Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians

Introduction

Few figures in Christian history have been so beloved or so belittled as Paul. He has been cited as a strong advocate of both social change and the status quo on issues such as slavery and the roles of women in the ekklēsia. This bears witness to the complex figure that Paul was and to the profound and prolix character of his letters. Careful attention to the social and rhetorical dimensions of 1 and 2 Corinthians sheds a good deal of light on both the apostle and his agenda.

Paul the Greco-Roman Jew and Jewish Christian

Paul was the product of the confluence of three cultural orientations — Jewish, Hellenistic Greek, and Roman. It is easy to see why he would be so influenced by all three, since the evidence suggests

that he was a Roman citizen, like his parents before him,

that he was born in one of the centers of Hellenistic culture, that is, in the city of Tarsus in Asia Minor, and

that he was a child of orthodox Jews who took or sent him to Jerusalem at an early age to study at the feet of the notable teacher Gamaliel and to become, himself, a Pharisaic teacher.¹

The Jewish influence is perhaps the most important for our discussion of Paul’s rhetoric. W. C. Van Unnik argued forcefully that the evidence from Acts suggests that Paul was taken to Jerusalem at a very early age and raised there.² But does this rule out Paul receiving training in Greco-Roman rhetoric? The answer to this question is no, because even prominent teachers like Hillel before Paul’s day were affected by the process of Hellenization that had swept the entire region centuries before, as is shown by the rhetorical patterns of Jewish argumentation of the time.³ Half of Gamaliel’s pupils are said to have been trained in the sophia (wisdom) of the Greeks, which would include rhetoric. Paul could certainly have been one of those who received such training.⁴ In addition, Pharisaism was to a real extent a proselytizing religion (cf. Mt. 23:15)⁵ and as such needed forms of argumentation and persuasion in the lingua franca of the day, which was Koine Greek. With such arguments Pharisees could convince Diaspora Jews and even some Gentiles, especially those who were already synagogue adherents.

If Van Unnik was not correct, then Paul grew up not in Jerusalem but in Tarsus. But Tarsus was no cultural backwater, but rather a university town. In fact, many felt that the university there surpassed the universities in Athens or Alexandria in the study of philosophy and literature.⁶ But whether Paul received his primary education in Tarsus or, as is more likely, in Jerusalem, he was in the upper one to two percent of the population in education. Only a distinct minority of families would have been able to provide the opportunities for education that Paul’s letters indicate that he had. It is thus important not to underestimate any of his life influences. Paul owed a considerable intellectual and personal debt to Greco-Roman culture and to Judaism, though it is fair to say that early Judaism had the strongest influence on him prior to his conversion to Christianity.⁷

Apparently Jews were not often granted Roman citizenship. So we may surmise that Paul’s family must have provided some service to the empire to be granted this status. Perhaps they had made tents for the Roman army (cf. Acts 18:3). Paul’s Roman citizenship ensured him free access to the whole Mediterranean and beyond and sometimes protected him from local injustices and prejudices (Acts 16:37). His citizenship may account for his somewhat positive view of the Roman Empire and its system of justice (Romans 13; 2 Thess. 2:7). In any case, he took advantage of Roman roads, Roman justice, and Roman order once he had become a missionary for Christ.

The diversity of Paul’s background was good preparation for his role as apostolos (apostle) to Gentiles. It likely provided him with a broader view of Jews and Greeks, women and men, and slaves and free persons (1 Cor. 9:19ff.) than would have been the case if he had been raised in more narrowly Jewish circles in a small Galilean or Judean village, as were some of the early Jewish Christians. Paul knew something of how to be the Jew to the Jew and the Greek to the Greek and this served him well once he found his Christian calling in life.

Paul’s familiarity with the larger world of Greco-Roman culture is evident from his use of Greek ideas and from his occasional allusions to Greek poets and philosophers (e.g., 1 Cor. 15:33), though it is difficult to know how profound his knowledge of Greek and Roman philosophical writings was since these allusions are few and far between. Paul reflects more than a passing acquaintance with Cynic, Stoic, and Epicurean thought, though it is fair to say that they are not the main sources of his teaching.⁸

Paul was more clearly influenced by Greek rhetorical style, as we can see from the way that he forms and develops his whole letters, not just from use of occasional conventional rhetorical devices. We must, therefore, assume that he had had considerable Greek education. Rhetoric, unlike philosophy, was at the very heart of education, even secondary education, during the empire, and Paul is likely to have learned more rhetoric than philosophy in his schooling.⁹

These larger cultural influences were filtered through a Jewish and scriptural orientation focused on issues such as the Law, the messiah, and eschatology¹⁰ and, after Paul’s experience on Damascus road, through a Jewish Christian orientation. Paul himself wrote, under some provocation, What anyone else dares to boast about (I am speaking as a fool), I also dare to boast about. Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendents? So am I (2 Cor. 11:21-22; cf. Phil. 3:4-6). Paul believed few could equal his pedigree.

Paul’s teacher Gamaliel was one of the more broad-minded early Jewish teachers. But in his zeal against the fledgling ekklēsia Paul showed no such temperate character. Rather, he saw himself as a zealot for God’s Law and enforcement of it. He adamantly opposed anyone who disputed that Jews should follow the same course (Gal. 1:13).

The Pharisees in general were attempting to extend the levitical standards of holiness, which are applied in the OT to the Israelite priesthood, to all Jews. They wished to organize all of life, every human activity, in accord with God’s Word — including diet, clothing, and religious observances such as prayer, fasting, and tithing. The Pharisees accepted such ideas as the future resurrection of the righteous, eternal life, and eternal death, and unlike the Sadducees they believed in angels and spirits (Acts 23:8). Some also believed that everything happens through God’s providence, though human beings also have moral responsibility. Some of these beliefs continued on in Paul’s thinking as a Christian.

Even after Paul had become a Jewish Christian he still saw many advantages to being a Jew (cf. Rom. 11:1ff.; 3:1).¹¹ But Paul, whose Jewish name was Saul,¹² also had reason to look back with regret on some of the things he did as an ardent Pharisee, particularly his persecution of the ekklēsia. This is at least part of why he later felt unworthy of the title apostolos (1 Cor. 15:9). In Gal. 1:13 Paul admits that he persecuted the church violently. He even went to foreign cities to try to persecute Christians because he felt that they were undermining the validity of Judaism, particularly that of the Law of Moses (Acts 26:11). He was probably in his early twenties or even younger when he began his campaigns against Christians, though it is difficult to tell whether or not he interrupted his studies under Gamaliel to fight Christians.

