2 Corinthians 2:5. “To cause grief among you was not my intention (2 Corinthians 2:4); he, however, who has (really) caused grief has not grieved me.” In other words: “I did not wish to grieve you; one of you, however, has with his afflicting influence, not affected me, but,” etc. Olshausen connects 2 Corinthians 2:5 with 2 Corinthians 2:3 : “if, however, any one formerly has awakened grief.” But how arbitrary it is to leap over the natural reference to the immediately preceding λυπηθῆτε! And if the “formerly” made the contrast, it must have been somehow expressed.

In the hypothetical εἰ, as in the indefinite τις, there lies a delicate, tender forbearanc.

οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπηκεν, ἀλλʼ] Paul does not say οὐ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καί, because as concerns the relation of the matter to himself he wishes absolutely to deny that he is the injured party. He could do this, because he did not belong to the church, and he wishes to leave wholly out of view his position as apostle and founder of the church in the interest of love and pardon. Olshausen thinks that he wishes indirectly to refute the erroneous position of some (impenitent) Corinthians towards the incident with the incestuous person; that many, namely, had lamented much to the apostle about the solicitude which that unhappy person had caused to him; and that, in order to make these turn from him to themselves, he says that the question is not about him, but about them, that they should look to their own pain. But of this alleged direction to occupy themselves with their own pain, there is nothing whatever in what follows; and the apostle would have set forth in more precise terms a rebuke so weighty; it was not at all fitting here, where the touched heart beats only with mildness and forgivenes.

λελύπηκεν] Bengel says aptly: “contristatum habet.”

ἀλλʼ ἀπὸ μέρους κ.τ.λ.] but in part, that I may not burden him (with greater guilt), you all. ἀπὸ μέρους, which Paul adds φειδόμενος αὐτοῦ (Chrysostom), softens the thought in λελύπηκεν πάντας ὑμᾶς, while it expresses that the grief is only in a partial degree, not wholly and fully (as on the one immediately concerned), inflicted on all, i.e. on the whole church by means of moral sympathy; only quodammodo (see Fritzsche, Diss. I. p. 16 ff.), therefore, are the readers all affected by that grief as sharers in it. The ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ (sc. αὐτόν) contains the purpose, for which he had added the softening limitation ἀπὸ μέρους. Beza, Calvin (in the Commentary), Calovius, Hammond, Homberg, Wolf, Estius, and others, following Chrysostom, agree with this punctuation and explanation; also Emmerling, Fritzsche, Rückert, de Wette, Osiander, Neander, Ewald. Yet Räbiger explains it as if Paul had written σχεδόν instead of ἀπὸ μέρους. But others read ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβ. πάντας ὑμ. together: he has not grieved me (alone and truly), but only in part (consequently you also); in order that I may not lay something to the charge of you all; for, if he had grieved me alone, you would all have been indifferent towards the crime. So Thomas, Lyra, Luther, Castalio, Zeger, Bengel, Wetstein, and others, including Flatt. Incorrectly, because οὐκ ἐμέ and ἀλλʼ ἀπὸ μέρους cannot be antitheses. Mosheim and Billroth separate πάντας and ὑμᾶς: he has not grieved me, but in part, that I may not accuse all, you; for I will not be unjust, and give you all the blame of having been indifferent towards that crime. At variance with the words; for, according to these, with this punctuation those whom Paul accuses (ἐπιβαρεῖ) must appear to be not those indifferent, but those grieved by the incest. Olshausen also follows this punctuation, but finds in ἀπὸ μέρους, ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβ. πάντας a delicate irony (comp. also Michaelis, who, however, follows our punctuation), in so far as Paul would have held it as the highest praise of the Corinthians, if he could have said: he has grieved you without exception. Since he could not have said this, he wittily turns his words in this way: he has not grieved me, but, as regards a part, you, in order that I may not burden you all with this care. But this very wit and irony are quite foreign to the mild tone and the conciliatory disposition of this part of the Epistle. Hofmann takes οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπ. as a question, after which there comes in with ἀλλά the contrast (nevertheless) which continues over 2 Corinthians 2:5 and includes 2 Corinthians 2:6; in this case ἀπὸ μέρους is temporal in meaning (yet “firstly is enough”); and ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ πάντας ὑμᾶς, which is to be taken together, is meant to say that the apostle, if he expressed himself dissatisfied with what had been done by the majority, would burden the whole church with the pain of knowing that one of their members was under the ban of sin which remained unforgiven on the part of the apostle; lastly, the ὑπὸ τῶν πλειόνων stands in opposition to a minority, which had wished to go beyond the punishment decreed, a minority which is included in πάντας. But all this involved explanation is inadmissible, partly because the blunt question οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπ., bringing forward so nakedly a sense of personal injury, would be sadly out of unison with the shrewdly conciliatory tone of the whole context; partly because ἀπὸ μέρους, taken of time, is as linguistically incorrect as at 2 Corinthians 1:14, and would also furnish the indelicate thought of a ἱκανότης with reservation, and till something further; partly because the complexity of thought, which is said to lie in ἐπιβαρῶ, is just imported into it; partly because the supposition that the minority of the church would have gone still further in the punishment than the resolution of the majority went, is without all ground, nay, is in the highest degree improbable after the reproach of too great indulgence, 5

