1 Coríntios 8

THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

The First Epistle to the Corinthians.

BY
THE REV. T. TEIGNMOUTH SHORE, M.A.,

Canon of Worcester and Chaplain-in Ordinary to the King.

INTRODUCTION
TO
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS.

To describe briefly the relation in which St. Paul stood to the Corinthian Church, and the circumstances under which he wrote this Epistle, will, I think, be the best and most efficient help to the ordinary reader.

After a stay at Athens of some few months, St. Paul, towards the end (probably) of the year A.D. 51, left that city for Corinth. At Athens, the centre of philosophic thought and culture, St. Paul had preached Christianity. The wide question of the relation of God’s providence to the heathen world in times past — Christ crucified and raised from the dead — all these topics had been dwelt on by the Apostle in a speech which still remains a model of the subtlest rhetorical skill and of the most earnest eloquence. Judged, however, by immediate results, the speech on Mars Hill, and the other addresses at Athens, of which we have no record, but which were probably on the same lines, were not successful. Only a few converts were won for Christ.
The Apostle dwells with no fond recollection on his work here. A single sentence[26] sums up the results of his labour in a city where the successful planting of the Church would have been of such vast importance: “Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” There is an undertone of sadness and disappointment in these words of St. Paul’s companion and friend, St. Luke.

[26] Atos 17:34.

The Apostle left Athens downcast and thoughtful. The subtle skill, the earnest eloquence, had been employed apparently in vain. The inestimable value which that great exposition of God’s dealings with man, as well in the world at large as in the more sacred enclosure of the Christian faith, might have — as we know now it has had — in Christendom, did not present itself to the Apostle’s mind as any consolation for the want of practical results at the moment. Athens was a sad memory to St. Paul. He never mentions her name in an Epistle. He sends no words of greeting to any of her children.
From the Piraeus — the port of Athens — St. Paul sails for Corinth. It being late in autumn (probably October or November), it is most likely that the Apostle landed at Cenchreæ, a seaport town on the Saronic Bay.[27] The experience which he had at Athens, and its bearing on the work on which he was now about to enter in the capital of Achaia, were doubtless the uppermost thoughts in the Apostle’s mind during this brief journey. He sees that the power of the gospel to win men to Christ lies in the message itself, and not in the method and style of its delivery. He resolves to lay aside the rhetoric and the merely human eloquence, and in the new field of his missionary labours “to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”[28] This now he probably made as he landed at Cenchreæ; and when, a year and a half afterwards, he embarked at the same port on his return journey, he could look back with satisfaction and with thanksgiving on the resolution which he had formed, and the glorious results which had followed in Achaia from his preaching.

[27] I assume that St. Paul went by sea, and not by land, as the words (Atos 18:1), “Paul departed from Athens, and came to Corinth,” seem to imply a brief and uninterrupted journey. Had he gone by land he would have passed through other towns on the way, some mention of which it would be natural to expect.

[28] See 1 Coríntios 2:1, and Note there. The word “you,” repeated in both these verses, seems emphatic, as if the Apostle meant to bring out a contrast between his former style of teaching among others, and that which he had resolved should be his style of teaching amongst them. The only point on which he had determined when coming to them was, “Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” as the subject-matter of his teaching.

