?????? - ccbiblestudy

?Greek Testament Critical Exegetical Commentary - 2 Corinthians?(Henry
Alford)

Commentator
Henry Alford (7 October 1810 - 12 January 1871) was an English churchman,
theologian, textual critic, scholar, poet, hymnodist, and writer.
Alford was born in London, of a Somerset family, which had given five
consecutive generations of clergymen to the Anglican church. Alford's early
years were passed with his widowed father, who was curate of Steeple Ashton
in Wiltshire. He was a precocious boy, and before he was ten had written
several Latin odes, a history of the Jews and a series of homiletic
outlines. After a peripatetic school course he went up to Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1827 as a scholar. In 1832 he was 34th wrangler and 8th
classic, and in 1834 was made fellow of Trinity.
He had already taken orders, and in 1835 began his eighteen-year tenure of
the vicarage of Wymeswold in Leicestershire, from which seclusion the twice-
repeated offer of a colonial bishopric failed to draw him. He was Hulsean
lecturer at Cambridge in 1841-1842, and steadily built up a reputation as
scholar and preacher, which might have been greater if not for his
excursions into minor poetry and magazine editing.
In 1844, he joined the Cambridge Camden Society (CCS) which published a
list of do's and don'ts for church layout which they promoted as a science.
He commissioned A.W.N. Pugin to restore St Mary's church. He also was a
member of the Metaphysical Society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles.
In September 1853 Alford moved to Quebec Chapel, Marylebone, London, where
he had a large congregation. In March 1857 Lord Palmerston advanced him to
the deanery of Canterbury, where, till his death, he lived the same
energetic and diverse lifestyle as ever. He had been the friend of most of
his eminent contemporaries, and was much beloved for his amiable character.
The inscription on his tomb, chosen by himself, is Diversorium Viatoris
Hierosolymam Proficiscentis ("the inn of a traveler on his way to
Jerusalem").
Alford was a talented artist, as his picture-book, The Riviera (1870),
shows, and he had abundant musical and mechanical talent. Besides editing
the works of John Donne, he published several volumes of his own verse, The
School of the Heart (1835), The Abbot of Muchelnaye (1841), The Greek
Testament. The Four Gospels (1849), and a number of hymns, the best-known
of which are "Forward! be our watchword," "Come, ye thankful people, come",
and "Ten thousand times ten thousand." He translated the Odyssey, wrote a
well-known manual of idiom, A Plea for the Queen's English (1863), and was
the first editor of the Contemporary Review (1866 - 1870).
His chief fame rests on his monumental edition of the New Testament in
Greek (4 vols.), which occupied him from 1841 to 1861. In this work he
first produced a careful collation of the readings of the chief manuscripts
and the researches of the ripest continental scholarship of his day.
Philological rather than theological in character, it marked an epochal
change from the old homiletic commentary, and though more recent research,
patristic and papyral, has largely changed the method of New Testament
exegesis, Alford's work is still a quarry where the student can dig with a
good deal of profit.
His Life, written by his widow, appeared in 1873 (Rivington).

