Peter; but the departure of Paul setting out from the city to Spain—here the text is mutilated. How the writer intended to complete it can only be guessed. ‘The passage is worthless as evidence. 38. After these two we have noth- ing until the fourth century, when Eusebius says that there was a tradition that the apostle again set forth to the minis- try of his preaching, and having a second time entered the same city of Rome, was perfected by his martyrdom before Nero. That in this imprisonment he wrote the second Epistle to Timothy CH. #. ii. 22, 25). Thisis all. Jerome merely echoes Eusebius. Eusebius does not mention Spain. His- tory does not show any apostolic foundation in Spain. Nei- ther Irenaeus, Caius, Tertullian, nor Origen allude to such a mission; and although Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Origen mention the death of Paul at Rome, they say nothing of any journeys subsequent to his first arrival there. Dr. McGiffert remarks (note on Euseb. ii. 22, 2): “The strongest argu- ment against the visit to Spain is the absence of any trace of it in Spain itself. If any church there could have claimed the great apostle to the Gentiles as its founder, it seems that it must have asserted its claim, and the tradition have been preserved at least in that church.”’
It is also said that 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17 implies that Paul had had a hearing and been discharged and permitted to preach. The assumption is entirely gratuitous. The words may have referred to a hearing during his first captivity, when he was delivered from imminent danger, but not set at liberty.
In short, historical evidence for a release from the first Roman imprisonment, a subsequent missionary activity, and a second imprisonment, is utterly wanting. It seems hardly conceivable that no traces of a renewed ministry should be left in history except these instructions to friends and pupils. If Paul was liberated from his first imprisonment, it is singu- lar that Luke should not have recorded the fact as a triumph of the gospel.
Such being the case, it remains only to find a place for these letters in the recorded ministry of Paul. This cannot be