A journey of nine miles from Cenchreæ brought the Apostle to Corinth, which was situate in the south-west end of the isthmus, and at the northern base of the Acrocorinthus. The two things which in older days had made Corinth famous in Grecian history still rendered her a place of supreme importance. From a military point of view, she might be regarded as the key to the Peloponnesus, and commercially she was the central point of the vast trade which was carried on between Asia and Europe. The storms which so constantly raged on the southern shore of Greece drove the vast tide of commerce through the safer overland route, which lay through Cenchreæ and Lechæum, which latter port was only a mile and a half distant from Corinth. It was at Corinth that, in B.C. 146, the Aehaians made their last stand against the Romans, and were finally defeated by Mummius. After this, Achaia became a Roman province, and Corinth for a century remained in the condition of utter desolation to which the sword and fire of the victorious consul had reduced it. Some years before the birth of Christ (B.C. 44) Julius Cæsar restored Corinth, and, under the Emperor Claudius, the direct rule of the province was transferred from the emperor to the senate; and hence we find at the time when St. Paul arrived its government was administered by a pro-consul.[29] As St. Paul entered Corinth his eyes might for a moment have rested on the grave of Lais amid the cypress grove outside the walls, and the monument of Diogenes which stood by the gate — fit types of the cynical, worldly philosophy, and the gross, yet attractive, sensuality with which the society of that day and city were permeated. Within the city, most of the buildings were comparatively modern, “run up” within the last century by the imported population of Roman freed-men; while only here and there, in the stately magnificence of an older style of architecture, stood an occasional edifice which had survived the “fire” that had “tried every man’s work” in the great conflagration which had swept away the inferior structures of “wood, hay, stubble” when the conquering troops of Mummius had captured Corinth.[30] The population of Corinth was composed of many and diverse elements. There were Greeks, who thought, by their delight in a tawdry rhetoric and in a sham and shallow philosophy, to revive the historic glory of a past age. There were a thousand corrupt and shameless priestesses attached to the temple of Aphrodite, which crowned the neighbouring hill. There were the families of the Roman freed-men whom Julius Cæsar had sent to rebuild and recolonise the town. There were traders from Asia and from Italy, and all that nondescript element naturally to be found in a city which was practically a great commercial seaport and the scene, every fourth year, of those Isthmian games which attracted among the athletes the best, and among some of the spectators the worst, of the population of the surrounding provinces. All these, like so many streams of human life, mingled together here, and at this particular juncture were met by the vast returning tide of Jews expelled from Rome by Claudius,[31] and so formed that turbulent and seething flood of human life on which the barque of Christ’s Church was launched at Corinth.

[29] Atos 18:12.

[30] See St. Paul’s recollection of this in the imagery employed in 1 Coríntios 3:10.

[31] Atos 18:2.

Amongst those who had lately come from Italy were Aquila and Priscilla, his wife. With them the Apostle lodged, joining with them in their occupation of tent-making. Pontus,[32] the native country of Aquila, and Cilicia, [32b] the native country of St. Paul, were both renowned for the manufacture of the goat’s hair cloth from which the tent-coverings were made. It is probable, however, that an affinity of faith, as well as an identity of occupation, led to the Apostle’s intimate association with these friends. If this man and his wife had not been converted to Christianity before this they would scarcely have allowed St. Paul to join himself so intimately with them. The very circumstances of their expulsion from Rome would have embittered them against a Christian. From a remark in Suetonius, we find that the expulsion of the Jews had to do with their riots with Christian converts. Rome cared nothing about the religious opinions of these rival sects; but when their differences led to public riots Rome was then as vigorous and decisive in action as before she had been indifferent. [32c] Having left Italy under such circumstances, Aquila and Priscilla would, if unconverted Jews, have certainly not taken a Christian as a partner in their home and work; whereas, if already Christians, and suffering expulsion thus from Rome, they would gladly welcome such a convert as Paul. These considerations are confirmed by the course of events at the outset of St. Paul’s preaching at Corinth. The Apostle first preaches to the Jews and those proselytes (called “Greeks”)[33] who had at least accepted Judaism so far as to attend the synagogue. He is met with opposition and blasphemy by them, and then turns unto the Gentiles, and teaches in a house close by the synagogue, winning many converts to the faith, amongst others, Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, Gaius, and Stephanas and his household, who received their baptism at the hand of the Apostle himself.[34] Silas and Timothy joined the Apostle during the earlier part of his sojourn, and probably brought with them some pecuniary help from the Philippians, which was doubly acceptable because of a famine then prevalent and of the Apostle’s unflinching determination to take nothing from the Corinthians.[35]

[32] Atos 18:2.

[32b] Atos 18:2.

