Chapter Two
2 Cor. 2:1. So I determined this within myself, not to come to you again with sorrow.
The word "again" shows that he had been grieved before as well. However, he did not say openly: "you also grieved me before," but in another way: "I did not come so as not to grieve you again," which, nevertheless, has one and the same force (for he grieved them with reproaches because they had grieved him with their sins), but for them it was more bearable.
2 Cor. 2:2. For if I grieve you, then who is it that makes me glad, but the one who is grieved by me?
Although I grieve you, he says, with reproaches and indignation toward you, yet because of this very thing I also rejoice, seeing that you respect me to such a degree that my indignation and reproaches produce sorrow in you. For no one gladdens me so much as the one who grieves in this way at the sight of my indignation. This shows that he does not despise me. He gladdens me, because in this way he gives hope of his own correction.
2 Cor. 2:3. This very thing I also wrote to you,
What? That I did not come to you, sparing you. Where did he write? In this very epistle.
2 Cor. 2:3. In order that, having come, I might not have sorrow from those of whom I ought to have rejoiced,
For this reason I wrote to you now, so that you would correct yourselves, and so that, finding you uncorrected, I would not have sorrow from you, from whom it was fitting to provide me occasions for joy.
2 Cor. 2:3. For I am confident in all of you that my joy is joy for all of you as well.
I wrote, he says, hoping that you would correct yourselves, and thereby gladden me. And my joy is joy for all of you. And I said "so that, when I come, I might not have sorrow" because I have in mind not my own benefit, but yours. For I know that if you see me rejoicing, you will rejoice, and if you see me grieving, you will grieve.
2 Cor. 2:4. From much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you with many tears,
Since he said above that he rejoices when they grieve, lest they say: you endeavor to sadden us so that you yourself may rejoice, he explains that he himself grieves greatly, grieves more than the sinners themselves. Not from sorrow only, but "from great sorrow," and not with tears only, but "with many tears" I wrote. That is, grief, compressing and constricting my heart, was crushing it, and therefore I wrote like a father and at the same time a physician who, performing incisions and cauterizations on his son, grieves doubly—both because the son is sick and because he himself must subject him to the incision—but, on the other hand, also rejoices because he hopes for the son's recovery. So, he says, I too, in grieving you who are sinning, sorrow, but on the other hand also rejoice when you grieve, for I have hope in your correction.
2 Cor. 2:4. Not in order to grieve you, but that you might know the love which I have in abundance toward you.
Not "to grieve you" should he have said, but "to correct you"; however, he does not say this, but sweetens his speech, wishing to attract them with the assurance that he loves them more than his other disciples, and that if he grieves them, he grieves them out of love, not out of anger. For it is a sign of the greatest love that I grieve over your transgressions and hasten to rebuke you and thereby grieve you. If I did not love you, I would have left you without healing.
2 Cor. 2:5. But if anyone has caused grief, he has not grieved me, but in part—that I may not be too severe—all of you as well.
He wishes through this to confirm love toward the one who had fallen into fornication, about whom he wrote in the first epistle, for at Paul's command they had all turned away from him as one who inspired loathing. And so, lest by again commanding the opposite—that is, to receive him and show him affection—they should take offense at Paul as being inconstant, he very prudently presents the matter and makes them also participants in the forgiveness, saying: as he grieved all of us in common, so all in common ought to rejoice at his forgiveness. For he grieved not me alone, he says, but also all of you "in part," that is, he struck you with some small measure of sorrow; I would not say that he grieved you completely, as he did me, but still, so as not to burden him who had fallen into fornication, "in part," I say, he grieved you.
2 Cor. 2:6. For such a one, this punishment by the majority is sufficient.
He does not say: for the one who fell into fornication, but "for such a one," as also in the first epistle. But there he did not even wish to name him, while here, sparing him, he never recalls the sin, teaching us also to show compassion toward those who have stumbled.
2 Cor. 2:7. So that you ought rather to forgive him and comfort him,
Not only, he says, remove the prohibition, but also grant him something more, and comfort him, that is, restore him, heal him, just as one who has punished someone would not only release him but would also apply care to the healing of his wounds. And he said well: "you would do better to forgive." For, lest he think that he receives forgiveness as one who has sufficiently confessed and repented enough, he shows that he receives forgiveness not so much for his repentance as by their indulgence.
2 Cor. 2:7. lest he be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow,
It is necessary, he says, to receive him, comfort him, and heal him, "lest he be swallowed up," as if by some beast, or by waves, or by a storm, or lest from despair he resort to suicide, like Judas, or lest he become even worse, that is, not being able to endure the sorrow from excessive punishment, he give himself over to greater impiety. Notice how he also restrains him, so that having received forgiveness, he does not become even more negligent. I accepted you, he says, not because you have been completely cleansed of defilement, but out of fear that in your weakness you might do something worse. Notice also that punishments should be assigned not only according to the nature of the sins, but also in accordance with the disposition of those who have sinned.
2 Cor. 2:8. And therefore I beseech you to confirm your love toward him.
He no longer commands as a teacher, but as an advocate asks the judges "to show him love," that is, to receive him with firm love, and not simply and casually. He also shows their virtue, for those very people who previously loved the man so much that they boasted of him, now because of his sin conceived such an aversion to him that Paul himself intercedes on his behalf.