1 Corinthians 9:24

They which run in a race, &c.— The Apostle here refers to the Isthmian games, so called from their being celebrated on the Corinthian Isthmus, or the neck of land which joins Peloponnesus to the continent. They are supposed to have been instituted in honour of Palaemon, or Melicertes, and Neptune. They were observed every third year, or rather every fifth, and held sacred and inviolable. When Corinth was sacked and totally destroyed by Mummius the Roman general, they were not discontinued; but the care of them was committed to Sicyonians, till the rebuilding of the city, and then it was restored to the inhabitants. The sports which composed those games, were running, wrestling, boxing, and other athletic exercises. The Apostle alludes here to the stadium, or foot-race, in which there was but one prize for the victor; though in some of the games there were several prizes. Nothing can be more forcible and emphatical than the argument which the Apostle draws from this comparison; whoever would see the full force of which, will do well to read Mr. West's excellent Dissertation on the Olympic games, particularly ch. 6 and 7 and the conclusion. We here subjoin his translation and brief paraphrase of the passage before us: "Know ye not that they who run in the stadium, or foot-race, run all, and yet but one receiveth the prize?—So run therefore, that ye may obtain. Moreover, every one that contendeth in the games, is temperate in all things. They, indeed, that they may obtain a corruptible crown; but we, an incorruptible. Wherefore I for my part so run, as not to pass undistinguished; so fight, not as beating the air (that is to say, practising in a feigned combat, without an adversary); but I mortify my body, and bring it under subjection; lest, &c."