to that city. 9. On his return he wrote from Ephesus the Painful Letter, of which the end is preserved to us in 2 Cor, x-xiii. 10. Mission of Timothy to Macedonia (Acts xix. 22). 11. Mission of Titus to Corinth to subdue the rebels there. 12. On Titus’ report of the success of his mission St. Paul wrote from Macedonia about November, 55, a letter of which we have the beginning preserved in 2 Cor. i.-ix., the rest being lost. 13. This letter was forwarded to Corinth by Titus and two unnamed companions, the bearers being entrusted also with the business of the collection (2 Cor. viii. 6). It will be recognised at once that this is a highly complicated scheme. Dr. Kennedy has to assume three missions of Titus to Corinth instead of two, the number which commentators have generally recognised ; and he has, in like manner, to find room for two missions of Timothy, one to Corinth (1 Cor. iv. 17) and a second, quite distinct from this, to Macedonia (Acts xix. 21). In addition, he has to push back the date of 1 Corinthians by a year, in order to give time for all the incidents of which he finds traces in the Epistles; and he splits up 2 Corinthians into two fragmentary letters. We shall consider these points separately.
3. First, then, as to the missions of Titus. Dr. Kennedy takes in close connexion the two verses 2 Cor. viii. 6, 7, and translates (p. 122), “1 summoned (7 exhorted) Titus that as he had made a beginning, so he might accomplish in you this grace also; yea that as ye abound in everything, in faith and utterance, and in all diligence, and in your love towards us, so ye may abound in this grace also”, This translation is probably right (see note in Joc.) ; but the inference which its author derives from it is by no means inevitable. Dr. Kennedy holds that the words prove that the furtherance of the collection for Jerusalem was the purpose of Titus’ later visit only, and formed no part of his commission in the earlier visit. But this cannot be maintained. Such an interpretation will harmonise with Dr. Kennedy’s scheme of Titus’ visits (see above); but the passage is quite consistent with the other view that Titus’ two visits to Corinth were made as the bearer of the two Canonical Epistles. For in what St. Paul says, the emphasis is on the contrast between προενήρξατο and ἐπιτελέσῃ. A beginning had been made by Titus in the matter of the collection; he is now to finish his work, that the Corinthians may be as conspicuous for their liberality as they already are for other graces. Dr. Kennedy objects to this that it is incon- ceivable that St. Paul when sending Titus with a strong message of rebuke should also have instructed him to obtain money contribu- tions. ‘Such a course,” he says, “ would have been as inconsistent