2 Corinthians 7:9
Now I am glad: not because you were made sorrowful; but because you were made sorrowful unto penance. For you were made sorrowful according to God, that you might suffer damage by us in nothing.
Open 2 Corinthians 7:9 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- nunc gaudeo : non quia contristati estis, sed quia contristati estis ad pœnitentiam. Contristati enim estis ad Deum, ut in nullo detrimentum patiamini ex nobis.
- Greek New Testament (SBLGNT)
- νῦν χαίρω, οὐχ ὅτι ἐλυπήθητε, ἀλλʼ ὅτι ἐλυπήθητε εἰς μετάνοιαν, ἐλυπήθητε γὰρ κατὰ θεόν, ἵνα ἐν μηδενὶ ζημιωθῆτε ἐξ ἡμῶν.
Haydock's commentary
Now I rejoice, &c. I should have been inconsolable, had my letter made you sad, without producing the salutary effect intended by it; but I now rejoice that it caused a sorrow and sadness productive of the great advantages you have reaped from it. Thus in every sentence St. Paul shews the solicitude of a father, seeking nothing but the advancement of his spiritual children. (Calmet)
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 Stromata, or Miscellanies, Chapter XXI. Description of the Perfect Man, or Gnostic
Here I find perfection apprehended variously in relation to Him who excels in every virtue. Accordingly one is perfected as pious, and as patient, and as continent, and as a worker, and as a martyr, and as a Gnostic. But I know no one of men perfect in all things at once, while still human, though according to the mere letter of the law, except Him alone who for us clothed Himself with humanity. Who then is perfect? He who professes abstinence from what is bad. Well, this is the way to the Gospel and to well-doing. But gnostic perfection in the case of the legal man is the acceptance of the Gospel, that he that is after the law may be perfect. For so he, who was after the law, Moses, foretold that it was necessary to hear in order that we might, according to the apostle, receive Christ, the fulness of the law. …
St Augustine City of God, Of the Three Perturbations, Which the Stoics Admitted in the Soul of the Wise Man to the Exclusion of Grief or Sadness, Which the Manly Mind Ought Not to Experience
The same author had also used the expression, “the evil contentments of the mind.” So that good and bad men alike will, are cautious, and contented; or, to say the same thing in other words, good and bad men alike desire, fear, rejoice, but the former in a good, the latter in a bad fashion, according as the will is right or wrong. Sorrow itself, too, which the Stoics would not allow to be represented in the mind of the wise man, is used in a good sense, and especially in our writings. For the apostle praises the Corinthians because they had a godly sorrow. But possibly some one may say that the apostle congratulated them because they were penitently sorry, and that such sorrow can exist only in those who have sinned. For these are his words: “For I perceive that the same epistle hath made you sorry, though it were but for a season. …
St John Chrysostom Homilies on Second Corinthians, Homily XV
Ver. 8, 9 . “For I see that that epistle made you sorry, though but for a season. Now I rejoice not that ye were made sorry, but that ye were made sorry unto repentance.” Having said, “I do not regret,” he tells the reason also; alleging the good that resulted from his letter; and skillfully excusing himself by saying, “though but for a season.” For truly that which was painful was brief, but that which was profitable was perpetual. And what indeed followed naturally was to say, ‘even though it grieved you for a season, yet it made you glad and benefited you forever.’ But he doth not say this: but before mentioning the gain he passes again to his praises of them, and the proof of his own concern for them, saying, “Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry,” (‘for what gain came to me from you being made sorry?) “but that ye were made sorry unto repentance,” that the sorrow brought some …