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2Co_10:7. Paul feels that the ἐξουσία , just described in 2Co_10:3-6, is not conceded to him by his opponents and those misled by them in the church; they judge that he is evidently no right servant of Christ, and that he must come to shame with his boasting (comp. 2Co_10:8). He at once breaks into the midst of this course of thought on the part of his opponents with the disapproving question: Do you look on that which lies before the eyes? I do you judge according to the appearance? by which he means this, that they profess to have seen him weak and cowardly, when he was in Corinth personally (comp. 2Co_10:1). This does not involve any admission of the charge in 2Co_10:1, but, on the contrary, discloses the error, in accordance with which the charge was based on the apostle’s outward appearance, winch did not make a display of his boldness. The answer to the question is: If any one is confident that he belongs to Christ, let him judge this again of himself, that just as he belongs to Christ, so do we. The opposing teachers had certainly boasted: How utterly different people are we from this Paul, who is bold only at a distance, and makes a boast of belonging as an apostle to Christ! We are right servants of Christ!
τὰ κατὰ πρόσωπον βλέπετε ] is taken interrogatively by Theodoret, Erasmus, Luther, Castalio, Cajetanus, Beza, Grotius, Calovius, Wolf, Hammond, Bengel, Heumann, Rosenmüller, Emmerling, Räbiger, Osiander, Klöpper, and others; along with which, however, many import into κατὰ πρόσωπον elements at variance with the text (see 2Co_10:1; 2Co_10:10), such as intercourse with Jesus when on earth and other matters. It is taken as not interrogative (Lachmann and Tischendorf), but also with βλέπετε as indicative, and the sentence, consequently, as a judgment of censure, by Chrysostom, Gennadius, Oecumenius, Theophylact, Calvin, Schulz, Flatt. Calvin says: “Magni facitis alios, qui magnis ampullis turgent; me, quia ostentatione et jactantia careo, despicitis;” while Flatt, following Storr, in spite of 2Co_10:1; 2Co_10:10, refers κατὰ πρόσωπον to the kinship of James with Christ, on which the Christine party had relied. In any case, however, it is more lively and forcible, and therefore more suitable, to take it as interrogative. Others, again, take βλέπετε as an imperative (Vulgate, Ambrosiaster, Anselm, Cornelius a Lapide, Billroth, Rückert, Olshausen, de Wette, Bisping, Hofmann): observe withal what lies so clearly before the eyes! In this view we should not have to explain it with Ewald: “regard personal matters;” so that Paul begins to point to the personal element which is now to be taken into consideration; but with Hofmann: the readers only needed to have their eyes open to what lay before them, in order to judge rightly. But against this it may be urged that κατὰ πρόσωπον could not but most naturally explain itself from 2Co_10:1, and that the meaning itself would have something tame and more calmly argumentative, than would be suited to the lively emotion of the passage. Besides, it is Paul’s custom elsewhere to put βλέπετε first, when he summons to an intuemini. See 1Co_1:26; 1Co_10:18; Php_3:2.
εἴτις πέποιθεν ἑαυτῷ Χριστοῦ εἶναι ] In this way is designated the confidence which his opponents (not a single peculiar false teacher, as Michaelis thinks) arrogantly cherished for themselves, but denied to Paul, that they were genuine Christ-people, genuine servants of Christ. The addition of δοῦλος to Χριστοῦ in D* E* F G, It. Ambrosiaster, is a correct gloss (comp. 2Co_11:23). For it is not the confiteor of the Christine party (1Co_1:12) that is meant here (Mosheim, Stolz, Flatt, comp. also Olshausen, Dähne, de Wette, Schenkel, Beyschlag, Hilgenfeld, Klöpper, and others; see against this, Neander, I. p. 393 ff., and also Hofmann), but the assertion—to the exaltation of themselves and the exclusion of Paul—of a true apostolic connection (through calling, gifts, etc.) with Christ[302] on the part of Judaistic pseudo-apostles (2Co_11:5, 2Co_13:12-13). Observe that the teachers here meant were not a party of the church, like the adherents of Christ designated in 1Co_1:12. The very οὕτω καὶ ἡμεῖς , compared with 2Co_10:8,—to say nothing of the fact that there is no hint of any such special reference,—precludes our explaining it of the continued immediate connection with Christ through visions and the like, of which the heads of the Christine party had probably boasted (de Wette, Dähne, Goldhorn, and others, following Schenkel).
πάλιν ] not: on the contrary, or on the other hand, which it never means in the N. T. (see on Mat_4:7, and Fritzsche, ad Matt. p. 16 7), but again, denuo. It refers to ἐφʼ ἑαυτοῦ , which is correlative to the previous ἑαυτῷ . He is confident to himself; let him then consider once more for himself. In this view there was no need of the shift to which Fritzsche has recourse, that πεποιθέναι and λογίζεσθαι “communem continent mente volvendi notionem.” The verbs might be quite heterogeneous in point of the notion conveyed, since πάλιν is logically defined by the relation of ἑαυτῷ and ἑαυτοῦ .
The Recepta ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ , instead of which, however, ἐφʼ ἑαυτοῦ is to be read,[303] would mean proprio motu, Luk_12:57; Luk_21:30, 2Co_3:5, i.e. without any need for one first to say it to him. The text gives no warrant for ironical interpretation (from his own high estimate, Rückert).
ΟὝΤΩ ΚΑῚ ἩΜΕῖς ] is a litotes from the apostle’s point of view. Οὐ γὰρ βούλεται ἐκ προοιμίων σφοδρὸς γίνεσθαι ἀλλὰ κατὰ μικρὸν αὔξεται καὶ κορυφοῦται , Chrysostom.
[302] Not with His disciples, and in particular with Peter, as Baur insinuates. See his Paulus, I. p. 306, ed. 2. It was in his view the original apostles as immediate disciples of the Lord (see also Holsten, z. Evang. des Paul. u. Petr. p. 24 ff.), from whose position the anti-Pauline party in Corinth had borrowed their watchword Χριστοῦ εἶναι . And in these his opponents Paul was at the same time combating the original apostles.
[303] The reading ἐφʼ ἑαυτοῦ (Lachm. ed. min.), supported by B L à 21, is not meaningless (Ewald), but is to be taken: with himself, in quietness for himself—a classic usage since Homer (Il. viii. 195, xix. 255; see Faesi on these passages) of very frequent occurrence; see Kühner, II. p. 296. The translation apud se in the Vulg. and It. also rests on this reading, which might easily enough be supplanted by the better known ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ , and hence deserves to be preferred. There lies in this ἐφʼ ἑαυτοῦ (secum solo reputet) a reproof putting more delicately to shame than in ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ .