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2Co_11:4 An ironical (and therefore not conflicting with Gal_1:18) reason assigned for that anxiety. For if, indeed, my opponents teach and work something so entirely new among you, one would not be able to blame you for being pleased with it.
Regarding εἰ μέν , if indeed, see Hartung, Partikell. II. p. 414 f.; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 522.
ὁ ἐρχόμενος ] does not refer to ὁ ὄφις , 2Co_11:3 (Kniewel). It might doubtless mean the first comer, as Emmerling and Billroth hold (Bernhardy, p. 318), comp. Gal_5:10; but, since Paul manifestly has in view the conduct of the whole fraternity of opposing teachers (see immediately, 2Co_11:5), it is rather this totum genus that is denoted by ὁ ἐρχόμενος , and that concretely, and in such a fashion that their emergence is vividly illustrated by reference to one definitely thought of, of whom, however, the point is left undetermined who he is: is qui venit. Comp. Fritzsche, Diss. II. p. 65; Kühner, ad Xen. Anab. v. 8. 22. The word exhibits the persons meant in the light of outsiders, who come to Corinth and there pursue their courses in opposition to the apostle. They are intruders (comp. 2Co_3:1), and by the present tenses their coming and practices are denoted as still presently prevailing, just as this corrupting intercourse had been already going on for a considerable time. Ewald thinks here, too, of a special individual among the counter-apostle.
ἄλλον Ἰησοῦν κηρύσσει ] i.e. so preaches of Jesus, that the Jesus now preached appears not to be the same as was previously preached,[317] consequently as if a second Jesus. Hence, to explain it more precisely, there is added: ὋΝ ΟὐΚ ἘΚΗΡΎΞΑΜΕΝ : who was not the subject-matter of our preaching, of whom we have known nothing and preached nothing, therefore not the crucified Saviour (1Co_2:2) through whom men are justified without the law, etc. ἄλλος negatives simply the identity, ἝΤΕΡΟς at the same time the similarity of nature: an other Jesus … a different spirit. Comp. Act_4:12; Gal_1:6-7; 1Co_12:9; 1Co_15:40.
ἢ πνεῦμα ἕτερον κ . τ . λ .] Ἤ , or, in order to describe this reformatory working from another side, another kind of Spirit, etc. As the false apostles might have boasted that only through them had the right Jesus been preached to the Corinthians,[318] they might also have added that only through their preaching had the readers received the true Holy Spirit, whom they had not before received, namely, when Paul had taught them ( ὃ οὐκ ἐλάβετε ). Moreover, it is decidedly clear from Ἢ ΠΝΕῦΜΑ ἝΤΕΡΟΝ Κ . Τ . Λ . that it cannot have been (this in opposition to Beyschlag) a more exact historical information and communication regarding Jesus, by means of which the persons concerned attempted to supplant Paul among the Corinthians. It was by means of Judaistic false doctrines; comp. 2Co_11:13 ff. See also Klöpper, p. 79 f.
ὃ οὐκ ἐδέξασθε ] for the Pauline gospel was accepted by the readers at their conversion: the gospel brought by the false apostles was of another kind ( ἕτερον ), which was not before accepted by them. Rückert arbitrarily says that ἐδέξασθε is equivalent to ἘΛΆΒΕΤΕ , and that the former is used only to avoid the repetition of the latter. How fine and accurate, on the other hand, is Bengel’s remark: “Verba diversa, rei apta; non concurrit voluntas hominis in accipiendo Spiritu, ut in recipiendo evangelio.” Comp. on the distinction between the two words, Theile, ad Jacob. p. 68.
