2 Corinthians 11:20

For ye suffer (susteynen, Wiclif). "This may be understood in three ways. (1) He may be understood as reproving the Corinthians ironically, because of their inability to bear with anything, or (2) as charging them with sluggishness of spirit, because they had shamefully enslaved themselves to the false Apostles, or (3) he repeats in the person of another what was maliciously affirmed regarding himself, namely, that he claimed a tyrannical authority over them." Calvin. If, with him and many ancient commentators, we adopt (2), the sense is, as Calvin goes on to say, -You bear with all kinds of indignities from others, why not with far less from me, who am in every respect their equal, if not their superior, in the very qualifications by which you set so much store?" This interpretation agrees best with the context (see next verse). The connection of this verse with the former will then be as follows: -You pride yourselves on being sensible people, and certainly you have immense toleration for folly. You even endure the foolish or worse than foolish insults of men who have no claim whatever to lord it over you. Why then not bear with me, when I condescend for a moment to the level of their folly? You will crouch to worthless pretenders, why resist the voice of real authority?"

if a man bring you into bondage Literally, enslave you. Our translation is Tyndale's. Cf. Galatians 2:4; Galatians 4:9; Galatians 5:1.

devour you Cf. Matthew 23:14; and the LXX. of Isaiah 9:12. These false teachers were animated by none of St Paul's delicacy as regards money matters. It could not be said of themthat they were no Apostles, because they had no claim to be maintained by the Churches.

take of you Rather, seize you, i.e. as a hunter his victim, or a man his property (cf. ch. 2 Corinthians 12:16). The earlier versions rendered simply by take, as though doubtful of the meaning. It was the Geneva that first added -your goods.

smite you on the face An utterly extraordinary and inconceivable piece of presumption, according to our modern notions. But we do not habitually realize the immense extent to which Christianity has leavened our habits. Dean Stanley refers us to 1 Kings 22:24; Matthew 5:39; Luke 22:64; Acts 23:2; 1 Timothy 3:3; Titus 1:7; and to the canon of the Council of Braga (a.d. 675), which orders that no bishop at his will and pleasure shall strike (the original, however, seems to imply scourging) his clergy, lest he lose the respect which they owe him. He might have referred also to the famous Latrocinium, or Robber-Synod of Ephesus, in which one patriarch of the Church and his adherents literally stamped another to death, and even to a period so late as the Council of Trent, in which it is admitted, even by the Jesuit historian Pallavicino, that scenes of personal violence occurred among those who were or should have been teachers of religion. See his History of the Council of Trent, Book viii. ch. 6.