“There are three crowns: the crown of the Law, the crown of the Priest–hood, and the crown of Royalty: but the crown of a good name mounts above them all.”—Pirke Abhôth, iv. 19.
WHEN St. Paul left Ephesus he went straight to Troas, with the same high motive by which he was always actuated— that of preaching the Gospel of Christ.1 He had visited the town before, but his stay there had been shortened by the imploring vision of the man of Macedon, which had decided his great intention to carry the Gospel into Europe. But though his preaching was now successful, and “a door was opened for him in the Lord,”2 he could not stay there from extreme anxiety. “He had no rest for his spirit, because he found not Titus his brother.” Titus had been told to rejoin him at Troas; but perhaps the precipitation of St. Paul’s departure from Ephesus had brought him to that town earlier than Titus had expected, and, in the uncertain navigation of those days, delays may easily have occurred. At any rate, he did not come, and Paul grew more and more uneasy, until in that intolerable oppression of spirit he felt that he could no longer continue his work, and left Troas for Macedonia. There, at last, he met Titus, who relieved his painful tension of mind by intelligence from Corinth, which, although chequered, was yet on the main point favourable. From Titus he learnt that his change of plan about the visit had given ground for unfavourable criticism,3 and that many injurious remarks on his character and mode of action had been industriously disseminated, especially by one Jewish teacher.4 Still, the effect of the first Epistle had been satisfactory. It had caused grief, but the grief had been salutary, and had issued in an outburst of yearning affection, lamentation, and zeal.5 Titus himself had been received cordially, yet with fear and trembling.6 The offender denounced in his letter had been promptly and even severely dealt with,7 and all that St. Paul had said to Titus in praise of the Church had been justified by what he saw.8 Accordingly, he again sent Titus to them,9 to finish the good work which he had begun, and with him he sent the tried and faithful brother “whose praise is in the Gospel through all the Churches;”10 and this time Titus was not only ready but even anxious to go.11
In what town of Macedonia St. Paul had met with Titus, and also with Timothy, we do not know. Great uncertainty hangs over the details of their movements, and indeed all the events of this part of the journey are left in obscurity: we can only conjecture that during it St. Paul had even travelled as far as Illyricum.12 At some point in the journey, but probably not at Philippi, as the subscription to the Epistle says—because, as is evident from the Epistle itself, he had visited most of the Churches of Macedonia,13— he wrote his Second Epistle to the Corinthians. From it we learn that, whatever may have been in this region the special nature of his affliction—whether grievous sickness, or external persecutions, or inward anxieties, or apparently all of these combined—his stay in Macedonia had suffered from the same overwhelming distress which had marked the close of his residence in Ephesus, and which had driven him out of Troas.14 The Churches were themselves in a state of affliction, which Paul had naturally to share,15 and he describes his condition as one of mental and physical prostration: “Our flesh had no rest, but we are troubled on every side; from without fightings, from within fears.”16 And this helps to explain to us the actual phenomena of the letter written amid such circumstances. If HOPE is the key–note of the Epistle to the Thessalonians, JOY of that to the Philippians, FAITH of that to the Romans, and HEAVENLY THINGS of that to the Ephesians, AFFLICTION is the one predominant word in the Second Epistle to the Corinthians.17 The Epistles to the Thessalonians contain his views on the Second Advent; the Epistle to the Galatians is his trumpet–note of indignant defiance to retrograding Judaisers; the Epistle to the Romans is the systematic and, so to speak, scientific statement of his views on what may be called, in modern language, the scheme of salvation; the Epistle to the Philippians is his outpouring of tender and gladdened affection to his most beloved converts; the First Epistle to the Corinthians shows us how he applied the principles of Christianity to daily life in dealing with the flagrant aberrations of a most unsatisfactory Church; his Second Epistle to the Corinthians opens a window into the very emotions of his heart, and is the agitated self–defence of a wounded and loving spirit to ungrateful and erring, yet not wholly lost or wholly incorrigible souls.”18
And this self–defence was not unnecessary. In this Epistle we find St. Paul for the first time openly confronting the Judaising reaction which assumed such formidable dimensions, and threatened to obliterate every distinctive feature of the Gospel which he preached. It is clear that in some of the Churches which he had founded there sprang up a Judaic party, whose hands were strengthened by commendatory letters from Jerusalem, and who not only combated his opinions, but also grossly abused his character and motives. By dim allusions and oblique intimations we trace their insidious action, and in this Epistle we find ourselves face to face with them and their unscrupulous opposition. It differs greatly from the one that preceded it. St. Paul is no longer combating the folly of fancied wisdom, or the abuse of true liberty. He is no longer occupied with the rectification of practical disorders and theoretical heresies. He is contrasting his own claims with those of his opponents, and maintaining an authority which had been most rudely and openly impugned.
