I was chargeable to no man. — There is no doubt that this gives substantially the meaning of the Greek word, but the word is a very peculiar one, and has a history which, as throwing light on the sources of St. Paul’s phraseology, and his character as shown in his use of it, is not without interest. The verb (katanarkaô) is not found elsewhere in the New Testament, nor in the LXX. versions of the Old, nor, indeed, in any known Greek author, except Hippocrates. Jerome describes it as belonging to the patois of Cilicia, which, if true, would be interesting; but he gives no proof of it (Ep. ad Aglaia), and the statement must be treated as unproven. The history which we are about to trace, tends, however, to confirm it as a probable conjecture. The root of the verb is found in the noun narkè, which is used (1) for “numbness,” or “torpor” (a sense found in our “narcotic”), and (2) as the name of a fish of the torpedo genus, causing numbness by its contact with the human body (Aristotle, Anim. Hist. vi. 10). The verb derived from the noun is accordingly used by Hippocrates and Galen in the sense of “being benumbed,” or causing numbness. (See Foesius, Lexic. Hippocrat. s.v, ναρκὴ.) As used here, it takes its place as a bold figurative expression. To benumb any one, was to exhaust him, to drain him of his vitality by pressing on him, and, as it were, living upon him. St. Paul accordingly means, in using the word, to say, “I didn’t drain you of your resources — did not live upon you.” An analogous similitude is found in Shakespeare’s lines: —
“That now he was
The ivy which had hid my princely trunk,
And suck’d my verdure out on’t
— Tempest, i. 2.
Our modern phrase which speaks of one man as “sponging” on another implies a like metaphor. In the word “parasitic” as applied to plants and animals, we have an inverted transfer of the same idea from the incidents of man’s social life to that of lower organisms. As a word belonging, through Hippocrates, to the recognised terminology of physicians, it takes its place in the vocabulary which St. Paul may be supposed to have derived from St. Luke (see Introduction to St. Luke’s Gospel, Vol. I., p. 239), and which the fame of Tarsus as a medical school may also have made more or less familiar, as Jerome states, in the conversational idioms of Cilicia.
The brethren which came from Macedonia supplied. — Not “which came,” but when they came. The Acts of the Apostles present no record of any such supply, but Philippians 4:15 presents an interesting and confirmatory coincidence. The Philippians had sent supplies to him twice at Thessalonica, and it was a natural sequel to this that they should send to him also at Corinth. The Apostle may well have accepted what they thus sent, and yet have thought his acceptance perfectly compatible with his boast that he was not preaching at Corinth for the sake of gain (1 Corinthians 9:16-18). He was not to be robbed of whatever credit attached to his working for his own livelihood at Corinth and elsewhere, by any sneers which had that acceptance for their starting-point.
And so will I keep myself. — It adds to the interest of this declaration to remember that St. Paul had acted on this principle both at Ephesus, which he had just left (Acts 20:34), and in the Macedonian churches which he was now visiting (2 Thessalonians 3:8). The future tense obviously points to his resolution to continue to act on the same lines during his promised visit to Corinth.