1. Background
1. Background
The geographical position of Corinth, on the narrow neck of land between the Corinthian Gulf (where its port was Lechaeum) and the Saronic Gulf (and the port of Cenchrea) guaranteed its commercial prosperity. Merchants and sailors sent goods across the isthmus rather than risk the long voyage round the rocky, storm-tossed capes at the south of the Peloponnesus.1 Trade routes from east to west intersected those from north to south at this city. Corinth was totally destroyed by the Roman, L. Mummius Achaicus, in 146 BC, but when it was refounded a century later as a Roman colony it speedily regained much of its former greatness.
As the new city was a Roman colony, its inhabitants were at first Romans. Eventually Greeks came back in numbers and the city also attracted people from other races. Included among them was a Jewish population large enough to have a synagogue (Acts 18:4).2 The Roman element3 is illustrated by the number of Latin names associated with Corinth in the New Testament, such as Lucius, Tertius, Gaius, Erastus, Quartus (Rom. 16:21–23), Titius Justus, Crispus (Acts 18:7–8), Fortunatus and Achaicus (1 Cor. 16:17). But Greek ways of thought lie behind some of the questions raised in Paul’s letters to Corinth and the manner in which they are treated. Edwards says of Corinth: ‘Of Greek cities the least Greek, it was at this time the least Roman of Roman colonies.’4 It was a city where ‘Greeks, Latins, Syrians, Asiatics, Egyptians, and Jews, bought and sold, laboured and revelled, quarrelled and hob-nobbed, in the city and its ports, as nowhere else in Greece’.5
Old Corinth had been a by-word for licentiousness,6 and this hotch-potch of races would have hastened the process by which the new Corinth acquired an equally unsavoury reputation. A. M. Hunter says that in the popular mind Corinth suggested ‘culture and courtesans … “Corinthian words” implied pretensions to philosophy and letters, and to “Corinthianize” was popular Greek for “go to the devil”.’7
Yet for all that the city was one of the most important in Greece. It was populous8 and wealthy.9 It was the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. And the finest athletes were attracted to the Isthmian Games celebrated near the city, games so important that they continued to be celebrated even when the city was destroyed (SPC, p. 14). There was fertile soil nearby, and grapes flourished (our word ‘currant’ derives from ‘Corinth’ and is a reminder of the success of the city’s horticulture).
The city to which Paul came preaching the gospel was, then, a very cosmopolitan place. It was an important city. It was intellectually alert, materially prosperous, but morally corrupt. There was a pronounced tendency for its inhabitants to indulge their desires of whatever sort. In the words of von Dobschütz:
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 proud in his physical strength, are the true Corinthian types: in a word the man who recognised no superior and no law but his own desires.10
Corinth was a prestigious centre from which the gospel could radiate out to the surrounding districts. There was a large floating population, with merchants and travellers staying a few days and then going their way. Anything preached in Corinth would be sure of a wide dissemination.