It is not impossible that the attack had been suggested by St. Paul’s sentence on the incestuous offender.19 His case seems to have originated a quarrel among the Corinthian Christians, of whom some sided with him and some with his father. It is clear upon the face of things that we do not know all the circumstances of the case, since it is all but inconceivable that, had there been no extenuating fact, he should have found defenders for a crime which excited the horror of the very heathen. Even those who placed sensuality on the same level as eating meats offered to idols, and therefore regarded it as a matter of indifference— whose view St. Paul so nobly refutes in his first Epistle— could not have sided with this person if there were no palliating element in this offence. And, indeed, if this had not been the case, he would scarcely have ventured to continue in church membership, and to be, with his injured father, a frequenter of their love–feasts and partaker in their sacraments. It may be quite true, and indeed the allusions to him in the Second Epistle show, that he was weak rather than wicked. But even this would have been no protection to him in a wrong on which Gallio himself would have passed a sentence of death or banishment, and which the Mosaic law had punished with excision from the congregation.20 There must therefore have been something which could be urged against the heinousness of his transgression, and St. Paul has distinctly to tell the Corinthians that there was no personal feeling mixed up with his decision.21 His words had evidently implied that the Church was to be assembled, and there, with his spirit present with them, to had him over to Satan, so that judgment might come on his body for the salvation of his soul. That is what he practically tells the Church to do. Did they do it? It seems to be at least doubtful. That they withdrew from his communion is certain; and the very threat of excommunication which hung over him— accompanied, as he and the Church thought that it would be, with supernatural judgments—was sufficient to plunge him into the depths of misery and penitence. Sickness and death were at this time very prevalent among the Corinthian converts, and St. Paul told them that this was a direct punishment of their profanation of the Lord’s Supper. It is clear that the offender was not contumacious, and in his Second Epistle St. Paul openly forgives him, and remits his sentence, apparently on the ground that the Corinthians had already done so. In fact, since the desired end of the man’s repentance, and the purging of the Church from all complicity with or immoral acquiescence in his crime had been attained without resorting to extreme measures, St. Paul even exhorts the Corinthians to console and forgive the man, and, in fact, restore him to full Church membership. Still, it does seem as if they had not exactly followed the Apostle’s advice, and as if the party opposed to him had, so to speak, turned upon him and repudiated his authority. They said that he had not come, and he would not come. It was all very well to write stern and threatening letters, but it was not by letters, but by the exercise of miraculous power, that Kephas had avenged the wrongs of the Church and of the Spirit on Ananias and Sapphira, and on Simon Magus. Paul could not do this. How could it be expected of a man so mean of aspect, so vacillating in purpose, so inefficient in speech? It was not Paul who had been chosen as the twelfth Apostle, nor was he an Apostle at all. As the abuses among his followers showed that his teaching was dangerous, so his inability to rectify them was a proof that his authority was a delusion. The very fact that he had claimed no support from his converts only marked how insecure he felt his position to be. What the Church really wanted was the old stringency of the Mosaic Law; some one from Jerusalem; some true Apostle, with his wife, who would rule them with a real supremacy, or at least some emissary from James and the brethren of the Lord, to preach “another Gospel,” more accordant with the will of Jesus Himself.22 Paul, they implied, had never known Jesus, and misrepresented Him altogether;23 for He had said that no jot or tittle of the law should pass, and that the children’s bread should not be cast to dogs. Paul preached himself,24 and indeed seemed to be hardly responsible for what he did preach. He was half demented; and yet there was some method in his madness, which showed itself partly in self–importance and partly in avarice, both of which were very injurious to the interests of his followers.25 What, for instance, could be more guileful and crafty than his entire conduct about this collection which he was so suspiciously eager to set on foot?26 He had ordered them to get up a subscription in his first letter;27 had, in answer to their inquiries,28 directed that it should be gathered, as in the Galatian Churches, by a weekly offertory, and had, since this, sent Titus to stimulate zeal in the matter. Now certainly a better emissary could not possibly have been chosen, for Titus was himself a Greek, and therefore well fitted to manage matters among Greeks; and yet had visited Jerusalem, so that he could speak from ocular testimony of the distress which was prevalent among the poorer brethren; and had further been present at the great meeting in Jerusalem at which Paul and Barnabas had received the special request to be mindful of the poor. Yet even this admirably judicious appointment, and the transparent independence and delicacy of mind which had made Paul—with an insight into their character which, as events showed, was but too prescient—entirely to refuse all support from them, was unable to protect him from the coarse insinuation that this was only a cunning device to hide his real intentions, and give him a securer grasp over their money. Such were the base and miserable innuendoes against which even a Paul had deliberately to defend himself! Slander, like some vile adder, has rustled in the dry leaves of fallen and withered hearts since the world began. Even the good are not always wholly free from it, and the early Christian Church, so far from being the pure ideal bride of the Lord Jesus which we often imagine her to be, was (as is proved by all the Epistles) in many respects as little and in some respects even less pure than ours. The chrisom–robe of baptism was not preserved immaculate either in that or in any other age. The Church to which St. Paul was writing was, we must remember, a community of men and women of whom the majority had been familiar from the cradle with the meanness and the vice of the poorest ranks of heathenism in the corruptest city of heathendom. Their ignorance and weakness, their past training and their present poverty, made them naturally suspicious; and though we cannot doubt that they were morally the best of the class to which they belonged, though there