Historical Background of the text of 1 Corinthians
The First Epistle to the Corinthians, or 1 Corinthians was written in Greek by St. Paul of Tarsus to the fledgling Christian Community of Corinth. In the Bible, It is the seventh book of the New Testament and the second of the letters of Paul. Hence it would have been one of the first letters written by St. Paul in his long ministry. The authenticity of 1 Corinthians is not disputed St. Paul is the true author, one support of this is the fact that the letter is credited to St. Paul in all the earliest cannons of the bible even before the contents of the bible were standardized. According to the epistle itself (Corinthians 16:8), St. Paul wrote it from Ephesus. An alternate translation suggests that he wrote it in Philippi. It was stated in the Acts of the Apostles that St. Paul founded a Christian Church in Corinth before traveling to Ephesus where he stayed for three years. Sources date the letter to be written between 53 and 57 AD (Just S.J.) (Orr, 1915).
As with most of the letters of St. Paul it was written at a very critical point in the history of the Church. Jesus had just concluded his ministry less than two decades prior. The Twelve Apostles were mostly focused in converting the Jews of Palestine to their new faith. They believed that Jesus would have wanted them to focus the apostolate on those who Jesus himself walked with in life. Paul would be one of the first Christians to venture beyond Palestine and attempt to convert a new kind of people to Christianity; the Gentiles people who were not born as Jews but were nevertheless deserving of the new faith. After his conversion experience outside of Damascus, St. Paul became a zealous apostle traveling from city to city proclaiming the teachings of Christ and encouraging the people to convert. St. Paul’s travels and his letters were aided by the relative peace found in the Roman Empire. The Pax Imperia or Imperial Peace all but guaranteed that people could travel freely between different parts of the empire subject only to the vagaries of weather and free from the plague of bandits or warfare. Also as a Roman citizen St. Paul and his properties, his letters, were accorded a becoming respect wherever he went. Unlike the other apostles who were mostly non-Citizens and Jews.
Specific Issues it addresses
Like the other letters of St. Paul, 1 Corinthians addresses specific issues within the emerging Christians communities and proposes faith based solutions to them. Paul wrote the letter to correct the erroneous beliefs that were beginning to pollute the new Church. He admonished them “that ye all speak the same thing and that there be no divisions among you,” (Corinthians 1:10). The divisions in the Church were a common problem in all the Churches during this time particularly the fact that pagan rituals continued to infest the Church and cause divisions among the adherents. Hence St. Paul felt that it was his duty to guide the Church back into the light.
Today the Church is again fraught with many divisions. Rationalism, New Age Paganism and Atheism have replaced paganism as the primary cause of division. The adherence to these things is leading people away from the Church. Most dangerous of them is rationalism or when people decided for themselves what they think the faith is and they rationalize that what ever they are doing is probably ok. New Age practice are also encouraging pagan practices that are inconsistent with the tenets of the faith such as belief in communing with spirits and magic beliefs that Jesus himself condemned. For us the message of St. Paul is a return to the true teaching of the Faith and to be united in that Faith.
Another important Message of St. Paul was his admonition against immorality. Specific examples mentioned in the letter are an immoral brother, resolving personal disputes and sexual purity. A controversial statement made by Paul was that he stressed that it was better for the Christian to remain single and unmarried. However, it was better for them to be married than to live in sin. This statement has to be viewed light of the fact that during the time of St. Paul, people including St. Paul believed that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was just around the corner. They though the Second Coming was going to happen within their life time. In other words, there was no point in getting married if the world as we know it was about to end very soon. Getting married was only a concession to those who were really in love and wanted to get married presently.
The Epistle considered marriage as an apostolic practice (Corinthians 9:5) specifically;
“Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas (Corinthians 9:5)”
However, this statement must be viewed in light of a possible mistranslation of the word wife because it is the same as the word for woman in Greek. In 1 Corinthians 9:5 it was shown that women were ministering to the men but these were not wives (Tertullian) instead when it said they were being ministered it meant that corporal needs like food were being tended to. They were the first nuns, women who left the office of marriage, that is abandoned the possibility of it, to follow Christ and preach themselves (Jerome).