The Paul we meet in 1 Corinthians has been a Christian for as long as twenty years and so is not an immature Christian person. He has long since left his earlier life behind. He is an apostolos who has been fully engaged in missionary activities for perhaps more than a decade.¹³ To further understand the apostle and his letters we need to reflect on his social world.

Roman Corinth¹⁴

The City and Its People

Corinth was, by any measure, one of the truly great cities of the Roman world. By the time Paul came to the city in the early 50s it was well on the way to becoming not only the largest but also the most prosperous city in all of Greece. But it had been destroyed in 146 B.C. by Roman forces led by the consul L. Mummius. As Cicero attested when he visited the site of classical Corinth between 79 and 77 B.C., the city lay in ruins for a long time before anyone troubled with reconstruction (cf. Tusc. Disp. 3.53). It was Julius Caesar who, shortly before his death in March of 44 B.C., ordered that Corinth be rebuilt as a Roman colony.

A reconstruction of the forum of Roman Corinth

From N. Paphatzis, Ancient Corinth: The Museums of Corinth, Isthmia and Sicyon (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1981).

This meant that the architecture of the city would take on a Roman look,¹⁵ that it would be ruled by a Roman form of government with Roman officials, and that the city would be colonized by Romans — chiefly some of Caesar’s veterans along with urban plebeians and freedmen and freedwomen from Rome itself and some Romanized Greeks (cf. Strabo 8.6.23; 17.3.15).¹⁶ In part this was a way of rewarding veterans with land for their years of service, but it was also a shrewd means of removing disaffected and potentially volatile elements from Rome. There were some Greeks who had remained in and around Corinth living in the ruins, but once the colony was established they became resident aliens — incolae — and it was the colonists and their descendents who were counted as citizens (cives). The incolae were not allowed to hold office, though apparently some of them could vote. In order to be a member of the local senate (the decurio), even a citizen had to meet either a stiff property qualification or be elected either an aedile (a city business manager) or a duovir (a chief magistrate).

Roman Corinth was certainly never simply a Hellenistic city. Taken as a whole, the architectural, artifactual, and inscriptional evidence points to a trend in the first century to Romanize the remains of the old city that went well beyond simply making Latin the official language and Roman law the rule of the city. There is evidence to suggest that the buildings of the rebuilt city were patterned on buildings in southern Italian cities (e.g., Pompeii), which were perhaps the homes of some of the veterans or freedmen and freedwomen who settled in Corinth.¹⁷ Furthermore, there is evidence that significant quantities of Italian wares and goods were imported into Corinth, which again says something about the character of much of the population of Roman Corinth in the first five or six decades of the first century A.D.¹⁸ The term Greco-Roman best describes Roman Corinth.¹⁹

As residents of a new city that was undergoing continual rebuilding and that was increasing in fame, the people of Corinth had both growing civic pride and individual pride (Plutarch Mor. 831A). All sorts of Corinthians, even slaves, are mentioned in inscriptions, often paid for and erected by and for themselves, that describe their contributions to building projects or their status in clubs (collegia). The number of such inscriptions is staggering.²⁰ Corinth was a city where public boasting and self-promotion had become an art form.

The Corinthian people thus lived within an honor-shame cultural orientation, where public recognition was often more important than facts and where the worst thing that could happen was for one’s reputation to be publicly tarnished. In such a culture a person’s sense of worth is based on recognition by others of one’s accomplishments, hence the self-promoting public inscriptions.

These cultural factors come into play over and over again in 1 and 2 Corinthians, where boasting, preening, false pride, and the like are topics that the apostle addresses repeatedly. Even though they were converted to a new religious orientation, the Corinthian Christians brought with them into the ekklēsia many of the primary social values gained over a life of living with a particular cultural orientation. Paul attempts in his letters to further his converts’ resocialization by deinculturating them from some of their former primary values, chiefly by invoking certain eschatological ideas and the ethical implications of those ideas.²¹

In Paul’s time, the city of Corinth was ultimately answerable to the Roman Senate because the district of Achaea, in which the city lay, had been renamed a senatorial province by Emperor Claudius in A.D. 44. Corinth, not Athens, was named the capital city of the region, possibly as early as 2 B.C. (Acts 18:12-17), and for several good reasons:

Corinth’s strategic position made it a center of trade,

the city was also a manufacturing center,

it was a major tourist attraction,

and it was a center for religious pilgrimage.

Trade and Manufacturing

Corinth’s site adjacent to the narrow isthmus separating the Aegean Sea from the Gulf of Corinth, and thus the Ionian Sea, and connecting the two major parts of Greece, allowed it to become a center for trade. As the geographer Strabo wrote,

Corinth is called wealthy due to its commerce, since it is located on the Isthmus and is the master of two harbors,²² one of which leads directly to Asia and the other to Italy…. The exchange of merchandise from both distant countries is made easier by the city’s location. And, just as in early times, the seas around Sicily are not easy to navigate…. (Geo. 8.6.20)

Corinth was thus the central crossroads for Mediterranean trade going east and west and to a lesser degree for goods shipped from Egypt or elsewhere in northern Africa to points north of Corinth. For ships going east to west or west to east, it was far easier and safer not to make the six-day journey south around Greece but to unload at one of Corinth’s two ports and have the goods carried to the other port, where they could be reloaded onto another ship, or onto the same ship if it was small enough to be dragged across the Isthmus on a road built especially for that purpose.

Corinth was also a manufacturing center. In classical times it had become famous especially for its high tin bronze, called Corinthian bronze, and for the objects made from this bronze, which were much in demand in various places around the Mediterranean. It is less clear how much of this trade was revived in Roman Corinth. There was a bronze foundry, but it may have produced only objects for local use, not exports.²³ There were also prosperous pottery manufacturers and several schools of marble sculpture, including a workshop that specialized in the neo-Attic style during the second half of the first century A.D.

