Commentari biblici

CHAPTER 2

2 Corinthians 2:1. πάλιν ἐν λύπῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς ἐλθεῖν] Elz.: πάλιν ἐλθεἶν ἐν λύπῃ πρὸς ὑμᾶς, in opposition to A B C K L א, min. Theodoret, Damasc., also in opposition to D E F G, 14, 120, al., Syr. Arm. Vulg. It. Chrys. Theophyl. and the Latin Fathers, who have πάλιν ἐν λύπῃ ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς (so Tisch.). The Recepta[135] is evidently a transposition to connect πάλιν with ἐλθεῖν, because it was supposed that Paul had been only once in Corinth.—2 Corinthians 2:2. ἐστιν after τίς is wanting in A B C א, Copt. Syr. Cyr. Dam. Lachm. Tisch. Supplemental addition.—2 Corinthians 2:3. ὑμῖν] after ἔγρ. is to be struck out as an explanatory addition. So Lachm. and Tisch., who follow A B C* א* 17, Copt. Arm. Damasc. Ambrosiast.—2 Corinthians 2:3. λύπην] D E F G, min. Vulg. It. Syr. p. Pel. Beda: λύπην ἐπὶ λύπην. Amplification, in accordance with 2 Corinthians 2:1.—2 Corinthians 2:7. μᾶλλον] is wanting in A B, Syr. Aug. (deleted by Rückert). In D E F G, Theodoret, it stands only after ὑμᾶς. As it was superfluous, it was sometimes passed over, sometimes transposed.—2 Corinthians 2:9. Instead of εἰ, A and B have ᾗ. But how easily might εἰ be dropped before εἰς (so in 80), and then be variously replaced (109: ὡς)!—2 Corinthians 2:10. ὃ κεχάρισμαι, εἰ τι κεχάρισμαι] So A B C F G א, min. Vulg. It. Damasc. Jer. Ambrosiast. Pacian. Pel. Griesb. Scholz, Lachm. Rück. Tisch. But Elz. has εἰ τι κεχάρισμαι, ᾧ κεχάρισμαι, defended by Reiche. This reading arose from the Codd., which read (evidently in accordance with the previous ᾧ) ᾧ κεχάρισμαι, εἴ τι κεχάρισμαι (so still D*** E, 31, 37). The repetition of κεχάρισμαι caused the εἴ τι κεχ. to be left out;[136] afterwards it was restored at a wrong place.—2 Corinthians 2:16. Before θανάτου and before ζωῆς there stands ἐκ in A B C א, min. Copt. Aeth. Clem. Or. and other Fathers. Rightly; the ἐκ seemed contrary to the sense, and was therefore omitted. Accepted by Lachm. and Tisch., rejected by Reiche.—2 Corinthians 2:17. οἱ πολλοί] D E F G L, min. and some versions and Fathers have οἱ λοιποί, which Mill favoured, Griesbach recommended, and Reiche defended. But οἱ πολλοί has preponderating evidence; λοιποί was a modifying gloss, and displaced the othe.

κατενώπιον] κατέναντι, as well as the omission of the following article, has preponderating attestation, and hence, with Lachm. and Rück., it is to be preferred.

[135] Which, perhaps, has no authorities at all; see Reiche, Comm. Crit. I. p. 355 f.

[136] Also with the reading ὅ this omission of the copyist took place, as still 39, 73, Aeth. Ambr. hare merely ὅ κεχάρισμαι.

2 Corinthians 2:1. Ἔκρινα δὲ ἐμαυτῷ τοῦτο] δέ is the usual μεταβατικόν, which leads on from the assurance given by Paul in 2 Corinthians 1:23, to the thought that he in his own interest (ἐμαυτῷ, dativus commodi; for see 2 Corinthians 2:2) was not willing to come again to them ἐν λύπῃ.

The interpretation apud me (Vulgate, Luther, Beza, and many others) would require παρʼ ἐμαυτῷ or ἐν ἐμ. (1 Corinthians 7:37; 1 Corinthians 11:13). Paul, by means of ἐμαυτῷ, gives to the matter an ingenious, affectionate turn, regarding the truth of which, however, there is no doub.

