THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
independent support in Roman tradition of about 90 or 100 a.d. The First Epistle of Clement (v.) says that Paul preached " both in the East and West, taught righteousness to the whole world,
and came to the extreme limit of the West " before he suffered martyrdom in Rome. According to current usage " the extreme limit of the West " means Spain or the Atlantic Ocean (cf. Zahn, Einleitung, i. 441, 446^9). The same tradition appears in the Gnostic Acts of Peter about 160 or 170 (ed. R. A. Lipsius, Acta apostolorum apocrypha, i. 45-48, 51, 26, Leipsic, 1891), in the Muratorian Canon (q.v.; line 38 ) , and in many later writings. It can not be based upon the pastoral epistles, since these speak only of renewed activity in the East or in general terms without specific designation of place, and say nothing of the West. And so early as 95 a.d. and in Rome, where the older members of the congregation must have had personal knowledge of the facts, it can hardly have been an inference from the desire to visit Spain expressed in Rom. xv. 22 sqq. The tradition of two imprisonments in Rome with an interval of missionary work between them is first connected with II Tim. iv. 16-17, by Eusebius (Hist. eccl. ii. 22), and the Spanish journey with Rom. xv. 24, 28, by Jerome, though not very definitely (on Isa. xi. ed. Vallarsius, iv. 164; Ps. lxxxiii., Anecdota Maredsolana, iii., 1895, pp. 2, 80). Against the historicity of the tradition there are neither positive statements of great antiquity nor hypotheses of convincing force. The abrupt termination of the Acts does not necessarily indicate that Paul died at the end of the two years (Acts xxviii. 30-31); on the contrary, if the imprisonment terminated in a glorious martyrdom, the author would hardly have omitted so fitting a conclusion of his narrative. The sad words of Acts xx. 25 are not conclusive (cf. the confident tone of Phil. i. 19, 25, ii. 24). The assumption that Paul suffered in the persecution instituted by Nero after the burning of Rome is improbable (1) on chronological grounds, because this persecution did not begin before the autumn of 64 a.d., and from the end of the two years (spring, 63 a.d.) to this time is too long an interval; (2) according to tradition never contradicted Paul was beheaded (Tertullian, Proescriptio, xxxvi.; Acts of Paul, ed. Lipsius, ut sup., pp. 112 sqq.); taking into account Tacitus, Annates, xv. 44, the hints in I Clement v., and Paul's Roman citizenship, it is almost incredible that he (like Peter, according to tradition equally old) can have been crucified. The Roman tradition which makes Peter and Paul both suffer on June 29 of the same year can prove at the most only that Paul (like Peter in all probability) suffered under Nero. But this tradition first appears in the fourth century and is a misunderstanding of a common festival of Peter and Paul which originally commemorated a translation of their relics on June 29, 258 (cf. Zahn, Einleitung, i. 454 sqq.). Even Augustine doubted this tradition because of another which made both apostles die on the same day of the year, but Paul in a later year than Peter. The old Acts of Peter (ed. Lipsius, ut sup., pp. 46, 3, 8) place his work and martyrdom in Rome in the same year which took Paul to Spain, therefore,
earlier than Paul's death; and Irenseus, following a later tradition, set the death of Paul a full year after that of Peter (ASB, June, v. 423). The older witnesses — Clement, Dionysius of Corinth, Irena-us Tertullian — and Eusebius in the chronicle (Armenian text) display no exact chronological knowledge and are at one only in that both apostles died about the same time, and, so far as any indication is given of the emperor, under Nero. (T. Zahn.)
II. Epistles. — 1. Preliminary Questions: The canon of the New Testament ascribes fourteen letters to St. Paul. Of this number the epistle to the Hebrews (see Hebrews, Epistle to the) may be put aside. It can not possibly have been written by the apostle. By every test of style and thought it belongs to some other writer. It can not be called Pauline even in a secondary sense, as if it had issued from a Pauline school deeply stamped by the master's mind. The reference to Timothy in xiii. 23 indicates that it was written by a man who belonged to the Pauline group. But in every way he was his own master. After a long and thorough debate it may be fairly said that the case against the Pauline authorship is closed.
There remain thirteen letters passing under the apostle's name. As regards all of them, the external testimony is unanimous and continuous. Its 1 _, . value is heightened by the fact that
Testimonv *^e testimony of the Church in the
second and following centuries, when it came to the epistle to the Hebrews, divided, East and West being at odds. But upon the other thirteen there was never a doubt. The secondcentury fragment called the Muratorian Canon (q.v.) ascribes them to Paul; and in all probability it publishes the mind of the leaders of the Church of Rome. Marcion accepted all but the Pastorals. It seems probable that he found the thirteen letters at Rome assembled into a Pauline corpus. His treatment of them is not historical but dogmatic. Distinction must be made carefully between what the external evidence can and can not do. It makes no discriminations. The statistics of quotation vary. Certain epistles are more widely used than others. But this does not affect the testimony as a whole, which speaks about every member of the group in the same tone and with the same emphasis, and is conclusive regarding the Pauline literature as a whole. It attests the existence of a man of vast religious genius and executive efficiency.
But the external testimony has no value when it faces the new issues in the field of Biblical introduction. One of the assured results of recent Old-Testament and New-Testament work is a profound difference between
modern methods of authorship and Evidence uterary workmanship and the methods
that underlie the main body of Holy Scripture. With us the author is a self-conscious individual. His book is his own, no one else's. He has property rights in it which the laws of copyright insure and safeguard. But antiquity as a whole lacked this conception of authorship. The literary man was very apt to be a member of a school or gild. His writings or outgivings were not in any sense his own property, but the property of the