CINXE.COM
2 Corinthians 12 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>2 Corinthians 12 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/2_corinthians/12.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; cts.dataset.appid=i;cts.src='https://app.protectsubrev.com/catch_rp.js?cb='+Math.random(); document.head.appendChild(cts); }) (window,document,'head','script','rc-anksrH');</script></head><body><div id="fx"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx2"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="30" scrolling="no" src="../cmenus/2_corinthians/12.htm" align="left" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div><div id="blnk"></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable"><tr><td><div id="fx5"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" id="fx6"><tr><td><iframe width="100%" height="245" scrolling="no" src="//biblehu.com/bmcom/2_corinthians/12-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" class="maintable3"><tr><td><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center" id="announce"><tr><td><div id="l1"><div id="breadcrumbs"><a href="//biblehub.com">Bible</a> > <a href="/commentaries/">Commentary</a> > <a href="../">Ellicott</a> > <a href="../2_corinthians/">2 Corinthians</a></div><div id="anc"><iframe src="/anc.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></div><div id="anc2"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><iframe src="/anc2.htm" width="100%" height="27" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></td></tr></table><div id="movebox2"><table border="0" align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td><div id="topheading"><a href="../2_corinthians/11.htm" title="2 Corinthians 11">◄</a> 2 Corinthians 12 <a href="../2_corinthians/13.htm" title="2 Corinthians 13">►</a></div></td></tr></table></div><div align="center" class="maintable2"><table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" align="center"><tr><td><div id="leftbox"><div class="padleft"><div class="vheading">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</div><div class="chap"> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-1.htm">2 Corinthians 12:1</a></div><div class="verse">It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.</div><span class= "bld">XII.</span><p>(1) <span class= "bld">It is not expedient for me doubtless to glory. I will come . . .</span>—The English “doubtless” corresponds to a Greek illative particle. <span class= "ital">To boast, then, is not expedient for me.</span> The MSS., however, present a considerable variety of readings. The best-authenticated text is probably that which would be represented in English by, <span class= "ital">I must needs glory. It is not, indeed, expedient, but</span> <span class= "ital">I</span> <span class= "ital">will come</span> . . . The sequence of thought would seem to be that the Apostle felt constrained by the taunts of his opponents to indulge in what looked like self-assertion in vindication of his own character; that he was conscious, as he did so, that it was not, in the highest sense of the word, expedient for him; and that, under the influence of these mingled feelings, he passed over other topics on which he might have dwelt, and came at once to that which had been made matter of reproach against him.<p><span class= "bld">Visions and revelations of the Lord.</span>—It need scarcely be said that the history of the Acts is full of such visions (<a href="/context/acts/9-4.htm" title="And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why persecute you me?">Acts 9:4-6</a>; <a href="/acts/16-9.htm" title="And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; There stood a man of Macedonia, and prayed him, saying, Come over into Macedonia, and help us.">Acts 16:9</a>; <a href="/acts/18-9.htm" title="Then spoke the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not your peace:">Acts 18:9</a>; <a href="/acts/22-18.htm" title="And saw him saying to me, Make haste, and get you quickly out of Jerusalem: for they will not receive your testimony concerning me.">Acts 22:18</a>; <a href="/acts/23-11.htm" title="And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as you have testified of me in Jerusalem, so must you bear witness also at Rome.">Acts 23:11</a>; <a href="/acts/27-23.htm" title="For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve,">Acts 27:23</a>). One other instance is referred to in <a href="/galatians/2-2.htm" title="And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.">Galatians 2:2</a>. There is scarcely any room for doubt that this also had been made matter of reproach against him, and perhaps urged as a proof of the charge of madness. In the Clementine <span class= "ital">Homilies</span>—a kind of controversial romance representing the later views of the Ebionite or Judaising party, in which most recent critics have recognised a thinly-veiled attempt to present the characteristic features of St. Paul under the pretence of an attack on Simon Magus, just as the writer of a political novel in modern times might draw the portraits of his rivals under fictitious names—we find stress laid on the alleged claims of Simon to have had communications from the Lord through visions and dreams and outward revelations; and this claim is contrasted with that of Peter, who had personally followed Christ during his ministry on earth (<span class= "ital">Hom.</span> xvii. 14-20). What was said then, in the form of this elaborate attack, may well have been said before by the more malignant advocates of the same party. The charge of insanity was one easy to make, and of all charges, perhaps, the most difficult to refute by one who gloried in the facts which were alleged as its foundation—who did see visions, and did “speak with tongues” in the ecstasy of adoring rapture (<a href="/1_corinthians/14-18.htm" title="I thank my God, I speak with tongues more than you all:">1Corinthians 14:18</a>). It may be noted as an instance of St. Luke’s fairness that he, ignorant of, or ignoring, the charge of madness that had been brought against St. Paul, does not grudge the Apostle of the Circumcision whatever glory might accrue from a true revelation thus made through the medium of a vision (<a href="/context/acts/10-10.htm" title="And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance,">Acts 10:10-11</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-2.htm">2 Corinthians 12:2</a></div><div class="verse">I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.</div>(2) <span class= "bld">I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">I know a man.</span> The Greek verb, though a perfect tense in form, is invariably used with the force of a present. It is all but impossible to connect the facts that follow with any definite point of time in the Apostle’s life as recorded in the Acts. The date of the Epistle may be fixed, without much risk of error, in A.D. 57. Reckoning fourteen years back, we come to A.D. 43, which coincides with the period of unrecorded activity between St. Paul’s departure from Jerusalem (<a href="/acts/9-30.htm" title="Which when the brothers knew, they brought him down to Caesarea, and sent him forth to Tarsus.">Acts 9:30</a>) and his arrival at Antioch (<a href="/acts/11-26.htm" title="And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And it came to pass, that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church, and taught much people. And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.">Acts 11:26</a>). It would be giving, perhaps, too wide a margin to the words “more than fourteen years ago” to refer the visions and revelations of which he here speaks to those given him at the time of his conversion, in A.D. 37. The trance in the Temple (<a href="/acts/22-17.htm" title="And it came to pass, that, when I was come again to Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance;">Acts 22:17</a>) on his first visit to Jerusalem may, perhaps, be identified with them; but it seems best, on the whole, to refer them to the commencement of his work at Antioch, when they would have been unspeakably precious, as an encouragement in his arduous work. It may be noted that <a href="/galatians/2-2.htm" title="And I went up by revelation, and communicated to them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run, or had run, in vain.">Galatians 2:2</a> specifically refers to one revelation at Antioch, and it may well have been preceded by others. The term “a man in Christ,” as a way of speaking of himself, is probably connected with the thought that “if any man be in Christ he is a new creature” (<a href="/2_corinthians/5-17.htm" title="Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.">2Corinthians 5:17</a>; <a href="/galatians/6-15.htm" title="For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision avails any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.">Galatians 6:15</a>). As one who lived and moved and had his being in Christ, he was raised to a higher region of experience than that in which he had lived before. It was in moments such as he describes that he became conscious of that “new creation” with a new and hitherto unknown experience.<p><span class= "bld">Whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell.