fought the beasts at Ephesus” (1 Cor. xv. 32), which may mean
that he was almost torn in pieces by mob fury. It was perhaps
on this occasion that Aquila and his wife risked their lives for him
(Rom. xvi. 3 seq.). Indeed he lived much of his time in Ephesus
as one under daily sentence of death, so constant was his danger
(1 Cor. xv. 30 seq.; cf. iv. 9; 2 Cor. i. 9; iv. 9–11). But this almost
unbearable strain on his human frailty simply deepened his sense
of dependent union with Jesus, both in His death and victorious
life, and softened his strong nature into a wonderful gentleness
and sympathy with suffering in others (2 Cor. i. 4 sqq.). It
is no accident that it was from the midst of his Ephesian experiences
that his Hymn of Love (1 Cor. xiii. esp. 6–8a, 13) sounded
forth. His own spiritual life seems to have grown in Ephesus
more than at any other period since the era of his conversion.
This brings us to the most tragic episode in Paul’s career, judged by his own feelings, a psychological crucifixion of which we have the vivid record in his correspondence with the Corinthian church. Reduced to its simplest terms the situation was as follows. The Corinthian church was suffering from the fermentation of ideas and The Corinthian Troubles. ideals too heterogeneous for their powers of Christian assimilation. Paul had laid the foundation, and others had built on it with materials of varied kind and value (see Corinthians). Specially dangerous was the intellectual and moral reaction of the typically Greek mind, starting from a deep-seated dualism between mind and matter, upon the facts and doctrines of the Gospel. Its issue was an exaggeration of Paul’s own religious antithesis between “the flesh” and “the mind” into a metaphysical dualism, so that the conduct of the body, crudely identified with “the flesh,” became a thing indifferent for the inner and higher life of the spirit illumined by the Spirit of God. There was not only divergent practice in morals and in religious usage; there was also a spirit of faction threatening to destroy the unity of church life, to which Paul attached the greatest importance. To lead them to realize their unity in Christ and in His spirit of love was the central aim of Paul’s first extant letter to this church. He rises sheer above every manifestation of the sectional element in man—whether Jewish, Greek, intellectual, ritual, or ascetic—into the sphere of pure religion, the devotion of the whole personality to God and His ends, as realized once for all in Christ, the second Adam, the archetype of divine sonship. It is his enforcement of this idea, along with firm yet flexible application to the various disorders and errors at Corinth of certain other of his fundamental principles, such as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the individual and the community, that makes this epistle so significant for Paul’s biography. Thus, while it gives a more complete picture of a Pauline church than all other sources of knowledge put together, it at the same time illustrates the rare balance of Paul’s mind. But neither this letter nor the influence of Timothy (iv. 17), already on his way to Corinth with Erastus via Macedonia, on collection business (Acts xix. 22; 1 Cor. xvi. 1 seq., 10 seq.)—nor even, as some think, of Paul himself in person (2 Cor. ii. i; xii. 14, 21; xiii. 1 seq.)—brought about an understanding on certain points involving Paul’s authority. In this connexion the presence of interloping Jewish “apostles” with their claims for themselves and their insinuations as to Paul’s motives (2 Cor. xii. 14–16), greatly complicated and embittered the situation on both sides.
When next the curtain rises, we gather that Paul had been forced to write a letter of protest in a tone of severity fitted to arouse his converts’ better selves. It was in fact an ultimatum[1] that Titus carried to Corinth before Paul left Ephesus, his departure hastened by the great tumult. On leaving for Macedonia he “exhorted” Paul leaves for Macedonia. the assembled disciples, and perhaps left Timothy to check the tendencies to error which he perceived at work (xx. 1, 1 Tim. i. 3). Then starting from Miletus, the chief port in the vicinity (cf. xx. 15),—where he had to leave Trophimus owing to sickness (2 Tim. iv. 20, probably a fragment from a brief note to Timothy written soon after)—he reached Troas. Here he intended to evangelize pending the return of Titus (1 Cor. ii. 12 seq.). But though “a door” of opportunity at once opened to him, growing anxiety as to the reception of his severe letter drove him forward to meet Titus half-way in Macedonia. There “fightings without” were added to “fears within” (vii. 5), until at last his meeting with Titus brought unspeakable relief. The bulk of the Corinthian church, in deep remorse for the way in which they had wounded him who after all was their “father” in Christ (1 Cor. iv. 15), had come out clearly as loyal to him, not only in word but also in discipline on the arch offender, whose contumacious conduct (now repudiated by the church) had so grieved him, but for whom Paul is now the first to bespeak loving treatment, “lest haply he be swallowed up of excessive grief” (ii. 5 sqq.; vii. 12). Accordingly in his next letter his heart overflows with gladness and affection, yet not so as to blind his clear eye to the roots of danger still remaining in the situation.
