continues--"bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ." If we suppose a special reference here to the Corinthians, it
will be natural to take νόημα ("thought") in a practical sense--as,
_e.g._, in chap. ii. 11, where it is rendered "devices." The Corinthians
had notions of their own, apparently, about how a Church should be
regulated--wild, undisciplined, disorderly notions; and in the absence
of the Apostle they were experimenting with them freely. It is part of
his work to catch these runaway thoughts, and make them obedient to
Christ again. It seems, however, much more natural to allow the wider
reference of αἰχμαλωτίζοντες to the whole of Paul's apostolic work; and
then νόημα also will be taken in a less restricted sense. Men's minds,
and all that goes on in their minds (νοήματα covers both: see chaps, ii.
11, iii. 14, iv. 4), are by nature lawless: they are without the sense
of responsibility to guard and consecrate the sense of freedom. When the
Gospel makes them captive, this lawless liberty comes to an end. The
mind, in all its operations, comes under law to Christ: in its every
thought it is obedient to Him. The supremacy which Christ claims and
exercises is over the whole nature: the Christian man feels that
nothing--not even a thought--lies beyond the range in which obedience is
due to Him. This practical conviction will not paralyse thinking in the
very least, but it will extinguish many useless and bad thoughts, and
give their due value to all.
The Apostle descends unmistakably from the general to the particular in
ver. 6: "Being in readiness to avenge all disobedience, when your
obedience is fulfilled." Apparently what he contemplates in Corinth is a
disobedience which in part at least will refuse to surrender to Christ.
There is a spirit abroad there, in the Judaists especially, and in
those whom they have influenced, which will not bend, and must be
broken. How Paul means to take vengeance on it, he does not say. He is
confident himself that the divinely powerful weapons which he wields
will enable him to master it, and that is enough. Whatever the shape the
disobedience may assume,--hostility to the Gospel of Paul, as subversive
of the law; hostility to his apostolic claims, as unequal to those of
the Twelve; hostility to the practical authority he asserted in Churches
of his founding, and to the moral ideals he established there,--whatever
the face which opposition may present, he declares himself ready to
humble it. One limitation only he imposes on himself--he will do this,
"when the obedience of the Corinthians is fulfilled." He expressly
distinguishes the Church as a whole from those who represent or
constitute the disobedient party. There have been misunderstandings
between the Church and himself; but as chaps. i. to vii. show, these
have been so far overcome: the body of the Church has reconciled itself
to its founder; it has returned, so to speak, to its allegiance to Paul,
and has busied itself in carrying out his will. When this process, at
present only in course, is completed, his way will be clear. He will be
able to act with severity and decision against those who have troubled
the Church, without running any risk of hurting the Church itself. This
leads again to the reflection that, with all his high consciousness of
spiritual power, with all his sense of personal wrong, the most
remarkable characteristic of Paul is love. He waits to the last moment
before he resorts to severer measures; and he begs those who may suffer
from them, begs them by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, to spare
him such pain.
FOOTNOTES:
[80] On Hausrath's view that this was a letter between our Ep. I. and
Ep. II. see the Introduction.
[81] This is the only place in the New Testament where ταπεινὸς
("lowly") is used in a bad (contemptuous) sense: in Christian lips it
is a term of praise (Matt. xi. 29); the speakers here had not learned
its Christian meaning.
[82] The dative in δυνατὰ τῷ Θεῷ is the same as in Jonah iii. 3, Acts
vii. 20. A vague rendering like "divinely powerful" is probably
nearest the meaning.
XXIII
_COMPARISONS_
"Ye look at the things that are before your face. If any man
trusteth in himself that he is Christ's, let him consider this again
with himself, that, even as he is Christ's, so also are we. For
though I should glory somewhat abundantly concerning our authority
(which the Lord gave for building you up, and not for casting you
down), I shall not be put to shame: that I may not seem as if I
would terrify you by my letters. For, His letters, they say, are
weighty and strong; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech
of no account. Let such a one reckon this, that, what we are in word
by letters when we are absent, such _are we_ also in deed when we
are present. For we are not bold to number or compare ourselves with
certain of them that commend themselves: but they themselves,
measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves with
themselves, are without understanding. But we will not glory beyond
_our_ measure, but according to the measure of the province which
God apportioned to us as a measure, to reach even unto you. For we
stretch not ourselves overmuch, as though we reached not unto you:
for we came even as far as unto you in the Gospel of Christ: not
glorying beyond _our_ measure, _that is_, in other men's labours;
but having hope that, as your faith groweth, we shall be magnified
in you according to our province unto _further_ abundance, so as to
preach the Gospel even unto the parts beyond you, _and_ not to glory
in another's province in regard of things ready to our hand. But he
that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. For not he that commendeth
himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth."--2 COR. x. 7-18
(R.V.).
