was not an old man: for he was perhaps converted as a young man of 25 or 27 years, Acts VII, 58. He writes this in the 22nd year from his conversion; therefore he was then about fifty years old.
They object secondly, that the Apostle immediately adds: "Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities;" but it is not lawful to glory in lust and concupiscence: therefore he means not this, but other infirmities and goads.
I reply: The Apostle looks not only to the goad of the flesh immediately preceding, but also, and indeed more so, to all the sufferings undergone for the faith, which he enumerated in the preceding chapter, and in which he gloried and assiduously glories: for he takes the name "infirmity" broadly, and plays upon it, as I shall say at v. 10. Add to this, that one is permitted to glory in this temptation of the flesh, not in itself, insofar as it incites to evil, but as it is an affliction sent by the devil. Secondly, insofar as in it the strength of Christ is perfected: as Julius Caesar used to glory, and would wish for the strongest enemies, so as to show his strength and military valor against them. So many Saints prayed to God and asked to have temptations, and gloried in them. Hence it is said in James 1:2: "Count it all joy, my brethren, when ye fall into various temptations;" and v. 12: "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he hath been proved, he shall receive the crown of life," etc.
Morally note, that temptation is not the cause of ruin to just men, but the goad of virtue: for so the Apostle calls it here. For just as horses, even noble ones, when stimulated by the spur, advance more vigorously and swiftly: so too the Saints are stirred up by the goad of temptation, that they may proceed more eagerly in virtue, lest they succumb and perish. Hence some noble Saints were not saddened but rejoiced in temptations. So in the Lives of the Fathers, Book III, ch. VIII, it is told of a certain Elder, who, seeing his disciple gravely tempted by fornication, said: "If you wish, son, I will entreat the Lord to take this assault from you." To whom the disciple: "I see, father, that although I bear the labor, yet I feel a good fruit being perfected in me: for through the occasion of this assault both I fast more, and I bear more in vigils and prayers. But I beseech you to entreat for me the mercy of the Lord, that He may give me strength so that I may be able to endure and to contend lawfully." Then the elder said: "Now I know, son, that you faithfully understand that this spiritual contest, through patience, profits the eternal salvation of your soul. For so the Holy Apostle said: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith: as for the rest, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness."
St. Dorotheus tells of a certain holy monk, who grieved that he had been freed from temptation, and lamented saying and praying: "Then am I not worthy, O Lord, to suffer and to be afflicted somewhat and troubled for love of Thee?" Climacus, Step 29, tells of St. Ephrem, that, seeing himself in the deepest peace and tranquility of soul, which he himself calls impassibility and earthly heaven, he asked God to restore to him his former assaults and wars of temptations, lest he lose the material for meriting and increasing his crown. So Alexander the Great and similar leaders would wish for the strongest enemies, in order to bring back from them a victory more glorious in proportion to the fierceness of the contest they had entered upon with them.
Palladius tells that Abbot Pastor, when someone said to him: "I prayed to God, and He freed me from every temptation," replied: "Pray to God to give you back your temptations, lest you become slothful and negligent." He himself referred this to God, to whom God said: Your master Pastor has spoken rightly, and at the same time He restored the temptation to him.
Verse 8: Thrice I Besought the Lord That It Might Depart
Verse 8. Wherefore I besought the Lord thrice (that is, often and frequently; for the number three is a symbol of multitude and totality) and He said to me: My grace is sufficient for thee, — so that, although weak in yourself, you may yet be strong in Me to overcome this temptation. Hence it is clear that Paul was not heard in his prayer, nor freed from this goad.
St. Augustine gives the reason in his commentary on Psalm CXXX: Just as, he says, when an irritating and burning medicine is applied to a sick man, and he begs the physician to remove it: the physician however consoles the sick man and exhorts him to patience, because he knows how useful that which he has applied is: in the same way God here dealt with Paul. "I know," says St. Augustine, "what I have applied; I know whence you are sick; I know whence you are to be healed. My grace is sufficient for thee." Therefore just as the physician makes treacle against vipers and poisons from the flesh of the viper itself: so God from our infirmity makes a medicine and treacle against infirmity, and indeed from one concupiscence against another, e.g., from the goad of the flesh against pride.
