Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/429

Rh topography of the city and the isthmus. In the midst of the city was the market-place, commanded by a lofty statue of Pallas made of bronze, and surrounded by many temples, among others those of the Ephesian Artemis and of Fortune, and by statues standing in the open air. Hence three principal roads led in various directions. The first passed westwards towards Sicyon, leading by a temple of Apollo, the Odeum, and the tomb of the children of Medea, Mermerus and Pheres, whom a local legend asserted to have perished at the hands of the Corinthians, after they had brought their poisoned gifts to Glance. A little further on was the temple of Athene Chalinitis (the bridler), so called because she bridled for Bellerophon the unruly Pegasus ; the statue of the goddess was of wood and doubtless ancient, a fact which proves that the sack by Mummius cannot have been so complete as might have been imagined. Near this temple was a theatre, probably a work of Roman times, and a temple of the Roman Jupiter Capitolinus. The second road led north towards the harbour of Lechseum and the Corinthian Gulf. It first passed Propylaea, surmounted by two gilt quadrigae driven by Phaethon and Helios, and next the grotto where issued afresh the same fountain Peirene which rises near the summit of the Acrocorinthus, and filled a large basin with sweet water, used by tbe inhabitants for drinking, and as a bath in which to dip the vessels of Corinthian bronze while still red-hot, a process which was supposed to make their fineness unapproachable. The water-supply of the city was unrivalled, yet the empsror Hadrian constructed an aqueduct all the way from the Stymphalian Lake, a work, if we may believe Pausanias, of vain ostentation. The third road led eastwards, first to the fashionable suburb of the city, a cypress-grovs called Craneion. This quarter is well described in Becker s Charides. It abounded with the life which distinguished Corinth from other cities, crowds of travellers, seeking both gain and pleasure, with the lively booths which offered the former, and the crowds of female slaves who ministered to the latter, Here was the tomb of Lais, to whom her fellow- citizens paid almost divine honours, and here, strangely, the monument of the great cynic, Diogenes of Sinope, who had passed his life in the midst of this gay and dissolute company. On the Craneion the road divided into two branches. Of these the more southerly ran to the harbour of Cenchrese, a roadstead fenced on both sides by pro montories stretching out to sea, but not much assisted by art ; while the more important Lechneum, on the other side of the isthmus, was almost entirely artificial. The more northerly branch of the road led to the little harbour of Schcenus, and the world-renowned spot where were celebrated every second year the Isthmian Games. These games were held in honour in early times of Melicertes, in later times of Poseidon, and close by were temples of both deities. That of Poseidon was not large ; it contained statues of Poseidon, Amphitrite, and Thalassa, and in front was a crowd of statues of the victors in the games. The shrine of Melicertes stood under a pine ; it was circular, and contained, as we know from coins, a statue of the divinity reclining on the back of a dolphin. Melicertes (also called Pakemon) had also a subterranean chapel where the most solemn oaths were administered, and it was said that perjurers seldom left the spot unpunished. Close to the temples was the stadium of the games made of white marble, and not far from it the road on which triremes were transported from sea to sea. There were also traces of a canal which, projected by Alexander the Great, resolved on by Julius Caesar, commenced by Nero, was never dug more than a few hundred yards inland from the Corinthian Gulf. In the Middle Ages Corinth suffered many disasters. It was sacked by Alaric, and at a later period was most bitterly contended for by the Turks and the Venetians. During the Middle Ages the city occupied the hill of Acrocorinthus itself, not the ledge at its base, but it has now resumed its earlier position. The modern town is small and wretched, and retains few remains of antiquity. The most remarkable among these are seven columns of an exceedingly ancient temple of the Doric order, and some traces of the Roman amphitheatre.

1em  CORINTHIANS,. These two letters of St Paul occupy a unique position among the Pauline epistles. They are remarkable as being in their primary aspect historical rather than doctrinal, while, at the same time, all the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, as connected with the miraculous facts on which they rest, are suggestively implied. These epistles, too, together with those to the Galatians and to the Romans, have been admitted as genuine writings of St Paul, even by the most audacious critical assailants of the New Testament canon. The external testimony to them is early and complete, and the internal evidence of authorship and age nakes it impossible to doubt the genuineness and authenticity of these remarkable documents. There are, perhaps, no other epistles in the New Testament in which there is so much of &quot; local colouring,&quot; or so many temporal and local allusions. These letters throw great light both upon the early circumstances of the Christian church and upon the character of the great missionary to the Gentiles ; and whilst they are very full of what was due to the special occasions on which they were written, the universal applicability of the Christian principles laid down in them must be patent to every thoughtful student. Stier speaks of the Epistles to the Corinthians as being &quot; a pathology and materiel medico, for all that are designed to be physicians of the church in a larger or lesser circle ; &quot; and Bleek remarks on the first epistle, that it &quot; serves as a type and pattern in dealing with the multifarious tendencies, relations, and disorders of the Christian church, almost all of which have their counterpart in the Corinthian Church, and are continually repeated with various modifications at various times.&quot; The history of the two epistles seems to be this. Paul s first visit to Corinth and his long and eventful sojourn there are mentioned in Acts xviii. 1-18. After his departure from the rich and luxurious capital of Achaia, evils which, we can perceive, were very likely to spring up in such a place began to appear in the Christian community. The Hellenic tendency to philosophical speculation and to fac tious partisanship, and the sensuality and licentiousness which had made the word corinthianize a synonym for self- indulgence and wantonness, became roots of bitterness, strife, and immorality. The presence of Apollos (Acts xviii. 27, 28) was doubtless advantageous, and St Paul evidently alludes to a successful prosecution of evangelistic work by the learned Alexandrian, when he says &quot; I planted, Apollos watered&quot; (1 Cor. iii. 6). Yet it would seem that invidious comparisons had been made between the simpler preaching of the Apostle Paul and the probably more philo sophical and refined style of Apollos, so that some of tlm Corinthian Christians began to regard Apollos as their leader, rather than Paul, who had first preached the gospel unto them. The reluctance of Apollos to return to Corinti,