[32c] “Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome on account of their continual tumults instigated by Chrestus.” The name Christus, in pronunciation nearly identical with Chrestus, was mixed up in the riots somehow. That was quite sufficient for the authorities to assume that some person of the that name was the author of them.

[33] Atos 18:4.

[34] 1 Coríntios 1:14.

[35] See 2 Coríntios 11:7 : Filipenses 4:15.

Some time in A.D. 53, M. Annæus Novatus, the brother of the philosopher Seneca, arrives at Corinth as pro-consul of Achaia. He was called Gallio, having been adopted into the family of that name. His kindly and loving disposition [36] gave the Jewish faction some hope that they might make him the unconscious tool by which they would wreak their intensifying rage on St. Paul and his Christian companions. Gallio, with the imperturbable calmness of a Roman governor, refuses to allow himself to be dragged into a religious-dispute between two sects. In retaliation for this conduct on the part of the Jews, the Greeks take Sosthenes, who had succeeded Crispus as chief ruler of the synagogue — here, no doubt, the ringleader in the persecution of St. Paul — and beat him. [36b] When the same Sosthenes became a convert it was not strange that he and St. Paul should become firm friends. Both had been active enemies of the faith which they now preached, and the two converted persecutors are joined together in the opening of this Epistle to the Corinthian Church (1 Coríntios 1:1). For some considerable time the Apostle remains and teaches at Corinth, and then returns to Syria by Cenchreæ. The vow made on landing there had been kept. [36c] Jesus Christ and His crucifixion had been the sole subject and strength of the Apostle’s teaching. With what feelings of profound thankfulness must St. Paul, as he sailed from Cenchreæ, have looked back on the work and the success of those intervening months. With Aquila and Priscilla, he arrives at Ephesus, and leaves them there. After a somewhat prolonged tour through Galatia and Phrygia, and a visit to Jerusalem, St. Paul returns to Ephesus, probably in the year A.D. 54. Meanwhile, during the absence of St. Paul on his journey visiting the churches in Galatia and Phrygia, a man arrives at Ephesus who is destined to have a remarkable influence in the future on St. Paul’s relation with the Corinthian Church. Apollos, a Jew by religion and an Alexandrian by birth, had been brought up in a city where commerce brought together various races, and where philosophy attracted varied schools of thought. Alexandria, famous also as the place where the Greek translation of the Old Testament had been made, became naturally the seat of an intellectual school of scriptural interpretation, as well as the abode of Greek philosophy. Amid such surroundings, Apollos, gifted with natural eloquence, became “mighty in the scriptures,” and was “instructed in the way of the Lord,” possibly by some of those Alexandrian Jews who, in their disputes with Stephen,[37] had become acquainted with the elementary principles of Christianity. His imperfect acquaintance with the Christian faith — limited to the tenets of the Baptist [38] — is supplemented and completed by the instruction which he receives from Aquila and Priscilla, who were attracted by the eloquence and fervour with which he preached in the synagogue at Ephesus his imperfect gospel. The days spent with St. Paul at Corinth were fresh in the memory of these Christians. The incidents of those days were doubtless often recalled in many a conversation with Apollos, and what he hears fires his earnest soul with a desire to preach the gospel in Achaia. To the various churches — including, of course, Corinth — he receives letters of commendation from the Ephesian Christians, and his preaching is attended with great blessing, “helping them much which had believed through grace.” His style of teaching was strikingly different from that which St. Paul — in accordance with his vow, “to know nothing but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” — had adopted at Corinth. With more intellectual eloquence, and with a wider and more philosophic range of thought, he opened up the deeper spiritual meaning of the Old Testament scriptures, showing from them that Jesus was Christ.[39] The philosophic school of thought in which he had been educated could be traced in the style of his eloquence, which won many converts amongst those classes to whom the simplicity of Paul’s preaching had not been acceptable, and who, on that account, had continued to the end his active opponents.

