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2Co_2:5. “To cause grief among you was not my intention (2Co_2:4); he, however, who has (really) caused grief has not grieved me.” In other words: “I did not wish to grieve you; one of you, however, has with his afflicting influence, not affected me, but,” etc. Olshausen connects 2Co_2:5 with 2Co_2:3 : “if, however, any one formerly has awakened grief.” But how arbitrary it is to leap over the natural reference to the immediately preceding λυπηθῆτε ! And if the “formerly” made the contrast, it must have been somehow expressed.
In the hypothetical εἰ , as in the indefinite τις , there lies a delicate, tender forbearanc.
οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπηκεν , ἀλλʼ ] Paul does not say οὐ μόνον , ἀλλὰ καί , because as concerns the relation of the matter to himself he wishes absolutely to deny that he is the injured party. He could do this, because he did not belong to the church, and he wishes to leave wholly out of view his position as apostle and founder of the church in the interest of love and pardon. Olshausen thinks that he wishes indirectly to refute the erroneous position of some (impenitent) Corinthians towards the incident with the incestuous person; that many, namely, had lamented much to the apostle about the solicitude which that unhappy person had caused to him; and that, in order to make these turn from him to themselves, he says that the question is not about him, but about them, that they should look to their own pain. But of this alleged direction to occupy themselves with their own pain, there is nothing whatever in what follows; and the apostle would have set forth in more precise terms a rebuke so weighty; it was not at all fitting here, where the touched heart beats only with mildness and forgivenes.
λελύπηκεν ] Bengel says aptly: “contristatum habet.”
ἀλλʼ ἀπὸ μέρους κ . τ . λ .] but in part, that I may not burden him (with greater guilt), you all. ἀπὸ μέρους , which Paul adds φειδόμενος αὐτοῦ (Chrysostom), softens the thought in λελύπηκεν πάντας ὑμᾶς , while it expresses that the grief is only in a partial degree, not wholly and fully (as on the one immediately concerned), inflicted on all, i.e. on the whole church by means of moral sympathy; only quodammodo (see Fritzsche, Diss. I. p. 16 ff.), therefore, are the readers all affected by that grief as sharers in it. The ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ (sc. αὐτόν ) contains the purpose, for which he had added the softening limitation ἀπὸ μέρους . Beza, Calvin (in the Commentary), Calovius, Hammond, Homberg, Wolf, Estius, and others, following Chrysostom, agree with this punctuation and explanation; also Emmerling, Fritzsche, Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Neander, Ewald. Yet Räbiger explains it as if Paul had written σχεδόν instead of ἀπὸ μέρους . But others read ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβ . πάντας ὑμ . together: he has not grieved me (alone and truly), but only in part (consequently you also); in order that I may not lay something to the charge of you all; for, if he had grieved me alone, you would all have been indifferent towards the crime. So Thomas, Lyra, Luther, Castalio, Zeger, Bengel, Wetstein, and others, including Flatt. Incorrectly, because οὐκ ἐμέ and ἀλλʼ ἀπὸ μέρους cannot be antitheses. Mosheim and Billroth separate πάντας and ὑμᾶς : he has not grieved me, but in part, that I may not accuse all, you; for I will not be unjust, and give you all the blame of having been indifferent towards that crime. At variance with the words; for, according to these, with this punctuation those whom Paul accuses ( ἐπιβαρεῖ ) must appear to be not those indifferent, but those grieved by the incest. Olshausen also follows this punctuation, but finds in ἀπὸ μέρους , ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβ . πάντας a delicate irony (comp. also Michaelis, who, however, follows our punctuation), in so far as Paul would have held it as the highest praise of the Corinthians, if he could have said: he has grieved you without exception. Since he could not have said this, he wittily turns his words in this way: he has not grieved me, but, as regards a part, you, in order that I may not burden you all with this care. But this very wit and irony are quite foreign to the mild tone and the conciliatory disposition of this part of the Epistle. Hofmann takes οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπ . as a question, after which there comes in with ἀλλά the contrast (nevertheless) which continues over 2Co_2:5 and includes 2Co_2:6; in this case ἀπὸ μέρους is temporal in meaning (yet “firstly is enough”); and ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ πάντας ὑμᾶς , which is to be taken together, is meant to say that the apostle, if he expressed himself dissatisfied with what had been done by the majority, would burden the whole church with the pain of knowing that one of their members was under the ban of sin which remained unforgiven on the part of the apostle; lastly, the ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων stands in opposition to a minority, which had wished to go beyond the punishment decreed, a minority which is included in πάντας . But all this involved explanation is inadmissible, partly because the blunt question οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπ ., bringing forward so nakedly a sense of personal injury, would be sadly out of unison with the shrewdly conciliatory tone of the whole context; partly because ἀπὸ μέρους , taken of time, is as linguistically incorrect as at 2Co_1:14, and would also furnish the indelicate thought of a ἱκανότης with reservation, and till something further; partly because the complexity of thought, which is said to lie in ἐπιβαρῶ , is just imported into it; partly because the supposition that the minority of the church would have gone still further in the punishment than the resolution of the majority went, is without all ground, nay, is in the highest degree improbable after the reproach of too great indulgence, 5
On ἐπιβαρεῖν , comp. 1Th_2:9; 2Th_3:8; Dion. Hal. iv. 9, viii. 73; Appian, B. C. 4:31. Comp. βάρος of the burden of a feeling of guilt, Gal_6:2.