is in keeping with the character given of him by his contem- poraries. He was one of the victims of the cruelty of Nero.*
§2. Paul's Labours in Corinth.
As Corinth was not only the political capital of Greece, but the seat of its commercial and intellectual life ; the place of concourse for the people not only of the neighbouring cities but of nations ; a source whence influences of all kinds ema- nated in every direction, it was specially important for the diffusion of the gospel. Paul therefore, leaving Athens, which he had visited in his second missionary journey, went alone to Corinth, where he was soon after joined by Silas and Timo- theus, who came from Macedonia. (Acts 18, 5.) A stranger in this great city, and without the means of support, he associat- ed himself with Aquila, a Jew lately come from Italy in con- sequence of the edict of Claudius banishing the Jews from Rome. While living in the house of Aquila, and working with him at his trade of tent making, Paul attended the syna- gogue every Sabbath, and ** persuaded the Jews and Greeks." But " when they opposed themselves and blasphemed, he shook his raiment and said unto them. Your blood be upon your o^\ti heads. I am clean : henceforth I will go unto the Gentiles. And he departed thence and went into a certain man's house named Justus, one who worshipped God, and whose house joined hard to the synagogue. And Crispus, the chief ruler of the synagogue, believed on the Lord, with all his house ; and many of the Corinthians hearing it believed and were baptized. Then spake the Lord to Paul by night, by a vision,
* Several monographs, proceeding from German scholars, are devoted to the description and history of Corinth. Wilchen's " Rerum Corinthiarum spe- cimen ad illustrationem utriusque Epistolae Paulinse." 1747. Barth's "Corin- thiorum Commercia et Mercaturae particula." Berlin, 1844. A very inter- esting chapter in Conybeare and Howson's Life and Epistles of Paul is devoted to this subject. Vol. 1 : ch. 12. See also Winers Real Worterbuch and Ar- nold's Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians.