He had, he says, accomplished the preaching of the gospel in an irregular circuit from Jerusalem to Illyria. After he had made a beginning of Christian preaching at Damascus, he {183} had, in fact, shared the apostolic preaching at Jerusalem (Acts ix. 29), but his own special work began at Tarsus, or rather at Antioch. After that he had 'fulfilled the proclamation of the gospel,' so far, that is to say, as it belonged to the apostolic office, by founding churches in a gradually enlarging circuit, especially in the chief centres, as the narrative of the Acts shows us, till travelling by the Egnatian way he would have come within sight of the Illyrian mountains at Thessalonica[20]. He may even have entered Illyria when the Acts vaguely describes him as going to Macedonia and then 'passing through those parts[21]'; but the expression in this epistle does not require this. It is sufficient that the border of Illyria, through which the Egnatian way led to Rome, had been so far his nearest point to the capital. St. Paul certainly implies that Rome was included in his province of work, and that he owed them a yet unpaid debt[22]. This must surely mean, according to St. Paul's principle, that no other of the greater apostles had yet evangelized them or founded the church there[23]. {184} Rome was no other man's foundation. But none the less, the elements of a church had collected there. The gospel was being preached there by 'apostles' from among his own circle. And St. Paul, for this reason, does not contemplate any permanent stay with the Romans, but regards Rome only as a place where he can rest and refresh himself, as well as supply deficiencies in the spiritual equipment of the church there, before he passes further west to the untouched region of Spain. St. Paul, we see plainly enough, had no power to foresee the future. But after the long residence at Rome during his first captivity, which he did not the least anticipate, did he, we ask, actually get to Spain? There is certainly no good reason to say he did not, for his movements are, in the main, unknown to us in the last period of his life; and on the other hand in Clement's letter to the Corinthians, written within the first century, he is said to have passed before his martyrdom to 'the limits of the west'--the extreme west--which is certainly most naturally interpreted of Spain[24].