The message here is very important to us today. Many people are having premarital sex or even extramarital sex and people have become promiscuous. St. Paul’s message when seen in light of what Christians believed at that time can be seen to heavily discourage the practice of “free love”. He discouraged marriage only because he thought that the world as we know it was about to end and marriage, being a union of man and woman, was pointless. Sexual intercourse should only be enjoyed in the context of a happy married life and not in the other less pure situations that it is indulged in today. Sex outside of marriage is wrong plain and simple. Morality is an important compass in life and to have extra-marital sex is to abandon that compass and indulge in immorality. In the time of St. Paul, immorality was the norm rather than the exception. The Romans indulged in many pleasures many of which were immoral such as orgies, extreme gorging and gladiator fights. St. Paul was teaching against these excessive behaviors. Today similar excessive behavior exists; extramarital sex, excess in consumption the lead to obesity and other lifestyle diseases and drugs. These excess must be halted as they serve no good to us other than to destroy our beings.
St. Paul also admonished the Christians against false idols. It can be remembered that during this time the Roman Empire had many gods both native to Rome and imported from other cultures. Hence different Romans had different gods. In contrast Christians believed in the One True God. It was anathema for them to still worship the false gods now that the True God had been revealed to them in thorough the incarnate form of Jesus Christ. The same is quickly happening today. While Christians today do not worship Baal or Sett or Zeus we are falling into the sin of worshiping other false idols, like money and power. These become false idols because we render unto these things the worship that should belong to God. As a result money and power, the desire for them, takes us down a path to perdition and away from the salvation offered by Jesus. These are the false idols that St. Paul’s words from the 1st century AD admonish us to reject because these false idols are not true and the worship we render unto them will never be repaid.
Finally, St. Paul did not write 1 Corinthian’s to give the Corinthian church a talking down to or a guilt trip. Instead he reminds them that as Christians they are supposed to emulate the wonderful example of Christ. If they fail to do so then it is only incumbent upon them to strive harder to imitate His example. Likewise, in modern times our communities are far from perfect. Many have fallen to sin, some have even committed living lives of disgrace. But this is not a reason to lose hope. Rather we should be encouraged to press on and continue, reform and strive to better ourselves that someday we may become worthy of the promises of Christ.
Conclusion
First Corinthians is a letter by St. Paul written in the 1st century A.D. however, its message still rings true to many Christian communities today. The problems the early Church suffered are still plaguing the church today. As is commonly said the lessons of history exist to be remembered and adopted. The problems that were endemic in the early church are still endemic to this day. Communities continue to suffer the banes of division and immorality. False Idols continue to take people away from the church. Hence it is imperative that the lessons of 1 Corinthians be taken to heart. The most important admonition is St. Paul’s great desire that people of Corinth should desire to live their lives with Christ as their example, like the ancient people of Corinth we should also learn to live our lives based on Christ’s admirable example when he was still in the world.
Granted that some of St. Paul’s beliefs may have been a product of his time, for example he believed that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ was just around the corner and during their time women were not allowed to fully participate in the life of worship and faith, but his teachings remain valid. They remain valid because the problems that he wrote against remain problems to this day. Hence we must look to the words of St. Paul with faith and remember that he was and is one of the greatest apostles to walk the earth.
Works Cited
Corinthians, First Epistle to the, “The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia”, Ed. James Orr, 1915.
Pauline Chronology: His Life and Missionary Work, from Catholic Resources by Felix Just, S.J.
*Tertullian, On Monogamy “For have we not the power of eating and drinking?” he does not demonstrate that “wives” were led about by the apostles, whom even such as have not still have the power of eating and drinking; but simply “women,” who used to minister to them in the stone way (as they did) when accompanying the Lord.”
*Jerome, Against Jovinianus, Book I “In accordance with this rule Peter and the other Apostles (I must give Jovinianus something now and then out of my abundance) had indeed wives, but those which they had taken before they knew the Gospel. But once they were received into the Apostolate, they forsook the offices of marriage.”