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is identically the same in both verses, being in each case the Aorist, egrapsa. So,
therefore, no argument that is built upon the difference between "I wrote" and "I have
written" is of any value. Further, the A.V. is vague--"I wrote unto you in an epistle."
This also is an incorrect translation, en te epistole being strictly, "in the epistle", and, as
we will show immediately, meaning "in this epistle". In four other passages the
translators have so understood the article:--
"I, Tertius, who wrote this epistle" (Rom. 16: 32).
"And when this epistle is read" (Col. 4: 16).
"I charge you that this epistle be read" (I Thess. 5: 27).
"If any many obey not our word by this epistle" (II Thess. 3: 14).
The apostle's words in I Cor. 5: 9-11 are therefore as follows: "I have written* unto
you in this epistle not to company with fornicators."
This is evident from the first four verses of the same chapter. The apostle feels,
however, that he must draw attention to what he does not teach lest the Corinthians
should be led to a totally impracticable conclusion. He says, in effect, My strong
denunciation of this sin, and the necessity that you should keep yourselves from contact
with those who practice it, may lead some of you to withdraw from all the relationships
of daily life. If this is to be, then "you must needs go out of the world". Let me,
therefore, repeat what I have already said: "But now I have written to you not to
company with any one named a brother" if he be guilty of these things, no not so much as
to eat with him. But this rule of conduct applies only to the church, and not to the outside
world:--
"For what have I to do to judge them that are without? (`also' omitted in Vat. MSS).
Do not you judge them that are within? But them that are without God judgeth.
Therefore put out the wicked person from among yourselves."
The use of egrapsa, the Aorist, in the sense of something just written, can be seen in
I Cor. 9: 15, II Cor. 2: 3, Gal. 6: 11, Eph. 3: 3, and Philemon 19, 21.
It is not to be imagined that the apostle, upon whom came the burden of all the
churches, did not write countless epistles beside the fourteen that are found in the N.T.,
but, as Calim says:--
"The Lord has by His providence consecrated as a perpetual memorial those which He
knew were necessary for His church; and, however little there may be, this was not a
matter of chance, but by the wonderful counsel of God the volume of the Scripture has
been formed as we have it."
[* -- The use of the English Perfect for the Aorist is allowable in many
instances, but the whole question of the true translation of this most
important tense still awaits further and fuller research.]