[36] Seneca says of Gallio, “He was loved much even by those who had little power to love;” and, “No mortal is so dear to me as Gallio to all men.”

[36b] In Atos 18:17, the words “the Greeks” do not occur in the best MSS., and some commentators conclude that it was the Jewish faction who took Sosthenes and beat him, suspecting him of some leanings toward the faith which he afterwards embraced. I think it more natural to assume that it was the Greek mob who acted thus towards the leader of the defeated faction of the Jews. If it were the Jews writhing under their defeat, surely they would have taken vengeance on some avowed Christian like Paul or Aquila.

[36c] Atos 18:18. The words here may, as a mere matter of grammar, refer to either Paul or Aquila; but the whole sense of the passage refers to the former. The fact that Paul goes on to Jerusalem, and Aquila remains at Ephesus, is almost in itself sufficient to indicate Paul as the one having some solemn obligation to fulfil. I have already indicated that in the solemn vow made by the Apostle, and which was carried out apparently according to the law of the Nazarite vow (see Números 6) was included a resolve as to his teaching at Corinth. What, if any, other motives for the vow the Apostle could have had, must, of course, be matter of the merest conjecture.

[37] Atos 6:9.

[38] Atos 18:25.

[39] Atos 18:28.

While the eloquent Alexandrian is preaching in Corinth — watering[39b] where Paul had planted, building up where Paul had laid the foundation, giving strong meat to those whom, in their spiritual infancy, Paul had fed with milk, and winning some new converts amongst those whose Jewish and intellectual prejudices had hitherto been invincible — St. Paul rejoins Aquila and Priscilla at Ephesus. [39c] This is not the place to dwell upon St. Paul’s work at Ephesus (of which a full account is given in Atos 19), only so far as it directly bears upon his Epistle to Corinth. During his stay at Ephesus he is constantly hearing news of the Corinthians by those whose business necessitated constant journeyings between these two commercial capitals. The Apostle himself also, during the earlier part of his sojourn, pays a brief visit to Corinth, of which we have no record, and of which we should know nothing but for the casual allusion in his Second Epistle that he is coming to them the third time. [39d] After some two years’ residence at Ephesus, the Apostle determines, after some time, to proceed directly by sea to Corinth, and making it his head-quarters, visit the churches in Macedonia, returning after this tour to Corinth again, on his way back to Jerusalem,[40] from whence, finally, he hoped to visit Rome.[41] This plan is, however, entirely upset by the course of events which we have now to narrate.

[39b] 1 Coríntios 3:1; 1 Coríntios 3:6; 1 Coríntios 3:10

[39c] Atos 19:1

[39d] I place the unrecorded visit of St. Paul thus early during his residence at Ephesus because it seems to have occurred before the matter treated of in the First Epistle to the Corinthians assumed a serious aspect; otherwise we can scarcely imagine that there should be no allusion in this Epistle to some definite rebuke or instruction for which that visit would have afforded an opportunity,

[40] 2 Coríntios 1:15.

[41] Atos 19:21.

Rumours, more or less vague at first, reach St. Paul of a bad state of affairs in the Corinthian Church. The Corinthian Christians were living in the midst of a heathen society. The religion of heathendom, and the sensual license and indulgence which formed a part of it, pervaded all the social customs and entered into the very fibre of the social life of the country. To define, therefore, the precise position which Christians should assume in relation to the political conditions and the domestic institutions of the heathen was a matter of the utmost delicacy and difficulty. Christian thought and practice perpetually oscillated between the license into which human nature easily transformed the liberty of the gospel, and the rigid rejection of every custom which was tainted with heathen approval. To steady in the line of right that trembling pendulum of vibrating religious thought required all the spiritual skill and all the fine delicacy of touch which were characteristic of the great Apostle of the Gentiles. When the earliest rumours reach him of the unsatisfactory condition of some of the Corinthian Christians, he writes a letter to them, in which he probably mentions his intention of visiting them on his way to Macedonia; and he warns them of the great danger of moral contamination to which they would infallibly be subject if they allowed any of the immoral practices of the heathen to receive any sanction from the Christian Church. Whatever the heathen might think of the lawfulness of sinful indulgence which their own faith surrounded with a distorting moral atmosphere of religious sanction, Christians were to allow no trace of such immorality within the boundaries of the Church. This Epistle has been lost; we can only conjecture its general contents from the circumstances under which it was written, and the reference to it in what is now the First of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians.[42]

[42] See 1 Coríntios 5:9.