On ἐπιβαρεῖν, comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8; Dion. Hal. iv. 9, viii. 73; Appian, B. C. 4:31. Comp. βάρος of the burden of a feeling of guilt, Galatians 6:2.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11. Digression regarding the pardon to be granted to the incestuous person.

That the incestuous person is meant, as even Klöpper maintains in spite of his assumption of a lost intermediate letter, is denied by Tertullian (de Pudicitiâ, 13) simply for dogmatic-ascetic reasons. The exclusion, which Paul demanded in the first Epistle, 2 Corinthians 5:13, left open the possibility of a return to the communion of the church by the path of suitable penitence and expiation; as may be gathered also from 1 Corinthians 5:5, where the apostle’s threat of the higher excommunication, of the giving over to Satan, contemplates in this punishment the conversion and saving of the offender, and consequently shows clearly that in the apostle’s eyes the penal procedure of the church, even in the case of so grave a sin, was of a paedagogic nature in reference to the person of the evil-doer. The penance of the latter, however, as well as that of the whole church on his account (2 Corinthians 7:7 ff.), may have really been so deeply and keenly manifested, that Paul, in accordance with the now changed state of things, might express himself in such a mild, conciliatory way as he does here. And there is no sufficient ground in the passage for the assumption of an intermediate letter, or that there is here meant, not the unchaste person, but a slanderer rebuked by Paul in this intermediate letter (see Introd. § 1). Besides, the mild, soft tone of the present passage, if it referred to such a personal opponent, would not be in keeping with the quite different way in which, from chap. 10 onwards, he pours forth his apostolic zeal against his personal opponents and slanderers.

2 Corinthians 2:5-11. THE OFFENDER HAS BEEN SUFFICIENTLY PUNISHED: THE APOSTLE ACQUIESCES IN THEIR REMISSION OF THE PENALTY OF 1 Corinthians 5:1-5.

5. he hath not grieved me, but in part: that I may not overcharge you all] According to the A. V. the meaning is that the Apostle, anxious not to lay too heavy a charge at the door of the Corinthian Church, to which (see 1 Corinthians 5:2; 1 Corinthians 5:6) he considers the guilt to attach, declares that the offender has only pained him to a certain extent. But the words are capable of another rendering, ‘But if any one hath caused pain, it is not me whom he has pained, but to a certain extent—not to press too heavily upon him—all of you.’ This rendering is susceptible of two interpretations (1) he has caused pain to the whole community; but not to be too severe upon him, the Apostle is willing to admit that this pain is to a certain extent lessened by the mutual sympathy of the members of the Church. Or perhaps (2) there is a slight reproof here, implying, as in 1 Corinthians 5:2, that the Corinthians had not sufficiently felt the disgrace brought on them all by such a crime. Cf. ch. 2 Corinthians 1:14. The Apostle thus, with no less adroitness than simple honesty, places the personal aspect of the question in the background, and deals with it as a matter of public principle, with which every member of the Church is as intimately concerned as himself. The whole passage refers to the offender mentioned in 1 Corinthians 5.

