Concurrently with the news of this outrage, Paul hears of the factions dividing the Church, in which the names of Cephas and of Apollos (much against his will) figure in rivalry with his own, —even the name of Christ being dragged into the com- petition. The Apollos party, affecters of philo- sophical breadth and culture, were conspicuous at the moment; and Paul deals with them in chs. 1-4 of 1 Co, referring to Apollos with brotherly frank- ness (34% 4°), The Church had also addressed to the apostle at Ephesus a public letter, avoiding the grave matters taken up in St. Paul’s first six chapters, and writing with a self -complacene sadly unbefitting (48 57-6 11°), but asking his guid- ance on a number of important practical questions, with which he deals in chs, 7-14: see the headings
PAUL THE APOSTLE
PAUL THE APOSTLE 7)
7-3 81 121 161. Three leading Corinthian Chris- tians brought this letter to Ephesus (16%""*); and Paul, in sending them back with his reply, warmly commends them. In this Epistle we fret hear of ‘the collection for the saints’ at Jerusalem, gathered by Paul on his third missionary tour, to which he attached great importance (16'4, 2 Co 8. 9, Gal 2). He had already given instructions to the Churches of Galatia on the business, prob- i on his way through Asia Minor (Ac 18") ; and Gal 6°", as well as 2”, tacitly refers to it. The phrase introducing the topic in 1 Co 16! (cf. 7) etc.) suggests that the Corinthians were already interested in this charity (see also 2 Co 8° 9*°), This ministration to the poverty of the persecuted Church in Jerus. (1 Th 2"), in which Paul had been engaged from an aay time (Ac 11%), helped to unite Jewish and Gentile Christians; it was a counteraction to the Judaistie propaganda, since it exhibited to the mother Church the true grace of God in the Sener Churches among the heathen.
When Paul despatched our Ist Ep. to Corinth, he was expecting to travel thither soon, but not immediate y and to make a considerable stay ; meanwhile he has sent Timothy, now in Macedonia upon his way, who ‘will remind’ the Corinthians of Paul’s ‘ways in Christ,’ which they were in danger of forgetting. He had some apprehension that Timothy might not be well received (1 Co #7 161; cf. Ac 19%”). Although Timothy shares in the greeting of 2 Co, and 2 Co 1-7 (quite otherwise than 1 Co) is written mainly in the first person plural, not a word is said about Timothy’s visit to Corinth. This silence is significant, as was St. Paul’s silence in 1 Co respecting his own, then recent, visit. Had Timothy never arrived at Corinth, some explanation would surely have been given; clearly, he is not forgotten (1'). Now, in the same letter there is notable reference to some one, unnamed, who had been grievously ‘ wronged,’ and wronged in such a way that Paul felt the in- jury as his own. About this wrong he has written shortly before, ‘out of much affliction and anguish of heart, with many tears’ (25: 4 75:12). In this pain- ful letter, which had made the Corinthians ‘ sorry after a godly sort’ and ‘to repentance,’ Paul must have demanded the exemplary punishment of ‘him that did the wrong’; and a ‘censure’ had been accordingly inflicted upon him ‘by the majority’ of the Church, under which the offender was so humbled that Paul forgives him and desires his restoration (2 Co 2°),
Chs. 1-7 of the 2nd Ep. turn upon this incident. Who were the sufferer and inflicter of wrong? (1) The father and son of 1 Co 5‘; 80 it is often replied (see e.g. Edwards and Beet on 1 Co, and Klépper on 2Co, ad locc.). But the language and feeling of 2 Co 25:1} 76:16 are as unsuitable as those of 1 Co5 are suitable to this infamous offence, and one hardly thinks that even the Church of Corinth could hesitate or be divided about so flagrant a crime when solemnly brought up for judgment ; nor does 1 Co correspond to the description of 2 Co 2‘, (2) St. Paul himself and some insolent Corinthian Christian, who had defied the apostle either when present on the second visit (thus interjected be- tween 1 and 2 Co), or in his absence ; so Sabatier {The Ap. Paul, pp. 171-175), Schmiedel, and others. This explanation sets us at the right point of view for understanding 2 Co 2 and 7; but St. Paul’s second visit to Corinth probably came about earlier (see p. 710%); and St. Paul is not the man to have retreated before a personal attack, shooting Par- thian arrows by letters from a distance; such a defeat would have been irreparable. (3) Beyschlag and Pfleiderer, with greater probability, suggest | Timothy as the ἀδικηθείς. Appearing at Corinth on Paul's beha!f about the time of the arrival of
the Ist Ep. (4'7- 16"), and perhaps taking the initiative in the trial of the incestuous man, Timothy received a gross insult from ‘some one’ of note in the Church, the injury thus inflicted striking the ΕΡΘΕΙΙΕ through his representative, and, not improbably, involving an angry reflexion upon him for sending a stripling in his place. This attack on Timothy accounts for the emphatic and continuous identification by the apostle in 2 Co 1-7 of his young helper with himself, and for the subtle interchanges between the first person plural and singular in the passages relative to the ἀδικήσας and ἀδικηθείς.