foolish receive me, that I also may glory a little. That which I
speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness, in this
confidence of glorying. Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I
will glory also. For ye bear with the foolish gladly, being wise
_yourselves_. For ye bear with a man, if he bringeth you into
bondage, if he devoureth you, if he taketh you _captive_, if he
exalteth himself, if he smiteth you on the face. I speak by way of
disparagement, as though we had been weak. Yet whereinsoever any
is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also. Are they
Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed
of Abraham? so am I. Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as one
beside himself) I more; in labours more abundantly, in prisons
more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the
Jews five times received I forty _stripes_ save one. Thrice was I
beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck,
a night and a day have I been in the deep; _in_ journeyings
often, _in_ perils of rivers, _in_ perils of robbers, _in_ perils
from _my_ countrymen, _in_ perils from the Gentiles, _in_ perils
in the city, _in_ perils in the wilderness, _in_ perils in the
sea, _in_ perils among false brethren; _in_ labour and travail, in
watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold
and nakedness. Beside those things that are without, there is that
which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the Churches. Who is
weak, and I am not weak? who is made to stumble, and I burn
not?"--2 COR. xi. 7-29 (R.V.).
The connexion of ver. 7 with what precedes is not at once clear. The
Apostle has expressed his conviction that he is in nothing inferior to
"the superlative apostles" so greatly honoured by the Corinthians.
Why, then, is he so differently treated? A rudeness in speech he is
willing to concede, but that can hardly be the explanation,
considering his fulness of knowledge. Then another idea strikes him,
and he puts it, interrogatively, as an alternative. Can it be that he
did wrong--humbling himself that they might be exalted--in preaching
to them the Gospel of God for nought, _i.e._ in declining to accept
support from them while he evangelised in Corinth? Do they appreciate
the interlopers more highly than Paul, because they exact a price for
their gospel, while he preached his for nothing? This, of course, is
bitterly ironical; but it is not gratuitous. The background of fact
which prompted the Apostle's question was no doubt this--that his
adversaries had misinterpreted his conduct. A true apostle, they said,
has a right to be maintained by the Church; the Lord Himself has
ordained that they who preach the Gospel should live by the Gospel;
but he claims no maintenance, and by that very fact betrays a bad
conscience. He dare not make the claim which every true apostle makes
without the least misgiving.
It would be hard to imagine anything more malignant in its wickedness
than this. Paul's refusal to claim support from those to whom he
preached is one of the most purely and characteristically Christian of
all his actions. He felt himself, by the grace of Christ, a debtor to
all men; he owed them the Gospel; it was as if he were defrauding them
if he did not tell them of the love of God in His Son. He felt himself
in immense sympathy with the spirit of the Gospel; it was the free
gift of God to the world, and as far as it depended on him its
absolute freeness would not be obscured by the merest suspicion of a
price to be paid. He knew that in foregoing his maintenance he was
resigning a right secured to him by Christ (1 Cor. ix. 14), humbling
himself, as he puts it here, that others might be spiritually exalted;
but he had the joy of preaching the Gospel in the spirit of the
Gospel--of entering, in Christ's service, into the self-sacrificing
joy of his Lord; and he valued this above all earthly reward. To
accuse such a man, on such grounds, of having a bad conscience, and of
being afraid to live by his work, because he knew it was not what it
pretended to be, was to sound the depths of baseness. It gave Paul in
some measure the Master's experience, when the Pharisees said, "He
casteth out devils by Beelzebub, the prince of the devils." It is
really the prince of the devils, the accuser of the brethren, who
speaks in all such malignant insinuations; it is the most diabolical
thing any one can do--the nearest approach to sinning against the Holy
Ghost--when he sets himself to find out bad motives for good actions.
As we shall see further on, Paul's enemies made more specific charges:
they hinted that he made his own out of the Corinthians indirectly, and
that he could indemnify himself, for this abstinence, from the
collection (chaps. xii. 16-18, chap. viii. and ix.). Perhaps this is why
he describes his actual conduct at Corinth in such vigorous language
(vv. 7-11), before saying anything at all of his motives. "I preached to
you the Gospel of God," he says, "for nothing." He calls it "the Gospel
of God" with intentional fulness and solemnity; the genuine Gospel, he
means--not another, which is no gospel at all, but a subversion of the
truth. He robbed other Churches, and took wages from them, in order to
minister to the Corinthians. There is a mingling of ideas in the strong
words here used. The English reader thinks of Paul's doing less than
justice to other Churches that he might do more than justice to the
Corinthians; but though this is true, it is not all. Both "robbed"
(ἐσύλησα) and "wages" (ὀψώνιον), as Bengel has pointed out, are military
words, and it is difficult to resist the impression that Paul used them
as such; he did not come to Corinth to be dependent on any one, but in
the course of a triumphant progress, in which he devoted the spoils of
his earlier victories for Christ to a new campaign in Achaia.[93] Nay,
even when he was with them and was "in want" (what a ray of light that
one word ὑστερηθείς lets into his circumstances!), he did not throw
himself like a benumbing weight on any one; what his own labours failed
to supply, the brethren (perhaps Silas and Timothy) made good when they
came from Macedonia. This has been his practice, and will continue to be
so. He swears by the truth of Christ that is in him, that no man shall
ever stop his mouth, so far as boasting of this independence is
concerned, in the regions of Achaia. Why? His tender heart dismisses the
one painful supposition which could possibly arise. "Because I love you
not? God knoweth." Love is wounded when its proffered gifts are rejected
with scorn, and when _their_ rejection means that _it_ is rejected; but
that was not the situation here. Paul can appeal to Him who knows the
heart in proof of the sincerity with which he loves the Corinthians.
