2 Corinthians 6:14-18

14–7:1. Warning against heathen modes of thought and life. The Corinthians are to keep themselves apart from such influence. There is here no unintelligible change of topic; and it is exaggeration to speak of “a remarkable dislocation of the argument” and “disconnexion with the context.” It is true that 2 Corinthians 7:2 would fit on very well to 2 Corinthians 6:13 : it is indeed a return to the topic of 2 Corinthians 6:11-13. But that is no sufficient reason for maintaining, against all textual evidence, that this is an interpolation from the lost letter of 1 Corinthians 5:9, or some other lost letter. That the end of one of these lost letters might get attached to another letter is intelligible. One might be imperfect at the end as the other was at the beginning. But could a fragment of one roll get inserted into the middle of another roll? That this passage is wholly spurious, an interpolation composed by an early scribe, is very improbable. Βελίαρ, μετοχή, συμφώνησίς, συγκάθεσις, and μολυσμός are found nowhere else in the N.T.; but ἅπαξ λεγόμενα abound in S. Paul’s letters. There are about 38 such words in Colossians, about 41 in Philippians, about 42 in Ephesians. And it should be noticed that three out of the five in this passage are the result of trying to vary the word for union and fellowship. The tone of these verses is thoroughly Pauline; and after the hint given in 2 Corinthians 6:1 this exhortation to purity of faith and conduct comes in here naturally enough. The return to the affectionate appeal of 2 Corinthians 6:11-13, as soon as the exhortation is concluded, is also quite natural. So long a letter as 2 Corinthians was of course not all written at one sitting. There may have been many sittings, and some of the rapid changes in the letter may be due to this cause. But, apart from this possibility, S. Paul is given to rapid changes, especially in this letter. “Probably there is no literary work in which the cross-currents of feeling are so violent and so frequent” (Chase in the Classical Review, April 1890, p. 151: see also July, p. 317, and October, p. 359).