may have been among them many a voiceless Epictetus—a slave, but dear to the immortals—and though their very reception of Christianity proved an aspiring heart, a tender conscience, an enduring spirit, yet many of them had not got beyond the inveteracy of lifelong habits, and it was easy for any pagan or Judaic sophister to lime their “wild hearts and feeble wings.” But God’s mercy overrules evil for good, and we owe to the worthless malice of obscure Judaic calumniators the lessons which we may learn from most of St. Paul’s Epistles.29 A trivial characteristic will often show better than anything else the general drift of any work, and as we have already pointed out the prominence in this Epistle of the thought of “tribulation,” so we may now notice that, though “boasting” was of all things the most alien to St. Paul’s genuine modesty, the most repugnant to his sensitive humility, yet the boasts of his unscrupulous opponents so completely drove him into the attitude of self–defence, that the word “boasting” occurs no less than twenty–nine times in these few chapters, while it is only found twenty–six times in all the rest of St. Paul’s writings.30
The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and those to the Galatians and Romans, represent the three chief phases of his controversy with Judaism. In the Epistle to the Galatians he overthrew for ever the repellent demand that the Gentiles should be circumcised; in the Epistle to the Romans he established for ever the thesis that Jews and Gentiles were equally guilty, and could be justified only by faith, and not by works. In both these Epistles he establishes, from different points of view, the secondary and purely disciplinary functions of the law as a preparatory stage for the dispensation of free grace. In both Epistles he shows conclusively that instead of the false assertion that “it is in vain to be a Christian without being a Jew,” should be substituted the very opposite statement, that it is in vain to be a Christian if, as a Christian, one relies on being a Jew as well. But, however irresistible his arguments might be, they would be useless if the Judaists succeeded in impugning his Apostolic authority, and proving that he had no right to be regarded as a teacher. The defence of his claims was, therefore, very far from being a mere personal matter; it involved nothing less than a defence of the truth of his Gospel. Yet this defence against an attack so deeply wounding, and so injurious to his cause, was a matter of insuperable difficulty. His opponents could produce their “commendatory letters,” and, at least, claimed to possess the delegated authority of the Apostles who had lived with Jesus (2 Cor. 3:1–18). This was a thing which Paul could not and would not do. He had not derived his authority from the Twelve. His intercourse with them had been but slight. His Apostolate was conferred on him, not mediately by them, but immediately by Christ. He had, indeed, “seen the Lord” (1 Cor. 9:1), but on this he would not dwell, partly because his direct intercourse with Christ had been incomparably smaller than that of a Peter or a James; and partly because he clearly saw, and wished his converts to see, that spiritual union was a thing far closer and more important than personal companionship. To two things only could he appeal: to the visions and revelations which he had received from the Lord, above all, his miraculous conversion; and to the success, the activity, the spiritual power, which set a seal of supernatural approval to his unparalleled ministry.31 But the first of these claims was deliberately set aside as subjective, both in his own lifetime and a century afterwards.32 The difficulty of convincing his opponents on this subject reflects itself in his passion, a passion which rose in part because it forced upon him the odious semblance of self–assertion. His sole irresistible weapon was “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”
I will now proceed to give an outline of this remarkable letter, which, from the extreme tension of mind with which it was written, and the constant struggle between the emotions of thankfulness and indignation,33 is more difficult in its expressions and in its causal connections than any other. The labouring style,—the interchange of bitter irony with pathetic sincerity,—the manner in which word after word—now “tribulation,” now “consolation,” now “boasting,” now “weakness,”—now “simplicity,” now “manifestation,” takes possession of the Apostle’s mind— serve only to throw into relief the frequent bursts of impassioned eloquence. The depth of tenderness which is here revealed towards all who were noble and true, may serve as a measure for the insolence and wrong which provoked in the concluding chapters so stern an indignation. Of all the Epistles it is the one which enables us to look deepest into the Apostle’s heart.
Another characteristic of the letter has been observed by the quick insight of Bengel. “The whole letter” he says, “reminds us of an itinerary, but interwoven with the noblest precepts.” “The very stages of his journey are impressed upon it,” says Dean Stanley; “the troubles at Ephesus, the anxiety of Troas, the consolations of Macedonia, the prospect of moving to Corinth.”34
After the greeting, in which he associates Timothy—who was probably his amanuensis—with himself, and with brief emphasis styles himself an “Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God,” he begins the usual expression of thankfulness, in which the words “tribulation” and “consolation” are inextricably intertwined, and in which he claims for the Corinthians a union with him in both.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and God of all consolation, who consoleth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to console those in all tribulation, by the consolation wherewith we are ourselves consoled by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound towards us, so by Christ aboundeth also our consolation. But whether we are troubled, it is for your consolation and salvation which worketh in the endurance of the same sufferings which we also suffer, and our hope is sure on your behalf;35 or whether we are consoled, it is for your consolation and salvation, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so also of the consolation.”36
He then alludes to the fearful tribulation, excessive and beyond his strength, whether caused by outward enemies or by sickness, through which he has just passed in Asia. which has brought him to the verge of despair and of the grave, in order that he may trust solely in Him who raiseth the dead. “Who from such a death rescued us, and will rescue, on whom we have hoped that even yet will He rescue.” And as it was the supplication of many which had won for him this great charism, he asks that their thanksgivings may be added to those of many, and that their prayers may still be continued in his behalf.37