The Lechaion road as it comes into Roman Corinth

When Paul came to Corinth, the city had not yet reached its zenith as a manufacturing center, but it was already replacing some foreign goods (including the Italian goods mentioned earlier) with comparable locally made products. During his stay in Corinth, Paul may have been among the artisans providing such locally made goods, and he probably had ample opportunity to ply his trade of making leather tents (cf. Acts 18:1-3).²⁴ There is evidence that by the end of the first century A.D. Roman Corinth had acquired a reputation for being the most competitive of all cities, even in economic matters. Apuleius suggests that it was a city of unprincipled profit-takers who would stop at little or nothing to outdo their rivals (Met. 10.19, 25). Corinth’s ruthless competitive spirit is perhaps best symbolized by its position as the first Greek city to have Roman gladiatorial contests (Dio Chrysostom 31.121).

One of the northwest shops in Roman Corinth. Paul may have practiced his trade in a place like this.

Tourism

Periodic athletic contests were the basis of Corinthian tourism. The biennial Isthmian Games were second in fame only to the Olympic Games. The Romans revived the Isthmian Games at least as early as A.D. 3, and they were probably held in A.D. 49 and 51,²⁵ that is, at least once while Paul was in the city.²⁶ The quadrennial Imperial and Caesarean Games were also held in Corinth.

These games provided a great deal of short-term work and sales of, for instance, tents. It says something about Corinth that the city required a special elected official, the agōnothetēs, to run the games. And this official was by any normal means of measurement the most honored official in the city and thus in that sense the city’s highest official.²⁷

Women participated in the games, and it is possible that some of Paul’s difficulties with women in Corinth were in part due to female Greek or Roman Christians used to a greater scope of activity in society than the apostle would allow in the Christian community.²⁸ There were also oratorical and musical contests at the games, and not long after Paul’s time in Corinth Nero competed in these activities by playing the lyre (Suetonius Nero 22.53-55).

Religion

Corinth had long been visited by religious pilgrims coming to see the famous temple of Aphrodite on the mountain overlooking Corinth, the Acro-Corinth. Aphrodite was the goddess of love, beauty, and fertility, and prostitutes considered her their patroness. She was also a goddess of seafaring. Strabo informs us that in classical times this temple had many sacred prostitutes (Geo. 8.6.20c) but it is not at all clear that the practice of sacred prostitution was revived on the same scale in Roman Corinth.²⁹

Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the place of sexual expression, not only in some pagan religious festivals (cf. Apuleius Met. 10.20-22), but also in some pagan temple precincts.³⁰ It would be surprising if such activities did not take place in Corinth, especially in connection with the dinner parties (convivia) that were often held in the precincts of pagan temples (cf. Livy 23.18.12).³¹ There is also evidence from Dio Chrysostom (near the end of the first century A.D.) that there were in Roman Corinth numerous hetaerae, who often served as companions of the well-to-do at meals (8.5-10).³² 1 Cor. 10:7 is a meaningful warning only if Paul had good reason to assume that sexual play was a regular part of some meals in one or more of the pagan temples in Corinth.

Romans in general adopted and incorporated Greek gods and goddesses into their own religious practices, and apart from sometimes changing the names of the deities, they often did not significantly modify what they took over. This was especially so with the god or goddess that was the major religious attraction of a city. Before, during, and after Paul’s day coins were minted in Roman Corinth with images of the temple of Aphrodite, in part as a form of advertisement. And given the connection of Aphrodite with prostitution, it is probable that the practice of sexual activity in some temple precincts in the city, perhaps even in Aphrodite’s temples,³³ was continued.³⁴

The ancient temple (of Apollo?) in Corinth

Many also came to visit other religious shrines such as the temple of Apollo or, if one was seeking healing, the temple of Asklepios. There are few more startling sights for the modern tourist in Corinth than the numerous clay representations of body parts, including arms, legs, and genitalia, that ancient visitors to the Asklepion left behind in thanks to the god for healings.³⁵

Body parts from molds found at the Asklepion in Corinth

Though the Asklepios sanctuary at Epidaurus was more important, the one at Corinth was significant. The three major elements in an Asklepion were a well or spring for purifications, a place for sleeping (the abaton), and the temple.³⁶ Asklepios was a god of not only physical but also emotional and mental health. His major sanctuaries included places for rest, exercise, and contemplation, including baths, theaters, gymnasia, libraries, and tree-lined gardens. They were in many ways similar to modern health resorts. Adjacent to the Asklepion in Corinth was the Lerna with its dining facilities and bath and fountain house. This environment made the Asklepion a popular location for public dining with friends in a relaxed atmosphere. Perhaps it was there that some Corinthian Christians were being invited to eat meat that had been offered to idols (1 Cor. 10:27f.).³⁷ The worship of Asklepios had many of the elements of worship of such pagan gods — processions, hymns, and sacrifices. Like that of Aphrodite, the cult of Asklepios was probably one of the most influential religious cults in shaping Corinthian thinking.

The goddess Hera Argaea, a goddess of marriage and especially of the sexual life of women, had a temple in Roman Corinth near the marketplace. The most characteristic rite connected with this goddess was sacred marriage, but she was also associated with the ordinary sort of human marriage. Sacred marriage involved sexual union between two divine persons or one divine and one human person, with the union considered in some way sacral. The result was supposedly an increase in fertility or prosperity, which women might seek in such a cultic union. It is worth considering whether this might explain some of what we find in 1 Corinthians 7: Might some women have thought that a previous sacral union should not be defiled by a human union? Hera was often paired with Aphrodite but was also connected with childbirth and children and nurture of them. This might be behind the statement in 1 Cor. 7:14 concerning the holiness of children.

The oracle at Delphi was certainly past its heyday in Paul’s time. But it was still functioning, and there was a close connection between Apollo and the oracle. There was a temple of Apollo in Corinth, and Delphi is only about 50 km. from Corinth. Apollo was the god of prophecy, and it is more than likely that the Corinthians would have understood prophecy in the light of this part of their context. Did then the Corinthian Christians understand Christian glossolalia and prophecy in terms of the practices at Delphi? Were male prophets in the church being interrupted by women who were asking the sorts of questions that were normally asked of the Delphic oracle — about childlessness, fate, prosperity, or the like (cf. 1 Cor. 14:34f.)?

