2 Corinthians 10:10

ὅτι αἱ ἐπιστολαὶ μὲν, φασίν κ. τ. λ.: for “his letters” they say “are weighty and powerful but,” etc. The reading is doubtful (see crit. note); if we follow the rec. text φησίν = “one says” or “he says” (cf. Wis 15:12), the reference will be to an individual opponent (the f1τοιοῦτος of 2 Corinthians 10:11) who would be readily recognised by the Corinthians; but we must then suppose τις to have dropped out. It is simpler therefore to read φασίν with the A.V. and R.V., and to take the words as reproducing the charge against the Apostle commonly made by those who were disaffected at Corinth. They are “remarkable as giving a contemporary judgment on his Epistles, and a personal description of himself” (Stanley). ἡ δὲ παρουσία τοῦ σώματος κ. τ. λ.: “ but his bodily presence is weak (see chap. 2 Corinthians 12:7; Galatians 4:14, and Acts 14:12, where the Lystrans called Barnabas “Zeus,” and evidently therefore counted him as of more dignified presence than his companion) and his speech contemptible ”; cf. 1 Corinthians 1:17. Persuasive speaker as St. Paul must have been (the Lystrans called him Hermes as “the chief speaker”), he probably had not the arts of a trained rhetorician (1 Corinthians 1:17; 1 Corinthians 2:1; 1 Corinthians 2:4, chap. 2 Corinthians 11:6), and this would appear a grave defect to these clever and shallow Greeks. According to the second century Acts of Paul and Thecla (§ 3) the Apostle was a low-sized man, bow-legged, of a healthy complexion, with eyebrows knit together (the Armenian version adds that his eyes were blue), and an aquiline nose. The description of him in the piece called Philopatris (§ 13), ascribed to Lucian, is very similar.