For however vile might be the insinuations against him, he is proudly conscious of the simplicity38 and sincerity of his relations to all men, and especially to them, “not in carnal wisdom, but in the grace of God.” Some had suspected him of writing private letters and secret messages, of intriguing in fact with individual members of his congregation; but he tells them that he wrote nothing except what they are now reading, and fully recognise, as he hopes they will continue to recognise, and even more fully than heretofore, even as some of them39 already recognised, that they and he are a mutual subject of boasting in the day of the Lord. Thiswas the reason why he had originally intended to pay them two visits instead of one. Had he then been guilty of the levity, the fickleness, the caprice with which lie had been charged in changing his plan? Did the “Yes, yes” of his purposes mean much the same thing as “No, no,” like the mere shifting feebleness of an aimless man?40 Well, if they chose to say this of him as a man, at any rate, there was one emphatic “Yes,” one unalterable fixity and affirmation about him, and that was his preaching of Christ. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, preached by him and Silvanus and Timotheus, had proved Himself to be not “Yes” and “No;” but in Him was God’s infinite “Yes,” and therefore also the Christian’s everlasting Amen to all God’s promises.41 He who confirmed all of them alike into the Anointed (εἰς χριστον), and anointed them (χρίσας), was God, who also set His seal on them, and gave them in their hearts the earnest of His Spirit.42 He called God to witness upon his own soul that it was with a desire to spare them that he no longer came43 to Corinth. And then, conscious that jealous eyes would dwell on every phrase of his letter, and if possible twist its meaning against him, he tells them that by using the expression “sparing them,” he does not imply any claim to lord it over their faith, for faith is free and by it they stand; but that he is speaking as a fellow–worker of their joy, and therefore he had decided that his second visit to them should not be in grief.44 Was it natural that he should like to grieve those who caused him joy, or be grieved by those from whom he ought to receive joy? His joy, he felt sure, was theirs also, and therefore he had written to them instead of coming; and that previous letter—sad as were its contents—had not been written to grieve them, but had been written in much tribulation and compression of heart and many tears, that they might recognise how more abundantly he loved them. Grief, indeed, there had been, and it had fallen on him, but it had not come on him only, but partly on them, and he did not wish to press heavily on them all.45 And the sinner who had caused that common grief had been sufficiently censured by the reprobation of the majority of them;46 so that now, on the contrary, they should forgive and comfort him, that a person such as he was—guilty, disgraced, but now sincerely penitent—may not be swallowed up by his excessive grief. Let them now assure him of their love. The object of the former letter had been fulfilled in testing their obedience. If theyforgave (as they had partially done already, in not strictly carrying out his decision), so did he; “and what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything,47 is for your sakes, in the presence48 of Christ, that we may not be over–reached by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices.”49
Well, he did not come to them, and he did write, and what was the consequence? His anxiety to know the effect produced by his letter and change of plan was so intense, that it almost killed him. Successful as was the opening which he found for the Gospel of Christ at Troas, he abandoned his work there, because he could not endure the disappointment and anguish of heart which the non–arrival of Titus caused him. He therefore went to Macedonia. There at last he met Titus, but he omits to say so in his eagerness to thank God, who thus drags him in triumph in the service of Christ. Everywhere the incense of that triumph was burnt; to some it was a sweet savour that told of life, to others a sign of imminent death. St. Paul is so possessed by the metaphor that he does not even pause to disentangle it. He is at once the conquered enemy dragged in triumph, and the incense burned in sign of the victor’s glory. The burning incense is a sign to some of life ever–renewed in fresh exultation; to others of defeat ever deepening into death. To himself, at once the captive and the sharer in the triumph, it is a sign of death, and of daily death, and yet the pledge of a life beyond life itself.50 And who is sufficient for such ministry? For he is not like the majority51—the hucksters, the adulterators, the fraudulent retailers of the Word of God,—but as of sincerity, but as of God—in the presence of God he speaks in union with Christ.52
Is this self–commendation to them? Does he need letters of introduction to them?53 And here, again, follows one of the strangely mingled yet powerful metaphors so peculiar to the greatest and most sensitive imaginations. “Ye are our Epistle,” says St. Paul, “written on our hearts, recognised and read by all men, being manifestly an Epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on stonen tablets, but on fleshen tablets—hearts.”54 He does not need a commendatory letter to them; they are themselves his commendatory letter to all men; it is a letter of Christ, of which he is only the writer and carrier;55 and it is not engraved on granite like the Laws of Moses, but on their hearts. Thus they are at once the commendatory letter written on Paul’s heart, and they have a letter of Christ written on their own hearts by the Spirit, and of that letter Paul has been the human agent.56
It was a bold expression, but one which sprang from a confidence which Christ inspired, and had reference to a work for God. That work was the ministry of the New Covenant—not of the slaying letter but of the vivifying spirit,57 for which God gave the sufficiency. And what a glorious ministry! If the ministry of the Law—tending in itself to death, written in earthly letters, graven on granite slabs,— yet displayed itself in such glory that the children of Israel could not gaze on the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which was rapidly fading away,58 how much more glorious was the Ministry of Life, of Righteousness, of the Spirit, which by comparison outdazzles that other glory into mere darkness,59 and is not transitory (διὰ δόξης) but permanent (ἐν δόξῃ). It was the sense of being entrusted with that ministry which gave him confidence. Moses used to put a veil over his face that the children of Israel might not see the evanescence of the transient; and the veil which he wore on his bright countenance when he spoke to them reminds him of the