Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
It may be accepted as a well authenticated and incontestable
fact that =Paul= suffered =martyrdom= at Rome under Nero. This
is established by the testimony of Clement of Rome--μαρτυρήσας
ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων οὕτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κοσμοῦ,--and is further
explained and confirmed by Dionysius of Corinth, quoted in
Eusebius, and by Irenæus, Tertullian, Caius of Rome (§ 16, 1). On
the other hand it is disputed whether it may have happened during
the imprisonment spoken about in the Acts of the Apostles, or
during a subsequent imprisonment. According to the tradition of
the church given currency to by Eusebius (_Hist. Eccl._, ii. 22),
which even in our own time has been maintained by many capable
scholars, Paul was released from his first Roman imprisonment
shortly before the outburst of Nero’s persecution of the
Christians in A.D. 64 (§ 22, 1), and made a fourth missionary
journey which was brought to a close by his being a second
time arrested and subsequently beheaded at Rome in A.D. 67. The
proofs, however, that are offered in support of this assertion
are of a very doubtful character. Paul certainly in A.D. 58
had the intention (Rom. xv. 24, 28) after a short visit to Rome
to proceed to Spain; and when from his prison in Rome he wrote
to Philemon (v. 22) and to the Philippians (i. 25; ii. 24), he
believed that his cherished hope of yet regaining his liberty
would be realised; but there is no further mention of a journey
into Spain, for apparently other altogether different plans of
travel are in his mind. And indeed circumstances may easily be
conceived as arising to blast such hopes and produce in him that
spirit of hopeless resignation, which he gives expression to
in 2 Tim. iv. 6 ff. But the words of Clement of Rome, chap. 5:
δικαιοσύνην διδάξας ὅλον τὸν κόσμον καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως
ἐλθών, etc., are too indefinite and rhetorical to be taken as
a certain testimony on behalf of a Spanish missionary journey.
The incomplete reference in the Muratorian Fragment (§ 36, 8)
to a _profectio Pauli ab Urbe ad Spaniam proficiscentis_ may
be thought to afford more direct testimony, but probably it is
nothing more than a reminiscence of Rom. xv. 24, 28. Much more
important, nay almost conclusive, in the opposite direction, is
the entire absence, not only from all the patristic, but also
from all the apocryphal, literature of the second and third
centuries, of any allusion to a fourth missionary journey or a
second imprisonment of the Apostle. The assertion of Eusebius
introduced by a vague λόγος ἔχει can scarcely be regarded as
outweighing this objection. Consequently the majority of modern
investigators have decided in favour of the theory of one
imprisonment. But then the important question arises as to
whether the Epistles to Timothy and Titus, claiming to be Pauline,
with the journeys referred to or presupposed in them, and the
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