Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 46:1 (NA 1995)
Article: The Achaean Federal Imperial Cult II: The Corinthian Church
Author: Bruce W. Winter

TynBul 46:1 (1995) p. 169

The Achaean Federal Imperial Cult II: The Corinthian Church

Bruce W. Winter

Summary

The petition from Argos discussed in the previous essay is a ‘new’ document for New Testament scholars which throws light on first-century issues in Roman Corinth. This paper seeks to examine the Argive evidence in order to see what information it might yield to help in our understanding of the early Christian community. In particular it will explore the problem of the imperial cult and 1 Corinthians 8 and comment briefly on Roman Corinth’s cultural and legal mores.

In the preceding article Anthony Spawforth has drawn attention to a document about Corinth which was previously unknown to New Testament scholars. It throws light on the formation of the federal or provincial imperial cult which was established there in the early years of the church. This is significant for a number of reasons.

Firstly, given the shortage of literary evidence we possess generally on the East in this period when compared with other eras, it is important for the way it discusses religious, cultural and administrative matters and the relationship between Rome and the eastern part of the empire.

Secondly, the Corinthian literary sources have also been enhanced by its recovery. The corpus consists of two pagan authors, Strabo and Pausanias, who as ‘tourists’ described in detail the city a century before and after the formation of the church, and two visitors, Favorinus and Epictetus, in the early second century. This petition from neighbouring Argos is the only major, non-Christian literary source we possess that refers to first-century developments in this illustrious Roman colony.1 Up to this point, the only literary remains

TynBul 46:1 (1995) p. 170

of substance which reflected the life, laws and customs of Corinth have been 1 and 2 Corinthians and Acts 18:1-18. Paul still remains the only author who knew the city in depth through residing there for some eighteen months.

Thirdly, what is most important for New Testament studies is that we now have a petition that reflects a development in Corinth which occurred at approximately the same time as 1 Corinthians was written.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the petition from Argos to see what light it throws on 1 Corinthians for (I) the imperial cult and Christianity and (II) the particular cultural milieu against which it is to be understood.

I. The Imperial Cult And The Church

We know that a local imperial cult was establish...