Jews settled on the eastern coast of Spain, who then might have some reason, perhaps, to expect his coming, and would otherwise be disappointed: not so, but to accomplish a contingent purpose, intimated to the brethren generally at Rome, and that, after the lapse of several years, under a total change, too, of all the circumstances, under which it was contemplated.

Had St. Paul, indeed, after visiting Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost, and delivering the charitable contributions there, been left quite at liberty to pursue his own preconcerted plans, especially after his declaration at Ephesus, which, as preceding the Epistle to the Romans, shows the early date of that his solemn purpose, A. xix. 21. After I have been at Jerusalem, I must also see Rome:

On this supposition, we can hardly doubt, but that he might have let even Antioch for once go unvisited at the close of that his third progress, and have sailed away to Rome by the very earliest opportunity. And if that course of events had really taken place, then, we must allow, a visit to the coast of Spain would have been so far antecedently probable, that if, in the records of a year or more, any hiatus of time and action (otherwise unaccounted for) could have made room for it, the execution of that design might have had some right to claim admission into the vacant interval of history.

But, taking the actual state of things as here collected from the Epistles, we find in every fact a clear tendency to the opposite conclusion. Instead of seeking new converts in a land of the farther West unknown, he naturally turns his thoughts from Rome to those faithful brethren in the East, from whom he had been so long cruelly separated. To the COLOSSIANS and PHILIPPIANS, and to their churches, the object of his just affection and anxiety, not long before his deliver

ance he promises, in the event of his liberation, as early a visit, as he can afterwards by any means make good. In the Epistles, 1 TIM. and TITUS, which, on our calculation, come next after those alluded to, we find him. actually to have been not long ago in Crete, afterwards at Ephesus, and now at Philippi, on the eve of an expedition to the N. W. of Greece, intending to winter at Nicopolis.

In perfect consistency at all points with these and other movements, when again from Rome and towards the fatal close of his second imprisonment, he writes, the second time, to Timothy, then probably as we have seen at Philippi; every particular reference either to person or place concurs with the supposition, that his anxieties were all turned to that eastern province which he had recently visited. And thus, by positive indications, it is shown, how the interval between the two imprisonments had been sufficiently occupied; while, by his total silence in regard to Spain, ever since he wrote Rom. xv. 24. 28., it clearly appears, that the project to visit its coasts had long been entirely given

up.

The remainder of this dissertation, as of necessity running into matters of critical remark, is here presented in a different form. The general reader may pass it over; the scholar, it is hoped, will find himself rewarded in the perusal.

NOTE I.

And here, I confess, were it purely a question to be decided on direct historical grounds alone, I should without scruple have taken my stand, and regarded the point as fairly

settled in the negative; that St. Paul had indeed at one time intended to visit Spain, but at the close of a long series of adverse events had felt himself, consistently with other duties, unable so to do, if indeed he had not rather abandoned all intention of the kind long before.

Even thus, Cardinal Cajetan, in his Commentary on the Epistles (Parisiis, M.D.XXXVI.) when he comes to the text, ROM. XV. [28.]

Redibo per vos in Hispaniam,

determines the matter in a very just and summary way, satisfactory at once, I think, to every unprejudiced mind.

"Dicit quod intendit; sed aliud disposuit Spiritus Sanctus, quandoquidem vinctus fuit in Hierusalem," &c.

But inasmuch as the sincere feeling of respect is due to the piety and learning of those excellent persons, who have latterly revived the subject of St. Paul's visit to Spain from its necessity for establishing their favourite notion that he might preach the gospel in Britain also; a few pages more shall be devoted to the consideration of the one journey, and if that be negatived, I may without offence reasonably decline all farther notice of the other.

Briefly, therefore, let me endeavour to show under what circumstances the apostle appears to have conceived the idea of going to Spain at all; for otherwise its original rationality might not be justly apprehended. And then, however briefly, the entire deficiency shall be pointed out in that evidence; by which such a design, if it had ever been executed, would naturally have been recorded afterwards.

