Was prostitution part of the religion in Corinth?
Yes. Prostitution was part and parcel of Corinth’s religion. The temple on the hill where they worshiped the Athenian goddesses had a vast number of prostitutes—remembered as up to 1,000 or 10,000—who operated as the goddesses of the temple. Involvement with the city’s prostitutes was considered a religious practice.
Les explains that Corinth’s whole society was programmed to this. When he was in Corinth going through the ruins, the guide made known that at the height of Corinth, the temple up on the hill, where they worshiped the Athenian goddesses, had up to 1,000—sometimes remembered as 10,000—prostitutes. For a city that size, it was a humongous number. Those prostitutes were operating as the goddesses of the temple, so it was just part and parcel of their religion to be involved in this immoral practice with the prostitutes of the city. Into that gross immorality, and yet great commerce and trade, came one lone man, Paul, and Les marvels that Christianity ever survived.