There was also a temple of Tyche (fate or luck) in Corinth, and the Corinthian Christians apparently tended to be fatalistic, or at least believed in and depended on forces other than God to shape their lives. There was in Corinth also a statue of Tyche wearing a corona muralis (wall crown), which may shed some light on 2 Cor. 11:30-33.³⁸

It is not clear what we should make of the apparently numerous dining facilities at the Corinthian temple of Demeter and Kore. The latest archaeological reports casts doubt on the earlier assumption that the issues addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 10 were focused on these facilities.³⁹ But these reports also show other possible points of contact with issues addressed in 1 Corinthians 11–14. During Paul’s time the shrine was apparently being revived.⁴⁰ Young girls apparently served there as priestesses as in other Greek Demeter shrines and may have worn a distinctive ceremonial hat.⁴¹ There is evidence that secret rites, perhaps initiatory rites, were carried out in a room directly behind a dining room in a building in the shrine precincts (designated L-M:28 by archaeologists). At other Demeter shrines, such as at Eleusis, the Eleusian mysteries were celebrated (see the picture above). The god Dionysius was often connected with Demeter since both were fertility deities, which may suggest a context for religious justification of sexual play at the shrine of Demeter.

Statue of Kore with a sacred Eleusinian box on her head

Finally, lead curse tablets have been found under the floor of a Roman building on the site of the Demeter shrine that is believed to have been built during the second half of the first century A.D. All eleven curses that have been found are directed against women and include such invocations as I adjure and implore you and I beg of you, Hermes of the underworld, [to grant] heavy curses. One tablet begins with I consign and entrust Karpile Babbia … to the Fates, who exact justice…. These tablets might have some bearing on the enigmatic anathema Iēsou (Jesus be cursed!) passage in 1 Cor. 12:3.⁴²

It is hardly surprising that Corinth, a Roman colony, assiduously cultivated its ties with the emperor and his family. For example, in A.D. 23 Livia was honored as divine Julia Augusta with a poetry contest, and this took place even before her death.⁴³ T. Claudius Dinippus, one of Paul’s contemporaries serving as duovir in A.D. 52-53 in Corinth, was also priest of the rare cult of Britannic Victory, which celebrated the emperor’s triumphs in Britain. During the Imperial Games the emperor was lauded with encomiums and other forms of ornamental rhetoric.⁴⁴ Most importantly, however, the imperial cult was strongly promoted in first-century Corinth,⁴⁵ and freedmen were given a prominent role in this cult and thereby gained social status. In order to be fully involved in the Christian ekklēsia it would surely have been necessary to give up whatever roles one had in other religious assemblies, including the imperial cult.

Corinth was a bustling and prosperous metropolis of perhaps seventy to eighty thousand inhabitants in Paul’s day. As Engels has shown in great detail, it was primarily a service city, one that derived its wealth from the goods and services it provided to visitors, including religious pilgrims, sailors, merchants, soldiers, slave traders, and those who were in town for the games.⁴⁶ In many ways, Paul could not have picked a more appropriate place to plant the seeds of the gospel.

Paul’s missionary strategy, at least by the late 40s, was to evangelize the urban cities, most of which lay on major Roman roads (e.g., Ephesus, the Roman colony of Philippi, Thessalonica, and Corinth). The image of Paul racing breathlessly around the Roman Empire, never staying in one place more than a few days or weeks, is to a significant degree a false one. Acts 18:11 tells us that Paul stayed in Corinth for well over a year on his first visit there. Furthermore, 1 and 2 Corinthians suggest a stay long enough to establish a lively and complex community. Paul saw himself as a pioneer missionary whose chief task it was to start Christian communities in places where they had not previously existed (cf. 2 Cor. 10:14ff.). He tended and intended to stay in a location long enough to accomplish that task well.⁴⁷

The Social Level of Paul and His Converts

Paul’s Position and Presence

Paul may well have spent a considerable period of his time in Corinth at his work of tentmaking, since it would have allowed him to come into contact with all sorts of people, to support himself to a large extent, and thus to offer the gospel free of charge (cf. 1 Cor. 9:18).⁴⁸

We begin to realize that, far from being at the periphery of his life, tent-making was actually central to it. More than any of us has supposed, Paul was Paul the tentmaker. His trade occupied much of his time — from the years of his apprenticeship through the years of his life as a missionary for Christ, from before daylight through most of the day. Consequently, his trade in large measure determined his daily experiences and his social status. His life was very much that of the workshop, of artisan-friends like Aquila, Barnabas, and perhaps Jason; of leather, knives, and awls; of wearying toil; of being bent over a workbench like a slave and of working side by side with slaves; of thereby being perceived by others and by himself as slavish and humiliated; of suffering the artisan’s lack of status and so being reviled and abused.⁴⁹

Actually, this description by R. Hock seems to go a bit too far, since Paul himself in his catalogue of trials (2 Cor. 11:23ff.) makes clear that a good deal of his time was spent on travel and in contacts with Jews and Romans that led to punitive measures. He was not merely sitting in a workshop plying a trade.

But Paul did sometimes work with his hands and would have been seen by many as an artisan.⁵⁰ Well-to-do or aristocratic Romans, like Greeks, often had a low opinion of those who practiced a trade, and many of Paul’s problems in Corinth seem to have been caused by the wealthy and the social climbers among Corinthian Christians who were upset at him for not meeting their expectations for a great orator and teacher. Corinth was a city where an enterprising person could rise quickly in society through the accumulation and judicious use of newfound wealth. It seems that in Paul’s time many in Corinth were already suffering from a self-made-person-escapes-humble-origins syndrome.⁵¹ Corinth was a magnet for the socially ambitious, since there were many opportunities for merchants, bankers, and artisans to gain higher social status and accumulate a fortune in this city refounded by freed slaves.

But a person visiting Paul’s workshop would not have immediately concluded that he was nothing but a poor artisan, since Cynic philosophers were known to frequent workshops, and some of them were artisans before they became philosophers.⁵² There is also considerable inscriptional evidence that many artisans and shopkeepers were quite proud of their work.⁵³ Along with being an artisan, Paul was a preacher, teacher, and missionary skilled in the use of Greco-Roman rhetoric in writing, as we can see from his letters.

