Out of the Temple of Aphrodite: Corinthian Shame Culture, Ancient Idolatry, and the Modern Debased Mind
To understand the weight of Paul’s words to the Corinthian church, you have to understand what Corinth actually was. This was not an ordinary Greco-Roman city with an ordinary amount of vice. Corinth had a reputation across the entire ancient Mediterranean world — the Greek verb korinthiazomai, “to Corinthianize,” literally meant to fornicate, to live debauched. That’s not a modern reading imposed backward onto the text; that’s a word that existed in the common vocabulary of the ancient world before Paul ever set foot there. Aristophanes used it centuries earlier. A city had become synonymous with sexual excess so thoroughly that its name turned into a verb for it.
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