Verse 9: My Grace Is Sufficient for You; Strength Is Perfected in Weakness
9. For strength is perfected in infirmity. — It is a general saying, and as it were a moral axiom about any infirmity, but properly and most directly it looks to the goad of the flesh which preceded, that is, the infirmity of concupiscence. For "strength" the Greek is δύναμις, power, my strength (which namely I, God, communicate and impart to you, O Paul, and to the other Saints; for these are the words of God responding to Paul's prayers): this is perfected in infirmity, because the greater the infirmity, that is, the temptation of the flesh, the greater the strength supplied by Christ against it. Whence follows: "That the strength of Christ may dwell in me;" and: "When I am weak, then am I strong." This is properly what the Apostle means.
Where note first: This strength and fortitude is Paul's as receiving it; but it is God's as the One effecting and giving it. "Therefore strength is perfected in infirmity," that is, divine strength and power are most illustrated, first, when in the weak it works such great fortitude, patience, and other wonderful works. Second, when he through whom He works, conscious of his own weakness, claims nothing for himself from it, but ascribes all the praise to God alone. Where note that the strength and power of the world is diverse from that of God; the former is known by force and might, the latter on the contrary by enduring. Third, "strength is perfected in infirmity," because infirmity is the object of patience, fortitude, and temperance, so that the infirm should clearly be more sober if they are sick. Fourth, because the infirm guard themselves most diligently, and cautiously resist contrary things, and thus become more practiced and stronger, says St. Thomas. Indeed "virtue grows when stirred up by adversities," and so chastity is constant in temptation, and any virtue becomes stronger, as is clear in the Patriarch Joseph, Susanna, Paul, and others. Fifth, spiritually St. Augustine, in his book On the Grace of Christ, ch. XII, and Anselm: "Our strength," they say, "is the knowledge in truth of our weakness, and the confession in humility of it." And Jerome to Ctesiphon: "This is the only perfection of the present life, that you recognize yourself as imperfect," so that namely, distrusting yourself, despairing of your own strength, you cast yourself wholly through firm hope upon God's power: for God strengthens the humble and those who hope in Him, and as it were makes them omnipotent, says St. Bernard, sermon 85 on the Canticles, so that they may not be broken by any temptations, labors, or dangers.
St. Augustine relates an example of himself, in Book VIII of the Confessions, ch. XI: "When violent custom said to me: Do you think you can live without these (concubines to whom you have now grown accustomed)? there was opened on the side toward which I had directed my face, and which I trembled to cross, the chaste dignity of continence, honestly inviting me to come and not doubt; and extending to receive and embrace me her devoted hands full of throngs of good examples. There were so many boys and girls, much youth and every age, and grave widows and aged virgins. And she mocked me with an exhortatory mockery, as if she would say: Cannot you do what these can do? Or can these do it in themselves, and not in the Lord their God? The Lord their God gave me to them. Why do you stand on yourself, and so not stand? Cast yourself upon Him, do not fear; He will not withdraw Himself so that you may fall. Cast yourself securely, He will receive you and heal you." Thus far he.
"Strength finally is perfected in infirmity," because, as St. Bernard says in epistle 254, in a robust and lively body the mind lies softer and more lukewarm; and on the contrary in a weak and infirm body the spirit thrives stronger and more ready. Just as he who has been denied bodily force by nature is mighty in intellect; so to him whom God has denied bodily strength, He gives strength and vigor of mind; and the mind afflicted in an infirm body yearns for heaven and resurrection, despises whatever is fluid, turbulent, and subject to perishing; and lives not for the present but for the future age, and esteems this life as a meditation on death, as Plato used to say; finally it devotes itself wholly to God and to heavenly things. "The soul afflicted by sickness is near to God," says Nazianzen, in his oration to the citizens of Nazianzus. Hear what the illustrious old man in the Lives of the Fathers, Book III, num. 457, said to his disciple who was sick: "Be not saddened, my son, because of the infirmity or wound of your body: for the highest religion is that one give thanks to God in infirmity. If you are iron, by fire you lose rust; but if you are gold, proved by fire you advance from great things to greater. Be not anxious, therefore, brother: for if God wills you to be tortured in your body, who are you to bear it ill? Endure therefore, and ask God to grant what He Himself wills."