This passage abounds with grammatical and textual difficulties, but
the general import and the purpose of it are plain. The self-assertion
of αὐτὸς ἐγὼ Παῦλος (ver. 1) receives its first interpretation and
expansion here: we see what it is that Paul claims, and we begin to
see the nature of the opposition against which his claim has to be
made good. Leaving questions of grammatical construction aside, vv. 7
and 8 define the situation; and it is convenient to take them as if
they stood alone.
There was a person in Corinth--more than one indeed, but one in
particular, as the τις in ver. 7 and the singular φησὶν[83] in ver. 10
suggest--who claimed to be Christ's, or of Christ, in a sense which
disparaged and was meant to disparage Paul. If we use the plural, to
include them all, we must not suppose that they are identical with the
party in the Church who are censured in the First Epistle for saying, "I
am of Christ," just as others said, "I am of Paul," "I am of Apollos,"
"I am of Cephas." That party may have been dependent upon them, but the
individuals here referred to are taxed with an exclusiveness and
arrogance, and in the close of the chapter with a wanton trespassing on
Paul's province, which show that they were not native to the Church, but
intruders into it. They were confident that they were Christ's in a
sense which discredited Paul's apostleship, and entitled them, so to
speak, to legitimate a Church which his labours had called into being.
Everything compels us to recognise in them Jewish Christians, who had
been connected with Christ in a way in which Paul had not; who had known
Him in the flesh, or had brought recommendatory letters from the Mother
Church at Jerusalem; and who, on the strength of these accidents, gave
themselves airs of superiority in Pauline Churches, and corrupted the
simplicity of the Pauline Gospel.
The first words in ver. 7--τὰ κατὰ πρόσωπον βλέπετε--are no doubt
directed to this situation, but they have been very variously
rendered. Our Authorised Version has, "Do ye look on things after the
outward appearance?" That is, "Are you really imposed upon by the
pretensions of these men, by their national and carnal distinctions,
as if these had anything to do with the Gospel?" This is a good
Pauline idea, but it is doubtful whether τὰ κατὰ πρόσωπον can yield
it. The natural sense of these words is, "What is before your face."
The Revised Version accordingly renders, "Ye look at the things that
are before your face": meaning, apparently, "You allow yourselves to
be carried away by whatever is nearest to you--at present, by these
interloping Jews, and the claims they flaunt before your eyes." It
seems to me more natural, with many good scholars, to take βλέπετε, in
spite of its unemphatic position, as imperative: "Look at the things
which are before your faces! The most obvious and palpable facts
discredit these Judaists and accredit me. A claim to be Christ's is
not to be made out _à priori_ by any carnal prerogatives, or any human
recommendations; it is only made out by this--that Christ Himself
attests it by giving him who makes it success as an evangelist. Look
at what confronts you! There is not a single Christian thing you see
which is not Christ's own testimony that I am His; unless you are
senseless and blind, my position and authority as an apostle can never
be impugned among you." The argument is thus the same as that which he
uses in chap. iii. 1-3, and in the First Epistle, chap. ix. 2.