His fixed purpose to be indebted to no one in Achaia has another
object in view. What that is he explains in the twelfth verse. Strange
to say, this verse, like ver. 4, has received two precisely opposite
interpretations. (1) Some start with the idea that Paul's adversaries
at Corinth were persons who took no support from the Church, and
boasted of their disinterestedness in this respect. The "occasion"
which they desired was an occasion of any sort for disparaging and
discrediting Paul; and they felt they would have such an occasion if
Paul accepted support from the Church, and so put himself in a
position of inferiority to them. But Paul persists in his self-denying
policy, with the object of depriving them of the opportunity they
seek, and at the same time of proving them--in this very point of
disinterestedness--to be in exactly the same position as himself. But
surely, throughout both Epistles, a contrast is implied, in this very
point, between Paul and his opponents: the tacit assumption is always
that his line of conduct is singular, and is not to be made a rule.
And in the face of ver. 20 it is too much to assume that it was the
rule of his Judaising opponents in Corinth. (2) Others start with the
idea, which seems to me indubitably right, that these opponents did
accept support from the Church. But even on this assumption opinions
diverge. (_a_) Some argue that Paul pursued his policy of abstinence
partly to deprive them of any opportunity of disparaging him, and
partly to compel them to adopt it themselves ("that they may be found
even as we").[94] I can hardly imagine this being taken seriously. Why
should Paul have wanted to lift these preachers of a false gospel to a
level with himself in point of generosity? To coerce them into a
reluctant self-denial could be no possible object to him either of
wish or hope. Hence there seems only (_b_) the other alternative open,
which makes the last clause--"that wherein they boast, they may be
found even as we"--depend, not upon "what I do, that I will do," but
upon "them that desire occasion."[95] What the adversaries desired
was, not occasion to disparage Paul in general, but occasion of being
on an equality with him in the matter in which they gloried--viz.,
their apostolic claims. They felt the advantage which Paul's
disinterestedness gave him with the Corinthians; they had not
themselves the generosity needed to imitate it; it was not enough to
assail it with covert slanders (chap. xii. 16-18), or to say that he
was afraid to claim an apostle's due; it would have been all they
wanted had he resigned it. Then they could have said that in that in
which they boasted--apostolic dignity--they were precisely on a level
with him. But not to mention the spiritual motives for his conduct,
which have been already explained, and were independent of all
relation to his opponents, Paul was too capable a strategist to
surrender such a position to the enemy. It would never be by action
of his that he and they found themselves on the same ground.
At the very mention of such an equality his heart rises within him.
"Found even as we! Why, such men are false apostles, deceitful workers,
fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ." Here, at last, the irony
is cast aside, and Paul calls a spade a spade. The conception of
apostleship in the New Testament is not that dogmatic traditional one,
which limits the name to the Twelve, or to the Twelve and the Apostle of
the Gentiles; as we see from passages like chap. viii. 23, Acts xiv. 4,
14, it had a much larger application. What Paul means when he calls his
opponents false apostles is not that persons _in their position_ could
have no right to the name; but that persons _with their character_,
their aims, and their methods, would only deceive others when they used
it. It ought to cover something quite different from what it actually
did cover in them. He explains himself further when he calls them
"deceitful workers." That they were active he does not deny; but the
true end of their activity was not declared. As far as the word itself
goes, the "deceit" which they used may have been intended to cloak
either their personal or their proselytising views. After what we have
read in chap. x. 12-18, the latter seems preferable. The Judaising
preachers had shown their hand in Galatia, demanding openly that Paul's
converts should be circumcised, and keep the law of Moses as a whole;
but their experience there had made them cautious, and when they came to
Corinth they proceeded more diplomatically. They tried to sap the
Pauline Gospel, partly by preaching "another Jesus," partly by calling
in question the legitimacy of Paul's vocation. They said nothing openly
of what was the inevitable and intended issue of all this--the bringing
of spiritual Gentile Christendom under the old Jewish yoke. But it is
this which goes to the Apostle's soul; he can be nothing but
irreconcilably hostile to men who have assumed the guise of apostles of
Christ, in order that they may with greater security subvert Christ's
characteristic work. Paul dwells on the deceitfulness of their conduct
as its most offensive feature; yet he does not wonder at it, for even
Satan, he says, fashions himself into an angel of light. It is no great
thing, then, if his servants also fashion themselves as servants of
righteousness.