In the year of the Lord 816, Blessed Theophanes, Abbot of Sigriana, sick, answered to Leo the Armenian, Iconoclast Emperor, who was threatening every kind of dreadful thing unless he condemned the worship of images: "If you hope, as schoolmasters terrify ungenerous boys with the rod, so to terrify me with threats — me, worn out with disease (he was suffering from the pains of the stone, so much so that he could not walk) and old age — then let the pyre be kindled, let tortures be prepared, and every kind of torment, that you may know most plainly that the strength of Christ is perfected in my infirmities. I who cannot make a journey along the ground, having overcome the weakness of my health, will leap into the fire." He spoke and made good his word: for after other trials, shut up in prison, since access to him was granted to no one, gradually consumed by hunger, squalor, and most grievous disease, after two years he offered up his soul, like a sweet victim, to God, and after death shone with miracles: wherefore the Church annually recollects his memory on March 12. So Baronius, vol. IX, in the year of Christ 816. See on the usefulness of infirmities and tribulations Chrysostom in moral homily 26, and St. Thomas.
Finally St. Bernard piously says, in the tract On the Steps of Humility: "Strength," he says, "is perfected in infirmity. What strength? Let the Apostle himself reply: Gladly will I glory in my infirmities, that the strength of Christ may dwell in me. But perhaps you do not yet understand of what He spoke specially, since Christ had all the virtues. But although He had all of them, yet beyond all the others He commended one to us in Himself, that is, humility, when He said: Learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart. Gladly therefore I too, Lord Jesus, will glory, if I can, in infirmity, in the shrinking of my sinew, that Your virtue, that is humility, may be perfected in me. For Your grace suffices for me, when my strength has failed."
Gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities, that the strength of Christ may dwell in me. — Note: Out of humility he glories not in his own strength, but in infirmity, that he may thus provoke in himself the strength and fortitude of Christ, tacitly as it were casting himself upon Him and invoking Him. Hence by "infirmity" he signifies every suffering, tribulation, temptation, humiliation, as he explains in the following verse. For infirmity is generally taken for any pain and affliction, which presses, casts down, and renders sick and weak either the body or the soul. Whence first, this infirmity can include diseases, which Basil, Augustine, Anselm teach to have been the goad of the flesh in Paul. Second, labors, of which the previous chapter, v. 27. Third, the temptations of the flesh, of which v. 7, and any others. Fourth, fasts, vigils, and other chastisements of the flesh, by which he wore it down and weakened it that he might subdue it to the spirit, previous chapter, v. 27. Fifth, insults, persecutions, perils, beatings, and all the hardships which he endured for the faith and the Gospel, of which he gloried at length in the previous chapter, and these especially he here understands, as he explains in the following verse.
Let the infirm console themselves in their infirmities, that in them as in His own home and tabernacle there dwells the strength, in Greek δύναμις, that is, the fortitude of Christ. For the Greek ἐπισκηνώσῃ signifies to dwell as in His own tabernacle: for there the power of God most shows itself, where infirmity and want are greatest, and there it most succors, where the need is greatest. "To Thee," says the Prophet, "the poor man is left; You will be a helper to the orphan." For although naturally "the weakness of the body draws with it the powers also of the soul," as St. Jerome says in the preface to Book II of the Commentary on Amos; and "the body which is corrupted weighs down the soul," Wisdom IX, 15, yet supernaturally it happens otherwise. For the soul strengthened by grace strengthens also the body. Thus in St. Francis, as bodily languor grew, mental vigor grew, so much so that, giving thanks to God, he would pray for his diseases to be increased a hundredfold. "For Thy will's accomplishment," he would say, "O Lord, is to me a more than full consolation," as St. Bonaventure relates in his Life.
