It is a mark of the outlook of women at Corinth in New Testament times that they competed in the Games. Murphy-O’Connor cites an inscription referring to a number of women, including a redoubtable Hedea, who won the war-chariot race at the Isthmian Games in AD 43, the 200 metres at two other Games, and a prize for young lyre players (SPC, p. 16).
J. A. Fitzmyer draws attention to passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls in which men with any blemish (cripples, diseased, etc.) are excluded from the army or from the assembly, because of the presence of angels (NTS, 4, 1957–58, pp. 48–58). No unseemliness must come before them.
It is even possible that they were physically separated. There was limited accommodation in private homes and the church would have met in the triclinium (dining-room) and/or atrium (courtyard). See Fig. 3, p. 236. It would be difficult to fit in as many as fifty people in the average large house (SPC, p. 158), and it is not unlikely that the first-comers (wealthy friends of the owner?) would go into the triclinium and later arrivals would have to be content with the atrium.
The word is discussed in ch. II of my The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross (Tyndale Press, 1955), and in ch. 1 of The Atonement (IVP, 1983).
W. Schmithals argues that faith here has its usual Pauline sense and that the apostle is opposing the Gnostic view that only a few are Pneumatics (‘spiritual’). Paul is saying that all Christians have faith and are thus Pneumatics (Gnosticism in Corinth [Abingdon, 1971], pp. 172f.). Whatever the truth of Schmithals’s general position, this is surely not what Paul is saying here. Schmithals does not give sufficient attention to the expression ‘to another’. This does not refer to a gift made to all Christians, but to one for a limited number.
A. Q. Morton estimates that ‘a gospel represents in papyrus alone a year’s wages and a New Testament about eight years’ pay of a skilled workman’ (Penguin Science News, no. 43 [Penguin, 1957], p. 26).
I have given a fuller exegesis of this chapter in Testaments of Love (Eerdmans, 1981), pp. 239–259.
Murphy-O’Connor cites many passages referring to Corinthian bronze; clearly its reputation was widespread. He quotes Pliny the Elder, ‘Corinthian bronze is valued before silver and almost even before gold’ (SPC, p. 86). He also quotes On Architecture, a work of Vitruvius published before 27 BC, in which the writer describes how bronze vases were used as resonators in some theatres (SPC, pp. 75–77). According to Vitruvius some of the bronzes that Mummius took from old Corinth had been used in this way. Murphy-O’Connor is sceptical, but the passage is interesting and may illustrate Paul’s ‘resounding’.
See Metzger, pp. 563f. for the textual evidence and the reasons favouring ‘boast’. There is a statement favouring ‘burn’ in R. V. G. Tasker (ed.), The Greek New Testament (Oxford and Cambridge, 1964), p. 436.
See Moulton, Prolegomena, p. 113. He paraphrases the present passage thus: ‘Now I am acquiring knowledge which is only partial at best: then I shall have learnt my lesson, shall know, as God in my mortal life knew me.’
