defence `no man stood with him' (2 Tim. 4:16).  In 2 Timothy, Paul speaks

very feelingly of the persistence shown by Onesiphorus in seeking him out

very diligently and finding him (1:17), which is in strong contrast with the

conditions of Acts 28:30 where a very free intercourse is suggested.  The

earlier imprisonment was comparatively mild, Rome was still the impartial

ruler; but in the second imprisonment there is severity and Paul suffers `as

an evil doer' (2 Tim. 2:9).

Agrippa's statement in Acts 26: `this man doeth nothing worthy of death

or of bonds ... this man might have been set at liberty, if he had not

appealed to Caesar' (Acts 26:31,32) would have been weighty evidence in the

conditions obtaining during the earlier period, and it was only Nero himself

that kept the apostle waiting so long for a decision.  No such evidence,

however, was of any avail when 2 Timothy was written.  The burning of Rome

and the persecution of the Christians had already changed the whole aspect of

things and Paul now belonged to a hated sect.

When Paul writes to Titus he says in chapter 1: `for this cause left I

thee in Crete, that thou shouldest set in order the things that are wanting,

and ordain elders in every city, as I had appointed thee' (Titus 1:5).  There

is only one recorded visit to Crete in the Acts, namely in 27:7 -13.  While

it is not altogether impossible for Paul, even as a prisoner, to have founded

a church there, yet if one reads the passage in Acts 27 with its anxieties

about navigation, it seems difficult to believe that those in charge of Paul

and the other prisoners would have allowed him enough liberty to have engaged

in evangelizing any part of the island.  If this be so, and our knowledge of

Roman discipline makes it very probable, then the epistle to Titus clearly

demands that there should be an interval between the end of the Acts and the

second imprisonment.

Further evidence on this point is provided by a passage in 1 Timothy

1:3, `As I besought thee to abide still at Ephesus, when I went into

Macedonia'.  There is no possibility of fitting this into the record of the

Acts.  Paul was in Ephesus twice (Acts 18:19; 19:1), but he did not leave

Timothy at Ephesus on either of these occasions, and in the latter case he

sent him to Macedonia (Acts 19:22).

Again, in 2 Timothy 4:20, Erastus is said to have remained at Corinth,

and the tenor of the passage suggests that Paul left Erastus behind, just as

he had left Trophimus at Miletum.  Now there was no possibility of touching

Corinth on the apostle's first journey to Rome, but on the second journey,

going by the land route (which we gather from the testimony of Ignatius was

the route the apostle actually traversed), it would be natural to speak of

leaving Erastus behind at Corinth and Trophimus at Miletum (see a map of

Paul's journeys).

In verse 13 of the same chapter, the apostle's reference to the cloak

left at Troas (4:13) does not seem a very natural one if we are to imagine an

interval of five years; it would seem rather to refer to a visit subsequent

to

the history of the Acts and so after the two years' imprisonment.

Whether or not Paul accomplished his desired visit to Spain, we do not

know.  Clemens Romanus, a contemporary of Paul, on his first epistle to the

Corinthians, writes: