There were, then, those at Corinth who falsely claimed a monopoly of Christ, and the renewed repudiation of this claim in 2 Co 10' lets in a flood of light upon their position. The claim stands in tlie closest connexion with the dispar- agement of St. Paul's apostolic rank. He bad not, like the Twelve, known Christ personally ; while his witness of Christ, therefore, was second- hand, theirs was direct ; they were, and he was not, appointed to the apostolate by Christ Him- self. This contention was due in the first in- stance, no doubt, to newcomers at Corinth (2 Co Ijn. 23j^ but appears to have imposed upon some native members of the Church (1 Co 1'" f/caoTo? V1J.UIV). This view of the matter is clinched by St. Paul's depreciation of a knowledge of Chri.st ' after the flesh ' (2 Co 5'«). By the time the second Ep. was written, this agitation had grown to far more alarming dimensions than we can trace in our present letter (see CORINTHIANS, Second Ep. to the, § 4 [e]).
While fully recognizing the nature and import- ance of these trxi<rfJJiTa, we must not exaggerate their inten.sity by sup[)Osing that they constituted ' schisms ' in the modein sense of the word. They were dissensions within the society, not separately organized bodies. Our Ep. presupposes through- out a corporate life, impaired indeed, but not destroyed, by these dissensions, and the other burning questions which- existed at Corinth seem to have had no party relation to the <Txi^^ulTa —
I. CORIXTIllA.NS
I. CORINTHIANS
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in some cases tliey may have mitigated their iDtensity by causing cross-divisions. The attempt has indeed been made to connect each of the several evils touched upon in 1 Co with one or other of the parties (e.g. in the work of Rabiger mentioned above), but this entirely outruns the evidence, and assigns to the parties a too funda- mental significance in the life of the Cor. Church. That the enlightened persons, wlio went too far in their emancipation from prejudice about elSw- XiSi/To, were not under Judaizinj' influence is no doubt pretty certain ; but that does not connect them without more ado with the ' party ' of St. Paul or Apollos ; that the th-^s of 15" embody a thoroughly Or. prejudice does not prove that Apollos was their watchword. Nothmg in the morbid exaltation of the gift of tongues (14) be- trays (even in the light of Ac 2" 11") the Petrine partisan.
8. Tidings of the (rxdr/uiTo reached St. Paul for the first time through some persons described by him as ol X\6i;5 (1"). These were probably, by the analogy of St. Paul's language elsewhere, slaves. \V nether their mistress was a Christian, and where she lived, are uncertain points (Chloe). Stephanas, who had a household of his own ( I'" 16"), can hardly have been one of o! X\67)j. Stephanas and his companions must have reached St. Paul after Chloe's people ; they to some extent allayed the disquieting impression which the news of the latter had produced (16""). Whether they were the carriers of a letter from Corinth is not quite clear. Such a letter, in any case, reached the apostle about this time. He begins to answer it in 7' ; its contents may be inferred to be un- connected with the matters dealt with in 1-6 — even, probably, with the misunderstood injunc- tion of the apostle in b"'-. The Corinthians con- sulted him about marriage and its problems (7), probably about fiSaXoBirra (8-10), about the veiling of women in public worship (IP'), and not im- probably about Tvcv/iaTiKd ; the Xoyia (16") was verj' likely another matter upon which they con- sulted St. Paul— probably in reply to some pre- vious indication of^ his wish that something should be done for the purpose. Before the receipt of the letter from Corinth, as it would seem, but after the arrival of Chloe's people, St. Paul had instructed Timotliv, whom he was cuiiiloying for a mission to Macedonia (Ac 19-^), to proceed after- wards to Corinth and endeavour to restore dis- cipline (4" IB'"- "). But the task required a strong man, and St. Paul is evidently anxious as to Timothy's reception. And as an opportunity, probably the Cor. letter and the visit ot Stcplian.is ind his party, offered itself, shortly after Timothy's departure, for tlie dispatch of a letter, tlie apostle penned the Epistle before us. After a preamble of guarded but sincere general commendation (1*'), he deals (l"'-0) with the more urgent matters for blame: the a-xlafuiTa (1-4), the case of incest (.5), litigation before heathen courts (6'""), and immor- ality generally (6'""). He then takes up the Cor. letter, and answers its inquiries about marriajj;e in general (7''), the duties of various classes in relation to marriage ('■**), and specially the duty of the unmarried, or rather of the parents of virgins, as regards the question of marrying (^o-w). Then follows the difficult question of the eiSu\6- t>vr„, which brings out the principle that privilege is to be exercised only subject to considerations of the higher expediency (8-10) ; to exercise it with- out regard to this, leads men to overstep its lawful limits UO"'*"). Next follows a series of matters re- lating to public worsliip (U'-H): first, the veiling of women (U'''"'); then the disorders connectea with the Eucharist (11"-"); then (12-14) the ir«i/- iMTmi. The principle whicli emerges here is closely