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When Paul writes to Titus he says in chapter 1:: "For this cause left I thee in Crete,
that thou shouldst 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 Acts 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 disciple
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 I Tim. 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 II Tim. 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 the map of
Paul's journeys). In verse 13 of the same chapter, the Apostle's reference to the cloak
left at Troas (II Tim. 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 the desired visit to Spain, we do not know.
Clemens Romanus, a contemporary of Paul, on his first epistle to the Corinthians, writes:
"Paul also obtained the prize of endurance, having seven times borne chains, having
been exiled, and having been stoned. After he had preached the gospel both in the East
and in the West, he won the noble renown of his faith, having taught righteousness to the
whole world, and having come to the limit of the West and borne witness before rulers."
Some have interpreted the phrase "the limit of the West" (To terma tes duseos) as
referring to Spain, and there is also an inscription found in Spain which reads as follows:
NERONI 150: KAIS. AYG. PONT. MAX. OB. PROVINC.
LATRONIBUS ET HIS QYI NOVAM HVM SYPERSTITION INCYLCAB.
PVRGATUM.
Here it is implied that in the year A.D.65 or 66, i.e., a little after Paul's release at the
end of the Acts, the Christian community was of some size, and suffered in the general
persecution under Nero. As Lewin pertinently asks: "If Paul did not preach in Spain,
who did?" and the more one ponders the question, in the light of the times and the
dangers to be faced, the more difficult the question becomes. There is also a passage in a