CHAPTER XV.

St. Paul pays a Short Visit to Corinth.- Returns to Ephesus.- Writes a Letter to the Corinthians, which is now lost. They reply, desiring further Explanations. - State of the Corinthian Church. —St. Paul writes the First Epistle to the Corinthians.

W

E have hitherto derived such information as we possess, concern

ing the proceedings of St. Paul at Ephesus, from the narrative in the Acts; but we must now record an occurrence which St. Luke has passed over in silence, and which we know only from a few incidental allusions in the letters of the Apostle himself. This occurrence, which probably took place not later than the beginning of the second year of St. Paul's residence at Ephesus, was a short visit which he paid to the Church at Corinth.1

1 The occurrence of this visit is proved by the following passages:—

(1.) 2 Cor. xii. 14. "Now for the third time I am prepared to come to you."

(2.) 2 Cor. xiii. 1. "Now for the third time I am coming to you."

If the visit after leaving Ephesus was the third, there must have been a second before it.

(3.) 2 Cor. xii. 21. "Lest again, when I come, God should humble me, and I should grieve many of those who sinned before." He fears lest he should again be humbled on visiting them, and again have to mourn their sins. Hence there must have been a former visit, in which he was thus humbled and made to

(4) 2 Cor. ii. 1. "I decided not to come again in grief to you" (which is the reading of every one of the Uncial manuscripts). Here it would be exceedingly unnatural to join again with come; and the feeling of this probably led to the error of the Textus Recep

tus.

(5) 2 Cor. xiii. 2 (according to the reading of the best MSS.). I have warned you formerly, and I now forewarn you, as when I was present the second time, so now while I am absent, saying to those who had sinned before that time, and to all the rest," If I come again, I will not spare."

(2dly)

Against these arguments Paley sets (1st) St. Luke's silence, which, however, is acknowledged by all to be inconclusive, considering that so very many of St. Paul's travels and adventures are left confessedly unrecorded in the Acts (see note on 2 Cor. xi. 23, &c.). The passage, 2 Cor. i. 15, 16, in which St. Paul tells the Corinthians he did not wish now to give them a "second benefit;" whence he argues that the visit then approaching would be his second visit. But a more careful examination of the passage shows that St. Paul is speaking of his original intention of paying them a double visit, on his way to Macedonia, and on his return from Macedonia.

If we had not possessed any direct information that such a visit had been made, yet in itself it would have seemed highly probable that St. Paul would not have remained three years at Ephesus without revisiting his Corinthian converts We have already remarked' on the facility of communication existing between these two great cities, which were united by a continual reciprocity of commerce, and were the capitals of two peaceful provinces. And examples of the intercourse which actually took place between the Christians of the two Churches have occurred, both in the case of Aquila and Priscilla, who had migrated from the one to the other (Acts xviii. 18, 19), and in that of Apollos, concerning whom, "when he was disposed to pass into Achaia,"" the brethren [at Ephesus] wrote, exhorting the disciples [at Corinth] to receive him" (Acts xviii. 27). In the last chapter, some of the results of this visit of Apollos to Corinth have been noticed; he was now probably returned to Ephesus, where we know that he was remaining (and, it would seem, stationary) during the third year of St. Paul's residence in that capital. No doubt, on his return, he had much to tell of the Corinthian converts to their father in the faith, much of joy and hope, but also much of pain, to communicate; for there can be little doubt that those tares among the wheat, which we shall presently see in their maturer growth, had already begun to germinate, although neither Paul had planted, nor Apollos watered them. One evil at least, we know, prevailed extensively, and threatened to corrupt the whole Church of Corinth. This was nothing less than the addiction of many Corinthian Christians to those sins of impurity which they had practised in the days of their Heathenism, and which disgraced their native city, even among the Heathen. We have before mentioned the peculiar licentiousness of manners which prevailed at Corinth. So notorious was this, that it had actually passed into the vocabulary of the Greek tongue; and the very word "to Corinthianize," meant "to play the wanton;" nay, the bad reputation of the city had become proverbial, even in foreign languages, and is immortalized by the Latin poets. Such being the habits in which many of the Corinthian converts had been educated, we cannot wonder if it proved most difficult to root out immorality from the rising Church. The offenders against Christian chastity were exceedingly numerous at this period; and it was especially with the object of attempting to reform them, and to check the growing mischief, that St. Paul now determined to visit Corinth.

He has himself described this visit as a painful one; he went in sorrow

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at the tidings he had received; and when he arrived, he found the state of things even worse than he had expected; he tells us that it was a time of personal humiliation' to himself, occasioned by the flagrant sins of so many of his own converts; he reminds the Corinthians, afterwards, how he had "mourned" over those who had dishonored the name of Christ by the uncleanness and fornication and wantonness which they had committed." 2

But in the midst of his grief he showed the greatest tenderness for the individual offenders; he warned them of the heinous guilt which they were incurring; he showed them its inconsistency with their Christian calling; he reminded them how, at their baptism, they had died to sin, and risen again unto righteousness; but he did not at once exclude them from the Church which they had defiled. Yet he was compelled to threaten them with this penalty, if they persevered in the sins which had now called forth his rebuke. He has recorded the very words which he used. "If I come again," he said, "I will not spare.""

It appears probable that, on this occasion, St. Paul remained but a very short time at Corinth. When afterwards, in writing to them, he says that he does not wish "now to pay them a passing visit," he seems to imply that his last visit had deserved that epithet. Moreover, had it occupied a large portion of the "space of three years," which he describes himself to have spent at Ephesus (Acts xx. 31), he would probably have expressed himself differently in that part of his address to the Ephesian presbyters; and a long visit could scarcely have failed to furnish more allusions in the Epistles so soon after written to Corinth. The silence of St. Luke also, which is easily explained on the supposition of a short visit, would be less natural had St. Paul been long absent from Ephesus, where he appears, from the narrative in the Acts, to be stationary during all this period.