2 Corinthians 2:5. Τὶς, any) He now speaks mildly; any one and any thing, 2 Corinthians 2:10. In both epistles Paul refrained from mentioning the name of him, of whom he is speaking.—οὐκ ἐμὲ λελύπηκεν, he hath not grieved me) i.e., He has not made me lastingly grieved [I am not now so disposed towards him] ἀλλʼ ἀπὸ μέρους, only in part) he has occasioned me sorrow.—ἐπιβαρῶ, be heavy upon [overcharge]) a weightier expression, than I make sorry, 2 Corinthians 2:2.

Verses 5-11. - The results of his letter in their treatment of the incestuous offender. Verse 5. - But if any have caused grief. The word "pain" or "grief" which has been so prominent in the last verses, naturally reminds St. Paul of the person whose misdoings had caused all this trouble. The "any" is in the singular. He hath not grieved me, but in part, etc. Of the various ways of taking this verse, the most tenable seems to be this: "If any one has caused pain, he has not pained me but partly (not to weigh down too heavily) all of you. St. Paul is denying that the feelings with which he hat(written his severe letter were due to mere personal sorrow or indignation. In writing he felt for the wrong done to them, to the whole Corinthian Church, at least as much as for the smart of his own grief and disappointment. The word "partly" is introduced, as St. Chrysostom says, to soften the expression, "he has grieved you all." It will then mean "to a certain extent." The words, "that I may not overcharge," or rather, as in the Revised Version, "that I press not too heavily," assign the reason for the modifying clause, "in part." When St. Paul says that this man's conduct had even to any extent grieved the whole community, his words may seem to conflict with 1 Corinthians 5:2; but he is thinking, not of the immediate condonation of the offender there alluded to, but of the agony of subsequent repentance which his letter had awoke in the whole (or practically the whole) community (2 Corinthians 7:11). The phrase, "that I press not too heavily," refers then to the offender: "I will not say outright that he has grieved not me, but all of you, because I do not wish to bear too hard on him" (comp. 1 Thessalonians 2:9; 2 Thessalonians 3:8), "but I will say that he has grieved you and me alike to some extent." The phrase, "in part," occurs also in Romans 11:25. 2 Corinthians 2:5Any

Referring to the incestuous person.

Not to me

Not that Paul did not grieve over the offender; but he desires to emphasize the fact that the injury caused by the sin was not to him personally, but to the Church.

But in part, that I may not overcharge you all (ἀλλὰ ἀπὸ μέρους ἵνα μὴ ἐπιβαρῶ πάντας ὑμᾶς)

For overcharge, Rev., press too heavily, in order to bring out more distinctly the idea of the verb, laying a burden (βάρος) upon. Overcharge, however, is not incorrect, though possibly ambiguous in the light of the various uses of charge. Charge is from the Latin carrus a wagon. Compare the low Latin carricare to load a wagon, and carica a freight-ship. Hence charge is a load; compare the interchange of charge and load applied to the contents of a gun. So cargo, and caricature, which is an exaggerated or overloaded drawing. Hence expense, cost, commission, accusation, all implying a burden, either of pecuniary or of other responsibility, or of guilt. In part does not refer to Paul, as if he had said, "You have not grieved me alone and principally, but in part, since my sorrow is shared by the Church." With in part is to be construed, parenthetically, that I press not too heavily, that is, on the offender: the whole clause being intended to mitigate the charge against the offender of having wounded the whole Church. Thus you all depends upon he hath caused sorrow, not upon that I press not too heavily upon. Render, as Rev., He hath caused sorrow, not to me, but in part (that I press not too heavily) to you all.

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