_But I determined this with myself._ I determined not to come to you from a desire to spare you. Cf. chap. 1. 23. VER. 2. _For if I make you sorry._ Although I made you sorry by rebuking you in my First Epistle, yet I am now made glad with you in seeing the repentance and sorrow, both of yourselves... [ Continue Reading ]
CHAPTER 2 SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER i. He declares that he had not come to them through fear of causing sadness to himself and to them. II. He exhorts them (ver. 6) to re-admit the fornicator, on his repentance, who had been excommunicated by him (1 Cor. v.), and (ver. 10) he absolves him from the... [ Continue Reading ]
_Lest when I came I should have sorrow._ I wished by sending you a letter first to rebuke and correct your evil ways, lest I should be forced to do so in person, which would be very painful to me. _Having confidence in you all._ I had complete confidence that you would at once take away whatever mi... [ Continue Reading ]
_He hath not grieved me._ The fornicator did not grieve me only. _But in part._ He grieved, says Anselm, many other good men as well as me; those, viz., who banished from their society with ignominy the man that I had already excommunicated. _That I may not overcharge you all._ Overcharge you by p... [ Continue Reading ]
_Sufficient to such a man is this punishment._ The public separation and shame of excommunication. Hence it follows that the man repented after his excommunication, and is here absolved by the Apostle.... [ Continue Reading ]
_So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him_. Forgive him the rest of his term of penance by admitting him to your fellowship again. Cf. ver. 10. VER.8. _That ye would confirm your love toward him._ By declaring in public assembly of the Church that you once more embrace him as a brother.... [ Continue Reading ]
_For to this end also did I write._ Viz., this Epistle, to the end that I might induce you to confirm your love toward him. _That I might know the proof of you._ A proof of your obedience.... [ Continue Reading ]
_To whom ye forgive anything, I forgive also._ You have asked through Titus that he may be forgiven, and I make the same request of you. So Theodoret explains these words. Cf. also chap. vii. 7. It is clear from ver. 7 that this forgiveness had not yet taken place, and the meaning therefore is: As,... [ Continue Reading ]
_Lest Satan should get an advantage over us._ Lest we be deceived, and lest that fornicator be, by excessive severity, driven by Satan to despair. The Greek verb means, lest we be seized unjustly, and taken possession of by Satan, just as misers, usurers, and tyrants defraud, and rob, and oppress. H... [ Continue Reading ]
_Now thanks be unto God which always causeth us to triumph in Christ._ The Syriac and Theophylact render this "triumphs in us," _i.e._, makes us conspicuous to all. A triumph is the procession of a victorious commander through the midst of the city with his trophies and other signs of victory. But t... [ Continue Reading ]
_To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life_." " _We are_," says Theophylact, " _a royal censer, and wherever we go we carry with us the odour of the spiritual ointment, i.e._, _in every place we scatter the good fumes of the knowledge of God_." A... [ Continue Reading ]
_For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God._ The particle _for_ denotes that Paul, with the few other Apostles, was by God's grace a fitting minister of Christ, and scattered wherever he went the good odour of the Gospel, while many others were unfitting preachers of the Gospel, of evil o... [ Continue Reading ]