The life and work of St. Paul

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APPENDIX.
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 (o^do-e) and were there
martyred about the same time, is, so far as it goes, somewhat unfavourable to the
tradition had
Spanish journey, and at any rate proves that even in the second century
buried its ignorance in the shifting sand of erroneous generalities.
If we be asked what is the historic value of 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 " (jmapTvpjjo-as) 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.*
Nor is the sentence in the second-century Canon discovered by Muratori at Milan ol
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 Bom. xv. 24 had no authority in its favour.
Eusebius, indeed, is more explicit, but, on the one hand, he lived so late that hia
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 hisr 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. iv. 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 Chronicon he 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. 3 The real proofs of St. Paul's liberation are, as we have seen, of a
different character.
1 See however Dollinger, First Age, 78, seq. ; Westcott, Hist, of Canon, p. 479 ; and LigMfoot,
Ep. of Clement, p. 608, who quotes Strabo, ii. 1, Veil. Paterc. i. 2, to show tliat Spain la probably
meant.
* He makes Paul arrive at Borne A.D. 65.