And when I come, whomsoever you shall approve by your letters, them will I send to bring your liberality unto Jerusalem.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
This collection was doubly beneficial, because it helped the saints mentioned above and also the poor people who were in the church. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
I will send your liberality to Jerusalem. Å’cumenius points out that he does not here speak of alms, as he might truly have done, because the name of alms is degrading and insulting to the saints who were to receive them, but he uses a more polite term—liberality, kindness, blessing.
And if it be meet that I go also they shall go with me. S. Paul stirs up the Corinthians by these words to make a larger collection, one large enough to be fit for him to take.
He said not, this person, and that, but, whomsoever you shall approve, whomsoever you shall choose, thus freeing his ministration from suspicion. Wherefore to them he leaves the right of voting in the choice of those who are to convey it. He is far enough from saying, The payment is yours, but the privilege of selecting those who are to carry it is not yours. Next, that they might not think him quite absent, he adds his letters, saying, Whomsoever you approve, I will send with letters. As if he had said, I also will be with them and share in the ministration, by my letters. And he said not, These will I send to bear your alms, but, your bounty; to signify that they were doing great deeds; to mark that they were gainers themselves. And elsewhere he calls it both a blessing and a distribution. 2 Corinthians 9:5-13 The one that he might not make them less active, the other that he might not elate them. But in no case whatever has he called it alms.
