Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/640

 death. Such a change actually did occur in the latter part of the reign of Nero, when, as already related in the history of Peter's first epistle, the whole power of the imperial government was turned against the Christians, as a sect, and they were convicted on that accusation alone, as deserving of death. The date of this revolution in the condition of the Christians, is fixed by Roman history in the sixty-fourth year of Christ; and the time when Paul was cast into chains the second time, must therefore be referred to this year. His actual death evidently did not take place at once, but was deferred long enough to allow of his writing to Timothy, and for him to make some arrangements therein, for a short continuance of his labors. The date which is commonly fixed as the time of his execution, is in the year of Christ 65; but in truth, nothing whatever is known about it, nor can even a probability be confidently affirmed on the subject. Being a Roman citizen, he could not die by a mode so infamous as that of the cross, but was beheaded, as a more honorable exit; and with this view, the testimony of most of the early Fathers, who particularize his death, distinctly accords.

Of the various fictions which the monkish story-tellers have invented to gratify the curiosity which Christian readers feel about other particulars of the apostle's character, the following is an amusing specimen. "Paul, if we may believe Nicephorus, was of a low and small stature, somewhat stooping; his complexion fair; his countenance grave; his head small; his eyes sparkling; his nose high and bending; and his hair thick and dark, but mixed with gray. His constitution was weak, and often subject to distempers; but his mind was strong, and endued with a solid judgment, quick invention, and prompt memory, which were all improved by art, and the advantages of a liberal education. Besides the epistles which are owned to be genuine, several other writings are falsely ascribed to him: as an epistle to the Laodiceans, a third to the Thessalonians, a third to the Corinthians, a second to the Ephesians, his letter to Seneca, his Acts, his Revelation, his voyage to Thecla, and his Sermons." (Cave's Lives of the Apostles.)

But the honors and saintship of Paul are recorded, not in the vague and misty traces of bloody martyr-death, but in the far more glorious achievements of a heroic life. In these, are contained the essence of his greatness; to these, all the Gentile world owes its salvation; and on these, the modern historian, following the model of the sacred writers, dwells with far more minuteness and particularity, than on a dull mass of uncertain tradition.