St. Bernard notes, sermon 34 on the Canticles: "He does not say," he says, "that he bears his infirmities patiently, but that he both glories, and gladly glories in them, proving that it is also good for him that he be humbled. For God loves a cheerful giver. And indeed the grace which it preserves, joyful and absolute (not sad, not constrained) humility alone deserves." And sermon 25: "Desirable," he says, "is the infirmity which is compensated by the strength of Christ. Who will give me not only to be weak, but also to be wholly destitute and to fail entirely from myself, that I may be established by the strength of the Lord of strengths? For strength is perfected in infirmity. Since this is so, the spouse beautifully turns to her glory, that though it is hurled against her as a reproach by her rivals, she glories that she is not only beautiful but also dark. She thinks nothing more glorious for herself, therefore, than to bear the reproach of Christ. The shame of the cross is welcome to her who is not ungrateful to the Crucified."
Verse 10: When I Am Weak, Then Am I Powerful
10. Wherefore I am well pleased in infirmities. — Not that they are to be sought after for their own sake and that they delight, or even that they please the mind, if they are temptations: but I am pleased with myself in them, insofar as through them the strength of Christ is perfected and dwells in me, as has preceded. But, as I said, he understands here rather other infirmities, which he explains when he adds: "In reproaches, in necessities (of hunger, thirst, nakedness, cold, and the like), in distresses for Christ." For "I am pleased" the Greek is εὐδοκῶ, I am delighted; as if to say, Not only do I bear these things bravely, but I also feed upon them and am delighted by them. So Theophylact.
For when I am weak (when I am afflicted, and suffer those things which I have just said), then am I strong, — then I am strengthened, I become powerful, strong, and valiant, by the powers of grace, patience, magnanimity, humility, hope, and of God Himself, who is then present and exerts His powers and supplies them to me. So Chrysostom. Otherwise Œcumenius: "then I am strong," that is, even then, though weak, I powerfully perform miracles. Otherwise St. Basil, on Psalm XXXIII: "When," he says, "I am weak, then I am strong: for the multitude of bodily strength is an impediment to the salvation of the spirit." Beautifully and truly St. Bernard, sermon 29 on the Canticles: "Do you see," he says, "that the weakness of the flesh increases strength to the spirit and supplies it with powers? So on the contrary, you may know that the strength of the flesh works the weakening of the spirit. And what wonder, if when the enemy is weakened, you are made stronger? Unless perhaps you most insanely consider as a friend that which does not cease to lust against the spirit." He adds: Hence "prudently the Saint asks to be wholesomely shot and assailed: Pierce my flesh with Your fear. That fear is the best arrow, which transfixes and kills the desires of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved. But also he who chastises his body and brings it into subjection, does he not seem to you to himself help the hand of one fighting against him?"
Verse 11: I Have Been Nothing Less Than the Great Apostles
11. I have become a fool, — in praising myself I seem to have been a fool, but you, who held a lower opinion of me than was fitting, and believed the false apostles, my enemies, more than me, have compelled me to this praise, namely so that through it I might recover my reputation and authority with you.
For I have been nothing less (οὐδὲν ὑστέρησα, in nothing was I inferior, namely in apostleship, in apostolic labors, graces, sufferings) than those who are above measure (that is, than those who are most distinguished and most excellent) Apostles. — He therefore does not deny the preeminence of jurisdiction of Peter, nor does he contend with him about the primacy, as I said in ch. XI, v. 5.
Although I am nothing, — of myself: for that I am an Apostle is not mine, but of the grace of Christ. So Anselm.
The signs of my apostleship have been wrought among you in all patience, in signs and wonders, and virtues. — Note here that the genuine sign of apostleship is, first, patience in being despised, in poverty, persecutions, blows, and dangers. So D. Anselm. Second, miracles. For these he calls signs of the true faith, of the heavenly and divine doctrine; or signs of God operating omnipotently above nature, and consequently witnessing that Paul's doctrine is confirmed by Him through these signs, and is true and proceeding from God; the same he calls wonders, that is, portents, stupendous and portentous deeds. Finally he names the same "virtues," in Greek δυνάμεις, powers, fortitudes, that is, deeds of power, works of omnipotence, which God alone has openly worked through me.