</span>—No words can describe more accurately the phenomena of consciousness in the state of trance or ecstasy. It is dead to the outer world. The body remains, sometimes standing, sometimes recumbent, but, in either case, motionless. The man may well doubt, on his return to the normal condition of his life, whether his spirit has actually passed into unknown regions in a separate and disembodied condition, or whether the body itself has been also a sharer in its experiences of the unseen. We, with our wider knowledge, have no hesitation in accepting the former alternative, or, perhaps, in reducing the whole revelation to an impression on the brain and the phenomena known as cataleptic. St. Paul, however, would naturally turn to such records as those of Ezekiel’s journey, in the visions of God, from the banks of Chebar to Jerusalem (<a href="/ezekiel/8-3.htm" title="And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of my head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looks toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provokes to jealousy.">Ezekiel 8:3</a>; <a href="/ezekiel/11-1.htm" title="Moreover the spirit lifted me up, and brought me to the east gate of the LORD's house, which looks eastward: and behold at the door of the gate five and twenty men; among whom I saw Jaazaniah the son of Azur, and Pelatiah the son of Benaiah, princes of the people.">Ezekiel 11:1</a>), and find in them the analogue, though, as he admits, not the solution, of his own experience. The lives of many of the great movers in the history of religious thought present, it may be noted, analogous phenomena. Of Epimenides, and Pythagoras, and Socrates, of Mahomet, of Francis of Assisi, and Thomas Aquinas, and Johannes Scotus, of George Fox, and Savonarola, and Swedenborg, it was alike true that to pass from time to time into the abnormal state of ecstasy was with them almost the normal order of their lives. (See article “Trance” in Smith’s <span class= "ital">Dictionary of the Bible,</span> by the present writer.)<p><span class= "bld">Such an one caught up to the third heaven.</span>—Rabbinic speculations on the subject of Heaven present two forms: one which, starting probably from the dual form of the Hebrew word, recognises but two heavens, both visible—the lower region of the clouds and the upper firmament; and a later, which, under the influence of ideas from the further East, spoke of seven. A remarkable legend in the Talmud (<span class= "ital">Bereshith Rabba,</span> 19, fol. 19, col. 3) relates how the Shechinah, or glory-cloud of the Divine Presence, retired step by step from earth, where it had dwelt before the sin of Adam, at every fresh development of evil; into the first heaven at the fall, into the second at the murder of Abel, and so on, till it reached the seventh heaven on Abraham’s going down to Egypt, and descended again by successive steps from the birth of Isaac to the time of the Exodus, when it came once more to earth and dwelt in the Tabernacle with Moses. If we assume St. Paul to have accepted any such division, the third heaven would indicate little more than the region of the clouds and sky. It is more probable, however, from the tone in which he speaks, as clearly dwelling on the surpassing excellency of his visions, that he adopts the simpler classification, and thinks of himself as passing beyond the lower sky, beyond the firmament of heaven, into the third or yet higher heaven, where the presence of God was manifested. The seven heavens re-appear naturally in the legends of the Koran (<span class= "ital">Sura</span> lxvii.) and in the speculations of mediæval theology as represented by Dante. We probably hear a far-off echo of the derision with which the announcement was received by the jesting Greeks of Corinth and by St. Paul’s personal rivals in the dialogue ascribed to Lucian, and known as the <span class= "ital">Philopatris,</span> in which St. Paul is represented as “the Galilean, bald, with eagle nose, walking through the air to the third heaven.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-3.htm">2 Corinthians 12:3</a></div><div class="verse">And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)</div>(3) <span class= "bld">And I knew such a man.</span>—Better, as before, <span class= "ital">I know.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-4.htm">2 Corinthians 12:4</a></div><div class="verse">How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.</div>(4)<span class= "bld">That he was caught up into paradise.</span>—The stress laid on this second vision hinders us from thinking of it as identical with the former, either in time or in object-matter. Paradise (see Note on <a href="/luke/23-43.htm" title="And Jesus said to him, Truly I say to you, To day shall you be with me in paradise.">Luke 23:43</a>) was emphatically the dwelling-place of the souls of the righteous, the reproduction in the unseen world of the lost beauty of the Garden of Eden—the “paradise of joy,” as the LXX. in <a href="/genesis/2-15.htm" title="And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.">Genesis 2:15</a> translates the name. There, flowing about the throne of God, was the fountain of the water of life, and the tree of life growing on its banks (<a href="/revelation/2-7.htm" title="He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit said to the churches; To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the middle of the paradise of God.">Revelation 2:7</a>; <a href="/context/revelation/22-1.htm" title="And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.">Revelation 22:1-2</a>). Speculations on the question whether St. Paul thought of it as nearer or farther from earth than the third heaven are obviously idle and profitless. The nearest approach which we can make to an adequate distinction between the two visions is that the first revealed to his gaze the glory of the Throne of God, with angels and archangels round it, and seraphim and cherubim,—a vision like that of Moses (<a href="/exodus/24-10.htm" title="And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness.">Exodus 24:10</a>), and Isaiah (<a href="/context/isaiah/6-1.htm" title="In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the LORD sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.">Isaiah 6:1-3</a>), and Ezekiel (<a href="/context/ezekiel/1-4.htm" title="And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire enfolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the middle thereof as the color of amber, out of the middle of the fire.">Ezekiel 1:4-28</a>), and St. John (<a href="/context/revelation/4-2.htm" title="And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.">Revelation 4:2-11</a>)—thoughts like those of Hooker’s death-bed (Walton’s <span class= "ital">Life</span>)—while the latter brought before his spirit the peace and rest ineffable, even in their intermediate and therefore imperfect state, of the souls who had fallen asleep in Christ and were waiting for their resurrection.<p><span class= "bld">Unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to</span> <span class= "bld">utter.</span>—The first two words present the tone of a paradox—<span class= "ital">speech unspeakable,</span> or <span class= "ital">utterances unutterable.</span> The verb in the second clause hovers between the text, “it is not lawful” and “it is not possible.” The hymns which St. John records in <a href="/context/revelation/4-8.htm" title="And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.">Revelation 4:8-9</a>; <a href="/context/revelation/5-12.htm" title="Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.">Revelation 5:12-14</a>; <a href="/revelation/7-12.htm" title="Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be to our God for ever and ever. Amen.">Revelation 7:12</a>; <a href="/revelation/15-3.htm" title="And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are your ways, you King of saints.">Revelation 15:3</a>, may give us some faint approach to what dwelt in St. Paul’s memory and yet could not be reproduced. Sounds of ineffable sweetness, bursts of praise and adoration, hallelujahs like the sound of many waters, voices low and sweet as those of children, whispers which were scarcely distinguishable from silence and yet thrilled the soul with a rapturous joy—this we may, perhaps, think of as underlying St. Paul’s language. In the mystic ecstatic utterances of the Tongues—themselves needing an interpreter, and helping little to build up those who heard them, though they raised the life of those who spoke with them to a higher level—we may, perhaps, trace some earthly echoes of that heavenly music. (See Notes on <a href="/acts/2-4.htm" title="And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.">Acts 2:4</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/14-2.htm" title="For he that speaks in an unknown tongue speaks not to men, but to God: for no man understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.">1Corinthians 14:2</a>.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-5.htm">2 Corinthians 12:5</a></div><div class="verse">Of such an one will I glory: yet of myself I will not glory, but in mine infirmities.</div>(5) <span class= "bld">Of such an one will I glory.