affirmative, Clemens, long after his own time for distinction surnamed Romanus, has been brought forward, as affording indisputable testimony to the fact in question; whereas the famous passage in s. 5., from that Epistle to the Corinthians, if the common principles of interpretation be followed, affords the strongest evidence which all but direct negation can supply, to the contrary. Here, then, is the original Greek, with the lacunæ in the text, as filled up by Patricius Junius, the first editor, — Διὰ ζῆλον ὁ Παῦλος ὑπομονῆς βραβεῖον ἀπέσχεν, ἑπτάκις δεσμὰ φορέσας, παιδευθεὶς, λιθασθεὶς, 1. κήρυξ γενόμενος ἔν τε τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἐν τῇ δύσει, 2. τὸ γενναῖον τῆς πίστεως αὐτοῦ κλέος ἔλαβεν, 3. δικαιοσύνην διδάξας ὅλον τὸν κόσμον, 4. καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως ἐλθὼν, 5. καὶ μαρτυρήσας ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων, 6. οὕτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κόσμου, καὶ εἰς τὸν ἅγιον τόπον ἐπορεύθη, ὑπομονῆς γενόμενος μέγιστος ὑπογραμμός. And here is the plain English of it, Through bigotry, Paul obtained the reward of longsuffering. After seven times wearing bonds, after being scourged, after being stoned. 1. after preaching the gospel in the East and in the West, 2. he received the glorious renown due to his faith : 3. having taught righteousness to the whole world, 4. and having gone to the limit of the West, 5. and having born his testimony (as a martyr) before the governors, 6. he then departed out of this world, and went his way to that holy place, after having exhibited in his person the greatest pattern of patient endurance. Now what I maintain without scruple, is this: that the local designation in line 4. must, in natural continuity of sense, be taken as that also of line 5. And since, in line 5., the scene intended must be the city of Rome, no other meaning in the natural construction of sentences can be given to N line 4. which immediately precedes it. The two lines will then be thus translated, 4. having gone to the limit of the West, i. e. Rome, 5. and having borne his testimony, i.e. been condemned as a martyr, before the governors there. Or to fix more clearly still the just apprehension of the whole matter: if the Greek words in line 4. were calculated (which I deny) to suggest the idea of Spain from the pen of Clemens, then to prevent Spain from being taken as the locality of martyrdom also in line 5., completeness of sense would demand some addition to the following effect. Less than this would not suffice: 4. καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως ἐλθὼν, and having gone to the extremity of the West, to Spain, ἐκεῖθεν δὲ ὑποστρέψας, and having returned from thence, from Spain, 5. εἶτα μαρτυρήσας ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων, after that having been condemned before the governors as a martyr in Rome, &c. &c. The objection thus developed, which lies against the formality of the expression, as showing that the language is deficient for the purpose, might of itself go near to settle the point at issue. But a stronger remark, more substantially affecting the question, is in reserve. Neither Clemens could intend, nor could the Corinthians understand in those words of line 4. that Spain was signified. East and West are relative terms, which can only be understood by ascertaining the point of reference in the mind of the speaker; as that again must be determined by knowing him and his notions on the subject, the notions also of the persons addressed, and even those of the parties who are the subjects of discourse. Keeping all this in mind, we may fairly ask, When Clemens, himself more an eastern than a western, writes concerning Paul, whose chief labours had lain in the East, to the Corinthians, whose position naturally gave them an eastward inclination; would those Corinthians, on reading the passage here exhibited, without any significant hint from the context, discover in the words ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως, that not imperial Rome, but some obscure spot in remote Spain, was there intended? All circumstances fully taken into consideration, I affirm that they could not so understand the language of Clemens; nor if such had been his meaning in writing to them, could he ever have left it in words of such inevitable uncertainty. Spain was very little likely to be known or thought of, on the coasts of the Ægean sea: Rome must have formed the limit of their general acquaintance with the West. Briefly, then, and to conclude this part of the discussion, Clemens, heretofore the "fellow-labourer" of the now sainted apostle, could hardly fail to determine the extreme points of his travels in the way in which they stood actually recorded. By the terms in line 1., ἔν τε τῇ ἀνατολῇ καὶ ἐν τῇ δύσει, Clemens would probably allude to Paul's own designation, ἐπὶ τὸ τέρμα τῆς δύσεως, it is likely enough, that he had in mind that memorable passage of the ACTS, xxiii. 