Homilies on Second Corinthians

“For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears, not that you should be made sorry, but that you might know the love which I have more abundantly unto you.”

What more tenderly affectioned than this man's spirit is? For he shows himself to have been not less pained than they who had sinned, but even much more. For he says not “out of affliction” merely, but “out of much,” nor “with tears,” but “with many tears” and “anguish of heart,” that is, I was suffocated, I was choked with despondency; and when I could no longer endure the cloud of despondency, “I wrote unto you: not that you should be grieved, but that you might know the love,” says he, “which I have more abundantly unto you.” And yet what naturally followed was to say, not that you might be grieved, but that you might be corrected: (for indeed with this purpose he wrote.) This however he does not say, but, (more to sweeten his words, and win them to a greater affection,) he puts this for it, showing that he does all from love. And he says not simply “the love,” but “which I have more abundantly unto you.” For hereby also he desires to win them, by showing that he loves them more than all and feels towards them as to chosen disciples. Whence he says, “Even if I be not an Apostle unto others, yet at least I am to you;” and, “Though you have many tutors, yet have ye not many fathers;” and again, “By the grace of God we behaved ourselves in the world, and more abundantly to you ward;” and farther on, “Though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved;” and here “Which I have more abundantly unto you;” So that if my words were full of anger, yet out of much love and sadness was the anger; and while writing the Epistle, I suffered, I was pained, not because ye had sinned only, but also because I was compelled to make you sorry. And this itself was out of love. Just as a father whose legitimate son is afflicted with a gangrene, being compelled to use the knife and cautery, is pained on both accounts, that he is diseased and that he is compelled to use the knife to him. So that what ye consider a sign of hating you was indeed a sign of excessive love. And if to have made you sorry was out of love, much more my gladness at that sorrow.

4. Having made this defence of himself, (for he frequently defends himself, without being ashamed; for if God does so, saying, “O My people, what have I done unto you?” much more might Paul,) having, I say, made this defence of himself, and being now about to pass on to the plea for him who had committed fornication, in order that they might not be distracted as at receiving contradictory commands, nor take to cavilling because he it was who both then was angry and was now commanding to forgive him, see how he provided for this beforehand, both by what he has said and what he is going to say. For what says he?