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2Co_11:1. Would that ye would bear from me a little bit of folly! The connection of thought is this: after the principle just expressed in 2Co_10:18, I am indeed acting foolishly when I boast of myself; but would that you became not angry on that account! Irony; the apostle’s περιαυτολογία was not, like that of his opponents, idle self-exaltation, but a vindication enjoined by the circumstances and accordant with his duty, in order to drive the refractory boasters at length quite out of the field. Flatt and Baur would insert an also (from me also as from mine enemies), but quite arbitraril.
ὄφελον ] see on 1Co_4:8.
ἀνείχεσθε ] Hellenistic form with the simple augment (Piers. ad Moer. p. 176) instead of the common ἠνείχ . in the older writers (Buttmann, Ausführl. Sprachl. II. p. 189 f.; Blomfield, ad Aesch. Choeph. 735). The imperfect is not: have borne (Erasmus, Calvin, and others), but: ferretis, would bear. Comp. εἴθε with imperfect: “ubi optamus eam rerum conditionem quam non esse sentimus,” Klotz, ad Devar. p. 516; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 499; Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 185 [E. T. 215].
μου ] does not belong to ἀφροσύνης (Hofmann), so that its position standing apart and prefixed would be emphatic,—which, however, does not at all suit the enclitic form,—but, as genitivus subjecti, to μικρόν τι ἀφροσ ., so that μικρ . τι has two genitives with it. Comp. LXX. Job_6:26 : οὐδὲ γὰρ ὑμῶν φθέγμα ῥήματος ἀνέξομαι . See in general, Kühner, § 542. 3; Lobeck, ad Aj. 309; Stallbaum, ad Plat. Rep. p. 329 B. With the reading μικρὸν τῇ ἀφροσύνῃ (see the critical remarks) it would have to be attached to ἀνείχ . (would that ye endured me a little as to folly), not to τῇ ἀφροσύνῃ , as Fritzsche, Diss. II. p. 53 f., contrary to the simple order of the words, prefers, and μικρόν would have to be taken either of time, or, with Reiche, of degree: paulisper, “non nimio fastidio.”
ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀνέχεσθέ μου ] corrective: yet this wish is not needed, ye really bear patiently with me. The imperative interpretation of ἀνέχεσθε (Vulgate, Pelagius, Castalio, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, Estius, Bengel, Hofmann), according to which Paul would proceed from wish to entreaty, would be quite tame on account of the preceding wish, and in the corrective form unsuitabl.
καί ] also, i.e. in reality. See Hartung, Partikell. I. p. 132.
μου ] ἀνέχεσθε governs either the accusative, as in the case of μικρόν τι before (and this is the more common construction in Greek authors), or, as here, the genitive (so usually in the N. T.), which is also found in Greek authors when the object is a thing (Hom. Od. xxii. 423, and later authors, such as Herodian, viii. 5. 9, i. 17. 10), but very seldom with persons (Plat. Protag. p. 323 A), without a participle standing alongside, as Xen. Anab. ii. 2. 1; Plat. Pol. ii. p. 367 D, or without a simple participle, as Plat. Pol. viii. p. 564 D, Apol. p. 31 B; Herod. v. 89, vii. 159.