Note 84 — Chapter XVI

Paul must have thought that he had the Church at Corinth under complete control of his hypnotic suggestion or otherwise so much under his control as to assume the exalted office of Clairvoyant Oracle without question. He says, 2 Cor. 1-7, "I must needs glory, though it is not expedient; but I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord, I know a man in Christ, fourteen years ago (whether in the body I know not; or whether out of the body, I know not, God knoweth). Such a one caught up even to the third heaven. And I know such a man (whether in the body, or apart from the body, I know not, God knoweth); how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. On behalf of such a one will I glory: but on mine own behalf I will not glory, save in my weakness. For if I should desire to glory, I shall not be foolish; for I shall speak the truth: but I forbear, lest any man should account of me above that which he seeth me to be, or heareth from me.

"And by reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations—wherefore, that I should not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I should not be exalted overmuch. Concerning this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.

"And he has said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee."

It would require a Swift, Dryden, Pope, Milton or Knowles to stage the above so as make appreciable objective quantities out of the above verbal terms. They might create characters and give them the plumage of angels, nymphs, spirits, heathen gods, etc., and so feast the imagination into paranoia.

"Thorn in the flesh." This phrase has baffled the Ecclesiastics. The earlier Commentators interpreted it to mean Paul's great disappointment in all his schemes to subordinate the Apostles of Christ to his personal dominion of which so much has been disparaged by the author.