Paul in Prison

1 Corinthians

Paulc. 54
BibleModerateEpistleAncient GreekQuick · 38 pages

Read this if you…

  • want to read Paul's famous "hymn to love" in chapter 13 in context
  • curious about the earliest written account of the Last Supper and resurrection appearances
  • like seeing how messy the first churches actually were — lawsuits, factions, sexual scandals

Skip this if you…

  • don't want to read explicitly religious/Christian texts

Why It Matters

Chapter 13, the 'love is patient, love is kind' passage, is the single most read text at weddings anywhere. Paul's idea that the church is one body with many members became the basic image of Christian community, and it later worked its way into democratic political theory too.

Connections

Where to go next

What It Shapedwhat it set in motion1 CorinthiansConfessionsThe Complete En…A Midsummer Nig…

  • Confessions by Augustine of Hippo. 1 Corinthians shaped it. - The Pauline line that anatomizes Augustine's whole project — "knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth" - Augustine quotes 1 Corinthians 13:12 verbatim in Book VIII ("I had seen it through a glass darkly") and threads Paul through Book XIII - The *Confessions*' war between pride and love is Paul's Corinthian warning made into autobiography
  • The Complete English Poems by John Donne. 1 Corinthians shaped it. - Paul's resurrection chapter becomes Donne's most famous defiance - 1 Corinthians 15:26 — "the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" — turns into the closing thunderclap of "Death, be not proud": "Death, thou shalt die" - The trumpet of 15:51-52, the dead raised, drives "At the round earth's imagined corners" too — Donne's Holy Sonnets run on Corinthian eschatology
  • A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare. 1 Corinthians shaped it. - Paul's promise of glory beyond reckoning — "eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard" (2:9) — becomes a punchline two thousand miles downstream - Shakespeare hands it to Bottom, who wakes from the night's enchantment and mangles it into "the eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen" - The joke only lands if you know the verse he's botching
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Gallery

Depicted in Art

Paul sits in a darkened cell, pen and codex on his lap, a sword leaning beside him — caught mid-composition by a shaft of light from a small window.

Rembrandt van Rijn, 1627

Paul stands on a stone platform in a Greek square, arms raised, preaching to a half-circle of Athenians — the canonical Renaissance image of Paul's Greek mission.

Raphael, 1515

An elongated Paul gestures toward an open letter inscribed with his own writing — the apostle pictured as author of the epistles.

El Greco, 1610

Christ stands and offers bread to an apostle along a steeply receding table; angels swirl in the smoky lamplight above as serving figures cross the foreground.

Jacopo Tintoretto, 1594

Editions

Recommended Editions

#1Top Pick

King James Version

Cambridge University Press · 1611

The most influential and commonly quoted translation in English. The prose rhythm everyone else is responding to, even modern translations.

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Deep Dive

What It's About

Spoiler warning

This summary gives away plot details.

Notable Quotes

“And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:13 (KJV)

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV)

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