</span>—There is, if we rightly understand it, an almost exquisite sadness in the distinction which is thus drawn by the Apostle between the old self of fourteen years ago, with this abundance of revelations, and the new self of the present, feebler and sadder than the old, worn with cares and sorrows, the daily rush of life and its ever-growing anxieties. Then he saw with open vision; now he walks by faith and not by the thing seen. He can hardly recognise his own identity, and can speak of the man who had then this capacity for the beatific vision as though he were another—almost as if he were dead and gone. The “<span class= "ital">non sum qualis eram”</span> of decay and age presents manifold varieties of form, the soldier recalling the stir and the rush of battle, the poet finding that the vision and the “faculty divine” are no longer entrusted to his keeping, the eloquent orator who had “wielded at will a fierce democracy,” complaining of slow speech and of a stammering tongue; but this has a sadness peculiar to itself. Faith, hope, love, peace, righteousness, are still there, but there has passed away a glory from the earth, and the joy of that ecstatic rapture lies in the remote past, never to return on earth.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-6.htm">2 Corinthians 12:6</a></div><div class="verse">For though I would desire to glory, I shall not be a fool; for I will say the truth: but <i>now</i> I forbear, lest any man should think of me above that which he seeth me <i>to be</i>, or <i>that</i> he heareth of me.</div>(6) <span class= "bld">For though I would desire to glory . . . </span>He had said in the preceding verse that he will glory only in his infirmities. He is about to lay bare to their gaze the greatest of all those infirmities. “If I should boast of that,” he says, “I shall not be acting as a madman does” (the thought of insanity is throughout dominant in the words “fool” and “folly”), “for I will confine myself to a simple statement of fact.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-7.htm">2 Corinthians 12:7</a></div><div class="verse">And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">There was given to me a thorn in the flesh.</span>—The vague mystery with which St. Paul thus surrounds the special form of “infirmity” of which he speaks, has given rise to very different conjectures, which will require to be treated with more or less fulness. It will be well to begin with getting as closely as we can at the idea of the central word. The Greek word for “thorn,” then, might better be translated <span class= "ital">stake.</span> It is used, <span class= "ital">e.g.,</span> of stakes thrust into the ground to form a palisade round a grave—<p>“And round about they dug a trench full deep,<p>And wide and large, and round it fixed their <span class= "ital">stakes.</span>”<p>—Homer, <span class= "ital">Iliad,</span> vii. 441.<p>A sharp-pointed stake of this kind was often used as a means of torture in the punishment known as impaling, and the two Greek words for “impaling” and “crucifying” were indeed almost interchangeable (Herod. i. 128; ix. 18). So in Euripides (<span class= "ital">Iphig. in</span> <span class= "ital">Tauris.</span> 1430)—<p>“Say, shall we hurl them down from lofty rock,<p>Or fix their bodies on the <span class= "ital">stake?”</span><p>It is significant that men like Celsus and Lucian, writing against the faith of Christians, used the term “stake” instead of “cross,” as more ignominious, and spoke of Jesus as having been “impaled” instead of “crucified” (Origen, c. Cels. ii.; Lucian, D<span class= "ital">e morte Peregr.,</span> p. 762). So Chrysostom used the word “impaled” of St. Peter’s crucifixion. On the other hand, medical writers, such as Dioscorides and Artemidorus, by whose use of the word, as possibly coming to him through St. Luke, St. Paul was likely to be influenced, apply the term to what we call a “splinter” getting into the flesh and causing acute inflammation (<span class= "ital">Diosc.</span> ii. 29; iv. 176). Dioscorides, it may be noted, was a native of Anazarba in Cilicia, and probably a contemporary of St. Paul’s. The word used figuratively, therefore, comes to bring with it the sense of some acute form of suffering, something, to use a word of like history and significance, <span class= "ital">excruciating</span> in its character. So used, it might, as far as the word itself is concerned, be applied to any sharp agony, either of mind or body.<p>The history of the interpretations which have been given to this mysterious term is not without interest as a psychological study. Men have clearly been influenced, to a large extent, by their subjective tendencies. They have measured the sufferings of St. Paul by their own experience, and thinking that he must have felt as they felt, have seen in his “thorn in the flesh” that which they felt to be their own sharpest trial. Some of these conjectures may be dismissed very briefly. It cannot be, as some have thought, the remembrance of his own guilt in persecuting the disciples of Christ, for that would not have been described as a “thorn <span class= "ital">in the flesh”</span> nor could he well have prayed that it should depart from him. For a like reason, it could not have been, as some Protestant commentators have imagined, any doubt as to the certainty of his own salvation, or of his being included in God’s pardoning love. We may safely set aside, again, the view that he refers to his struggle with heathen enemies, like Demetrius, or Judaising rivals, for these had been included in his list of sufferings in <a href="/context/2_corinthians/11-22.htm" title="Are they Hebrews? so am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they the seed of Abraham? so am I.">2Corinthians 11:22-23</a>, and here he is clearly speaking of something generically new. There remain two hypotheses. (1) That he speaks of the conflict with sensual passion; and (2), that he refers to some chronic infirmity of body that brought with it constantly recurring attacks of acute pain. For each of these a strong case may be made out. In favour of (1) it may be urged that the language of St. Paul in not a few places implies the existence of such a struggle with temptation. He sees a law in his members warring against the law of his mind (<a href="/romans/7-23.htm" title="But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.">Romans 7:23</a>). Sin wrought in him all manner of concupiscence (<a href="/romans/7-8.htm" title="But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.">Romans 7:8</a>). He found it necessary to keep under his body, and bring it into subjection (<a href="/1_corinthians/9-27.htm" title="But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.">1Corinthians 9:27</a>). What has been said as to the question, “Who is offended, and I burn not?” suggests a special sympathy with that form of struggle against evil; and in the “fire-tipt darts of the wicked one” of <a href="/ephesians/6-16.htm" title="Above all, taking the shield of faith, with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.">Ephesians 6:16</a> (where we have the participle of the same verb), we may, perhaps, trace an allusive reference to impulses of this nature. It is clear that with some temperaments temptations such as this, besides the moral pain which they bring with them, may inflict a bodily suffering little less than excruciating, and the words that speak of the “flesh” as the seat of suffering, and of its being a “messenger of Satan,” at least fall in with the view thus presented. Nor is it enough to say, on the other hand, that St. Paul’s character made such temptations impossible. The long line of patristic, and mediaeval, and modern Romish interpreters who have taken this view, though of little weight as an authority, is, at least, evidence that they knew the bitterness of such temptations, and though their thoughts may have been coloured by the experiences of the monastic life and enforced celibacy, as in the story of the temptations of St. Antony, we may fairly read in their testimony the fact that sensual temptation may assail men who are aiming at a high ascetic standard of holiness. Experience seems, indeed, to show that the ecstatic temperament, with its high-wrought emotional excitement, is more than most others liable to the attacks of this form of evil. So the daily evening hymn of St. Ambrose includes the prayer, “<span class= "ital">ne polluantur corpora.”</span> So Augustine bewails the recurrence in dreams of the old sensuous temptations to which he had yielded in his youth (<span class= "ital">Confess.</span> x. 30); and Jerome is not ashamed to tell the history of such temptations, alternating here also with ecstatic visions of divine glories, to the female friend whom he exhorts to persevere in her vow of chastity (<span class= "ital">Epist. ad Eustochium,</span> c. 7). It may be added that this view falls in with the tone in which St. Paul approaches “the thorn in the flesh” as the crown of all his infirmities. No self-humiliation could go beyond this disclosure of what most men hide. As in the confessions of Augustine and Jerome, just referred to, the last veil is withdrawn, and men are told that the man who has had visions of God is one of like passions with themselves, subject, as they are, to the strongest temptations of his sensuous nature. As in the triumphs of the Emperors of Rome, a slave rode in the same chariot with the conqueror, and bade him ever and anon remember that he also was a man, so here there was a continual reminder that he too might become as others were. If there was any danger of being exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, nothing could more easily bring a man down from that ideal height than the consciousness that this was his besetting temptation.