what had happened after the feast of Tabernacles, (which in A. U. 802. when the Passover was celebrated April 5.h must have begun to be celebrated on or about September 30.) would not be received at Rome, under two or three months afterwards; that is, before December, A. U. 802. or January, A. U. 803. at the earliest. The decree of expulsion might follow soon after this; and in two or three weeks time, subsequently, Aquila might arrive in Corinth; where he had certainly been some time, longer or shorter, before St. Paul also came thither. If we place, then, this meeting at Corinth about the spring of A. U. 803. we place it in all probability about the truth.

I have now, I think, ascertained two dates, the earlier of which fixes the time of St. Paul's first visit to the peninsula of Greece; and the later, the time of his last visit to Jerusalem, recorded in the Acts. With a view to the detail of intermediate particulars, I will assume only that he set out on his second general circuit, Acts xv. 36. about the same period in the year as when he set out on his first, viz. May 26. the Pentecost of A. U. 802; or between that, and April 5. the date of the preceding Passover. The subsequent course and direction of his journey along the extent of Asia Minor, from Antioch, through Syria and Cilicia first, by land as far as to Alexandria Troas, and from thence through Macedonia, Thessaly, and Attica, until he came to Corinth, including the time taken up by the residence in particular places, both those, where such residences are not specified, and those, where they are, as at Troas, Philippi, Thessalonica, Bercea, and Athens, do necessarily require that we should allow the space of a year for the transaction of every thing, between Acts xv. 36. and xviii. 1; though this interval is not too little: for it is clear that St. Paul did not make a practice of staying every where; and we may infer from the narrative in the Acts, compared also with the Epistles to Philippi and to Thessalonica', that he stayed as long in each of these cities as he had ever stayed any where else;

Vol. i. Diss. v.

i 1 Thess. i. 6. ii. 9. 2 Thess. iii. 8. Philipp. iv. 16.

and yet the length of the stay at the latter does not appear to have exceeded three weeks k.

In the year of our Lord 44. and A. U. 797. in which St. Paul set out on his first circuit, the Passover was celebrated March 31; and the day of Pentecost fell on May 21: and St. Paul's first circuit, we have assumed, began about that time. Between this time, and the Pentecost, May 26. A. U. 802. which we have assumed as the beginning of his second circuit, there was just a five years' interval; to be filled up, first, by the time occupied on the first circuit before the return to Antioch; or between Acts xiii. 4. and xiv. 26: secondly, by the residence at Antioch posterior to the return, but before the beginning of the dispute with the Judaizing teachers; that is, between Acts xiv. 27. and xv. 1: thirdly, by the mission to Jerusalem, and the conference there, in consequence of this dispute; or between Acts xv. 2. and xv. 29: and fourthly, by the return to Antioch, and continuance of the residence there, posterior to all the former events, but prior to the commencement of the next general circuit; or between Acts xv. 30. and xv. 35. For one and all of these transactions the period of five years is not too long an interval; especially, as independent of the duration of the circuit itself, the residence at Antioch both before and after the conference in Jerusalem, it is either affirmed or implied, took up no little time 1.

The details of the five years would be of no importance to our general argument, and so far might be distributed as we pleased. I cannot help conjecturing, however, that the time of the council of Jerusalem, at which the question, whether the Gentile converts to Christianity became subject, in consequence of their conversion, to the Law of Moses, or not, was formally discussed and settled, and which was, therefore, a cardinal period in the progress of the Christian scheme as concerned them, is to be placed A. U. 800. or 801. exactly at seven years' interval from the time of the conversion of Cornelius. This supposition is

manifestly possible; and it derives some support from the language of St. Peter, Acts xv. 7. à¤' hμepäv äрxaíwy, which is seen from verse 14-lower down-in the speech of St. James, to be equivalent simply to pτov, or at the utmost to ἀπ ̓ ἀρχῆς. The fact alluded to in each instance is clearly the opening of the Gospel to the Gentiles, by the instrumentality of St. Peter in the conversion of Cornelius; and this being spoken of as a somewhat remote event—as what had happened a good while ago, or at first-it is more naturally to be understood of a period of six or seven years, than of merely three or four. But to proceed.

