St. Paul’s Companions in Rome, III

IMPROVEMENT ERA. Vol. XII. NOVEMBER, 1908. No. 1 ST. PAUL'S COMPANIONS IN ROME. BY COL. R. M. BRYCE-THOMAS. I. — INTRODUCTION. "I have here only made a nosegay of culled flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the thread that ties them together." — Montaigne. In the author's article, "The Closing Years of St. Paul's Life in Rome," which appeared in the Improvement Era, Vol. X, Nos. 5 to 11 inclusive, an attempt was made to depict something of the life of this great Apostle of the Gentiles during his two imprisonments in Rome, and also to describe to some extent such portions of the Eternal City as must have been familiar to him during his sojourn there. It is now proposed to prosecute the theme of his residence in that city, by taking up, as far as the material to hand will permit, the subject of his Christian companions at those periods. The writer would, however, here wish to say that, in presenting the events of St. Paul's life, both in the article above alluded to as well as in the present one, he makes no claim whatever to originality. Indeed, one cannot be expected to originate history, and as in the former article so also in this one, he has confined himself to a compilation of facts and information which have been culled from such sources as he has had access to, and to this end use has been made of some of those works of studious historical writers, which have already been published to the world.

2 IMPR 0 VEMENT ERA . The two concluding verses of the Acts of the Apostles, in the New Testament, inform us that Paul, while at Rome during his first imprisonment, was permitted to dwell in his own hired house, and to receive all who came to him, and that he there preached the kingdom of God, and taught those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him. Of his further life and work there is no direct record in the Scriptures, but, as pointed out by Dr. Macduff in his book, St. Paul in Rome, it is evident from the closing chapter of the Apostle's epistle to the Romans, wherein he mentions by name no less than twenty-six Christian brethren, and at the same time makes reference to many other Saints, that as far back as A. D. 60 there was the nucleus of a flourishing Church within the city walls. Two years later, when St. Paul was brought into that city as a chained prisoner, Christian brethren went out to meet him, as we know, to "Appii Forum" and the "Three Taverns" (Acts, 28: 15). In writing from Rome, in A. D. 64, to the Colossians, the Apostle mentions Tychicus and Onessimus whom he was about to despatch to them with his epistle, and he refers also to certain other brethren who were at Rome at the time, namely, Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus called Justus, Epaphras, Luke, and Demas. And again, in chapter two of his epistle to the Philippians, written also in the same year from Rome, he makes mention of two other brethren: namely, Timothy and Epaphroditus, the first named of whom would seem to have been very close to his heart indeed. Here, then, we have a list often Roman Christians, and we know there were others also, some probably being natives of the city itself, with whom the great Apostle was frequently brought into intimate association during his two imprisonments in imperial Rome. We need not here trouble ourselves with the debated question as to the exact position of St. Paul's hired house at which he was in the habit of receiving his brethren, and whence must have been written and despatched his epistles to Philemon, to the Colossians, to the Ephesians, and to the Philippians; but the weight of opinion seems to place it in "Via degli Strengari," close to the Ghetto. A house in that locality is pointed out as the very one formerly occupied by the Apostle; but if this is the case, the building must have undergone some changes, for it is not a first century house