Note secondly: The Apostles, bringing a new doctrine of the Gospel to the world, had to prove their apostleship and their doctrine by miracles as by signs; otherwise they would have demanded the faith of men rashly, and the faithful would have believed them rashly, nor could they have been distinguished from impostors and false apostles: therefore they had to prove by miracles that they were Apostles, that is, sent by God to reform the world and to illuminate it with the light of the Gospel. Let the Innovators take note of this, and let them demand miracles from their new Apostles, Calvin and Luther, who introduce new doctrine and reformation: which since they have never displayed (unless they think it a miracle that, having promised they would raise a dead man, they made a dead man out of a living one: but from such miracles and such Apostles may the Lord deliver us), let them persuade themselves with certainty that they were not Apostles, but impostors.
Verse 13: What Have You Had Less Than the Other Churches?
13. For what is there that you have had less than the other Churches (founded by me and the Apostles), except that I myself was not burdensome to you? — οὐ κατενάρκησα ὑμῶν, I was not numb, I did not lie idle upon you, that I might be supported by you, but I myself, watching and laboring at night, procured my own livelihood. See what was said in ch. XI, v. 9. It is irony, as if tacitly upbraiding: for in this very thing he was not less, but greater an Apostle, and more to be esteemed by the Corinthians, since namely he had evangelized them gratis. Whence ironically he adds: "Forgive me this wrong," because in truth it is not a wrong, but a notable and generous abstinence and beneficence, for which, if you remembered, O Corinthians, you ought rather to love, honor, and revere me.
Verse 14: Behold, the Third Time I Am Ready to Come to You
14. Behold, this third time (this third occasion) I am ready to come to you. — First I came, when I converted you; secondly, being ready to come, I deferred for a just cause, ch. I, v. 23; thirdly, I was ready when I wrote, and in actual fact, after this epistle, I came to you. So St. Thomas and Lyranus.
For neither ought the children to lay up treasure for the parents. — It is a euphemism, as if to say: Carnal parents lay up treasure for their children; spiritual parents are to be supported by their children, that is, by their catechumens and the faithful: I am so spiritual a father to you that I would wish to be also a carnal one, and to lay out for you not only my goods, but also myself and all that is mine to spend. He touches them, that they may understand how great an Apostle is, of how lofty a soul, of how great a charity; that they may be confounded that they do not love him in return, but rather venerate the false apostles, who hunt after themselves and their own profits, and gape at their goods.
Verse 15: I Most Gladly Will Spend and Be Spent for Your Souls
15. But I most gladly will spend (all that is mine), and (after all things, most gladly) will be over-spent. — ἐκδαπανηθήσομαι, I will be expended, so that I may consume, exhaust, and pour out my blood, my spirits and my life for you. So Anselm.
Verse 16: Being Crafty, I Caught You by Guile
16. But, being crafty, I caught you by guile. — D. Thomas, II II, Question LV, art. 4, ad 1, thinks that here craftiness and guile are abusively taken in a good sense, as if to say: By artful skill and cautious prudence I converted you from Gentilism to Christianity. But I reply that these are the words of detractors; for the Apostle takes them up by way of mimesis, as if to say: They themselves carp at me, saying: Paul indeed by himself demands or accepts nothing for support, but he catches you by guile, because namely he sends Titus and others, who fleece you and your possessions. So Chrysostom. It is clear from what follows: for refuting these things he adds:
Verse 17: Did I Overreach You by Any of Them?
Verse 17. Did I circumvent you by any man? — "I circumvented," ἐπλεονέκτησα, I defrauded, seized, and extorted; Vatablus: I plundered; Ambrose: I was greedy toward you.
