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Dictionary of the Bible

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PAUL THE APOSTLE

and the chief captain (chiliarch), Claudius Lysias, has him brought into the Castle and orders him to be ex-amined by scourging; but Paul asserts his Roman citizenship. Next day he is brought before the Jewish Sanhedrin, of whom some were Pharisees, some Saddu-cees, and when he affirms his belief in 'the hope and resurrection of the dead,' the former favour him. In the night he is encouraged by a vision of the Lord telling him that he must bear witness in Rome (Ac 23"). A plot of the Jews against him, revealed by his nephew, is the cause of his being sent down guarded to Csesarea to the governor Felix. The Jews go down there to accuse him, and Felix and his wife Drusilla, a Jewess, hear him often; but he is left a prisoner for two years, and Felix, when he is recalled, does not release him, hoping to please the Jews. He had expected a bribe from Paul (24^). Festus, his successor, is asked by the Jews to send Paul to Jerusalem, there being a secret plot to kill him on the road ; but Paul appeals to Ceesar. While he is at Caasarea, Agrippa and Bernice come down to visit Festus, and Paul narrates to them his conversion (Ac 2S"-26«).

11 . Roman impiisonment .—From Caesarea the Apostle is sent, with the two companions allowed to accom-pany him (Luke and Aristarchus), on a voyage to Italy [59J, under the charge of Julius, centurion of the Au-gustan Band or Cohort. They sail first, after touching at Zidon, under the lee (to the east) of Cyprus, the usual winds in the Levant in summer being westerly, and coast along Asia Minor. St. Paul is treated kindly and as a prisoner of distinction, and his advice is often asked. At Myra they tranship and embark in what is apparently a Government vessel taking corn from Egypt to Italy. Sailing south of Crete they reach Fair Havens, and spend at least some few days there; then, though the season of the year is late, they set sail again, hoping to reach Italy safely. But being caught in a storm, they drift for many days, and finally are shipwrecked on the coast of Malta, where the people receive them kindly. St. Paul heals the father of the 'first man,' Publius, of fever and dysentery. Next spring [60] they s&il for Italy by way of Sicily, and land at Puteoli, whence they reach Rome by land. Here Paul is allowed to live in a hired house, guarded by a soldier, and he remains there 'two whole years,' doing evangelistic work [60, 61]. From Rome, while a prisoner (Ph 1'- ", Col i'- "s, Eph 3' 4i 6™, PhUem'), he wrote Ephesians, probably a circular letter to the Churches of Asia (the 'Epistle from Laodicea' of Col 4'6). At the same time he seems to have sent Colossians and Philemon by Tychicus and Onesimus. The Colossians had not seen Paul (Col 20, but, having heard of errors at CoIosseb, he writes to exhort them and Archippus (4"; cf. Philem^), who seems to have been their chief minister. The short letter to Philemon is a touching appeal from ' Paul the aged ' (v.') to a master to receive back a fugitive slave Onesimus; the master formerly, and now the slave, owed their Christianity to St. Paul. At this time the Apostle has with him Epaphras of CoIosseb (who had come to Rome and was a 'fellow prisoner' with Paul, Philem^), Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus, Justus, Luke, and Demas. About the same date Philippians was written, and sent by Epaph-roditus of Philippi (Ph 2^^), who had been sick nigh to death, but had recovered; he had been sent by the Philippians with alms to Rome (Ph i"- "). St. Paul exhorts his ' true yokefellow ' (whom Lightf oot takes to be Epaphroditus, but who is more probably the chief minister of the Philippian Church) to appease a quarrel between two Church workers, Euodia and Syntyohe (42'); the 'Clement' there mentioned seems to have been a Philippian convert. St. Paul hopes soon to send Timothy to Philippi (2i9), and to be free to come soon to them himself (2"; cf. Philem22).

