“the foolish things of the world,” its ‘‘ weak” and ‘' baseborn,”’ formed the majority of its constituency (1 Cor. i. 27 ff.)—amongst them many who had been steeped in pagan vice (vi. 9 ff.).
The moral transformation effected in this corrupt material was accompanied by a notable mental quickening. The Hellenic intel- lect awoke at the touch of spiritual faith. This first Christian society planted upon Greek soil exhibited the characteristic qualities of the race—qualities however of Greece in her decadence rather than her prime. Amongst so many freshly awakened and eager but undisciplined minds, the Greek intellectualism took on a crude and shallow form; it betrayed a childish conceit and fondness for rhe- toric and philosophical jargon (i. 17, ii. 1-5, etc.), and allied itself with the factiousness that was the inveterate curse of Greece. The Corinthian talent in matters of ‘‘ word and knowledge” ran into emulation and frivolous disputes. “The habit of seeming to know all about most things, and of being able to talk glibly about most things, would naturally tend to an excess of individuality, and a diminished sense of corporate responsibilities. This fact supplies, uncer many different forms, the main drift of 1 Cornithians” (Hort, Ecclesia, p. 129). Even the gifts of the Holy Spirit were abused for purposes of display, edification being often the last thing thought of in their exercise (ΧΗ., xiv.). The excesses which pro- faned the Lord’s Table (xi. 20 ff.), and the unseemly conduct of women in the Church meetings (xi. 3 ff., xiv. 34 ff.), were symptoms of the lawless self-assertion that marred the excellencies of this Church, and turned the abilities of many of its members into an injury rather than a furtherance to its welfare.
Still graver mischief arose from the influence of heathen society. For men breathing the moral atmosphere of Corinth, and whose earlier habits and notions had been formed in this environment, to conceive and maintain a Christian moral ideal was difficult in the extreme. Deplorable relapses occurred when the fervour of con- version had abated, and the Church proved shamefully tolerant towards sins of impurity (1 Cor. ν., 2 Cor. xii. 20 f.). The acuteness of the Greek mind showed itself in antinomian sophistry ; the “liberty” from Jewish ceremonial restrictions claimed by Paul for Gentile Christians was by some construed into a general licence, and carried to a length which shocked not merely.the scruples ‘of fellow-believers but the common moral instincts (vi. 12 ff., viii. 9-13, x. 23 ff., xi. 13 b). The social festivities of Corinth, bound up as they were with idolatry and its impurities, exposed the Church to severe temptation. To draw a hard and fast line in such questions