There is a difficulty in the last half of ver. 6: it is not clear what
precisely meant by pros photismon tes gnoseos tes doxes tou Theou k.t.l. By some the passage is rendered: God shined in our hearts, "that He might bring into the light (for us to see it) the knowledge of His glory," etc. This is certainly legitimate, and strikes me as the most natural interpretation. It would answer then to what Paul says in Gal. i. 15 f., referring to the same event: "It pleased God to reveal His Son in me." But others think all this is covered by the words "God shined in our hearts," and they take pros photismon k.t.l., as a description of the apostolic vocation: God shined in our hearts, "that we might bring into the light (for others to see) the knowledge of His glory," etc. The words would then answer to what follows in Gal. i. 16: God revealed His Son in me, "that I might preach Him among the heathen." This construction is possible, but I think forced. In Paul's experience his conversion and vocation were indissolubly connected; but pros photismon k.t.l., can only mean one, and the conversion is the likelier.
[37] Expositors seem to be agreed that in this passage there is a reference, more or less definite and particular, to the Judaising opponents of St. Paul at Corinth. This may be admitted, but is not to be forced. It is forced, e.g., by Schmiedel, who habitually reads St. Paul as if (1) he had been expressly accused of everything which he says he does not do, and (2) as if he deliberately retorted on his opponents every charge he denied. Press this as he does, and whole passages of the Epistles become a series of covert insinuations--a kind of calumnious conundrums--instead of frank and bona fide statements of Christian principle. The result condemns the process.
[38] "Il voulut se servir de la supériorité de ce génie, comme les rois de leur puissance; il crut tout soumettre, et tout abaisser par la force."
[39] Grammarians differ much as to the relation of ton apiston ("which believe not") to en ois ("in whom"). I have no doubt they are the same. The natural way for the Apostle to express himself would have been: "it is veiled in them that are perishing, whose minds the god of this world blinded." But he wished to include the moral aspect of the case, the side of the personal responsibility of the perishing, as of equal significance with the agency of Satan; and this is what he does by adding ton apiston. Hence, though the expression is capable of being grammatically tortured into something different (the perishing becoming only a part of the unbelieving--so Meyer), it is, by its sheer grammatical awkwardness, exempted from liability to such rigorous treatment, and brought under the rules, not of grammar, but of common sense.