yracusa; grace be to you and peace from God
the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ.

"First, I thank God that your faith is spoken of and an example to all
the Christian churches.

"I came first after landing to Sergius Publius of your church, to whom I
bore a letter from his cousin Publius, the Roman ruler at Malta.

"We were at Malta three months waiting for a ship. During that time by
prayer and the laying on of hands, the father of Publius was healed. For
this and other things, the people honored us with many honors and when
we departed they laded us with such things as were necessary, we having
lost all by shipwreck on our journey from Caesarea to Rome.

"Not unwillingly am I sent to Rome for trial as fitting one born free
and a Roman citizen, since Rome is mistress of the world and to Rome the
Christian faith must be carried to be spread over the Gentile world.

"Being ordained an apostle to the Gentiles, it is but meet that I should
assume the risks of the journey and take as personal the command to
preach the Gospel in Rome or elsewhere and to every Gentile nation. A
gospel of universal faith granting to Jew and Gentile alike repentance
unto life and grace through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"This work has been most successful and many strong Gentile churches
have been established; but God forbid that I should glory save in the
cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

"After the establishment of a number of these churches, when I returned
to Jerusalem I was falsely accused of teaching all the Jews which are
among the Gentiles to forsake the law of Moses; and of having brought
Greeks into the temple and polluted the holy place. And after this
charge I was cast from the temple and the doors closed; then set upon
and beaten with staves and stones until Roman soldiers came to quiet the
disturbance; and by them bound with chains was led towards the castle.
When asking and receiving permission to speak unto the people, I did so
in the Hebrew tongue saying:

"'Men, brethren and fathers, hear ye my defense, now made unto you, I am
verily a man, a Jew born in Tarsus, in Cilicia, yet brought up in this
city at the feet of Gamaliel, taught according to the perfect manner of
the law of the fathers and was zealous towards God, as ye all are this
day.

"'And I persecuted this way unto the death, binding and delivering into
prison both men and women. As also the high priest doth bear me witness,
and all the estat