ἔκρινα] I determined, as 1 Corinthians 2:2; 1 Corinthians 7:27. As to the emphatically preparatory τοῦτο with following infinitive accompanied by the article, comp. on Romans 14:13, and Krüger, § li. 7. 4.

πάλιν] belongs to ἐν λύπῃ πρὸς ὑμ. ἐλθεῖν, taken together, so that Paul had once already (namely, on his second arrival) come to the Corinthians ἐν λύπῃ. The connection with ἐλθεῖν merely (Pelagius, Primasius, Theodoret, and the most; also Flatt, Baur, Reiche), a consequence of the error that Paul before our Epistles had been only once in Corinth,[137] is improbable even with the Recepta (the more suitable order of the words would be: τὸ μὴ ἐν λύπῃ πάλιν ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς), but is impossible both with our reading and with that of Tischendorf (see the critical remarks), unless we quite arbitrarily suppose, with Grotius (comp. also Reiche), a trajectio, or, with Baur, I. p. 342, an inaccuracy of epistolary styl.

ἐν λύπῃ] provided with affliction (Bernhardy, p. 109; comp. Romans 15:29), bringing affliction with me, i.e. afflicting you. This explanation (Theodoret, Calvin, Grotius, and others, including Ewald) is, indeed, held by Hofmann to be impossible in itself, but is required by the following εἰ γὰρ ἐγὼ λυπῶ ὑμᾶς. Hence Billroth and Hofmann, following Chrysostom and many others, are wrong in thinking that the apostle’s own sadness is meant; and so also Bengel, Olshausen, Rückert, de Wette, Reiche, Neander, following Ambrosiaster, and others, who think that it is also included. That it is not meant at all, is shown by φειδόμενος, 2 Corinthians 1:23, and by the coupling of what follows with ΓΆΡ. Comp. ἘΝ ῬΆΒΔῼ, 1 Corinthians 4:21. The apparent difficulty, that Paul in our first Epistle makes no mention whatever of the fact and manner of his former visit to Corinth when he caused affliction, is obviated by the consideration that only after our first Epistle was the change of plan used to the apostle’s disadvantage, and that only now was he thereby compelled to mention the earlier arrival which had been made ἘΝ ΛΎΠῌ. Hence this passage is not a proof for the assumption of a journey to Corinth between our two Epistles (see the Introd.).

[137] This error has compelled many to get out of the difficulty by conceiving our first Epistle as the first coming ἐν λύπῃ So Chrysostom, Calvin, Beza, Bengel, and others. Lange, Apostol. Zeitalt. I. p. 204, believes that he has found another way: that Paul had the veryfirst time come to Corinth in affliction (1 Corinthians 2:1 ff.), which affliction he had brought mill him from Athens. As if in 1 Corinthians 2:1 ff. he is speaking of a λύπη! and as if a λύπη brought with him from Athens, though nowhere proved, would have had anything to do with the Corinthians!

2 Corinthians 2:1-4. Continuation of what was begun in 2 Corinthians 1:23.

2 Corinthians 2:2. As reason for his undertaking not to come to his readers again ἐν λύπῃ, Paul states that he on his own part could not in this case hope to find any joy among them. Comp. 2 Corinthians 2:3. For if I afflict you, who is there also to give me joy, except him who is afflicted by me?—i.e., if I on my part (ἐγώ is emphatic[138]) make you afflicted, then results the contradiction that the very one who is afflicted by me is the one who should give me joy. Against this view Billroth and Rückert object that εἰ μὴ … ἐμοῦ is superfluous, and even in the way. No; it discloses the absurdity of the case conditioned by εἰ ἐγὼ λυπῶ ὑμᾶς. Pelagius, Bengel, and others, including Billroth, render: who yet so much gladdens me as he who lets himself be afflicted by me (which is a sign of amendment)? Comp. Chrysostom, and Theodoret, Erasmus, and others. So also Olshausen, who sees here an indirect warning to take the former censure more to heart. But against this perversion of ὁ λυπούμενος in a middle sense, we may decisively urge:—(1) that the sense of 2 Corinthians 2:2 would not stand in any relation to 2 Corinthians 2:1 as furnishing a reason for it; and (2) the οὐχ ἵνα λυπηθῆτε in 2 Corinthians 2:4. Rückert sees in εἰ … ὑμᾶς an aposiopesis; then begins a new question, which contains the reason why he may not afflict them, because it would be unloving, nay, ungrateful, to afflict those who cause him so much joy. Hence the meaning, touchingly expressed, is: “I might not come to you afflicting you; for if I had done so, I should have afflicted those very ones who give me joy: this would have been unloving on my part.” This is all the more arbitrary, since, logically at least, it must have stood in the converse order: καὶ τίς ἐστιν ὁ λυπούμενος ἐξ ἐμοῦ εἰ μὴ ὁ εὐφραίνων με. Hofmann holds still more arbitrarily and oddly that εἰ γάρ is elliptical protasis, and ἐγὼ λυπῶ ὑμᾶς apodosis: if I come to you again in affliction, I make you afflicted, and who is there then who gladdens me, except him whom affliction coming from me befalls? The well-known omission of the verb in the protasis after εἰ is, in fact, a usage of quite another nature (see Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 213; Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 497; Krüger, § lxv. 5. 11). Besides, this subtlety falls with Hofmann’s view of 2 Corinthians 2:1.