<p>On the other hand, there are some serious considerations that militate against this theory. There is no trace of any sins of this nature in any of St. Paul’s retrospects (as in <a href="/acts/22-3.htm" title="I am truly a man which am a Jew, born in Tarsus, a city in Cilicia, yet brought up in this city at the feet of Gamaliel, and taught according to the perfect manner of the law of the fathers, and was zealous toward God, as you all are this day.">Acts 22:3</a>; <a href="/acts/23-1.htm" title="And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brothers, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.">Acts 23:1</a>; <a href="/acts/26-4.htm" title="My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among my own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews;">Acts 26:4</a>; <a href="/philippians/3-4.htm" title="Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinks that he has whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:">Philippians 3:4</a>; <a href="/philippians/3-6.htm" title="Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.">Philippians 3:6</a>) of his state before his conversion. His tone in <a href="/romans/7-25.htm" title="I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.">Romans 7:25</a> is that of one who has fought and overcome in the struggle with “the flesh”; and it is clear from the whole context, that with St. Paul the “fleshly mind” does not necessarily involve sensual sin. The language of <a href="/1_corinthians/7-7.htm" title="For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man has his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.">1Corinthians 7:7</a> (“I would that all men were even as I myself”), which is the nearest approach to a direct statement on the subject, is scarcely compatible with the thought that, instead of the calmness of habitual self-control, the man who so spoke was all along fighting against impulses which were so strong us to bring with them actual torment. It may be added, as almost decisive, that St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, would use language that they could understand, and that there is not a jot or tittle of evidence that the word for “thorn” was ever used by any Greek writer of the sting of sensuous impulse. It was not likely, indeed, that they, accustomed to a licentious indulgence in this matter, would see in such an impulse any cause of pain and anguish. If the Apostle had meant this it would have been necessary for him to express his meaning far more plainly. On the other hand, there is, as we have seen (Notes on <a href="/2_corinthians/1-9.htm" title="But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead:">2Corinthians 1:9</a>; <a href="/context/2_corinthians/4-10.htm" title="Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.">2Corinthians 4:10-12</a>; <a href="/context/2_corinthians/5-2.htm" title="For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed on with our house which is from heaven:">2Corinthians 5:2-4</a>), abundant evidence that St. Paul did suffer from some acute form of bodily disease. The very word “stake,” or “thorn,” or “splinter,” would suggest to the Corinthian readers of the Epistle the idea of corporeal rather than mental suffering. The “large letter” of his signature (<a href="/galatians/6-11.htm" title="You see how large a letter I have written to you with my own hand.">Galatians 6:11</a>), the characteristic “steadfast gaze” (see Note on <a href="/acts/13-9.htm" title="Then Saul, (who also is called Paul,) filled with the Holy Ghost, set his eyes on him.">Acts 13:9</a>), the wish of the Galatians, if it had been possible, to have plucked out their own eyes and given them to him (<a href="/galatians/4-15.htm" title="Where is then the blessedness you spoke of? for I bear you record, that, if it had been possible, you would have plucked out your own eyes, and have given them to me.">Galatians 4:15</a>), all point to brows and eyes as being the seat of suffering. The very word to “buffet” (see Note on <a href="/matthew/26-67.htm" title="Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,">Matthew 26:67</a>) suggests the same conclusion. Nor need we be surprised that this infirmity—neuralgia of the head and face, or inflammation of the eyes, perhaps, in some measure, the after consequences of the blindness at Damascus—should be described as “a messenger of Satan.” That was, in fact, the dominant Jewish thought as to the causation of disease. The sores and boils of Job (<a href="/job/2-7.htm" title="So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to his crown.">Job 2:7</a>), the spirit of infirmity of the woman whom Satan had bound (Luke xiii 16), St. Paul’s own reference to Satan as hindering his journeys (<a href="/1_thessalonians/2-18.htm" title="Why we would have come to you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.">1Thessalonians 2:18</a>), his delivering men to Satan for the destruction of their flesh and the salvation of their souls (<a href="/1_corinthians/5-5.htm" title="To deliver such an one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.">1Corinthians 5:5</a>; <a href="/1_timothy/1-20.htm" title="Of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander; whom I have delivered to Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.">1Timothy 1:20</a>), St. Peter’s description of our Lord as healing all that are oppressed of the devil (<a href="/acts/10-38.htm" title="How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.">Acts 10:38</a>)—these are enough to prove, that while men referred special forms of suffering of mind and body, chiefly the former, to the agency of demons, they were prepared to recognise the agency of Satan in almost every form of bodily calamity.<p>On these grounds, then, it is believed the balance turns in favour of the latter of the two hypotheses. A more complete solution of the problem may, perhaps, be found in accepting it as, in some measure, supplemented by the former. I venture to think, however, that all or most of the facts urged on behalf of that view, may legitimately come under the words “lest I should be exalted above measure.” The man who is so exalted is in danger of sensual passions. The ecstatic is on the border-land of the orgiastic. He needs a check of some kind. If this were so with St. Paul, as with Luther and Augustine (and the language of <a href="/romans/7-8.htm" title="But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, worked in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.">Romans 7:8</a> must be admitted to point to some past struggles), what more effective check could there be than the sharp pain of body, crucifying the flesh with the affections and lusts (<a href="/galatians/5-24.htm" title="And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts.">Galatians 5:24</a>), with which we have seen reason to identify the “thorn” of which St. Paul speaks? One who thus lived as in “the body of this death” could thank God who, even in this way, gave him the victory over the law of sin (<a href="/romans/7-24.htm" title="O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?">Romans 7:24</a>). His sufferings were to him, as has been well pointed out by Dean Stanley (in a Note on this verse), what the mysterious agony that used at times to seize on Alfred in the midst of feast and revel, had been to the saintly and heroic king, a discipline working for his perfection.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-8.htm">2 Corinthians 12:8</a></div><div class="verse">For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.</div>(8) <span class= "bld">For this thing I besought the Lord thrice.</span>—We are reminded of our Lord’s three-fold prayer in Gethsemane (<a href="/matthew/26-36.htm" title="Then comes Jesus with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, Sit you here, while I go and pray yonder.">Matthew 26:36</a>; <a href="/context/luke/22-42.htm" title="Saying, Father, if you be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but yours, be done.">Luke 22:42-45</a>). Was St. Paul himself reminded of it? There also the answer to the prayer was not compliance with its petition, but the gift of strength to bear and to endure.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-9.htm">2 Corinthians 12:9</a></div><div class="verse">And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.</span>—The words fit in, more or less, with each of the two views that have been discussed above. From one point of view, however, it seems infinitely more in harmony with our thoughts of God, that the prayer to be relieved from pain should be refused, because it was working out a higher perfection than was attainable without it, than that a deaf ear should have been turned to a prayer to be relieved from the temptation to impurity. Such a prayer seems to us to carry with it something like an assurance of its own prevailing power. Some of the better MSS. omit the possessive “My,” and with that reading the words take the form of a general axiom affirming that, in the highest sense, “might is perfected in weakness.” The last word is the same as that translated “infirmity” in the next clause. The variation, as concealing this, is so far unfortunate.<p><span class= "bld">Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities.</span>—The word, as has just been said, is the same as the “weakness” in the answer to his prayer. He finds not comfort only, but actual delight, in his consciousness of weakness, because it is balanced by the sense that the might of Christ <span class= "ital">dwells in him and around him.