Paul's protracted sojourn in that city. He tells the Corinthi- ans that he was to visit Macedonia, and would then come to Corinth, but that he must tarry in Ephesus till Pentecost (ch. 16, 5-8.) Comp. also v. 19, which agrees with the account given in Acts 19, 20. 20, 1. 2. After the uproar excited by Demetrius, Paul, as we learn from these passages, did go to Macedonia and then to Greece ; and thence, with the contri- butions of the saints, to Jerusalem. Accordingly, in his epis- tle to the Romans, written from Corinth, he says, " Now I go unto Jerusalem to minister to the saints. For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and of Achaia to make a certain contribu- tion for the poor saints which are in Jerusalem." (Rom. 15, 25. 26.) These and other data seem to fix the date of the epistle about the year 57, or five years after his first visit to Cormth. There are no indications of a later date, unless any one should find it hard to believe that Paul had already suf- fered all that is recorded in 2 Cor. 11, 23-28. Five times he had received of the Jews forty stripes save one, thrice he had been beaten with rods, once he was stoned, thrice he had suf- fered shipwreck, a day and a night he had been in the deep. These and the other dangers there enumerated seem enough to fill a lifetime. But this only shows how small a part of the labours and sufferings of the apostles is recorded in the Acts. It furnishes no suflicient reason for referring this epistle to a later period of the apostle's career.
As this epistle was written to correct the various disorders which had arisen in the Corinthian church after the apostle's departure, and to meet the calumnies and objections of the false teachers by whom the peace of the church had been dis- turbed and his own authority called in question, its contents are to a corresponding degree diversified. The apostle begins with the assertion of his divine commission, and with the usual salutation, ch. 1, 1-3. Then follows the general introduction to the epistle, commendatory and conciliatory in its tone and intention, 1, 4-9. He then introduces the subject of the party divisions by which the church was disturbed, and showed how