The Apostle still adheres to his intention of visiting Corinth and Macedonia, and sends Timothy and Erastus to prepare the various churches in Macedonia and Achaia for his coming, and, above all, to set things right at Corinth by, as St. Paul says, “bringing you into remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.” [42b]

[42b] See 1 Coríntios 4:17.

After the despatch of Timothy and Erastus, more alarming news reaches St. Paul. The household of Chloe[42c] — some Christian resident, either at Corinth or Ephesus, evidently well known to the Corinthians — report to the Apostle that the Church is disorganised with sectarian strife, and defiled by sanctioning a marriage between a Christian man and a heathen woman who had been his step-mother, and was now divorced from his father. A letter also arrives[42d] from the Corinthians to St. Paul, which was in part a reply to St. Paul’s lost Epistle, and which contained various questions regarding doctrine and practice which revealed the disintegrated condition of religious thought and life in Christian Corinth.[43] The letter was probably brought to Ephesus by Stephanas and his companions, who supplemented the information which it contained by their own knowledge, based upon personal and recent observation. The arrival of this letter, which called for an immediate answer, and the receipt of this intelligence of a state of affairs which required to be dealt with immediately and vigorously, led to a change in the Apostle’s plans. He abandons his intention of going direct to Corinth, so as to give time for a change for the better in the state of that Church; and he can no longer, now that he realises the full extent of the evil, leave it to be dealt with by one of Timothy’s gentle disposition. He therefore writes this (Second) First Epistle to the Corinthians, and sends with it Titus, who, going direct to Corinth, would reach that city probably before the arrival of Timothy, who would be delayed visiting other churches en route. Titus — whom we may call St. Paul’s companion in determination, as Timothy was St. Paul’s companion in conciliation — was far more competent to meet the difficulties which would present themselves in such a state of affairs as existed then at Corinth. Moreover, Titus was a Gentile, whereas Timothy was half Jewish by birth; and so there would be no danger of the most hostile faction in Corinth — the Jewish — awakening any sympathy for themselves in him. How judicious the selection of Titus was is evident by the success of his mission, which we read of afterwards when he rejoined Paul in Macedonia.[44]

[42c] See 1 Coríntios 1:11.

[42d] See 1 Coríntios 8:1.

[43] My reason for thinking that the letter from the Corinthians was in part a reply to St. Paul’s lost Epistle is that the Apostle says (1 Coríntios 5:9) emphatically, “I wrote to you in the Epistle,” — i.e., the Epistle to which you refer. They had probably taken exception to his strict injunction, and said in reply. “If we are not to keep company at all with fornicators, then we must go out of the world altogether.” His words seem to me to be an answer to some such captious criticism, and not a voluntary modification or explanation of what he had no reason to suppose should be misunderstood. It has been suggested by some commentators that the lost Epistle had been sent by Timothy. But St. Paul seems to assume as certain that the letter has reached them (1 Coríntios 5:9), and to be doubtful whether Timothy was there or not (1 Coríntios 16:10).

[44] See 2 Coríntios 2:12.

The Epistle was written and despatched probably about Easter, A.D. 57,[45] and the Apostle’s intention is now to remain at Ephesus until after Pentecost, and then proceed, visiting the churches in Macedonia before going to Corinth. This would leave time for this Epistle to have the desired effect, and for St. Paul to meet Titus somewhere — probably at Troas. This Epistle divides itself into two parts. The first Section, extending to 1 Coríntios 6:20, deals with the reports which had reached St. Paul as to the condition of the Corinthian Church; and the second Section, which occupies the remainder of the Epistle, is a reply to the letter received from Corinth, including directions for the collection for the saints at Jerusalem and the usual salutations from the brethren.

