CORINTHIANS, EPISTLES TO THE. FIRST EPISTLE. The testimony of Christian anti quity is full and unanimous in inscribing this in spired production to the pen of the Apostle Paul (Lardner's Credibility, Works, vol. ii. plur. loc. ; Davidson, Introd. ii. 253, ff. ; Schott, Isagoge in N. T., pp. 236, 239, sqq.), and with this the in ternal evidence arising from allusions, undesigned coincidences, style, and tone of thought, fully accords. The only person who has been found to cast a doubt on its genuineness is the eccentric and extreme Bruno Baiter. The epistle seems to have been oc casioned partly by some intelligence received by the Apostle concerning the Corinthian church from the domestics of Chloe, a pious female connected with that church (i. is), and, probably, also from common report (eucoilerat, v. i.) ; and partly by an epistle which the Corinthians themselves had ad dressed to the Apostle, asking advice and instruc tion on several points (vii. 1), and which probably was conveyed to him by Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus (xvi. 17). Apollos, also, who suc ceeded the Apostle at Corinth, but who seems to have been with him at the time this epistle was written (xvi. 12), may have given him information of the state of things among the Christians in that city. From these sources the Apostle had become acquainted with the painful fact that since he had left Corinth (Acts xviii. 18) the church in that place had sunk into a state of great corruption and error. One prime source of this evil state of things, and in itself an evil of no inferior magnitude, was the existence of schisms or party divisions in the church. ' Every one of you,' Paul tells them, saith I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ' (i. 12). This has led to the conclusion that four great parties had arisen in the church, which boasted of Paul, Apollos, Peter, and Christ, as their respective heads. By what peculiarities of sentiment these parties may be supposed to have been distinguished from each other, it is not diffi cult, with the exception of the last, to conjecture. The existence in many of the early churches of a strong tendency towards the ingrafting of Judaism upon Christianity is a fact well known to every reader of the N. T. ; and though the church at Corinth was founded by Paul and afterwards in structed by Apollos, yet it is extremely probable that as in the churches of Galatia so in those of Achaia this tendency may have been strongly mani fested, and that a party may have arisen in the church at Corinth opposed to the liberal and spiri tual system of Paul, and more inclined to one which aimed at fettering Christianity with the restrictions and outward ritual of the Mosaic dispensation. The leaders of this party probably came with letters of commendation (2 Cor. iii. 1) to the Corinthian church, and it is possible that they may have had these from Peter ; but that the party itself received any countenance from that Apostle cannot be for a mo ment supposed. Rather must we believe that they took the name of ' the Apostle of the circumcision' as the designation of their party for the sake of gaining greater authority to their position ; at any rate they seem to have used Peter's acknowledged place among the apostles to the disparagement of Paul, and hence his retort (2 Cor. xi. 5). The vehement opposition of this party to Paul, and their pointed attack upon his claims to the Apostolic office, would naturally lead those who had been Paul's converts, and who probably formed the major part of the church, to rally round his preten sions and the doctrines of a pure and spiritual Christianity which he taught. Closely allied with this party, and in some respects only a subdivision of it, was that of Apollos. This distinguished individual was not only the friend of Paul, but had followed up Paul's teaching at Corinth in a con genial spirit and to a harmonious result (iii. 5, etc.) Between the party, therefore, assuming his name, and that ranking itself under the name of the Apos tle, there could be no substantial ground of diffe rence. Perhaps, as Apollos had the advantage of Paul in mental polish, and especially in facility in public speaking (Acts xviii. 24 ; comp. 2 Con x. to), the sole ground on which his party may have preferred him was the higher gratification he afforded by his addresses to their educated taste than was derived from the simple statements of the Apostle concerning ' Christ and him crucified.' Thus far all, though almost purely conjectural, is easy and probable ; but in relation to the fourth party—that which said, ' I am of Christ'—it has been found extremely difficult to determine by what peculiar sentiments they were distinguished. The simplest hypothesis is that of Augustine (` alii qui nolebant aedificari super Petrum, sed super petram [dicebant] Ego autem sum Christi,' De verb. Dam., Serm. 13), whom Eichhorn (Einleit. iii. ro7), Schott (Isagoge in N. T., p. 233), Pott (N. T. Zoppian. vol. v. part i., p. 25), Bleek (Einl., p. 397), and others follow, viz., that this party was composed of the better sort in the church, who stood neutral, and declining to follow any mere human leader, declared themselves to be long only to Christ, the common Lord and the Leader of all. This opinion is chiefly based on Cor. iii. 22, 23, where it is supposed the four par ties are alluded to and that of Christ alone com mended. But this seems a forced and improbable interpretation of that passage ; the words likceis Si XpEcroi3 being much more naturally understood as applying to all the Corinthians, than as describing only a part of them. This opinion, moreover, hardly tallies with the language of the Apostle concerning the Christ-party, in r Cor. i. 12, and 2 Cor. x. 7, where he evidently speaks of them in terms of censure, and as guilty of dividing Christ. Another hypothesis is that suggested by Storr (Nctitice Historica epistoll. ad Cor. interpretationi