We can only tell in a general way what Paul meant when he spoke of
Satan, the prince of darkness, transfiguring himself so as to appear a
heavenly angel. He may have had some Jewish legend in his mind, some
story of a famous temptation, unknown to us, or he may only have
intended to represent to the imagination, with the utmost possible
vividness, one of the familiar laws in our moral experience, a law
which was strikingly illustrated by the conduct of his adversaries at
Corinth. Evil, we all know, could never tempt us if we saw it simply
as it is; disguise is essential to its power; it appeals to man
through ideas and hopes which he cannot but regard as good. So it was
in the very first temptation. An act which in its essential character
was neither more nor less than one of direct disobedience to God was
represented by the tempter, not in that character, but as the means by
which man was to obtain possession of a tree good for food (sensual
satisfaction), and pleasant to the eyes (æsthetic satisfaction), and
desirable to make one wise (intellectual satisfaction). All these
satisfactions, which in themselves are undeniably good, were the
cloak under which the tempter hid his true features. He was a murderer
from the beginning, and entered Eden to ruin man, but he presented
himself as one offering to man a vast enlargement of life and joy.
This is the nature of all temptations; to disguise himself, to look as
like a good angel as he can, is the first necessity, and therefore the
first invention, of the devil. And all who do his work, the Apostle
says, naturally imitate his devices. The soul of man is born for good,
and will not listen at all to any voice which does not profess at
least to speak for good: this is why the devil is a liar from the
beginning, and the father of lies. Lying in word and deed is the one
weapon with which he can assail the simplicity of man.
But how does this apply to the Judaisers in Corinth? To Paul, we must
understand, they were men affecting to serve Christ, but really
impelled by personal, or at the utmost by partisan, feelings. Their
true object was to win an ascendency for themselves, or for their
party, in the Church; but they made their way into it as evangelists
and apostles. Nominally, they were ministers of Christ; really, they
ministered to their own vanity, and to the bigotry and prejudices of
their race. They professed to be furthering the cause of
righteousness,[96] but in sober truth the only cause which was the
better for them was that of their own private importance; the result
of their ministry was, not that bad men became good, but that they
themselves felt entitled to give themselves airs. Over against all
this unreality Paul remembers the righteous judgment of God. "Whose
end," he concludes abruptly, "shall be according to their works."
The most serious aspect of such a situation as this is seen when we
consider that men may fill it unconsciously: they may devote
themselves to a cause which looks like the cause of Christ, or the
cause of righteousness; and at bottom it may not be Christ or
righteousness at all which is the animating principle in their hearts.
It is some hidden regard to themselves, or to a party with which they
are identified. Even when they labour, and possibly suffer, it is
this, and not loyalty to Christ, which sustains them. It may be in
defence of orthodoxy, or in furtherance of liberalism, that a man puts
himself forward in the Church, and in either case he will figure to
those who agree with him as a servant of righteousness; but equally in
either case the secret spring of his action may be pride, the desire
to assert a superiority, to consolidate a party which is his larger
self, to secure an area in which he may rule. He may spend energy and
talent on the work; but if this is the ultimate motive of it, it is
the work of the devil, and not of God. Even if the doctrine he defends
is the true one--even if the policy he maintains is the right one--the
services he may accidentally render are far outweighed by the
domestication in the Church of a spirit so alien to the Lord's. It is
diabolical, not divine; the Gospel is profaned by contact with it; the
Church is prostituted when it serves as an arena for its exercise;
when it comes forward in the interest of righteousness, it is Satan
fashioning himself into an angel of light.