At first Paul asserts only a bare equivalence to his Jewish opponent:
"Let him consider this with himself, that, _even as_ he is Christ's,
_so also_ are we." The historical, outward connexion with Christ,
whatever it may have been, amounted in this relation to exactly
nothing at all. Not what Christ was, but what He is, is the life and
reality of the Christian religion. Not an accidental acquaintance with
Him as He lived in Galilee or Jerusalem, but a spiritual fellowship
with Him as He reigns in the heavenly places, makes a Christian. Not a
letter written by human hands--though they should be the hands of
Peter or James or John--legitimates a man in the apostolic career; but
only the sovereign voice which says, "He is a chosen vessel unto Me,
to bear My Name." Neither as Christian nor as apostle can one
establish a monopoly by making his appeal to "the flesh." The
application of this Christian truth has constantly to be made anew,
for human nature loves a monopoly; it does not seem really to have a
thing, unless its possession of it is exclusive. We are all too ready
to unchurch, or unchristianise, others; to say, "_We_ are Christ's,"
with an emphasis which means that others are not. Churches with a
strong organisation are especially tempted to this unchristian
narrowness and pride. Their members think almost instinctively of
other Christians as outsiders and inferiors; they would like to take
them in, to reordain their ministers, to reform their constitution, to
give validity to their sacraments--in one word, to legitimate them as
Christians and as Christian societies. All this is mere unintelligence
and arrogance. Legitimacy is a convenient and respectable political
fiction; but to make the constitution of any Christian body, which has
developed under the pressure of historical exigences, the law for the
legitimation of Christian life, ministry, and worship everywhere, is
to deny the essential character of the Christian religion. It is to
play toward men whom Christ has legitimated by His Spirit, and by His
blessing on their work, precisely the part which the Judaisers played
toward Paul; and to compromise with it is to betray Christ, and to
renounce the freedom of the Spirit.
But the Apostle does not stop short with claiming a bare equality with
his rivals. "For though[84] I should boast somewhat more abundantly
concerning our authority ... I shall not be put to shame"--_i.e._,
"The facts I have invited you to look at will bear me out." The key to
this passage is to be found in 1 Cor. xv. 15, where he boasts that,
though the least of the apostles, and not worthy to be called an
apostle, he had, through the grace of God given to him, laboured more
abundantly than all the rest. If it came to comparison, then, of the
attestation which Christ gave to their several labours, and so to
their authority, by success in evangelising, it would not be Paul who
would have to hide his head. But he does not choose to boast any more
of his authority at this point. He has no desire to clothe himself in
terrors; on the contrary, he wishes to avoid[85] the very appearance
of scaring them out of their wits by his letters (for ἐκφοβεῖν compare
Mark ix. 6; Heb. xii. 21). His authority has been given him, not for
the pulling down, but for the building up, of the Church; it is not
lordly (chap. i. 24), but ministerial; and he would wish, not only to
show it in kindly service, but also in a kindly aspect. "Not for
casting down," in ver. 8, is no contradiction of "mighty for casting
down" in ver. 4: the object in the two cases is quite different. Many
_things_ in man must be cast down--many high thoughts, much pride,
much wilfulness, much presumption and sufficiency--but the casting
down of these is the building up of souls.
At this point comes what is logically a parenthesis, and we hear in it
the criticisms passed at Corinth on Paul, and his own reply to them.
"His letters," they say (or, he says), "are weighty and strong; but
his bodily presence weak, and his speech of no account." The last part
of this criticism has been much misunderstood; it is really of moral
import, but has been read in a physical sense. It does not say
anything at all about the Apostle's physique, or about his eloquence
or want of eloquence; it tells us that (according to these critics),
when he was actually present at Corinth, he was somehow or other
ineffective; and when he spoke there, people simply disregarded him.
An uncertain tradition no doubt represents Paul as an infirm and
meagre person, and it is easy to believe that to Greeks he must
sometimes have seemed embarrassed and incoherent in speech to the last
degree (what, for instance, could have seemed more formless to a Greek
than vv. 12-18 of this chapter?): nevertheless, it is nothing like
this which is in view here. The criticism is not of his physique, nor
of his style, but of his personality--what is described is not his
appearance nor his eloquence, but the effect which the man produced
when he went to Corinth and spoke. It was nothing. As a man, bodily
present, he could get nothing done: he talked, and nobody listened. It
is implied that this criticism is false; and Paul bids any one who
makes it consider that what he is in word by letters when he is
absent, that he will also be in deed when he is present. The double
_rôle_ of potent pamphleteer and ineffective pastor is not for him.
