But now the time was come when the peace and purity of the Corinthian Church was to be no longer destroyed (at least openly) by either of these parties. St. Paul’s first duty was to silence and shame his leading opponents by proving the reality of his Apostleship, which they denied. This he could only do by exhibiting "the signs of an Apostle," which consisted, as he himself informs us, mainly in the display of miraculous powers (2Co. 12:12). The present was a crisis which required such an appeal to the direct judgment of God, who could alone decide between conflicting claimants to a Divine commission. It was a contest like that between Elijah and the prophets of Baal. St. Paul had already in his absence professed his readiness to stake the truth of his claims on this issue ( 2Co. 10:8, and 2Co. 13:3-6); and we may be sure that now, when he was present, he did not shrink from the trial. And, doubtless, God, who had sent him forth, wrought such miracles by his agency as sufficed to convince or to silence the gainsayers. Perhaps the Judaizing emissaries from Palestine had already left Corinth after fulfilling their mission by founding an anti-Pauline party there. If they had remained, they must now have been driven to retreat in shame and confusion. All other opposition was quelled likewise, and the whole Church of Corinth were constrained to confess that God was on the side of Paul.

Now, therefore, that "their obedience was complete," the painful task remained of "punishing all the disobedient" (2Co. 10:6). It was not enough that those who had so often offended and so often been pardoned before should now merely profess once more a repentance which was only the offspring of fear or of hypocrisy, unless they were willing to give proof of their sincerity by renouncing their guilty indulgences. They had long infected the Church by their immorality; they were not merely evil themselves, but they were doing harm to others, and causing the name of Christ to be blasphemed among the heathen. It was necessary that the salt which had lost its savor should be cast out, lest its putrescence should spread to that which still retained its purity (2Co. 12:21). St. Paul no longer hesitated to stand between the living and the dead, that the plague might be stayed. (f1687) We know, from his own description (1Co. 5:3-5), the very form and manner of the punishment inflicted. A solemn assembly of the Church was convened; the presence and power of the Lord Jesus Christ was especially invoked; the cases of the worst offenders were separately considered, and those whose sins required so heavy a punishment were publicly cast out of the Church, and (in the awful phraseology of Scripture) delivered over to Satan. Yet we must not suppose that even in such extreme cases the object of the sentence was to consign the criminal to final reprobation. On the contrary, the purpose of this excommunication was so to work on the offender’s mind as to bring him to sincere repentance, "that his spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus." (1Co. 5:5.) If it had this happy effect, and if he manifested true contrition, he was restored (as we have already seen in the case of the incestuous person) (2Co. 2:6-8) to the love of the brethren and the communion of the Church.

We should naturally be glad to know whether the pacification and purification of the Corinthian Church thus effected was permanent; or whether the evils which were so deeply rooted sprang up again after St. Paul’s departure. On this point Scripture gives us no further information, nor can we find any mention of this Church (which has hitherto occupied so large a space in our narrative) after the date of the present chapter, either in the Acts or the Epistles. Such silence seems, so far as it goes, of favorable augury. And the subsequent testimony of Clement (the "fellow-laborer" of Paul, mentioned Php. 4:3) confirms this interpretation of it. He speaks (evidently from his own personal experience) of the impression produced upon every stranger who visited the Church of Corinth, by their exemplary conduct; and specifies particularly their possession of the virtues most opposite to their former faults. Thus, he says that they were distinguished for the ripeness and soundness of their knowledge in contrast to the unsound and false pretence of knowledge for which they were rebuked by St. Paul. Again, he praises the pure and blameless lives of their women; which must therefore have been greatly changed since the time when fornication, wantonness, and impurity (2Co. 12:21) were the characteristics of their society. But especially he commends them for their entire freedom from faction and party-spirit, which had formerly been so conspicuous among their faults. Perhaps the picture which he draws of this golden age of Corinth may be too favorably colored, as a contrast to the state of things which he deplored when he wrote. Yet we may believe it substantially true, and may therefore hope that some of the worst evils were permanently corrected; more particularly the impurity and licentiousness which had hitherto been the most flagrant of their vices. Their tendency to party-spirit, however (so characteristic of the Greek temper), was not cured; on the contrary, it blazed forth again with greater fury than ever, some years after the death of St. Paul. Their dissensions were the occasion of the letter of Clement already mentioned; he wrote in the hope of appeasing a violent and long-continued schism which had arisen (like their earlier divisions) from their being "puffed up in the cause of one against another." (1Co. 4:6.) He rebukes them for their envy, strife, and party-spirit; accuses them of being devoted to the cause of their party-leaders rather than to the cause of God; and declares that their divisions were rending asunder the body of Christ, and casting a stumbling-block in the way of many. (f1688) This is the last account which we have of the Corinthian Church in the Apostolic age; so that the curtain falls upon a scene of unchristian strife, too much like that upon which it rose. Yet, though this besetting sin was still unsubdued, the character of the Church, as a whole, was much improved since the days when some of them denied the resurrection, and others maintained their right to practise unchastity.

