2 Corinthians 13:1 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

In the mouth of two or three witnesses— These words seem to be quoted from the law of our Saviour, Matthew 18:16 and not from the law of Moses in Deuteronomy; not only because the words are the same with those in St. Matthew, but from the likeness of the case. In Deuteronomy the rule given concerns only judicial trials; in St. Matthew it is a rule given for the management of persuasion, and for the reclaiming of an offender by gentle means, before coming to the utmost extremity; which is the case of St. Paul here. In Deuteronomy the judge was to hear the witnesses, Deuteronomy 17:6; Deuteronomy 19:15. In St. Matthew the party was to hear the witnesses, Matthew 18:17 which was also the case of St. Paul here; the witnesses which he made use of to persuade them being his two epistles. That by witnesses he means his two epistles, is plain, from his way of expressing himself here, where he carefully mentions his telling them twice, viz. before in his former epistle, ch. 1 Corinthians 4:19 and now a second time in his second epistle; and also by the words, as if I were present with you a second time. By our Saviour's rule the offended person was to go twice to the offender; and therefore St. Paul says, as if I were with you a second time, counting his letters as two personal applications to them, as our Saviour directed should be done, before coming to rougher means. Some take the witnesses to be the three messengers by whom his first Epistle is supposed to be sent: but this would not be according to the method prescribed by our Saviour, in the place from which St. Paul takes the words that he uses; for there were no witnesses to be made use of in the first application; neither, if those had been the witnesses meant, would there have been any need for St. Paul so expressly and carefully to have set down—as is present a second time; words which, in that case, would be superfluous. Besides, those three men are no where mentioned to have been sent by him to persuade them, nor the Corinthians required to hear them, or reproved for not having done it. And, lastly, they could not be better witnesses of St. Paul's endeavours twice to gain the Corinthians by fair means before he proceeded to severity, than the Epistles themselves were.