Part 5.
Last week we went for a walk on the beautiful Palatine Hill and looked at the remains of Caesar’s judgment hall, where probably Paul stood before Caesar.
Where was he taken to after the trial? Perhaps to the Mamertine prison, which still stands close by, in the side of the Capitoline Mount, overlooking the Forum. Early Christians believed that both Peter and. Paul spent their last days in this prison, and though we cannot be sure of this, it is well worth while visiting it, because it will give us an excellent idea of what a prison was like in those days. The Mamertine prison was old, even in Paul’s time, and here it still stands, or part of it, grim and cold and damp. A little church is built over it now, but we enter by a low door which leads us into a large rather dark room, built of enormous blocks of stone. This room is fitted up as a chapel in honor of St. Peter. We go from this to a second room, smaller than the first and dark. The roof is vaulted, and the walls and floor are of enormous hewn stones. A chill strikes us at once on coming into such a place from the hot Italian sunshine outside. No wonder Paul asked for his cloak in that last letter to Timothy, written probably from a room like this.
Here perhaps he spent several months, lonely and ill-treated, but brave as ever. The faithful Luke was with him, and after-awhile Onesimus, the grateful ransomed slave, found him out and fearlessly visited him, bringing him refreshment.
“The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus (or Onesimus),” says Paul, “for he oft refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chain. But when he was in Rome he sought me out very diligently and found me.”
He longed to see Timothy once more, his dear son in the faith, and begged him to come as quickly as possible. We do not know whether this last wish was granted. Paul felt, when he wrote, that his time was short.
He had been brought before Caesar once already, in the great judgment hall we visited last week, but though acquitted apparently on the first charge, he had no expectation of being set free. “The time of my departure is at hand,” he writes. But with what a brave and joyful spirit this good soldier was looking forward to his last fight.
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing.”
He was, in fact, soon afterwards sentenced to death probably in the year 68, but possibly as early as 64 A. D. Being a Roman citizen, he had the privilege of dying by the sword, and a tradition handed down from the Christians of those days who loved him so well, describes how he was led out of the city, through the western gate, known now as the Pauline gate,—along the busy road to Ostia, the Port of Rome. After a short distance a road branches off and leads into low swampy ground, where executions usually took place. Three very ancient churches mark the place where Paul’s spirit passed to be with the Lord. The great church of San Paolo, near the place of execution, claims to have his body buried under the high altar. It make little difference where that poor earthly tabernacle rests; we know that at the great shout, and the archangel’s cry, Paul, risen and glorified, will rise together with all other saints, to meet the Lord in the air. “So shall we ever be with the Lord.” But all in that great company, from the weakest believer to the great apostle all have the same title to be there—only the precious blood of Christ.
ML 06/03/1917