Section 106
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74 ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. Apostles. It was there said to Paul, by the centurion under Fe lix, when the multitude of the Jews raised a sedition against the apostle, " Art thou not indeed that selfsame Egyptian that ex cited and led away the thirty thousand assassins into the desert ?" Such, however, were the events that happened under Felix. CHAPTER XXTL Paul, being sent prisoner from Judea to Rome, after his defence, was absolved from all crime. FESTUS was sent by Nero as successor to Felix. Under him, Paul, after having pleaded his cause, was sent a prisoner to Rome. But Aristarchus was his companion, whom he also somewhere in his epistles calls his fellow-prisoner ; and here Luke, that wrote the Acts of the Apostles, after showing that Paul passed two whole years at Rome as a prisoner at large, and that he preached the gospel without restraint, brings his history to a close. After plead ing his cause, he is said to have been sent again upon the minis try of preaching, and after a second visit to the city, that he finished his life with martyrdom. Whilst he was a prisoner, he wrote his second epistle to Timothy, in which he both mentions his first defence and his impending death. Hear, on these points, his own testimony respecting himself. " In my former defence no one was present with me, but all deserted me. May it not be laid to their charge. But the Lord was with me, and strengthened me, that through me the preaching of the gospel might be ful filled, and all the nations might hear it. And I was rescued out of the lion's mouth." He plainly intimates in these words, " On the former occasion he was rescued from the lion's mouth, that the preaching of the gospel might be accomplished," that it was Nero to which he referred by this expression, as is probable on account of his cruelty. Therefore he did not subsequently sub join any such expression as, " he will rescue me from the lion's mouth," for he saw in spirit how near his approaching death was. Hence, after the expression, " and I was rescued from the