which he strenuously defended his own independent Apostolic authority (Gal. i. 11, ii. 21), showed that the doctrine of these Judaizers was calculated to destroy the very essence of Christianity, “to reduce it from an inward and spiritual life to an outward and ceremonial system” (Gal. iii. iv.), and exhorted them once more to walk in a manner worthy of that state of freedom and not of bondage, into which they had been called (Gal. v. vi.). The Apostle’s present stay at Corinth continued upwards of three months (Acts xx. 3), and he probably employed himself not only in convincing and silencing the gainsayers who opposed him, as he had declared he would (2 Cor. xiii. 1–6), and in visiting other churches in the province of Achaia, but also in superintending the great collection for the poorer Christians at Jerusalem, about which he felt so solicitous. This collection was now completed, and certain treasurers were nominated by the whole Church, with whom the Apostle was to carry it on his contemplated journey to Jerusalem (1 Cor. xvi. 3). Meanwhile a Christian matron, named Phœbe[1053], of the port of Cenchreæ, was about to sail in an opposite direction to Rome upon some private business. St Paul therefore availed himself of the opportunity thus afforded of addressing an Epistle to the Church in that city, which he already intended to visit speedily, and with the members of which, though they had not _seen his face in the flesh_, he yet appears, from the numerous salutations at the close of the Epistle, to have been well acquainted. When this Church was founded is uncertain. Christianity may have been planted in Rome by some of the strangers from that city present on the day of Pentecost (Acts ii. 10), or by believing Jews attracted thither in the early days of Christianity, and who had been converted by St Paul’s own preaching. Whichever is the correct opinion, the Church there appears to have been numerous, and though in the first instance its members were probably Jews, who had been converted in the eastern parts of the Empire, they had received large accessions from the Gentiles (Rom. i. 13). Between these two parties disputes had arisen respecting the obligation of the Mosaic law, and while the one could not bring themselves to acknowledge their Gentile brethren as their equals in Christian privileges (Rom. iii. 9–29, xv. 7–11), the other could not make sufficient allowance for Jewish prejudices respecting the observation of days and the eating of meats (Rom. xiv.). Long desirous of visiting the Church at Rome, and probably informed of its condition by Aquila and Priscilla, now resident there[1054] (Rom. xvi. 3), he deemed it his duty, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, to compose the differences between the two sections of the Roman Church, to lay down, in opposition to the Judaizers[1055], the great doctrine of justification by faith only (Rom. i.‒viii.), to explain the mystery of the rejection of the Jews