ST. PAUL'S COMPANIONS IN ROME. 3 as it now stands. It either occupies the very site of St. Paul's original house, or else it is situated in close proximity to it. It is said that excavations are to be shortly undertaken when possibly parts of the original building occupied by the great Apostle will be discovered and preserved. When St. Paul first set foot in Rome he could not but have realized how very few, comparatively speaking, would be the friends that he would find in the then world's great capital. Brought thither under exceedingly depressing circumstances, in poor health, and always attached by a galling chain to one of the guard or escort under which he had to travel, he was fortunately attended by two of his friends, Luke and Aristarchus, although not as fellow prisoners with the aged Apostle. Paul himself was a poor man in worldly goods, and so also, as far as is known to the contrary, were his two companions, and the question has arisen how these two men could have afforded to accompany him on this long and expensive journey from Palestine to Rome unless as fellow prisoners themselves with the Apostle. Miss Hudson, in her History of the Jews in Rome , considers that St. Luke, being a physician, could easily have procured a free passage, and she then refers to the late Dr. Farrar's suggested solution that possibly one or both of these men might have been sent with St. Paul by some of his wealthy and attached friends in Jerusalem, as they would naturally have felt that in his then condition it would have been unwise to allow him to travel all alone. This is by no means an unreasonable explanation, for one can easily realize what a source of comfort and security the presence of these two friends must have been to the Apostle, when one reflects upon the terrible hardships, difficulties, and dangers of this journey, as described so vividly to us by the writer of the "Acts of the Apostles." The close of this perilous journey, however, brought no respite to St. Paul's trials and anxieties, for we learn that after his arrival in the city he called together the chief of the Jews, and on a fixed day tried to persuade them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the Prophets, from morning till evening, but found himself eventually forced to upbraid them with sorrow in his heart for their hardness and disbelief, and to tell them that the salvation of God which they were then rejecting, would thenceforth be sent

4 IMPROVEMENT ERA. unto the Gentiles, and that they would hear it (Acts 28: 17 to 29.) That some such result may have been anticipated by him is not unlikely, and Miss Hudson, in her chapter on St. Paul and St. Luke, goes so far as to remark, in this connection, that the Apostle was well aware of the power of the Hebrew multitude, and the turbulence of the vast assemblage of the Jews in the synagogues of the city, and that he knew that on their favor or opposition his future destiny must greatly depend. The support and affection, therefore, of these two devoted companion and firm friends, as well as the sympathy of the few true Christian brethren whom he found at Rome, cannot but have been a source of much solace and consolation to this aged and tried servant of God. It is gratifying to remember that notwithstanding the fact that the Apostle was a prisoner, he was allowed a certain amount of indulgence, and was permitted, as St. Luke tells us, "to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him." The fact that he was always attached by a long, light wrist-chain to this soldier was certainly a most galling experience, but under the great strictness of the Roman law he must be considered to have been treated with a fair amount of leniency, for at no period of his firstrimprisonment does he ever seem to have been isolated from Christian sympathy, but was apparently always free to receive at his own house such of his brethren as chose to visit him, as well as all enquirers into the doctrines which he was permitted both to preach and to teach without any let or hindrance, or, as the last few words of the Acts of the Apostles have it, "with all confidence, no man forbidding him." This absence of restriction to the promulgation of the gospel message cannot but have tended to allay to some extent the vexatiousness of an irksome imprisonment, and St. Paul doubtless again thanked God and took courage, as we read that he did when the Roman Christian brethren met him on his first arrival at "Appii Forum*' and the "Three Taverns." Cheered and encouraged as he must at all times have been by the congenial society of his brethren, there was one friendship of the great Apostle which seems to have been preeminent, and that was his friendship and affection for the youthful Timothy. II. — TIMOTHY. Timothy, or to give him his Greek name Timotheus (honoring

