f the descendants and successors of the
Christians over whom Paul had laboured with such faithful oversight and
so many anxious tears.

_Critical Questions._--The manuscript evidence for the Corinthian
epistles is the same as for the other epistles of Paul (see BIBLE: New
Testament). Of early attestation the amount is rather greater for First
Corinthians than for other epistles. Not only were both epistles
included without question in the Pauline canon of Marcion (circ. A.D.
150) and in the Muratorian list (end of 2nd century), and known to
various Gnostic sects of the 2nd century, but Clement of Rome (circ.
A.D. 95) makes a specific reference (xlvii. 1) to the fact that the
Corinthians "received the Epistle of the blessed Apostle Paul," and
proceeds with an unmistakable quotation from 1 Cor. i. 11-13. Other
quotations from First Corinthians are found in Clement, Ignatius,
Polycarp, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria,
Tertullian, while use of the epistle can probably be detected in Hermas.
Second Corinthians was, and still remains, less quotable, but it is
probably used by Polycarp, perhaps by Ignatius, and by the presbyters
known to Irenaeus, and it was freely used by Theophilus, Irenaeus,
Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian.

The only serious doubt of the genuineness of First and Second
Corinthians has been that of the so-called Dutch school of critics, in
the latter part of the 19th century, and forms a part of their attempt
(the first since that of Baur) entirely to reconstruct the history of
early Christianity. Their view that the Corinthian epistles are the
product of a body of progressive Christians in the 2nd century, who
ascribed to a legendary Paul the advanced views they had themselves
developed, has not commended itself to critics, and seems to be burdened
by nearly all possible difficulties. The genuineness of both epistles
is, in fact, amply attested not only by early writers, but by the surer
proof of complicated and consistent concreteness, with perfect
adaptation to all we know of Paul and of the passing circumstances of
the earliest days of Christianity in Greece. For a writer a century
later to have composed the Corinthian epistles and then successfully
passed them off as the work of Paul could be explained only by an
hypothesis of inspiration! It would have been as difficult as to forge a
daily newspaper. It is to be observed that the two epistles are so
intimately connected