καί] also, expresses after the conditional clause the simultaneousness of what is contained in the apodosis, consequently without the interrogative form: there is also no one, etc. See Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 130 f.; Buttmann, neut. Gramm. p. 311 [E. T. 362].

ὁ λυπούμενος] does not mean the incestuous person (so, against the entire connection, Beza, Calovius, Cornelius a Lapide, Heumann); but the singular of the participle with the article denotes the one who gives joy, as such, in abstracto. Comp. 1 Peter 3:13, al.; Xen. Cyr. ii. 2. 20, al. Paul might have written τίνες εἰσὶν οἱ κ.τ.λ., but he was not under necessity of doing s.

ἐξ ἐμοῦ] source of the λυπεῖσθαι. See Bernhardy, p. 227; Schoem. ad Is. p. 348; Winer, p. 345 [E. T. 385]. Comp. ἀφʼ ὧν, 2 Corinthians 2:3; but ἐξ is “quiddam penitius,” Bengel.

[138] This emphasis is usually not recognised. But in the ἐγώ there lies a contrast to others who do not stand in such an intimate relation to the readers as Paul. Comp. Osiander.

2 Corinthians 2:3 appends what Paul had done in consequence of the state of things mentioned in 2 Corinthians 2:1 f.: And I have written (not reserved till I could communicate orally) this very thing, i.e. exactly what I have written, in order not, when I shall have come, to have affliction, et.

ἔγραψα] placed first with emphasis, corresponds to the following ἐλθών, and does not at all refer to the present Epistle (Chrysostom and his followers, Grotius, and others, including Olshausen), against which opinion 2 Corinthians 2:4; 2 Corinthians 2:9 are decisive, but to out first Epistle, the contents of which in reference to this point are rendered present by τοῦτο αὐτό; as indeed οὗτος is used often of what is well known, which is pointed to as if it were lying before one (Kühner, II. p. 325). That Paul is thinking of the passages of censure and rebuke in the first Epistle (especially of chap. 5[139]), results from the context, and suffices for its explanation, so that the reference to a lost letter sent along with Titus (Bleek, Neander, Ewald, Klöpper; see Introd. § 1) is not required. With Theodoret, Erasmus, Morus, Flatt, Rückert, Hofmann,[140] to take τοῦτο αὐτό as in 2 Peter 1:5, for this very reason, cannot in itself be objected to (Bernhardy, p. 130; Kühner, § 549, A. 2; Ast, ad Plat. Leg. p. 214; and see on Galatians 2:10 and on Php 1:6); but here, where Paul has just written in 2 Corinthians 2:1 τοῦτο as the accusative of the object, and afterwards in 2 Corinthians 2:9 expresses the sense for this reason by εἰς τοῦτο, there is no ground for it in the contex.

ἽΝΑ ΜῊ Κ.Τ.Λ.] Since his arrival was at that time still impending, and Paul consequently denotes by ἽΝΑ … ἜΧΩ a purpose still continuing in the present, the subjunctive ἜΧΩ (or ΣΧῶ, as Lachmann, Rückert, and Tischendorf read, following A B א*, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Oecumenius) after the preterite ἜΓΡΑΨΑ is quite accurate (Matthiae, p. 1180); and Rückert is wrong when he takes ἘΛΘΏΝ hypothetically (if I had come), and refers σχῶ to the past. In that case, Paul could not but have used the optative.

