CORINTHIANS. Two Epistles are addressed to this Church, which included not only those who lived at Corinth, but in the adjacent towns of Achaia (the upper portion of the Morea, along the coast of the Gulf of Lepanto). Paul passed eighteen months at Corinth during his second missionary tour, visiting the neighbouring cities, and establishing Churches in them. Corinth was the great centre of commercial traffic on the overland route from Rome to the East; and also between Upper and Lower Greece. It possessed the only good harbour in that quarter, and as it was the shortest and safest route, small vessels were dragged across the isthmus, larger ones transhipped their cargoes, and hence all the trade of the Mediterranean flowed through it, so that "a perpetual fair was held there from year's end to year's end;" to which were added the great annual gatherings of Greeks at the "Isthmian Games" (to which Paul alludes, 1 Cor. ix. 24-27). Hence it was proverbial for wealth, luxury, and profligacy. Its population, and that of Achaia, was mainly foreign, formed of colonists from Cæsar's army, and of manumitted slaves (e.g. Tertius, Quartus, Achaicus, Fortunatus, &c.), settlers from Asia Minor, returned exiles from the islands, and at this time a large influx of Jews lately expelled from Rome (Acts xviii. 2).

Paul's preaching in the synagogue was acceptable till he boldly testified that Jesus was the Messiah, when persecution set in, he was ejected from the community, brought before the Roman governor, and set up a rival Church. His disciples were mostly of the lower orders, partly Jews, but mainly Roman freedmen and heathen Greeks, who became enthusiastic admirers of the apostle. Here he wrote the latter or both of his two Epistles to the Thessalonians, and one to the Romans; immediately after which he returned to Ephesus, and was succeeded in his mission by Apollos, who likewise made many converts. The latter was imperfectly instructed in Christianity, but was well versed in the Jewish Scriptures, and very eloquent. There arose two factions,--a Jewish, clinging to a Pharisaic attachment to the Law; a Gentile, prone to push evangelical freedom to licence: while keeping the right faith, claiming to indulge in even heathen licentiousness. They joined freely in heathen sacrificial feasts; degraded the Holy Communion into a festive banquet; women threw off the usual eastern veil of modest attire; and the Greek love of intellectual speculation and discussion ran riot on sacred subjects, till appeals on Christian disputes were brought before heathen tribunals, and morality was scandalized by even incestuous intercourse.