Corinth

Corinth (/ˈkɔrɪnθ/; Greek: Κόρινθος Kórinthos), was a city-state (polis) on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece, roughly halfway between Athens and Sparta.

For Christians, Corinth is known from the two books First Corinthians and Second Corinthians in the New Testament. The 2nd book of Pausanias' Description of Greece is devoted to Corinth. Pausanias was a Greek traveler and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.

Ancient Corinth was one of the largest and most important cities of Greece, with a population of 90,000 in 400 BC. After the Romans built a new city in its place and made it the provincial capital of Greece in 44 BC, the city's population was between 50,000 to 700,000 according to different sources.

Corinth is mentioned many times in the New Testament, largely in connection with Paul the Apostle's mission there - testifying to the success of Caesar's refounding of the city. Traditionally, the Church of Corinth is believed to have been founded by Paul.

Under the Romans, Corinth was rebuilt as a major city in Southern Greece or Achaia. It had a large mixed population of Romans, Greeks, and Jews.

When the apostle Paul first visited the city (AD 51 or 52), Gallio, the brother of Seneca, was proconsul. Paul resided here for eighteen months (see Acts 18:1–18). Here he met Priscilla and Aquila with whom he worked.

Paul wrote the First Epistle to the Corinthians (written from Ephesus) and the Second Epistle to the Corinthians (written from Macedonia). The first Epistle occasionally reflects the conflict between the thriving Christian church and the surrounding community.

Some scholars believe that Paul visited Corinth for an intermediate "painful visit" (see 2 Corinthians 2:1), between the first and second epistles. After writing the second epistle he stayed in Corinth for about three months(Acts 20:3) in the late winter, and there wrote his Epistle to the Romans.

Based on clues within the Corinthian epistles themselves some scholars have concluded that Paul wrote possibly as many as four epistles to the church at Corinth. Only two of them, the First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians, are contained within the Canon of Holy Scripture. The other two letters (probably the very first letter that Paul wrote to the Corinthians and the third one) are lost (and so the First and Second Letters of the canon are in fact the second and the fourth).

Many scholars think the third one (known as the "letter of the tears", see 2 Corinthians 2:4) is included inside the canonical Second Epistle to the Corinthians (it would be chapters 10–13); this letter is not to be confused with the so-called "Third Epistle to the Corinthians", which is a pseudoepigraphic letter written many years after the death of Paul.

Corinthians Index

1 Corinthians Introduction | 1 Corinthians 1 | 1 Corinthians 2 | 1 Corinthians 3 | 1 Corinthians 4 | 1 Corinthians 5 | 1 Corinthians 6 | 1 Corinthians 7 | 1 Corinthians 8 | 1 Corinthians 9 | 1 Corinthians 10 | 1 Corinthians 11 | 1 Corinthians 12 | 1 Corinthians 13 | 1 Corinthians 14 | 1 Corinthians 15 | 1 Corinthians 16