ἀφʼ ὧν] ἀπὸ τούτων, ἀφʼ ὧν. See Bornem. Schol. in Luc. p. 2.

ἈΠΌ, on the part of. Χαίρειν does not elsewhere occur with ἀπό, but εὐφραίνεσθαι is similarly joined with ἀπό, Xen. Hier. iv. 6; Jdt 12:20.

ἜΔΕΙ] The imperfect indicates what properly (in the nature of the relation) ought to be, but what, in the case contemplated of the λύπην ἔχω, is not. See Matthiae, p. 1138 f.

ΠΕΠΟΙΘῺς Κ.Τ.Λ.] subjective reason assigned for the specified purpose of the ἜΓΡΑΨΑ: since I cherish the confidence towards you all, etc. Paul therefore says that, in order that he might find no affliction when present among them, he has communicated the matter by letter, because he is convinced that they would find their own joy in his joy (which, in the present instance, could not but be produced by the doing away of the existing evils according to the instructions of his letter).

ἐπί] of the direction of the confidence towards the readers. Comp. 2 Thessalonians 3:4; Matthew 27:43; Psalm 124:1. In classical authors usually with the dative, as 2 Corinthians 1:9.

ΠΆΝΤΑς ὙΜᾶς] This, in spite of the anti-Pauline part of the church, is the language of the love which ΠΆΝΤΑ ΠΙΣΤΕΎΕΙ, ΠΆΝΤΑ ἘΛΠΊΖΕΙ, 1 Corinthians 13:7. “Quodsi Pauli opinioni judicioque non respondeant Corinthii, indigne eum frustrantur,” Calvin.

[139] Not merely 1 Corinthians 4:21, wherein the μὴ ἐν λύπῃ ἑλθεῖν is held to be contained (Calovius, Osiander). 1 Corinthians 4:21 was only a casual threat.

[140] Hofmann, in accordance with his interpretation of τοῦτο αὐτό, “for this very reason,” which serves to point to the following ἵνα μὴ κ.τ.λ., thus defines the relation of vv. 1 and 3 : This is what I resolved for myself, that I would not again come to you in sorrow of heart. And this is the very reason why I wrote to you: I did not wish to have sorrow of heart on my arrival, etc. This is what Paul by the composition of his Epistle had wished to obtain for his sojourn, when he should come.

2 Corinthians 2:4. Reason assigned for the πεποιθὼς κ.τ.λ … For if I in writing the Epistle had not had that confidence, the Epistle would not have caused me so much grief and so many tears. In the very contrast of this confidence with the necessity of having to write in such a manner lay the great pai.

ἐκ and διά vividly represent the origin of the letter as a going forth and a pressing through: out of much affliction and anxiety of heart I wrote to you through many tears. And this Paul might say, even if he had not himself held the pe.

θλίψις and συνοχή (anxiety, Luke 21:25 : not so among the Greeks, but see Schleusner, Thes. V. p. 212) do not refer to outward, but to inward suffering, as both are defined by καρδίας. Rückert concludes from the calm tone of the first Epistle that Paul “had from prudent consideration known how to impose such restraint on his state of feeling, that the Epistle might not reflect any faithful picture of it.” But this would have been cunning dissimulation, not in keeping with the apostle’s character. No; it was just his specially tender care for the Corinthians which on the one hand increased his pain that he needed to write such rebukes, and on the other hand did not allow his vehement emotion to emerge in that Epistle; hence we must not say that the quiet character of our first Epistle is not psychologically in keeping with the utterance of this passage. In particular, 5 might have caused the apostle anxiety and tears enough, without our needing to suppose an intermediate letter (see on 2 Corinthians 2:3).

δακρύων] Comp. Acts 20:19; Acts 20:31. Calvin aptly says: “mollitiem testantur, sed magis heroicam, quam fuerit illa ferrea Stoicorum durities.”

οὐχ ἵνα λυπηθῆτε, ἀλλὰ κ.τ.λ.] This added explanation regarding the purpose of his letter, to him so painful, is intended also to corroborate the πεποιθὼς κ.τ.λ., of which he has given assuranc.

τὴν ἀγάπην] placed first for emphasi.