Introduction

CHAPTER IV
THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS
SECTION I
ITS AUTHORSHIP AND INTEGRITY
1. THE former of these is undoubted. No Epistle more clearly marks itself
out as the work of the Author whose name it bears. It is inseparably
connected with the First, following it up, and only differing from it as
circumstances since occurring had affected the mind of the writer. See this
more dwelt on, when I speak of its style and matter, below, §iii.
2. The external testimonies are,
( ?) Irenæus, Hær. iii. 7. 1, p. 182:
Quod autem dicunt, aperte Paulum in secunda ad Corinthios dixisse: In
quibus Deus sæculi hujus excæcavit mentes infidelium.
( ?) Athenagoras, de resurr. mort. xviii. p. 331:
??????? ????? ?? ?????????? ... ??????? ????????? ??????? ? ??? ??? ???????
???????, ???? ????? ???? ????.
( ?) Clement of Alexandria very frequently cites our epistle: e.g., Strom.
iii. 14 (94), p. 553, P.:
?????? ???????? ??? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ??? ??????? ?v????????. ?????? ???
??????· ???????? ?? ??, ?? ? ???? ???? ??????????, ?. ?. ?. (2 Corinthians
11:3.)
And again, Strom. iv. 16 (102), p. 607, P.:
? ????????? (specified as ?????? previously) ... ??????? ?? ?? ??v???? ????
???? ????????v?· ???? ??? ??? ??????? ?????? ?? ???? ???v??? ???? ???????
??? ?? ????????? ??? ??????? ???????? ?????.
( ?) Tertullian, de Pudicitia, ch. 13 init. vol. ii. p. 1003:
Novimus plane et hic suspiciones eorum. Revera enim suspicantur apostolum
Paulum in secunda ad Corinthios eidem fornicatori veniam dedisse, quem in
prima dedendum Satanæ in interitum carnis pronuntiarit, &c. He then cites 2
Corinthians 2:5-11.
See more testimonies in Davidson, vol. ii. p. 279.
3. The integrity of this Epistle has not however been unquestioned. Semler
(in 1767) imagined it to consist of three separate epistles,-(1) chapters 1
to 8 + Romans 16:1-20 + ch. 2 Corinthians 13:11-13. This he supposes to
have been the letter which Titus bore on his second mission to Corinth. (2)
On receiving intelligence of the effect produced at Corinth, the Apostle
writes a second Epistle in justification of himself, chap. 2 Corinthians
10:1 to 2 Corinthians 13:10. (3) An Epistle sent to the other churches in
Achaia on the subject of the collection for the saints at Jerusalem, ch. 9.
To this curious theory a convincing refutation was furnished by Gabler (De
capp. ult. ix.-xiii. poster. ep. P. ad Corr. ab eadem haud separandis,
Gotting. 1782). Weber again (de numero Epp. P. ad Corr. rectius
constituendo, 1798) thought it had been originally two Epistles, (1)
chapters 1 to 9+2 Corinthians 13:11-13,-(2) ch. 2 Corinthians 10:1 to 2
Corinthians 13:10. But Meyer (from whom the foregoing particulars are
taken) quotes respecting all such fanciful discussions a good remark of Hug
(Einl. ii. p. 376), that it would be just as reasonable to suppose the ????
???????v of Demosthenes to be two orations, because in the former part the
orator defends himself calmly and in detail, and in the latter breaks out
into fierce and bitter invective. Certainly, on the principle which these
critics have adopted, the first Epistle to the Corinthians might be divided
into at least eight separate epistles, marked off by the successive changes
of subject.
SECTION II
CIRCUMSTANCES, PLACE, AND TIME OF WRITING
1. At the time of writing this Epistle, Paul had recently left Asia (2
Corinthians 1:8): in doing so had come by Troas (2 Corinthians 2:12): and
thence had sailed to Macedonia (ibid.; cf. Acts 20:1-2), where he still was
(ch. 2 Corinthians 8:1; 2 Corinthians 9:2, where notice especially the
present ??v?????,-2 Corinthians 9:4). In Asia, he had undergone some great
peril of his life (2 Corinthians 1:8-9), which (see note there) can hardly
be referred to the tumult at Ephesus (Acts 19:23-41(51),-but from the
nature of his expressions was probably a grievous sickness, not
unaccompanied with deep and wearing anxiety. At Troas, he had expected to
meet Titus (2 Corinthians 2:13), with intelligence respecting the effect
produced at Corinth by the first Epistle. In this he was disappointed (2
Corinthians 2:13), but the meeting took place in Macedonia (2 Corinthians
7:5-6), where the expected tidings were announced to him (2 Corinthians 7:7-
16). They were for the most part favourable, but not altogether. All who
were well disposed had been humbled by his reproofs: but evidently his
adversaries had been further embittered. He wished to express to them the
comfort which the news of their submission had brought to him, and at the
same time to defend his apostolic efficiency and personal character against
the impugners of both. Under these circumstances, and with these objects,
he wrote this Epistle, and sent it before him to break the severity with
which he contemplated having to act against the rebellious (ch. 2
Corinthians 13:10), by winning them over if possible before his arrival.
2. The place of writing is no where clearly pointed out. There is no ground
for supposing it to have been Philippi, as commonly imagined(52). Nay such
a supposition is of itself improbable. In ch. 2 Corinthians 8:1 Paul
announces to the Corinthians the generosity which had been the result of
God's grace given ?? ???? ?????????? ??? ??????????. It is hardly likely
that he would make such announcement, if he had hitherto been stationary at
Philippi, the first of those churches on his way from Asia. All that we can
say is, that the Epistle was written at one of the Macedonian churches;
more probably at the last which he visited than at the first. The principal
of those churches were at Philippi, Thessalonica, and Ber?a. We know from 1
Thessalonians 2:17-18, how anxious the Apostle was again to visit the
Thessalonian church: and in the absence of all detail respecting this
journey in Acts 20:1-2, we may well believe that he would have spent some
time at Thessalonica. If then Philippi from its situation is improbable, it
would seem likely that Thessalonica was the place. But all is conjecture,
beyond the fact that it was written from Macedonia.
3. The time of writing is fixed within very narrow limits. About Pentecost
A.D. 57 (see chronological table in Prolegg. to Acts) Paul left Ephesus for
Troas: there he stayed some littl