The life and work of St. Paul

SECOND EPISTLE TO THE COBINTHU.NS. 415
with that stern missive alluded to in vii. 8 12, which caused the Corinthians
so much pain, and stirred them up to such vigorous exertion, which is usually
identified with the first extant Epistle. 1
It is difficult to accept any such
hypothesis in the teeth of the evidence of all manuscripts ; and when we
remember the perpetual interchange of news between different Churches, it
is a much simpler and more natural supposition that, as the first part of the
letter had been wrjtten while he was in anxiety about them, and the second
after his mind had been relieved by the arrival of Titus, so this third part of
the letter was written after the arrival of some other messenger, who bore
the disastrous tidings that some teacher had come from Jerusalem whose
opposition to St. Paul had been more marked and more unscrupulous than any
with which he had yet been obliged to deal However that uiay be, certain it
is that these chapters are written in a very different mood from the former. 3
There is in them none of the tender effusiveness and earnest praise which we
have been hearing, but a tone of suppressed indignation, in which tenderness,
struggling with bitter irony, in some places renders the language laboured
and obscure, 3 like the words of one who with difficulty restrains himself from
saying all that his emotion might suggest. Tet it is deeply interesting to
observe that " the meekness and gentleness of Christ " reigns throughout all
this irony, and he utters no word of malediction like those of the Psalmists.
And there is also a tone of commanding authority, which the writer is driven
to assume as a last resource, since all forbearance has been so grievously mis-
understood. Some among them one person in particular 4 had been passing
their censures and criticisms on St. Paul very freely, saying that his
person was mean 6
that he was untutored in ;
speech that ho ; was only
bold in letters, and at a distance that ho ; walked " according to thp
" J flesh that he was ;
certainly a weakling, and probably a madman. 8
They had been urging
their own near connexion with Christ as a sub-
ject of self-commendation 9 had been ;
preaching another Jesus, and a
different Gospel, and imparting a different 10
spirit had been ;
boasting im-
measurably of their superiority, though they were thrusting
themselves into
1 If .such a supposition were at all probable, we should rather infer from xii. 18 that
this section was an Epistle written after the mission of Titus and the brother alluded to
in viii. 18. But the suggestion in the text seems to me to meet most of the difficulties.
s A change of tone of an analogous character from a more distant and respectful
to a more stern and authoritative style is observable in Rom. xiv., xv. (v. infra, p. 450).
So there is a wide difference between the apologetic and the aggressive part of Demos-
thenes, De Corond (Hug). Semler was the first to suggest that this Epistle was an
amalgamation of three, which is also the view of "Weisse. The Avrbs Si iyit HaCXos of x. 1
(cf . GaL v. 2 ; Eph. iii. 1 ; Philem. 19) at once marks the change.
8 Theodoret says of x. 12 18 that St. Paul wrote it obscurely (io-o^is) from a desire
not to expose the offenders too plainly.
* " "
x. 2, rivas ; 7, rl T iriiroiBtv iaMTif ', 10, (jxprt, says he ; 11, 6 TOIOVTOS ; 12, nai ; 18,
a iavr'ov avvuniav xL ', 4, 6 cpxo/upot.
* 8
x. 1, 10.
xi. 6.
7 x. 2, Kara cap**, i.e., with mere earthly motives ; that he was timid, complaisant,
inconsistent, self-seeking.
8
xi. 16, 17, 19. Compare the blunt " "
Thou art mad, Paul ! of Festui.
* x. 7.
w xi. 4, iAAnv 'Iij