περισσοτ.] ἢ (εἰς) τοὺς ἄλλους μαθητάς, Theophylact, who, following Chrysostom, also directs attention to the winning tenderness of the words (καταγλυκαίνει δὲ τὸν λόγον βουλόμενος ἐπισπάσασθαι αὐτούς). Comp. 2 Corinthians 1:12. The love of the apostle for his churches has along with its universality its various degrees, just as the love of a father for his children. The Philippians also were specially dear to him.

2 Corinthians 2:5. “To cause grief among you was not my intention (2 Corinthians 2:4); he, however, who has (really) caused grief has not grieved me.” In other words: “I did not wish to grieve you; one of you, however, has with his afflicting influence, not affected me, but,” etc. Olshausen connects 2 Corinthians 2:5 with 2 Corinthians 2:3 : “if, however, any one formerly has awakened grief.” But how arbitrary it is to leap over the natural reference to the immediately preceding λυπηθῆτε! And if the “formerly” made the contrast, it must have been somehow expressed.

In the hypothetical εἰ, as in the indefinite τις, there lies a delicate, tender forbearanc.

οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπηκεν, ἀλλʼ] Paul does not say οὐ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καί, because as concerns the relation of the matter to himself he wishes absolutely to deny that he is the injured party. He could do this, because he did not belong to the church, and he wishes to leave wholly out of view his position as apostle and founder of the church in the interest of love and pardon. Olshausen thinks that he wishes indirectly to refute the erroneous position of some (impenitent) Corinthians towards the incident with the incestuous person; that many, namely, had lamented much to the apostle about the solicitude which that unhappy person had caused to him; and that, in order to make these turn from him to themselves, he says that the question is not about him, but about them, that they should look to their own pain. But of this alleged direction to occupy themselves with their own pain, there is nothing whatever in what follows; and the apostle would have set forth in more precise terms a rebuke so weighty; it was not at all fitting here, where the touched heart beats only with mildness and forgivenes.

λελύπηκεν] Bengel says aptly: “contristatum habet.”

ἀλλʼ ἀπὸ μέρους κ.τ.λ.] but in part, that I may not burden him (with greater guilt), you all. ἀπὸ μέρους, which Paul adds φειδόμενος αὐτοῦ (Chrysostom), softens the thought in λελύπηκεν πάντας ὑμᾶς, while it expresses that the grief is only in a partial degree, not wholly and fully (as on the one immediately concerned), inflicted on all, i.e. on the whole church by means of moral sympathy; only quodammodo (see Fritzsche, Diss. I. p. 16 ff.), therefore, are the readers all affected by that grief as sharers in it. The ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ (sc. αὐτόν) contains the purpose, for which he had added the softening limitation ἀπὸ μέρους. Beza, Calvin (in the Commentary), Calovius, Hammond, Homberg, Wolf, Estius, and others, following Chrysostom, agree with this punctuation and explanation; also Emmerling, Fritzsche, Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Neander, Ewald. Yet Räbiger explains it as if Paul had written σχεδόν instead of ἀπὸ μέρους. But others read ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβ. πάντας ὑμ. together: he has not grieved me (alone and truly), but only in part (consequently you also); in order that I may not lay something to the charge of you all; for, if he had grieved me alone, you would all have been indifferent towards the crime. So Thomas, Lyra, Luther, Castalio, Zeger, Bengel, Wetstein, and others, including Flatt. Incorrectly, because οὐκ ἐμέ and ἀλλʼ ἀπὸ μέρους cannot be antitheses. Mosheim and Billroth separate πάντας and ὑμᾶς: he has not grieved me, but in part, that I may not accuse all, you; for I will not be unjust, and give you all the blame of having been indifferent towards that crime. At variance with the words; for, according to these, with this punctuation those whom Paul accuses (ἐπιβαρεῖ) must appear to be not those indifferent, but those grieved by the incest. Olshausen also follows this punctuation, but finds in ἀπὸ μέρους, ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβ. πάντας a delicate irony (comp. also Michaelis, who, however, follows our punctuation), in so far as Paul would have held it as the highest praise of the Corinthians, if he could have said: he has grieved you without exception. Since he could not have said this, he wittily turns his words in this way: he has not grieved me, but, as regards a part, you, in order that I may not burden you all with this care. But this very wit and irony are quite foreign to the mild tone and the conciliatory disposition of this part of the Epistle. Hofmann takes οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπ. as a question, after which there comes in with ἀλλά the contrast (nevertheless) which continues over 2 Corinthians 2:5 and includes 2 Corinthians 2:6; in this case ἀπὸ μέρους is temporal in meaning (yet “firstly is enough”); and ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ πάντας ὑμᾶς, which is to be taken together, is meant to say that the apostle, if he expressed himself dissatisfied with what had been done by the majority, would burden the whole church with the pain of knowing that one of their members was under the ban of sin which remained unforgiven on the part of the apostle; lastly, the ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων stands in opposition to a minority, which had wished to go beyond the punishment decreed, a minority which is included in πάντας. But all this involved explanation is inadmissible, partly because the blunt question οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπ., bringing forward so nakedly a sense of personal injury, would be sadly out of unison with the shrewdly conciliatory tone of the whole context; partly because ἀπὸ μέρους, taken of time, is as linguistically incorrect as at 2 Corinthians 1:14, and would also furnish the indelicate thought of a ἱκανότης with reservation, and till something further; partly because the complexity of thought, which is said to lie in ἐπιβαρῶ, is just imported into it; partly because the supposition that the minority of the church would have gone still further in the punishment than the resolution of the majority went, is without all ground, nay, is in the highest degree improbable after the reproach of too great indulgence, 5

