demonstrates in this letter that the law was fulfilled
in Christ, he thus prepares the Jewish Christians for
the extinction of the Mosaic ritual. In all likelihood
he now once more visited Jerusalem, travelling by
Corinth, [155:1] Philippi, [155:2] and Troas, [155:3]
where he left for the use of Carpus the case with the
books and parchments which he mentions in his Second
Epistle to Timothy. Passing on then to Colosse,
[155:4] he may have visited Antioch in Pisidia and
other cities of Asia Minor, the scenes of his early
ministrations; and reached Jerusalem [155:5] by way
of Antioch in Syria. He perhaps returned from
Palestine to Rome by sea, leaving Trophimus sick [155:6]
at Miletum in Crete. The journey did not probably
occupy much time; and, on his return to Italy, he
seems to have been immediately incarcerated.
His condition was now very different from what it
had been during his former confinement; for he was
deserted by his friends, and treated as a malefactor.
[155:7] When he wrote to Timothy he had already been
brought before the judgment-seat, and had narrowly
escaped martyrdom. “At my first answer,”
says he, “no man stood with me, but all men
forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid
to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood
with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching
might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might
hear; [155:8] and I was delivered out of the mouth
of the lion.” [155:9] The prospect, however,
still continued gloomy; and he had no hope of ultimate
escape. In the anticipation of his condemnation,
he wrote those words so full of Christian faith and
heroism, “I am now ready to be offered, and
the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought
a good fight—I have finished my course—I
have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid
up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, shall give me in that day, and
not to me only, but unto all them also that love his
appearing.” [156:1]
Paul was martyred perhaps about A.D. 66. Tradition
reports that he was beheaded; [156:2] and as he was
a Roman citizen, it is not probable that he suffered
any more ignominious fate. About the third or
fourth century, a statement appeared to the effect
that he and Peter were put to death at Rome on the
same day; [156:3] but all the early documentary evidence
we possess is quite opposed to such a representation.
If Peter really finished his career in the Western
metropolis, it would seem that he did not arrive there
until very shortly before the decapitation of the
Apostle of the Gentiles; for Paul makes no reference,
in any of his writings, to the presence of such a
fellow-labourer in the capital of the Empire.
In the Epistle to the Romans, containing so many salutations
to the brethren in the great city, the name of Peter
is not found; and in none of the letters written from
Rome is he ever mentioned. In the last of his
Epistles—the Second to Timothy—the
writer says—“only Luke is
with me” [156:4]—and had Peter then
been in the place, Paul would not have thus ignored
the existence of the apostle of the circumcision.