Socrates Koursoumis
The Apostle Paul in Roman Corinth
Pagans, Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire

Foinikas Publications, 2015
Pages: 104
Dimensions: 16 Χ 24
Price: 12 euro

















Preface

From its first steps in the 1st century AD until today, Christianity has sought out with particular interest the “traces” of Jesus Christ’s Apostles in the Graeco-Roman world. The recollection of the presence and the active participation of the Apostles in the foundation of the first churches of the Greek-speaking East and of the Latin-speaking West consisted in an honorary title for those local churches. This does not merely mean immediate affiliation with the original cells of the Christian faith but also indicated the responsibility for its proper management and its promotion. The precious memory had to be safeguarded in every possible way – through the medium of ecclesiastic writings, narratives but principally through constructing places of worship, there where sacred “traces” had been detected. By way of the worship ceremonies hosted therein, these places revived the memory and the unshakable bond attaching local churches to the original conveyors of the message of the Christian faith. 

Further investigation of this relationship continues to be a constant preoccupation of the scientific world, the ecclesiastic community and all those who are interested in a better understanding of the extreme velocity with which the Christian teachings spread and were embraced during the last centuries of Antiquity in a multicultural world with intense social fluidity but also powerful national religious traditions. The present book by focusing on the Roman city of Corinth will attempt to explore the relation of the city to one of the Protocoryphaeus of the Apostles, Paul. We will examine the historical data about the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD along with remains which came to light from archaeological digs, two thousand years after Paul’s day, and were linked to his sojourn and his teaching in one of the most important cities of the eastern/Eastern Roman Empire.


Dr. Socrates Koursoumis