On ἐπιβαρεῖν, comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8; Dion. Hal. iv. 9, viii. 73; Appian, B. C. 4:31. Comp. βάρος of the burden of a feeling of guilt, Galatians 6:2.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11. Digression regarding the pardon to be granted to the incestuous person.

That the incestuous person is meant, as even Klöpper maintains in spite of his assumption of a lost intermediate letter, is denied by Tertullian (de Pudicitiâ, 13) simply for dogmatic-ascetic reasons. The exclusion, which Paul demanded in the first Epistle, 2 Corinthians 5:13, left open the possibility of a return to the communion of the church by the path of suitable penitence and expiation; as may be gathered also from 1 Corinthians 5:5, where the apostle’s threat of the higher excommunication, of the giving over to Satan, contemplates in this punishment the conversion and saving of the offender, and consequently shows clearly that in the apostle’s eyes the penal procedure of the church, even in the case of so grave a sin, was of a paedagogic nature in reference to the person of the evil-doer. The penance of the latter, however, as well as that of the whole church on his account (2 Corinthians 7:7 ff.), may have really been so deeply and keenly manifested, that Paul, in accordance with the now changed state of things, might express himself in such a mild, conciliatory way as he does here. And there is no sufficient ground in the passage for the assumption of an intermediate letter, or that there is here meant, not the unchaste person, but a slanderer rebuked by Paul in this intermediate letter (see Introd. § 1). Besides, the mild, soft tone of the present passage, if it referred to such a personal opponent, would not be in keeping with the quite different way in which, from chap. 10 onwards, he pours forth his apostolic zeal against his personal opponents and slanderers.

2 Corinthians 2:6. Ἱκανόν] something sufficient is, etc. Regarding this substantive use of the neuter of the predicate adjective, see Matthiae, p. 982; Kühner, II. p. 45. Comp. Matthew 6:34.

τῷ τοιούτῳ] for one of such a nature; how forbearing it is here that no more definite designation is given!

ἡ ἐπιτιμια αὕτη] this punishment. What it was, every reader knew. Comp. on 2 Corinthians 2:3. ἡ ἐπιτιμία (which in classic writers denotes the franchise of a citizen, Demosthenes, 230, 10, al.), in the signification poena, like the Greek τὸ ἐπιτίμιον (Dem. 915, 1; 939, 27, al.), ἡ ἐπιτίμησις (Wis 12:26), and τὸ ἐπιτίμημα (Inscript.), occurs only here in the N. T., but elsewhere also in Wis 3:10, in ecclesiastical writers, and in acts of councils (not in Philo). It is not merely objurgatio (Vulgate; comp. Beza, Calvin, and others).

