2 Corinthians 12:18
I desired Titus, and I sent with him a brother. Did Titus overreach you? Did we not walk with the same spirit? did we not in the same steps?
Open 2 Corinthians 12:18 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Rogavi Titum, et misi cum illo fratrem. Numquid Titus vos circumvenit ? nonne eodem spiritu ambulavimus ? nonne iisdem vestigiis ?
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- παρεκάλεσα Τίτον καὶ συναπέστειλα τὸν ἀδελφόν· μήτι ἐπλεονέκτησεν ὑμᾶς Τίτος; οὐ τῷ αὐτῷ πνεύματι περιεπατήσαμεν; οὐ τοῖς αὐτοῖς ἴχνεσιν;
Haydock's commentary
On verses 16 to 18
I caught you by guile. He answers an objection or suspicion of his adversaries, as if he took no presents himself, but employed others to do it for him: he appeals to them, if Titus did not serve them in all things as he had done, in the same spirit, treading the same steps. Think you, as some pretended of old, formerly, or of a long time, that we make vain and false excuses to you, and at the bottom aim to be gainers by you? He appeals with an oath to God, that he does all things for their good, for their advantage, and edification. (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 John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily V
How then do these (words) hang upon those before them? Let us recall to mind what those were, and so we shall perceive this. What then were those before? What he said at the beginning. “I would not have you,” saith he, “ignorant concerning our affliction which befell us in Asia, that we were weighed down exceedingly, beyond our power.” ( 2 Cor. i. 8 .) Now having shown the manner of his deliverance, and inserted the intermediate matter, he is of necessity led to teach them again that in yet another way he had been afflicted. How, and in what way? In not finding Titus. ( vii. 6; viii. 6, 16, 22, 23, xii. 18 .) Fearful indeed, and enough to prostrate the soul, is it even to endure trials; but when there is none to comfort and that can help to bear the burden, the tempest becometh greater. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XXVIII
2 Cor. xii. 16-18 But be it so, I myself did not burden you: but being crafty, I caught you with guile. Did I take advantage of you by any one of them whom I have sent unto you? I exhorted Titus, and with him I sent the brother. Did Titus take any advantage of you? Walked we not by the same spirit? walked we not in the same steps?
St Basil De Spiritu Sancto, Enumeration of the illustrious men in the Church who in their writings have used the word “with.”
74. But where shall I rank the great Gregory, and the words uttered by him? Shall we not place among Apostles and Prophets a man who walked by the same Spirit as they; who never through all his days diverged from the footprints of the saints; who maintained, as long as he lived, the exact principles of evangelical citizenship? I am sure that we shall do the truth a wrong if we refuse to number that soul with the people of God, shining as it did like a beacon in the Church of God; for by the fellow-working of the Spirit the power which he had over demons was tremendous, and so gifted was he with the grace of the word “for obedience to the faith among…the nations,” that, although only seventeen Christians were handed over to him, he brought the whole people alike in town and country through knowledge to God. …