To the one we are the fragrance of death unto death; and to the other the fragrance of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 2:16 Go To 2 Corinthians 2
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life." "We are," says Theophylact, "a royal censer, and wherever we go we carry with us the odour of the spiritual ointment, i.e, in every place we scatter the good fumes of the knowledge of God." Again says Å’cumenius: "As the fragrance of ointment nourishes the dove and destroys the beetle, and as the light of the sun gladdens the eyes that are healthy and hurts those that are weak, as fire purifies gold and destroys straw, so is Christ ruin to the evil, resurrection to the good." Observe the Hebraism, an odour of death unto death, i.e, a deadly odour bringing death. The fragrance of the fame of the life, preaching, and conversion of the Apostles breathed life into the good, death into the evil; for the wicked, unable to bear the splendour of such holiness, hardened themselves the more in their wickedness, envy, or hatred. But Clement of Alexandria (Pæd. lib. ii.) reads, "odour from death" and "odour from life," which means: The preaching of the Cross and death of Christ is an odour to the unbelievers arising from the death of Christ, and tends to the ruin of those who regard that death merely as a death, and find it accordingly foolishness or a stumbling-block: but to them that believe it is an odour from life, inasmuch as they embrace the life offered to them in this death. For the death of Christ was the cause of his resurrection to a glorious life, and in us it is the cause of our resurrection to the life of grace in this world, and the life of glory in the world to come.
And who is sufficient for these things? The ministers, says Ambrose, who are in every place a good odour of Christ are as few as they are insufficient.