St. Paul continued three months (Act. 20:3.) resident at Corinth; or, at least, he made that city his headquarters during this period. Probably he made excursions thence to Athens and other neighboring Churches, which (as we know) (f1689) he had established at his first visit throughout all the region of Achaia, and which, perhaps, needed his presence, his exhortations, and his correction, no less than the metropolitan Church. Meanwhile, he was employed in completing that great collection for the Christians of Palestine, upon which we have seen him so long engaged. The Christians of Achaia, from whose comparative wealth much seems to have been expected, had already prepared their contributions, by laying aside something for the fund on the first day of every week; (1Co. 16:2.) and, as this had been going on for more than a year, (2Co. 8:10, and 2Co. 9:2.) the sum laid by must have been considerable. This was now collected from the individual contributors, and entrusted to certain treasurers elected by the whole Church, (f1690) who were to carry it to Jerusalem in company with St. Paul.

While the Apostle was preparing for this journey, destined to be so eventful, one of his converts was also departing from Corinth, in an opposite direction, charged with a commission which has immortalized her name. This was Phoebe, a Christian matron resident at Cenchrea, the eastern port of Corinth. She was a widow (f1691) of consideration and wealth, who acted as one of the deaconesses (f1692) of the Church, and was now about to sail to Rome, upon some private business, apparently connected with a lawsuit in which she was engaged. (f1693) St. Paul availed himself of this opportunity to send a letter by her hands to the Roman Church. His reason for writing to them at this time was his intention of speedily visiting them on his way from Jerusalem to Spain. He desired, before his personal intercourse with them should begin, to give them a proof of the affectionate interest which he felt for them, although they "had not seen his face in the flesh." We must not suppose, however, that they were hitherto altogether unknown to him; for we see, from the very numerous salutations at the close of the Epistle, that he was already well acquainted with many individual Christians at Rome. From the personal acquaintance he had thus formed, and the intelligence he had received, he had reason to entertain a very high opinion of the character of the Church; (f1694) and accordingly he tells them (Rom. 15:14-16) that, in entering so fully in his letter upon the doctrines and rules of Christianity, he had done it not so much to teach as to remind them; and that he was justified in assuming the authority so to exhort them, by the special commission which Christ had given him to the Gentiles.

The latter expression shows us that a considerable proportion, if not the majority, of the Roman Christians were of Gentile origin, (See also Rom. 1:13.) which is also evident from several other passages in the Epistle. At the same time, we cannot doubt that the original nucleus of the Church there, as well as in all the other great cities of the Empire, was formed by converts (including more Gentile proselytes than Jews) who had separated themselves from the Jewish synagogue. (f1695) The name of the original founder of the Roman Church has not been preserved to us by history, nor even celebrated by tradition. This is a remarkable fact, when we consider how soon the Church of Rome attained great eminence in the Christian world, both from its numbers, and from the influence of its metropolitan rank. Had any of the Apostles laid its first foundation, the fact could scarcely fail to have been recorded. It is therefore probable that it was formed, in the first instance, of private Christians converted in Palestine, who had come from the eastern (f1696) parts of the Empire to reside at Rome, or who had brought back Christianity with them, from some of their periodical visits to Jerusalem, as the "Strangers of Rome," from the great Pentecost. Indeed, among the immense multitudes whom political and commercial reasons constantly attracted to the metropolis of the world, there could not fail to be representatives of every religion which had established itself in any of the provinces.

On this hypothesis, the earliest of the Roman Christians were Jews by birth, who resided in Rome, from some of the causes above alluded to. By their efforts, others of their friends and fellow countrymen (who were very numerous at Rome) (f1697) would have been led to embrace the Gospel. But the Church so founded, though Jewish in its origin, was remarkably free from the predominance of Judaizing tendencies. This is evident from the fact that so large a proportion of it at this early period rare already of Gentile blood; and it appears still more plainly from the tone assumed by St. Paul throughout the Epistle, so different from that in which he addresses the Galatians, although the subject-matter is often nearly identical. Yet, at the same time, the Judaizing element, though not preponderating, was not entirely absent. We find that there were opponents of the Gospel at Rome, who argued against it on the ground of the immoral consequences which followed (as they thought) from the doctrine of Justification by Faith; and even charged St. Paul himself with maintaining that the greater man’s sin, the greater was God’s glory. (See Rom. 3:8.) Moreover, not all the Jewish members of the Church could bring themselves to acknowledge their uncircumcised Gentile brethren as their equals in the privileges of Christ’s kingdom (Rom. 3:9 and 29, Rom. 15:7-11); and, on the other hand, the more enlightened Gentile converts were inclined to treat the lingering Jewish prejudices of weak consciences with scornful contempt (Rom. 14:3). It was the aim of St. Paul to win the former of these parties to Christian truth, and the latter to Christian love; and to remove the stumbling-blocks out of the way of both, by setting before them that grand summary of the doctrine and practice of Christianity which is contained in the following Epistle:—