apostasy to Judaism, says, " This only would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith ? " Gal. 3, 2 ; and in Heb. 2, 4, he says, God bore witness to the gospel by the gifts of the Holy Ghost. The apostle here supposes the impossible case that a like con- firmation had attended the preaching of the false teachers. ' If,' he says, ' they preach another (aXXo?) Jesus, and in proof that he is truly a Saviour, ye receive a different (erepos) spirit, i. e. a spirit whose manifestations were of a different kind from those of the Spirit who attests my preaching,' &c. Or another {eT€po<s, a different) gospel, lohich ye have not accepted. In the former clause the verb is iXd/Sere (ye received), in the latter eSe^acr^e (ye accepted), because, as Bengel says, Non concurrit voluntas homiuis in accipiendo Spiritu, ut in recipi- endo evangelio. That is, man is passive in receiving the spirit, and active in accepting the gospel. Te might well hear with him. The word is di/etxco-^e, in the imperfect. The tense which the context would seem to demand is the present, dvcx^cT'^c, a reading which Lachmann and Riickert, on the au- thority of the MS. B, have introduced into the text. The other leading verbs of the verse are in the present, ' If one preaches another Jesus, and ye receive another Spirit, and accept another gospel, (in that case,) ye do bear with him.' Instead, however, of saying, ' ye do bear with him,' the apostle is supposed purposely to soften the expression by saying, ' ye might well bear with him ; ' the particle av being, as often, understood. In this way he avoids the direct charge of tol- erating the conceited boasting of the false teachers. Others, as Meyer and Winer, assume an irregularity, or change of construction.
5. Por I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.
The sense here again depends on the connection. If the yd/3 refers to v. 4, the reference must be (as so often occurs in Paul's writings) to a thought omitted. 'Ye are wrong in thus bearing with the false teachers, for I am equal to the chief apostles.' This, however, is not in harmony with the context. Paul's design is not so much to reprove the Corin- thians for tolerating the folly of the false teachers, as to induce them to bear with his. He felt it to be necessary to vindicate himself, and he therefore prays them to bear with him a little