11. And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast testified of me in JERUSALEM, SO must thou bear witness also at ROME. Those cities, indeed, we may consider as the two limits divinely marked for the apostolic missions of Paul. Spain, after all, was only the occasional object of thought to the apostle: no authority from his divine Master appears to have directed him to any such enterprise. When I said that to the time of Eusebius inclusive, no writer (except Caius the presbyter, who shall be duely esti mated in NOTE II.) can be produced as at all vouching for the fact of Paul's ever visiting Spain; I was aware, that the name of Hippolytus (Portuensis) has been brought forward as giving an early authority to that tradition. No one, however, now disputes that the author of the work so quoted, "Indiculus de xii apostolis," must have been the Hippolytus who lived in the tenth century: and of course not a word needs to be said upon that subject. We pass on, therefore, at once to Eusebius, the professed historian of the Christian church down to the year a. D. 324, with a collection of all the principal books then extant before him, and what is remarkable enough, certainly the epistle of Clemens among the rest. Does Eusebius, then, know any thing of such a journey undertaken by St. Paul? Not an iota of it appears in the pages of his Ecclesiastical History: or rather, indeed, if plain and direct omission can prove any thing, let me appeal with confidence to the following passages of first-rate import; from the translation by C. F. Cruse, M. A., London, 1838. Bk. 111. ch. i." Why should we speak of Paul, spreading the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and finally suffering martyrdom at Rome, under Nero?" Ibid. ch. iv. "That Paul preached to the Gentiles, and established churches from Jerusalem, and around as far as Illyricum, is evident both from his own expressions, and from the testimony of Luke in the book of Acts." Surely, to omit all mention of such a fact, on the very occasions where he might have inserted, and from its importance he ought to have inserted it, must be considered as decisive proof, either that Eusebius had never read of the journey to Spain, or never on any authority which could sanction the acknowledgment of his belief in it as true and certain matter for history. How then, it may be said, can the story be accounted for, which afterwards appears in the pages of Chrysostom, Theodoret, and others? The following conjecture is offered, as showing the probable way in which this matter might originate. We read in Irenæus, L. I. c. iii., who is dated about A.D. 170, that "neither do the churches, founded in Germany, believe or transmit doctrines different from others, nor those in Spain, οὔτε ἐν ταῖς Ἰβηρίαις, nor those among the Celts, nor in the East, in Egypt, and Libya, and in the middle parts of the world." Such is the representation, incidentally given by Irenæus, of churches then as founded in Spain, a hundred years at least, after the period when Paul is supposed to have taken that journey. But as regards the national name, that is expressed by a different word, 'I6nplass, and not by the word in ROMANS XV. 24. 28., which is Enavíav. Now this difference, if it be insufficient to prove that the writer's knowledge of what then existed in Spain, bore no reference to the apostle as its author, seems at any rate to indicate, that the writer had not that passage of the sacred text then in his mind. In the lapse of two hundred years after this testimony of Irenæus, we are certain, that a still wider extension of the Christian faith took place in that country, which must have become generally known to other Christian communities. From these premises, what may we reasonably conclude, at the close of the fourth century? It is highly probable, that along with the intention or hope once announced by St. Paul to visit Spain, the fact of churches now so widely established in it, would, in pious and imaginative minds, be readily combined, and produce, as a natural effect, the attribution of the whole establishment there to the great apostle as to its primary founder. Hence, too, a fervent orator like Chrysostom (dated A. D. 398), without any misgiving or doubt, but without such belief as careful investigation alone could justify, would kindle with the glorious theme; and to magnify St. Paul as the Hercules of Christianity, would carry him on, in his heroic enterprises, to the very extremity of the western world. Rhetorical flourishes are in their nature contagious; and what was once oratorically said by Chrysostom, would be echoed and re-echoed by others, without a grain of evidence or historical truth being ever thrown into the scale of its credibility. Should the great names of Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, |