12. Later life [end of 61 to 67].— This we can in part construct from the Pastoral Epistles; those who reject

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them will take their own view of the account which follows. We may first ask whether St. Paul went to Spain. As we have seen, he meant to do so (Ro 15"- ''), and early tradition afiirmed that he did go (above, i. 4 (d)). This tradition, however, may have been based only on his recorded intention; and it is a difficulty that no trace is left of a Spanish visit, and that no Church in Spain claims to have been founded by him. Journeys to the East are better attested; he certainly intended to go from Rome eastwards (Ph 2"). We read that he went to Corinth and left Erastus there (2 Ti V); that he sailed along the west coast of Asia Minor, leaving Trophimus sick at Miletus (i6.), and Timothy at Ephesus to rule the Church there for a time (1 Ti 1' etc.); that he called at Troas and left some things there (2 Ti 4i3) ; and that he went to Macedonia (1 Ti 1'). But these events need not have happened on the same journey. At Ephesus we read of various heretics of Hymenseus and Alexander whom Paul 'delivered unto Satan' (1 Ti l^") Alexander is perhaps the coppersmith who opposed Paul, probably at Ephesus, not Troas (2 Ti 4"), of Hymenseus (perhaps the same as in 1 Tim. ) and Philetus, who explained the resurrection of the dead in a figurative sense as an event already past (2 Ti 2"), and of Phygelus and Hermogenes, who, with 'all that are in Asia' (l'^), deserted the Apostle; but it is uncertain whether the references are to a time before or after the first imprisonment at Rome. Another journey was to Crete, where St. Paul left Titus to rule the Church for a time (Tit 1=); thereafter the Apostle went to Nicopolis, on the west coast of Achaia, opposite Italy, where he intended to winter (Tit 3'^). Before reaching Nicopolis he wrote 1 Timothy (prob-ably) and Titus ; he asked Titus to come to him when-ever another could be sent to take his place (3'*),

The last scene of the Apostle's life is at Rome. He is now a second time a prisoner (2 Ti 2'), conscious that his lite is near its end (4»'). He writes 2 Timothy to his faithful disciple, who is apparently at Ephesus [Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus are mentioned as being with Timothy (1" 4"), and he himself is in a position of authority; these considera-tions point to Ephesus, where he was before]. When St. Paul writes, he is, save for Luke's attendance, alone; Demas has forsaken him ; Crescens, Titus, and Tychicus have been sent on missions (Titus to Dalmatia, not to Crete); and Timothy is pressed to bring Mark and to come to Rome with the things left behind at Troas. Tychicus seems to have been sent as his substitute to Ephesus (4»-"). In this letter St. Paul speaks of Onesiphorus having helped him, not only at Ephesus on a former occasion, but when he was a prisoner in Rome, perhaps at the first imprisonment, for he seems to have died before 2 Tim. was written (l'«-i8). It is disputed whether the ' first defence' (first, not former) of 2 Ti 4", when 'all forsook him,' refers to a preliminary examination in the second imprisonment, or, as seems more likely (Zahn) , to the first imprisonment ; the Apostle speaks of his being delivered out of the mouth of the lion, that through him ' (he message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear." This seems to refer to the further travels of the Apostle after his first imprisonment, whereas when writing 2 Tim. he knew that he was near his end.

13. By universal tradition the martyrdom of St. Paul was at Rome [Harnack 64, Turner 64-65, Ramsay and Lightfoot 67]. Clement of Rome (Cor. 5), c. a.d. 95, says that having borne witness before rulers he departed from this world. At the end of the 2nd cent. TertuUian gives details: 'Paul is beheaded ... At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith. Then does Paul obtain a birth suited to Roman citizen-ship . . . there' (Scorp. 15, Pair. Lat. ii. 174 f.); 'Rome . . . where Paul wins his crown in a death like John's' (tfe Pro^c. Hair. 36, Patr. Lat. ii. 69). In the 3rd cent. Origen (Com. in Om. lii., see Eusebius, HE iii. 1) says