The life and work of St. Paul

316 THE LIFE AND WOEK OF ST. PAUL.
from its lofty summit on the two seas studded with the white sails of many
lands, or watched the glow of sunset bathing in its soft lustre the widespread
pageant of islands and mountains, and groves of cypress and pine. But all
his interest lay in those crowded streets where his Lord had much people, and
in the varied human surroundings of his daily life. How deeply he was
impressed by these may be seen in the Corinthian Epistles. His illustrations
are there chiefly drawn from Gentile customs the wild-beast fights, 1 which
Athens would never admit while she had an Altar to Pity ;
the lovely stadium,
in which he had looked with sympathy on the grace and strength and swiftness
of many a youthful athlete ; the race 2 and the boxing-matches, 3 the insulting
vanity of Roman triumph, 4 the long hair of effeminate dandies, 5 the tribunal
of the Proconsul, 6 the shows of the theatre, 7 the fading garland of Isthmian pine. 8
But there was one characteristic of heathen life which would come home
to him at Corinth with overwhelming force, and fill his pure soul with infinite
pain. It was the gross immorality of a city conspicuous for its depravity
even amid the depraved cities of a dying heathenism. 9
Its very name had
become a synonym for reckless debauchery. This abysmal profligacy of
Corinth was due partly to the influx of sailors, who made it a trystiug-plaee
for the vices of every land, and partly to the vast numerical superiority of the
slaves, of which, two centuries later, the city was said to contain many myriads. 10
And so far from acting as a check upon this headlong immorality, religion
had there taken under its immediate protection the very pollutions which it
was its highest function to suppress. A thousand Hierodouloi were conse-
crated to the service of Impurity in the infamous Temple of Aphrodite
Pandemos. The Lais of old days, whose tomb at Corinth had been marked
by a sphinx with a human head between her claws, had many shameless and
rapacious representatives. East and west mingled their dregs of foulness in
the new Gomorrah of classic culture, 11 and the orgies of the Paphian goddess
were as notorious as those of Isis or of Ashorah. It was from this city and
amid its abandoned proletariate that the Apostle dictated his frightful sketch
of 12
Paganism. It was to the converts of this city that he addressed most
frequently, and with most solemn warning and burning indignation, his stern
prohibitions of sensual crime.18 It was to converts drawn from the reeking
1 1 Cor. xv. 32 ; Lucian, Demonax, 57 ; Philostr. Apollon. Iv. 22.
s 1 Cor. ix. 24.
*
Id. ver. 27.
2 Cor. ii. 1416.
1 Cor. xi. 14.
2 Cor. v. 10.
' 1 Cor. iv. 9.
* 1 Cor. ix. 25.
In
9
Hesych. s. v. Kopv8iof*