servientes. Opusc. Acad., vol. ii. p. 242), and which has been followed, among others, by Hug (Introd., p. 524 ; Fosdick's Tr.), Bertholdt (Einl. s. 332o), and Krause (Pauli ad Cor. Epistolce Grace., etc., Proleg., p. 35), viz., that the Christ party was one which, professing to follow James and the other brethren of the Lord, as its heads, claimed to itself, in consequence of this relation ship, the title of roD XptaTa, by way of eminence. To this it has been objected, that had the party in question designed, by the name they assumed, to express the relationship of their leader to Jesus Christ, they would have employed the words OtT OD swim), not of Tou XpLara, the former being more correctly descriptive of a personal, and the latter of an official, relationship. Besides, as Olshausen remarks, `the party of James could not be pre cisely distinguished from that of Peter ; both must have been composed of strenuous Jew-Christians. And, in fine, there is a total absence of all positive grounds for this hypothesis. . . . The mere naming of ' the brethren of the Lord' in 1 Cor. ix. 5, and of James in r Cor. xv. 7, can prove nothing, as this is not in connection with any strictures on the Christ-party, or indeed on any party, but en tirely incidentally ; and the expression XpLaTap /arra acipica (2 Cor. v. 16) refers to some thing quite different from the family-relations of the Saviour : it is designed to contrast the purely human aspect of his existence with his eternal heavenly essence' (Biblische Comment. bd. iii. abt. S. 457 ; camp. Bilroth, Commentary an the Co rinthians, vol. i. p. rr, Eng. Tr.) In an able treatise which appeared in the Tubingen Zeitschrift fur Theologie for 1831, part iv. p. 61, Baur has suggested that, properly speaking, there were only two parties in the Corinthian church—the Pauline and the Petrine ; and that, as that of Apollos was a subdivision of the former, that of Christ was a subdivision of the latter. This subdivision, he supposes, arose from the opposition offered by the Petrine party to Paul. which led some of them to call in question the right of the latter to the apostle ship, and to claim for themselves, as followers of Peter, a closer spiritual relationship to the Saviour, the honour of being the alone genuine and apos tolically-designated disciples of Christ. This opi nion is followed by Billroth, and has much in its favour ; but the remark of Neander, that ' accord ing to it the Christ-party would be discriminated from the Petrine only in name, which is not in keeping with the relation of this party-appellation to the preceding party-names,' has considerable weight as an objection to it. Neander himself, fol lowed by Olshausen, supposes that the Christ-party was composed of persons ' who repudiated the authority of all these teachers, and independently of the apostles, sought to construct for themselves a pure Christianity, out of which probably they cast everything that too strongly opposed their philosophical ideas as a mere foreign addition. From the opposition of Hellenism and Judaism and from the Helleno-philosophical tendencyat Corinth, such a party might easily have arisen To such the Apostles would seem to have mixed too much that was Jewish with their system, and not to have presented the doctrines of Christ suffi ciently pure. To Christ alone, therefore, would they professedly appeal, and out of the materials furnished them by tradition, they sought, by means of their philosophic criticism, to extract what should be the pure doctrine of Christ' (..4postol. Zeitall. s. 205 ; vol. i., p. 273 of Eng. Tr.) The reasoning of the Apostle in the 1st, 2d, r2th, r3th, r4th, and 15th chapters of the 1st Epistle seems clearly to indicate that some such notions as these had crept into the Church at Corinth ; and, upon the whole, this hypothesis of Neander com mends itself to our minds as the one which is best maintained and most probable. At the same time, we have serious doubts of the soundness of the assumption on which all these hypotheses proceed, viz., that there really were in the Corinthian church sects or parties specifically distinguished from each other by peculiarities of doctrinal sentiment. That erroneous doctrines were entertained by individuals in the church, and that a schismatical spirit per vaded it, cannot be questioned ; but that these two stood formally connected with each other may fairly admit of doubt. Schisms often arise in churches from causes which have little or nothing to do with diversities of doctrinal sentiment among the members ; and that such were the schisms which disturbed the church at Corinth appears to us probable, from the circumstance that the exist ence of these is condemned by the Apostle, with out reference to any doctrinal errors out of which they might arise ; whilst, on the other hand, the doctrinal errors condemned by him are denounced without reference to their having led to party strifes. From this we are inclined to the opinion that the schisms arose merely from quarrels among the Corinthians as to the comparative excellence of their respective teachers—those who had learned of Paul boasting that he excelled all others, and the converts of Apollos and Peter advancing a similar claim for them, whilst a fourth party haughtily re pudiated all subordinate teaching, and pretended that they derived all their religious knowledge from the direct teaching of Christ. The language of the Apostle in the first four chapters, where alone he speaks directly of these schisms, and where he resolves their criminality not into their relation to false doctrine, but into their having their source in a disposition to glory in men, must be regarded as greatly favouring this view. Comp. also 2 Cor. v. 16.