Paul says that he is being foolish when he starts to talk about himself but that he is forced to do so because these people were harboring unworthy thoughts, when they of all people ought to be thinking well of him.

Paul calls himself foolish in order to demonstrate that it is those who boast about themselves who really are the foolish ones.

Paul realizes that wise people do not boast of themselves, but he has been forced to do so.

Paul is making it clear that what he is about to say he will say out of love for them, so that it may be conducive to their progress as much as to his praise and that they may learn from it how to do a favor to their father in the gospel. For to speak ill of a father harms the sons, and the praise of sons is a father’s glory.

Paul uses a word here which is far stronger than mere love. Jealous souls burn ardently for those whom they love, and jealousy presupposes a strong affection. Then, in order that they should not think that Paul is after power, wealth or honor, he adds that his jealousy is divine. For God is said to be jealous, not in a human way but so that everyone may know that he claims sovereign rights over those whom he loves and does what he does for their exclusive benefit. Human jealousy is basically selfish, but divine jealousy is both intense and pure. Note the difference between human brides and the church. In the world, a woman is a virgin before her marriage, when she loses her virginity. But in the church, those who were anything but virgins before they turned to Christ acquire virginity in him. As a result, the whole church is a virgin.

Why does Paul address all these different people as a chaste virgin, unless he is referring to their faith, hope and love?

The souls of all men and women know that they are spouses of Christ if they are willing to preserve both bodily chastity and virginity of heart. For Christ is to be understood as the spouse of their souls, not of their bodies.

To the same church the apostle says: For I have promised you to one spouse, that I might present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. . . . The church, then, like Mary, has inviolate integrity and incorrupt fecundity. What Mary merited physically, the church has guarded spiritually, with the exception that Mary brought forth one Child, while the church has many children destined to be gathered into one body by One.

Do you wish to know how the church is a virgin? Hear the apostle Paul; hear the friend of the Bridegroom who is zealous not for himself but for the Bridegroom: I betrothed you to one spouse. He spoke to the church. To which church? To all that his letter could reach. I betrothed you to one spouse, that I might present you a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear lest, he said, as the serpent seduced Eve by his guile . . . That serpent never physically defiled Eve, did he? Yet he did destroy her virginity of heart. On that account Paul said: I fear lest . . . your minds may be corrupted from that chastity which is in Christ. Therefore, the church is a virgin; she is a virgin, may she be a virgin. Let her beware of the deceiver, lest he turn out to be a corrupter. The church is a virgin. Are you, perhaps, going to say to me: If the church is a virgin, how does she bring forth children? Or, if she does not bring forth children, how did we give our names so that we might be born of her? I answer: She is a virgin and she also brings forth children. She imitates Mary, who gave birth to the Lord. Did not the holy Mary bring forth her Child and remain a virgin? So, too, the church both brings forth children and is a virgin. And if you would give some consideration to the matter, she brings forth Christ, because they who are baptized are his members.

May purity, then—that purity which goes above and beyond the will and which we should will always to possess—be also given to us for the sake of redemption, so that what has been consecrated by Christ cannot be corrupted. If the apostle states that the church is the bride of Christ, I ask you now to reflect just what purity is required of you, when the church herself is given in marriage as a virgin bride.

The apostle Paul says, But I want you all to present yourselves as a pure virgin to one man, Christ. For I fear lest, as the serpent seduced Eve by his cunning, your minds may be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ. Therefore, Paul wants all the Corinthians to present themselves as a pure virgin to Christ; certainly he would never want that unless it would seem possible. Whence also it would appear wonderful how these, who although corrupted by diverse sins, came to the faith of Christ, all at once are called a pure virgin; a virgin which is so holy and so pure that she is worthy also to be joined in marriage to Christ. However, since we cannot refer these things to the chastity of the flesh, it is sure that they refer to the chastity of the soul, whose simplicity of the faith which is in Christ, according to the understanding of Paul himself, was called his virginity.

Paul is saying that glory has been given to him not so that he might praise himself but so that he might cast blame on those who, in the name of Christ, were preaching against Christ and by whom the Corinthians were being seduced.

The serpent deceived Eve by lying to her about God, saying that God merely threatened men with death, but would never actually kill anyone.^[1] Likewise, the false apostles in Paul’s day were saying that the gospel was merely added to the Old Testament and that it was therefore necessary to go on keeping the law of Moses as before. In our own time, there are those who claim that hell is merely a threat, either because it does not exist at all or because it is not an eternal punishment—notions which are contrary to the teaching of Scripture.

Paul does not say that this will happen, but he is afraid that it might. He stands midway between trust and doubt, hoping that they will do the right thing but not being entirely certain of it.

What probably happened was that false teachers appeared from elsewhere and added to what the apostles had already taught. Their claim would have been that the apostles had not said all that there was to say, which Paul is at pains to deny.

Paul does not think that he is inferior to the other apostles because he has taught the same things and done the same miracles.

Paul does not appeal to what he taught but to who he is. His status is at least equal (indeed, it is far superior) to that of those who had led the Corinthians astray.