The interloping judaizing missionaries (xi. 4, seq., 13, 22; cf. x. 7) are still on the spot, glorifying themselves and glorying in their welcome on the field prepared by another’s toils (x. 12–18); while in the church itself there are moral abuses yet unredressed, even unacknowledged (xii. 20 seq.), on which Paul felt bound still to press for confession and penitence (xiii. 1 sqq.), in spite of what some might brazenly insinuate, in reliance on his not having acted summarily on his former visit, when the church as a whole was not heartily with him. Hence Paul felt himself bound to act boldly (x. 1–6), if and when on his arrival he found the obedience of the majority full and complete (xii. 6). It is to prepare the way for this (xiii. 10) that Paul, while recognizing in the main the church’s loyal affection, writes the second part of his letter (x.–xiii. 10) in so different a key, striving to complete the reaction against his foes, with their taunt as to his not daring openly to take an apostle’s support from his converts at Corinth (xi. 12 sqq., xii. 11–18).
The Second Epistle to the Corinthians was written from Philippi or Thessalonica (ix. 2); and Timothy joins in its opening salutation. He had, it seems, been summoned to Paul’s side from Ephesus by a hurried note, written after Titus’s return from Corinth, in which he is informed that Erastus had remained in Corinth (? as now city-treasurer, Rom. xvi. 13), while Paul had been deprived also of the help of Trophimus, so that Timothy was unexpectedly needed at his side (this is embedded in an alien context in 2 Tim. iv. 20, 21a, see below). One reason at least for Paul’s need of Timothy is suggested by the reference to Erastus (cf. Acts xix. 22), viz. the business of the great collection from his churches in Galatia, Asia, Macedonia and Achaia. This had been some time in progress and was to be carried by delegates to Jerusalem on Paul’s approaching visit, from which much was hoped in connexion with the unity of Jewish and Gentile Christianity. Another may have been the labour of inspecting the churches in those parts, which now reached at least as far as, if not into, Illyricum (Rom. xv. 19). In any case it was midwinter (56) before Paul became the guest of the hospitable Gaius in Corinth (Rom. xvi. 23).
Touching the resettlement of local church affairs during
Paul’s three months in Corinth, we know nothing. For us the
great event of this visit is the writing of that epistle
which shows that his mind was now bent on the
extension of his mission westwards to the metropolis
of the empire itself. To Rome his thoughts had been turned
The Epistle to
the Romans.
for many a year, but he had time and again checked the
impulse to visit it (Rom. xv. 22 seq.). For the city had long
been occupied by the Gospel in one form or another; and it was
a point of honour with him to preach “where Christ was not
named,” not to build on others’ foundations (xv. 20). But his
eye was now fixed on Spain, if not also on south Gaul. It was,
then, largely as basis for his mission to the western Mediterranean
that Paul viewed Rome. Yet after all Rome was not like other
places: it was the focus of the world. Hence Paul could not
simply pass by it (i. 11 seq.). Very tactfully does he now offer
his preliminary contributions to them—“by way of reminder,”
at least—emboldened thereto by the consciousness of a divine
commission to the Gentiles, proved by what he had been enabled
already to accomplish (xv. 15 sqq.).
- ↑ On the question whether this letter has been lost (as here assumed), or on the other hand has been partially preserved in 2 Cor. x.–xiii., see Corinthians.
