The life and work of St. Paul

588 THE LIVE AKD WORK Of ST. PAUL,
tion, 1 and Sofonius Tigellinus, one of the worst characters of that bad age.
Tigellinus was dear to Nero from the exceptional cruelty and infamy of his
nature, and to him was practically entrusted the entire power. 2 The banishment
and subsequent murder of Nero's wife Octavia, the unhappy daughter
of Claudius, took place within a year of St. Paul's arrival at Borne.
Such are some of the events which must have been whispered to the
Apostle from time to time by the Praetorians who guarded him ; and if his
condition was rendered less tolerable by the promotion of such a wretch as
Tigellinus, he must also have felt that his hopes for the future had been rendered
more precarious by the downfall of Seneca, and the now unchecked
tyranny of the incestuous matricide before whose tribunal his appeal must
soon be tried. But if deep fears as to the result of that appeal alternated with
passing hopes, neither his natural fears nor his earthly hopes disturbed the
serenity of his soul. He quietly continued the discharge of every duty which
was still possible to him in his captivity, and for the rest he knew that his
times were in God's hands, and that, whether life awaited him or death, all
things were his, whether things present or things to come, and he was Christ's
and Christ was God's. Alike on the stage of stormy publicity and in the soli-
tude of his sad imprisonment, his life was hid with Christ in God.
CHAPTEB XLVI.
EPISTLES OF THE CAPTIVITY.
" That man is very strong and powerful who has no more hopes for himself, who
looks not to be loved any more, to be admired any more, to have any more honour or
dignity, and who cares not for gratitude ; but whose sole thought is for others, and
who only lives on for them." HELPS.
THE history of St. Paul's first imprisonment, as well as the thoughts by which
he was then occupied, can only be derived from the "Epistles of the Captivity."
The extant Epistles of St. Paul fall naturally into four connected
groups, " separated from each other alike by chronological intervals and by
internal characteristics." They are respectively the letters of the second mis-
sionary journey (1, 2 Thess.) ; those of the third missionary journey (1, 2 Cor.,
Gal., Bom.) ; those of the first imprisonment (Phil., Col., Philem., Eph.) ;
and those of the second imprisonment (1, 2 Tim., Tit.). These groups may be
respectively characterised as the Eschatological Epistles (1, 2 Thess.) ; the
Epistles of the anti-Judaic controversy (1, 2 Cor., GaL, Bom.) ; the letters
against incipient Gnosticism (Col., Eph.) ; and the Pastoral Epistles (1, 2 Tim.
1 Tac. Ann. xrr, 51.
3 " Validior Tigellinus in animo Principis et intimis libidinibus assumptus " (Tac. I. &).
TtycXAti/ov &f TWO. Sw^oviov ar
(Dion. Ixii. 13).