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2Co_7:3. Not for the sake of condemning do I say it, namely, what was said in 2Co_7:2. I do not wish thereby to express any condemnatory judgment, as if, although we have done wrong to no one, etc., you failed in that love to which χωρήσατε ἡμᾶς lays claim. Κατάκρισιν was taken of the reproach of covetousness (so Theodoret, and comp. Emmerling and Neander), but this is an arbitrary importation into the word. According to Rückert, πρὸς κατάκρισιν is not to be supplemented by ὑμῶν , but Paul wishes here to remove the unpleasant impression of 2Co_7:2, in which he confirms the severity of his former Epistle, so that there is to be regarded as object of κατάκρισις primarily the incestuous person, and secondarily the whole church, in so far as it has acted towards this man with unchristian leniency. This explanation falls to the ground with Rückert’s view of 2Co_7:2; the ἐστέ that follows puts it beyond doubt that ὑμῶν is really to be supplied with πρὸς κατακρ . for its explanation. According to de Wette, οὐ π . κατάκρ . λ . applies in form, no doubt, to 2Co_7:2, but in substance more to the censure, of which the expostulatory tone of 2Co_7:2 had created an expectation; in other words, it applies to something not really said, which is arbitrary, since what was said was fitted sufficiently to appear as κατάκρισις .
προείρηκα γάρ ] for I have said before (2Co_6:11 f.), antea dixi, as 3Ma_6:35, 2Ma_14:8, and often in classical writers. Comp. Eph_3:3. This contains the proof that he οὐ πρὸς κατάκρισιν λέγει ; for, if he spoke now unto condemnation, he would contradict his former word.
ὅτι ἐν ταῖς καρδ . κ . τ . λ .] Comp. Php_1:7. In 2Co_6:11 f. he has expressed not these words, but their sense. By his adding the definition of degree, εἰς τὸ συναποθ . κ . τ . λ ., Paul becomes his own interprete.
εἰς τὸ συναποθανεῖν καὶ συζῇν ] is usually taken (see still Rückert, de Wette, Ewald, also Osiander, who, however, mixes up much that is heterogeneous) as: so that I would die and live with you, and this as “vehementissimum amoris indicium, nolle nec in vita nee in morte ab eo quem ames separari,” Estius, on which Grotius finely remarks: “egregius χαρακτὴρ boni pastoris, Joh_10:12.” Comparison is made with the Horatian tecum vivere amem, tecum obeam lubens (Od. iii. 9. 24), and similar passages in Wetstein. But against this may be urged not only the position of the two words, of which the συναποθανεῖν must logically have been put last, but also the perfectly plain construction, according to which the subject of ἐστε must also be the subject of συναπ and συζῇν .: you are in our hearts in order to die and to live with (us),[256] i.e. in order not to depart from our hearts (from our love) in death, if it is appointed to us to die, and in life, if it is appointed to us to remain in life. For he, whom we love, dies and lives with us, when regarded, namely, from the idea of our heartfelt love to him, and from our sympathetic point of view feeling this consciousness of love which has him always present to our heart—a consciousness according to which we, dying and living, know him in our hearts as sharing death and life with us. And how natural that Paul, beset with continual deadly perils (2Co_6:9), should have put the συναποθανεῖν first! in which case συζῇν is to be referred to eternal life just as little as ζῶμεν in 2Co_6:9 (Ambrosiaster, comp. Osiander). Hence the thought can as little surprise us, and as little appear “tolerably meaningless” (de Wette), as the conception of alter ego. Hofmann, too, with his objection (“since they, nevertheless, in fact do not die with him,” etc.) mistakes the psychological delicacy and thoughtfulness of the expression; and wishes to interpret it—which no reader could have hit on (expressly as προείρ . does not point back further than to 2Co_6:11)—from 2Co_6:9 and 2Co_4:11 to the effect that the life of the apostle is a continual dying, in which he yet remains always in life, and that consequently it is his life so constituted which the readers share, when they are in his heart.
[256] There is no justification for departing in any passage from the telic reference of εἰς with the infinitive. Comp. on 2Co_8:6.