veil which theyyet wore on their hardened understandings when his Law was read to them, which should only begin to be removed the moment they turned from Moses to Christ,60 from the letter to the spirit, from slavery to freedom. But he and all the ministers of Christ gazed with no veil upon their faces upon His glory reflected in the mirror of His Gospel; and in their turn seeing that image as in a mirror,61 caught that ever–brightening glory as from the Lord, the Spirit. How could one entrusted with such a ministry grow faint–hearted? How could he—as Paul’s enemies charged him with doing—descend into “the crypts of shame?” Utterly false62 were such insinuations. He walked not in craftiness; he did not adulterate the pure Word of God; but his commendatory letter, the only one he needed, was to manifest the truth to all consciences in God’s sight. There was no veil over the truths he preached; if veil there was, it was only in the darkened understandings of the perishing, so darkened into unbelief by the god of the present world,63 that the brightness of the gospel of the glory of Christ could not illuminate them. He it is—Christ Jesus the Lord, the image of God—He it is, and not ourselves, whom Paul and all true Apostles preached. He had been accused of self–seeking and self–assertion. Such sins were impossibleto one who estimated as he did the glory of His message. All that he could preach of himself was that Christ was Lord, and that he was their slave for Christ’s sake. For God had shone in the hearts of His ministers only in order that the bright knowledge which they had caught from gazing, with no intervening veil, on the glory of Christ, might glow for the illumination of the world.64
A glorious ministry; but what weak ministers! Like the torches hid in G Jeon’s pitchers, their treasure of light was in earthen vessels,65 that the glory of their victory over the world and the world’s idolatries might be God’s, not theirs. This was why they were at once weak and strong—weak in themselves, strong in God—“in everything being troubled, yet not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; flung down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in our body the putting to death of the Lord Jesus Christ, in order that also the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we, living as we are, are ever being handed over to death for Jesus’ sake, in order that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So that death is working in us—seeing that for Christ’s sake and for your sakes we die daily—but life in you. The trials are mainly ours; the blessings yours. Yet we know that this daily death of ours shall be followed by a resurrection. He who raised Christ shall also raise us from the daily death of our afflicted lives66 and from the death in which, they end, and shall present us, with you, to God’s glory, by the increase of grace and more abundant increase of thanksgiving. For this reason we do not play the coward, but even if our outward man is being destroyed, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For the lightness of our immediate affliction is working out for us, in increasing excess, an eternal weight of glory, since our eyes are fixed not on the visible, but on the invisible; for the things visible are transient, but the things invisible are eternal.67 The tents of our earthly bodies shall be done away, but then we shall have an eternal building. We groan, we are burdened in this tent of flesh,68 we long to put on over it, as a robe, our house from heaven—if, as I assume, we shall not indeed be found bodiless69—that the mortal may be swallowed up by life.70 And God, who wrought us for this end, has given us the earnest of His Spirit that it shall be so. Hence, since we walk by faith, death itself has for us lost all terrors; it will be but an admission into the nearer presence of our Lord. To please Him is our sole ambition, because we shall each stand before His tribunal to receive the things done by the body;—to be paid in kind fur our good and evil, not by arbitrary infliction, but by natural result.71 This is our awful belief, and we strive to make it yours.72 To God our sincerity is manifest already, and we hope that it will be to your consciences, since we tell you all this not by way of commending ourselves, but that you may have something of which to boast about us against those whose boasts are but of superficial things. They call us mad73—well, if so, it is for God; or if we be sober–minded, it is for you.74 Our one constraining motive is Christ’s love. Since He died for all, all in His death died to sin, and therefore the reason of His death was that we may not live to ourselves, but to Him who died and rose again for us. From henceforth, then, we recognise no relation to Him which is not purely spiritual. Your Jerusalem emissaries boast that they knew the living Christ; and in consequence maintain their superiority to us. If we ever recognised any such claim—if we ever relied on having seen the living Christ—we renounce all such views from this moment.75 ‘He who is in Christ is a new creation; the old things are passed away; lo! all things have become new.’ It is the spiritual Christ, the glorified Christ—whom God made to be sin for us—in whom God reconciled the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them—whom we preach; and our ministry is the Ministry of Reconciliation which God entrusted to us, and in virtue of which we, as ambassadors on Christ’s behalf, entreat you to be reconciled to God. “Him who knew not sin He made sin on our behalf, that we may become the righteousness of God in Him.’76 As His fellow–workers we entreat you, then, not to render null the acceptance of His grace in this the day of salvation, and that this our ministry may not be blamed, we give no legitimate cause of offence in anything, but in everything commend ourselves77 as ministers of God “in much endurance, in tribulations, in necessities, in pressure of circumstance, in blows, in prisons, in tumults, in toils, in spells of sleeplessness, in fastings, in pureness, in knowledge, in long–suffering, in kindness, in the Holy Spirit, in love unfeigned, in the word of truth, in the power of God, by the arms of righteousness on the right and left, by glory and dishonour, by ill report and good report; as deceivers and yet true, as being ignored and yet recognised, as dying and behold we live, as being chastened yet not being slain, as being grieved and yet rejoicing, as paupers yet enriching many, as having nothing yet as having all things in full possession.”78
