After the synagogue broke up, a number of the Jews and the devout proselytes followed them; Paul and Barnabas talked to them and encouraged them to hold by the grace of God.
As the local brothers had heard about us, they came out to meet us as far as Appii Forum and Tres Tabernae, and when Paul saw them he thanked God and took courage.
There he came across a Jew called Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently arrived from Italy with his wife Priscilla, as Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul accosted them,
Now in the local church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Symeon (called Niger) and Lucius the Cyrenian, besides Manaen (a foster-brother of Herod the tetrarch) and Saul.
Some of those who belonged to the so-called synagogue of the Libyans, the Cyrenians, and the Alexandrians, as well as to that of the Cilicians and Asiatics, started a dispute with Stephen,
This plan commended itself to the whole body, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the holy Spirit, Philip, Prochorus, Nikanor, Timon, Parmenas and Nikolaos a proselyte from Antioch;
Woe to you, you impious scribes and Pharisees! you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when you succeed you make him a son of Gehenna twice as bad as yourselves.