</span> The word for “rest” is literally, as a like word in <a href="/john/1-14.htm" title="And the Word was made flesh, and dwelled among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.">John 1:14</a>, <span class= "ital">to dwell as in a tent,</span> and suggests the thought that the might of Christ was to him as the Shechinah cloud of glory encompassing him and protecting him.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-10.htm">2 Corinthians 12:10</a></div><div class="verse">Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.</div>(10) <span class= "bld">Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities.</span>—The thoughts of the Apostle go back to the sufferings of which he had spoken fully in 2 Corinthians 11 and elsewhere. One new word is added, “reproaches” (better, <span class= "ital">insults</span>)<span class= "ital">, </span>which elsewhere in the New Testament meets us only in <a href="/acts/27-10.htm" title="And said to them, Sirs, I perceive that this voyage will be with hurt and much damage, not only of the lading and ship, but also of our lives.">Acts 27:10</a>; <a href="/acts/27-21.htm" title="But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the middle of them, and said, Sirs, you should have listened to me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.">Acts 27:21</a>, in the sense of material damage. Here the reference is probably to the taunts and sneers to which we have traced allusions in <a href="/2_corinthians/1-17.htm" title="When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yes yes, and no no?">2Corinthians 1:17</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/3-1.htm" title="Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, letters of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?">2Corinthians 3:1</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/7-8.htm" title="For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that the same letter has made you sorry, though it were but for a season.">2Corinthians 7:8</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/8-2.htm" title="How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded to the riches of their liberality.">2Corinthians 8:2</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/10-10.htm" title="For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.">2Corinthians 10:10</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/11-6.htm" title="But though I be rude in speech, yet not in knowledge; but we have been thoroughly made manifest among you in all things.">2Corinthians 11:6</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/11-8.htm" title="I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.">2Corinthians 11:8</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/11-16.htm" title="I say again, Let no man think me a fool; if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little.">2Corinthians 11:16</a>. He was able to bear even these with satisfaction when he felt that he was bearing them for the sake of Christ. He had learnt to add another paradox to those of <a href="/context/2_corinthians/6-9.htm" title="As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;">2Corinthians 6:9-10</a>, and to feel that the greatest weakness was not only compatible with the highest strength, but might be the very condition of its energy.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-11.htm">2 Corinthians 12:11</a></div><div class="verse">I am become a fool in glorying; ye have compelled me: for I ought to have been commended of you: for in nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.</div>(11) <span class= "bld">I am become a fool in glorying.</span>—The two last words are wanting in the better MSS., and the verse opens with a somewhat thrilling abruptness,—<span class= "ital">I am become insane</span>—<span class= "ital">it was you</span> (emphatic) <span class= "ital">who compelled me.</span> The words are partly ironical—partly speak of an impatient consciousness that what he had been saying would seem to give colour to the opprobrious epithets that had been flung at him. The passage on which we now enter, and of which we may think as begun after a pause, is remarkable for the reproduction, in a compressed form, of most of the topics, each with its characteristic phrase, on which he had before dwelt. The violence of the storm is over, but the sky is not yet clear, and we still hear the mutterings of the receding thunder He remembers once more that he has been called “insane”; that he has been taunted with “commending himself”; that he has-been treated as “nothing” in comparison with those “apostles-extraordinary” who were setting themselves up as his rivals. “I,” he says, with an emphatic stress on the pronoun, “ought to have had no need for this painful self-assertion. <span class= "ital">You</span> ought to have acknowledged my labour and my love for you.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-12.htm">2 Corinthians 12:12</a></div><div class="verse">Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in all patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.</div>(12) <span class= "bld">Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you.</span>—The passage is remarkable for using the word “signs,” first, in the general sense, as “notes” or “tokens,” and then more specifically for works of supernatural power. On the special meaning of the three words, “signs,” “wonders,” “power,” see Note on <a href="/acts/2-22.htm" title="You men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the middle of you, as you yourselves also know:">Acts 2:22</a>. The passage is noticeable as being one of those in which St. Paul distinctly claims a supernatural power for himself, and appeals to its exercise. (Comp. <a href="/romans/15-19.htm" title="Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about to Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.">Romans 15:19</a>—written, it will be remembered, shortly after this—and <a href="/1_corinthians/2-4.htm" title="And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:">1Corinthians 2:4</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">In all patience.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">in endurance of every kind,</span> as referring to the hardships and privations specified in <a href="/context/2_corinthians/11-23.htm" title="Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.">2Corinthians 11:23-28</a>, in the midst of which the work had to be carried on.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-13.htm">2 Corinthians 12:13</a></div><div class="verse">For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except <i>it be</i> that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.</div>(13) <span class= "bld">What is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches?</span>—His mind travels back to the insinuation that he cared less for them than he did for the churches of Macedonia, because he had maintained his independence and had received no gifts from them. If they complained of this, they should, at least, remember that this was the only point of inferiority. They had experienced fully all the advantages that flowed from his special power as an Apostle. For that wrong, so far as it was a wrong, he asks their forgiveness.<p><span class= "bld">That I myself was not burdensome.</span>—He uses here, and in the next verse, the same characteristic word for “sponging” on them, which has been commented on in the Note on <a href="/2_corinthians/11-9.htm" title="And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man: for that which was lacking to me the brothers which came from Macedonia supplied: and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome to you, and so will I keep myself.">2Corinthians 11:9</a>. He obviously dwells on it with a touch of irony, as a word that had been used of him by some of his rivals.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-14.htm">2 Corinthians 12:14</a></div><div class="verse">Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you; and I will not be burdensome to you: for I seek not yours, but you: for the children ought not to lay up for the parents, but the parents for the children.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">Behold, the third time I am ready to come to you.</span>—The visit to Corinth of <a href="/acts/18-1.htm" title="After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth;">Acts 18:1</a>. followed by a long sojourn, may perhaps be reckoned as the first occasion; then came the projected journey from Ephesus to Corinth and thence to Macedonia (<a href="/2_corinthians/1-16.htm" title="And to pass by you into Macedonia, and to come again out of Macedonia to you, and of you to be brought on my way toward Judaea.">2Corinthians 1:16</a>); now he was preparing for the third journey, announced in <a href="/context/1_corinthians/16-5.htm" title="Now I will come to you, when I shall pass through Macedonia: for I do pass through Macedonia.">1Corinthians 16:5-7</a>, from Macedonia to Corinth. (See, however, the Note on <a href="/2_corinthians/13-1.htm" title="This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.">2Corinthians 13:1</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">I seek not your’s, but you.