afflicted, they would be similarly comforted; but the main idea is that such was the intimate bond between them and him that he had a firm hope they would be partakers both of his affliction and of his consolation. Though this appears to be the primary idea of the passage, the others are not to be excluded. Paul no doubt felt, and intended to intimate, that his diversified experience would redound to their advantage by qualifying him more abundantly for his work, and especial- ly for the office of consoling them in the afflictions which they, as well as he, would be called to endure. Whether we he af- flicted (it is) for your consolation and salvation ; i. e. my afflictions will contribute to your consolation and salvation. To the former, because those whom God afflicts, or, who suf- fer for Christ's sake and with Christ's people, God never tails to console ; to the latter, because suffering and sah^ation are so intimately connected. " If we suffer with him we shall also be glorified together," Rom. 8, 17. It is not of suffering as suffering that the apostle here speaks. There is no tendency in pain to produce holiness. It is only of Christian suffering and of the sufferings of Christians, that is, of suffering endured for Christ and in a Christian manner, that the apostle says it is connected with salvation, or that it tends to work out for those "who suffer an eternal weight of glory. Or lohether we be comforted it is for your consolation. That is, our consola- tion is also yours. If we are consoled, so are you. If we suf- fer together, we rejoice together. Or, if you suffer as I do, you will enjoy similar consolation. My being consoled ena- bles me to console you. According to the common text the reading here is, " your consolation and salvation.^^ But the repetition of the words a?id salvatlo7i is not sustained by some of the oldest manuscripts, and they do not cohere so well with the following clause ; as it can hardly be said that " salva- tion is effectual in enduring affliction." On these grounds, as before remarked, Beza and many other editors omit the words in question. Which is effectual ; that is, which consolation is operative or efficacious, not to the enduring, as in our ver- sion, but in the enduring {Iv xnrofxovrj). This consolation shows its efficacy in the patient endurance of suffering. Ac- cording to another interpretation €V€pyovfx€vr]<; is taken passive- ly, which is wroufjJtt out. The sense would then be good, * This consolation is wrought out or experienced in patient endurance.' But as Paul always uses this word actively, the rendering adopted in our version is generally and properly
II. CORINTHIAISrS 1, 8. 9
preferred. The same sufferings ichich I also suffer. The sufferings of the Corinthians were the same with those of the apostle, because they sympathized in his afflictions, because they in a measure suffered as he did, and because their suffer- ings were " the sufferings of Christ," in the same sense that his were. They were not only such sufferings as Christ en- dured, but they were incurred because those who suffered were Christians. And our hope of you is stedfast. That is, ' we have a stedfast hope that you ^^ill be partakers of our consolation.' Knowing^ i. e. because we know, that as ye are partakers of the sufferings^ so also of the consolation. The two go together. Those who share in our sorrows, share in our joys. There are two ideas apparently united here as in the preceding context. The one is that the sufferings of the apostle were also the sufferings of the Corinthians because of the union between them. The other is, that his readers were in their measure exposed to the same kind of sufferings. In this twofold sense they were the Kotvcovot, the communicants or joint-partakers of his joys and sorrows.
8. For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble, which came to us m Asia, that we were pressed out of measiu-e, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life.
The apostle confirms from the facts of his recent history, what he had said of his afflictions. Asia is probably to be understood here in reference to proconsular Asia, which com- prehended the western provinces of Asia Minor, viz., Mysia, Lydia, Caria, and part of Phrygia. What afflictions and dan- gers the apostle here refers to is uncertain. It is generally assumed that he alludes to the uproar in Ephesus, of which mention is made in Acts 19, 23-41. But to this it is objected that Paul does not appear to have been in personal danger during that tumult ; that instead of saying in Asia he would probably have said m Ephesus^ had he referred to that special event ; and that the language used seems obviously to imjDly a succession and continuance of severe trials. Others think that the reference is to some severe iUness. But there is nothing in the context to indicate that particular form of af- fliction. Neither could illness naturally be included under the " afflictions of Christ," under which head the apostle com-