theirs and his consolation also as belonging to them, vs. 3-7. He refers to the afflictions which came upon him in Asia, so that he desj^aired of life, but through their prayers God who had dehvered, still delivered, and he was assured, would con- tinue to deliver him, vs. 8-11.
1. 2. Paul, an apostle of Jesus Cluist by the Avill of God, and Timothy (om-) brother, unto the church of God which is at Corinth, with all the saints which are in all Achaia : Grace (be) to you, and peace, from God our Pather, and (from) our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sense in which the word apostle is to be here taken, the force of the expression hy the icill of Gocl^ the scriptural meaning of the words church and saints^ are all stated in the remarks on the first verse of the former epistle. In the first epistle Paul associates Sosthenes with himself in the saluta- tion ; here it is Timothy who is mentioned. In neither case is there any community of ofiice or authority implied. On the contrary, a marked distinction is made between Paul the apostle and Sosthenes or Timothy the brother, i. e. the Chris- tian companion of the apostle. From 1 Cor. 4, 17 it appears that Timothy was in Macedonia, on his way to Corinth, when the first epistle was written. From the form of expression (if Timothy come) in 1 Cor. 16, 10, and from the absence of any intimation in this epistle that Paul had received from him the information from Corinth which he was so desirous to ob- tain, it is doubtful whether Timothy had been able to reach that city. At any rate he was now with the apostle at Ni- copoUs or some other city in Macedonia. With all the saints ichich are in all Achaia. This epistle was not intended ex- clusively for the Christians in Corinth, but also for all the be- lievers scattered through the province who were connected with the church in Corinth. These believers were probably not collected into separate congregations, otherwise the apos- tle would have used the plural form, as when writing to the churches of Galatia, Gal. 1, 3. Achaia was originally the name of the northern part of the Peloponnesus including Cor- intli and its isthmus. Augustus divided the whole country into the two provinces, Macedonia and Achaia; the former included Macedonia proper, Illyricum, Epirus and Thessaly ;