The Corinthians, or possibly even Paul’s opponents, observed, in fact, that his letters were weightier than his personal bodily presence and his oral rhetoric (2 Cor. 10:10), which was perhaps hampered by some physical disability.⁵⁴ They also apparently cared little for his deliberate self-humiliation, his assumption of a servant role, which was an attitude in violent reaction to much that was central to the classical way of life, not excluding the smooth doctrines of moderation.⁵⁵ In a city where social climbing was a major preoccupation, Paul’s deliberate stepping down in apparent status would have been seen by many as disturbing, disgusting, and even provocative.

The evidence is that Paul was well educated, and in that regard he would have been identified with and received by the well-to-do. His Roman citizenship would have worked in the same direction. But a number of other factors also mattered. Paul’s standing in regard to all the variables that counted in social status — including also wealth, political influence, and family⁵⁶ — made him a person with considerable status inconsistency. At least in Corinth, that he was an artisan who practiced a trade, not a teacher or philosopher who accepted patronage, would have worked against his social status.⁵⁷ The status opportunities Paul declined remain the measure of his potential professional standing, and of the expectation of his supporters for him. The extent of his renunciation helps to explain Paul’s intense consciousness of debasement. He was stepping firmly down in the world.⁵⁸ An apparent result was that some considered him unsophisticated and unworthy of the status of apostolos.

The Corinthian Christians

Social Status

Discussion of the social level of Paul’s Corinthian converts usually begins and frequently ends with 1 Cor. 1:26-28. Paul says there that not many of those to whom he is writing are wise, powerful, or of noble birth. So some, though few, of the Corinthian Christians apparently were members of such high status groups. This group seems to have included one or two government officials (see pp. 33-34 below on Erastus).⁵⁹ Those whom Paul calls powerful might have been those with political power, but since 2 Corinthians deals with issues involved in benefaction, including the patron-client relationship, Paul is probably referring to the relatively wealthy with this term. In Greco-Roman society, money is continually given by the powerful to their dependents, and this transfer of cash downwards in the social scale is the main instrument by which the status of the powerful is asserted.⁶⁰

Though there were, according to Paul’s testimony, few wealthy people in the Corinthian Christian community, their influence among the converts was probably well out of proportion to their numbers, since they could provide meeting places for the Christians in their homes (cf. 1 Cor. 16:15, 19). Furthermore, the leisure, administrative skills, education, and affluence of wealthy Christians gave them enormous advantages for becoming the local, indigenous leaders in the congregations that Paul founded.⁶¹

That there were significant numbers of poor or relatively poor people among the converts is suggested by 1 Cor. 1:28 and 11:22. And there were domestic slaves in the congregation as well (1 Cor. 7:21-23). 1 Cor 16:2 and 2 Corinthians 8–9, on the other hand, suggest that Paul believed that there was disposable income or assets among his Corinthian converts. Therefore, the social level of the Corinthian Christians apparently varied from quite poor to rather well-off, though they probably did not include any Roman aristocrats, of which there were likely only a few in Corinth anyway.⁶² A Pauline congregation generally reflected a fair cross-section of urban society,⁶³ though on average the Corinthian Christians appear to have been better off than the members of some of Paul’s other congregations, such as those in Macedonia, since he is willing to talk about the Corinthians having a surplus of assets (2 Cor. 8:1, 2, 14).⁶⁴

But wealth was not the only means to high social status. The hierarchy of values in the Roman colonies also included family lineage, connections with Rome, and cultural sophistication.⁶⁵ It appears that some, at least, of the better-off Corinthian Christians were, like Paul, people with a high ranking in one or more dimensions of status … accompanied by low rankings in other dimensions. They were thus people of high status inconsistency, whose achieved status [was] higher than their attributed status.⁶⁶

They shared this status inconsistency with others of their city. Though ostensibly the basic division in Roman society was between the patricians or nobility who owned estates⁶⁷ and the plebeians,⁶⁸ Roman Corinth was a provincial city whose elite included freed slaves and veterans, with the latter perhaps dominant (Plutarch Vit. Caes. 47.8). Many of the city’s top officials in Paul’s day were the children of former slaves. Both the veterans and the freedmen gained status not by lineage or sophistication, but by mere accumulation of wealth and the power that it made possible.⁶⁹ Though some merchants and even some artisans were rather well-off and had high social aspirations, they had to form their own clubs in order to establish social bonding and identity. Such members of the nouveau riche were those most likely to affect culture by entertaining Sophists, preferring their more popular rhetoric of display and entertainment to serious discourse.⁷⁰

Those whose status depended on newfound wealth played prominent roles not only in society at large, but undoubtedly also in the Christian assembly. Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 1:26 would have been a pointed reminder to such status-hungry people of their origins. Some interpreters believe, in fact, that the status inconsistency of such people was at the root of the attraction that Christianity had for some Corinthians: This new religion gave them status in their own eyes that they had been unable to obtain in the larger society. But one would have to ask of this idea how much status could be gained by joining a minority monotheistic religion, one that cut one off from other aspects of society.⁷¹

Ethnic and Religious Background

It is clear that many of Paul’s Corinthian converts were Gentiles. The urgent warnings in 1 Corinthians 10 against participating in feasts in pagan temples would not have been needed with a Jewish audience.

But there is clear evidence of Jews and Gentile synagogue adherents among the Corinthian Christians:

Paul refers to circumcised believers in Corinth (1 Cor. 7:18),

he may also allude to a mixed audience in Corinth (1 Cor. 1:22-24; 9:20-22),

he appeals to the Mosaic Law (1 Cor. 9:8-10; 14:34; 2 Cor. 3:4ff.),

he quotes the OT (e.g., 2 Cor. 6:2; 9:9; 10:17) in such a way as to assume that his audience will know and reflect on the larger contexts of some of these quotations,⁷² and

his reference to the exodus generation in 1 Cor. 10:1-13 seems to assume that some of his audience will be conversant with specifically Jewish ways of interpreting and applying Scripture.

