Search

The purpose of the present article is to investigate the representation of slavery in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, written around 53 CE. A premise in the article is that slavery is an institution which pervades the imaginary of the ἐκκλησία of Corinth, located in the East of the Roman Mediterranean. Based on that, an analysis of context and content of the epistle will be conducted. The article also seeks to understand how the Early Christian movement connected with Stoic philosophy in terms of similarities and differences presented by them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Philanthropy, often referred to as mercy (ἐλεημοσύνη) in late antique sources, was an essential characteristic of ancient and late antique Christianity. The practice known today in the Western world as caritas or diakonia should accordingly also have left strong traces in the history of Christianity in the Peloponnese. In my contribution, I would like to look for such traces, which have hardly been considered in the secondary literature so far. The search will be conducted in various directions. First of all, I will look for philanthropic ideals in ancient Christian sources. The focus will be on the 1st Letter of Clement and the corpus of letters of Dionysios of Corinth. In a further step, archaeological sources will be evaluated. Inscriptions of individual as well as institutional philanthropic practice will be examined. Ultimately, the question of the transformation of ancient pagan institutions, which, like hospitals, had a kind of philanthropic character, is important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1Cor 8-10 Paul deals extensively with the problem of eating food sacrificed to idols, and in 1Cor 11:17-34 he discusses abuses in the Lord's Supper in Corinth. In 1Cor 10:21 Paul contrasts the ,table of the Lord' and the ,table of the demons'. Similarities and differences of these two forms of ritual table fellowship are discussed in this article starting with the archaeological evidence for ritual meals in antiquity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a climate of institutional change and loss of authority, it is urgently needed to rethink the legitimacy of religious authority. This article offers a case study of Paul's authority claims in Corinth, using French & Raven's theory of social power, to offer new insights into the construction of religious leadership. Paul negotiated renewed acceptance as Corinth's founder and apostle by appealing to legitimate power that he was a better leader than Moses, even Christ's ambassador, and by undermining the legitimate power of his opponents who claimed Jewish descent and apostolic miracles as key leadership markers. Similarly, Paul appealed to referent power by portraying his suffering as a mark of Christ-embodying leadership and undermined the referent power of his opponents by denouncing status, patronage support and rhetoric as legitimation for leadership. Paul did not appeal to other power bases (informational, expert, reward and coercion), because he could not be sure to outrank his opponents on those counts. This analysis suggests that religious authority in the form of Paul's founding apostleship was difficult to comprehend and embed in the social and cultural structures of Corinth at that time. Paul needed to engage in intense contention and negotiation to construct a socially and culturally viable model of leadership that would do justice to his vision of Christian identity. As a corollary, the evidence of the intensity of this conflict at various levels throughout the epistle can be interpreted as supporting the literary unity of the epistle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is commonplace to describe households as the primary social structures out of which the Jesus movement developed in its initial decades. However, the model of a Jesus movement originating from familial networks, and mostly set within domestic architecture, no longer accounts adequately for the data, and reflects contemporary Western cultural settings where religion is imagined as primarily located within the private setting. Taking the earliest population of Christ-believers in Corinth as a test case, this article pursues an alternative model, one that focuses on streets and neighborhoods as the basic social unit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the inscriptions from Corinth (in publication), there are graffiti carved into the floor of a prison in Corinth. They shed interesting light on the hopes, beliefs and opinions of Christians from late antiquity. This study offers an overview of the insights to be gained from these graffiti. Now that IG IV2 3 Fasc. 3. Inscriptiones Corinthi, regionis Corinthiae is available, the evidence on Christian prisoners in the later Roman Empire will be easily accessible.2 The texts consist of graffiti on limestone floor tiles. They were found at the back of the "Boudroumi" arches.3 The vaults were shops north-west of the agora of ancient Corinth. Currently, these fragments of the limestone slabs that are still available are kept in the museum's storerooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]