The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: the Second Epistle to the Corinthians
Cf. Ambrose and Anselm, and S. Bernard (Serm. 71 in Cantic.), who discourses of the spiritual colour and odour of virtues from the text, “ I am the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the valley." He says : “ The character has its colours and its odours ; odour in the good report it bears , colour in the conscience within . The good intention of your heart gives its colour to your work ; the example of your modesty and virtue gives it its odour. The righteous is in himself a fair lily , to his neighbour he is full of sweet odours . To our neighbour we owe it that we maintain a good reputation , to ourselves that we are careful to have a conscience void of offence .” S. Jerome also, alluding to the same passage, says : “ The life and conversation of a Bishop, pastor, or teacher ought to be such that all his goings out and comings in , and all his works should be redolent of heavenly grace.”
Heathen writers also employ this image of odour in rebuking evil livers. Martial, e.g., says that “he smells not sweet who always smells sweet," implying that that man’s chastity was to be suspected who was always endeavouring to overwhelm the foulness of his own shameful disease by some artificial scent. Certainly we read of the virgin Catherine of Sienna, that she was wont to close her nostrils when she met any one that was impure, as though the smell of his wickedness was grievous to her, God giving this most chaste virgin perception of such things. S. Basil (Ep. 175) relates that some bird-catchers were wont to dip the wings of tame doves in some sweet liquid which was pleasant to other doves, so as to allure them and catch them. So must the Christian do : by the sweet odour of his virtues he must allure the lost and bring them to Christ. So did the virgin Cecilia win to Christ her spouse Valerianus, by causing him, on the first night of their marriage life, to smell the most fragrant odour of her chastity, as though it were the scent of spring roses.
Ver. 16. — To the one we are the savour of death unto death, and to the other the savour of life unto life . “ We are,” says Theophylact, “ a royal censer , and wherever we go we carry with us the odour of the spiritual ointment , i.e., in every place we scatter the good fumes of the knowledge of God.” Again says Œcumenius : “ As the fragrance of ointment nourishes the dove and destroys the beetle , and as the light of the sun gladdens the eyes that are healthy and hurts those that are weak , as fire purifies gold and destroys straw , so is Christ ruin to the evil, resurrection to the good.” Observe the Hebraism, an odour of death unto death, i.e., a deadly odour bringing death. The fragrance of the fame of the life, preaching, and conversion of the Apostles life into the good, death into the evil ; for the wicked, unable to bear the splendour of such holiness, hardened themselves the more in their wickedness, envy, or hatred. But Clement of Alexandria (Paed. lib. ii.) reads, “odour from death” and “odour from life,” which means : The preaching of the Cross and death of Christ is an odour to the unbelievers arising from the death of Christ, and tends to the ruin of those who regard that death merely as a death, and find it accordingly foolishness or a stumbling-block : but to them that believe it is an odour from life, inasmuch as they embrace the life offered to them in this death. For the death of Christ was the cause of his resurrection to a glorious life, and in us it is the cause of our resurrection to the life of grace in this world, and the life of glory in the world to come.
And who is sufficient for these things? The ministers, says Ambrose , who are in every place a good odour of Christ are as few as they are insufficient.
Ver. 17. — For we are not as many which corrupt the word of God. The particle for denotes that Paul, with the few other Apostles, was by God’s grace a fitting minister of Christ, and scattered wherever he went the good odour of the Gospel, while many others were unfitting preachers of the Gospel, of evil odour and of bad report. The Latin for corrupt is “ adulterate,” which, Salmeron says, denotes the act of one who has connection with a woman that is not his wife ; so does he who mingles truth and falsehood adulterate the word of God. S. Gregory ( Morals , lib. xxii. c. 12) says : “To adulterate the word of God is either to think of it otherwise than it is, or to seek from it, not spiritual fruit but the corrupt offspring of human praise . To speak in sincerity is to say nothing but what one ought, i.e., to seek always the glory of the Creator .” Again ( Morals , lib. xvi. c. 25) he says: “An adulterer seeks not offspring but carnal delight ; and whoever perversely serves vain-glory is rightly said to adulterate the word of God, because it is not his aim to beget children to God by sacred eloquence but to display his own knowledge. Whosoever therefore is drawn to speak by the desire of vain-glory spends his labour rather on pleasure than generation .”
But the Greek word used here is not the word for committing adultery, but one that denotes to traffic as an inn-keeper, and S. Paul contrasts with this sincere dealing. They make the word of God a matter of traffic, who, like inn-keepers, preach the Gospel for gain, and look at it entirely from the point of view of their own profit. Still the Latin accurately translates the passage, because, as inn-keepers often adulterate the wine that they sell to increase their profits, so do greedy and false preachers of the Gospel mingle with it their own gain, and so adulterate that Gospel which should be pure, and be purely referred to God’s glory. “War is not a matter of traffic,” said King Pyrrhus, “ but of fighting.” Cowardly captains, from dread of battle, stave it off by payment of money ; others sell the loyalty they owe to their leader, and, like inn-keepers, arrange with the enemy the price of the cities and fortresses entrusted to their charge.
Again, these same false preachers, in order to add to their gain and to win the applause of men, often teach and preach what they see is pleasing to great men or to the people, and tickle their ears, and so corrupt the Gospel with false and empty doctrines. The Apostle seems to be here censuring incidentally his enemies the false Apostles, who were adulterating Christianity with Judaism, and who are severely reproved by him in chaps. x. and xi. Hence, in chap. iv. 2, he explains “ corrupt ” to mean “ handle the word of God deceitfully,” and he contrasts himself and other sincere teachers of the Gospel with these deceitful dealers in chap. iii.
But as of sincerity , but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ. I am not an inn-keeper, as are the false apostles, but a sincere preacher of the word of God, preaching nothing but what I have learned from God and have received at His mouth as His ambassador. I know too, and constantly keep in mind and reflect that I stand and preach in the presence of God, and that all that I do or say is noted by Him and will have to be accounted for by me in the hour of death.
In Christ , says S. Jerome (ad Hedibiam), is the same as for Christ ; or it may mean “of Christ and His religion.” The sense then is: I preach the doctrine of Christ alone, I spread the honour and glory of Christ alone. Or in Christ may again be taken to mean that he speaks and preaches in the truth, faithfulness, and sincerity of Christ. S. Chrysostom once more takes it to mean through Christ and His grace.