The Apostle Paul seems to have written no fewer than four letters to the Corinthian church, which was in dire need of his counsel and support. The earliest of these letters is mentioned in I Corinthians 5:9, where Paul refers to an epistle which he had previously sent them with reference to immoral practices within the church, and scholars feel that two brief fragments of it are now preserved in I Corinthians 6:12-20 and II Corinthians 6:14 to 7:1, passages in which the apostle pointedly reminds them that they are "the temple of the living God" and that their "body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." Unfortunately, this plea for purity received little practical response, and a few months later, probably during 55 a.d., Paul wrote his second letter, known to us as I Corinthians. Its opening chapters caution the men of Corinth against the continuance of unseemly party feeling in the church; while the apostle would have them beware lest mere intellectuality supplant true wisdom. As the letter proceeds, it becomes clear that the personal freedom of the Corinthians had bordered on license; and in chapter 9 Paul reminds them of how he voluntarily curbed his own liberty of action in many respects in order that he might spread the gospel more widely. (Cf. I Cor. 9:19.) In his concluding chapters Paul calls upon his readers to forget rivalry in cultivating spiritual gifts, reaching the climax of his exhortation in his familiar and beautiful essay on love, while in an equally famous chapter he sees the resurrection of Christ Jesus as a glorious precedent for the resurrection of all them that "are fallen asleep," and of the final doom of death itself. Here, then, is a letter which was surely calculated to awaken and inspire its recipients. The fact that I Corinthians met with but scant response, proves how serious was the situation.
A careful examination of what we term II Corinthians shows that it is made up of two basic portions, differing widely in tone and in point of view. The theme of the opening chapters is one of joy and gratitude, while chapters 10 to 13 are stern and severe. Commentators contend, moreover, that here we have two separate epistles, and that the stern letter was written within a few months of the composition of our I Corinthians, in a final desperate effort to break down the stubborn, self-satisfied intellectuality of the members of that community. In chapters 10 to 13, then, the apostle rebuts various unwarranted charges leveled against him, reminding his readers in no uncertain terms of the great danger which lay in their virtual renunciation of the faith he taught, and in their acceptance of the arguments of the Judaizing party. "Examine yourselves," he cries, "whether ye be in the faith" (II Cor. 13:5).
Titus apparently delivered this letter, and eager though Paul was to learn of its results (II Cor. 2:13), it was possibly many months later when Titus brought the joyous intelligence that Paul's appeals had been both heard and heeded (7:6, 7). This, whenever it occurred, would have been an occasion for such joy and gratitude as are expressed in II Corinthians 1-9, considered by many the apostle's fourth and final letter to Corinth. At last his hope for them is steadfast (1:7); he finds them standing firm in the faith (1:24).
