SEV Biblia, Chapter 10:10
Porque a la verdad, dicen, las cartas son graves y fuertes; mas la presencia corporal flaca, y la palabra menospreciable.
Clarke's Bible Commentary - 2 Corinthians 10:10
Verse 10. For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful] He boasts of high powers, and that he can do great things. See on 2 Cor. x. 1, 2. But his bodily presence is weak] When you behold the man, you find him a feeble, contemptible mortal; and when ye hear him speak, his speech, o logov, probably, his doctrine, exouqenhmenov, is good for nothing; his person, matter, and manner, are altogether uninteresting, unimpressive, and too contemptible to be valued by the wise and the learned. This seems to be the spirit and design of this slander.
Many, both among the ancients and moderns, have endeavoured to find out the ground there was for any part of this calumny; as to the moral conduct of the apostle, that was invulnerable; his motives, it is true, were suspected and denounced by this false apostle and his partisans; but they could never find any thing in his conduct which could support their insinuations.
What they could not attach to his character, they disingenuously attached to his person and his elocution.
If we can credit some ancient writers, such as Nicephorus, we shall find the apostle thus described: paulov mikrov hn kai sunestalmenov to tou swmatov megeqov? kai wsper agkulon auto kekthmenov? smikron de, kai kekufov? thn ofin leukov, kai to proswpon proferhv, yilov thn kefalhn, k. t. l. Nicephor., lib. ii., cap. 17.
"Paul was a little man, crooked, and almost bent like a bow; with a pale countenance, long and wrinkled; a bald head; his eyes full of fire and benevolence; his beard long, thick, and interspersed with grey hairs, as was his head, &c." I quote from Calmet, not having Nicephorus at hand.
An old Greek writer, says the same author, whose works are found among those of Chrysostom, tom. vi. hom. 30, page 265, represents him thus:-paulov o triphcuv anqrwpov, kai twn ouranwn aptomenov? "Paul was a man of about three cubits in height, (four feet six,) and yet, nevertheless, touched the heavens." Others say that "he was a little man, had a bald head, and a large nose." See the above, and several other authorities in Calmet. Perhaps there is not one of these statements correct: as to Nicephorus, he is a writer of the fourteenth century, weak and credulous, and worthy of no regard. And the writer found in the works of Chrysostom, in making the apostle little more than a pigmy, has rendered his account incredible.
That St. Paul could be no such diminutive person we may fairly presume from the office he filled under the high priest, in the persecution of the Church of Christ; and that he had not an impediment in his speech, but was a graceful orator, we may learn from his whole history, and especially from the account we have, Acts xiv. 12, where the Lycaonians took him for Mercury, the god of eloquence, induced thereto by his powerful and persuasive elocution. In short, there does not appear to be any substantial evidence of the apostle's deformity, pigmy stature, bald head, pale and wrinkled face, large nose, stammering speech, &c., &c. These are probably all figments of an unbridled fancy, and foolish surmisings.
John Gill's Bible Commentary
Ver. 10. For his letters, say they, are weighty and powerful , etc..] These words contain the reason why he did not choose to say any more of his authority as an apostle to punish offenders, that he might give no occasion for such a calumny, some among them, or the false apostles, had cast upon him; that his epistles, referring particularly to his former epistle, and that part of it which respected the incestuous person, and his delivery to Satan, were blustering and thundering; were laden with sharp reproofs and severe menaces; were heavy with charges, were filled with great swelling words, with boasts of power and authority, and with threatenings what he would do, when he came among them; whereas when present, as at his first coming to them, he was mild and gentle, even to a degree of meanness and baseness, as they suggested; and so they concluded he would be, should he come again; and therefore his letters were not to be regarded: but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible : he made a mean figure, being of a low stature, and having an infirm body: the account the historian gives of him is this, that he had a small and contracted body, somewhat crooked and bowed, a pale face, looked old, and had a little head; he had a sharp eye; his eyebrows hung downwards; his nose was beautifully bent, somewhat long; his beard thick and pretty long; and that, as the hair of his head, had a sprinkling of gray hairs: hence one in Lucian scoffingly says of him, when the bald headed Galilean met me, with his hook nose, who went through the air to the third heaven: though the words of this text rather regard his mind and mien than the make of his body; and suggest that he was not a man of that greatness of soul, and largeness of mind, not possessed of those abilities and gifts, and of that freedom of speech, and flow of words, his letters promised; but instead of that, was a man of a mean spirit, very abject and servile, and to be despised; his conduct weak, and carrying no majesty and authority with his presence, his words without weight, his language vulgar, and style neglected; and, upon all accounts, a person worthy of no notice, and not at all to be either feared or regarded.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 7-11 - In outward appearance, Paul was mean and despised in the eyes of some but this was a false rule to judge by. We must not think that non outward appearance, as if the want of such things proved a man not to be a real Christian, or an able, faithful minister of the lowl Saviour.