He may well appeal to this outburst of impassioned eloquence as a proof that his mouth is open and his heart enlarged towards them, and as the ground of entreaty that, instead of their narrow jealousies and suspicions, they would, as sons, love him with the same large–heartedness, and so repay him in kind, and separate themselves from their incongruous yoke–fellowship with unbelief79—the unnatural participations, symphonies, agreements of righteousness and light with lawlessness and darkness, of Christ with worthlessness,80 of God’s temple with idols, which forfeited the glorious promises of God.81 Let them cleanse themselves from these corruptions from within and from without. And then to clench all that he has said, and for the present to conclude the subject, he cries, ‘Receive us! we wronged nobody, ruined nobody, defrauded nobody—such charges against us are simply false. I do not allude to them to condemn you. I have said already that you are in my heart to die together and live together. I speak thus boldly because of the consolation and superabundant joy—in the midst of all the tribulations—which came on me in Macedonia with overwhelming intensity—without, battles; within, fears. But God, who consoleth the humble,82 consoled us by the coming of Titus, and the good news about your reception of my letter, and the yearning for me, and the lamentation, and the zeal which it awoke on my behalf. At one time I regretted that I had written it, but, though it pained you, I regret it no longer, because the pain was a holy and a healing pain, which awoke earnestness in you—self–defence and indignation against wrong, and a fear and yearning towards me, and zeal for God, and punishment of the offender. It was not to take either one side or the other in the quarrel that I wrote to you, but that your allegiance and love to me might be manifested to yourselves83 before God. I did not care for those people—their offence and quarrel. I cared only for you. And you stood the test. You justified all that I had boasted to Titus about you, and the respect and submission with which you received him have inspired me with deep joy on his account, and him with a deep affection for you. I rejoice, then, that in everything I am in good heart about you.’84
He proceeds to give them a proof of it. The churches of Macedonia, he tells them, poor as they are,85 afflicted as they are, yet with a spontaneous liberality, absolute self–devotion, and affectionate enthusiasm for his wishes, giving themselves first to God beyond his hopes, had not only subscribed largely to the collection for the saints, but had entreated him to take part in its management. Encouraged by this, he had asked Titus to finish the arrangement of this matter with the rest of his good work among them. As they abounded in so many gifts and graces, let them abound in this. He did not want to order them, he only told them what others had done, and asked (not on his own behalf) a proof of their love, even as Christ had set them the example of enriching others by His own poverty. They had begun the collection first, but Macedonia had finished it first. They need not give more than they could afford, for God looked not to the gift, but to the spirit of the giver. Nor did he wish to pauperise them in order to set others at ease, but only to establish between Jewish and Gentile churches a reciprocity of aid in time of need. Titus had gladly accepted the commission, and with him he sent the brother, whose praise in the Gospel is known in all the churches, and who has been specially elected by the churches to this office; since so great was Paul’s determination to give not the slightest handle to mean insinuations, that he would have nothing to do with the money himself.86 With Titus and this brother he sent a third, whose earnestness had been often tested in many circumstances, and who was now specially stimulated by his confidence in the Corinthians. If they wanted to know anything about these three visitors, Titus was his partner and fellow–worker towards them; the other two brethren were delegates of the churches,87 the glory of Christ. Let the Corinthians give a proof of their love, and a justification to all churches of his boasting about them. As to the general desirability of the collection he surely need say nothing. He had been boasting of their zeal, and had told the Macedonian churches that the Achaians had been ready a year ago. In this there was some reason to fear that he had been in error, having mistaken their ready professions for actual accomplishment. He had therefore sent on these brethren, lest, if Macedonians came with him on his arrival, and found them unprepared, he—to say nothing of them—should be ashamed of a boast which would turn out to be false. He exhorts them, therefore, to willing liberality, trusting that God would reward them. Let them give beneficently, not grudgingly. “But (notice) this— He who soweth sparingly, sparingly also shall reap, and he who soweth with blessings, with blessings.”88 “And God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that in everything, always, having all sufficiency, ye may abound to every good work.” And this collection was not only for the aid of the saints, but also for the glory of God by the, thanksgiving to Him, and prayer for them which it called forth. The recipients would glorify God for it as a sign of genuine religion, and would yearn towards them in love, because of the grace of God abounding in them. “Thanks,” he says, identifying himself with the feelings of the grateful recipients—“thanks to God for His unspeakable gift.”89
At this point the whole tone of the Epistle changes— changes so completely that, in this section of it (10:1– 13:10), many have not only seen an entirely separate letter, but have even with much plausibility identified it with that stern missive alluded to in 7:8–12, which caused the Corinthians so much pain, and stirred them up to such vigorous exertion, which is usually identified with the first extant Epistle.90 It is difficult to accept any such hypothesis in the teeth of the evidence of all manuscripts; and when we remember the perpetual interchange of news between different Churches, it is a much simpler and more natural supposition that, as the first part of the letter had been written while he was in anxiety about them, and the second after his mind had been relieved by the arrival of Titus, so this third part of the letter was written after the arrival of some other messenger, who bore the disastrous tidings that some teacher had come from Jerusalem whose opposition to St. Paul had been more marked and more unscrupulous than any with which he had yet been obliged to deal. However that may be, certain it is that these chapters are written in a very different mood from the former.91 There is in them none of the tender effusiveness and earnest praise which we have been hearing, but a tone of suppressed indignation, in which tenderness, struggling with bitter irony, in some places renders the language laboured and obscure,92 like the words of one who with difficulty restrains himself from saying all that his emotion might suggest. Yet it is deeply interesting to observe that “the meekness and gentleness of Christ” reigns throughout all this