But the Wisdom books, as a preparation for the gospel, raised difficulties which they could not solve, and thus pointed forward to the revela- tion of God in Christ ; through them also contact was made with the Greek world ; Judaism and Hellenism met together over the pages of the LXX, especially in its sapiential portions (cf. R. L. Ottley, The Religion of Israel, Cambridge, 1905, pp. 154, 172).
In estimating the influence which OT Wisdom literature had upon thought in the Apostolic Age, regard should be had to the various currents of Judaism, and to the fact that in some cases the Wisdom books have a diflerent outlook from that of the prophetic message. Often ' the counsel of the wise ' was chiefly political and secular ; even Sirach sometimes commends a line of conduct that is more prudential and self-centred than religious. Above all, we should remember the pervasive influence of Hellenism, especially in a centre like Alexandria, where East and West met and mingled (cf. Hort, The Ante-Nicene Fathers, London, 1895, passim). All these influence the conception of Wisdom as it crosses the path of apostolic Christianity.
2. Wisdom in the Apostolic Age. — The discus- sion may be contined to the use of the term in 1 Co 1-3. Other references (Eph P- " S'", Col 1"- f 23. 23) ^yiii ijg covered by that discussion. For it is improbable, e.g., that in CoIossee any definite system was being propagated. The indications point rather to a blend of elements from Eastern faiths with notions and practices current among .lewish circles which were sensible to semi- Alexandrian influences (cf. J. Mofi'att, LNT, Edinburgh, 1911, p. 152).
'The C'lurch of God which is at Corinth' explains the vindication which St. Paul had to make of his gospel and the manner in which he presented it as well as the difficulties he found in the defence of Christian teaching and social order. For Corinth was the city of licence. ' He was here confronted not merely by the old religion of polj'theism, not onlj' by a stunted or degraded moral sense ; the greatest barrier was the prevail-
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ing mode of thought, the spihtuiil iitinosphere, the habit ot judging everything uecording to the form, the rhetoric, and tlie diizzling dialectic with which it was presented, the liahit of accepting nothing, of even being willing to hear nothing, which did not respond to these deiiiaiuls ' (C. von Weizsiicker, I'hc Apostolic Age, i. [London, 1897] 311). ' Corin- thian words ' w as only another synonym for rhetoric and the frothy speech w ith which one intellectual party confuted the opinions of another.
It was not strange, therefore, that these parties .should be perpetuated inside the Christian Church, where Jew and Greek met one another, each with his contribution to the preparation for the gospel, or his idiosj-ncrasj' of thouglit inherited from his fathers. Krom this there sprang up what has been called 'a Griecised Judaism,' an anticipation of the later Gnostic systems, which endeavoured to construct a theology from an allegorical inter- pretation of the OT, the loftier forms of philosophy, and also from the ideas and mythologies of various Eastern religions. The ])rocess is seen in Clement of Alexandria (Strom, ii. 480 [P.]), whose leading idea is that the Divinely ordained preparation for the gospel ran in two parallel lines, that of the Jewish Law and Prophets, and that of Greek Philosophy (cf. Hort, Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 88). Thus, in Corinth, Hellenism and Judaism met and mingled, and there sprang from the combination the pseudo-philosophy which is the morbid gi-owth of an intellectual age among a people that has passed its meridian.
The intellectual ferment imported from the city and the schools into the church at Corinth mani- fested itself in an outcrop of party-feeling and division which at first was of Jewish origin. But the corrupting leaven soon spread in a community that Clement of Rome {Letter to the Church of Corinth, iii.) characterized as prone to faction and quarrel (ffrdais), and led away by an unrighteous and impious jealousy (j'^Xos).
The difficulties of the Church were increased by the fact that in Corinth the Christian religion had to find its footing on Grteco-Koman soil. It was not easy for Hellenic thought to fit itself to the new faith whose centre was a Cross, and one can sj'uipathize with, or at least understand, men of an intellectual type who honestly thought they were doing a service to the good cause in presenting Christianity as a (jotpla, and proclaiming its message in terms of the philosophy of the day. ' Greeks seek after wisdom,' but St. Paul's speech and the thing he preached were not in persuasive words of wisdom (1 Co 2*"" RVm). There is no ground for connecting Apollos with the special method favoured by the Corinthians, which departed from St. Paul's positive doctrine of the Christ, though it may well have been that the eloquent Alex- andrian's teaching ' awakened a tendency to further free speculation ' (Weizsiicker, i. 322).
From St. Paul's First Epistle we are left in no doubt as to the substance of his first gospel preaching in Corinth. He did not ' begin by opposing idolatry and inculcating monotheism,' and so ' advancing from this basis to the doctrine of redemption, of Christ. . . . He began with the mystery of redemption. ... He did not begin with those rational jjrinciples that might have paved the way for his gospel, but he presented to his hearers in all its strangeness, yet in all its power, the doctrine of the cross' (Weizsacker, i. 314 f.). These are the historical facts he imparted to them in the first instance : ' I delivered unto you first of all that which also I received, how that Christ died for our sins accord- ing to the scriptures ; and that he was buried ; and that he hath been raised on the third day according to the scriptures ; and that he appeared to Cephas ;