Greek Textus Receptus
οτι 3754 CONJ αι 3588 T-NPF μεν 3303 PRT επιστολαι 1992 N-NPF φησιν 5346 5748 V-PXI-3S βαρειαι 926 A-NPF και 2532 CONJ ισχυραι 2478 A-NPF η 3588 T-NSF δε 1161 CONJ παρουσια 3952 N-NSF του 3588 T-GSN σωματος 4983 N-GSN ασθενης 772 A-NSF και 2532 CONJ ο 3588 T-NSM λογος 3056 N-NSM εξουθενημενος 1848 5772 V-RPP-NSM
Vincent's NT Word Studies
10. They say (fasin). The correct reading is fhsi says he. The Revisers retain they say, but read fhsi he says in their text. The reference is to some well-known opponent. Compare one, any one in ch. x. 7; xi. 20. The only instance of the very words used by Paul's adversaries.Weighty (bareiai). In classical Greek, besides the physical sense of heavy, the word very generally implies something painful or oppressive. As applied to persons, severe, stern. In later Greek it has sometimes the meaning of grave or dignified, and by the later Greek rhetoricians it was applied to oratory, in the sense of impressive, as here.
Weak. "No one can even cursorily read St. Paul's epistles without observing that he was aware of something in his aspect or his personality which distressed him with an agony of humiliation - something which seems to force him, against every natural instinct of his disposition, into language which sounds to himself like a boastfulness which was abhorrent to him, but which he finds to be more necessary to himself than to other men. It is as though he felt that his appearance was against him.... His language leaves on us the impression of one who was acutely sensitive, and whose sensitiveness of temperament has been aggravated by a meanness of presence which is indeed forgotten by the friends who know him, but which raises in strangers a prejudice not always overcome" (Farrar).
Bodily presence. All the traditions as to Paul's personal appearance are late. A bronze medal discovered in the cemetery of St. Domitilla at Rome, and ascribed to the first or second century, represents the apostle with a bald, round, well-developed head; rather long, curling beard; high forehead; prominent nose; and open, staring eye. The intellectual character of the face is emphasized by the contrast with the portrait of Peter, which faces Paul's. Peter's forehead is flat, the head not so finely developed, the face commonplace, the cheek bones high, the eye small, and the hair and beard short, thick, and curling. An ivory diptych of the fourth century, reproduced in Mr. Lewin's "Life of Paul," contains two portraits. In the one he is sitting in an official chair, with uplifted hand and two fingers raised, apparently in the act of ordination. The face is oval, the beard long and pointed, the moustache full, the forehead high, the head bald, and the eyes small and weak. The other portrait represents him in the act of throwing off the viper. A forgery of the fourth century, under the name of Lucian, alludes to him as "the bald-headed, hooknosed Galilean." In the "Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles" mention is made of one Dioscorus, the bald shipmaster, who followed Paul to Rome, and was mistaken for him and beheaded in his stead. In the "Acts of Paul and Thekla," a third-century romance, he is described as "short, bald, bowlegged, with meeting eyebrows, hook-nosed, full of grace." John of Antioch, in the sixth century, says that he was round-shouldered, with aquiline nose, greyish eyes, meeting eyebrows, and ample beard. 154 Contemptible (exouqenhmenov). Lit., made nothing of. Rev., of no account.
Robertson's NT Word Studies
10:10 {They say} (fasin). Reading of B old Latin Vulgate, but Westcott and Hort prefer fesin (says one, the leader). this charge Paul quotes directly. {Weighty and strong} (bareiai kai iscurai). These adjectives can be uncomplimentary and mean "severe and violent" instead of "impressive and vigorous." The adjectives bear either sense. {His bodily presence} (he parousia tou swmatos). this certainly is uncomplimentary. "The presence of his body." It seems clear that Paul did not have a commanding appearance like that of Barnabas (#Ac 14:12). He had some physical defect of the eyes (#Ga 4:14) and a thorn in the flesh (#2Co 12:7). In the second century _Acts of Paul and Thecla_ he is pictured as small, short, bow-legged, with eye-brows knit together, and an aquiline nose. A forgery of the fourth century in the name of Lucian describes Paul as "the bald-headed, hook-nosed Galilean." However that may be, his accusers sneered at his personal appearance as "weak" (asqenes). {His speech of no account} (ho logos exouqenemenos). Perfect passive participle of exouqenew, to treat as nothing (cf. #1Co 1:28). The Corinthians (some of them) cared more for the brilliant eloquence of Apollos and did not find Paul a trained rhetorician (#1Co 1:17; 2:1,4; 2Co 11:6). He made different impressions on different people. "Seldom has any one been at once so ardently hated and so passionately loved as St. Paul" (Deissmann, _St. Paul_, p. 70). "At one time he seemed like a man, and at another he seemed like an angel" (_Acts of Paul and Thecla_). He spoke like a god at Lystra (#Ac 14:8-12), but Eutychus went to sleep on him (#Ac 20:9). Evidently Paul winced under this biting criticism of his looks and speech.
