the money to Jerus. (Ac 20-'); but it seems possible that the Corinthians asked either St. Paul himself or one of the envoys mentioned in 2 Co 8'*"-- to act as their stewartl.
The develo|)ment of tlie Church in C. between A.I). 53 and 57, and the kinds of difficulties that beset the early steps of this young congregation, are closely connected with the letters of St. Paul (which form our sole authority), and will be more appropriately treated under the heading of CoinxTiiiANs, Ei'isTi.i';s to the; but we must here refer to the probable influence of the char- acter of society in the city on the Church. C. had always been a great seat of the worship of Aphrodite ; and tltat goddess retained in her seat on the Isthmus much of the abominable (and really non-Greek) character of the A.sian and esp. PhuBnician religion from which she sprang, par- ticularly the system of hierodouloi who lived a life of vice as part of the religious ceremonial of the goddess. Hence the viciousness of C. was pro- verbial through the Koman world ; and we can realize how vile was the society out of which the Corinthian congregation arose, how hard it was for them to shake off the influence of early and long association with vicious surroundings, how deep they were likely to sink in cas(! of any lapse from religion. It is no wonder that St. Paul wrote (1 Co 5'") that, if they were to cut themselves off altogether from vicious persons, they ' must needs go out of the world.'
Near C. was the scene of the Isthmian- Games, one of the foin- great athletic contests and festivals of (Jreece. These games were held at the shrine of Poseidon, a ilule way N.E. of the city, about the narrowest p.trt of the Isthmus, and close to the shore of the Saronic (Julf. They were of the usual Greek style, including foot-races, chariot-races, boxing, etc., and the victor's prize was a wreath of the foliage of the pine-trees, which grow abund- antly on the coast. It is usual to say that St. Paul borrows his imagery in such passages as 1 Co <yi*''^ from these games ; but games were uni- versal in all (ireek or semi-Greek cities; and St. Paul, who had lived long in such cities as Tarsus and Antioch, anil had already visited many others, did not require to visit the Isthmian Games in order to write that ' they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize,' or that ' they do it to receive a corruptible crown.' Such allusions would be as luminous to the inhabitants of every other (Jreek city in the Mediteri'anean lands as they were to the Corinthians.
LiTKKATriiR. — Of peneral works on treof^raphy the best are I.*ake'8 Morea, ill. '.f2!i-^iil4, aiid his PeUtimnneitiactt.^^i fl,\ Curtius, rtlojHiuiitnoH, ii. .M4 fl". ; Clark, PelopotmeHUH, 42-(tl. The puide-houks, especially Hiedelter, are cood ; and the articles In works on fJreek ireography are in penerni excellent In regard to Greece proper (fur superior to tho.se on the cities of Asia). The works on the life of St. Paul by Coiiybenre and llowson, ami a host of others, are. as a rule, very (.'ood In their treatment of Corinth. l)n the colnaKe, besides tmhooMlIlliner and Cnrdner already (|iioted, see tiie works of Miunnet, Kckhel, and ealii- lo).'ues' like that of the Hritish Museiiin.
W. M. Kamsay. CORINTHIANS, FIRST EPISTLE TO THE.—
1, Place of the Kplstle in Tradition.
2. 'I'raiismlsslon of the Text.
H. Internal Kvldence and Genuineness.
4. Keeelil Criticism.
^. St. Paul's earlier Helatlons with Corinth.
fi. The Place of the I'.pistle in Pauline Chronolojry.
7. Condition of tlie Corinthian Church.
H. Immediate Circiimstanees and Subjects of the EpUtlc
!). Analysis of the ICpistlo.
10. Importance of the K|ilstlo (general).
11. Doctrinal Importance.
12. The Christian Life, Individual and corporate. In the
K.pistle. 1:1. Scleei iilMloirrnphy.
1. The two companion Epistles to the Corin- thians have occupied from the lirst an unchallenged
484
L CORINTHIANS
I. CORINTH LANS
place among the acknowledged writings of St. Paul. These writings, as is well known, formed a recognized group, under the name of 'the Apostle,' * before the date at which we have evidence of a complete NT Canon. The well-known response t of the Seillitan MartjTS (A.D. 180) at once includes and distinguishes the ' letters of Paul a just man ' among the ' books ' carried about by Christians. That a collection of Pauline letters existed at least as early as the reign of Trajan is a strong inference from the now generally accepted date of the Ignatian letters. J Whether or no the whole thirteen letters, already included in the Muratorian list, were part of this collection from the lirst cannot be discussed here ; but it is of special in- terest for our purpose to note that, although eventu- ally superseded by the modern order, traceable as far back as Origen, a very ancient order of the thir- teen Epp., preserved in Can. Marat, and attested from other quarters, places the Epp. to Corinth at the head of the list. Zahn infers that this order is the primitive one, and that the collection of Pauline Epp. was first made at Corinth.§ In any case, the recognition of our Epistle is coeval with the evidence for any collection of the apostle ; in fact it goes back beyond any clear evidence of the kind. The reference in Clement of Rome (xlvii. 1) is, unlike most of the early references to NT books, a formal appeal to our letter. Echoes of the Ep. are too numerous to be quoted here (a fairly full collection is in Charteris Canonicity, p. 222 If.); they occur in Clement of Rome (seven), Ignatius (nine), Polycarp (three, or with the Martyrdom, four), Justin (at least five) [Hermas, Sim. V. vii. 2, is doubtful, and the same may be said of Didaehe x. fiapiv dfld], and others. From the citations in Hippolj tus we know that the Ophites knew our Ep. ; tlie same is true of Basilides as well as of the later Gnostics. It is unnecessary to set out in detail the evidence for an undisputed fact (see below, § 4).