VI INTRODUCTION.

Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace : for I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee ; for I have much people in this city. And he continued there a jear and six months, teaching the word of God among them." (Acts 18, 1-11.) The success of Paul aroused the enmity of the Jews, who determined to arraign him before the Roman Governor. As soon as the governor ascertained the nature of the charge he refused to listen to it, and dismissed the accusers from the judgment seat with evident displeasure, which encour- aged the bystanders to beat the Jews. Thus the opposers of the apostle were ignominiously defeated. After remaining some time longer in Corinth he sailed from Cenchrea, the eastern port of the city, to Ephesus, with Aquila and Priscilla. Leav- ing his friends in that city he sailed to Caesarea, and thence went up to Jerusalem. After remaining a short time in the Holy City he went to Antioch, and thence through Phrygia and Galatia again to Ephesus. Shortly after Paul left Ephe- sus the first time, ApoUos, an Alexandrian Jew, having been more fully instructed in the doctrine of Christ by Aquila and Priscilla, went to Corinth, and there " mightily convinced the Jews, and that publicly, shewing by the Scripture that Jesus was the Christ." (Acts 18, 24-28.) It is altogether probable, considering the constant commercial intercourse between Corinth and Ephesus, that the apostle had frequent opportu- nities of hearing of the state of the Corinthian church durmg his three years' residence in the latter city. The information which he received led him, as is generally supposed, to write a letter no longer extant, exhorting them " not to keep com- pany with fornicators." (See 1 Cor. 5, 9.) Not satisfied with this effort to correct an alarming evil, he seems himself to have made them a brief visit. No record is indeed found in the Acts of his having been to Corinth more than once before the date of this epistle ; but there are several passages in his second epistle which can hardly be understood otherwise than as implying an intermediate visit. In 2 Cor. 12, 14 he says, " Behold the third time I am ready to come to you." This