The arrival of St. Paul at Corinth, then, about a year after the commencement of his second journey, would be about the spring of A. U. 803; and, consequently, in the first quarter of the tenth of Claudius, which began that year on January the 24th. The last places which he visited, and, as the course of the history proves, not many weeks before his arrival at Athens, were Philippi, Thessalonica, and Bercea; all which it is to be presumed would be visited A. U. 803 and it is some slight confirmation of the presumption that the language ascribed to the enemies of Paul, first at Philippi, and again at Thessalonica m, points to a period when Christianity must have pervaded the world, which it might be said to have pervaded, when it had once reached Rome; and, also, to the knowledge of some dogma or decree of the existing Emperor, hostile to the Jews, and especially binding on Roman citizens: which might be that very edict of Claudius, which he issued about this time, commanding the Jews to leave Rome and Italy: and, consequently, laying them under a public ban, and forbidding Roman citizens in particular to give them any encourage

ment.

It is a much more critical circumstance in order to the same conclusion, that the first half of the ninth of Claudius, A. U. 802. when St. Paul set out on this second mission, was, as I shall prove hereafter, the close of a sabbatic year:

m Acts xvi. 21. xvii. 6. 7.

which was always a year of scarcity among the Jews. Nor yet was it the case with the Jews only, that the ninth of Claudius was a year of dearth; but according to Eusebius, in Chronico, it was the case in Greece also. He speaks of a famine in Greece, in the ninth of Claudius, A. U. 802; when the modius or peck of corn, (σírov,) rose to six drachmæ or denarii in price, that is, to six times its usual value. The ordinary price of the modius of bread-corn was one drachma, or denarius, and not more; hence it is, that in the book of Revelations, to express the severity of a dearth, the choenix or three half-pints measure of such corn alone, (that is, so much as would maintain one man for a day,) is put at a denarius in price; about eleven times its usual rate ". There are other occasions in the course of contemporary events, as well as before °, when the price of wheat rose much higher than usual; but scarcely any, under ordinary circumstances, when it seems to have been higher than this. The use which I make of the knowledge of this fact is as follows.

It might be collected from 2 Cor. xi. 8, 9. alone, that St. Paul came to Corinth at a time of dearth, or when he was likely to have wanted; nor would he make a merit to the Corinthians of having taken nothing from them, if there were not some particular reason why he should. The same inference seems to be deducible from 1 Thess. ii. 9. and 2 Thess. iii. 8. also: he might have been grievous to this Church, if he had not purposely abstained from being so. What, then, are we to conclude? The wants of St. Paul at Corinth had been supplied by the brethren who came from Macedonia P, and the Epistle to the Philippians proves that they had been supplied from that part of Macedonia 9. The time of this supply at Corinth was, consequently, when Silas and Timothy arrived there from Macedonia 1; and they had brought it with them from thence.

In like manner, the wants of St. Paul at Thessalonica, as the same Epistle proves 9, had been supplied from Philippi

also: and though he came to Thessalonica almost on leaving Philippis, and though he stayed at Thessalonica perhaps not more than three weeks, yet even there they had ministered once and again, that is, on two several occasions, to his necessities.

St. Paul's arrival at Thessalonica would be early in the winter quarter of A. U. 803. when the famine, if there was any such thing in existence, would necessarily have begun to be felt. His arrival at Corinth was early in the spring quarter of the same year-and the coming of the brethren from Macedonia to him there was certainly not long afterwards. Yet, in this short time, the Philippians, a single Church, ministered thrice at least to his wants; twice in Thessalonica, and again in Corinth. All this seems to intimate that there was some pressing occasion for it: something in the state of the times more likely to stimulate the benevolent zeal of his converts in his behalf than usual: which the fact of a period of scarcity, five or six times as severe as commonly, would explain and illustrate at once.

This conclusion is strengthened by the consideration that, for ought which appears to the contrary, from the time of this visit to Greece, to the time of his first imprisonment at Rome, these were the only occasions on which even the most attached and most grateful of his converts, the Philippians themselves, are seen to have rendered any such service to him. There is no occasion until the time of this imprisonment, when he was likely again to have wanted. Nor can I help conjecturing that the true reason both why this Church in particular was so early and so long among those who supplied his pecuniary wants, and why St. Paul consented to be relieved by them, when he made a point of not accepting relief from others, was the friendship between St. Paul and St. Luke, who, as I have shewn elsewhere, was probably an inhabitant of Philippi. But to return to the prosecution of our subject.

The course of events from the time of the arrival in Corinth may be ascertained as follows.

. xvii. 1.