Homilies on 2 Corinthians 3.2

Do you see him again confirming the future from the past, and not from the past only, but also from the power of God? For he did not simply declare it, but cast the whole upon God and … the hope in him.

“That we are your boast, as you also are ours, in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Here he cuts away the envy that might arise from what he has said, making them sharers and partners in the glory of his achievements. “For it does not stop with us, but passes over to you, and again from you to us.” Since he had exalted himself, had given proof of the past, and had pledged the future, so that the hearers might not reproach him as one speaking boastfully nor, as I said, be carried away into envy, he makes the boast common, and says that this crown of praises is theirs too. “For if we appear such, our praise is your glory; just as, when you are well thought of, we exult and leap for joy and are crowned.” Here again he shows great humility by what he has said. For he speaks not as a teacher to disciples but as a disciple to fellow disciples of equal honor, and so he puts his speech on a level with them. And see how he makes them lofty and fills them with wisdom, sending them on to that day. “Do not speak to me of present things,” he says, “that is, the reproaches, the abuse, the mockery from the many; for nothing here is great, neither the good things nor the painful, neither the mockery nor the praises that come from men. But remember with me that fearful and awesome day, in which … all things laid bare. For then we shall glory in you and you in us, when you are seen to have such teachers, who teach nothing human, who have lived without wickedness and have given no handle to anyone; and we are seen to have such disciples, who suffer nothing human, who are not shaken, but receive everything with eagerness and are nowhere led astray. For now these things are plain to those who have understanding, but then they will be plain to all. So even if we are afflicted now, we have this consolation too, and not a small one: now the consolation from our conscience, and then also the one from the shining forth itself. For now our conscience knows that we do everything by the grace of God, as you also know and will know; but then all men will learn both our affairs and yours, and will see us glorified through each other.” So as not to seem to be the only one made splendid by his boasting, he gives them too a cause for boasting, and leads them away from present troubles. And what he did in the case of comfort, saying, “We are comforted for your sake,” he does here too, saying, “We boast because of you, as you do because of us,” everywhere making them partners in everything: in comfort, in sufferings, in salvation. For he reckons this salvation too to their prayers: “For God delivered us,” he says, “you helping together by your prayer.” So too he makes the boasts common. As there he says, “knowing that as you are partners in the sufferings, so also in the comfort,” so here, “We are your boast, as you also are ours.”

“And in this confidence [I wanted to] come …” In what confidence? “In being very confident about you, in boasting of you, in being your boast, in loving you greatly, in being conscious of nothing evil in myself, in being persuaded that everything with us is spiritual and that we have you as witnesses of it.” “I wanted to come to you, and to pass through you into Macedonia.” And yet in the first letter he promised the opposite, saying, “I will come to you when I pass through Macedonia; for I am passing through Macedonia.” How then does he say the opposite here? He does not say the opposite, far from it. These words are opposite to what he wrote, but not to what he wished. That is why here he did not say, “I wrote that I would go through you to Macedonia,” but, “I wanted to.” “For even if I did not write so,” he says, “yet I was eager and wished it; and before coming to you I was so far from wishing to fall short of my promise that I even wanted to anticipate it.” “So that you might have a second grace.” What is “second”? So that you might have a double grace, both the one through my letter and the one through my presence. By “grace” here he means joy. “And to pass through you into Macedonia, and to come back to you from Macedonia, and to be sent on by you to Judea.” “When I wished this, then, did I act with fickleness?”

[3.] Here at last he directly strips off the charge arising from his delay and absence. What he means is this: “I wanted to come to you. Why then did I not come? Was it as one light and easily swayed? For that is what ‘Did I act with fickleness?’ means. Not at all. Why then? Because what I plan I do not plan according to the flesh.” What is “not according to the flesh”? “I do not plan in a fleshly way.” “So that with me there should be ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no.’” But this too is still unclear. What then is it he says? The fleshly man, that is, the one nailed to present things and always among them, and outside the working of the Spirit, can go anywhere and wander wherever he wishes; but the servant of the Spirit, who is led and directed by him, cannot be master of his own purpose in everything, since he has made it hang upon the authority from above. He is in the position of a slave in good standing who is dragged everywhere by his master’s orders, has no authority over himself, and cannot breathe freely even a little; if he promised something to his fellow slaves, and then his master decided otherwise, he could not carry out what he had announced. This, then, is what he says: “I do not plan according to the flesh; I am not outside the Spirit’s steering, nor do I have authority to go where I wish. For I am subject to the lordship and commands of the Paraclete, and I am led and directed by his decisions. That is why I could not come; for it did not seem good to the Spirit.” This happened often in the Acts as well: when Paul had decided to go to one place, the Spirit bade him go elsewhere. “So my not coming was not from my fickleness, that is, my lightness, but from the Spirit, since I was subject to him and obeyed.” Do you see again his customary skill? From the very thing by which they thought to show that he planned in a fleshly way, his not keeping his promise, from this above all he shows that he [planned] spiritually.

“What then?” someone says. “Did he not promise with the Spirit?” Not at all; for I have already said that Paul did not know beforehand everything that would happen and would be beneficial. That is why in the first letter he says, “so that you may send me on my way wherever I go,” not saying “to Judea,” lest he be forced to go elsewhere; but here, since he failed to come, he says it: “and to be sent on by you to Judea.” What belonged to love, coming to them, he states; what did not concern them, going to Judea, he no longer adds definitely. But since he has been proved true, he says confidently here, “to Judea.” And this happened for their good, so that none of them might have a higher opinion of him than he deserved. For if, even as things were, they wanted to sacrifice bulls to them, to what impiety would they not have overflowed if the apostles had not given many proofs of human weakness? And why do you wonder if he did not know all the future, when even in prayers he is often ignorant of what is beneficial? “For we do not know what to pray for as we ought,” he says. And he does not say this only to seem modest, but he also shows where he was ignorant in prayers of what was beneficial. Where then was he ignorant? When he asked to be freed from the temptations, saying, “A thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me. About this I besought the Lord three times, and he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” Do you see how he did not know how to ask for what was beneficial? That is why he did not receive it, though he asked many times.

“But God is faithful, that our word to you was not Yes and No.” He neatly removes an objection that arises. “For if,” someone says, “having promised to come you delayed, and with you it is not ‘yes, yes’ and ‘no, no,’ but what you say now you overturn afterwards, as you did with your visit, woe to us, lest this has happened in the preaching too.” So that they might not think this and be troubled, he says, “But God is faithful, that our word to you was not Yes and No.” “This did not happen in the preaching,” he says, “but only in our journeys and travels; in the preaching what we said remains firm and unshaken.” By “word” here he means the preaching. Then he gives an indisputable proof of this, referring the whole to God. What he means is this: “The promise of my visit was mine, and I promised it of myself; but the preaching is not mine nor human, but God’s, and God’s things cannot prove false.” That is why he said, “God is faithful,” that is, true. “Do not then suspect what is his; for there is nothing human in it.” And since he had said “word,” he next shows what word he means.