irony, and he utters no word of malediction like those of the Psalmists. And there is also a tone of commanding authority, which the writer is driven to assume as a last resource, since all forbearance has been so grievously misunderstood. Some among them—one person in particular93—had been passing their censures and criticisms on St. Paul very freely, saying that his person was mean;94 that he was untutored in speech;95 that he was only bold in letters, and at a distance; that he walked “according to the flesh;”96 that he was certainly a weakling, and probably a madman.97 They had been urging their own near connexion with Christ as a subject of self–commendation;98 had been preaching another Jesus, and a different Gospel, and imparting a different spirit;99 had been boasting immeasurably of their superiority, though they were thrusting themselves into spheres of work in which they had not laboured;100 and by whispered seductions had been beguiling the Corinthians from the simplicity of their original faith.101 In contrast to the self–supporting toils and forbearance of St. Paul, these men and their coryphaeus had maintained their claim to Apostolic authority by an insolence, rapacity, and violence,102 which made Paul ironically remark that his weakness in having any consideration for his converts, instead of lording it over them, had been a disgrace to him. And, strange to say, the ministry and doctrine of this person and his elique had awakened a distinct echo in the hearts of the unstable Corinthians. They had taken them at their own estimate; had been dazzled by their outrageous pretensions; benumbed by the “torpedo–touch” of their avarice; and confirmed in a bold disregard for the wishes and regulations of their true Teacher.103
It is at these intruders that St. Paul hurls his indignant, ironical, unanswerable apology. “Mean as he was of aspect,”104 he entreats them by the gentleness and mildness of Christ that when he came he might not be forced to show that if “he walked after the flesh,” at any rate the weapons he wielded were not after the flesh, but strong enough to humble insolence, and punish disobedience, and rase the strongholds of opposition, and take captive every thought into the obedience of Christ. Did they judge by outward appearance? They should find that he was as near to Christ as any member of the party that used His name. They should find that his personal action, founded on a power of which he well might boast, but which God had given him for their edification, not for destruction, could be as weighty and powerful, as calculated to terrify them, as his letters.105 He would not, indeed, venture to enter with them into the mean arena of personal comparisons,106 which proved the unwisdom of his opponents; nor would he imitate them in stretching his boasts to an illimitable extent. He would confine these boasts to the range of the measuring–line which God had given him, and which was quite large enough without any over–straining to reach to them, even as His Gospel had first reached them; for, unlike his opponents, he was not exercising these boasts in spheres of labour not his own, but had hope that, as their faith enlarged, he would be still more highly esteemed, and the limit of his work extended to yet wider and untried regions. Let the boaster then boast in the Lord, since the test of a right to boast was not in self–commendation, but in the commendation of the Lord.107
He entreats them to bear with him, just a little, in this folly—nay, he is sure they do so.108 He feels for them a godly jealousy, desiring to present them as a chaste virgin to Christ, but fearful lest they should be seduced from their simplicity as the serpent beguiled Eve. It would have been easy for them (it appears) to tolerate this new preacher109 if he is preaching another Jesus, a different spirit, a different gospel; but he professes to preach the same, and such being the case he had no more authority than Paul, who claimed that he had in no respect fallen short of the most super–apostolic Apostles.110 A mere laic in eloquence he might be, but there was at any rate no defect in his knowledge; and the proof of this as regards them was obvious in everything among all men,111 unless, indeed, he had transgressed by humiliating himself for their exaltation by preaching to them gratuitously. Other Churches he plundered, preaching to the Corinthian, and being paid his wages by others. And though he was in positive want while among them, he did not benumb them with his exactions, as though he were some gymnotus, but was helped by Macedonians, and kept and would keep himself from laying any burden whatever on them. That boast no one should obstruct,112 not (God knows) because he did not love them, but because he would cut off the handle from those who wanted a handle, and that, in this topic of boasting, he and his opponents might be on equal grounds. The last remark is a keen sarcasm, since, if they charged Paul with taking money, they charged him with the very thing which he did not do, and which they did.113 “For such,” he adds with passionate severity, “are false Apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into Apostles of Christ; nor is this to be wondered at, for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.114 It is no great thing then, if also His ministers transform themselves as ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works. Again I say, Let no one think me a fool; or, if you do, receive me even as you would receive a fool, that I too, as well as they, may boast a little.” He claims nothing lofty or sacred or spiritual for this determined boasting. It was a folly, but not one of his own choosing. Since many adopted this worldly style of boasting, he would meet them with their own weapons; and the Corinthians, since they were so wise, would, he was sure, gladly tolerate mere harmless fools, seeing that they tolerated people much more objectionable—people who enslaved, devoured,115 took them in—people who assumed the most arrogant pretensions—people who smote them in the face.116 “Of course all this is to my discredit, it shows how weak I was in not adopting a similar line of conduct. Yet, speaking in this foolish way, I possess every qualification which inspires them with this audacity. I, like them, am a Hebrew, an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham;117 I am not only, as they claim to be, a minister of Christ, but (I am speaking in downright madness) something more.” And then follows the most marvellous fragment ever written of any biography; a fragment beside which the most imperilled lives of the most suffering saints shrink into insignificance, and which shows us how fractional at the best is our knowledge of the details of St. Paul’s life—“in toils more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in prisons more abundantly, in deaths oft; of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and day have I spent in the deep;118 in journeyings often; in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own race, in perils from Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in toil and weariness, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often; besides the things additional to all these, the care which daily besets me,119 my anxiety for all the Churches. Who is weak, and I share not his weakness? who is made to stumble, and I do not burn with indignation? If I must boast, I will boast of this, the weakness to which I alluded. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed for evermore, knoweth that I am not lying. In Damascus the ethnarch of Aretas the king was guarding the city of the Dasmascenes, wishing to seize me; and through a window in a large basket, I was let down through the wall, and escaped his hands.”120
