As the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Paul urges the whole of Achaia to give aid to the saints, but at the same time he refuses to take anything for himself from any of them. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
As the truth of Christ is in me. I speak in the truth of Christ; I call His truth to witness; I swear to you in truth and holiness by Christ ("under the testimony of Christ," Ambrose) that I wilt take nothing from you for my support (Theophylact).
No man shall stop me of this boasting. Or, this boasting shall not be stopped in me. This liberty and liberality of mine shall not be stopped, nor therefore my boasting of it. It is a metaphor, taken from springs and rivers, which no barriers can stop.
Secondly, it is better to suppose that S. Paul, following a Hebrew usage, employs the simple verb denoting to seal up for the compound verb unseal (σφÏαγίζω for α̉νασφÏαγίζω). "I have determined," he then would say, "to receive nothing from you; and I have so confirmed that determination by the strong seal of my oath, that I shall not open this seal, or break my purpose, whatever need or necessity may lay upon me."
The truth of Christ is in me. This is a kind of asseveration; I assure you by the truth of Christ, which is in me, that what I say is true, and that no one can deny it in Achaia. (Theodoret)
As the truth of Christ is in me. 'Do not think that I therefore have spoken, that I may receive, that I may the rather draw you on: for,' says he, as the truth is in me,
No man shall stop me of this glorying in the regions of Achaia. For that none should think again that he is grieved at this, or that he speaks these things in anger, he even calls the thing a glorying. And in his former Epistle too he dressed it out in like terms. For so that he may not wound them there either, he says, What then is my reward? That when I preach the Gospel, I may make the Gospel of Christ without charge. 1 Corinthians 9:18 And as he there calls it reward, so does he here glorying, that they may not be excessively ashamed at what he said, as if he were asking and they gave not to him. 'For, what, if even ye would give?' says he, 'Yet I do not accept it.' And the expression, shall not stop me, is a metaphor taken from rivers, or from the report, as if running every where, of his receiving nothing. 'Yo...
