SECOND EPISTLE TO THE CORINTHIANS After the despatch of First Corinthians Paul left Ephesus and went to Macedonia (Acts xx. I ; 2 Cor. ii. 13), and there wrote Second Corinthians, probably nearly a year after the earlier epistle. In the meantime exciting events had taken place which (though we can trace them but imperfectly) explain the great difference in tone between the second epistle and the first. While still at Ephesus Paul was led, evidently by the growing insubordi nation of the Corinthians, to go to Corinth (cf. 2 Cor. ii. 1; xii. 14; xii. 21 ; xiii. 2) . On this occasion some insult was offered to the apostle (cf. 2 Cor. ii. 5-1 1 ; the offender cannot safely be identified with the gross sinner of 1 Cor. v. 1-8), and his adver saries seem to have triumphed for the moment. This visit seems to have been followed by a severe letter (2 Cor. ii. 3, .4, 9; vii. 8, 12) , perhaps sent by Titus, whom Paul commissioned to go to Corinth and try to mend matters. In Macedonia, while Paul was in extreme anxiety about the situation (2 Cor. ii. 12, 13), Titus re joined him, with good news of the penitence of the Corinthian Church. The way was now open, and Titus, equipped with Sec ond Corinthians, was sent back to finish his good work and pre pare for Paul's own coming (viii. 6, 16-24) by effecting the com pletion of the collection of money for Jerusalem.
The greater part of the epistle (i.–vii.) consists of an outpouring of Paul's gratitude to God and affectionate feelings for the Co rinthians, with defence of his sincerity, explanations of his personal conduct, justification of his procedure and assumption of dignity as an apostle and a minister of the New Covenant, and interpre tation of his many sufferings as incurred in God's service. Inci dentally he takes occasion to enlarge on various topics, and the whole epistle, though intensely personal and intimate, is full of striking sentences of much significance for Paul's deeper religious thought. After an extended appeal (viii.–ix.) for generosity in their gifts to the collection, which evidently played a large (though to us obscure) part in the whole series of events, the epistle returns to Paul's personal relations. The background of all the earlier chapters (cf. iii. i; ii. 17; V. 12, 13, etc.) is the activity in Corinth of bitter opponents of Paul, and in all probability many of Paul's vehement protestations of probity and affection were called out by their calumnies. They had, indeed, been disavowed by the Corinthian Church, which as a whole he addresses, but nevertheless, in a final appeal for the strengthening of the Corin thians' loyalty (x. 1–xii. 1o), he not unnaturally proceeds to meet some of the abusive flings of his enemies, to point out his superiority at the very points which they have chosen for their condescending comparison, and with an emphasis enhanced by his repeated affirmations of reluctance, to reaffirm his dignity as an apostle and unselfish devotion as a minister of Christ. In it all he seems to count on the reader's substantial agreement with his fiery utterances.
These paragraphs of invective leave the motives and principles of the disturbing intruders uncertain. They were Jews (xi. 22), but nothing suggests an effort like that in Galatia, probably much earlier, to induce these Gentile Christians to subject themselves to circumcision and the Jewish law. This would have been so vital an issue that somewhere in this long epistle Paul would surely have made unmistakable reference to it. To call the opponents "Judaizers" is not justified. The intolerable arrogance of these "very chief est apostles" with their "letters of commendation" (doubtless from some other Church) is their clearest trait. They seem to have charged Paul with walking "according to the flesh" (x. 2), not "according to the spirit," and they perhaps prided themselves on their superior "knowledge" (xi. 6). In the earlier part of the epistle Paul repels with an almost angry rejoinder the accusation of "hiding his gospel" (iv. 2-4) and of having "known Christ after the flesh" (v. 16), and the most reasonable theory of the matter is that the opponents were persons who believed themselves completely transformed by the Spirit, a "new creation," possessing divine gifts of knowledge, and who regarded Paul's attitude of conservative good sense and practical insistence on moral discipline as the half-way hesitancy of a teacher recreant to his announced principles. Although of Jewish origin they were in thought and piety much further removed from Judaism than was Paul. On this theory their character clearly coincides with that of the persons against whom 1 Corinthians i. i8–iv. 13 is really levelled, and from this point of view Second Corinthians throws a good deal of light on First Corinthians. The concluding paragraphs of Second Corinthians (xii. I I–xiii. 13) explain why Paul has written as he has—partly to demonstrate the inferiority in every way of these "apostles," partly to ensure that his ap proaching visit shall find the Corinthians under no mistake either as to his power to be severe or as to his affectionate desire to render them helpful service. Paul's success is attested by the calm tone of the Epistle to the Romans, written at Corinth in the following spring, and by the reverence felt for Paul at Corinth some 35 years later (Clement of Rome, c. A.D. 95).
The use of first Corinthians by early writers, from Clement of Rome on, is abundant ; that of Second Corinthians is sufficient ; and the external and internal evidence together leave no doubt as to the genuineness of both epistles. In Second Corinthians the right of vi. 14–vii. 1 to its present position has been challenged, but the arguments to show that the passage is drawn from some other lost epistle of Paul are not convincing. The view that 2 Cor. x.–xiii. is drawn from a different letter, possibly the inter mediate letter preceding Second Corinthians, has found favour (more in England and America than in Germany), and is sup ported by the obvious increase of tensity of feeling in these chap ters and by a supposed difference of implied situation, together with other more special arguments; but to other scholars the chapters seem not inappropriate as the conclusion of this epistle. Full discussion of these questions will be found in the works named below.