Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am humble among you, but being absent am bold toward you:
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 10:1 Go To 2 Corinthians 10
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
SYNOPSIS OF THE CHAPTER
i. In this and the two next chapters Paul defends his apostleship against the false apostles, who held him up to contempt as vile and despicable, and accused him of over-harshness, audacity, and insolence. Paul here points out that his arms are not carnal but spiritual, and therefore all the more powerful, because it is theirs to cast down all the strongholds, counsels, and wisdom of the world, as well as to inflict punishment on all disobedience.
ii. He contrasts (ver12) the boast of the false apostles of the provinces traversed and converted by them with the actual journeyings and conversions wrought by himself.
Observe that these false apostles envied the glory of Paul, and wished to destroy it by their own eloquence, boasting, and calumnies. It appears, from xi22 , that they were Jews, and were greedy of gain and glory, braggarts, and self-assertive. Fro m xi4it also appears that they preached Christ in appearance, but were endeavouring to gradually subvert the Gospel by Judaism and its errors (xi3; xii13). Of this class were Cerinthus, Ebion, and other Judaisers, who bitterly persecuted S. Paul as an apostate from their law1Cor15 was an exposition of the resurrection against the teaching of Cerinthus.
