The Fountain of Peirene, Corinth

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.” 1 Corinthians 3:6-7

Paul likely walked past the flowing waters of the Peirene Fountain many times while in Corinth where he lived, taught and worked for about a year and a half. The fountain is quite near the Bema of the agora where Paul accounted for his faith and actions before the proconsul Galio.

The Peirene Fountain was first created in the 200’s BC when it was composed basically of tunnels from the spring through the clay under what would become the Lechaion road. 6 chambers were eventually created that connected to water storage basins.  During the Roman area, the fountain complex went through renovations and improvements which added increasingly more impressive marble clad walls and decorative elements. The spring’s source is near the summit of the AcroCorinth, the looming rock hill south of the ancient city. Corinth had a complex water and sewage management system underneath the city. The ancient Greeks of Corinth showed amazing ingenuity in managing the water of the Peirene spring and other natural water sources around them. This must have a beautiful feature of Corinth in Paul’s day!

A reliable source of water is essential to all life, and the people of ancient Corinth were no doubt more in tune to that than most of us are in our modern lives.  Paul’s use of water imagery was vivid than as now:  “.. just as Christ loved the church.. to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word” Ephesians 5:25 -26,  “for we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body - whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink” 1 Corinthians 12:13. “He saved us …through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.” Titus 3:5

Fountain of Peirene, Corinth