This does not refer to the apostles, who were unlettered men of no eloquence, but to the false teachers whose rhetorical skill the Corinthians preferred. Paul did not mean by this that he did not know how to speak but that commendation did not depend on mere eloquence. A person of little eloquence is not guilty before God, but someone who does not know God is liable to be charged with ignorance, because it was a sin to be ignorant of what is conducive to salvation. It was not eloquence which would commend Paul’s message but the power to save which accompanied it.

Paul was learned in Hebrew letters and sat at the feet of Gamaliel, whom he was not ashamed to acknowledge,^[1] but he showed a contempt for Greek eloquence, or at least he kept quiet about it because of his humility, so that his preaching lay not in the persuasiveness of his words but in the power of his signs.

The false apostles obviously had the gift of eloquence which Paul lacked. But that means nothing as far as the substance of the preaching is concerned and may even cast a shadow over the glory of the cross, which is anything but superficially attractive.

Paul refused payment for two reasons. He would not resemble the false apostles who were preaching for their own advantage and not for the glory of God, nor would he allow the vigor of his message to become sluggish. For the person who accepts payment from sinners loses the authority to censor them.

Paul makes it clear that not only did other churches encourage him in his ministry to the Corinthians but also that they gave him significant financial support.

Paul is clearly exaggerating for effect, but we must remember that he warned the Corinthians at the beginning of the chapter to bear with a little foolishness as he made his point.

Paul accepted contributions from the Macedonians because they corrected their faults. But he refused anything from the Corinthians because they were less ready to correct theirs.

This is the greatest condemnation of the Corinthians imaginable. For while he was benefiting them, Paul was being funded by others elsewhere.

Paul urges the whole of Achaia to give aid to the saints, but at the same time he refuses to take anything for himself from any of them.

Paul wanted the Corinthians to understand that his love for them was beneficial, not harmful.

By giving love as the motive for his behavior, Paul makes his admonition even more serious.

This was the point on which the false apostles evidently felt they could attack Paul, and so he had to refute them at such great length.

The false apostles looked good on the surface, but underneath they robbed the soul. Indeed, they took money as well, though they were careful to conceal that as much as possible.

An angel of light is one who is free to speak because he stands close to God. This is what the devil pretends to be.

These illusions are apparitions of that spirit who seeks to ensnare unhappy souls in the deceptive rites of a multitude of false gods and to turn them aside from the true worship of the true God, by whom alone they can be purified and healed.

Satan sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light in order to test those who need testing or to deceive those who deserve deception. Nothing but the great mercy of God can save a man from mistaking bad demons for good angels and false friends for true ones and from suffering the full damages of this diabolical deception which is all the more deadly in that it is wily beyond words.

So powerful is the attraction of the virtue of purity that practically every human being is pleased to hear it praised, and no one is so sunk in depravity as to have lost all sense of decency. Hence, unless the malignity of the demons somewhere transforms itself into an angel of light, as we read in our Scripture, it cannot carry out its business of deception.

As for the power of darkness, what is it but the power of the devil and his angels, who, after being angels of light, did not use their free will to stand in the truth but by falling from it became darkness? I am not teaching you this; I am advising you to call to mind what you know. So, the human race became subject to this power of darkness by the fall of the first man who was induced by that power to commit sin, and in him we have all fallen.

Evil apes respectability, and tares do their best to look like wheat, but however close a similarity to wheat they have in appearance their taste completely undeceives the discerning. Even the devil transforms himself into an angel of light, not meaning to ascend again to his former place (for he possesses a heart as hard as an anvil and has no intention of repenting ever) but to snare those who are living the angelic life in blinding darkness and infest them with a condition of faithlessness. There are many wolves going about in sheep’s clothing,^[1] but though they wear the coats of sheep, they possess nonetheless both talons and teeth. They wrap themselves in the gentle creature’s hide and with this disguise deceive the innocent only to inject with their teeth the deadly poison of their irreligion. We therefore need the grace of God, a sober mind and watchful eyes, so as not to eat tares for wheat and come to harm for not knowing better; so as not to mistake the wolf for a sheep and be ravaged; and so as not to take the death-dealing devil for a good angel and be devoured.

He invented heresies and schisms to undermine faith, pervert truth and break unity. Unable to keep us in the dark ways of former error, he draws us into a new maze of deceit. He snatches men away from the church itself and, just when they think they have drawn near to the light and escaped the night of the world, he plunges them unawares into a new darkness. Though they do not stand by the gospel and discipline and law of Christ, they call themselves Christians. Though they are walking in darkness, they think they are in the light, through the deceitful flattery of the adversary who, as the apostle said, transforms himself into an angel of light and adorns his ministers as ministers of righteousness. They call night day, death salvation, despair hope, perfidy faith, antichrist Christ, cunningly to frustrate truth by their lying show of truth. That is what happens, my brothers, when we do not return to the fount of truth, when we are not looking to the head and keeping the doctrine taught from heaven.

The servants of righteousness are the apostles, whose associates these people falsely pretended to be, so as to deceive their hearers.

It is the devil’s custom to imitate the things of God. He sets up false prophets to oppose the true ones and assumes the form of an angel in order to deceive men.