For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because you had heard that he had been sick.
All Commentaries on Philippians 2:26 Go To Philippians 2
John Chrysostom
AD 407
Here he aims at a farther point, making it manifest, that Epaphroditus too was well aware, how he was beloved of them. And this is no light thing toward loving. You know how he was sick, he says; and he grieved that on his recovery he did not see you, and free you from the grief you had by reason of his sickness. Here too he gives another reason for sending so late to them, not from any remissness, but he kept Timothy because he had no one else, (for, as he had written, he had no one likeminded,) and Epaphroditus because of his sickness. He then shows that this was a long sickness, and had consumed much time, by adding, for he was sick near unto death. You see how anxious Paul is to cut off from his disciples all occasion of slighting or contempt, and every suspicion that his not coming was because he despised them. For nothing will have such power to draw a disciple toward one, as the persuasion that his superior cares for him, and that he is full of heaviness on his account, for this is the part of exceeding love. Because you have heard, he says, that he was sick; for he was sick near unto death. And that I am not making an excuse, hear what follows. But God had mercy on him. What do you say, O heretic? Here it is written, that God's mercy retained and brought back again him who was on the point of departure. And yet if the world is evil, it is no mercy to leave a man in the evil. Our answer to the heretic is easy, but what shall we say to the Christian? For he perchance will question, and say, if to depart and to be with Christ is far better, how says he that he has obtained mercy? I would ask why the same Apostle says, that it is more needful to abide with you? For as it was needful for him, so too for this man, who would hereafter depart to God with more exceeding riches, and greater boldness. Hereafter that would take place, even if it did not now, but the winning souls is at an end for those who have once departed there. In many places too, Paul speaks according to the common habits of his hearers, and not every where in accordance with his own heavenly wisdom: for he had to speak to men of the world who still feared death. Then he shows how he esteemed Epaphroditus, and thence he gets for him respect, by saying, that his preservation was so useful to himself, that the mercy which had been shown to Epaphroditus reached him also. Moreover, without this the present life is a good; were it not so, why does Paul rank with punishment untimely deaths? As when he says, For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and not a few sleep 1 Corinthians 11:30; for the future life is not (merely) better than an evil state, since (then) it were not good, but better than a good state.
