Corinthians, I and II

Ancient Corinth, urban street (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Corinthians, I and II are letters written by St. Paul to the early Christian community in Corinth. Corinth was the city of Aphrodite, where temples of various Greek deities could be found.

It seems that Paul was concerned about members of the Christian community becoming too individualistic in their faith. Paul emphasizes the ‘body’ of the community, a body with many members. As such, each member has different gifts but belongs to a single body. And those gifts are meaningless if not rooted in unselfish love.

Paul stresses the importance of either unmarried celibacy or married sex, the former being more desirable. Everything else is regarded as sinful. He warns against falling back into idolatry, perhaps due to the community’s precarious location.

Toward the end of the second letter Paul defends himself, Titus and another ‘brother’ against allegations of fraud. Some in the community had voiced concerns that the collection money intended for Jerusalem would be pocketed.

On this point Mike adds:

Something you didn’t mention about 2 Corinthians is that because of the need to defend himself Paul has to describe his ministry. » See in context

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Eros

Eros (Photo credit: virgi.pla)

In Greek mythology Eros is the son of Aphrodite and Ares. He is portrayed on ancient vases as a highly attractive athlete, as a boy with wings and arrows, and later, as a pudgy babe.

As the god of romantic love he is praised in Hesiod‘s hymns as the most beautiful of all the gods. In popular myth and classical art he’s depicted as shooting arrows of love into the hearts of soon-to-be lovers. The Orphic mystery cults deemed his creative powers great enough to regard him as the creator of the world. Hesiod wrote that Eros sprung from Chaos, representing instinctual, sexual and creative energy.

Sigmund Freud hypothesized a general life instinct which he called eros, in contrast to an opposing death insinct, thanatos (Greek = death). C. S. Lewis and many others use the term eros to describe emotional romantic love as opposed to Agape, or selfless love.

Plato used the term eros to signify a desire to seek the transcendental beauty of the eternal Forms, which is partially recognized in particular instances within this changing world of becoming.

Eros is paralleled by the Roman god Cupid and in Latin is Amor.

Related Posts » Animus, Dreams, Id, Libido, Orpheus, Philia

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Aphrodite

Alien Aphrodite

Originally uploaded by Fotomoe

Aphrodite Greek goddess of beauty, love and fertility.

Worshipped throughout Greece, Aphrodite was said to have been born from sea foam that arose at Paphos in Cyprus from the castration of Uranus by Cronus.

Homer says she is the wife of Hephaestus but also had romantic encounters with Ares, the god of War. From that union she became the mother of Eros.

She also had sex with a human, Anchises, out of which the Trojan hero, Aeneas was born.

Aprhrodite might also have been the guardian of prostitutes, as Pindar notes that her temples often housed corps of prostitutes.

Ovid in myth connects her to the first prostitutes in Cyprus.

Primarily worshipped by women, men also took part in her cult, probably because of her role as guardian of the sea.

Although the beautiful Helen of Troy is usually blamed for the Trojan War, it was Aphrodite who bribed Paris for the prize of the Golden Apple by offering the reward of Helen, the Queen of Sparta, in the first place.

Thus Paris abducted Helen on the – apparently – legitimate grounds of the divine Aphrodite’s bribe.

The Roman parallel to Aphrodite is Venus.

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