Such had been his “preparation of feebleness,” without which he could neither have been what he was, nor have done what he did. Such is one glimpse of a life never since equalled in self–devotion, as it was also “previously without precedent in the history of the world.” Here he breaks off that part of the subject. Did he intend similarly to detail a series of other hair–breadth escapes? or glancing retrospectively at his perils, does he end with the earliest and most ignominous? Or was it never his intention to enter into such a narrative, and did he merely mention the instance of ignominious escape at Damascus, so revolting to the natural dignity of an Oriental and a Rabbi, as a climax of the disgraces he had borne? We cannot tell. At that point, either because he was interrupted, or because his mood changed, or because it occurred to him that he had already shown his ample superiority in the “weakness” of voluntary humiliation to even the most “super–apostolic Apostles,” he here stops short, and so deprives us of a tale inestimably precious, which the whole world might have read with breathless interest, and from which it might have learnt invaluable lessons. However that may be, he suddenly exclaims, “Of course it is not expedient for me to boast.121 I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord.” I know a man in Christ fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body122 I know not, God knows) snatched such an one as far as the third heaven.123 And I know such a man (whether in the body or apart from the body I know not, God knows) that he was snatched into Paradise, and heard unspeakable utterances which it is not lawful for man to speak. Of such an one I will boast—but of myself I will not boast except in these weaknesses; for even should I wish to boast I shall not be a fool; for I will speak the truth. But I forbear lest any one should estimate about me above what he sees me to be, or hears at all from me. And to prevent my over–exaltation by the excess of the revelation, there was given me a stake in the flesh,124 a messenger of Satan to buffet me, that I may not be over–exalted. About this I thrice besought the Lord that it (or he) may stand off from me. And He has said to me, ‘My grace sufficeth thee; for my power is perfected in weakness.’ Most gladly then will I rather boast in my weaknesses that the power of Christ may spread a tent over me.125 Thatis why I boast in weaknesses, insults, necessities, persecutions, distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am mighty. I have become a fool in boasting. You compelled me. For I ought to be ‘commended’ by you. For in no respect was I behind the ‘out and out’ Apostles,126 even though I am nothing. Certainly the signs of an Apostle were wrought among you in all patience, by signs, and portents, and powers. The single fact that I did not benumb you with exactions is your sole point of inferiority to other Churches. Forgive me this injustice!See a third time I am ready to come to you, and I will not benumb you, for I seek not yours but you. Children ought to treasure up for their parents, but so far from receiving from you, I will very gladly spend and be utterly spent for your souls, even though the more exceedingly I love you, the less I am loved. But stop! though I did not burden you, yet ‘being a cunning person I caught you by guile.’ Under the pretext of a collection I got money out of you by my confederates! I ask you, is that a fact? Did Titus or the brother whom I have sent with him over–reach you in any respect? Did not they behave exactly as I have done? You have long been fancying that all this is by way of self–defence to you.127 Do not think it! Youare no judges of mine. My appeal is being made in the presence of God in Christ; yet, beloved, it has all been for your edification. It was not said to defend myself, but to save us from a miserable meeting, lest we mutually find each other what we should not wish; lest I find you buzzing with quarrels, party spirit, outbreaks of rage, self–seekings, slanders, whisperings, inflations, turbulences; and lest, on my return to you, my God humble me in my relation to you, and I shall mourn over many of those who have sinned before and not repented for the uncleanness, fornication, and wantonness which they practised. It is the third time that I am intending to visit you;128 it will be like the confirming evidence of two or three witnesses. I have forewarned, and I now warn these persons once more that, if I come, I will not spare. Since you want a proof that Christ speaks in me, ye shall have it. He was crucified in weakness; we share His death and His weakness, but we shall also share His life and power. Prove yourselves, test yourselves. Is Christ in you, or are you spurious Christians, unable to abide the test? You will, I hope, be forced to recognise that Iam not spurious; but my prayer is that youmay do no evil, not that mygenuineness may be manifested; that, youmay do what is noble, even if therewith webe regarded as spurious. Against the truth, against genuine faithfulness, I have no power, but only for it. Be true to the Gospel, and I shall be powerless; and you will be mighty, and I shall rejoice at the result. I ever pray for this, for your perfection. That is why I write while still absent, in order that when present I may have no need to exercise against you with abrupt severity129 the power which the Lord gave me, and gave me for building up, not for rasing to the ground.”130
He would not end with words in which such uncompromising sternness mingled with his immense and self–sacrificing forbearance. He adds, therefore, in his own hand— “Finally, brethren, farewell; be perfect, be comforted, be united, be at peace; then shall the God of love and peace be with you. Salute one another with a holy kiss. All the saints salute you.” And then follows the fullest of his Apostolic benedictions, “thence adopted by the Church in all ages as the final blessing of her services”—“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all.”131