2 Corinthians 12:21

ἐλθόντος μου (אABFGP 39, 93) rather than ἐλθόντα με (א3DKL); and perhaps also ταπεινώσῃ με (אA) rather than ταπεινώσει με (BDFGP) or ταπεινώσῃ (K) or ταπεινώσει (D3L). But both ἐλθόντα με and ταπεινώσῃ look like grammatical corrections. Rec. adopts both.

2 Corinthians 12:1-10. GLORYING ABOUT A REVELATION GRANTED TO HIM, AND THE SEQUEL OF THE REVELATION

21. μὴ πάλιν ἐλθόντος μου ταπεινώσῃ με ὁ θεός. Even with the subjunctive (see critical note) it is possible to make this also (see on 2 Corinthians 12:19) a question, as Lachmann does; but it is much more probable that the μή depends upon φοβοῦμαι: lest, when I come, my God should again humble me before you. He calls it a humiliation, although such a crisis would make him their judge, with strength to punish (2 Corinthians 13:3-9). Most English Versions, including A.V. and R.V., take πάλιν with ἐλθόντος (-τα). But this makes πάλιν superfluous, all the more so as ἐλθών, without πάλιν, has just been used of the return to Corinth. By its emphatic position πάλιν must have a meaning, and the only way to give it a meaning is to connect it with the whole sentence, not with ἐλθόντος singly. S. Paul had been humiliated during his short and painful visit (2 Corinthians 1:23), and he fears that he may have another experience of a similar kind. Krenkel (Beiträge, pp. 202 ff.) has collected more than twenty instances, from all four groups of the Pauline Epistles, in which ἔρχεσαι, without πάλιν, is used of returning to a place (2 Corinthians 1:15; 2 Corinthians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 2:3; 2 Corinthians 8:17; 2 Corinthians 12:20; 1 Corinthians 4:18-19; 1 Corinthians 11:34; 1 Corinthians 14:6; 1 Corinthians 16:2; 1 Corinthians 16:5; 1 Corinthians 16:10-12; &c.). Moreover, in Romans 9:9, when quoting Genesis 18:10, he substitutes ἐλεύσομαι for the ἐπαναστρέφων ἤξω of the LXX., as if he felt that ἐλεύσομαι by itself sufficiently represented the meaning. Comp. John 4:27; John 9:7.

πρὸς ὑμᾶς. The meaning is not certain: either in relation to you, or among you, before you; for the latter comp. Matthew 26:55; Mark 9:19. The words must not be taken with ἐλθόντος.

καὶ πενθήσω πολλοὺς τῶν προημαρτηκότων καὶ μὴ μετανοησάντων. And I should mourn (1 Corinthians 5:2; James 4:9; Revelation 18:11; Revelation 18:15; Revelation 18:19) for many of them which were in sin before and did not repent. The προ-, like πάλιν, refers to the former visit. The Corinthians were in sin then, and ‘many’ of them (not all) ‘did not repent,’ when the Apostle came and rebuked them. That was a grievous humiliation. It would be a second humiliation, and yet one to be accepted as coming from God, if he were again to find the Church, which is his καύχημα (2 Corinthians 1:14), and his ἐπιστολὴ συστατική (2 Corinthians 3:2), and ἡ σφραγὶς τῆς� (1 Corinthians 9:2), in a condition of heathen impurity and impenitence. The perf. part. marks the continuance of the sinful state, ‘have sinned and continued in sin’: the aor. marks the refusal to repent at the time of S. Paul’s short visit. The rare compound προαμαρτάνειν occurs only here and 2 Corinthians 13:2 in Biblical Greek. Perhaps the case of incest is here glanced at, and in 2 Corinthians 13:2.

ἐπὶ τῇ�. Some would take this after πενθήσω (an awkward construction), because in the N.T. μετανοεῖν is commonly followed by ἀπό (Acts 8:22; comp. Hebrews 6:1) or ἐκ (Revelation 2:21-22; Revelation 9:20-21; Revelation 16:11). But nowhere else in the Epistles does μετανοεῖν occur; and in the LXX. it is usually followed by ἐπί (Amos 7:3; Amos 7:6; Joel 2:13; Jonah 3:10; Jonah 4:2). Moreover the idea of repenting over a fault is quite intelligible: comp. δίδως ἐπὶ ἁμαρτήμασι μετάνοιαν (Wis 12:19): μετεμελήθη ἐπὶ τῇ κακίᾳ (1 Chronicles 21:15).

In Galatians 5:19 (see Lightfoot) the order of these three words is πορνεία, ἀκαθαρσία, ἀσέλγεια. The first is a definite kind of uncleanness; the second is impurity of any kind; the third is outrageous disregard of decency, akin to ὕβρις (2 Corinthians 12:10). On the proposal to give ἀκαθαρσία the meaning of ‘covetousness’ see Lightfoot on 1 Thessalonians 2:3. Such a meaning would be inappropriate here, even if it were possible anywhere. Comp. the combinations in Ephesians 4:19 (where see Ellicott), 2 Corinthians 5:3; Colossians 3:5.

Both Tertullian (de Pudic. 15) and Cyprian (Ep. Leviticus 26) seem to have had a text in which ᾖ (αἶς) ἔπραξαν came after ἀκαθαρσίᾳ (-αις), and Cyprian one in which all three substantives were in the plural: et non egerunt paenitentiam de inmunditiis quas fecerunt et fornicationibus et libidinibus. For ἀσέλγεια the Vulgate has commonly impudicitia, but in 1 Peter 4:3; 2 Peter 2:2; 2 Peter 2:18; Jude 1:4, luxuria; nowhere libido, which Cyprian does not use in other passages. Tertullian has vilitas for ἀσέλγεια here and lascivia in Galatians 5:19 (de Pudic. 15, 17). The translator of Irenaeus uses libido in Romans 13:13 (IV. xxvii. 4) and immunditia in Galatians 5:19 (V. xi. 1). All which shows that there was no recognized Latin equivalent.