Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 4.djvu/421

 CORINTHIANS

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CORIKTUIAKS

and learned, but the groat majority neither learned, nor powerful, nor noble (I Cor., i, 2(5). During this long period the Faith was planted not only in Corinth but in other portions of Achaia, especially in CenchreEP, the ea.s;tern port. At length the inibelieving Jews, seeing the ever-increasing crowd of Christians fre- quenting the house of Titus Justus, next door to their synagogue, became furiou.s, and rose up with one ac- cord and dragged St. Paul before the newly-appointed Proconsul of Achaia, Gallio, the brother of Seneca (\. D. 54). Gallio, perceiving that it was a question of religion, refused to listen to them. The crowed, seeing this and supposing that it was a dispute betw-een Greeks and Jews, fell upon the ring-leader of the lat- ter (Sosthenes, w-ho succeeded Crispus as ruler of the synagogue) and gave him a sound beating in the very iight of the judgment seat; but Gallio pretended not to notice. His treatment must have cowed the Jews, md St. Paul "stayed yet many days". Comely is of jpinion that at this time he made his journey as far as [llj'ricum, and that his first visit to them "in sorrow" ivas when he returned. Others, with greater proba- ailit}', place it later. St. Paul, at last taking leave of the brethren, travelled as far as Ephesus with Priscilla md Aquila. Leaving them there he w-ent on to Jeru- salem and came back by Antioch, Galatia, and Phrj'- 5ia, where he confirmed all the disciples. After hav- ing thus traversed the "upper coasts" he returned to Ephesus, which he made his head-quarters for nearly three years. It was towards the end of that period that tile First Epistle was written.

Authenticiti/ of lite Epislles. — Little need be said on this point. The historical and internal evidence that they were written by St. Paul is so overwhelmingly strong that their authenticity has been frankly ad- mitted by every distinguished writer of the most ad- vanced critical schools. They were contained in the first collections of St. Paul's Epistles, and were quoted as Scripture by early Christian w'riters. They were referred to as authorities by the early heretics and translated into many languages in the middle of the second centurj^. The unique personality of St. Paul is impressed upon their every page. Baur, the ration- alistic founder of the Tubingen School, and his fol- lowers, held the two to the Corinthians, Galatians, and Romans to be unassailable. One or two hypercritical miters, of little weight, brought some futile objec- tions against them; but these were scarcely meant to be taken seriously; they were refuted and brushed aside by such an H?(ra writer as Kuonen. Schmiedel,one of the most advanced modern critics, says (Hand- Kommentar, Leipzig, 1893, p. 51) that unless better arguments can be adduced against them the two E|ii.'<tles must be acknowledged to be genuine writings of .St. Paul. Tlie Second Epistle was known from the verj- earliest times. There is a trace of it in that portion of "The Ascension of Lsaiah" which dates back to the first century (ICnowling, "The Testi- mony of St. Paul to Christ", p. 5S; Charles, "The Ascension of Isaiah ", pp. .34, 1.50). It was known to St. Polycarp, to the write' of the Epistle to Diognetus, to Athenagoras, Theophilus, the heretics Basilides and Marcion. In the second half of the second cen- tury it w.as so widely used that it is unnecessary to give quotations.

The First Epistle. — Why Written. — During the years that St. Paul was at Ephesus he must have fre- quently heard from Corinth, as it w.as distant only 2.50 miles, and people were constantly passing to and fro. A ship sailing at the rate of four miles an hour would cover the distance in three days, though on one un- propitious occasion it took Cicero over a fortnight {Ep. vi, 8, 9). By degrees the news reached Ephesus that some of the Corinthians w-ere drifting back into their former vices. Alfr)rd and others infer from the words of II Cor., xii, 20, 21 ; xiii, 1, "Behold this is the third time that I come to you", that he made a fly-

ing visit to check these abuses. Others suppose that this coming meant by letter. Be this as it may, it is generally held that he WTote them a brief note (now- lost) telling them "not to associate with fornicators", asking them to make collections for the poor brethren at Jerusalem, and giving them an account of his inten- tion of visiting them before going on to Macedonia, and of returning to them again from that place. News which he heard later from the household of Chloe and others made him change this plan, and for this he was accused by his enemies of want of steadi- ness of purpose (II Cor., i, 17). The accounts which he received caused him great anxiety. Abuses, bicker- ings, and party strife had grown up amongst them. The party cries were: "I am of Paul; I am of Apollo [Apollos); I am of Cephas; I am of Christ." These parties, in all likelihood, originated as follows: During St. Paul's circular tour from Ephesus to Jerusalem, Antioch, Galatia, Phrj-gia, and back to Ephesus, "a certain Jew, named Apollo, bom at Alexandria, an elo- quent man, came to Ephesus, one mighty in the scriptures, and being fervent in spirit, spoke, and taught diligently the things that are of Jesus, knowing only the baptism of John." Priscilla and Aquila fully instructed him in the Christian Faith. In accord- ance with his desire he received letters of recommen- dation to the disciples at Corinth. " Who, when he was come, helped them very much who had believed. For with much vigour he convinced the Jews openly, shew- ing by the scriptures that Jesus is the Christ" (Acts, xviii, 27, 28). He remained at Corinth about two years, but, being unwilling to be made the centre of strife, he joined St. Paul at Ephesus. From the inspired words of St. Luke, no mean judge, we may take it that in learning and eloquence Apollo was on a par with the greatest of his contemporaries, and that in intellectual powers he was not inferior to Jews like Josephus and Philo. He is likely to have known the latter, who was a prominent member of the Jewish community in his native city of Alexandria, and had died only four- teen years before; and his deep interest in Holy Scripture would certainly have led him to study the works of Philo. The eloquence of Apollo, and his powerful applications of the Old Testament to the Messias, captivated the intellectual Greeks, especially the more educated. That, they thought, was true wisdom. They began to make invidious comparisons between him and St. Paul, who on account of his ex- perience at Athens, had purposely confined himself to what we should call .solid catechetical in.struction. The Greeks dearly loved to belong to some particular school of philosophy; so the admirers of Apollo laid claim to a deeper perception of wisdom and boasted that they belonged to the Christian school of the great Alexandrian preacher. The majority, on the other hand, prided themselves on their intimate connexion with their Apostle. It was not zeal for the honour of their teachers that really promjited either of these parties, but a spirit of pride which made them seek to put themselves above their fellows, and prevented them from humbly thanking God for the grace of being Christians. About this time there came from the East some who had possibly heard St. Peter preach. These regarded the others as their spiritual inferiors; they themselves belonged to Cephas, the Prince of the Apostles. Commentators are of opinion that this party spirit did not go so deep as to constitute formal schism or heresy. They all met together for prayer and the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries; but there were hot disputes and many breaches of fraternal charity. The Fathers mention only three parties; but the text obviously implies that tfiere was another party the members of which said, "I am of Christ". This view is now held by several Catholics, and by many non-Catholics. What was the nature of this party it is difficult to determine. It has been sug- gested that a few of those who were specially endowed