2 Corinthians 4:3
And if our gospel be also hid, it is hid to them that are lost,
Open 2 Corinthians 4:3 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Quod si etiam opertum est Evangelium nostrum, in iis, qui pereunt, est opertum :
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- εἰ δὲ καὶ ἔστιν κεκαλυμμένον τὸ εὐαγγέλιον ἡμῶν, ἐν τοῖς ἀπολλυμένοις ἐστὶν κεκαλυμμένον,
Haydock's commentary
The apostle here brings another proof of the sincerity of his preaching, viz. the success with which it is attended: And he says, if there be any who have not yet received it, that is their own fault. For had they been as eager to receive it, as we have been to announce it to them, the whole world had[would have?] long since been converted. (Theodoret)
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 The Harmony of the Gospels, Of the Hour of the Lord’s Passion, and of the Question Concerning the Absence of Any Discrepancy Between Mark and John in the Article of the ‘Third’ Hour and the ‘Sixth.’
48. If any one, however, asserts that if this was the real state of the case, Mark might have mentioned the third hour explicitly at the point at which it really was the third hour, namely, when the voices of the Jews were lifted up demanding that the Lord should be crucified; and, further, that he might have told us plainly there that those vociferators did really crucify Him at that time, such a reasoner is simply imposing laws upon the historians of truth in his own overweening pride. For he might as well maintain that if he were himself to be a narrator of these occurrences, they ought all to be recorded just in the same way and the same order by all other writers as they have been recorded by himself. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily VII
And just as children, looking on their books, know not the meaning of the letters, neither know what they see; yea more, if even a grown man be unskilful in letters, the same thing will befall him; but the skilful will find much meaning stored up in the letters, even complete lives and histories: and an epistle in the hands of one that is unskilful will be accounted but paper and ink; but he that knows how to read will both hear a voice, and hold converse with the absent, and will reply whatsoever he chooses by means of writing: so it is also in regard of the Mystery. Unbelievers albeit they hear, seem not to hear: but the faithful, having the skill which is by the Spirit, behold the meaning of the things stored therein. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily VIII
Ver. 3, 4 . “But if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are lost; in whom the God of this world hath blinded the eyes of the unbelieving.”
St Cyril of Jerusalem Concerning the Unity of God. On the Article, I Believe in One God. Also Concerning Heresies
28. Then Manes answers him: “And what sort of God causes blindness? For it is Paul who saith, In whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the Gospel should shine unto them .” But Archelaus made a good retort, saying, “Read a little before: But if our Gospel is veiled, it is veiled in them that are perishing . Seest thou that in them that are perishing it is veiled? For it is not right to give the things which are holy unto the dogs . Again, Is it only the God of the Old Testament that hath blinded the minds of them that believe not? Hath not Jesus Himself said, For this cause speak I unto them in parables, that seeing they may not see ? Was it from hating them that He wished them not to see? Or because of their unworthiness, since their eyes they had closed . …
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).