</span>—The words point to the secret motive of the conduct which had annoyed some of the Corinthians. He loved them, as all true friends love, for their own sake, not for anything he might hope to gain from them. He must be sure that he had gained their hearts before he could receive their gifts as poor substitutes for their affections; and therefore he announces beforehand that he meant to persevere in the same line of conduct, working for his own maintenance as before. <a href="/romans/16-23.htm" title="Gaius my host, and of the whole church, salutes you. Erastus the chamberlain of the city salutes you, and Quartus a brother.">Romans 16:23</a> indicates that he so far deviated from his purpose as to accept the hospitality of Gaius of Corinth.<p><span class= "bld">For the children ought not to lay up for the parents.</span>—Better, perhaps, <span class= "ital">are not bound to lay by.</span> There is a touch of exquisite delicacy and tenderness, reminding us of like characteristics in the Epistle to Philemon, in this apology for the seeming wrong of which men had complained. He could claim the rights of a father, as in <a href="/1_corinthians/4-15.htm" title="For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have you not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel.">1Corinthians 4:15</a>; might he not be allowed to fulfil a father’s obligations, and to give to his children rather than receive from them?<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-15.htm">2 Corinthians 12:15</a></div><div class="verse">And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you; though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.</div>(15) <span class= "bld">And I will very gladly spend and be spent.</span>—The pronoun is emphatic, <span class= "ital">I, for my part.</span> The latter verb implies spending to the last farthing. As he sought not <span class= "ital">theirs,</span> but <span class= "ital">them,</span> so he is ready to spend for them not only all that he has, but even, as if to the verge of exhaustion, all that he is. And yet with all this there was the painful consciousness of toiling without adequate return. It seemed to him, in his intense craving for affection, as if their love varied inversely with his own.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-16.htm">2 Corinthians 12:16</a></div><div class="verse">But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.</div>(16) <span class= "bld">But be it so, I did not burden you.</span>—The pronoun is again emphatic. The word for “burden” is not the same as in <a href="/context/2_corinthians/12-13.htm" title="For what is it wherein you were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you? forgive me this wrong.">2Corinthians 12:13-14</a>, but puts the fact less figuratively. The abruptness of the sentence requires us to trace between the lines the under-currents of unexpressed thoughts. The extreme, almost jealous, sensitiveness of the Apostle’s nature leads him to imagine the cynical sneer with which these assertions of disinterested work would be received. “Be it so,” he hears them saying; “we admit that he, in his own person, when he was with us, made no demands on our purses; but what are we to think of this ‘collection for the saints’? How do we know into whose pockets that money will go? We know him to be <span class= "ital">subtle</span> enough” (the adjective is that from which we get the “subtlety” of <a href="/2_corinthians/4-2.htm" title="But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.">2Corinthians 4:2</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/11-3.htm" title="But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.">2Corinthians 11:3</a>) “to take us in somehow: what if the collection be a trap?” There is a specially taunting force in the Greek for “<span class= "ital">being</span> crafty,” as taking the fact for granted, and assuming that it would inevitably lead on to some new development of that character in act.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-17.htm">2 Corinthians 12:17</a></div><div class="verse">Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you?</div>(17) <span class= "bld">By any of them whom I sent unto you?</span>—The English expresses the meaning of the Greek, but does not show, as that does, the vehement agitation which led the writer, as he dictated the letter, to begin the sentence with one construction and finish it with another. <span class= "ital">Did any of those I sent</span> . . . <span class= "ital">did I by this means get more out of you than I ought?</span> He has in his mind, as far as we know, Timotheus, who had been sent before the First Epistle (<a href="/1_corinthians/4-17.htm" title="For this cause have I sent to you Timotheus, who is my beloved son, and faithful in the Lord, who shall bring you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach every where in every church.">1Corinthians 4:17</a>); Stephanus, Fortunatus and Achaicus, who were the bearers of that Epistle (<a href="/1_corinthians/16-15.htm" title="I beseech you, brothers, (you know the house of Stephanas, that it is the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints,)">1Corinthians 16:15</a>); and Titus, who was sent, as we have seen, to learn what its effect had been. Had any of these, he asks, been asking for money on his account?<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-18.htm">2 Corinthians 12:18</a></div><div class="verse">I desired Titus, and with <i>him</i> I sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? walked we not in the same spirit? <i>walked we</i> not in the same steps?</div>(18) <span class= "bld">I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">the brother.</span> The Greek has the article, and he refers definitely to the first of the two unnamed brethren alluded to in <a href="/context/2_corinthians/8-18.htm" title="And we have sent with him the brother, whose praise is in the gospel throughout all the churches;">2Corinthians 8:18-22</a>. The Greek idiom of what is known as the “epistolary aorist,” hinders the English reader from seeing that St. Paul is referring to what was being done at the time when the letter was written. It would accordingly be better rendered, <span class= "ital">I have besought Titus to go; I am sending the brother with him.</span> The ungenerous suspicions of some of the Corinthians had made him almost morbidly sensitive, and he repeats practically what he had said before (<a href="/context/2_corinthians/8-20.htm" title="Avoiding this, that no man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us:">2Corinthians 8:20-21</a>), that his motive in sending these delegates was to guard against them. Having stated this, he can appeal to their past knowledge of Titus, as a guarantee for the future. Had he “sponged” on any man, or tried what he could get out of him? Had he not identified himself with the Apostle, both in the general spirit which animated him and in the details of his daily life? It is a natural inference from this that Titus also had worked for his own maintenance and lived in his own lodging. If we may assume the identity of Titus with the Justus into whose house St. Paul went when he left the synagogue at Corinth (see Note on <a href="/acts/18-7.htm" title="And he departed there, and entered into a certain man's house, named Justus, one that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.">Acts 18:7</a>), the appeal to the knowledge which the Corinthians had of him gains a new significance.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-19.htm">2 Corinthians 12:19</a></div><div class="verse">Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you? we speak before God in Christ: but <i>we do</i> all things, dearly beloved, for your edifying.</div>(19) <span class= "bld">Again, think ye that we excuse ourselves unto you?</span>—Many of the best MSS. present the reading <span class= "ital">palai</span> (long ago), instead of <span class= "ital">palin</span> (again). In this case the sentence is better taken as an assertion, not as a question—”You are thinking, and have been thinking for a long time, that it is to you that we have been making our defence.” The Greek verb for “excuse,” is that which is always used of a formal <span class= "ital">apologia,</span> or vindication (<a href="/luke/12-11.htm" title="And when they bring you to the synagogues, and to magistrates, and powers, take you no thought how or what thing you shall answer, or what you shall say:">Luke 12:11</a>; <a href="/luke/21-14.htm" title="Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what you shall answer:">Luke 21:14</a>; <a href="/acts/19-33.htm" title="And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander beckoned with the hand, and would have made his defense to the people.">Acts 19:33</a>; <a href="/acts/24-10.htm" title="Then Paul, after that the governor had beckoned to him to speak, answered, For as much as I know that you have been of many years a judge to this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself:">Acts 24:10</a>). St. Paul deprecates the idea that he has any wish to enter on such a vindication. He is anxious to explain his conduct, as in <a href="/context/2_corinthians/1-15.htm" title="And in this confidence I was minded to come to you before, that you might have a second benefit;">2Corinthians 1:15-24</a>; <a href="/context/2_corinthians/8-20.htm" title="Avoiding this, that no man should blame us in this abundance which is administered by us:">2Corinthians 8:20-24</a>; <a