1 Corinthians 16:21 - Exposition

With mine own hand. Every one of St. Paul's Epistles, except that to the Galatians ( Galatians 6:11 ), seems to have been written by an amanuensis. The blaze of light in the vision on the road to Damascus seems to have left him with acute and permanent ophthalmia as his "thorn in the flesh;" and this would naturally disincline him to the physical labour of writing. When he did write, his letters seem to have been large and straggling ( Galatians 6:11 ), But this was an age in which documents were frequently falsified by designing persons, and this seems to have happened to St. Paul after he had written his very first extant letter. After warning the Thessalonians not to be frightened "by epistle as from us" ( 2 Thessalonians 2:2 ), he adds, at the close of the letter, that henceforth he intends to authenticate every letter by an autograph salutation ( 2 Thessalonians 3:17 ; Colossians 4:18 ; Romans 16:22 ). To this bad and dangerous practice of forgery is due the energetic appeal of Revelation 22:18 , Revelation 22:19 . A similar appeal to copyists, couched in the most solemn language, is found in Irenaeus ('Opp.,' 1:821, edit. Stieren), and at the end of Rufinus's prologue to his translation of Origen's 'De Principiis.'