In his correspondence with the Corinthian community, the Apostle Paul addressed the problem of factionalism, his criticism aimed particularly against a faction of educated members who regarded their knowledge as evidence of social superiority. He countered these types of claims to superiority by proposing a dichotomy of wisdoms—“the wisdom of this world” and “God's wisdom”:
Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.