Verse 17 Sosthenes; he having been probably a prominent actor in the tumult. It is a remarkable instance of the revolutions in personal character and position, which Christianity often effects, that Sosthenes, who appears on this occasion as the representative of so violent a hostility to the Christian name, and who, we should have supposed, would have been rendered, by this public beating, exasperate and irreconcilable, afterwards has his name joined with that of Paul, in one of the Epistles, as his fellow-Christian, companion, and friend. (1 Corinthians 1:1.)