CORINTHIANS, Epistles of Paul to the. These New Testament letters form only a part of the correspondence known to have passed between the apostle Paul and the church of Corinth. The circumstances that called them forth and dictated their contents were of crucial importance in the early life of that church and the letters can be studied to best advantage in the light of these circumstances. It was prob ably early in the year 50 A.D. that Paul the missionary and apostle arrived in Corinth, the largest, wealthiest and most dissolute city. of Greece and the capital of the Roman province of Achaia. Here the missionary efforts of Paul and his companions soon resulted in the for mation of a flourishing Christian church in whose membership all classes of this truly cos mopolitan city were represented, although the majority were of lowly station (cf. Acts xviii, 1 ff.; 1 Cor. i, 26 f.). Paul remained with the infant church about a year and a half, leaving in the fall of 51 A.D. soon after the arrival of the new proconsul Gallio (Acts xviii, 12-18). Some time after Paul's departure Apollos, an eloquent Alexandrian Jewish-Christian visited C,orinth and lent his effective aid in building up the church there (Acts xviii, 24; xix, 1). After Apollos' return to Ephesus, the church of Corinth began to be disturbed by various troubles, all due generallx to the fact that the membership was quite vaned in character, com prising many whose experience of Christianity was brief or only superficial. Party-strife broke out (1 Cor. 11 ff.), Paul's apostolic authority was even questioned by some (1 Cor. iv), and one or more cases of immorality had occurred with no censure from the church as a whole (1 Cor. v). In addition confusion of thought regarding various matters of Christian faith and practice was becorning apparent. Meanwhile Paul was at Ephesus (52-54 A.D.) busily en gaged in developing a large and far-reaching missionary movement from that metropolis as a centre.
While engaged in this work, and apparently all unmindful of the troubles developing in the Corinthian church, Paul sent Titus,one of his znost trusted assistants, from Ephesus to Corinth to lay before the church there his plan to collect from his Gentile churches a substan tial offering for the poor Christian brethren of 1 the old mother-church of erusalem (2 Cor. viii, 6, 10 f., 16 ff.; ix, 1 ff. . Titus was well received at Corinth and t e church readily promised to contribute to the proposed collec tion. It is likely, however, that Titus noticed that all was not well with the church and so reported to Paul on his return to Ephesus.
This moved Paul to write a letter, now lost, to the Corinthian church in which he urged them to take prompt measures in regard to the case or cases of immorality in their midst (cf. 1 Cor. v, 9). The effect of the letter was, however, to arouse •a spirit of bitter hostility ag-ainst Paul on the part of the guilty ones and their friends, who now began to spread malicious reports concerning Paul amongst the member ship of the church, many of whom had been converted after Paul's departure and therefore had had no personal contact with him. This letter was wntten sometime in 53 A.D., upwards of two years after Paul had left Corinth.
All unaware of the extent of the disaffection toward himself Paul had also arranged to have Timothy, one of his missionary co-workers, call at Corinth in the course of an extended visita tion of the churches of Macedonia and Achaia (cf. 1 Cor. xvi, 10 f.). But before Timothy arrived at Corinth a deputation of leading mem bers of the church there, bearing with them also a letter from some portion of the membership of the church, had left Corinth for Ephesus to inform Paul of the whole situation and get the benefit of his counsel (1 Cor. xvi, 17 ff.; vii, 1). On the basis of all the information he now pos sessed from these and other sources (cf. 1 Cor. i, 11) Paul wrote the letter now known as the First Epistle to the Corinthians (in reality the second letter he is laiown to have written this church) in which he sought to deal fully with all the more important problems then facing the church of Corinth. In all probability Paul sent this letter by the deputation on their return. The date of the letter can be fixed approx imately as late in the year 53 A.D. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians he felt that he possessed the confidence and affection of the church membership as a whole, although he was aware that the attitude of some was not cordial and that it was necessary to speak plainly in rebuk ing certain errors in which the church as a whole shared. Like most of Paul's letters this is a letter, not a treatise, a message directed toward a concrete situation, dealing with the actual problems of the day and intended to be read and understood by the plain, and not especially learned people of the church as then constituted. Read as such a message it is full of living interest, but if read as an abstract doctrinal treatise it cannot fail of being mis understood.