2 Corinthians 11:9

38. I would also say, O Lord my God, what the following Scripture reminds me of; yea, I will say it without fear. For I will speak the truth, Thou inspiring me as to what Thou willest that I should say out of these words. For by none other than Thy inspiration do I believe that I can speak the truth, since Thou art the Truth, but every man a liar. And therefore he that “speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own;” therefore that I may speak the truth, I will speak of Thine. Behold, Thou hast given unto us for food “every herb bearing seed,” which is upon the face of all the earth, “and every tree in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed.” Nor to us only, but to all the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the earth, and to all creeping things; but unto the fishes, and great whales, Thou hast not given these things. …

15. But when he might use to work, that is, in what spaces of time, that he might not be hindered from preaching the Gospel, who can make out? Though, truly, that he wrought at hours of both day and night himself hath not left untold. Yet these men truly, who as though very full of business and occupation inquire about the time of working, what do they? Have they from Jerusalem round about even to Illyricum filled the lands with the Gospel? or whatever of barbarian nations hath remained yet to be gone unto, and to be filled of the peace of the Church, have they undertaken? We know them into a certain holy society, most leisurely gathered together. …

21. Moreover, if discourse must be bestowed upon any, and this so take up the speaker that he have not time to work with his hands, are all in the monastery able to hold discourse unto brethren which come unto them from another kind of life, whether it be to expound the divine lessons, or concerning any questions which may be put, to reason in an wholesome manner? Then since not all have the ability, why upon this pretext do all want to have nothing else to do? Although even if all were able, they ought to do it by turns; not only that the rest might not be taken up from necessary works, but also because it sufficeth that to many hearers there be one speaker. To come now to the Apostle; how could he find time to work with his hands, unless for the bestowing of the word of God he had certain set times? And indeed God hath not willed this either to be hidden from us. …

7. No man loved Christ more than Paul: no man exhibited greater zeal, no man was counted worthy of more grace: nevertheless, after all these great advantages, he still has fears and tremblings concerning this government and those who were governed by him. “I fear,” he says, “lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ.” And again, “I was with you in fear and in much trembling;” and this was a man who had been caught up to the third Heaven, and made partaker of the unspeakable mysteries of God, and had endured as many deaths as he had lived days after he became a believer, a man, moreover, who would not use the authority given him from Christ lest any of his converts should be offended. …

And what is a still greater thing, neither could any have this to say, that being in abundance we declined using it; rather, when necessity pressed upon us we would not yield to the necessity. Which also in the second Epistle he says; “I robbed other Churches, taking wages of them that I might minister unto you; and when I was present with you, and was in want, I was not a burden on any man.” ( 2 Cor. xi. 8, 9 .) And in this Epistle again, “We both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted.” ( 1 Cor. iv. 11 .) And here again he hints the same thing, saying, “But we bear all things.” For by saying, “we bear all things,” he intimates both hunger and great straits and all the other things. “But not even thus have we been compelled,” saith he, “to break the law which we laid down for ourselves. …

Ver. 9 . “And when I was present with you, and was in want, I was not a burden on any man.” For he did not say, ‘ye did not give to me,’ but, ‘I did not take,’ for as yet he spares them. But nevertheless even in the subduedness of his language he covertly strikes them again, for the word, “present,” is exceedingly emphatic, and so is “in want.” For that they might not say, ‘what matter then, if you had [enough]?’ he added, “and was in want.” “I was not a burden” on you. Here again he hits them gently, as making such contributions reluctantly, as feeling them a burden. Then comes the reason also, full of accusation and fraught with jealousy. Wherefore also he introduced it, not in the way of a leading point, but as informing them whence and by whom he was supported, so as to stimulate them again, in an unsuspicious way, as to the point of almsgiving;

“For ye remember,” he says, “my brethren, our labor and travail.” He had said previously, “we might have been burdensome as the Apostles of Christ,” as he also says in the Epistle to the Corinthians, “Know ye not that they which minister about sacred things eat of the things of the Temple? Even so also did Christ ordain that they which proclaim the Gospel should live of the Gospel.” ( 1 Cor. ix. 13, 14 .) But I, he says, would not, but I labored; and he did not merely work, but with much diligence. Observe then what he says; “For ye remember,” he has not said, the benefits received from me, but, “our labor and travail: for working night and day, that we might not burden any of you, we preached unto you the Gospel of God.” And to the Corinthians he said a different thing, “I robbed other Churches, taking wages of them that I might minister unto you.” ( 2 Cor. xi. …

As if he (who, by his assertion that he was endowed with the privileges of a Roman citizen from his birth, testifies that he was no mean person according to this world’s rank) might not likewise have been supported by the property which formerly belonged to him! And as if those men who were possessors of lands and houses in Jerusalem and sold everything and kept back nothing whatever for themselves, and brought the price of them and laid it at the feet of the apostles, might not have supplied their bodily necessities from their own property, had this been considered the best plan by the apostles, or had they themselves deemed it preferable! But they gave up all their property at once, and preferred to be supported by their own labour, and by the contributions of the Gentiles, of whose collection the holy Apostle speaks in writing to the Romans, and declaring his own office in this matter …