Menorah lintel and synagogue inscription from Roman Corinth, probably post–first century A.D. The inscription reads Synagogue of the Hebrews.

Therefore, it is plausible that a significant number of Jews and synagogue-attending Gentiles converted to the Christian faith in Corinth following the lead of Crispus, the synagogue leader in Corinth, who, according to Acts 18:8, was one of Paul’s converts.

Philo, writing in the early 40s, tells us that there was a Jewish colony in Corinth (Leg. ad Gaium 281f.). Part of a lintel found in Corinth with the inscription synagogue of the Hebrews (see the photograph on p. 25)⁷³ confirms the existence of this colony. But both the lintel inscription and the Jewish votive lamps found in Corinth are from a period later than that of Paul. It could be that as a result of Claudius’s expulsion of at least some Jews from Rome in A.D. 49 or 50, that is, shortly before Paul’s arrival in Corinth, there was a larger than usual number of Jews there.⁷⁴ The view that Paul did not make it a practice to preach in synagogues when he was able and allowed to do so is made untenable by texts like 2 Cor. 10:24, not to mention the accounts in Acts.⁷⁵ Even more compelling is Paul’s statement in 1 Cor. 9:20ff. that it was, indeed, his intention to win some Jews to Christ by relating to them in Jewish ways.⁷⁶

The fountain of Pirene in the center of Roman Corinth

As many as two-thirds of all Jews in Paul’s day lived outside Palestine. About seven percent of the empire’s population appears to have been Jewish. They ranged from very sectarian and separatist to very Hellenized, and also from rather wealthy to slaves, though there appear to have been fewer Jewish slaves than slaves of any other ethnic group.⁷⁷ The Jewish community of Corinth probably included a few Roman citizens, shipowners, ship workers, artisans, merchants, and slaves — the same social range as we have seen among Christians in the city.⁷⁸

Jewish life in the Diaspora was centered around the synagogue, which required a quorum of ten Jewish men. The synagogue service focused on prayers and on reading, translating, and expounding of the Scriptures. The synagogue and its services were presided over by the archisynagogos (the office held by Crispus). Jewish religion in the Diaspora seems to have been somewhat more liberalized than in Palestine. Besides the use of the Greek OT, B. Brooten has argued that women had prominent roles in Diaspora synagogues.⁷⁹ Some of the data about some of the mothers of the synagogue indicates that they were synagogue patronesses, but in a liberal environment like Corinth other roles may have been possible as well. The case of Rufina the Jewess from Smyrna in Ionia⁸⁰ would seem to support such a possibility for at least as early as the second century A.D.

That some, at least, of the Gentile Christians had no prior link with Judaism seems likely in view of 1 Cor. 12:2 and the debacle over whether or not they might eat at idol feasts and still be Christians. To this one may add 1 Cor. 5:1ff: That incest took place, that it was of a sort that would shock even pagans, that it was known to the Corinthian Christians, and that they were doing nothing about it suggest that many if not most of Paul’s Gentile converts had no preconversion connection with the synagogue, where such immorality was often condemned. At least the majority of them were not manifesting any typically Jewish or Christian reaction to the incident.

It may be that many of the Gentile Christians in Corinth were of Roman rather than Greek ancestry or background since there are more Latin names than Greek names among those named by Paul. But it is possible that some had Latin names by virtue of being freed by Romans, since the usual practice was to take the name of one’s emancipator.

Social Diversity and Problems in the Christian Community

The diversity of socioeconomic levels and religious and ethnic backgrounds among Corinthian Christians was undoubtedly an underlying cause of several of the issues and problems that Paul addresses in 1 and 2 Corinthians. For example:

The basis for the disagreement that arose in Corinth over participation in meals in temples (1 Corinthians 10) was probably economic as well as one of religious background, since only the relatively well-off were likely to have been regularly confronted with invitations to such meals.

The larger issue of eating meat that had been sacrificed to idols (1 Corinthians 8) was apparently one of the issues dividing factions in the Corinthian Christian community, and these factions very likely had a basis in social and ethnic distinctions.⁸¹

At Christian fellowship meals the hosts may well have followed normal customs and served wealthy merchants in one room with one kind of food and the poor and slaves elsewhere, probably the atrium, with the leftovers. This may explain Paul’s indignation in 1 Cor. 11:17-34.

And in 2 Corinthians Paul must address problems created by his refusal to accept the patronage of some of the wealthy Corinthian Christians.

So understanding social distinctions and customs is an essential part of understanding both letters.

Social tensions are inherent in any religious group that is missionary in character and seeks to construct strong boundaries between the believer and the world. These two tendencies pull in opposite directions — the former toward inclusiveness,⁸² the latter toward exclusiveness. Paul’s dilemma was to create a group with a clear sense of its moral and theological identity while at the same time incorporating a heterogeneous group of people: Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free.⁸³ 1 and 2 Corinthians were written, at least in part, to clarify what the church’s social relations with the world as it existed in Roman Corinth could and should be. But to the Corinthians, it must have seemed as if Paul were sending mixed signals. Certain sorts of associations with the larger world were acceptable, while others were not. One could be like the Gentiles in what one ate, but not in where one ate.

Household Assemblies

After Paul’s initial success and then rejection in a synagogue, it appears that he preached mainly in private homes.

An invitation to teach in someone’s house would provide Paul with … a sponsor, an audience and credentials as a certain type of speaker corresponding to a certain kind of speaking event. Above all, speakers needed some type of social status or a recognized role. When Paul says I baptized the household of Stephanas, it is probably correct to assume that the preaching which led up to these baptisms occurred not in a marketplace or a gymnasium, but in someone’s house.⁸⁴

And the Corinthian Christians apparently continued to meet in private homes. The phrase "the ekklēsia in the house of" (Rom. 16:5; 1 Cor. 16:19; cf. v. 15) apparently indicates a subgroup of the whole congregation in a given city. The largest number that could have met in any of the homes of the wealthy in Corinth was probably about fifty (see the drawing of a villa on p. 194).⁸⁵ And it appears from 1 Cor. 14:23 and Rom. 16:23 that meetings of all Christians in a given city were the exception, not the norm. It is possible, therefore, that some of the divisions in Corinth arose from divisions among household assemblies.

