2 Corinthians 1:23Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Either that this too happened by the will of the Spirit, who, when the Apostle wished to go, prompted him to postpone the journey, presenting the need to spare them. Or else he is speaking of another journey, and by this lets them know that he had wished to come to them even before he wrote the First Epistle, but refrained out of love for them, lest he find them unreformed.

Yet it is also likely that, for the same reason, he later decided on his own to remain where he was when he wrote the Second Epistle, though the Spirit no longer restrained him from going. This supposition is much more probable: at first the Spirit restrained him, and afterward he himself stayed, judging that this would be better.

See how the Apostle again mentions himself. I shall not cease pointing this out. He draws his defense from the very accusations that might have been made against him. The Corinthians could have conceived suspicion and said to him, “You hated us, and therefore did not want to come to us.”

Forestalling such a suspicion, the Apostle gives the opposite reason for not coming, namely, that he loved them. What then does “to spare you” mean? “I heard,” he says, “that some among you were committing fornication. Therefore I did not want to come to you, lest I grieve you.

If I were present among you, I would have been compelled to examine and investigate the matter myself, and to punish many. Therefore I judged it better not to be with you, so as to give you time for repentance, rather than to come to you, punish you, and myself endure still greater grief from you.”

He set forth this thought clearly at the end of the Epistle, when he said, “lest, when I come again, my God should humble me among you, and I should mourn over many who sinned before and have not repented of the uncleanness, fornication, and licentiousness which they practiced” (2 Cor 12:21).

He means the same thing here. Although he says this as if in self-defense, at the same time he most strongly rebukes and frightens them. By the very defense he makes before them, he lets them understand that they are still liable to punishment and may suffer something if they do not hasten to amend.

This again he expresses at the end of the Epistle, saying, “If I come again, I will not spare” (2 Cor 13:2). The only difference is that at the end of the Epistle he says this plainly. Here, since he is still at the beginning of the Epistle, he speaks less openly and with some condescension. Indeed, a little later he softens and corrects even this manner of expression.

In the latter case, the Apostle's life among them could have been accompanied by the same sorrows that he had experienced there before. He had endured those sorrows, during his first visit to their city, only with God's help (1 Cor 2:3). Why go to Corinth for common sorrow, and perhaps for a struggle not so useful, when after a little time he could live there in mutual love and concord? Therefore the holy Apostle wisely restrained himself from visiting Corinth, sparing the Corinthians. We also must refrain from occasions for unpleasant clashes. A weak peace is apparently better than a justified quarrel.

The words "to spare you" befit some master, or a man who has authority to forgive and punish. Therefore the Apostle did not want those who heard them to say: behold, because we have received the faith, we have become slaves. Nor did he want them to say that Paul now speaks as one having authority over us. By saying that he spared us and did not come to us, he indicates that if he had come, he would have punished us. Wishing to remove such thoughts and words from them, the Apostle writes the following.

We do everything for your joy, and care only for this." Considering his assurance very important, the Apostle calls God as witness to the faithfulness of his word. God sees all our thoughts. Then he enters into a detailed consideration of what would have resulted if the planned course had been fulfilled.

“Who has authority to compel one who does not wish to believe?” says Chrysostom. But when you have entered the realm of faith, you must be faithful to the faith in everything. I am the guardian of this faithfulness. By my duty I cannot leave your disorders uncorrected.

Everything I taught you and established among you is not mine, but God’s. I can yield nothing of it. Once you prove disorderly, I must correct you, and this is bitter for you. Yet I do not wish to be the cause of your sorrow.

I want only joy always to proceed from me personally to you. This is the sense in which I said, “to spare you.” I did not wish to grieve you, but rather always and in every way to help your joy.

For when you amend yourselves through my admonition from afar, there will be nothing sorrowful in this for you. On the contrary, you will feel the joy of willing correction. And when I come to you afterward, it will be joyful for me to see you corrected, and joyful for you to meet me and see me rejoicing over you.

Thus I spared you in order to be a helper of your joy. “I did not come to you so as not to cast you into despondency, and so as to give you occasion to rejoice in your correction through my threat from afar alone. We do everything for your joy, and care only for this” (Chrysostom).

“For by faith you stand.” The thought is clear, but its connection here is not immediately visible. Theophylact writes: “As regards faith, you stand in it, estekate, that is, you are established and firm. In other respects you were shaken.

If those guilty in that matter had remained unreformed, I would have had to press upon them, and thereby grieve them, and all of you, and myself.” Oecumenius says the same.

Chrysostom does not state this explicitly, but, holding the same thought, explains why the Apostle intended to say this: “See with what caution he speaks again. He did not begin reproaching them once more, because he had already rebuked them sufficiently in the First Epistle.

After that they had already shown some change of life. But if, after this change, they had heard the same reproaches as before, this could have destroyed them, by casting them into despondency or despair. Therefore this Epistle was written with greater meekness than the first.”

Thus the Apostle said this to encourage the Corinthians and raise their spirit, approving them in this chief respect. But perhaps the Apostle’s thought here is this, as though he says: you are believers. Faith gave you both sufficient motives and sufficient strength to correct all disorders, to your own satisfaction and my joy.

This is why I was confident that I would be a helper of your joy if I left it to you to correct yourselves, merely reminding you of the disorders. In this I truly showed sparing toward you. But the reason I did this was my confidence that you stand by faith.