In this route it is thought that from Rome he went by Brundusium, thence to Dyrrachium andonward to Macedonia and to the churches there. It is even thought that now he visited Spain, A. D. 64, in accordance with an expression in Rom. 15:24, 28. But these visits are only conjectural.
5. It seems however that he was again arrested and sent to Rome, some think while spending a time at Nicopolis, on the Bay of Actium. In this second imprisonment he was confined as a malefactor, 2 Tim. 2:9, and none would visit him or stand by him, 2 Tim. 1:16; 4:16, and now it is said the second Epistle to Timothy was written. Whether Timothy ever arrived in Rome after this is not known. But the second trial came on, and the history states that he was condemned to be beheaded; and beyond the city walls, along the road to Ostia, the port of Rome, he was led out and executed, a Roman swordsman beheading him.
6. Besides the apostle Paul, only three appear as writers in the remaining parts of Scripture; these are James, “the Lord’s brother,” Peter, and John. James is author of one of the general epistles, evidently intended for universal use and not sent to any one church, and hence called “The Epistle General of James.” It makes the twentieth of the New Testament books.
Peter is last mentioned when at Antioch, as recorded in Gal. 2:11–21. It is supposed from 1 Pet. 5:13 that he remained in Babylon in Chaldæa, where at an early period many Jews were settled, as Josephus shows. He wrote two epistles, which form thetwenty-first and twenty-second books of the New Testament, and these were written apparently in his old age. The tradition is that he suffered martyrdom in Rome.
THE SEVEN CHURCHES OF ASIA.
7. The only other writer of the New Testament not yet mentioned is John. He wrote three epistles and the book of Revelation, in which are mentioned the churches of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea, Rev. 1:11.
Ephesus has already been described.
8. Smyrna was then “the ornament of Asia, with the finest harbor in the world.” Although no mention is made of it in the book of Acts nor in any of the epistles of St. Paul, it may have been one of the earliest churches founded by St. John. Eratosthenes states that Smyrna was built by the Cumæans B. C. 1015, and according to Pliny it took its name from an Amazon, Smyrna by name, who founded it.In the time of the apostles it had a temple and hot springs.[205] It is at present a populous city, built however a little to the south of the ancient site, and contains about 200,000 inhabitants.
9. Pergamos is 50 miles nearly due north from Smyrna. It is described during the Roman period as the finest city of their new province of Asia. Its possession by the Romans was due to the gift of Attalus its king, B. C. 132.
Pergamos was celebrated for its extensive collections of libraries and for the patronage of art and science at its court. All the ruins now found are of the Roman period except a tunnel over the river Selinus, now a small stream. This double tunnel appears to be extremely ancient, and is supposed to be of the time of Attalus. It runs under the present town of Bergamah for 600 feet, with arches of 40 feet diameter and 20 feet high. The present town contains about 30,000 inhabitants. As the artisans were skilled in preparing skins for manuscripts, the skins themselves were known by the name of the place, and hence the name “parchment,” which is only a change of the ancient name of Pergamos.