The city of Corinth was one of the most important port-cities around the Aegean region. Situated at the western end of an isthmus (only about 6km wide) that connects the peninsular of Peloponnesus and the rest of Greece, the city was blessed with two harbours, one opening to the east to the Aegean Sea and another opening to the Tyrrhenian Sea to the west. Trans-shipping at Corinth saved sailors and merchants a long and dangerous journey around the stormy seas along the southern coasts of the Peloponnesus. For this purpose, Corinth had two
ports, Lechaeum (2.5km to the west, and not mentioned in the NT) and Cenchreae (14km on the other side of the isthmus). Attempts to construct a canal between the two ports were attempted in ancient times but nothing successful was accomplished until the late 19th Century; at a width of only 21½m (or 70ft), however, it quickly failed to meet the needs of bigger ships that were quickly coming into use then.
As the power of Rome began spreading out in the 2nd cent BC, it soon came into conflict with the commercial powers of Greece and Carthage who were then dominant in the Mediterranean. In one year, 146, Rome managed to capture and raze to the ground two of their enemies' major cities, Corinth and Carthage. A century later, Julius Caesar gave permission for it to be rebuilt and resettled making it a colony of cosmopolitan freedman from the Roman empire; it quickly regained its former prosperity and strategic importance. When Augustus reorganized the Greek territory he made Corinth the capital of the newly created provice of Achaea, and ruled by its own proconsul.
Corinth was the biggest city Paul had yet encountered, a brash new commercial metropolis . . . It squeezed nearly a quarter of a million people into a comparatively small area, a large proportion being slaves engaged in the unending movement of goods. Slaves or free, Corinthians were rootless, cut off from their country background, drawn from races and districts all over the empire. . . a curiously close parallel to the population of a 20th Century "inner city" . . .
J. C. Pollock, The Apostle, 121.
The ideal of the Corinthian was the reckless development of the individual. The merchant who made his gain by all and every means, the man of pleasure surrendering himself to every lust, the athlete steeled to every bodily exercise and pround of his physical strength, are the true Corinthian types: in a word the man who recognized no superior and no law but his own desires.
von Dobschütz, cited in Leon Morris, 1 Corinthians (TNTC; London: Tyndale Press, 1958), 17,
Most of all Corinth was thoroughly pagan city. The Roman historian, Strabo, reported that the famous temple of Aphrodite in the city boasted a thousand prostitutes.
The proverb ran: 'It is not given to everyone to visit Corinth.' Significantly enough, this was originally a Mediterranean shipmaster's sigh of envy or of satisfaction. Not every captain was lucky enough to be sent on a voyage to Corinth with its ample provision of harlots! By the time Paul visited Corinth, the splendid temple of Aphrodite had not been re-erected, but the cult flourished round the docks and in several of the shrines. Love and licentiousness formed an alloy, which, like the equally famous Corinthian bronze, was exported as well as enjoyed locally. Every Greek knew what a 'Corinthian girl' meant. On the Isthmus itself thousands of the citizens and tourists worshipped Aphrodite as the goddess of common, not celestial, love, or as the Syrian Astarte.
James Moffatt, The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (MNTC; London: Hodder and Stoughton,1938), xviii.
Paul came to Corinth during his Second Missionary Journey (Acts 18:1-17). Paul and his team had come over into Macedonia from Troas following his vision in the night in which a Macedonian man kept calling him to "come over to Mecedonia and help us" (16:9). Things had gone on rather well in Philippi, but the Jewish opposition was harsh in Thessalonica and Berea, and Paul had to leave the cities in a hurry, leaving Silas and Timothy behind. Paul sailed on to Athens, where his attempt at evangelizing the Greeks had not been particularly successful either. Alone—probably discouraged—he arrived at Corinth. Here, however, he met Aquila and Priscilla and began a life-long friendship and partnership that Paul obviously valued highly. Paul would remain in the city for a year and a half. Rejected and opposed by the Jews he "shook out his clothes in protest and said to them, 'Your blood be on your own heads! I am clear of my responsibility. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.'" (v6). Here too he met Their ministry was rewarded with the conversion of "Crispus, the synagogue ruler, and his entire household" (Acts 18:8). The church they founded there, however, would become one of the most difficult and a source of grief as Paul's latter letters to the church would show.
Luke reports of Paul appearing before Gallio, the proconsul, on account of a charge brought against him by the Jews (vv12-17). Since Gallio was appointed proconsul in 51/52 AD, Paul's visit to Corinth must have taken place soon after this. Most commentators hold that Paul arrived in Corinth probably end of 50 or early 51, and stayed about a year and a half, and that 1 Cor was written towards the end of 53 or early 54.
Acts says little about what the church in Corinth was like. But we can guess from what we know of the city and from the issues Paul had to deal with in his two extant letters. Corinth was, as noted above, a major harbour city with all the twisted and fractured culture typical of port cities around the world. Cosmopolitan, street-wise, competitive, brash, tough and rough, quarrelsome, and gossipy come quickly to mind, even if they are only caricature. But korinthiazo "to corinthianize" did not come to be a synonym for 'to fornicate' in the ancient world for nothing. It is certain that the majority of the congregation were converts from this mixed background of dock-workers, slaves, resident merchants and traders. Most of the issues Paul had to deal with in his letters such as sexual promiscuity, participating in pagan feasts, and eating and buying meat that had been offered to idols, as well as seeking arbitration from non-Christians, make best sense in such a setting. Paul says so as much when he—rather sharply—asks them, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth" (1 Cor 1:26). Not that there were no such pretentions. Anyone of us who has ever lived through the painful experience of a church crisis knows how many 'clever' people there are who want to have their say (and think they have the right to do so in a loud voice) no matter how little they actually understand what is going on. The church in Corinth was, therefore, us in our local churches when things go wrong.
Low Chai Hok
©Alberith, 2020