TIME AND PLACE OF ITS COMPOSITION.

jiere are no sufficient data for fixing accurately and certainly the chmology of the life and writings of the apostle Paul. It is therefore, in lost cases, only by a comparison of various circumstances that an appximation to the date of the principal events of his life can be made. Wh regard to this epistle, it is plain, from its contents, that it was witen just as Paul was about to set out on his last journey to Jerusa- lei. In the fifteenth chapter he says that the Christians of Macedonia anAchaia had made a collection for the poor saints in Jerusalem, and th;he was on the eve of his departure for that city (v. 25). This same jorney is mentioned in Acts 20, and occurred most probably in the spng (see Acts 20 : 16) of the year 58 or 59. This date best suits the aount of his long imprisonment, first at Cesarea and then at Rome, of fo: years, and his probable liberation in 62 or 63. His subsequent la- bors and second imprisonment would fill up the intervening period of tv» or three years to the date of his martyrdom, towards the close of the rqn of Nero. That this epistle was written from Corinth appears from th special recommendation of Phebe, a deaconess of the neighbouring elirch, who was probably the bearer of the letter (ch. 16 : 1) ; from the saltations of Erastus and Gains, both residents of Corinth, to the Ro- mns (cV, 16 : 23) ; compare 2 Tim. 4 : 20, and 1 Cor. 1 : 14 ; and from tb accoum<yiven in Acts 20 : 2, 3, of Paul's journey through Macedoni iiKO Greece, before his departure for Jerusalem, for the purpose of carry iig the contributi..,^g of the churches for the poor in that city.