Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 2:1

ἔκρινα δὲ ἐμαυτῷ τοῦτο κ. τ. λ.: but I decided this for my own sake, that I would not come again to you with sorrow; i.e., I determined that my next visit should not be painful, as my last was. The juxtaposition of πάλιν with ἐν λύπῃ (see crit. note) requires that interpretation. Hence the former visit in St. Paul's mind could not have been his first visit to Corinth (Acts 18:1 ff.), for that was not ἐν λύπῃ. And thus we are forced to conclude that another visit was paid from Ephesus, of which no details have been preserved (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:14; 2 Corinthians 13:1). The conditions of the scanty evidence available seem best satisfied by supposing that St. Paul's second visit to Corinth was paid from Ephesus during the period Acts 19:10. Alarming news had probably reached him, and he determined to make enquiries for himself. On his return to Ephesus he wrote the letter (now lost) alluded to in 1 Corinthians 5:9, in which he charged the Corinthians “to keep no company with fornicators”. Subsequently to this he again received distressing intelligence (1 Corinthians 1:11; 1 Corinthians 5:1, etc.), whereupon he wrote the first canonical Epistle (see Introd., p. 7).

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

2 Corinthians 2:1

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