The kind of criticism which was here passed on St. Paul is one to which
every preacher is obnoxious. An epistle is, so to speak, the man's words
without the man; and such is human weakness, that they are often
stronger than the man speaking in bodily presence, that is, than the man
and his words together. The character of the speaker, as it were,
discounts all he says; and when he is there, and delivers his message in
person, the message itself suffers an immense depreciation. This ought
not so to be, and with a man who cultivates sincerity will not so be. He
will be, himself, as good as his words; his effectiveness will be the
same whether he writes or speaks. Nothing ultimately counts in the work
of a Christian minister but what he can say and do and get done when in
direct contact, with living men. In many cases the modern sermon really
answers to the epistle as it is referred to in this sarcastic comment;
in the pulpit, people say, the minister is impressive and memorable; but
in the ordinary intercourse of life, and even in the pastoral relation,
where he has to meet people on an equal footing, his power quite
disappears. He is an ineffective person, and his words have no weight.
Where this is true, there is something very far wrong; and though it was
not true in the case of Paul, there are cases in which it is. To bring
the pastoral up to the level of the pulpit work--the care of individual
souls and characters to the intensity and earnestness of study and
preaching--would be the saving of many a minister and many a
congregation.[86]
But to return to the text. The Apostle is disinclined to pursue this
line further: in defending himself against these obscure detractors,
he can hardly avoid the appearance of self-commendation, which of all
things he abhors. An acute observer has remarked that when war lasts
long the opposing combatants borrow each other's weapons and tactics:
and it was this uninviting weapon that the policy of his opponents
laid to the Apostle's hand. With ironical recognition of their
hardihood, he declines it: "We are not bold--have not the courage--to
number ourselves among, or compare ourselves with, certain of them
that commend themselves"--_i.e._, the Judaists who had introduced
themselves to the Church. "Far be it from me," says the Apostle
grimly, "to claim a place among, or near, such a distinguished
company." But he is too much in earnest to prolong the ironical
strain, and in the verses which follow, from 12 to 16, he states in
good set terms the differences between himself and them. (1) They
measure themselves by themselves, and compare themselves among
themselves, and in so doing are without understanding.[87] They
constitute a religious coterie, a sort of clique or ring in the
Church, ignoring all but themselves, making themselves the only
standard of what is Christian, and betraying, by that very
proceeding, their want of sense. There is a fine liberality about this
sharp saying, and it is as necessary now as in the first century. Men
coalesce, within the limits of the Christian community, from
affinities of various kinds--sympathy for a type or an aspect of
doctrine, or liking for a form of polity; and as it is easy, so is it
common, for those who have united like to like, to set up their own
associations and preferences as the only law and model for all. They
take the air of superior persons, and the penalty of the superior
person is to be unintelligent. They are without understanding. The
standard of the coterie--be it "evangelical," "high church," "broad
church," or what you please--is not the standard of God; and to
measure all things by it is not only sinful but stupid. In contrast to
this Judaistic clique, who saw no Christianity except under their own
colours, Paul's standard is to be found in the actual working of God
through the Gospel. He would have said with Ignatius, only with a
deeper insight into every word, "Where Jesus Christ is, there is the
Catholic Church." (2) Another point of difference is this: Paul works
independently as an evangelist; it has always been his rule to break
new ground. God has assigned him a province to labour in, large enough
to gratify the highest ambition; he is not going beyond it, nor
exaggerating his authority, when he asserts his apostolic dignity in
Corinth; the Corinthians know as well as he that he came all the way
to them, and was the first to come, ministering the Gospel of Christ.
Nay, it is only the weakness of their faith that keeps him from going
farther: and he has hope that as their faith grows it will set him
free to carry the Gospel beyond them to Italy and Spain; this would be
the crown of his greatness as an evangelist, and it depends _on them_
(ἐν ὑμῖν μεγαλυνθῆναι) whether he is to win it; in any case, the
winning of it would be in harmony with his vocation, the carrying of
it out in glorious fulness (κατὰ τὸν κανόνα εἰς περισσείαν); for, like
John Wesley, he could say the whole world was his parish. If he boasts
at all, it is not immeasurably; it is on the basis of the gift and
calling of God, within the limits of what God has wrought by him and
by no other; he never intrudes into another's province and boasts of
what he finds done to his hand. But this was what the Jews did. They
did not propagate the Gospel with apostolic enthusiasm among the
heathen; they waited till Paul had done the hard preliminary work, and
formed Christian congregations everywhere, and then they slunk into
them--in Galatia, in Macedonia, in Achaia--talking as if these
Churches were _their_ work, disparaging their real father in Christ,
and claiming to complete and legitimate--which meant, in effect, to
subvert---his work. No wonder Paul was scornful, and did not venture
to put himself in a line with such heroes.
