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2Co_2:14. In Macedonia, however, he had met Titus, and, through him, received good news of the impression made by his former Epistle. See 2Co_7:6. Therefore he continues: But thanks be to God, etc., placing first not χάρις , as in most cases (2Co_8:16, 2Co_9:15), but τῷ Θεῷ , because, in very contrast to his own weakness, the helping God, whom he has to thank, comes into his mind. Comp. 1Co_15:57. Others here make a digression go on as far as 2Co_7:5, and refer the thanks to the spread of the gospel in Troas (Emmerling!) or Macedonia (Flatt, Osiander). Comp. Calvin and Bengel. Against the context; for, after the description of the anxiety and disquiet, the utterance of thanks must relate to the release from this state (comp. Rom_7:24 f.). The apostle, however, in the fulness of his gratitude to God, includes (and thereby makes known) his special experience of the guidance of divine grace at that time in the general thanksgiving for the latter, as he experiences it always in his calling. This also in opposition to Hofmann, who abides by the general nature of the thanksgiving, and that in contrast to the declaration that the apostle did not preach in Troas in spite of the good opportunity found ther.
τῷ πάντοτε θριαμβεύοντι ἡμᾶς ] given rightly by the Vulgate: “qui semper triumphat nos,” is taken by many older expositors (Luther, Beza, Estius, Grotius, and others), and by some more recent (Emmerling, Flatt, Rückert, Olshausen, Osiander): who makes us always triumph.[148] It is certainly a current Greek custom to give to neuter verbs a factitive construction and meaning. See in general, Matthiae, p. 1104, 944; Fritzsche, ad Matth. p. 250; Bähr, ad Ctes. p. 132; Lobeck, ad Aj. 40, 869. Comp. from the N. T., ἀνατέλλειν τὸν ἥλιον , Mat_5:45; καίειν τι , Mat_5:15; μαθητεύειν τινά , Mat_28:19; from the LXX., βασιλεύειν τίνα , 1Sa_8:22; Isa_7:6, al. Comp. 1Ma_8:13. θριαμβεύειν τινά is thus taken: to make any one a triumpher. Comp. χορεύειν τινά , to make any one dance—i.e. to celebrate by means of dancing (Brunck, ad Soph. Ant. 1151; comp. Jacobs, ad Del epigr. x. 55, 90). The suitableness of the sense cannot be denied, but the actual usage is against it; for θριαμβεύειν τινά has never that assumed factitive sense, but always means triumphare de aliquo, to conduct, to present any one in triumph; so that the accusative is never the triumphing subject, but always the object of the triumph, as Plut. Thes. et Romans 4 : βασιλεῖς ἐθριάμβευσε καὶ ἡγεμόνας , also Plut. Mor. p. 318 B, θριαμβ . νίκην . Quite similar is the Latin triumphare aliquem. See in general, Wetstein; Kypke, II. p. 243. Comp. also Hofmann on the passage. Paul himself follows this usage, see Col_2:15. We are thus the less authorized to depart from it. Hence it is to be translated: who always triumphs over us (apostolic teachers)—i.e. who does not cease to represent us as his vanquished before all the world, as a triumpher celebrates his victories. In this figurative aspect Paul considers himself and his like as conquered by God through their conversion to Christ. And after this victory of God his triumph now consists in all that those conquered by their conversion effect as servants and instruments of God for the Messianic kingdom in the world; it is by the results of apostolic activity that God continually, as if in triumph, shows Himself to the eyes of all as the victor, to whom His conquered are subject and serviceable. For the concrete instance before us, this perpetual triumph of God exhibited itself in the happy result which He wrought in Corinth through the apostle’s letter (as Paul learned in Macedonia through Titus, 2Co_7:6). Note further, how naturally with Paul this very conception of his working, as a continual triumph of God over him, might proceed from the painful remembrance of his earlier persecution of the church of God, and how at the same time this whole conception is an expression of the same humility, in which he, 1Co_15:10, gives to God alone the glory of his working. Jerome, ad Hedib. 11, translates rightly: triumphat nos or de nobis, but quite alters the sense of the word again by the interpretation: “triumphum suum agit per nos.” Theodoret does not do justice to the notion of the triumph, when he merely explains it: ὃς σοφῶς τὰ καθʼ ἡμᾶς πρυτανεύων τῇδε κἀκεῖσε περιάγει δήλους ἡμᾶς ἅπασιν ἀποφαίνων . Wetstein is more exact, but also takes the element of leading about, and not that of celebrating the victory, as the point of comparison: “Deus nos tanquam in triumpho circumducit, ut non maneamus in loco, aut in alium proficiscamur pro lubito nostro, sed ut placet sapientissimo moderatori. Quem Damasci vicit, non Romae et semel, sed per totum terrarum orbem, quamdiu vivit, in triumpho ducit.” Comp. Krause, Opusc. p. 125 f. The conception of antiquity, according to which the θριαμβευόμενος is necessarily the conquered, is quite abandoned by Calvin,[149] Elsner, Bengel: “qui triumpho nos ostendit, non ut victos, sed ut victoriae suae ministros.” So also de Wette, and substantially Ewald: comp. Erasmus, Annot.
ἐν Χριστῷ ] Christ is the element in which that constant triumph of God takes place: no fact in which that consists has its sphere out of Christ: each is of specifically Christian quality.
The following καὶ τ . ὀσμὴν κ . τ . λ . declares what God effects through this His triumphing. That αὐτοῦ refers not to God (so usually, as also Hofmann, following the Vulgate), but to Christ (Bengel, Osiander), is shown by 2Co_2:15. The genitive τῆς γνώσ . αὐτ . is the genitive of apposition (comp. 2Co_1:22), so that the knowledge of Christ is symbolized as an odour which God everywhere makes manifest through the apostolic working, inasmuch as He by that means brings it to pass that the knowledge of Christ everywhere exhibits and communicates its nature and its efficacy. How does Paul come upon this image? Through the conception of the triumph; for such an event took place amid perfumes of incense: hence to assume no connection between the two images (Osiander) is arbitrary. To think of ointments (Oecumenius, Grotius), or of these as included (Chrysostom, Theophylact, Beza[150]), is alien to the first image; and it is as alien to suppose that a closed vessel, filled with perfume, is meant, and that the φανεροῦντι points to the opening of the same (Hofmann). Observe, moreover, that by διʼ ἡμῶν (since the ἡμεῖς are those conducted in the triumph, οἱ θριαμβευόμενοι ) the thing itself finds its way into the image, and by this the latter loses in congruity.
[148] To this also the expositions of Chrysostom and Theophylact ultimately amount. The latter says: ἡμᾶς οὖν ὁ Θεὸς μετὰ τῶν κατὰ τοῦ διαβόλου τροπαίων περιφανεῖς ποιεῖ . So in substance Chrys. Comp. Ambrosiaster, Anselm, and others.
[149] In the translation he has triumphare nos facit: and in the Commentary it is said: “Paulus autem intelligit, se quoque triumphi, quem Deus agebat, fuisse participem, quod esset opera sua acquisitus; qualiter legati currum primarii ducis equis insidentes comitabantur tanquam honoris socii.”
[150] Beza, Grotius, and also L. Cappellus, contrary to the context, find an allusion to the anointing of the priests.