Section 107
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 75 lion's mouth," this also, " the Lord will rescue me from every evil work, and will save me unto his heavenly kingdom," indicating the martyrdom that he would soon suffer ; which he more clearly expresses in the same epistle, " for I am already poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand." And indeed, in this second epistle to Timothy, he shows that Luke alone was with him when he wrote, but at his former defence not even he. Whence, it is probable, that Luke wrote his Acts of the Apostles about that time, continuing his history down to the time that he was with Paul. Thus much we have said, to show that the martyrdom of the apostle did not take place at that period of his stay at Rome when Luke wrote his history. It is indeed probable, that as Nero was more disposed to mildness in the beginning, that the defence of the apostle's doctrine would be more easily received ; but as he advanced to such criminal excesses as to disregard all right, the apostles also, with others, experienced the effects of the measures pursued against them. CHAPTER XXIII. The martyrdom of James, who was called the brother of the Lord. BUT the Jews, after Paul had appealed to Caesar, and had been sent by Festus to Rome, frustrated in their hope of entrapping him by the snares they had laid, turn themselves against James, the brother of the Lord, to whom the episcopal seat at Jerusalem was committed by the apostles. The following were their nefarious measures also against him. Conducting him into a public place, they demanded that he should renounce the faith of Christ before all the people ; but contrary to the sentiments of all, with a firm voice, and much beyond their expectation, he declared himself fully before the whole multitude, and confessed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, our Saviour and Lord. Unable to bear any longer the testimony of the man, who, on account of his elevated virtue and piety was deemed the most just of men, they seized