may indeed mean that for the third time he had prepared to go to Corinth, but this the context does not suggest, and would really amount to nothing. It was not how often he had purposed to visit them, but how often he had actually made the journey, which was the point on which stress is laid. In ch. 13, 1 he says, "This is the third time I am coming to you," which is still more explicit. In ch. 2, 1 he says, " I de- termined I would not come again to you in heaviness." This supposes that he had already made them one sorrowftil visit, i. e. one in which he had been obliged to cause sorrow, as well as to experience it. See also ch. 12, 21, and 13, 2, where ftirther allusion seems to be made to a second visit. Notwithstanding his fi-equent injunctions, the state of things in Corinth seemed to be getting worse. The apostle therefore determined to send Timothy and Erastus to them (1 Cor. 4, 17. Acts 19, 22.) Whether Timothy reached Corinth at this time is doubtful ; and it would seem from 1 Cor. 16, 10, that the apostle himself feared that he might not be able to accomplish all that had been appointed him in Macedonia, and yet get to Corinth be- fore the arrival of this letter. After the departure of Timothy, Paul received such intelligence from the household of Chloe, and from a letter addressed to him by the Corinthians them- selves (1 Cor. 7, 1), that he determined at once to write to them.
§3. State of the Church in Cokinth.
The state of the church in Corinth may be partially inferred from the character and circumstances of the people, but with certainty only from the contents of this and the following epistles. As remarked above, the population of the city was more than ordinarily heterogeneous. The descendants of the colonists sent by Julius Caesar, the Greeks who were attracted to the principal city of their own country, Jews and strangers from all parts of the Roman Empire, were here congregated. The predominant character of the people was doubtless Grecian.
Vlll INTRODUCTION.
The majority of the converts to Christianity were probably Greeks, as distinguished from Jews. (See ch. 12, 1.) In all ages the Greeks were distinguished by their fondness for speculation, then- vanity and love of pleasure, and their party spirit. A church composed of people of these characteristics, with a large infusion of Jewish converts, educated in the midst of refined heathenism, surrounded by all the incentives to in- dulgence, taught to consider pleasure, if not the chief good, yet in any form a good, plied on every hand by philoso- phers and false teachers, might be expected to exhibit the very characteristics which in this epistle are brought so clearly into view.
Their party spirit. " One said I am of Paul, another I am of Apollos ; another I of Cephas, another I of Christ." Much ingenuity and learning have been expended in determining the nature of these party divisions. What may be considered as more or less satisfactorily determined is, 1. That there were factions in the church of Corinth which called themselves by the names above mentioned, and therefore that the names themselves give a clew to the character of the parties. The idea that the names of Paul, Apollos and Cephas are used figuratively, when other teachers were really intended, is i^ unnatural and has so little to sustain it, that it is now almos^ universally repudiated. 2. There can be little doubt that those who called themselves by the name of Paul, or made themselves his partisans, were in the main the Gentile con- verts ; men brought up free fi'om the bondage of the Mosaic law, and free from the influence of Jewish ideas and usages. They were disposed to press to extremes the liberty of the gospel, to regard as indifferent things in themselves sinful, and to treat without respect the scruples of the weak. 3. The in- timate relations which subsisted between Paul and Apollos, as indicated in these epistles, authorizes the inference that it was not on doctrinal grounds that the followers of the latter dif- fered from those of the former. It is probable that those who objected to Paul that he did not preach with the " wisdom of