1 Corinthians 5:9

“I wrote to you in the (my) letter” the last the Cor [851] had received from P., which is recalled by the matter just discussed. The Ff [852], except Ambrosiaster (? Hilary of Rome, prob. Isaac, a converted Jew), referred the ἔγραψα to this Ep., reading the vb [853] as epistolary aorist (as in 1 Corinthians 5:11; see Bn [854] § 44); but there is nothing in 1 Cor. to sustain the ref [855], and ἐν τῇ ἐπιστολῇ seems “added expressly to guard against this interpretation” (Ed [856]). Modern expositors, from Cv [857] downwards, find the traces here of a lost Ep. antecedent to our First; 2 Corinthians 10:10 f. intimates that the Cor [858] had received several letters from P. before the canonical Second. Some have found in 2 Corinthians 6:14 to 2 Corinthians 7:1 a stray leaf of the missing document; that par. is certainly germane to its purpose (see Hilgenfeld, Einleit. in das N.T., p. 287; Whitelaw, in Classical Review, 1890, pp. 12, 317 f.). The ambiguity lay in the word συναναμίγνυσθαι (to mix oneself up with), which forbids social intimacy, while those who wished to misunderstand took it as a prohibition of all intercourse.

[851] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.

[852] Fathers.

[853] verb

[854] E. Burton's Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in the N.T. (1894).

[855] reference.

[856] T. C. Edwards' Commentary on the First Ep. to the Corinthians. 2

[857] Calvin's In Nov. Testamentum Commentarii.

[858] Corinth, Corinthian or Corinthians.