Besides those things that are outside, that which comes upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
All Commentaries on 2 Corinthians 11:28 Go To 2 Corinthians 11
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily. The weight of business that daily presses upon me. The Greek word here used denotes, says Budæus, to collect a band, to call together a meeting, as, e.g, when the mob assembles and makes an attack on the aristocracy and the magistrates. So the Apostle here uses the word to denote those manifold cares which, as it were, formed a band and rushed upon him from every side, and almost overwhelmed him, and this not once only but continuously. Chrysostom, Theophylact, and Ephrem understand it to mean that factious conspiracies, seditions, tumults, popular outbreaks, and plots were being always set in motion against him. This Isaiah , indeed, the literal meaning of the Greek; but S. Paul has already mentioned those troubles in ver26. The former meaning Isaiah , therefore, the better. Then next clause, "the care of all the churches," is explanatory of this. Anselm and Theophylact say beautifully: "Everywhere Paul teaches, but he also suffers greatly. He endures his own sufferings, and at the same time bears the sufferings of others. He bears the infirmities of individuals, and at the same time is anxious about the salvation of all."
S. Chrysostom here (Hom18) teaches us beautifully, by his example, that nothing is sweeter than this anxiety, thought, labour, and grief of a good pastor for the Church. "A mother too," he says, "in the in midst of deep grief for her child has pleasure; in the midst of anxiety she has joy. Though her anxiety be a source of bitterness, yet her devotion gives her great happiness." Let great men, and those that are ministers of Christ, desire to be ever in motion as the heart Isaiah , or like the heavens, and, as Suetonius says of Vespasian, to die standing. Pacatus says, in his Panegyric of Theodosius: "Divine things delight in continual motion, and at the same time eternity feeds itself on movement, and your nature delights too in what we men call labour. As the heavens revolve with unfailing rotation, and the waves of the sea are ever in motion, and the sun never stands still, so are you, 0 Emperor, always engaged in matters of business that seem to return in a regular cycle."
