2 Cor 10-13

Paul’s tone in chapters 10-13 of 2 Corinthians is markedly more severe than in chapters 1-9. There is a particularly stark contrast between 10-13 and chapter 7, where Paul writes how encouraged he felt after Titus reported to him about the church in Corinth. Many commentators resort to a partition theory to explain the change in tone from 2 Cor 10:1 onwards, even though they find no further evidence. But with the Titus-Timothy hypothesis the structure of the letter is explicable:

In 2 Corinthians Titus (also known as Timothy) is sent back to Corinth to finish the collection there, with the aim of bringing it to completion (2 Cor 8:6) by delivering it to Judea (Acts 20:4). The success of the collection therefore requires that the Corinthians trust Titus-Timothy. Now, Titus-Timothy was a two-way envoy, who had recently been tasked with representing the Corinthians to Paul. Therefore, to convince the Corinthians that Titus will represent their interests in reliably delivering their collection to Judea and representing them to the Judeans, Paul must show that Titus has represented the Corinthians’ interests well by reporting only good things about them. This explains why Paul, in a formulaic way, recounts how Titus had given the Corinthians a glowing report (7:5-16).

2 Corinthians was written by Paul, but Titus-Timothy is included as co-sender (1:1). Therefore the Corinthians will naturally take “we” in this letter to mean Paul and Titus-Timothy (except in some cases in chapters 7 and 8 where ‘we’ probably refers to Paul and others such as Gaius, and Aristarchus (Acts 19:29)). Now, Paul mostly uses the first person plural, but switches to the singular from time to time. The cases of first person singular fall into two categories. Some concern occasions when Titus was not present (1:15-17; 1:23-2:2; 2:12-13; 7:7; 7:9; 7:14; 7:16; 8:3; 8:23; 9:1-5; 12:17-18; 12:20-13:3; 13:10). If Timothy, Paul’s co-sender was not Titus we would expect Paul to have used the plural in many of these cases. In all the other cases of the singular Paul is doubting the Corinthians, being critical of them, or making demands of them (1:13; 2:3-10; 5:11; 6:13-7:4; 7:8; 7:12; 8:8-14; 10:1-12:16; 12:20-13:3; 13:6; 13:10). The singulars here therefore suggest that Paul wishes to protect his co-sender, Timothy, from any backlash from the Corinthians. This is explicable if Timothy was Titus, who needed to stay on good terms with the Corinthians.

Paul reserves his harshest criticism of the Corinthians for the final four chapters, which occur after Paul has completed his response to information that he is happy to concede has come from Titus. Titus-Timothy is a co-sender of the letter (2 Cor 1:1), so Paul must make it clear that chapters 10-13 are his alone, and he does so by using mostly the first person singular and by opening the section with the words, "AUTOS DE EGW PAULOS" (I myself Paul) (10:1). 2 Corinthians is therefore a unity that is made up of two parts: chapters 1-9, while written by  Paul are endorsed by Titus-Timothy; but chapters 10-13 are from Paul alone (to avoid any backlash against Titus-Timothy).

In summary, for the sake of the collection Paul a) reported that Titus-Timothy had put the Corinthians in a very positive light (7:5-17); b) detached his co-sender, Titus-Timothy, when being critical of the Corinthians, by use of the first person singular and explicitly in 10:1.

Philippians 3:1b-4:23

Paul’s practice of protecting Timothy by distancing Timothy from his (Paul’s) strongest attacks is evident also in Philippians. In Philippians Paul anticipates that Timothy will visit Philippi before he himself visits Philippi (2:19-24). In fact, Philippians (and 2 Corinthians on our hypothesis) are the only letters that I know of in which a co-sender is anticipated to visit the addressees before the main author. In Philippians, as in 2 Corinthians, there is a false end to the letter (at 3:1a) followed by a sudden change to a more severe tone (from 3:1b). Thus, 3:1b-4:23, like 2 Cor 10-13, is a post script, and may even have been written in Paul’s own hand. While Timothy’s endorsement of the main letter (1:1-3:1a) is implied by 1:1, his involvement in the post script of 3:1b-4:23 is ambiguous and this ambiguity would have served to prevent the letter from creating enmity between Timothy and the Philippians whom he was about to visit.

2 Cor 6:14-7:1

At first sight 2 Cor 6:14-7:1 does not seem to belong to its context. However, Goulder has shown that the sequence of thought in 2 Cor 5-7 makes sense and is the same as the sequence of thought in 1 Cor 4-5.(1) If Titus was Timothy there were just a few months separating 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, so we should not be surprised that 1 Cor 4-5 and 2 Cor 5-7 reflect essentially the same situation.

2 Cor 2:14-7:4

Some have questioned the continuity of thought between 2:12-13 and 2:14-15. However, it make sense if Titus was Timothy. 2:12-13 discusses Paul and Titus-Timothy, and the ‘we’ in 2:14-15 is naturally taken to refer to Paul and Titus-Timothy, his co-sender. In 2:15 “those who are being saved” refers to Paul’s hearers in the Troad, whom he mentions in 2:12-13, while “those who are perishing” refers to the false teachers in Corinth who had caused Titus-Timothy’s delay (2:12-13).

2 Cor 8&9

Some suppose that chapter 9 belongs to a different letter from chapter 8. They feel that Paul could not boast to the Macedonians about the Corinthians (chapter 9) at the same time as boasting to the Corinthians about the Macedonians (chapter 8). However, if Titus was Timothy Paul boasted to the Macedonians about the Corinthians when he arrived in Macedonia. Only later, when Titus arrived with the news that the collection had stalled, did Paul decide to send Titus and the brothers to Corinth to avoid having to withdraw his boasting, which by that time had caused the Macedonians to give generously.There is thus no contradiction between chapters 8 and 9.

2 Corinthians is explicable when Titus is equated with Timothy, but falls to pieces on the two-person assumption.

(1) Michael Goulder, “2 Cor. 6:14-7:1 as an Integral Part of 2 Corinthians”, Nov Test 36, 1 (1994).

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