The life and work of St. Paul

8*. PAtTL AT CORINTH. 817
haunts of its slaves and artisans that lie writes that they too Lad once been
sunk in the lowest depths of sin and shame. 1
It is of this city that we hear the
sorrowful admission that in the world of heathendom a pure life and an honest
life was a thing well-nigh unknown. 8 All sins are bound together by subtle
links of affinity. Impurity was by no means the only vice for which Corinth
was notorious.
3
It was a city of drunkards ; it was a city of extortioners and
cheats. But the worse the city, the deeper was the need for his labours, and
the greater was the probability that many in it would be yearning for delivery
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
In such a place it was more than ever necessary that St. Paul should not
only set an example absolutely blameless, but that he should even abstain from
tilings which were perfectly admissible, if they should furnish a handle to the
enoinies of Christ. And therefore, lest these covetous shopkeepers and traders
should be able to charge him with seeking his own gain, he determined to
accept nothing at their hands. There seemed to be a fair chance that he
would be able to earn his bread by tent-making in a port so universally fre-
quented. In this respect he was unusually fortunate. He found a Jew of
4
Pontus, named Aquila, who worked at this trade with his wife Priscilla.
As nothing is said either of their baptism or their conversion, it is probable
that they wore already Christians, and Paul formed with them a lifelong
friendship, to which he owed many happy hours. This excellent couple were
at present living in Corinth in consequence of the decree of Claudius, expelling
all Jews from Rome. 6
Tyrannous as the measure was, it soon became a dead
letter, and probably caused but little inconvenience to those exiles, because
1 Cor. vi. 911 2 ; Cor. xii. 2L s 1 Cor. v. 9, 10.
3 Corinthians were usually introduced drunk on the stage (-(Eliau. V. II. iii. 15; Atlien.
x. 438, iv. 137 ; 1 Cor. xi. 21 ; Hausrath, p. 323).
4 The Aquila, a Jew of Pontus, who translated the Old Testament into Greek more literally
than the LXX., lived more than half a century later, and may conceivably have been
a grandson of this Aquila. Pontius Aquila was a noble Roman name (Cic. ad Fain. x. 33;
Suet. Jul. 78) ; but that Aquila may have been a freedrnan of that house, and that Luke
has made a mistake in connecting him with Pontus, is without the shadow of probability
(cf. Acts ii. 9 1 ; Pet. i. 1). His real name may have been Onkdos (Deutsch, Lit. Item.,
p. 330), Hebraised from 'A/cvAo.?, or may have been "\CJ, Latinised into Aquila ; but these
are mere valueless conjectures. He was a tent-maker, married to an active and kindly
wife, who lived sometimes at Rome, sometimes at Corinth, and sometimes at Ephesus
(Acts xviii. 26 1 ; Cor. xvL 19 ; Horn. xvi. 3 2 Tirn. iv. ; 19) and ; they were much
beloved by St. Paul, and rendered extraordinary services to the cause of Christianity.
Priscilla was probably the more energetic of the two, or she would not be mentioned
first in Acts xviii. IS, 26; Rom. xvi. 3; 2 Tim. iv. 19. {Ewald, vi., p. 489; Plumptre,
Jiibl. Studies, p. 417.)
5 In A.D. 52 the relations of Judjca to Rome began to be extremely unsettled (Tac.
Ann. xii. 54), and just as the Gauls and Celts were expelled from Rome (A.D. 9) on
receipt of the news about the loss of Varus and his legions, so the Jews were now
ordered to quit Rome. Suetonius says, "Judaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes
Roma expulit" (Claud. 25). Whether Chrestos was some unknown ringleader
of tumult among the immense Jewish population of Rome so immense, that from their
Ghetto across the Tiber no less than 8,000 had petitioned against the succession of
Archelaus (Jos. Antt. xvii. 11, 1} or an ignorant misreading of the name of Christ,
cannot be ascertained. We know that Christianity was very early introduced into
Rome (Rom. xvi. 7 ; Acts xxviii. 14), and we know that wherever it was introduced,
Jewish. tumultB followed (Acts xvii. 13 ; xiv. 19 ; xiil 50), and that the Romans never