Introduction to Part II
These next five chapters survey evidence of the sophistic movement in Corinth from the perspectives of both critics and protagonists. The movement's opponents were Epictetus of Hierapolis in Phrygia, Dio of Prusa, Plutarch of Chaeronea, Greece, and, we will argue, Saul of Tarsus. The protagonists were well-known sophists: Favorinus of Aries and Herodes Atticus of Athens, and, it will be suggested, a group of Jewish-Christian teachers.
None were citizens of Corinth, although all visited or interacted closely with the city. It is known that Dio was there ca. A.D. 97-101 and possibly also A.D. 89-96 because of his relegation from Rome and Bithynia by Domitian.1
Epictetus' dissertations were written after his exile from Rome to Nicopolis in Epirus (which bordered on Achaia) ca. A.D. 92-93, and his works were recorded and dedicated by his pupil to a prominent Corinthian citizen, L. Gellius Menander.2 Epictetus' discussion with a student of rhetoric reveals an extensive knowledge of Corinth, especially its leading offices.3
Plutarch first saw Corinth as a young man while on a mission to the proconsul. He later visited Rome via Corinth at the end of the seventies and
1See p. 124, n. 5 for his presence in Corinth and the dating of Or. 12. The 'Diogenes speeches' where he discusses the sophists, Or. 6-10, are dated ca. A.D. 100 in C. P. Jones, The Roman World of Dio Chrysostom (Cambridge, Mass, and London: Harvard University Press, 1978), p. 136. On exile during Domitian's reign see ibid., pp. 45-55 and esp. p. 46, where the milder form of banishment called 'relegation' is discussed. This enabled him to visit Corinth.
2See the epigraphic evidence in J. H. Kent, Corinth: Inscriptions 1926-1960 (Princeton: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1966), vol. VIII, part iii, nos. 124, 125, 135, 137, 223, 263.
3III.1.34-35. F. Millar, 'Epictetus and the Imperial Court', JRS 55 (1965), 142.
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again at the beginning of the nineties. He was also present in the city during the Isthmian games of the first decade of the second century.4
Favorinus, although born west of Rome, travelled to the East and visited Corinth on three occasions. The statue and inscription erected by the city's magistrates indicate his enormous impact as a sophist on the people of Corinth. His third visit followed his first by ten years, all three placing him in the city during the first decade of the second century.5
Herodes Atticus often visited Corinth and was a great benefactor of both that city and Athens. Plutarch records this famous sophist's presence at a dinner during the Isthmian games, an incident also dated ca. 101-10.6
Paul visited and taught in Corinth for eighteen months in the fifties. Unnamed Jewish-Christian Orators' were connected with the same congregation(s) for an unknown period during that decade.7
Three preliminary observations need to be made. Firstly, with the exception of Paul and his opponents, all were prominent literary men in their day, friends and sometimes intimates of one emperor and sometimes enemies of another. They are not insignificant witnesses. Secondly, and again apart from Paul and his detractors, their lives were intertwined. Plutarch's discussion and speech at Olympia was entitled Πρὸς Δίωνα, and he dined with Herodes Atticus.8 Favorinus was a pupil of Dio and friend of Plutarch. Epictetus received eminent friends of Plutarch and Dio. Thirdly, except for Epictetus, all were trained in Greek rhetoric. We will argue that this was also true of Paul and his adversaries. Plutarch, Dio and Favorinus, according to C. P. Jones, all stood 'on the threshold of a major historical movement, the Second Sophistic'.9 One could add Epictetus to this list and then move forward secure in the knowledge that these men left enough material for us to construct an accurate picture of sophistic activity in first- and early second-century Corinth.
4C. P. Jones, Plutarch and Rome (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 32-33; and J. Murphy-O'Connor, St Paul's Corinth: Texts and Archaeology (Wilmington: Glazier, 1983), pp. 98-99.
5See pp. 129-34 and Or. 37.
6See pp. 138-40 and Plutarch, Moralia, 723a.
72 Corinthians 11.22-23 and see also pp. 220-21.
8Jones, Plutarch and Rome, pp. 35-36.
9On their relationship to the Second Sophistic and to one another see Jones, ibid., pp. 35-37. On education see his Roman World of Dio Chrysostom, p. 8 and Plutarch and Rome, pp. 13-16. For Epictetus' education as a pupil of the famous philosopher, Musonius Rufus, see Favorinus, P. W. VI, 2078, and for Herodes Atticus as a pupil of Favorinus, see Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists, 564.
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