The Apostle spent that last night on earth in sleep as sweet as that of an innocent child. He rose in the morning smiling and refreshed, and Onesimus was early at the prison to help him in all his last arrangements and preparations. As the soldiers would allow Onesimus, and no one else, to accompany him, he bade an affecting farewell to Luke, who had been for so long a time his beloved physician, and started on his way.
His doom was secret and sudden. At that early morning hour the centurion and soldiers were not likely to be troubled with many spectators. One or two humble Christians from the poorest haunts of the Trastevere would fain have followed, but the soldiers, who were in savage humour from the perilous uncertainty of the times, suffered none of them to attach themselves to the little procession. Hence the death of the Apostle was so lonely and obscure that scarcely a breath of tradition survived to commemorate it to posterity. An ordinary faith might have been overwhelmed by the apparent utterness of failure which had crowned that life of unparalleled exertions for the cause of Christ and for the good of man. Deserted, abandoned, a pauper, a prisoner—the founder, indeed, of Churches, but of Churches some of which were already the prey of Judaisers and of alien heretics, and were cold to him—in the capital of the world, where he seemed to be but an insignificant atom, and where Jew and Pagan were united in irreconcilable hostility to the faith which he had preached—deserted by all them of Asia—no one with him but the poor emancipated slave—yet he was in no sense disillusioned, nor did his faith fail. It did not trouble him that the curtain was about to fall in darkness on one of the noblest and greatest of all human lives. That life seemed to him but as the life of a great sinner whom God had forgiven, whom Christ had saved. The winter of his trials was past, the eternal spring of the resurrection was breathing through the air its heavenly perfume.
Along the Appian road they passed, through the gate of Rome which still—nigh upon two thousand years afterwards—is called by his name. They passed the pyramid of Gaius Cestius, with all its statues. Only one incident occurred on his journey. Just as they were passing the pyramid of Cestius, a lady, young and deeply veiled, met the mournful procession, and stopped the centurion in command of the soldiers. ‘I am Plautilla,’ she said, ‘the daughter of Flavius Sabinus, the Præfect of the City, the relative of Aulus Plautius and Pomponia Græcina. Suffer me for a moment to speak to your prisoner.’
Impressed by the great names which she had mentioned, the centurion bade the soldiers stand aside for a moment, and Plautilla, kneeling on the grass, asked with tears for the Apostle’s blessing. He laid his chained hand on her head and blessed her, and she gave him from her kinswoman Pomponia a handkerchief with which to bind his eyes as he knelt for the blow of the executioner. He gratefully accepted it, and said, ‘I know the name of Pomponia. It is ever pronounced with the blessings of the saints of God.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘O Apostle, and my brother, the nephew of Vespasian, who is in command in Judæa—he too is a Christian.’
The Apostle upraised in thankfulness his fettered hands. ‘The night,’ he said, ‘is far spent. The day is at hand.’
The centurion beckoned to the soldiers to proceed, and Plautilla stood gazing after them under the shadow of the pyramid.
About three miles from the walls of Rome, on a green and level space amid low, undulating hills, was the spot then known as Aquæ Salviæ, and now as Tre Fontane. To this spot they marched in the early morning—the chained prisoner with the soldiers round him, and the centurion walking at their head. Onesimus followed close behind. The martyr scarcely spoke. His face was lit with an inward rapture; his lips moved incessantly in silent prayer. He had no fear. Lovely to him as the colours of the rainbow on the thundercloud gleamed the azure of his home. They reached the green level under the trees. The prisoner was bidden to kneel down. Onesimus helped him to take off his upper garment, received his last few words of prayer and encouragement and blessing, and the gentle pressure of his hand in farewell. He bound over the Apostle’s eyes Plautilla’s handkerchief, and then turned away, hiding his face in his hands, weeping as if his heart would break. Then he heard the word of command given. For one instant he looked up—in that instant the sword flashed, and the life of the greatest of the Apostles was shorn away.
The work of the soldiers was over. They had no further concern in the matter, except that the centurion had to certify to Nero that the execution had been carried out. They left the mortal body of the martyr on the green turf. When they were gone, the Christians, whom they had repelled but who had followed them afar off, came to weep over it and to bury it. Onesimus took his part in digging the nameless grave. But the site of it was kept in loving remembrance until in due time there rose over that spot the ‘trophy’ which existed, as we are told by Gaius the presbyter, as far back as the second century, where now stands in all the splendour of its many-coloured marbles the great church of San Paolo fuori le Mura.