demonstrates in this letter that the law was fulfilled in Christ, he thus prepares the Jewish Christians for the extinction of the Mosaic ritual.  In all likelihood he now once more visited Jerusalem, travelling by Corinth, [155:1] Philippi, [155:2] and Troas, [155:3] where he left for the use of Carpus the case with the books and parchments which he mentions in his Second Epistle to Timothy.  Passing on then to Colosse, [155:4] he may have visited Antioch in Pisidia and other cities of Asia Minor, the scenes of his early ministrations; and reached Jerusalem [155:5] by way of Antioch in Syria.  He perhaps returned from Palestine to Rome by sea, leaving Trophimus sick [155:6] at Miletum in Crete.  The journey did not probably occupy much time; and, on his return to Italy, he seems to have been immediately incarcerated.  His condition was now very different from what it had been during his former confinement; for he was deserted by his friends, and treated as a malefactor. [155:7] When he wrote to Timothy he had already been brought before the judgment-seat, and had narrowly escaped martyrdom.  “At my first answer,” says he, “no man stood with me, but all men forsook me.  I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.  Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear; [155:8] and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.” [155:9] The prospect, however, still continued gloomy; and he had no hope of ultimate escape.  In the anticipation of his condemnation, he wrote those words so full of Christian faith and heroism, “I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.  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 in that day, and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.” [156:1]

Paul was martyred perhaps about A.D. 66.  Tradition reports that he was beheaded; [156:2] and as he was a Roman citizen, it is not probable that he suffered any more ignominious fate.  About the third or fourth century, a statement appeared to the effect that he and Peter were put to death at Rome on the same day; [156:3] but all the early documentary evidence we possess is quite opposed to such a representation.  If Peter really finished his career in the Western metropolis, it would seem that he did not arrive there until very shortly before the decapitation of the Apostle of the Gentiles; for Paul makes no reference, in any of his writings, to the presence of such a fellow-labourer in the capital of the Empire.  In the Epistle to the Romans, containing so many salutations to the brethren in the great city, the name of Peter is not found; and in none of the letters written from Rome is he ever mentioned.  In the last of his Epistles—­the Second to Timothy—­the writer says—­“only Luke is with me” [156:4]—­and had Peter then been in the place, Paul would not have thus ignored the existence of the apostle of the circumcision.