2 Corinthians 13:5
Try your own selves if you be in the faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobates?
Open 2 Corinthians 13:5 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Vosmetipsos tentate si estis in fide : ipsi vos probate. An non cognoscitis vosmetipsos quia Christus Jesus in vobis est ? nisi forte reprobi estis.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- Ἑαυτοὺς πειράζετε εἰ ἐστὲ ἐν τῇ πίστει, ἑαυτοὺς δοκιμάζετε· ἢ οὐκ ἐπιγινώσκετε ἑαυτοὺς ὅτι Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς ἐν ὑμῖν; εἰ μήτι ἀδόκιμοί ἐστε.
Haydock's commentary
Try your ownselves if you be in the faith.1 He does not mean if they have a right Christian faith or belief, but either whether they had a saving Christian faith working in them by charity, or as St. Chrysostom says, a faith that shewed itself by the gift of miracles, at that time commonly given to the first Christians.
Unless perhaps you are disapproved,2 rejected, and justly deprived of this gift, which was a proof that they were Christians, and had received the Spirit of Christ. I judged it better to translate here disapproved, that reprobates, which in other places is often taken as opposed to the predestinate and the elect, whereas there it signifies those who were rejected, and deprived of the gifts of the spirit, particularly of that of miracles, and of those spiritual gifts granted to the first Christians, and which were a proof that they had received the grace: and the 7th verse, not that we may appear approved, but that....we may be as reprobates. That is, we wish that we may have no occasion to shew the power and the gifts of the spirit, and that of miracles, but as if we were rejected, disapproved, reproved, and deprived of such proofs. (Witham)
1 Si estis in fide, ei este en te pistei. St. Chrysostom, om. kth., p. 701, emoi dokei entautha legein ten ton semeion. Also in Ver. 5., Nisi forte reprobi estis, adokimoi, improbati, or non probati. The Protestants, as well as Rheims, hath reprobates; but Dr. Wells, in his amendments, has put destitute of proofs, which here is the true sense.
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
Clement of Alexandria The Instructor, Chapter III. Against Men Who Embellish Themselves
But for one who is a man to comb himself and shave himself with a razor, for the sake of fine effect, to arrange his hair at the looking-glass, to shave his cheeks, pluck hairs out of them, and smooth them, how womanly! And, in truth, unless you saw them naked, you would suppose them to be women. For although not allowed to wear gold, yet out of effeminate desire they enwreath their latches and fringes with leaves of gold; or, getting certain spherical figures of the same metal made, they fasten them to their ankles, and hang them from their necks. This is a device of enervated men, who are dragged to the women’s apartments, amphibious and lecherous beasts. For this is a meretricious and impious form of snare. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XXVIII
“But let a man prove himself:” which also he saith in the second Epistle: “try your own selves, prove your own selves:” ( 2 Cor. xiii. 5 .) not as we do now, approaching because of the season rather than from any earnestness of mind. For we do not consider how we may approach prepared, with the ills that were within us purged out, and full of compunction, but how we may come at festivals and whenever all do so. But not thus did Paul bid us come: he knoweth only one season of access and communion, the purity of a man’s conscience. Since if even that kind of banquet which the senses take cognizance of cannot be partaken of by us when feverish and full of bad humors, without risk of perishing: much more is it unlawful for us to touch this Table with profane lusts, which are more grievous than fevers. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XXIX
[4.] Ver. 5, 6 . “Try your own selves, whether ye be in the faith, prove your own selves. Know ye not as to your own selves, that Christ is in you, unless indeed ye be reprobate? But I hope that ye shall know that we are not reprobate.”
St Athanasius Life of Antony. (Vita Antoni.), How humanely he counselled those who resorted to him
55. So after certain days he went in again to the mountain. And henceforth many resorted to him, and others who were suffering ventured to go in. To all the monks therefore who came to him, he continually gave this precept: ‘Believe on the Lord and love Him; keep yourselves from filthy thoughts and fleshly pleasures, and as it is written in the Proverbs, be not deceived “by the fulness of the belly.” Pray continually; avoid vain glory; sing psalms before sleep and on awaking; hold in your heart the commandments of Scripture; be mindful of the works of the saints that your souls being put in remembrance of the commandments may be brought into harmony with the zeal of the saints.’ And especially he counselled them to meditate continually on the apostle’s word, ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.’ And he considered this was spoken of all commandments in common, and that not on wrath a …
St John Cassian The Seven Books of John Cassian on the Incarnation of the Lord, Against Nestorius, Chapter IV. What the difference is between Christ and the saints
Moreover there is between Him and all the saints the same difference that there is between a dwelling and one who dwells in it, for certainly it is the doing of the dweller not the dwelling, if it is inhabited, for on him it depends both to build the house and to occupy it. I mean, that he can choose, if he will, to make it a dwelling, and when he has made it, to live in it. “Or do you seek a proof,” says the Apostle, “of Christ speaking in me?” And elsewhere, “Know ye not that Jesus Christ is in you except ye be reprobate?” And again: “in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith.” Do you not see what a difference there is between the Apostle’s doctrine and your blasphemies? You say that God dwells in Christ as in a man. …