Sec. 5. Last Trial and Death of Paul. 361
the same place in the first as 1 1 Tim. in the second trial ; but Phil, looks forward to a fresh career among the Churches, while II Tim. is the testament of a dying man. In one respect, however, the second trial was like the first. Paul again defended himself in the same bold and outspoken way as before, expounding the principles of his life to a great audience, "that all the Gentiles might hear".
Yet the circumstances of this second trial are totally different from that "short way with the dissenters" which was customary under Domitian and Trajan and later Emperors. After his first examination Paul could still write to Asia bidding Timothy and Mark come to him, which shows that he looked forward to a considerable interval before the next stage of his trial. He was charged as a malefactor, crimes had to be proved against him, and evidence brought ; and the simple acknowledgment that he was a Christian was still far from sufficient to condemn him, as it was under Domitian. It is a plausible conjecture of Conybeare and Howson that the first hearing, on which he was acquitted and " delivered out of the lion's mouth," was on the charge of complicity and sympathy with the incendiaries, who had burned Rome in 64 ; and that charge was triumphantly disproved. The trial in that case did not occur until the first frenzy of terror and rage against the supposed incendiaries was over ; and some other species of crime had to be laid to the account of the Christians charged before the courts. The second and fatal charge, heard later, was doubtless that of treason, shown by hostility to the established customs of society, and by weakening the Imperial authority.
If our conception of the trial is correct, the precedent of
362 St. Paul in Rome, Chap. XV.
the first great trial still guided the courts of the empire (as we have elsewhere sought to prove). It had then been decided that the preaching of the new religion was not in itself a crime ; and that legal offences must be proved against Christians as against any other subjects of the empire. That was the charter of freedom (p. 282) which was abrogated shortly after ; and part of Luke's de- sign was, as we have seen (p. 307), to record the circum- stances in which the charter had been obtained, as a protest against the Flavian policy, which had overturned a well- weighed decision of the supreme court.
Note. Text of XXVIII 16. The failure in the great MSS. of the delivery of Paul to the Stratopedarch is a very clear case of omitting a Lukan detail, which had only a mundane interest ; and the failure oi similar details in XXVII 5, XVI 30, etc., may be estimated by the analogy oi this case.