[83] This is the reading adopted by Westcott and Hort with most MSS. except B.
[84] The difficult τε in ἐάν τε γὰρ is most easily explained by the ellipse of a corresponding καί: of several reasons he might adduce, Paul adduces only one (Schmiedel).
[85] The ninth verse, Ἵνα μὴ δόξω κ.τ.λ. is most naturally taken with what precedes, and most simply explained by supplying something like, "but I say no more about it, i.e. about my authority, that I may not seem," etc. To say more would look like trying to frighten them. Others make it protasis to ver. 11, ver. 10 being then a parenthesis.
[86] The following sentence from a letter of H. E. M. (a sister of James Mozley's) is an interesting illustration of this truth: "I consider Mr. Rickards as the type and model of a country parish and domestic priest. All his powers and energies are expended on and exerted for teaching, preaching, and talking. Bodily presence is his vocation: unlike some, writers and others, he must be seen to be felt; and unlike others again, writers and others, the more he is seen, the more he is felt."
[88] "Woods, trees, meadows, and hills are my witnesses that I drew on a fair match betwixt Christ and Anwoth."—S. Rutherford.
[89] The words καὶ τῆς ἁγνότητος are bracketed by Westcott and Hort. They are very strongly attested (by א, B, F, gr., G, etc.); but as they are found in some authorities before, instead of after, τῆς ἁπλότητος, it is not improbable that they may be a gloss on these last words, suggested by ἁγνὴν in ver. 2, and incorporated in the text. They rather blur than emphasise the thought.
[90] It is worth appending two ingenious notes on this. Bengel, who holds that the suppositions are untrue, says: "Ponit conditionem, ex parte rei, impossibilem; ideo dicit in imperfecto toleraretis: sed pro conatu pseudo-apostolorum, non modo possibilem, sed plane præsentem; ideo dicit in præsenti, prædicat." Schmiedel, who holds that the suppositions are true, explains the impft. by saying that Paul resolved, while dictating, to add the apodosis in the historical tense to the timeless protasis, because the fact which it described actually lay before him. They were tolerating the other teachers: that is why Paul says ἀνείχεσθε. He happily compares Plato, Apol., 33 A.: Εἰ δέ τίς μου λέγοντος ... ἐπιθυμεῖ ἀκούειν ... οὐδεvὶ πώποτε ἐφθόνησα. Still, he prefers the present.
[91] It is gratuitous to drag in a reference to the first Apostles, and then to suppose the Corinthians drawing the inference—"if he is not inferior to them, still less is he inferior to our new teachers." Such an inference depends on a traditional conception of apostleship which the Corinthians were not likely to share, and it is equally unnecessary and improbable.
[92] Probably either ἐν παντὶ or ἐν πᾶσιν, the latter of which is omitted in some authorities, is a gloss.