ST. PAUL'S COMPANIONS IN ROME. 5 God), was a native of Lystra, his father being a Greek, and probably, according to Dr. Macduff, a proselyte of the gate, while his mother was a Jewess. From the fact that St. Paul, while making allusion to Timothy's mother, Eunice, and grandmother Lois, never refers at all to his father, it may be presumed that the latter had died when Timothy was but a child. The widowed mother and her surviving parent would seem to have lived together, and to have jointly brought up the boy Timothy in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and in an understanding of the holy scriptures (II Tim., 3: 15). Doubtless he, like other children of pious Jewish parents, had been taught to look forward to and to pray for the coming of that Messiah who had been promised to the fathers of old, and who was to be the light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of God's people Israel. Lystra was altogether a Gentile town, and the earnest and religious Jews who resided there when the Apostle first visited the place were probably but few in number. Timothy had doubtless early acquired a strong faith, trained as he had been in a pious household by the two conscientious women of whom St. Paul was able to write, — "When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice" (II Tim. 1:5); and it was perhaps in a great measure due to this very training that young Timothy was prepared to receive and accept the glorious news of the arrival of the promised Messiah, which the Apostle eventually brought to these two Jewish matrons, and to the lad in the devout home of that faraway town of Lycaonia. It was in the year A. D. 45 that St. Paul and his companion Barnabas suddenly appeared in Lystra, having had to flee from Iconium, in order to escape the assaults of the unbelieving Jews, and there they at once commenced to preach the gospel. There also it was that the Apostle exercised his gift of healing, on a cripple, and there, too, it was that the priest of Jupiter and the people attempted to offer sacrifice to the two apostles, saying that the gods had come down to them in the likeness of men (Acts 14: 11, et seq.) This popularity was, however, of short duration, for the evil minded Jew from Antioch and Iconium stirred up the fickle mob to oppose tlie mission work that was being carried on

6 IMPROVEMENT ERA. in their midst, and having stoned Paul, drew him outside the walls of the city wounded and bleeding, and left him there for dead. Dr. Macduff concludes that this fact was not without its momentous results, for he writes thus, "We have every reason to believe that one of the spectators of that outrage was the son of this pious Hebrew home. Accustomed there to the 'unfeigned faith,' as manifested in the passive virtues of love and meekness and submission, he saw that same 'unfeigned faith' manifested in its active form and type of heroic endurance, — superiority to physical suffering." It was on the day following this assault that Paul and Barnabas had to depart in the grey light of early morning to Derbe, but we read that some time afterwards they returned again to Lystra and the other towns where they had already preached the gospel, "confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith" (Acts 14: 21, 22). The young Timothy, trained in the grand school of "unfeigned faith," must have been strangely moved by the sight of all that had occurred in the town of his habitation, and his mind must have been vastly impressed by the conduct of these heroic men, who had thus exhibited their readiness not only to suffer, but to lay down their very lives if need be in the cause, and for the sake of him whom they preached as the long predicted Messiah and Savior of mankind. Timothy had indeed become Paul's own son in the faith, for we read in the first verse of the sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles that some years later (A. D. 53) the Apostle again paid a visit to Lystra, and "found a certain disciple there named Timotheus, the son of a certain woman which was a Jewess, and believed, but his father was a Greek." From this time forward Timothy ^became Paul's faithful friend and follower, and constant companion, ever rendering him filial obedience and service, and always ready to share his trials and hardships. The tie between these two totally dissimilar characters was one of close affection and confidence, dissimilar not only in respect to the disparity of age, but of training, habits, and surroundings. Paul was a man of great push and boldness, suited eminently for the struggles and endurance which were associated with the lives of Christian missionaries in those days of hardship and danger,

ST. PAUL'S COMPANIONS IN ROME. 7 while Timothy was moulded of less stern material, more sensitive, and less fitted to cope with the opposition and trials of those times. Dr. Macduff gathers from St. Paul's exhortation to Timothy in the epistles, that the latter inherited much of the feminine type of character; and we may perhaps see this in the fact alluded to by the great Apostle himself, in II Timothy 1-: 4, "greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears." Paul on the one hand was brought up in the strictest and narrowest school of Judaism, while Timothy, although the son of a Jewess and of a convert Gentile father, had never even been circumcised, thus indicating an absence of that strict observance to the Mosaic law, on the part of his parents, which the Apostle had formerly considered vital, trained as he had always been in the prejudices of perhaps the most exclusive and bigoted of religious sects; — "concerning zeal, persecuting the church ; touching the righteousness which is of the law, blameless'' (Philippians 3: 6). Again, Paul at that period of his life was apparently strong, wiry, and full of endurance, while he had to warn Timothy to be careful of his delicate health, and to take a little wine for his often infirmities (I Tim. 5: 23). Notwithstanding, however, these many differences in the constitutions, trainings, habits, and ages of these two men, there was a blamelessness and a worth in their respective characters that early drew them together in the bonds of regard and affection. Dr. Farrar in his Life and Works of St. Paul says, "Timothy was in fact more than any other the alter ego of the apostle." Timothy's worth was fully recognized by Paul, when in writing to the Philippians that he propose sending him to them shortly he added, "For I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state" (Phil. 2: 20) . He further reminded them that they "knew well the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he had served with him in the gospel" (Phil. 2: 22). How touchingly St. Paul in his epistles expresses his great affection for young Timothy in such words as these, "my own son in the faith;" "my dearly beloved son;" "my workfellow!" How earnestly, afterwards, when confined in one of the dark and gloomy cells of the dreaded Mamertine prison, during his second Roman imprisonment, he longs for his son Timothy, and twice urges him to come to him:— "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me"

