The life and work of St. Paul

8T. PAXTL AT COSINTH. 819
be made no further progress. Crispus, indeed, the governor of the synagogue,
had been converted with all his house ; and perhaps during the absence of
his companions Paul abandoned his usual rule by baptising him "with his
own hands. 1
But, as a body, the Jews met him with an opposition which at
last found expression in the sort of language of which the Talmud furnishes
some terrible specimens. 3 No further object could bo served by endeavouring
to convince them, and at last he shook off the dust of his garments, and calling
them to witness that he was innocent of their blood, 3 he announced that from
that day forth he should preach only to the Gentiles.
Already he had converted some Gentiles of humble and probably of slavish
origin, the first among these being the household of Stephanas. 4 With Crispus
and these faithful converts, ho migrated from the synagogue to a room close by,
which was placed at his disposal by a proselyte of the name of Justus. 6 In
this room he continued to preach for many months. The entire numbers of
the Corinthian converts were probably small to be counted rather by scores
than by hundreds. This is certain, because otherwise they could not have met
in a single room in the small houses of the ancients, nor could they have been
all present at common meals. The minute regulations about married women,
widows, and virgins seem to show that the female element of the little con-
gregation was large in proportion to the men, and it was even necessary to
lay down the rule that women were not to teach or preach among them, though
Priscilla and Phoebe had been conspicuous for their services. 8 And yet, small
&s was the congregation, low as was the position of most of them, vile as had
been the antecedents of some, the method and the topics of the Apostle's preaching
had been adopted with much anxiety. He was by no means at homo
among these eager, intellectual, disputatious, rhetoric-loving, sophisticated
Greeks. They had none of the frank simplicity of his Thessalonians, none
of the tender sympathy of his Philippians, none of the emotional susceptibility
of his Galatian converts. They were more like the scoffing and selfsatisfied
Athenians. At Athens he had adopted a poetic and finished style,
and it had almost wholly failed to make any deep impression. At Corinth,
accordingly, he adopted a wholly different method. HI and timid, and so
nervous that he sometimes trembled while addressing them 7 conscious that
his bodily presence was mean in the judgment of these connoisseurs in beauty,
1 1 Cor. L 14.
2 Acts xviii. 6, atmnuriroiitvav . '* i *al facurfanov-srur. gee " Life of Christ," il. 4591
* Ezek. xxxiii. 4.
4 1 Cor. xvi. 15, "the firstfraits of Achaia" (in Rom. xvi. 5 the true reading is "of
Alia"). Fortanjitus and Achaicus were probably slaves or freedmen, as were " Chloe's
household " ; Tertius who had the high honour of being the amanuensis of the Epistle
to the Romans and Ouartus were probably descendants of the Roman veterans who were
the first colonists, and may have been younger brothers of Secundus. Lucius, Jason,
and Sosipater were Jews (Rom. xvi. 21).
* There is no sufficient ground for calling him Titius Justus on the strength
.
of K and
one or two versions ; it seems to be simply due to the homoeoteleuton in ii-d/ian. Theie
la etiil less ground for identifying him with Titus.
Horn, xvi. L. 2.
71Cor.it 8.