Verse 19: Before God in Christ We Speak
Verse 19. Do you think from of old that we excuse ourselves before you? In Greek πάλιν, that is, again. Our Latin reading reads πάλαι, that is, of old, as if to say: There are among you those who think that from of old, from olden and ancient times, these things are said by me in excuse of a charge of avarice and fraudulence which I committed, or as if I were slyly excusing and refusing your gifts, that you may offer greater ones.
We speak before God in Christ. — As if to say: Without dissembling we speak sincerely and truly, as is fitting for him to speak who professes himself to be in Christ, that is, a member of Christ and an Apostle and disciple. Or secondly, "in Christ," that is, we speak in the sincerity and truth of Christ and Christian, as Christ may be taken for the attributes of Christ, namely virtues, according to Canon 37. Thirdly, it could be taken thus: "before God," supply, sincerely and truly "we speak in Christ," that is, through Christ, whom I invoke as witness. For just as we Latins swear saying, by God, by Christ, so the Hebrews swear saying: "in God, in Christ;" for there is the ב beth of swearing. Whence Vatablus translates: God and Christ are witnesses of those things which we speak. Similar is Rom. IX, 1: "I speak the truth in Christ." Otherwise Anselm: "we speak in Christ," that is, according to Christ and the doctrine of Christ, which teaches us to speak candidly and truthfully. Or, "in Christ," that is, through Christ, who in me and through me speaks. But the first sense is the simplest and the most genuine.
Verse 20: I Fear Lest There Be Contentions and Animosities Among You
20. I fear, etc., lest perhaps there be animosities among you. — Θυμός in Greek is that part of the soul which is called the irascible power, which Plato places in the breast, and which clamors against reason, to which he assigns a seat in the brain. Hence θυμοί are called animosities, angers, bold arrogance, the impulses of an inflamed mind, when one is unwilling to depart from his opinion, but defends it tooth and nail, and fervidly opposes himself to all others, to display his spirits: for these are the acts which the irascible power, when indulged, produces.
Whisperings. — ψιθυρισμοί; signifies a whisper or a hiss, which makes a more slender and thin sound. Hence ψιθυρισμοί are called whisperings, that is, hidden and clandestine slanders, by which slanderers and the envious bring those whom they wish into hatred; and they break apart friendships of friends, while in turn they detract from the one with the other, and whisper such things as procure enmity. Such a whisperer was Antipater, son of Herod, who, that he might succeed his father in the kingdom, made his elder brothers so hateful and displeasing to Herod by his whispers, that he killed them. But Antipater paid just penalties to the avenging deity, when, his fraud being detected, he was likewise slain by his father Herod, who was already breathing his last, as Josephus relates at length.
Puffings up. — φυσιώσεις, swellings, haughtinesses, by which the proud, the lofty, and the swollen are puffed up, swell, and are inflated.
Verse 21: Lest God Humble Me Among You, and I Mourn Many
21. Lest God again humble me (that is, as Chrysostom: sadden, depress, afflict me) and I mourn many (of you), — that is, I be compelled to mourn and to chastise with grief, because namely they persist in their sins; so that I shall be forced to excommunicate them, or to enjoin public penance: for that these words of the Apostle look to the public penance of those who from this were anciently properly called Penitents, Augustine teaches to Salvina, ep. 108, near the end.
Note: Just as the Apostle and the preacher most exults in the progress of his people, so as to say: You are my joy, my crown: so most is he cast down and grieves in their defect, and in their fall into vices, when he sees the fruit of his exhortations perishing, and that he has labored in vain.
Again, such a one descends unwillingly, and with grief, to vengeance: for this is the mark of a princely and regal mind. Famous is that voice of Nero in the very beginnings of his reign, when he was most gentle, by which, when compelled to subscribe to a sentence of death passed against the guilty, he exclaimed: O that I did not know how to write!
Who have previously sinned, and have not done penance for the uncleanness, — that is, for effeminacy and other lusts, by which one sins against nature, and force and injury is inflicted on nature. For the Apostle distinguishes uncleanness from fornication.
And lasciviousness. — The Greek ἀσέλγεια is a more wanton lust in libidinous kisses and touches.