From the colony of the Church of God at ROME
To the colony of the Church of God at CORINTH, called and sanctified by the will of God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
All grace and peace to you from God Almighty, through Jesus Christ.
The Corinthians’ Previous Good Record
Because of our recent series of unexpected misfortunes and set-backs, my dear friends, we feel there has been some delay in turning our attention to the causes of dispute in your community. We refer particularly to the odious and unholy breach of unity among you, which is quite incompatible with God’s chosen people, and which a few hot-headed and unruly individuals have inflamed to such a pitch that your venerable and illustrious name, so richly deserving of everyone’s affection, has been brought into serious disrepute.
There was a time when nobody could spend even a short while among you without noticing the excellence and constancy of your faith. Who ever failed to be impressed by your sober and selfless Christian piety, to tell of your generous spirit of hospitality,3 or to pay tribute to the wide range and soundness of your knowledge? It was your habit at all times to act without fear or favour, living by the laws of God and deferring with correctness to those who were set over you.4 Your elders were treated with the honour due to them; your young men were counselled to be soberly and seriously minded; your womenfolk were bidden to go about their duties in irreproachable devotion and purity of conscience, showing all proper affection to their husbands; they were taught to make obedience the rule of their lives, to manage their households decorously, and to be patterns of discretion in every way.
Humility, too, and a complete absence of self-assertion were common to you all; you preferred to offer submission rather than extort it, and giving was dearer to your hearts than receiving. Asking no more than what Christ had provided for your journey through life, you paid careful heed to His words, treasured them in your hearts, and kept His sufferings constantly before your eyes. The reward was a deep and shining peace, a quenchless ardour for well-doing, and a rich outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon you all. You were full of aspirations to holiness; after any involuntary transgression you would stretch out suppliant hands to Almighty God in an agony of piety and devout trustfulness, and implore His mercy. Day and night you would wrestle on behalf of all the brotherhood, that in His mercy and compassion the whole number of His elect might be saved. In your single-minded innocence you harboured no resentments; any kind of faction or schism was an abomination to you. You mourned for a neighbour’s faults, and regarded his failings as your own. Never did you grudge a kindly action; always you were ready for any deed of goodness. In the beauty of a pure and heavenly citizenship, whatever you did was done in the fear of God, and the statutes and judgments of the Lord were engraved on the tables of your hearts.