There is no part of the New Testament canon, about the date of which
all authorities are so well agreed, as on the place and time, at which
Paul wrote his second epistle to the Corinthians. All authorities,
ancient and modern, decide that it was written during the second visit
of Paul to Macedonia; although as to the exact year in which this took
place, they are not entirely unanimous. The passages in the epistle
itself, which refer to Macedonia as the region in which the apostle
then was, are so numerous indeed, that there can be no evasion of their
evidence. A great topic of interest with him, at the time of writing
this epistle, was the collecting of the contributions proposed for
the relief of the Christian brethren in Jerusalem; and upon this he
enlarges much, informing the Corinthians of the great progress he
was making in Macedonia in this benevolent undertaking, and what high
hopes he had entertained and expressed to the Macedonians, of the zeal
and ability of those in Achaia, about the contributions. This matter
had been noticed and arranged by him, in his former epistle to them,
as already noticed, and he now proposed to send forward Titus and
another person, (who is commonly supposed to be Luke,) to take charge
of these funds, thus collected. He speaks of coming also himself,
after a little time, and makes some allusions to the difficulties which
had constituted the subject of the great part of his former epistle.
Of their amendment in the particulars then so severely censured, he
had received a full account through Titus, when that beloved brother
came on from Corinth, to join Paul in Macedonia. Paul assures the
Corinthians of the very great joy caused in him, by the good news
of their moral and spiritual improvement, and renews his ardent
protestations of deep affection for them. The incestuous person, whom
they had excommunicated, in conformity with the denunciatory directions
given in the former epistle, he now forgives; and as the offender has
since appeared to be truly penitent, he now urges his restoration to
the consolations of Christian fellowship, lest he should be swallowed
up with too much sorrow. He defends his apostolic character for
prudence and decision, against those who considered his change of
plans about coming directly from Ephesus to Corinth, as an exhibition
of lightness and unsettled purpose. His real object in this delay and
change of purpose, as he tells them, was, that they might have time
to profit by the reproofs contained in his former epistle, so that by
the removal of the evils of which he so bitterly complained, he might
finally be enabled to come to them, not in sorrow, nor in heaviness
for their sins, but in joy for their reformation. This fervent hope
had been fulfilled by the coming of Titus to Macedonia, for whom he
had waited in vain, with so much anxiety at Troas, as the expected
messenger of these tidings of their spiritual condition; and he was now
therefore prepared to pass on to them from Macedonia, to which region
he tells them he had gone from Troas, instead of to Corinth, because
he had been disappointed about meeting Titus on the eastern side of
the Aegean. With the exception of these things, the epistle is taken up
with a very ample and eloquent exhibition of his true powers and office
as an apostle; and in the course of this argument, so necessary for
the re-establishment of his authority among those who had lately been
disposed to contemn it, he makes many very interesting allusions to his
own personal history. The date of the epistle is commonly supposed, and
with good reason, to be A. D. 58, the fifth of Nero’s reign, and one
year after the preceding epistle.
Illustration: MILETUS. Acts xx. 15‒17.
“Chapter ii. 12, 13. ‘When I came to Troas to preach Christ’s
gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord, I had no rest
in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother; but taking
my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.’
“To establish a conformity between this passage and the history,
nothing more is necessary to be presumed, than that St. Paul
proceeded from Ephesus to Macedonia, upon the same course by
which he came back from Macedonia to Ephesus, or rather to
Miletus in the neighborhood of Ephesus; in other words, that,
in his journey to the peninsula of Greece, he went and returned
the same way. St. Paul is now in Macedonia, where he had lately
arrived from Ephesus. Our quotation imports that in his journey
he had stopped at Troas. Of this, the history says nothing,
leaving us only the short account, ‘that Paul departed from
Ephesus, for to go into Macedonia.’ But the history says, that
in his _return_ from Macedonia to Ephesus, ‘Paul sailed from
Philippi to _Troas_; and that, when the disciples came together
on the first day of the week, to break bread, Paul preached
unto them all night; that from Troas he went by land to Assos;
from Assos, taking ship and coasting along the front of Asia
Minor, he came by Mitylene to Miletus.’ Which account proves,
first, that Troas lay in the way by which St. Paul passed
between Ephesus and Macedonia; secondly, that he had disciples
there. In one journey between these two places, the epistle, and
in another journey between the same places, the history makes
him stop at this city. Of the first journey he is made to say,
‘that a door was in that city opened unto him of the Lord;’ in
the second, we find disciples there collected around him, and
the apostle exercising his ministry, with, what was even in him,
more than ordinary zeal and labor. The epistle, therefore, is
in this instance confirmed, if not by the terms, at least by
the probability of the history; a species of confirmation by
no means to be despised, because, as far as it reaches, it is
evidently uncontrived.
“Grotius, I know, refers the arrival at Troas, to which the
epistle alludes, to a different period, but I think very
improbably; for nothing appears to me more certain, than that
the meeting with Titus, which St. Paul expected at Troas,
was the same meeting which took place in Macedonia, viz. upon
Titus’s coming out of Greece. In the quotation before us, he
tells the Corinthians, ‘When I came to Troas, I had no rest in
my spirit, because I found not Titus, my brother; but, taking my
leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.’ Then in the
seventh chapter he writes, ‘When we were come into Macedonia,
our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side;
without were fightings, within were fears; nevertheless, God,
that comforteth them that are cast down, comforted us by the
coming of Titus.’ These two passages plainly relate to the
same journey of Titus, in meeting with whom St. Paul had been
disappointed at Troas, and rejoiced in Macedonia. And amongst
other reasons which fix the former passage to the coming of
Titus out of Greece, is the consideration, that it was nothing
to the Corinthians that St. Paul did not meet with Titus at
Troas, were it not that he was to bring intelligence from
Corinth. The mention of the disappointment in this place, upon
any other supposition, is irrelative.” (Paley’s Horae Paulinae.
2 Corinthians No. VIII.)