Page:History of Joseph and his brethren.pdf/22

22 him in Hebrew, and so sent to the Jews, and for the betier publishing it to the Gentiles, translated into Greek, some say by St. Luke, but others probably by St. Clement, for the style of whose epistle to the Corinthians is observed by Ephesians and St. Jerum to come very near the style of this epistle, and to contain a purer vein of Greek than is found in the rest of St. Paul's epistles.

Our apostle having been now two years a prisoner at Rome, is at length set free, and soon after departs to visit other parts of the world, for the further divulging the gospel, but into what particular parts is variously conjectured ; some think into Greece, and some parts of Asia, where he had not yet been ; others will have it that he went preaching, as well into the Eastern as Western parts of the world ; for in his epistle to the Corinthians it is said, that Paul being a preacher both Eastward and Westward. taught righteousness to the whole world, and went to the utmost bonds of the West. That he went into Spain, may be gathered both from his own words, as intimating so to do, and also from the testimony of other authors, as Theodoret, who writes, that he not only went into Spain to preach, but brought the gospel into the isles of the sea, and particularly into our island of Britian ; and more particularly in another place, he reckens up the Gauls and the Britains amongst those people to whom the apostles, and espically the tent maker, as he calls him, had divulged the christian faith

Farther mention of St. Paul we find none till his next and last coming to Rome, which is said to be about the 8th and 9th years of Nero's reign ; and he came in the fittest time to suffer martyrdom he could have chosen ; for whereas at other times, his privilege of being a Roman citizen gained him those civilities which common morality could not deny him, he had to do with a person with whom the crime of being a christian weighed down all apologies that could be alledged ; a person whom lewdness and debauchery had made seven times more a Pagan than any custom or education could have done. What his accusation, cannot be certainly determined, whether it was his being an associate with St. Peter in the fall of Simon Magus, or his conversion of Poppæa Sabina, one of the