On these grounds, we suppose that the Apostle, availing himself of the constant maritime intercourse between the two cities, had gone by sea to Corinth; and that he now returned to Ephesus by the same route (which was very much shorter than that by land), after spending a few days or weeks at Corinth.

1 2 Cor. xii. 21.

2 2 Cor. xii. 21.

There can be no doubt that he urged upon them the same arguments which he was afterwards obliged to repeat at 1 Cor. vi. 15. 42 Cor. xiii. 2.

1 Cor. xvi. 7. Yet this admits of another explanation; for perhaps he only meant to say, "I will not now (at once) come to you

(by the direct route) on my way to Macedonia for a passing visit," &c.

6 Wiesler, however, gets over this, by supposing that when St. Paul mentions three years spent among his hearers, he means to address not only the Ephesian presbyters whom he had summoned, but also the companions of his voyage (Acts xx. 4) who had been with him in Macedonia and Achaia.

But his censures and warnings had produced too little effect upon his converts: his mildness had been mistaken for weakness; his hesitation in punishing had been ascribed to a fear of the offenders; and it was not long before he received new intelligence that the profligacy which had infected the community was still increasing. Then it was that he felt himself compelled to resort to harsher measures; he wrote an Epistle (which has not been preserved to us)' in which, as we learn from himself, he ordered the Christians of Corinth, by virtue of his Apostolic authority, "to cease from all intercourse with fornicators." By this he meant, as he subsequently explained his injunctions, to direct the exclusion of all profligates from the Church. The Corinthians, however, either did not understand this, or (to excuse themselves) they affected not to do so; for they asked, how it was possible for them to abstain from all intercourse. with the profligate, unless they entirely secluded themselves from all the business of life which they had to transact with their Heathen neighbors. Whether the lost Epistle contained any other topics, we cannot know with certainty; but we may conclude with some probability that it was very short, and directed to this one subject; otherwise it is not easy to understand why it should not have been preserved together with the two subsequent Epistles.

Soon after this short letter had been despatched, Timotheus, accompanied by Erastus, left Ephesus for Macedonia. St. Paul desired him, if possible, to continue his journey to Corinth; but did not feel certain that it would be possible for him to do so consistently with the other objects of his journey, which probably had reference to the great collection now going on for the poor Hebrew Christians at Jerusalem.

Meantime, some members of the household of Chloe, a distinguished Christian family at Corinth, arrived at Ephesus; and from them St. Paul received fuller information than he before possessed of the condition of the Corinthian Church. The spirit of party had seized upon its members, and well-nigh destroyed Christian love. We have already seen, in our general view of the divisions of the Apostolic Church, that the great parties which then divided the Christian world had ranked themselves under the names of different Apostles, whom they attempted to set up

1 In proof of this, see the note on 1 Cor. v. 9-12. This lost Epistle must have been written after his second visit; otherwise he need not have explained it in the passage referred to.

2 Probably it was in this lost letter that he gave them notice of his intention to visit them on his way to Macedonia; for altering which he was so much blamed by his opponents.

• Erastus was probably the "treasurer” of the city of Corinth, mentioned Rom. xvi. 23, and 2 Tim. iv. 20; and therefore was most likely proceeding at any rate to Corinth.

+ Timotheus apparently did not reach Corinth on this occasion, or the fact would have been mentioned 2 Cor. xii. 18

against each other as rival leaders. At Corinth, as in other places, emissaries had arrived from the Judaizers of Palestine, who boasted of their "letters of commendation" from the metropolis of the faith; they did not, however, attempt, as yet, to insist upon circumcision, as we shall find them doing successfully among the simpler population of Galatia. This would have been hopeless in a great and civilized community like that of Corinth, imbued with Greek feelings of contempt for what they would have deemed a barbarous superstition. Here, therefore, the Judaizers confined themselves, in the first instance, to personal attacks against St. Paul, whose apostleship they denied, whose motives they calumniated, and whose authority they persuaded the Corinthians to repudiate. Some of them declared themselves the followers of "Cephas," whom the Lord himself had selected to be the chief Apostle; others (probably the more extreme members of the party)1 boasted of their own immediate connection with Christ himself, and their intimacy with "the brethren of the Lord," and especially with James, the head of the Church at Jerusalem. The endeavors of these agitators to undermine the influence of the Apostle of the Gentiles met with undeserved success; and they gained over a strong party to their side. Meanwhile, those who were still steadfast to the doctrines of St. Paul, yet were not all unshaken in their attachment to his person: a portion of them preferred the Alexandrian learning with which Apollos had enforced his preaching, to the simple style of their first teacher, who had designedly abstained, at Corinth, from any thing like philosophical argumentation. This party, then, who sought to form for themselves a philosophical Christianity, called themselves the followers of Apollos; although the latter, for his part, evidently disclaimed the rivalry with St. Paul which was thus implied, and even refused to revisit Corinth, lest he should seem to countenance the factious spirit of his adherents.

It is not impossible that the Antinomian Free-thinkers, whom we have already seen to form so dangerous a portion of the Primitive Church, attached themselves to this last-named party; at any rate, they were, at this time, one of the worst elements of evil at Corinth: they put forward a theoretic defence of the practical immorality in which they lived; and some of them had so lost the very foundation of Christian faith as to deny the resurrection of the dead, and thus to adopt the belief as well as the sensuality of their Epicurean neighbors, whose motto was, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

A crime, recently committed by one of these pretended Christians, was now reported to St. Paul, and excited his utmost abhorrence: a member

1 See above, p. 389.

21 Cor. ii. 1-5.

1 Cor. xvi. 12.