How would outsiders — and the Corinthian Christians themselves — have viewed the Christian congregations meeting in homes? Because early Christianity had neither priests nor temples nor sacrifices, to the outsider a household assembly would surely have seemed much more like a social club, a society, or a group of students gathered around a great teacher teaching in the home of his patron, than like a religious group.

Romans did carry on some religious activities in their homes. It is thus tempting, especially in light of the use of family language in 1 and 2 Corinthians, to see the Corinthian house congregation as an extension of the household, with the head of the house also being the head of the assembly. Favoring this view is that Gaius, Priscilla and Aquila, and perhaps Stephanas, Chloe, and Phoebe were both the hosts and the leaders of the churches that met in their homes.

A Corinthian statue showing typical Roman male attire — a tunic

The heads of Roman families would frequently encourage clubs or associations to meet in their homes. Some of these were essentially trade or professional associations. There were also burial societies, which in addition to the usual social functions also collected dues to help with expenses when a member died, a function that was especially necessary among the poor. Organized religion was not the focal point of these groups, though certain religious functions were important and necessary in them.⁸⁶ More important were simple bonding and socializing.

Probably the Corinthian household assemblies would have appeared to outsiders as clubs or societies meeting in homes.⁸⁷ This would especially be the case on occasions when dining was part of the Christian meeting. If the Christians themselves viewed their household assemblies as being like such collegia,⁸⁸ some of them might also have assumed that it was appropriate to operate the group according to the social conventions of the larger society. These associations had a clear hierarchical structure of deities, then patrons or leaders, and, finally, ordinary members, which on the surface at least would seem to parallel the structure of the Christian ekklēsia in Corinth.⁸⁹ It should not surprise us then that the Corinthians would revert to normal socializing and dining behavior at their meetings (cf. 1 Cor. 11:20-22). The major difference between the Christian house meetings and such societies was that the Christians gathered mainly for religious worship and fellowship, not ordinary socializing with a religious element. No doubt it took a while for some Corinthians to realize this.

From 1 Cor. 14:23 we discover that Christian household meetings were not closed meetings, unlike the meetings convened for the Isis rituals or by participants in the mystery religions. Strangers, including unbelievers, could drift into the Christian meeting. Perhaps some even showed up to get a free meal.

Two Prominent Members

Paul mentions fourteen males by name as Corinthian Christians in his letters. We must suppose that most of them were married, that most had children, and that some had slaves. As the Pauline household code shows (Col. 3:18–4:1), this was the normal structure of the comfortable family.⁹⁰ This indicates that the Corinthian Christian community included at least forty people. Because of his family background, education, and Roman citizenship, Paul would have naturally identified with those who were heads of such families or who were socially better off, people such as Erastus and Phoebe.

In Romans 16, Paul sends greetings from Corinth to Christians in another major urban center.⁹¹ The last names that he mentions (v. 23) are those of Gaius, who was his host in Corinth, Quartus our brother, and, most importantly, Erastus, ho oikonomos tēs poleōs. This final greeting took on new significance when a pavement stone was found in front of the ancient theater in Corinth with an inscription reading Erastus in return for aedileship laid [this] pavement at his own expense⁹² (see the photograph above). More recently a second inscription has been found that reads The Vitelli, Frontinus, and Erastus [dedicate this] to….⁹³ The pavement inscription is probably from as early as the reign of Nero in view of the way the lettering is done. It seems unlikely that Paul would have drawn attention to the social status of the Erastus he names in Romans if Erastus were only a slave, even a public slave with civic responsibilities. This Erastus was more likely a freedman, or the son of a freedman, and socially prominent, like other famous freedmen of the period in Corinth such as Cn. Babbius Philinus. Paul was, after all, trying to curry favor with his Roman audience in preparation for a visit to their city.⁹⁴

Pavement stone found near the theater in Corinth; the inscription indicates that Erastus the Aedile paid for the pavement out of his own funds

Photo courtesy of C. Kennedy

Could the Erastus of Romans 16 and of the inscriptions be the same person? The short answer is yes.⁹⁵ There is evidence that Greek oikonomos and agoranomos could both refer to the same office in a Roman colony — both as translations of Latin aedilis.⁹⁶ In view of his possession of such an office, the possibility that the Erastus mentioned in Romans 16 is not the same as the Erastus of the inscriptions seems slight.⁹⁷

The office of aedile was just below that of duovir. The aedile’s main tasks were to see to the maintenance of public streets, buildings, and marketplaces and to collect revenues from businesses in such places. He could also be a judge, and in places other than Corinth aediles were in charge of the local games. It was an important post, and in a wealthy city like Corinth one needed considerable wealth in money and property to obtain it. That the pavement inscription seems to have had room only for the man’s cognomen, Erastus, may suggest he was a freedman. But this should not cause us to minimize his status. Freedmen could … be extremely wealthy, hold high public office and become important benefactors,⁹⁸ especially in a freedman’s city like Roman Corinth.

Phoebe was a diakonos in the ekklēsia in Corinth’s port city of Cenchreae. She is not mentioned in the Corinthian correspondence, but she has a prominent place in Rom. 16:1f. The term diakonos in Paul’s letters does not necessarily denote the same office that deacon or in this case deaconess later represented. It is clear from 1 Cor. 3:5 and 2 Cor. 3:6; 6:4; 11:15; 11:23 that Paul used diakonos for leadership roles in the Christian community, since he applies it to himself and Apollos. It does not necessarily imply a role subordinate to other church offices, but it does imply a self-perception as one subordinate to God and as a servant to the ekklēsia that one has been called to serve. It is possible that it refers to someone who is a preacher and teacher, possibly even a traveling missionary.⁹⁹

Paul also calls Phoebe a prostatis, which in view of the context in Romans 16 likely means patroness, not protector or merely helper.¹⁰⁰ There is clear evidence that women in the Roman world could assume the legal role of prostatis.¹⁰¹ A papyrus document has been discovered that speaks of a woman becoming the prostatis of her fatherless son in 142 B.C. Furthermore, perhaps one-tenth of the patrons, protectors, or donors to collegia mentioned in inscriptions are women. As a general rule, then, women as benefactors should be imagined playing their part personally and visibly, out in the open.¹⁰²

In view of the way Paul commends Phoebe, it seems likely that she carried his letter to the Roman Christians, that she was responsible also for reading and interpreting it, and that she was a patroness for Paul and for other Christians. He commends her to the Romans so that they will assist her in collecting funds, perhaps for Paul’s planned missionary work in Spain.¹⁰³ The connection here between her socioeconomic position, which brought her social status, and her role as one of the diakonoi is important. It suggests that there were early Christians of relatively high social status who had the time, influence, and funds to take on active leadership roles in the Christian communities. It was easy and perhaps natural for them to assume some leadership roles, especially in view of the household context of the Christian gatherings. This adopting and adapting of the hierarchical household structure did not have to lead to an exclusively male leadership structure. In a home where a woman, for whatever reason, was the head of the household (e.g., Chloe in 1 Cor. 1:11), she might also become a leader, or the leader, of the ekklēsia meeting in her house.

