The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the Second Epistle to the Corinthians
It was such a life as is led by religious, whose fathers were the Apostles. Nazianzen ( Orat. 1 de Pace), in describing this life, says : “ Their life is one of wealth in the midst of need, of great possessions while but pilgrims , of glory amid scorn, patience in weakness , a noble offspring in celibacy : instead of riches they have contempt of riches ; for the kingdom of heaven's sake they embrace humility ; they have nothing in the world ; and yet they are superior to the world ; they are in the flesh, and yet live out of the flesh ; they have God for their portion ; their hope of the Kingdom makes them labour in want, and through want they reign.” Such was the life of Bishops and apostolic men. Sulpitius praises S. Martin for fulfilling the dignified duties of a Bishop without abandoning his purpose as a monk. Posidonius relates of S. Augustine that he lived so frugally as to be content with bread and vegetables, seldom providing flesh except for his guests ; he says also that when he was at the point of death he left no will, because, as he said, Christ’s poor had nothing to leave. Still he was able to refute Arians, Manichees, Donatists, and Pelagians , and became one of the first columns and doctors of the Churches. Of Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, S. Jerome says: “When hungry himself he fed others, and showed by his face, wasted and wan with constant fasting, that he was consumed by hunger after other things.”
This, therefore, is the norm and form of the apostolic life prescribed by S. Paul to all who are desirous of perfection and the salvation of their souls. From this was drawn the short rule of the Institute of our Order, a printed copy of which each of us is wont to carry about with him, and to apply to it his eyes and mind, regarding it as his private monitor, and a keen spur to zeal for virtue, nay, as a living mirror of our vocation and profession. It says as follows : “ The nature of our life demands that we be men crucified to the world, and to whom the world itself is crucified ; new men, who have put off their affections to put on Christ ; dead to themselves, to live to righteousness ; men who , as S. Paul says , show themselves to be ministers of Christ in labours , in watchings, in fastings, in pureness, in knowledge, in long-suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Ghost, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth; men who by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report, in prosperity and adversity, are themselves hastening by forced marches to their heavenly country, and with all zealous labour compelling others also , always aiming at the greatest glory of God . This is the summary , this one thing the aim and object of our constitutions, viz., Jesus.”
Ver. 11. — O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you. My mouth is open, it longs to say more to you, and to express all my affection for you, and it cannot. No matter what and how much I may say, it is less than my affection. The Apostle says this to show that what he had said of his patience, tribulations, and virtues was not from self-love, but from friendship, trust, and love towards the Corinthians. Friends are in the habit of interchanging their secret joys and sorrows, and thus showing their love for each other. When this is great they more and more try to express it, but find themselves unable to do justice to their feelings. This is what Paul does here.
The two ideas of “ straitening ” and “enlarging” are frequently contrasted by the Hebrews, to denote on the one hand sadness, timidity, suspicion, and avarice, and on the other joyfulness and generosity of heart As sadness and avarice contract the heart, the brow, and the hands, so joy, cheerfulness, and charity expand them.
Ver. 12. — Ye are not straitened in us. You dwell fully and spaciously in my heart as in your home. My love builds for you a spacious house.
Ye are straitened in your own bowels. The love of your hearts for me is so small that it contracts them, and barely gives me place there. Your love and good-will do not equal mine. The Corinthians would seem to have been alienated from Paul by the calumnies of the false apostles ; he, therefore, declares the greatness of his love for them, that he may kindle theirs in return.
Moreover, Paul seemed to have in his First Epistle straitened the Corinthians by prohibiting them from idolatry, from going to law before unbelieving judges, from their love-feasts and sumptuous banquets; and in ver. 14 he is about to straiten them by forbidding a believer to marry with an unbeliever. He here paves the way for them to receive, with the large-hearted love of Christ, his apparently straitening precepts, which are not his but Christ’s.
Ver. 13. — Now for a recompense in the same . . . be ye also enlarged. S. Paul is speaking of a return of love, and not, as some think, of the heavenly reward. These latter take the meaning to be, that since the Corinthians were to have the same reward in heaven, they should enlarge their love for S. Paul. But the sense clearly is that they should repay S. Paul’s love for them with an equal measure of love on their part.
Ver. 14. — Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Do not have so close fellowship with them in matters of religion as to be gradually led away to share in their unbelief, as, e.g ., in marriage. Separate yourselves from the unbelievers’ assemblies, temples, sacrifices, feasts; do not intermarry with them, for all commerce with them is either wicked and unrighteous in itself, or is dangerous to those who hold it, and a cause of offence to others. Do not imitate the Jews, whose laxity is recorded in Ps. cvi. 35 (Chrysostom, Ambrose, Theophylact). S. Jerome (contra Jovin. lib. i.) understands S. Paul to warn against intermarriage with unbelievers. There seems to be an allusion to Ps. cvi. 28, “They joined themselves unto Baal-peor,” which refers to the fornication committed by the Israelites in honour of Baal-peor . So, whoever marries with an unbeliever may be said to join himself to Baal-peor, i.e., the devil, the ruler of unbelievers. Anselm again supposes that by “unbelievers” is meant the Judaising false apostles, who were attempting to eviscerate the faith of Christ by making the ceremonies of the law of Moses binding on Christians. Such men are more dangerous to Christians, and more to be shunned than unbelieving Gentiles, and therefore S. Paul warns his readers against them. This sense is good but defective, for the Apostle wishes the fellowship of all unbelievers whatsoever to be avoided.
The Apostle is here passing on, as is usual in letters, to discuss another point of importance just then to the Corinthians, viz., the duty of avoiding unbelievers. It is in vain, therefore, for any one to seek for connecting links with what has gone before. Erasmus observes that the Latin version is happy in its translation here ; it renders the passage : “ Do not be joined in the same yoke with unbelievers.” For if a Christian marry a heathen wife, or a Christian magistrate have a Gentile as colleague, he is called ἑτεροζυγῶν. Marriages of this kind S. Jerome calls unequal yokes.
Observe upon this that ἕτερος signifies sometimes one of two, sometimes an object that is diverse, whether from some one other or from several others. Thus the word occurs in a compound word, to denote one who lacks an eye, and again to denote one who is of a different opinion (ἑτερόφθαλμος and ἑτερόδοξος). And hence it is uncertain whether S. Paul here means one who bears one-half of a yoke, or one who bears a yoke in company with one of a different condition.
Budaeus takes the former of these two, and understands S. Paul to exhort the Corinthians not to bear one part of a yoke with unbelievers, just as in Campania two oxen bear the same yoke, one on each side.