fatuation of trusting
in Jewish privileges, but it is plain from Colossians and Ephesians
that Gentile Christianity was already firmly established, and that in
Asia Minor the Judaizing heresies were becoming fainter and more
fanciful. St. Paul criticizes a Judaic Gnosticism, a morbid mixture of
Jewish ritual with that Oriental spiritualism which fascinated many
devotees in the Roman empire at this period. The Philippians do not
seem to have been infected with the same religious malaria as the
Christians who dwelt in the valley of the Lycus. But St. Paul in
writing to them, as to the Colossians and Ephesians, takes great pains
to show who Christ is and what our relation towards Him ought to be.
This group is therefore distinguished by its _Christology_.

St. Paul was released from his first imprisonment at Rome, though we
know no details of his release. He again resumed his missionary life,
and wrote the First Epistle to Timothy and that to Titus. According to
a tradition of very great antiquity, he visited Spain. But the changed
attitude of the Roman government towards the Christians soon cut short
his work. Earlier in his career the Roman officials had regarded the
new religion with easy though somewhat supercilious toleration. In 2
Thessalonians we find St. Paul apparently describing the Roman
authorities as the restraining power which hindered the malice of
antichristian Judaism from working revenge upon {124} the Church. At
Ephesus he had been personally protected from the mob by the men who
were responsible for the public worship of the Roman emperor. But
under Nero an active persecution of the Christians was set on foot, and
St. Paul was again imprisoned at Rome. During this last imprisonment
he wrote his Second Epistle to Timothy. This letter, like the First
Epistle to Timothy and that to Titus, deals specially with the
organization and ministry of the Church, and was intended to
consolidate the Church before the apostle's death. The martyrdom of
the apostle probably took place in A.D. 64. His tomb, marked by an
inscription of the 4th century, still remains at Rome in the church of
"St. Paul outside the walls," which stands near the scene of his
martyrdom. Unless the relics were destroyed by the Saracens who sacked
Rome in 846, they probably remain in this tomb. The festival of June
29, which in mediaeval times was kept in honour of St. Peter and St.
Paul, and which in our present English Prayer-b