Acts 18:1

μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα : in continuation of the narrative, cf. Luke 10:1. χωρισθεὶς : in Acts 1:4 with ἀπό, and so usually only here with ἐκ, departure from Athens emphasised, because events had compelled the Apostle to alter his intended plan (Ramsay, St. Paul, p. 240, and Blass, in loco), cf. 1 Chronicles 12:8 (A al.); 2Ma 5:21; 2Ma 12:12, with an accusative of place. Κόρινθον : Corinth from its position as the capital of the Roman province Achaia was the centre of government and commerce, while Athens was still the great educational centre of Greece. St. Paul, with his keen eye for the most important and prominent stations of Roman government and the meeting points of East and West, might be expected to choose a place from whence the influence of the Gospel could spread over the whole province. Like Ephesus, Corinth lay on the great highway between East and West; like Ephesus it was, as Professor Ramsay terms it, one of the knots on the line of communication, the point of convergence for many subordinate roads. But Corinth, with all its external beauty, its wealth and fame, had become a byword for vice and infamy, cf. Κορινθιάζεσθαι, Κορινθιάζειν, Wetstein, 1 Corinthians 1:2, and references in Farrar, St. Paul, i., 557 ff., and it has not been unfairly termed the Vanity Fair of the Roman empire: at once the London and the Paris of the first century after Christ (Farrar, u. s., p. 556). To this infamous notoriety not only the cosmopolitanism of the city contributed, but the open consecration of shameless impurity in its temple service of Venus, see Ramsay, “Corinth,” Hastings' B.D.; C. and H., small edition, p. 324 ff.; McGiffert, Apostolic Age, p. 262, and notes below.