Two feelings are compounded all through this passage: an intense
sympathy with the purpose of God that the Gospel should be preached to
every creature--Paul's very soul melts into that; and an intense scorn
for the spirit that sneaks and poaches on another's ground, and is more
anxious that some men should be good sectarians than that all men should
be good disciples. This evil spirit Paul loathes, just as Christ loathed
it; the temper of these verses is that in which the Master cried, "Woe
unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land
to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold
more a son of hell than yourselves." Of course the evil spirit must
always be disguised, both from others and from itself: the proselytiser
assumes the garb of the evangelist; but the proselytiser turned
evangelist is the purest example in the world of Satan disguised as an
angel of light. The show is divine, but the reality is diabolical. It
does not matter what the special sectarianism is: the proselytising of a
hierarchical Church, and the proselytising of the Plymouth Brethren, are
alike dishonourable and alike condemned. And the safeguard of the soul
against this base spirit is an interest like Paul's in the
Christianising of those who do not know Christ at all. Why should
Churches compete? why should their agencies overlap? why should they
steal from each other's folds? why should they be anxious to seal all
believers with their private seal, when the whole world lies in
wickedness? That field is large enough for all the efforts of all
evangelists, and till it has been sown with the good seed from end to
end there can be nothing but reprobation for those who trespass on the
province of others, and boast that they have made their own what they
certainly did not make Christ's.
At the close, to borrow Bengel's expression, Paul sounds a retreat. He
has liberated his mind about his adversaries--always a more or less
dangerous process; and after the excitement and self-assertion are over,
he composes it again in the presence of God. He checks himself, we feel,
with that Old Testament word, "Now he that glorieth, let him glory in
the Lord. I _have_ always broken new ground; I _have_ come as far as
you, and wish to go farther, evangelising; I never _have_ boasted of
another man's labours as if they were mine, or claimed the credit of
what he had done; but all this is mine only as God's gift. It is His
grace bestowed on me, and not in vain. I would not boast except in Him;
for not he who commends himself is approved, but only he whom the Lord
commends." No character which is only self-certificated can stand the
test: no claim to apostolic dignity and authority can be maintained
which the Lord does not attest by granting apostolic success.
NOTE ON VV. 12 AND 13.--In some MSS. (D*, F, G, 109, It., and some
Latins) the last two words of ver. 12 and the first two of ver. 13
(οὐ συνιᾶσιν· ἡμεῖς δέ) are omitted. Most editors of the text
(Tischdf. vii., Tregelles, Westcott and Hort) seem to think the
omission accidental; among exegetes, the fact that it yields an
easy and natural, though of course a quite different, sense, has
caused some hesitation. Thus Bengel, and recently Schmiedel,
reject the words. The latter renders the whole passage: "We do not
venture to put ourselves on a level, or to compare ourselves, with
certain of those who commend themselves; but in measuring
ourselves by ourselves, and comparing ourselves with ourselves, we
shall not boast beyond measure, but according to the measure of
the rule," etc. This is no doubt intelligible and appropriate
enough, and certainly one's first impression is that ἀλλ' αὐτοί in
ver. 12 ought to refer to Paul; but as the meaning yielded by the
passage with the four words included is equally appropriate, and
their insertion immeasurably harder to understand than their
omission, it seems preferable to let them stand, in the sense
explained above. They are found (with the variation of συνίσασιν
for συνιᾶσιν in א*) in א**, B, minusc. Theodoret: in E, K, L, P,
the form is συνιοῦσιν. Apparently it is only by an accident that
their omission leaves good sense.
FOOTNOTES:
[83] This is the reading adopted by Westcott and Hort with most MSS.
except B.
[84] The difficult τε in ἐάν τε γὰρ is most easily explained by the
ellipse of a corresponding καί: of several reasons he might adduce,
Paul adduces only one (Schmiedel).
[85] The ninth verse, Ἳνα μὴ δόξω κ.τ.λ. is most naturally taken with
what precedes, and most simply explained by supplying something like,
"but I say no more about it, _i.e._ about my authority, that I may not
seem," etc. To say more would look like trying to frighten them.
Others make it protasis to ver. 11, ver. 10 being then a parenthesis.