href="/context/2_corinthians/11-7.htm" title="Have I committed an offense in abasing myself that you might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?">2Corinthians 11:7-12</a>, but he does not acknowledge that he stands at the bar before their judgment-seat. He speaks, <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> in the same tone of independence as in <a href="/context/1_corinthians/4-3.htm" title="But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment: yes, I judge not my own self.">1Corinthians 4:3-5</a>. The motive which really prompts him to speak as he has spoken is not the wish to clear himself from aspersions, but “before God in Christ,”—under a profound sense that God is his Judge, and that Christ is, as it were, the sphere in which his thoughts revolve,—he is seeking to “edify,” <span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> to build them up in the faith or love of God. He has the same end in view in all this perturbed emotion as in the calm liturgical directions of <a href="/context/1_corinthians/14-12.htm" title="Even so you, for as much as you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek that you may excel to the edifying of the church.">1Corinthians 14:12-26</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-20.htm">2 Corinthians 12:20</a></div><div class="verse">For I fear, lest, when I come, I shall not find you such as I would, and <i>that</i> I shall be found unto you such as ye would not: lest <i>there be</i> debates, envyings, wraths, strifes, backbitings, whisperings, swellings, tumults:</div>(20) F<span class= "bld">or I fear, lest, when I come . . .</span>—Something of the old anxiety which had led him to postpone his visit (<a href="/2_corinthians/1-23.htm" title="Moreover I call God for a record on my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet to Corinth.">2Corinthians 1:23</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/4-21.htm" title="What will you? shall I come to you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?">1Corinthians 4:21</a>) comes back upon his spirit. He and some of those Corinthians are likely to meet under very unfavourable conditions, neither of them acceptable to the other, severity meeting with open or masked resistance.<p><span class= "bld">Lest there be debates . . . .</span>—The list that follows forms a suggestive parallelism of contrast to that in <a href="/2_corinthians/7-11.htm" title="For behold this selfsame thing, that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it worked in you, yes, what clearing of yourselves, yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what vehement desire, yes, what zeal, yes, what revenge! In all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.">2Corinthians 7:11</a>, the ethical imagination of the Apostle, with its keen perception of the shades of human character, dwelling now on the manifold forms of opposition, as before it had dwelt on the manifold fruits of repentance. It will be worth while to attempt to fix the exact significance of each word somewhat more accurately than is done in the Authorised version. “Debates,” rather <span class= "ital">strifes</span> or <span class= "ital">quarrels,</span> had in older English a darker shade of meaning than it has now. Men spoke of a “deadly <span class= "ital">debate”</span> between friends. Chapman’s <span class= "ital">Homer</span> makes Achilles complain that he has cast his life into “<span class= "ital">debates</span> past end” (<span class= "ital">Iliad,</span> ii. 331). “Envyings” better <span class= "ital">jealousies,</span> another Greek word being appropriated for “envy” in the strict sense. The word, like “jealousy,” is capable of a good sense, as in <a href="/2_corinthians/7-11.htm" title="For behold this selfsame thing, that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it worked in you, yes, what clearing of yourselves, yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what vehement desire, yes, what zeal, yes, what revenge! In all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.">2Corinthians 7:11</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/9-2.htm" title="For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago; and your zeal has provoked very many.">2Corinthians 9:2</a>; <a href="/2_corinthians/11-2.htm" title="For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.">2Corinthians 11:2</a>. It is well, perhaps, to notice how closely allied are the qualities which the word expresses, how soon “zeal” (<a href="/2_corinthians/7-11.htm" title="For behold this selfsame thing, that you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it worked in you, yes, what clearing of yourselves, yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what vehement desire, yes, what zeal, yes, what revenge! In all things you have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.">2Corinthians 7:11</a>; <a href="/philippians/3-6.htm" title="Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.">Philippians 3:6</a>) passes into “jealousy” in a good sense, and that again into “jealousy” in a bad sense. “Wrath.” The passion so described is treated by great ethical writers (Aristotle, <span class= "ital">Eth. Nicom.</span> iii. 8) as almost inseparable from true courage. In <span class= "ital">the</span> New Testament it is always used either of human wrath in its evil aspects (<a href="/luke/4-28.htm" title="And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,">Luke 4:28</a>; <a href="/acts/19-28.htm" title="And when they heard these sayings, they were full of wrath, and cried out, saying, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.">Acts 19:28</a>; <a href="/hebrews/11-27.htm" title="By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king: for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible.">Hebrews 11:27</a>), or—but only in the Apocalypse, where it occurs in this sense frequently—of the wrath of God (<a href="/revelation/14-10.htm" title="The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:">Revelation 14:10</a>; <a href="/revelation/14-19.htm" title="And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great wine press of the wrath of God.">Revelation 14:19</a>; <a href="/revelation/15-1.htm" title="And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.">Revelation 15:1</a>; <a href="/revelation/15-7.htm" title="And one of the four beasts gave to the seven angels seven golden vials full of the wrath of God, who lives for ever and ever.">Revelation 15:7</a>; <a href="/revelation/16-1.htm" title="And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God on the earth.">Revelation 16:1</a>; <a href="/revelation/16-19.htm" title="And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath.">Revelation 16:19</a>). There is, therefore, no need to alter the English here. The three words occur in the same connection in <a href="/galatians/5-20.htm" title="Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, jealousies, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,">Galatians 5:20</a>, a nearly contemporary Epistle.<p><span class= "bld">Strifes.</span>—The Greek word (<span class= "ital">eritheia</span>) begins with the same three letters as that for “strife,” and till a comparatively recent period was supposed to be connected with it, and so to be identical in meaning. It has, however, a very different history, not without interest, even for the English reader. The concrete form of the noun (<span class= "ital">erîthos</span>) meets us in Homer and elsewhere as a day-labourer, as in the description of the shield of Achilles:<p>“And there he wrought, a meadow thick with corn,<p>And <span class= "ital">labourers</span> reaping, sickles in their hand.”<p><span class= "ital">—Iliad,</span> xviii. 550.<p>The next step in the growth of the word, was the verb “to serve for wages,” and this was transferred to those who in matters of state compete for honours and rewards, rather than for their country’s good. Aristotle (<span class= "ital">Pol</span> v. 2, § 6; 3, § 9) enumerates the fact which the word expresses as one of the causes of revolutions, but carefully distinguishes it from “party spirit,” or “faction” as being more directly personal. <span class= "ital">Rivalries</span> would, perhaps, be an adequate rendering, but what are known in political life as the <span class= "ital">cabals</span> of cliques or coteries as contrasted with open party-fights exactly correspond to the evils which the Apostle had in his thoughts.<p><span class= "bld">Backbitings, whisperings.</span>—The English reads the idea of secret calumny into both words. In the Greek, however, the first expresses “open abuse or invective,” as in <a href="/james/4-11.htm" title="Speak not evil one of another, brothers. He that speaks evil of his brother, and judges his brother, speaks evil of the law, and judges the law: but if you judge the law, you are not a doer of the law, but a judge.">James 4:11</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-1.htm" title="Why laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, all evil speakings,">1Peter 2:1</a>; <a href="/1_peter/2-12.htm" title="Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.">1Peter 2:12</a>. In contrast with this we have the “whispers” of the slanderers, the innuendoes and insinuations of the man who has not the courage for the more open attack. So the “whisperer” is spoken of with special scorn in <a href="//apocrypha.org/ecclesiasticus/21-28.htm" title="A whisperer defileth his own soul, and is hated wheresoever he dwelleth.">Ecclesiasticus 21:28</a>; <a href="//apocrypha.org/ecclesiasticus/28-13.htm" title="Curse the whisperer and doubletongued: for such have destroyed many that were at peace.">Ecclesiasticus 28:13</a>. The word in its primary meaning is used for the low chirp of the swallow, which was, as it were, reproduced in the confidential whispers of the retailer of scandal. (See Note on “babbler” in <a href="/acts/17-18.htm" title="Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seems to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached to them Jesus, and the resurrection.">Acts 17:18</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">Swellings, tumults.