At this point Paul returns to the idea which has been in his mind
since chap. x. 7--the idea of boasting, or rather glorying. He does
not like the thing itself, and just as little does he like the mask of
a fool, under which he is to play the part: he is conscious that
neither suits him. Hence he clears the ground once more, before he
commits himself. "Again, I say, let no man think that I _am_ foolish;
but if that favour cannot be granted, then even as a foolish person
receive me, that I also may boast a little." There is a fine satirical
reflection in the "also." If he does make a fool of himself by
boasting, he is only doing what the others do, whom the Corinthians
receive with open arms. But it strikes his conscience suddenly that
there is a higher rule for the conduct of a Christian man than the
example of his rivals, or the patience of his friends. The tenderness
of Paul's spirit comes out in the next words: "What I speak, I speak
_not after the Lord_, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of
glorying." The Lord never boasted; nothing could be conceived less
like Him, less after His mind; and Paul will have it distinctly
understood that _His_ character is not compromised by any extravagance
of which His servant may here make himself guilty. As a rule, the
Apostle did speak "after the Lord"; his habitual consciousness was
that of one who had "the mind of Christ," and who felt that Christ's
character was, in a sense, in his keeping. That ought to be the rule
for all Christians; we should never find ourselves in situations in
which the Christian character, with all its responsibilities,
affecting both ourselves and Him, cannot be maintained. With Christ
and His interests removed from the scene, Paul at length feels
himself free to measure himself against his rivals. "Since many glory
after the flesh, I also will glory." The flesh means everything except
the spirit. Where Christ and the Gospel are concerned, it is,
according to Paul, an absolute irrelevance, a thing to be simply left
out of account; but since they persist in dragging it in, he will meet
them on their own ground. What that is, first comes out clearly in
ver. 22: but the Apostle delays again to urge his plea for tolerance.
"Ye suffer the foolish gladly, being wise yourselves." It answers best
to the vehemence of the whole passage to take the first clause
here--"Ye suffer the foolish gladly"--as grim earnest, the reference
being to the other boasters, Paul's rivals; and only the second clause
ironically. Then ver. 20 would give the proof of this: "Ye bear with
the foolish gladly ... for ye bear with a man if he enslaves you, if
he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself over
you, if he strikes you on the face." We must suppose that this strong
language describes the overbearing and violent behaviour of the
Judaists in Corinth. We do not need to take it literally, but neither
may we suppose that Paul spoke at random: he is virtually contrasting
his own conduct and that of the people in question, and the nature of
the contrast must be on the whole correctly indicated. He himself had
been accused of weakness; and he frankly admits that, if comparison
has to be made with a line of action like this, the accusation is
just. "I speak by way of disparagement, as though we had been weak."
This rendering of the Revised Version fairly conveys the meaning. It
might be expressed in a paraphrase, as follows: "In saying what I have
said of the behaviour of my rivals, I have been speaking to my own
disparagement, the idea involved[97] being that _I_" (notice the
emphatic ἡμεῖς) "have been weak. Weak, no doubt, I was, if violent
action like theirs is the true measure of strength: nevertheless,
whereinsoever any is bold (I speak in foolishness), I am bold also. On
whatever ground they claim to exercise such extraordinary powers, that
ground I can maintain as well as they."
Here, finally, the boasting does begin. "Are they Hebrews? so am I.
Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I."
This is the sum and substance of what is meant by their glorying after
the flesh: they prided themselves on their birth, and claimed
authority on the strength of it. They may have appealed, not only to
the election of Israel as the Old Testament represents it, but to
words of Jesus, like "Salvation is of the Jews." The three names for
what is in reality one thing convey the impression of the immense
importance which was assigned to it. "Hebrews" seems the least
significant; it is merely the _national_ name, with whatever
historical glories attached to it in Hebrew minds. "Israelites" is a
_sacred_ name; it is identified with the prerogatives of the
theocratic people: Paul himself, when his heart swells with patriotic
emotion, begins the enumeration of the privileges belonging to his
kinsmen after the flesh--"they, who are Israelites." "Seed of
Abraham," again, is for the Apostle, and probably for these rivals of
his, equivalent to "heirs of the promises"; it describes the Jewish
people as more directly and immediately interested--nay, as alone
directly and immediately interested--in the salvation of God. No one
could read Rom. ix. 4 f. without feeling that pride of race--pride in
his people, and in their special relation to God and special place in
the history of redemption--was among the strongest passions in the
Apostle's heart; and we can understand the indignation and scorn with
which he regarded men who tracked him over Asia and Europe, assailed
his authority, and sought to undermine his work, on the ground that he
was faithless to the lawful prerogatives of Israel. There was not an
Israelite in the world prouder of his birth, with a more magnificent
sense of his country's glories, than the Apostle of the Gentiles: and
it provoked him beyond endurance to see the things in which he gloried
debased, as they were debased, by his rivals--made the symbols of a
paltry vanity which he despised, made barriers to the universal love
of God by which all the families of the earth were to be blessed.
Driven to extremity, he could only outlaw such opponents from the
Christian community, and transfer the prerogatives of Israel to the
Church. "_We_," he taught his Gentile converts to say--"_we are the
circumcision_, who worship by the Spirit of God, and rejoice in Christ
Jesus, _and have no confidence in the flesh_" (Phil. iii. 3).