[45] See 1 Coríntios 5:7, and Note there, and 1 Coríntios 16:18, showing that it was written before Pentecost, and probably at Passover time.

With characteristic courtesy, the Epistle opens with words of approval and congratulation,[46] which show that the writer’s subsequent censures arise from no desire to see merely what is bad in the Corinthians, but are forced from him by the serious nature of the evils which have to be checked. Three evils are then rebuked — viz., THE SPIRIT OF FACTION, [46b] THE CASE OF PROHIBITED MARRIAGE, [46c] THE APPEALS OF CHRISTIANS TO HEATHEN COURTS.[47] The general principles of the relation of Christianity to heathenism, out of which the advice given under the last two heads has grown, are then solemnly reiterated;[48] and the first Section of the Epistle closes with these words of earnest warning.

[46] 1 Coríntios 1:1.

[46b] 1 Coríntios 1:10 to 1 Coríntios 4:21

[46c] 1 Coríntios 5:1

[47] 1 Coríntios 6:1.

[48] 1 Coríntios 6:5.

From the second Section of this Epistle we can discover what were the topics concerning which the Corinthians had written to St. Paul. He would doubtless treat of these subjects in the same sequence as they occurred in the letter to which this is the answer. The questions asked were probably these: IS IT RIGHT TO MARRY? The answer to this[49] is, — that, owing to the exceptional state of circumstances then existing, the unmarried state is better. This advice is, however, to be modified in its practical application in the cases of those who have an irresistible natural desire for marriage and those who have already contracted it.

[49] 1 Coríntios 7

The second question was: IS IT LAWFUL FOR A CHRISTIAN TO EAT THE FLESH WHICH HAS BEEN ALREADY USED FOR SACRIFICIAL PURPOSES BY THE HEATHEN? To this the answer[49b] is, in general terms, that there is no harm in eating such meat, but that in practice this wide principle of Christian liberty must be limited by regard to the general welfare of others and their tenderness of conscience.

[49b] 1 Coríntios 8:1 to 1 Coríntios 1:1

The third inquiry was: WHAT IS THE BECOMING DRESS OF WOMEN IN PUBLIC WORSHIP? This question was rendered necessary by some women pushing the freedom of the faith so far as to appear in public unveiled — a practice which might easily be mistaken by the heathen as the indication of a loose morality. To this the Apostle replies[49c] practically that our Christianity is not to make us transgress the social order and customs of the community in which we live.

[49c] 1 Coríntios 11:2

The fourth question was: WHAT IS THE PROPER ORDER OF THE CELEBRATION OF THE LORD’S SUPPER? In his answer to this question[50] the Apostle severely censures the scenes of riot and debauch into which the Love Feasts — with which the Lord’s Supper was practically united, though not identical — had fallen, and gives stringent and exact directions as to the means of avoiding such scandal in the future.[51]

[50] 1 Coríntios 11:17.

[51] It seems impossible to us that drunkenness could arise from the abuse of the Eucharistic wine as administered in our own day. A remarkable instance is mentioned in Mrs. Brassey’s Voyage of the “Sunbeam,” (p. 231) of a church which they visited in Tahiti, where cocoa-nut milk was used in the Holy Communion in the place of wine, owing to abuses of the cup which had arisen.

The fifth question was: WHICH IS THE MOST VALUABLE OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS? The discussion of this matter[52] involves the condemnation of the extravagant value attached by some to the gift of tongues, and the enunciation of the principle that the value of a gift depends on its utility for the good of the whole Church.

[52] 1 Coríntios 12:1 to 1 Coríntios 14:40

The seventh and last inquiry was: Is THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD A VITAL DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY? The reply to this[53] is an elaborate exposition and vindication of the doctrine of the resurrection. The collection for the saints at Jerusalem, information regarding his own change of plans, and some personal matters, occupy the concluding chapter of the Epistle.