</span>—The first word is found here only in the New Testament, but is formed regularly from the verb “to be puffed up,” which is prominent in <a href="/1_corinthians/4-6.htm" title="And these things, brothers, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up for one against another.">1Corinthians 4:6</a>; <a href="/context/1_corinthians/4-18.htm" title="Now some are puffed up, as though I would not come to you.">1Corinthians 4:18-19</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/5-2.htm" title="And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, that he that has done this deed might be taken away from among you.">1Corinthians 5:2</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/8-1.htm" title="Now as touching things offered to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but charity edifies.">1Corinthians 8:1</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/13-4.htm" title="Charity suffers long, and is kind; charity envies not; charity braggs not itself, is not puffed up,">1Corinthians 13:4</a>. It was clearly, in St. Paul’s mind, the besetting sin of the Corinthians. As far as we know, the word may have been coined by him, but as connected with the medical idea of <span class= "ital">flatus</span> and inflation, it may not improbably have been one of the technical terms, used figuratively, which he borrowed from St. Luke’s vocabulary. It is almost necessary to coin an English word to express it. “Inflated egotisms” is an adequate paraphrase: “puffed-upnesses” would be, perhaps, too bold a coinage. The word for “tumult” has met us before. (See Notes on <a href="/2_corinthians/6-5.htm" title="In stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labors, in watchings, in fastings;">2Corinthians 6:5</a>; <a href="/luke/21-9.htm" title="But when you shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by.">Luke 21:9</a>; <a href="/1_corinthians/14-33.htm" title="For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.">1Corinthians 14:33</a>.) <span class= "ital">Disorders, confusions,</span> what figuratively we call the “chaos,” into which a public meeting sometimes falls, are what the word expresses, rather than the more open outbreak indicated by “tumult.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/2_corinthians/12-21.htm">2 Corinthians 12:21</a></div><div class="verse"><i>And</i> lest, when I come again, my God will humble me among you, and <i>that</i> I shall bewail many which have sinned already, and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed.</div>(21) <span class= "bld">And lest when I come again . . .</span>—The words do not imply more than one previous visit (<a href="/acts/18-1.htm" title="After these things Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth;">Acts 18:1</a>), but it can scarcely be said that they exclude the supposition of another. (See Note on <a href="/2_corinthians/13-1.htm" title="This is the third time I am coming to you. In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.">2Corinthians 13:1</a>.)<p><span class= "bld">My God will humble me among you.</span>—We lose the force of the Greek verb by not seeing that it reproduces the word which has been so prominent in the Epistle, and which has appeared in <a href="/2_corinthians/7-6.htm" title="Nevertheless God, that comforts those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus;">2Corinthians 7:6</a>, as “cast down;” in <a href="/2_corinthians/10-1.htm" title="Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you:">2Corinthians 10:1</a> as “base;” in <a href="/2_corinthians/11-7.htm" title="Have I committed an offense in abasing myself that you might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?">2Corinthians 11:7</a> as “abasing.” There is something almost plaintive in the tone in which the Apostle speaks of the sin of his disciples as the only real “humiliation” which he has to fear. The readings vary; and one of them may be taken as a question: <span class= "ital">Will God humble me again?</span> There is, however, it is believed, no adequate ground for altering the text.<p><span class= "bld">That I shall bewail many which have sinned already.</span>—Literally, <span class= "ital">who have sinned beforehand;</span> leaving it uncertain what time is referred to. He may refer to sins before admission into the Church, of which men had never really repented, or to sins before the time of his writing, or before that of his arrival. On the whole, the first interpretation has most to commend it. He has in his thoughts such persons as those described in <a href="/1_corinthians/6-9.htm" title="Know you not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,">1Corinthians 6:9</a>, and suspects that some of them have not really renounced the sins which he there names. Of the three forms of evil, the first is generic and the two latter more specific; the last probably indicating the darker forms of evil. It is obvious that the words cannot refer to the incestuous offender who had repented (<a href="/2_corinthians/2-7.htm" title="So that contrariwise you ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow.">2Corinthians 2:7</a>), nor to the Church generally in connection with that offence (<a href="/context/2_corinthians/7-9.htm" title="Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance: for you were made sorry after a godly manner, that you might receive damage by us in nothing.">2Corinthians 7:9-11</a>). Probably he had in view the party of license, who maintained the indifference of “eating things sacrificed to idols,” and of “fornication,” just as, in the previous verse, he had chiefly in view the party of his Judaising opponents.<p><span class= "bld"><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. Used by Permission. <span class="p"><br /><br /></span><a href="/">Bible Hub</a></div></div></div></div></td></tr></table></div><div id="left"><a href="../2_corinthians/11.htm" onmouseover='lft.src="/leftgif.png"' onmouseout='lft.src="/left.png"' title="2 Corinthians 11"><img src="/left.png" name="lft" border="0" alt="2 Corinthians 11" /></a></div><div id="right"><a href="../2_corinthians/13.htm" onmouseover='rght.src="/rightgif.png"' onmouseout='rght.src="/right.png"' title="2 Corinthians 13"><img src="/right.png" name="rght" border="0" alt="2 Corinthians 13" /></a></div><div id="botleft"><a href="#" onmouseover='botleft.src="/botleftgif.png"' onmouseout='botleft.src="/botleft.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botleft.png" name="botleft" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div><div id="botright"><a href="#" onmouseover='botright.src="/botrightgif.png"' onmouseout='botright.src="/botright.png"' title="Top of Page"><img src="/botright.png" name="botright" border="0" alt="Top of Page" /></a></div><div id="rightbox"><div class="padright"><div id="pic"><iframe width="100%" height="860" scrolling="no" src="//biblescan.com/mpc/2_corinthians/12-1.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></div></div><div id="rightbox4"><div class="padright2"><div id="spons1"><table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr><td class="sp1"><iframe width="122" height="860" scrolling="no" src="/commentaries/ellicott/sidemenu.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></td></tr></table></div></div></div><div id="bot"><br /><br /><div align="center"> <script id="3d27ed63fc4348d5b062c4527ae09445"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=51ce25d5-1a8c-424a-8695-4bd48c750f35&cid=3a9f82d0-4344-4f8d-ac0c-e1a0eb43a405'; </script> <script id="b817b7107f1d4a7997da1b3c33457e03"> (new Image()).src = 'https://capi.connatix.com/tr/si?token=cb0edd8b-b416-47eb-8c6d-3cc96561f7e8&cid=3a9f82d0-4344-4f8d-ac0c-e1a0eb43a405'; </script><br /><br /> <!-- /1078254/BH-728x90-ATF --> <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-2'> </div><br /><br /> <!-- /1078254/BH-300x250-ATF --> <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-0' style='max-width: 300px;'> </div><br /><br /> <!-- /1078254/BH-728x90-BTF --> <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-3'> </div><br /><br /> <!-- /1078254/BH-300x250-BTF --> <div id='div-gpt-ad-1529103594582-1' style='max-width: 300px;'> </div><br /><br /> <!-- /1078254/BH-728x90-BTF2 --> <div align="center" id='div-gpt-ad-1531425649696-0'> </div><br /><br /> <ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:inline-block;width:200px;height:200px" data-ad-client="ca-pub-3753401421161123" data-ad-slot="3592799687"></ins> <script> (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); </script> <br /><br /> </div><iframe width="100%" height="1500" scrolling="no" src="/botmenubhchap.htm" frameborder="0"></iframe></div></td></tr></table></body></html>