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rsXog, the end) Whatever may be the specious appearance, on which they now plume themselves, the form [alluding to their transforming themselves into “ ministers of righteousness”] is at last stripped off from them. A most effectual criterion is de- rived from the future end of things, in the case of good and evil alike, Phil. iii. 19, 21.
16. TldXiv X'syu, I say again) He begins this new subject of boasting with a prefatory repetition of the anticipatory mitiga- tion \jrpoQspamfav] from ver. 1, which certainly no man that is a fool , atppuv uses. — [Art, let not) a particle of prohibition, let no man think , that I am a fool. This clause is not put in the way of parenthesis, but the meaning of the word X'syu, I say , falls upon this very clause.
17. *’0 XaXu, ov XaXu xara Kvp/'ov , that which I speak , I speak it not after the Lord) Therefore whatever Paul wrote without this express exception, was inspired and spoken after the Lord ; nay even he wrote this passage, so as he has written it, and the ex- ception peculiar to this passage, according to the rule of divine propriety, having received his instructions from the Lord ; pre- cisely as a literary man dictates to a boy a letter suited to a boy, though the boy could not have so written it of himself.
18. n oXXoi, many) What is allowed to many, is the more easily granted as an indulgence to one. — Tiara ad pxa, according to the flesh) for example, that they are Hebrews, ver. 22.
19. 'lldeug) [gladly] willingly.
20. Tap, for) An intensive particle ; ye suffer fools ; for ye even suffer oppressors. Cleon in Thucydides, lib. iii. — K&pvxev 6 avOpuffog ro /kiv Oepanevov vyrzpippoveTv ro ds firi vmTxov Oav/xdfyiv,. the man was naturally disposed to treat with contempt flattering atten- tions, hut to admire independence. — e7 ng, if any one) as the false apostles, who were given to much boasting. — xa radouXo?, bring you into bondage) The genus ; two pairs of species follow. — xareadlei) So LXX., Ps. liii. 5. — Xa/xfiavei, takes) viz. from you ; for Ipiag, you , is not necessarily to be supplied, as appears if we com- pare the following clause. — s^aipsrai, exalt himself ps exaltedf) under the pretext of the apostolic dignity. — tig KpoawTrov dtps/, smite you on the face) under the appearance of divine zeal. That may have happened to the Corinthians : comp. Is. lviii. 4 ; 1 Kings xxii. 24 ; Neh. xiii. 25 ; 1 Cor. iv. 11 ; 1 Tim. iii. 3.
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