A.D. 54. Athenians little inclined to believe.
At Athens St. Paul came in contact with the most intellectual and philosophical minds of heathendom; but heathen philosophy made the Athenians very little inclined to accept the supernatural mysteries of the Christian Faith. They listened indeed with eager curiosity to the "new thing" which the great Apostle proclaimed "in the midst of Mars' Hill;" and yet when their intellectual pride was required to bow itself down, to acknowledge something more than a Neology, and to believe in the supernaturalism of the Resurrection, they only "mocked" the teacher. St. Paul, therefore, departed from the city where his cultivated mind had been stirred at the sight of so many great intellects "wholly given to idolatry[22]." Athens afterwards a Bishopric. But yet his visit was not without its fruits; and Dionysius, a member of the great Council of the Areopagus, is believed to have been the first Bishop of the Church in Athens[23].
Corinth the centre of the Church in Greece.
From Athens St. Paul went to Corinth, and it was in this luxurious and profligate city that he founded a Church which became the centre of Christianity in Greece. St. Paul turns from the Jews. The obstinate unbelief and blasphemous opposition of the Corinthian Jews caused St. Paul, for the first time, to withdraw himself entirely from the services of the synagogue; but he continued at Corinth a year and six months, being protected, according to God's special promise to him, from all the machinations of his Jewish enemies. Opposes the errors of Greek philosophy. This lengthened stay was probably occasioned not only by the presence of "much people" who were to be converted to Christ, but also by the necessity of strengthening the Corinthian converts against the subtleties of the heathen philosophy by which they were surrounded, and with which St. Paul was well fitted to cope by his early education. The errors of Gnosticism seem also to have penetrated at this time as far as Corinth.
A.D. 55. A.D. 56.
After leaving Corinth, St. Paul paid a hasty visit to Ephesus, and then, for the last time, returned to Antioch.
Section 5. St. Paul's Third Apostolic Journey.
A.D. 56.
Ephesus the centre of the Church in Asia Minor.