CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE, two books of the Bible (New Testament). The two letters addressed to the Christian church at Corinth are, with Romans, the longest of the Pauline epistles. They possess a singular interest and value, due to the apostle’s close acquaintance with the members of the church addressed and their circumstances. In consequence of this intimate character the First Epistle to the Corinthians presents a picture, unrivalled in fulness and colour, of the life of a Pauline church, while the Second Epistle, written out of strong feeling, gives a revelation of the innermost feelings and characteristic temperament of Paul himself, such as is not elsewhere to be found. Dealing, as both epistles do, with concrete problems of morals and with such tendencies of thought and life as find their parallel in all times, they are full of instruction to the modern Church; and this instruction increases in effectiveness the better we come to understand ancient modes of thought in their diversity from our own.
Lofty and vivid expression of the apostle’s thought on the highest themes is also to be found here—witness the “Hymn to Love” (1 Cor. xiii.), the declaration of the resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 51-57), or the list of signatures of the true servant of God (2 Cor. vi. 3-10). In important historical statements, also, these epistles stand second to none, not even to Galatians—as may be indicated by a reference to the words about the institution of the Lord’s supper (1 Cor. xi. 23-26) and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor. xv. 1-8); or to the autobiographical utterances in which Paul explains that he was once a persecutor of Christians (1 Cor. xv. 9), mentions his escape from Damascus (2 Cor. xi. 32 f.), describes his coming to Corinth (1 Cor. ii. 1 ff.), enumerates his sufferings for the Gospel (2 Cor. xi. 16-31), tells of his visions (2 Cor. xii. 1-9). In the Corinthian epistles we come in contact, as nowhere else, with the man Paul and his daily life.
The history of Paul’s relations with Corinth can be made out from the Acts and the Epistles with considerable clearness. The chronology of Paul’s life is not at any point surely determinable within a range of less than five years, but it must have been in the autumn of one of the years A.D. 49-53 (the usual chronology has fixed on A.D. 52) that the arrival of Paul in Corinth took place as described in Acts xviii. 1. In his so-called second missionary journey Paul had been driven by irresistible inner impulses to push on into Greece the missionary work already begun in Asia Minor. First he preached in the province of Macedonia, where the work opened auspiciously at Philippi, Thessalonica and Beroea; then, apparently driven out by the violent opposition of the Jews, he moved on to Achaea, and after rather unsuccessful attempts to secure converts among the philosophers of Athens came to Corinth.
This ancient city, taken and destroyed by the Romans in 146 B.C., had been refounded by Julius Caesar as a Roman colony in 46 B.C., settled with Italian colonists, and made a residence of the Roman governor. Its situation on the isthmus of Corinth made it a stage on the greatest of the trade routes between Rome and the East, and it was at this time the commercial capital of Greece. The traditions of licentiousness and sensuality associated with the worship of Aphrodite, which had given rise to the sinister word corinthianize, increased the natural tendencies of a great city to wickedness and wanton luxury. Here, as in all great centres of trade and industry, there was a body of Jews, with a synagogue. The conditions of life in Corinth—the heathen surroundings, the temptations to vice, the competition and disputes of trading life, the controversial arguments of Jews, the alertness of mind of a lively city people, the haughty temper of the inhabitants of the capital—all these are to be seen reflected in the earnest paragraphs of Paul’s two epistles.
The founding of the church in Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. iv. 15) and nearly everything important that we know of Paul’s first visit there will be found, well told, in Acts xviii. 1-18, a passage for which, evidently, the writer of the history had excellent sources of information. Of the somewhat chastened spirit with which Paul came he himself tells in 1 Cor. ii. 1-5. His success was prompt and large, and in the year and six months of his stay a vigorous church was gathered, including Aquila and Priscilla, as well as Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, of whom we hear again in 1 Cor. i. 14; whether Sosthenes, who seems to have succeeded Crispus in his office (Acts xviii. 17), was afterwards converted and became the Christian brother mentioned in i Cor. i. 1 cannot be known. The church evidently consisted mainly of Gentile converts, but with some Jews (i Cor. x. 14, “flee from idolatry”; xii. 2, “when ye were Gentiles “; vii. 18, “was any man called being circumcised?”).
The apostle’s next long stay was at Ephesus, whither he seems to have gone in the course of the same year in which he left Corinth (A.D. 51-55) and where he stayed three years. Before he arrived at Ephesus Aquila and Priscilla, who had settled there, made the acquaintance of Apollos, a Jew from Alexandria, well-educated and zealous, who with imperfect Christian knowledge was preaching the gospel of Jesus to his fellow-countrymen in the synagogue. He presently went to Corinth and carried on Christian work there with success (Acts xviii. 24-28), “I planted,” says Paul (1 Cor. iii. 6), “Apollos watered.” From this point on our information comes from the epistles, of which the first was written from Ephesus before Pentecost of the year in which Paul left that city, i.e. A.D. 54-58 (1 Cor. xvi. 8).
It appears that the church grew in numbers, for Paul refers in 2 Cor. i. 1 to “saints who are in all Achaea.” Its membership was mostly of humble people (1 Cor. i. 26-29), but probably not exclusively so, for Crispus and Stephanas (who with his household was able to render services that may well have been costly, 1 Cor. xvi. 15), Gaius and Erastus (Rom. xvi. 23), would appear to have been persons of substance. The references to law-suits perhaps imply fairly prosperous traders, the tone of the letters suggests considerable education and a reasonable degree of property on the part of many (though not all) of the readers.
The first need of the church for help from Paul seems to have grown out of the dangers from surrounding heathenism. In 1 Cor. v. 9 we read of a letter in which Paul had directed the Christians “not to have company with fornicators.” This letter, so far as we know, opened the correspondence which was maintained during the three years of Paul’s stay in Ephesus, whence there was easy and frequent communication with Corinth. He refers to it in order to explain the injunction which had been (perhaps wilfully) misunderstood and exaggerated.[1]
While at Ephesus Paul was visited by persons of the household of Chloe (1 Cor. i. 11), and by Stephanas with Fortunatus and Achaicus (probably his slaves, xvi. 17). From them and from a letter (vii. 1), which was brought perhaps by Stephanas, he was able to gain the intimate knowledge which the epistles everywhere reveal. The letter from Corinth must have contained inquiries as to practical conduct with regard to marriage (vii. 1), meat offered to idols (viii. 1), and the “spiritual gifts” (xii. 1), and may well have related to other matters, such as the collection of money for Jerusalem (xvi. 1), the visit of Apollos (xvi. 12), the position of women (xi. 2). Paul’s reply includes many other topics. When it was sent, his trusted helper Timothy had also started on his way (probably through Macedonia) to Corinth, to contribute there to the edification of the Christians (iv. 17, xvi. 10). The letter itself was doubtless sent by the hand of returning Corinthians, possibly by the unnamed brethren referred to in xvi. 11, and was expected to arrive before Timothy.