Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Book Overview - 2 Corinthians

by Charles John Ellicott

THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

The Second Epistle to the Corinthians

BY

THE VERY REV. E. H. PLUMPTRE, D.D.

INTRODUCTION

TO

THE SECOND EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

IT is not without some reluctance that I have undertaken to treat of an Epistle which stands in such close connection with that which precedes it that it can scarcely be dealt with by a different hand without some risk of want of unity of treatment.

I have, however, kept on the same main lines of thought and method of interpretation which have been followed in the Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and have been glad to find myself on all important points of one mind with the commentator.

Of the genuineness of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians there has never been a moment’s doubt, even among critics who allow themselves the widest range in their attacks on the canon of New Testament writings. External evidence is in itself adequate. The Epistle is quoted by Irenæus (Hær. iii. 7, § 1), by Athenagoras (De resurr. Mort), by Clement of Alexandria (Strom. iii. 94, iv. 101), and by Tertullian (De Pudicitiâ, c. 13). Testimony of this kind is, however, hardly needed. The Epistle speaks for itself. In its intense personality, its peculiarities of style, its manifold coincidences with the Acts and with other Epistles (especially with 1 Corinthians,. Romans, and Galatians), its vehement emotions, it may fairly be said to present phenomena beyond the attainment of any later writer wishing to claim for what he wrote the authority of a great name. Pseudonymous authorship is, in this case, simply out of the question.

Conceive all these barbed arrows of sarcasm falling on the ears, and through them piercing the very soul, of a man of singularly sensitive nature, passionately craving for affection, and proportionately feeling the bitterness of loving with no adequate return (2 Corinthians 12:15), and we may form some estimate of the whirl and storm of emotion in which St. Paul began to dictate the Epistle on which we are about to enter. Joy, affection, tenderness, fiery indignation, self-vindication, profound thoughts as to the mysteries of the kingdom of God which flashed upon his soul as he spoke—all these elements were there, craving to find expression. They hindered any formal plan and method in the structure of the Epistle. They led to episodes, and side-glances, and allusive references without number.

It follows from this that an analysis of such an Epistle is not a very easy matter, and that which follows must be received only as an approximately complete one, helping the student to follow the manifold oscillations of thought and feeling.

1.—St. Paul wishes the Corinthians to know his troubles and sufferings before the return of Titus (2 Corinthians 1:1-14).

2.—He tells them of his first plan of coming to them, and defends himself against the charge of fickleness in changing it (2 Corinthians 1:15 to 2 Corinthians 2:1).

3.—He is glad that he did change his plans, for thus there was time for the repentance on the part of the incestuous offender of 1 Corinthians 5:1. Such a one now needed sympathy and pardon (2 Corinthians 2:2-11).

4.—He is about to tell them of his meeting with Titus, but the remembrance of the triumphant joy of that moment overpowers him, and fills him with a profound sense of the issues of life and death which hang upon his words (2 Corinthians 2:12-17).

5.—Will this be called the self-assertion of one who has no credentials? His thoughts pass rapidly to the true credentials of effective preaching, and so to the new covenant of which he is the preacher, and so to the contrast between that covenant and the old (2 Corinthians 3:1-18).