ἡ ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων] which by the majority (of the church) has been assigned to him. That the presbyterium is not meant (Augustine, Beza, Grotius, Valesius, and others), is shown by the article. There is a further question here, whether the excommunication enjoined by Paul, 5, was carried out or not (Beza, Calvin, Morus, Rückert, Hofmann). Most assume the former, so that they refer ἱκανόν to the sufficient duration of the excommunication.[141] But an accomplished full excommunication is not to be assumed on account of the very ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων; but it is probable that the majority of the church members, in consequence of the ἘΞΆΡΑΤΕ ΤῸΝ ΠΟΝΗΡΌΝ (1 Corinthians 5:13; comp. 2 Corinthians 2:2), had considered the sinner as one excommunicated, and had given up all fellowship with him. By this the majority had for the present sufficiently complied with the expressed will of the apostle. To the minority there may have belonged partly the most lax in morals, and partly also opponents of the apostle, the latter resisting him on principle.

Rückert, however, supported by Baur and Räbiger, regards Paul’s judgment ἹΚΑΝῸΝ Κ.Τ.Λ., as a prudent turn given to the matter, by which, in order to avoid an open rupture, he represents what would have happened even without his will to be his own wish. But what justifies any one in attributing to him conduct so untruthful? The real and great repentance of the sinner (2 Corinthians 2:7) induced the apostle to overlook the incompleteness in carrying out his orders for excommunication, and now from real sincere conviction to pronounce the ἱκανόν and desire his pardon. Comp. above on 2 Corinthians 2:5-11. Had Paul not been really convinced that the repentance of the evil-doer had already begun (as even Lipsius, Rechtfertigungsl. p. 183, is inclined to suppose), he would here have pursued a policy of church-discipline quite at variance with his character. Calvin judges very rightly of this passage: “Locus diligenter observandus; docet enim, qua aequitate et clementia temperanda sit disciplina ecclesiae, ne rigor modum excedat. Severitate opus est, ne impunitate (quae peccandi illecebra merito vocatur) mali reddantur audaciores; sed rursus, quia periculum est, ne is qui castigatur animum despondeat, hic adhibenda est moderatio, nempe ut ecclesia, simulatque resipiscentiam illius certo cognoverit, ad dandam veniam sit parata.”

[141] Most strange is the judgment of Grotius, that the apostle is here speaking not de restituenda communione, but de auferendo morbo, quem ei Satanas ad preces piorum Corinthiorum immiserat. Paul had, in fact, not really ordained the giving over to Satan at all. See on 1 Corinthians 5:5.

2 Corinthians 2:7. So that you, on the contrary, rather (potius) pardon and comfort. This is the consequence which ensued, connected with the utterance of ἱκανὸν κ.τ.λ … Hence the notion of δεῖν (Lobeck, ad Phryn. p. 754; Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. ii. 2. 1) is not here to be supplied, as Billroth and Olshausen wish, following the older commentators. It is not said what ought to happen, but what, according to the apostle’s conception, ensued as a necessary and essential consequence of the ἱκανὸν κ.τ.λ. (Kühner, II. p. 564). The χαρίσασθαι, however, is not at variance with the reference to the adulterer (because forgiveness belongs to God

Bleek, Neander), for what is here spoken of in a general way is only the pardon, which the church imparts in reference to the offence produced in it, the pardon of Christian brethren (Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:20).

τῇ περισσοτέρᾳ λύπῃ] through the higher degree of affliction, which, namely, would be the consequence of the refusal of pardon, and certainly of the eventual complete excommunicatio.

καταποθῇ] Comp. 1 Corinthians 15:54; 1 Peter 5:8. This being swallowed up is explained by some, of dying (Grotius, according to his view of an illness of the sinner), by others, of suicide, or of apostasy from Christianity (the latter is held by Theodoret, Pelagius, and others, also Flatt; Kypke and Stolz, following Chrysostom, Theophylact, and others, leave a choice between the two); or as conveying a hint that the λύπη bordering on despair might drive him into the world, and he might be devoured by its prince (Olshausen). The latter point: “by the prince of the world,” is quite arbitrarily imported. The sadness (conceived as a hostile animal) is what swallows up. The context gives nothing more precise than the notion: to be brought by the sadness to despair, to the abandoning of all hope and of all striving after the Christian salvation.[142] Comp. on καταπίνειν in the sense of destroying, Jacobs, Animadv. in Athen. p. 315.

[142] The ὁ τοιοῦτος repeated at the end, in itself superfluous, has the tone of compassion.