2 Corinthians 11:18
Seeing that many glory according to the flesh, I will glory also.
Open 2 Corinthians 11:18 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quoniam multi gloriantur secundum carnem : et ego gloriabor.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- ἐπεὶ πολλοὶ καυχῶνται κατὰ σάρκα, κἀγὼ καυχήσομαι.
Haydock's commentary
On verses 16 to 18
Otherwise take me as one foolish. St. Paul divers times excuses himself for mentioning things in his own commendation: he owns that this in itself, and unless it were necessary, might be blamed as folly, that it would not be according to God, but he declares himself forced by them to it, and that he will speak nothing but the truth. See chap. xii. ver. 6. 11. He tells them that they bear with others that are foolish, even with those false preachers that endeavour to bring them into slavery by their domineering carriage, by making them perhaps subject to the yoke of the Mosaical law. Who devour them, that is, their goods and substance, who take from them, who in a manner strike them on the face, (ver. 20.) he means a metaphorical striking them, that is, by imperious ways, and insolent language. (Witham)
From Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary, 1859, in the transcription made by Todd Easton and kept online by John Paul Wohlschied at johnblood.gitlab.io/haydock.
The Fathers on this verse
St Augustine On Christian Doctrine, Examples of True Eloquence Drawn from the Epistles of Paul and the Prophecies of Amos
12. In the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, again, he refutes certain false apostles who had gone out from the Jews, and had been trying to injure his character; and being compelled to speak of himself, though he ascribes this as folly to himself, how wisely and how eloquently he speaks! But wisdom is his guide, eloquence his attendant; he follows the first, the second follows him, and yet he does not spurn it when it comes after him. “I say again,” he says, “Let no man think me a fool: if otherwise, yet as a fool receive me, that I may boast myself a little. That which I speak, I speak it not after the Lord, but as it were foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also. For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XXIV
Ver. 18 . “Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also.”
St John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XXV
See him again drawing back and using depreciation and correctives beforehand, although he has already even said many such things: “Would that ye could bear with me in a little foolishness;” ( Ver. 1 .) and again, “Let no man think me foolish: if ye do, yet as foolish receive me.” ( Ver. 16 .) “That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord, but as in foolishness.” ( Ver. 17 .) “Seeing that many glory after the flesh, I will glory also;” ( Ver. 18 .) and here again, “Whereinsoever any is bold, (I speak in foolishness) I am bold also.” Boldness and folly he calls it to speak aught great of himself, and that though there was a necessity, teaching us even to an excess to avoid any thing of the sort. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).