[53] 1 Coríntios 15

After despatching this Epistle, St. Paul is full of fears lest it may have been written with too much severity, and possibly may have exactly the opposite effect from that which he desired. It may fail to reconcile to him the Church so dear to his heart — it may only widen the breach and embitter opponents. The Apostle leaves Ephesus after Pentecost, but his fears increase. Even an “open door” at Troas[54] cannot detain him in his restless anxiety. No new love could make up for the posssible loss of the old one at Corinth in that large and tender heart of St. Paul. He passes over into Macedonia — full of care: there are the echoes of tumults at Ephesus behind him — there is the fear of coming disruption with Corinth before him. At last, at Philippi, he meets Titus, who brings him the joyful news that, on the whole, the letter has been successful.[55] The Corinthian Christians are penitent, the chief offender has been expelled, and there is nothing now to prevent the Apostle taking back into his confidence and love the Church to which he was so warmly attached. A second letter[56] — to express his joy and gratitude, to reiterate his exhortations, and to finally prepare the Corinthians for his coming (which he explains had been delayed from no personal caprice, but for their sakes [57]) — is written, and the last trace of the cloud which, by separating him from them had cast so terrible a darkness over his own soul, is completely and finally removed.

[54] 2 Coríntios 2:12.

[55] 2 Coríntios 2:14.

[56] 2 Corinthians.

[57] 2 Coríntios 1:23.

The authenticity of this Epistle has never been seriously disputed; indeed, to deny it would almost involve a disbelief in the historical existence of the Corinthian Church and in the personality of St. Paul. The earliest fathers refer to it as the recognised letter of the Apostle. Clement of Rome. Polycarp, and Irenæus quote passages from it as St. Paul’s writing. All throughout this Epistle we have the heart as well as the intellect of the Apostle displayed to us; the Holy Spirit of God not setting aside, but controlling and guiding those good gifts of which, though we call them “natural,” He is the Author and the Giver.
Many of the subjects treated of here were local and personal. The combination of circumstances which give rise to them cannot possibly occur again in Christendom; but the principles on which the Apostle decided these matters are imperishable and of universal obligation. They can guide the Church amid the complex civilisation of the nineteenth century as truly and as clearly as they indicated to her the path of safety in the infancy of the Christian faith.
The following, among other works, have been consulted in writing the commentary upon this Epistle: —

The Greek Testament, with a Critically-revised Text, &c., by Dean Alford. Vol. II. Rivingtons, 1871.

The Greek Testament, with Notes, by Bishop Words worth.

Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament. Göttingen (English Translation, T. & T. Clark, 1877).

The Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, with Critical Notes and Dissertations, by A. P. Stanley, Dean of Westminster. Fourth Edition. John Murray, 1876.

The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, by W. J. Conybeare and the Very Rev. J. S. Howson, Dean of Chester. New Edition. Longmans, 1870.

The Hulsean Lectures for 1862, by the Very Rev. J. S. Howson. Third Edition. Strahan & Co., 1873.

The Metaphors of St. Paul, by the Very Rev. J. S. Howson. Strahan & Co., 1870.

The Companions of St. Paul, by the Very Rev. J. S. Howson. Isbister, 1874.

Expository Lectures on St. Paul’s Epistles to the Corinthians, by the late F. W. Robertson. Smith and Elder, 1870.

The Life and Epistles of St. Paul, by Thomas Lewin, M.A. 2 Vols. Third Edition. George Bell & Sons, 1875.

The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, on the First Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians. Vols. IV. and V. of the Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church. Parker, 1839.

The Greek Testament from Cardinal Mai’s Edition of the Vatican Bible, with Notes by Professor Ornsby. J. Duffery, 1865.

G. B. Winer’s, Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Sprachidioms (English Translation, by Dr. W. F. Moulton. Eighth Edition. T. & T. Clark, 1877).