Antioch, a large and splendid city, admirably adapted for the first propagation of the gospel among the heathen. In A.D. 46 he paid with Barnabas a second visit to Jerusalem, taking thither a contribution from Antioch to relieve the famine which raged there. In A.D. 47 he went from Antioch in company with Barnabas on his first missionary tour, visiting Cyprus and part of Asia Minor. On his return, A.D. 49, he attended the Council at Jerusalem (Acts xv.; Gal. ii.), at which he insisted that converts from paganism should not be required to submit to circumcision and the other ceremonial rules of the Jewish Church. Only once again has any Council of the Church had to discuss such a burning and weighty question, and that once was at the Council of Nicaea in 325, when it was determined to describe the fact that Jesus is God in language which would admit of no possible mistake or jugglery. At Jerusalem, in A.D. 49, the Church had to determine whether it was sufficient for a man to be a Christian, or necessary for him to become a Jew and a Christian simultaneously. Some Judaizing Christians maintained the latter. Faithful to the teaching of our Lord, who laid on no Gentile the necessity of adopting Judaism, the Church decided that Gentile converts need not be circumcised. In A.D. 49, soon after the Council at Jerusalem, St. Paul began a second missionary journey, and crossed over into Europe, where he founded several Churches, including those of Philippi and Thessalonica. At Athens he seems to have made {121} but little impression, but at Corinth, the busy and profligate centre of Greek commerce, he was more successful. He stayed there for eighteen months, and during this stay he wrote the Epistles to the Thessalonians. They are marked by the attention given to _eschatology_, or doctrine of "the last things"--the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of mankind, and the judgment.