The early ekklēsia probably did not begin with an ideal egalitarian structure and then descend into oppressive patriarchy. It began by taking up the patriarchal institutions of Greco-Roman home and society and reforming them in a community context. Unfortunately, after the NT period, with the effective loss of an eschatological focus on the possible imminent return of Christ and in the heat of the struggle with various heresies, the reforming process was abandoned or exchanged for a conforming schema.¹⁰⁴

The Literary World of Paul and His Converts

Paul wrote his letters as substitutes for oral communication. There is strong evidence that he intended his letters to be read aloud in congregational meetings:

The closing in 1 Cor. 16:20 refers to the practice of the holy kiss, which was part of early Christian worship.¹⁰⁵ This suggests that once the letter was read, the service was at or nearing completion.

At the end of Galatians Paul expects the addressees (you plural) to be able to see his handwriting at the end of the letter (Gal. 6:11), which again suggests that the letter was read to the assembled congregation.

The greetings at the ends of some of the letters imply a meeting of the group, where those named could hear the greetings. The evidence of Col. 4:16, whether written by Paul or another,¹⁰⁶ certainly reflects the practice in the Pauline churches.

This setting of the reception of the letters becomes important when we turn to the rhetorical form of Paul’s letters to the Corinthians. Paul wrote much of what he wrote with the intention that it have a certain effect on the listening ear. The tendency to treat these documents simply as texts overlooks an important dimension of their intended function. Paul’s letters conform to a significant degree to the general structure of other ancient letters. But he also chose to draw on the conventions of ancient Greco-Roman rhetoric in shaping his communications with his converts. So we will need to consider 1 and 2 Corinthians both as letters and in connection with the rhetorical conventions of Paul’s day.

1 and 2 Corinthians as Letters

Letters in antiquity were, with rare exceptions (e.g., those of Cicero), not meant for the general public, much less for publication. They were considered inadequate though necessary substitutes for face-to-face oral communication (cf. Rom. 15:14-33; 1 Cor. 4:14-21; 1 Thess. 2:17–3:13; Gal. 4:12-20), and scholars have rightly begun to emphasize the oral character of Paul’s letters. Furthermore, Paul’s letters are, with the possible exception of Philemon, a more personal letter,¹⁰⁷ communications to groups. Each letter includes, therefore, what Paul is willing for an entire congregation to hear, or at least overhear where he singles out a member or group in the congregation.

Ancient letters from the 4th century B.C. to the 4th century A.D. could contain the following elements:¹⁰⁸

the name of the writer,

the name of the addressee,

a greeting,

the body of the letter, which included a thanksgiving or wish prayer, then an introductory formula, followed by the substance of the letter, sometimes followed by an eschatological conclusion or a travelogue,

ethical or practical advice, and

a conclusion with final greetings, benediction, and sometimes a description of how the letter was written.

Parts of the fourth and fifth of these elements are usually found in Paul’s correspondence, but are uncommon in other ancient letters. The only letter of Paul’s that does not contain a thanksgiving prayer of some sort is Galatians, where Paul could think of little to be thankful for in view of what was happening to his churches in Galatia. Most ancient letters were quite terse and to the point. Paul’s letters are much longer than the average private letter of the first century.

Paul used scribes to write his letters, like other writers in antiquity. In Rom. 16:22 a scribe passes along his own greeting. At the end of some of his letters Paul indicates the point at which he takes up the pen to write a line himself and perhaps to add a characteristic signature (1 Cor. 16:21; Gal. 6:11; 2 Thess. 3:17).¹⁰⁹

How much freedom did Paul give his scribes in composing his letters? Did he dictate word-for-word, did he give the sense and leave the formulation to the scribe, or did he sometimes perhaps even just instruct a secretary or friend like Silas or Timothy to write in his name without specifying the content of the letter? Some of the letters read like they are dictated documents expressing both the mind and very words of Paul. The sentence fragments in some of the letters may have resulted from Paul dictating too fast for a scribe to keep up. Even if Paul left the formulation of a letter to a scribe, perhaps giving him the main ideas, 2 Thess. 3:17 claims that Paul signed all his letters, likely reviewing the document first. If he did, it is not as important whether we have Paul’s exact words in a particular letter, because we have his thoughts and directives.¹¹⁰ The evidence suggests that Paul dictated most of his letters (e.g., 1 and 2 Corinthians) verbatim. It was in extenuating circumstances, such as when he was in prison, that he probably gave his scribes more freedom to compose for him, after which he would read what they had written, make changes, and then put his signature on the letter (such may have been the case with Philippians). At any rate Paul’s letters were too important as an expression of his apostolic authority for him to allow anything inconsistent with his own thinking or intent to remain in a document that he would ultimately endorse.

Paul’s letters were carried by messengers who brought oral communications along with the letters. Perhaps Paul intended the messenger to be able to explain or expand on some of the content of the letter being delivered.¹¹¹ He may have chosen couriers such as Timothy or Titus who would be able to read aloud a letter in a way that conformed to his own rhetorical strategy and intent.

Paul’s letters must be seen as part of a total communication effort that included letters, oral instructions through messengers, and face-to-face communication, whether preaching, teaching, or some form of dialogue. The dialogical character of many of the letters is evident, since parts of them are given over to answering questions addressed to Paul. This is