2 Corinthians 11:5 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles. — The verb with which the sentence opens is the same as the “I think,” “I reckon,” which characterises these Chapter s, and which, being characteristic, ought to be retained. I reckon I have not fallen short of those apostles-extraordinary. The whole tone of the passage ought to have made it impossible for any commentator to imagine that the words referred to Peter and James and John as the pillars of the Church of Jerusalem (Galatians 2:9). Of them he speaks, even in his boldest moments, with respect, even where respect is mingled with reproof. He is glad to remember how they gave to him and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. He presents himself at Jerusalem a few months after writing these words, and almost submissively follows the counsel which James gives him (Acts 21:26). It is, accordingly, simply the insanity of controversy to imagine that these words have any bearing on the question of the primacy of St. Peter. Those whom he holds up to scorn with an almost withering irony, as “apostles-extraordinary” (he coins a word which literally means, “these extra-special or over-extra apostles”), are the false teachers, claiming to stand in a special relation to Christ, to be His Apostles — perhaps, also, to have a double title to the name, as delegates of the Church of Jerusalem. Of these he speaks more fully in 2 Corinthians 11:13.