The Divine Lamp

the city of Corinth is called by Cicero the light of Greece.  It was in the days of St Paul the seat of government of the Roman province of Achaia, and was remarkable, St Chrysostom says, for the possession of two splendid harbors, connecting it with the Ionian and Aegean seas, between which it stood.

St Paul reached this noble city about the year 54, arriving from Athens: and by the command of Christ, communicated to him in a vision described in Acts 18:9-10, remained 18 months, and made a very large number of converts to the Christian faith.  His success at Corinth was in remarkable contrast with his comparative failure at Athens, the great seat of learning, and is an interesting subject of reflection.

The Apostle quited Corinth for Ephesus, and after his departure, his converts at Corinth, some of whom were wealthy, and had been accustomed to luxury, fell under the influence of various teachers of error, who greatly unsettled their faith, and introduced some irregularities and scandals among them.  The controversies arising out of these questions were the occasion of the present Epistle, unquestionably one of the grandest treatises in existence.  St Paul had been appealed to for his judgment on these questions (7:1), and he gives it with perfect charity and perfect freedom.  He first warns them against the disastrous consequences of parties and divisions, following different and self-appointed teachers and leaders, and exhorts them to unanimity and concord, under the guidance of the legitimately constituted authorities of the Church, pointing out that schism has its origin in an over-zealous regard for merely human learning.  In depreciation of this, he exalts, as the only true wisdom, the lowliness and humility of the Cross of Christ.  This subject occupies the first four chapters.  The remainder of the Epistle is taken up with the resolution of the questions proposed to him; which relate to the mode of excommunication of an offender; the appearance of Christian litigants before pagan tribunals; the Christian law of marriage; the use of food which had been offered to idols; the veiling of women in public worship: the Holy Eucharist; the mode of exercise of the supernatural gifts then frequent in the Church, and which appear to have existed in a remarkably conspicuous manner at Corinth: and lastly to the resurrection of the body, on which subject he explains the Christian  doctrine in a passage of splendid eloquence, which has attracted the admiration of the Christian world for eighteen hundred years, and has never been surpassed by any writer, sacred or profane.  Finally, he requests the charity of the Christians at Corinth on behalf of their brethren in Judea, who were suffering great provisions from poverty.

This Epistle was written at Ephesus, or in the neighborhood of Ephesus, in the year 57, the year before the Epistle to the Romans.-Bernardin de Picquiqny (1633-1707).  The work is in the public domain

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