Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/430

400 CORINTHIANS at the time when Paul wrote what we know as the first epistle (1 Cor. xvi. 12), can best be accounted for by a consciousness on his part of the rivalry which had arisen between the two factions ; and the manner in which Paul urged, and Apollos declined, the mission of the latter to Corinth may be viewed as equally creditable to the mag nanimity of the older teacher and to the modesty and prudence of the younger. But a far more dangerous division of the church existed than that between those who favoured Paul and those who preferred Apollos. In the Epistles to the Corinthians we have indications of the antagonism and envy of a Judaizing section, who may have been encouraged by emissaries from Palestine, like those complained of in Galat. ii. 4 (comp. Acts xv. 1, 24). These Judaizers would make much of the fact that Paul was not one of the original twelve apostles ; and they seem to have endeavoured to undermine his authority, by depre ciating his position as a teacher, and by deriding his personal qualifications. Nor were dissensions and tenden cies to split up into parties the only evils that infested the Corinthian Churches. Paul, when at Ephesus on his third missionary journey, heard of these " contentions " from the members of a Christian household, who were either resident at Corinth or connected with the place (1 Cor. i. 11); but he heard of something worse still, and more glaringly inconsistent with the Christian profession. Licentiousness was common among them, and a griev ous case of incest had taken place (1 Cor. v. 1, &c.), which called for the severest censure and punishment. That the apostle had been awake to the peculiar dangers of the Corinthian Christians in respect of the licentiousness and luxury for which Corinth was noted, appears from the fact that he had previously written a letter which has not come down to us (1 Cor. v. 9), exhorting the Christians to avoid intercourse with fornicators. Alford conjectures that this letter may have also contained some instructions as to the collection (1 Cor. xvi. 1), and an announcement of an intended plan of visiting them, which he afterwards abandoned, perhaps on purpose to see what effect would be produced by the letter known to us as the first epistle, which was in reality a second one. A good opportunity was presented for communicating with the Corinthians by the arrival of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (1 Cor. xvi. 17), who probably brought a letter from Corinth (1 Cor. vii. 1, &c.), requesting instruc tions on divers points to which St Paul replies in the first of our two epistles. This letter from Corinth (as Paley points out) seems to have made little or no mention of the disorders and divisions which the apostle rebukes. These came to the apostle s ears by private report and not in an official communication. We have here a satisfactory explanation of the varied contents of our first epistle. After an introduction which is graceful, conciliatory, and affectionate (1 Cor. i. 1-9), the writer alludes to .the indications of party spirit and dissension which had been it-ported to him, and, while he very earnestly vindicates the claim of the gospel to be a revelation of divine wisdom, deprecates the tendency to overrate human eloquence and intellect (i. 10-iv, 16.) He tells them that he is sending Timotheus to remind them of his teaching, and that he intends himself to come soon (iv. 17-21). He then rt bukes their licentiousness and their litigiousness (v., vi.), and afterwards proceeds to answer the several inquiries which had been put before him by the Corinthian letter, viz., questions concerning marriage, questions concerning meat offered to idols, and questions concerning spiritual gifts (vii.-xiv.). With his replies to particular points he blends a spirited defence of his own authority and conduct (is.), and serious exhortations as to the behaviour of women in the Christian assemblies, and the manner in which Christians should partake of the Lord s Sup*per (x., xi.) One doctrinal subject is treated of directly in the epistle. Some among the Corinthians had denied the resurrection of the dead. The apostle shows that the fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the basis of Christian teaching and the spring of Christian hope (xv.) He then makes reference to the collection which he was making for the brethren at Jerusalem, speaks of his own plans, sends greetings from the churches of Asia, and con cludes with solemnity and tenderness (xvi.) The subscribed note to this epistle, which asserts that it was written from Philippi, is a palpable error, possibly grounded upon a misapprehension of xvi. 5. The letter was evidently written from Ephesus, some time before Pentecost, and after winter (xvi. 6, 8), and, not improbably, near the season of the Jewish feast of the Passover (v. 7, 8), in the year 57 A.D. Whether Timothy was the bearer of the letter or not seems doubtful (xvi. 10) ; and it is more probable that the three messengers from Corinth, already mentioned as having brought a letter for St Paul, returned with his reply. But Timothy and Erastus were sent together into Macedonia, and Erastus (comp. Rom. xvi. 23 and 2 Tim. iv. 20) may have been returning to his home in Corinth. Then occurred the notable disturbance at Ephesus recorded in Acts xix. 23, &c. Paul left Asia for Macedonia (Acts xx. 1), and our second epistle to the Corinthians may have been written either at Philippi or at Thessalonica, at a time when Timothy had rejoined him (2 Cor. i. 1). It has been a frequent remark of commentators that there is no letter among those written by St Paul so full of personal feeling as the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. The "tumultuous conflict of feeling," "the labyrinth of conflicting emotions," by which the writer was agitated, is reflected in the rapid transitions and confused eagerness, as we may term it, of his style. We can trace a twofold current of emotion, one, of relief and gratitude because he had heard from Titus (2 Cor. vii. 7) better tidings than he had expected of the effect produced by his former letter, and the other, of righteous indignation against those persons at Corinth, who were trying to undermine his influence and misrepresent his work. We may also perceive indications of mental dejection, and references to bodily suffering which add much to the personal interest of the letter. It has been conjectured that, besides " the trouble in Asia " (i. 8) and his daily anxieties about " all the churches " for which he felt himself responsible (xi. 28), the apostle was suffering about this time from an attack of that painful and chronic malady which he calls " a stake in the flesh " (xii. 7). Titus had been sent to Corinth as a special messenger some time after the despatch of the letter from Ephesus, rind was expected by Paul at Troas, but did not rejoin him until he had come into Macedonia. The news that the greater part of the Corinthian Church was loyal to their old teacher, and had attended to his injunctions in the matter of the offender mentioned in 1 Cor. v., and had " sorrowed unto repentance " (2 Cor. vii. 10, 11), was very consolatory to him ; but it is plain that Titus must have also informed Paul of very distinct and virulent opposition to him on the part of certain teachers and a faction of the Corinthians attached to them. Hence the indignant strain which especially appears in the latter part of the epistle, wh p re irony and remonstrance and pathos are so wonder fully blended, and where the desire to vindicate his authority, to substantiate his personal claims to the respect and affection of the church, and to expose the mischief which was being done by the false teachers, causes him to review his own toils and infirmities in the touching picture of his work which we have in xi. 21-xii. 21. The epistle

(so far as it admits of analysis) may be roughly divided