I wish that you could bear with me a little in my folly: and indeed bear with me.
Read Chapter 11
Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul says that he is being foolish when he starts to talk about himself but that he is forced to do so because these people were harboring unworthy thoughts, when they of all people ought to be thinking well of him. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
Would to God ye could bear with me a little in my folly. In my boasting, which sounds like folly. It Isaiah , however, a mark of the highest wisdom on my part, for I do it out of zeal to protect the faith of the Gospel against the false apostles (Chrysostom and Anselm). S. Paul anticipates an objection: he is about to praise himself, and he meets beforehand any charge of vainglory or self-seeking. The last clause, "and indeed bear with me," may be also indicative, and then it is a correction to his request for forbearance: "I need hardly make such a request: you do indeed bear with me."
At the commencement of his self-praise he thrice excuses himself: (1.) by saying, "Would ye could bear with me;" (2.) by calling himself foolish; (3.) when he says. "I am jealous over you"—he takes such pains to excuse himself that the Corinthians may see the violence he does to his feelings when he descends to self-praise. Chrysostom says: "Just as a horse, when about to leap some deep and precipitous...
SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER
i. After declaring his love for the Corinthians, he proceeds (ver4) to defend his apostleship against the false apostles, pointing out that they had bestowed no more of the Spirit, nor given more Christian doctrine than S. Paul.
ii. He says, moreover (ver7), that they preached the Gospel for the sake of gain, but he freely.
iii. He insists (ver22) on his being equally with them a Hebrew, and what they were not, a minister of Christ. He then enumerates the marks of his apostleship, his labours for Christ, his persecutions, scourgings, sufferings, anxieties, and the care of all the Churches, and in them all he glories.
My folly. So he calls his reciting his own praises, which commonly speaking, is looked upon as a piece of folly and vanity; though the apostle was constrained to do it, for the good of the souls committed to his charge. (Challoner)
Being about to enter upon his own praises he uses much previous correction. And he does this not once or twice, although the necessity of the subject, and what he had often said, were sufficient excuse for him. For he that remembers sins which God remembered not, and who therefore says that he was unworthy of the very name of the Apostles, even by the most insensate is seen clearly not to be saying what he is now going to say, for the sake of glory. For if one must say something startling, even this would be especially injurious to his glory, his speaking something about himself; and to the more part it is offensive. But nevertheless he regarded not timidly any of these things, but he looked to one thing, the salvation of his hearers. But still in order that he might not cause harm to the unthinking by this, by saying, I mean, great things of himself, he employs out of abundant caution these many preparatory correctives, and says, Would that you could bear with me, while I play the foo...
