right. Ye have coinjyelled me. It was their conduct which made it necessary for the apostle to commend himself. This is explained in the following clause. For I ought to have been coinmended of you. If they had done their duty in vindicat- ing him from the aspersions of the false teachers, there would have been no necessity for him to vindicate himself. They were bound thus to vindicate him, for hi nothing icas he he- hind the very chief est apostles. It is an imperative duty rest- ing on all who have the opportunity to vindicate the righteous. For us to sit silent when aspersions are cast upon good men, or when their character and services are undervalued, is to make ourselves partakers of the guilt of detraction. The Corinthians were thus guilty under aggravating circum- stances ; because the evidences of Paul's apostlcship and of his fidelity were abundant. He came behind in no one re- spect the very chief of the apostles. Besides this they were not only the witnesses of the signs of his divine mission, but they were the recipients of the blessings of that mission. For them therefore to fail to vindicate his claims and services was an ungrateful and cowardly dereliction of duty. By the chief of the apostles, still more clearly here than in 11, 5, are to be understood the most prominent among the true apostles, as Peter, James, and John, who in Gal. 2, 9 are called pillars. Neither here nor in 11, 5 is it an ironical designation of the false teachers. Though I he nothing. The apostle felt that what was the eflect of the grace, or free gift of God, was no ground of self-complacency or self-exaltation. 1 Cor. 4, 7. 15, 8-10. There were therefore united in him a deep sense of his own unworthiuess and impotence, with the conviction and consciousness of being full of knowledge, grace and power, by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost.
12. Truly the signs of an apostle were wrought among you in aU patience, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds.
This is the proof tliat he did not come behind the chief apostles. Timly ; /xcV, to wliich no 8e answers. The opposi- tion is plain from the connection. 'The signs indeed of an a])ostIe were wrought among you, hut you did not acknowl- edge them.' So Kiickert, Do Wette, and others. The signs of a7i ai^ostle were the insignia of the apostleship; those