THE chief passages on the remaining life of St. Paul which have much historic importance are the following:—
I. Clemens Romanus, possibly a personal friend and fellow–worker of St. Paul, if he be the Clement mentioned in Phil. 4:3,1 but certainly a Bishop of Rome, and a writer of the first century, says that:—
“Because of envy, Paul also obtained the prize of endurance, having seven times borne chains, having been exiled, and having been stoned. After he had preached the Gospel both in the East and in the West, he won the noble renown of his faith, having taught righteousness to the whole world, and having come to the limit of the West, and borne witness2 before the rulers. Thus he was freed from the world, and went into the holy place, having shown himself a pre–eminent example of endurance.”3
II. The fragment of the Muratorian Canon (about A.D. 170), though obscure and corrupt, and only capable of uncertain conjectural emendation and interpretation, yet seems on the whole to imply the fact of “Paul’s setting forth from the city on his way to Spain.”4
III. Eusebius, in the fourth century, says:—
“Then, after his defence, there is a tradition that the Apostle again set forth to the ministry of his preaching, and having a second time entered the same city [Rome], was perfected by his martyrdom before him [Nero].”5
IV. Chrysostom (died A.D. 407) says:—
“After he had been in Rome, he again went into Spain. But whether he thence returned into those regions [the East] we do not know.”6
V. St. Jerome (died A.D. 420) says that “Paul was dismissed by Nero, that he might preach Christ’s Gospel also in the regions of the West.”7
I take no notice of the inscription supposed to have been found in Spain (Gruter, pp. 238, 9), which gratefully records that Nero has purged the province of brigands, and of the votaries of a new superstition, because even on the assumption that it is genuine it has no necessary bearing on the question. Nor does any other writer of the least authority make any important contribution to the question, since it cannot be regarded as adding one iota of probability to the decision to quote the general assertions of Cyril of Jerusalem and Theodoret that St. Paul visited Spain; nor can it be taken as a counter–evidence that Origen does not mention Spain when he remarks ‘that he carried the Gospel from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and was afterwards martyred in Rome in the time of Nero.’ Even as late as the fourth century, no writer ventures to do more than allude distantly to the supposed fact in a manner which shows that not a single detail on the subject existed, and that tradition had nothing tangible to add to the data furnished by the New Testament, or the inferences to which it led. On the other hand, the testimony of the pseudo–Dionysius (A.D. 170) that St. Peter and St. Paul, after founding the Church of Corinth, went to Italy—apparently together(ὁμόσε)—and were there martyred about the same time, is, so far as it goes, somewhat unfavourable to the Spanish journey, and at any rate proves that even in the second century tradition had buried its ignorance in the shifting sand of erroneous generalities.
If we be asked what is the historicvalueof this evidence, we must answer that it is very small indeed. The testimony of Clement, assuming it to be genuine, would be important from his early date if it were not so entirely vague. It is a purely rhetorical passage, in which it seems not impossible that he means to compare St. Paul to the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. The expression that “he taught righteousness to the whole world” shows that we are here dealing with enthusiastic phrases rather than rigid facts. The expression “having come to the limit of the West” is unfavourable to a Spanish journey. “The limit of the West,” though undoubtedly it would mean Spain to an author who was writing from Rome, if he were speaking in plain and lucid prose, has not necessarily any such meaning in a glowing comparison, least of all on the hypothesis that the native place of the writer was Philippi. If, however, Spain is intended, and if the word “bearing witness” (μαρτυρἠσας) means martyrdom, then the author, taken literally, would imply that St. Paul perished in Spain. The argument that “before the rulers” must be a reference to Helius and Polycletus, or Tigellinus and Nymphidius Sabinus, or two other presidents left to act as regents during Nero’s absence in Greece, is a mere gossamer thread of attenuated inference. The authority of St. Clement, then, must be set aside as too uncertain to be of decisive value.8
Nor is the sentence in the second–century Canon discovered by Muratori at Milan of any great value. The verb which is essential to the meaning has to be supplied, and it is even possible that the writer may have intended to quote Luke’s silence as to any Spanish journey to prove that the tradition respecting it—which would have been naturally suggested by Rom. 15:24—had no authority in its favour.
Eusebius, indeed, is more explicit, but, on the one hand, he lived so late that his testimony, unless supported by reference to more ancient authorities, is of no importance; and on the other hand, he is so far from following his usual habit of quoting any authority for his assertion, that he distinctly ascribes it to tradition. He merely observes that “it is said,” and then proceeds to support the probability of this tradition by an extraordinary misconception of 2 Tim. 4:16, 17, in which he founds an argument for the Apostle’s second imprisonment on the grounds that he spoke of deliverance from the first when he said, “I was saved from the mouth of the lion.” His testimony is rendered the more worthless because in his Chroniconhe misdates by nearly ten years the time of the first imprisonment, and his erroneous inference from 2 Tim. seems to show that the floating rumour was founded on a mere hypothesis suggested by the Epistles themselves.9 The real proofs of St. Paul’s liberation are, as we have seen, of a different character