s IMPROVEMENT ERA. (II Tim. 4:9), and again in verse twenty-one,' 'Do thy diligence to come before winter." St. Paul must doubtlessly have realized that it was quite possible that he might be kept through the coming winter in the dank and dreary dungeon in which he was then confined, inasmuch as the time of his second trial depended entirely on the whim of so capricious a tyrant as Nero; and therefore we find him requesting Timothy to bring with him the cloak which he had left at Troas with Carpus. Without the protection of that Lower Mamertine Prison, Rome, where Paul was Imprisoned cloak, the Apostle would have found the bitter winter weather in his chilly cell quite unendurable. That he had also implicit confidence in Timothy may, I think, be gathered from the fact that he was willing to entrust to his care certain books and parchments (or private papers) which he doubtless considered to be of special importance to him (II Tim. 4: 13). Dr. Macduff supposes that the papers might probably have been Paul's private memoranda and journals, including it may be his diploma of Roman citizenship; and Dr. Farrar also suggests that the parchments or velum rolls might have contained among

ST. PAUL'S COMPANIONS IN ROME. 9 other things the diploma of his Roman franchise. Whether or no Timothy arrived in time to see the aged Apostle before his martyrdom we do not know, but it is pleasant to think that he did do so, and that his presence helped to comfort his old friend in his affliction, and to strengthen him in his last hours. It is evident that Paul and Timothy were closely associated with each other for many years, and Dr. Farrar points out that not only were two of the Apostle's epistles addressed to Timothy, but that he was associated with St. Paul in the superscription of five others; namely, I and II Thessalonians, II Corinthians, Philemon, and Colossians. Doubtless Timothy had some part in the conversions of the ' 'Eternal City" during St. Paul's first imprisonment there, for at the close of the Apostle's second epistle to him, certain members of the church sent him their greetings, such as Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia. As [to Timothy's latter end, I will quote Dr. Macduff once again : We can accept for what it is worth the testimony of tradition, that on the occasion of a great festival to Diana (at Ephesus) in which Timothy endeavored to raise his protesting voice, he was made a victim to the fury of the frantic mob, who despatched him with clubs close to the gigantic temple of the goddess, and that his body was brought subsequently to Rome. It is at Rome, in the magnificent basilica of "St. Pauls outside the walls," on the Ostian road, that we find an unpretentious shrine and a very plain altar bearing the single word "Timothei.'' This is situated in front of the high altar, and in juxtaposition to the tomb of the Apostle Paul, which latter is surmounted by a gorgeous baldachino or canopy reposing upon four most beautiful columns of oriental alabaster. I cannot conclude this sketch of St. Paul's companion, Timothy, better than by quoting once more the words of Dr. Macduff: Here the ashes of the Apostle Timothy are said to rest. Strong is the temptation for once, not too exactingly to demand or scrutinize authority for the truth of a legend in itself so beautiful, that these two honored servants of Christ, who had loved and labored, wept and prayed, sorrowed and rejoiced together, are now resting side by side, a true "family burying place," the father and his ' 'own son in the faith." Pas de Calais, France. [to be continued]