καλῶς ἀνείχεσθε ] καλῶς , like praeclare in the ironical sense of with full right. See on Mar_7:9; Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 271 ff.; Diss. II. p. 72 f.; and regarding the ironical use of the adjective καλός , Stallb. ad Rep. p. 595 C, 607 E. According to Hofmann, καλῶς is an expression of an earnest approval, which, however, is cancelled of itself by the impossibility of the case which is put. But in the protasis the case, in fact, is just simply put, not put as impossible (comp. Gal_1:8-9); hence in the apodosis an ἀνάθεμα on the seducers, or a severe censure of those who did not withstand them, would have had its place in the mind of the apostle rather than a ΚΑΛῶς ἈΝΕΊΧΕΣΘΕ earnestly meant. The imperfect ἀνείχεσθε does not, indeed, in strict logic suit ΚΗΡΎΣΣΕΙ and ΛΑΜΒΆΝΕΤΕ in the protasis, and we should expect ἈΝΈΧΕΣΘΕ , as is actually the reading of B. But it is not on that account to be explained as if ΕἸ ἘΚΉΡΥΣΣΕΝ Κ . Τ . Λ . stood in the protasis (if the comer was preaching … ye would, etc.), as Chrysostom, Luther, Castalio, Cornelius a Lapide, and many others, including Baur, l.c. p. 102, explained it, which is wrong in grammar; nor is—along with an otherwise correct view of the protasis
καλῶς ἀνείχεσθε to be taken in the historical sense, as has been attempted by some, as interrogatively (have you with right tolerated it?), such as Heu-mann, by others, such as Semler,[319] in the form of an indignant exclamation (you have truly well tolerated it!), both of which meanings are logically impossible on account of the difference of tenses in the protasis and apodosis. No; we have here the transition from one construction to the other. When Paul wrote the protasis, he meant to put ἀνέχεσθε in the apodosis; but when he came to the apodosis, the conception of the utter non-reality of what was posited in the protasis as the preaching of another Jesus, etc., induced him to modify the expression of the apodosis in such a way, that now there is implied in it a negatived reality,[320] as if in the protasis there had stood εἰ ἐκήρυσσεν κ . τ . λ . For there is not another Jesus; comp. Gal_2:6. Several instances of this variation in the mode of expression are found in classical writers. See Kühner, II. p. 549; Klotz, ad Devar. p. 489. Comp. on Luk_17:6. The reason for the absence of ἄν in the apodosis is, that the contents of the apodosis is represented as sure and certain. See Krüger, § 65, 5; Stallb. ad Plat. Sympos. p. 190 C; Kühner, ad Xen. Andb. vii. 6. 21; Bremi, ad Lys. Exc. IV. p. 438 ff.
[317] If Paul had written ἄλλον Χριστόν , the reading of F G, Arm. Vulg., the meaning of it would be: he preaches that not Jesus, but another is the Christ. How unsuitable this is, is self-evident.
[318] Against the interpretation that it was a spiritual, visionary Christ whom the Christine party had given out for the true one (Schenkel, de Wette, and others), see Beyschlag, 1865, p. 239 f.
[319] He is followed recently by Hilgenfeld in his Zeitschr. 1865, p. 261.
[320] Here, too, the delicate and acute glance of Bengel saw the correct view: “Ponit conditionem, ex parte rei impossibilem; ideo dicit in imperfecto toleraretis; sed pro conatu pseudapostolorum non modo possibilem, sed plane presentem; ideo dicit in praesenti praedicat. Conf. plane Gal_1:6 f.” Comp. also 1Co_3:11. Rückert refines and imports a development of thought, which is arbitrarily assumed, and rests on the presupposition that there is no irony in the passage. With the same presupposition Hofmann assumes the intermingling of two thoughts, one referring to the present, the other to the past,—which would amount to a confusion of ideas without motive. This also in opposition to Klöpper, p. 84, who thinks that Paul does not wish to charge the readers with the ἀνέχεσθαι for the immediate present, but had been distinctly aware that they had tolerated, etc. In that case we should have here a singular forbearance and a singular form of its expression, the former as undeserved as the latter is unlogical. There was as little need for the alleged forbearance toward the readers as in ver. 19 f.