DURING the Apostle’s stay at Ephesus disastrous intelligence arrived from Corinth. The Church established there combined two distinct elements, Jews or proselytes and Gentiles, of whom the latter were the most numerous. The natural jealousy between these two bodies repressed during the Apostle’s presence, had burst out on his departure, and divided the Church into various parties. Some affected fidelity solely and exclusively to St Paul himself (1 Cor. iii. 4); others, probably the Jewish section, to Peter and _the brethren of the Lord_ (1 Cor. i. 12, ix. 5); a third, fascinated by the eloquence and learning of the Alexandrian Apollos (1 Cor. i. 12), had attached themselves to him, and probably “hung halfway between the extreme Jewish and the extreme Gentile party;” while a fourth abjured all devotion to any human teachers, and styled themselves the “Christ” party (1 Cor. i. 12). In addition to these evils the Gentile faction pushed their views of Christian freedom beyond all due bounds. The profligacy that disgraced the inhabitants of Corinth and made their name a byword was openly avowed and gloried in (1 Cor. v. 1). To such a pitch, moreover, did they carry their disputes that lawsuits were brought into Roman and Greek courts of Justice (1 Cor. vi. 1–8), and instead of shrinking from the contaminating influence of sensuality at the sacrificial feasts, they freely frequented them even in the colonnades of the temples (1 Cor. viii. 10): the women threw off the head-dress which the customs of Greece and of the East required (1 Cor. xi. 2–16); the most solemn ordinance of the Church was profaned by disorderly and reckless festivity (1 Cor. xi. 17–34); the most showy “gifts” were desired to the disparagement of those which tended only to instruct and improve (1 Cor. xii. 1, xiv. 1–4); mixed marriages were freely contracted (1 Cor. vii. 10–17); and the doctrine of the Resurrection was either denied or emptied of all meaning (1 Cor. xv. 12).