Corinthians

Corinthians, Epistles to the, the name given to two epistles written by St. Paul to the church at Corinth, between the years 53 and 54 A.D. The first had for its object to rebuke some divisions and abuses that had arisen, and to answer certain specific questions, and was written from Ephesus; the second, written from Macedonia, rebuked further abuses, asserted the authority of St. Paul over the newly-formed church, and also urged the claim of the mother church at Jerusalem to the good offices of the faithful at Corinth. The epistles are valuable both as emphasising the peculiar temptations and failings thett marked the early Christians in a cultivated and prosperous pagan city, and as setting forth the mode of dealing with them by him who was the special apostle of the Gentiles.