CORINTH (Κόρινθος, Corinthus). - A city of the Peloponnese, capital of the Roman province of Achaea, famous not only for its wealth, splendor, and corruption, but also for the apostolate of St. Paul and the letters he addressed to the local Christian community.
Thanks to excavations conducted since 1895, first by the Greeks and then by American archaeologists, our knowledge of pre-Christian Corinth, and especially of its Hellenic and Roman periods, has been greatly enriched.
Ancient Corinth stood about 7 km southwest of present-day Néa-Kórinthos, north of the Acrocorinth. Excavations have revealed little of this citadel, similar to the Acropolis of Athens, but much of the rest of the city. The Roman Corinth was almost entirely built upon the Greek city, so that it is virtually a continuation of II.
Already advanced in civilization in the 9th century B.C., Corinth rose in influence with the ascendancy of Macedon and became the seat of the "League of Corinth." After the prosperous period of the "League" (Corinth joined in 243 B.C.), when the other allies had already fallen, Corinth too came under the yoke of the Romans. At first, the Romans confined themselves to occupying the Acrocorinth (196 B.C.); then, following an attempted rebellion, the city was besieged by the consul L. Mummius, who reduced to a heap of ruins the last symbol of Greek freedom (146 B.C.).
Yet the geographical position of Corinth, which with its isthmus represented a bridge between the north and south of Greece, indeed between Asia and Europe, was too important for the site to remain forever a field of ruins. Indeed, a century later Caesar began its reconstruction, calling it Colonia Laus Iulia Corinthus and establishing there, alongside the sparse Greek element, a colony of veterans and freedmen. With the influx of many foreigners from the commercial world, the city soon became, in wealth and refined corruption, not unlike the ancient Hellenic metropolis. When, less than a century later, Paul began his apostolic work there, Corinth had become a city of intense traffic. Its two ports, one on the Saronic or Aegina Gulf (port of Cenchreae), the other on the Gulf of Patras or Corinthian Gulf (port of Lechaeum)—which earned the city the epithet δυθάλασσοι or άμφιθάλασσοι (bi-maris: Horace, Odes, 1, 7, 2)—spared ships the long voyage around the Peloponnese, either by unloading in one port and reloading in the other, or by dragging smaller vessels across the so-called diolkos (Strabo, VII, 2, 1).
At Corinth, a city of lavish pleasures (hence the proverb "not everyone can go to Corinth": cf. Horace, Epist., 1, 17, 36), the wealthiest men of Rome and the Empire gathered, particularly during the biennial Isthmian Games (alluded to in 1 Cor 9:24-27). As in the past, and even more so, Aphrodite, served by over a thousand prostitutes in her temple on the Acrocorinth (Strabo, VIII, 6, 20), was the sovereign goddess of this city, which had become not only a strange blend of races and civilizations but also an immense den of corruption. This gave a sinister meaning to the phrase "Corinthian girl" (Plato, Rep., III, 404) and led to the coining of the verb κορίνθιαζεσθαι, "to Corinthianize," meaning "to live like a Corinthian" (Aristophanes, Fragm. 133).
In this cosmopolitan center of intense commerce, alongside Latins and Greeks, there was a large representation of Jews. To these, before turning decisively to the pagans (Acts 18:4-7), Paul directed his efforts, as to those entitled to enjoy the first fruits of the Gospel. It was a failure. Among the pagans, who were far more resistant to accepting the "word of the Cross" (1 Cor 1:18), a great success was achieved within less than two years (50-52 or 51-53), as Jesus had foretold to Paul at the moment of his break with the synagogue in Corinth, that in this city He would reserve for Himself a numerous people (Acts 18:10). There the Apostle worked with his hands to earn his livelihood, especially before the aid from the generous Macedonians reached him (2 Cor 11:9); he worked with words, primarily among the lower classes, who were most receptive to the evangelical message (1 Cor 1:26); he found support in the house of Titius Justus, a Roman already sympathetic to the religion of Israel before (Acts 18:7); he was brought by the Jews before the tribunal of the proconsul Junius Gallio, who, after ascertaining that it was a purely religious matter, washed his hands with ostentatious disdain (Acts 18:12-17).
A Christian basilica was discovered at Corinth in 1928-29 on the outskirts of the present city near the Cenchreae Gate, an area inhabited in Justinian's time. To the right of the three-aisled basilica with its diaconicon and non-apsed prothesis stands a trichora cell, which de Waele identifies as the Martyrium. All the tombs had been violated and stripped. Erected perhaps toward the end of the 4th century or the beginning of the 5th, coins from the 11th century and fragments of sculpture from the same period suggest that a second church with a pavement of yellow Corinthian bricks then existed. The church fell into ruin in the 14th century with the Turkish occupation. Of the famous sanctuary of Asclepius, only a layer of burnt material with marble fragments, lamps, and 4th-century coins was found. It is believed to have been demolished and burned by Christians, who did not occupy the temple area for burials but only the adjacent area.
For Christian inscriptions of Corinth cf. B. D. Meritt, Greek Inscriptions 1896-1927 in Corinth's Excavations, VIII, 1, Cambridge 1931, nos. 136 ff. An ancient Christian cemetery of Corinth was found near the spring of Lerna; 315 Christian tombs have been uncovered, the oldest dating to the mid-4th century; the latest are in groups and appear to belong to the period of the devastating earthquakes that struck Corinth in the 6th century, i.e., before 542 and around 551 (F. J. de Waele, The fountain of Lerna and early christian cemetery of Corinth, in The American Journal of Archaeology, 39 [1935], pp. 352-59).
Corinth is now a titular archbishopric.