In the first place, it is deserving of observation, that St. Paul represents himself as in a very peculiar predicament, when he wrote the latter part of the Epistle to the Romans. He had recently arrived in Corinth from that scene of apostolic labour, Roм. xv. 19., in the Macedonic confines of Illyricum, or even in Dalmatia, the southern part of the region so called. And at v. 20. he particularly intimates that he had been engaged in striving to preach the gospel where Christ was not yet named, lest he should build upon another

man's foundation. Now, therefore, vv. 19. 23., after he had fully preached the gospel wherever he could do so without intruding on the province of any other man, from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum; when he had no more place for such labour in those parts, he naturally turned his thoughts at length to a new and yet more distant field for evangelic cultivation. And having for many years, v. 23., entertained a great desire to come unto the brethren at Rome, the apostle now declares, that in case of his taking the journey which he had meditated into Spain, he would see them in the way, hoping for their assistance also to forward him thither.

What knowledge of facts, it may here be asked, and, humanly speaking, what encouragement, could have impelled the apostle, when at Corinth, to think of so extraordinary an enterprise? For the name of Spain, be it remembered, except in Rom. xv. 24. 28., is never once mentioned in the sacred volume; and in that enumeration of Jews at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, A. ii. 5., though they are said to be "out of every nation under heaven," strangers from Spain there are none. And yet it must have been in the prospect of finding some of the children of Israel established on that coast, that agreeably to his line of procedure every where else Paul would ever have thought of commencing to preach the gospel in Spain.

Only suppose him once to have known of any settlement of Jews in that country: and their very remoteness and destitution would form, to a spirit of Christian heroism like his, a sufficient motive to go there and offer to them, in the first instance, his "kinsmen according to the flesh," the glad tidings of salvation through the name of Christ Jesus.

Fortunately, then, we possess in the persons of Aquila and Priscilla, early sojourners in Rome, A. xviii. 2., peculiar advantage from that position for their knowing the existence and state of their Jewish brethren on the coast of Spain, and from their afterwards meeting Paul at Corinth, the certainty that he might profit by their intelligence. Then, too, at the very time that he wrote thus to the Roman church, Aquila and Priscilla were once more domiciled in that city; and to

them, his "helpers in Christ Jesus," if he had gone to Rome, he would have immediately betaken himself.

By the kind information of Professor Hyman Hurwitz, I am enabled also to state it as the opinion of many learned men of his nation, that there were Jews in Spain long prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, and that many of the Jews brought by Pompey to Rome had found their way into that country either as slaves or as free men for the sake of commerce.

Thus much for the apostolic journey as originally projected. That is, we are quite satisfied, and readily concede, that after his last recorded visit to Jerusalem, had he not been apprehended there, St. Paul might have immediately set off for Rome; and when he had first been "somewhat filled with the company" of the brethren there, Rom. xv. 24., by the co-operation of Aquila and Priscilla amongst others, he might have been forwarded to some known settlement of Jews on the eastern coast of Spain.

But what is gained by this concession? Does it follow, that under a total change of circumstances when five years had elapsed, he was then bound to carry such a design into execution? If so, some definite time must be fixed for it. After liberation from his first imprisonment at Rome? The sacred narrative, as developed in these pages, forbids that idea. On his return from what is here called the Fourth Progress, and before his second imprisonment? The developement of the period connected with that event equally excludes any such supposition.

Waiving the farther consideration of internal evidence from the Acts, which never mention Spain, and from the seven latest epistles which are utterly silent on the subject, let us pass at once to the testimony which authors of a subsequent age bear to the negative or the affirmative side of the question.

I assert, then, without fear of contradiction, that down to the time of Eusebius inclusive, no writer (except it be Caius the Presbyter, to whom the NOTE II., at the close of this, shall be devoted,) can be produced as vouching for the fact of Paul's journey to Spain.

In the very first rank of authors quoted to prove the