Cambridge Greek Testament – 1 Corinthians by J.J. Lias

The positive response I received to my recent uploading of the volume on John in the Cambridge Greek Testament series has encouraged me to press ahead with the digitisation of this series. I get the impression that the series is little known outside of the United Kingdom as they are not widely available online yet, though most are out of copyright.

My thanks to Book Aid for making a copy of this public domain title available for digitisation.

John James Lias [1834-1923], The First Epistle to the Corinthians. The Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1881 Hbk. pp.172. [Click here to visit the download page for this title]

Those without New Testament Greek might be interested in the Cambridge Bible for Schools volume by the same author:

John James Lias [1834-1923], The First Epistle to the Corinthians. The Cambridge Bible for Schools. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1881 Hbk. pp.172. [Click here to visit the download page for this title]

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
   1. Corinth. Its Situation in History
   2. The Corinthian Church
   3. Date, Place of Writing. Character and Genuineness of the Epistle
   4. Doctrine of the Resurrection
   5. Analysis of the Epistle
2. Text
3. Notes & Appendices
4. Indices

Introduction. Chapter 1. Corinth. Its Situation and History

At the time of the Apostle’s visit, Corinth was the most considerable city in Greece. Its commercial importance had always been great. Situated on a narrow neck of land between two seas – the far-famed Isthmus – the temptations to prefer commerce to war, even in times when war was almost the business of mankind, proved irresistible to its inhabitants. The command of the Isthmus was no doubt important in a military point of view; but at a time when navigation was difficult and dangerous, the commercial advantages of the position were enormous. Merchants arriving either from the East or from the West, from Italy or Asia Minor, could save themselves the risk of a hazardous voyage round the Peloponnesus, and found at Corinth both a ready market for their wares, and a convenient means of transport. Corinth, therefore, had always held a hjgh position among the cities of Greece, though the military genius of Sparta and the intellectual and political eminence of Athens secured to those two states the pre-eminence in the best periods of Greek history. But in the decline of Greece, when she had laid her independence at the feet of Alexander the Great, the facilities for trade enjoyed by Corinth gave it the first place. Always devoted to the arts of peace, in such a degree as to incur the contempt of the. Lacedaemonians, it was free, in the later times of the Greek republics, to devote itself undisturbed to those arts, under the protection, for the most part, of the Macedonian monarchs. During that period its rise in prosperity was remarkable. It had always been famous for luxury, but now it possessed the most sumptuous theatres, palaces, temples, in all Greece. The most ornate of the styles of Greek architecture is known as the Corinthian. The city excelled in the manufacture of a peculiarly fine kind of bronze known as aes Corinthiacum. Destitute of the higher intellectual graces (it seems never, since the mythic ages, to have produced a single man of genius) it possessed in a high degree the refinements of civilization and the elegancies of life. It was regarded as the “eye,” the “capital and grace” of Greece. And when (B.C. 146) it was sacked by Mummius during the last expiring struggle of Greece for independence, though it was devoted to the gods, and not allowed to be rebuilt for a century, its ruins became the “quarry from which the proud patricians who dwelt on the Esquiline or at Baiae, adorned their villas with marbles, paintings and statues.” …

Pages xiii-xiv.