The relative situation of Britain with res pect to Gaul and Spain, and the application of the terms West and extremity of the West, to the British Isles, which we find in a variety of authorities, will throw some further light on the testimony of Clemens, and lessen the alleged difficulties respecting St. Paul's journey to Britain,.

The connexion between Spain, Gaul, and the British Isles, is noticed by Tacitus not unaptly for our purpose, as it shews the facility of communication between the several coun tries in the first century. "Hibernia medio inter Britanniam atque Hispaniam sita, et Gallico mari opportuna, valentissimam imperii partem magnis invicem usibus miscuerit. Solum cælumque et ingenio altcesque hominum haud multum a Britannia differunt. Melius aditus, portusque perc ommercia et negotiatores cogniti*.

The commercial communication between Spain, Gaul, and Britain, is largely attested by Whitaker, and by Macpherson in his History of Commerce.

In the western division of the Roman

Agricolæ Vitæ.

Empire, the Præfectura Galliarum
Spain, Gaul, and Britain.

Eusebius તુ the British Ocean the western *. Gildas a the beginning of his history calls Britain “insula in extremo ferme orbis limite circium occidentemque versus +." Bede says, "that Laurentius, Austin's successor in the See of Canterbury, in a letter addressed to the Irish Bishops and Abbots, says: Dum nos sedes Apostolica, more suo sicut in universo orbe terrarum, in his occiduis partibus ad prædicandum gentibus paganis dirigeret, atque in hanc insulam, quæ Britannia nuncupatur, &c.+"

There is an interesting passage in Gregory's Morals, which marks the connection of Britain with the extremity of the West, and the utmost bounds of the world. "Omnipotens Dominus coruscantibus nubibus cardines maris operuit, quia emicantibus prædicatorum miraculis ad fidem etiam terminos mundi perduxit. Ecce enim pene cunctarum jam gentium corda penetravit, ecce in una fide Orientis limitemque Occidentis; conjunxit ecce lingua Britanniæ, quæ nil aliud noverat quam bar

* Eusebius Vit. Constant. plus semel. + Gilda Hist. p. 1. ed. Gale, 1691. Bede, Eccl. Hist. L. ii. C. 4.

m fundere, jamdudum in divinis laudibus Hebræum Haleluja resonare*. If we compare Gildas's extremo orbis limite occidentem versus, and Gregory's terminos mundi limitemque Occidentis, applied by them to Britain, there can be no doubt how they must have understood Clement's επι το τερμα της δύσεως, ad terminos sive limitem occidentis.

Arnobius calls Britain the boundary of Christianity to the West. Theodoret speaking of the multitudes that flocked to Syria, attracted by the austerities of Symeon, the Stylite, says, that "many persons came from the remotest parts of the West, from Spain and Britain, and from Gaul, which lies between them:” αφικοντο δε πολλοι, τας της ἑσπέρας οικοντες εσχατίας, Σπανοι τε και Βρετανοι, και Γαλαται οἱ το μέσον τουτων κατεχον We cannot have a more literal interpretation of Clements το τερμα της δύσεως than Theodoret's τας της ἑσπέρας εσχατιάς, nor a plainer proof that in the utmost bounds of the West Clement included Britain, the remotest of the three countries.

τες.

* Gregorii, Mag. Moralium, xxvii. c. 6.

Arnobius in Psalm cxlvii. p. 443. ed. Basil. 1560. et Adversus Gentes.

Theodoret Historia Relig. p. 881. op. vol. iii.

These

Nicephorus says *, 'in one passage, that some of the Apostles went to the utmost bounds of the Ocean, and to the British Isles; in another, that "Simon Zelotes entered the Western Ocean, and preached the Gospel in the British Isles." passages of Nicephorus are here quoted, not for the sake of the fact mentioned in the latter passage, in which he in which he was, perhaps, mistaken, but for the relation, which his language (the extreme bounds of the ocean, the western óceán, and the British Isles) bears to the words of Clement.

Jerome says, that St. Paul, after his liberation from imprisonment at Rome, preached the Gospel in the West. His words are remarkable: "Paulum a Nerone dimissum, ut Evangelium Christi in Occidentis quoque partibus prædicáretur:" not that Nero liberated St. Paul that he might go to the West; but that his journey to the West (and not the East) was the immediate consequence of his liberation.

As a proof that Jerome included Britain within the utmost bounds of the West, I re

* Eccl. Hist. L. iii. C. 1.

+ Ibid. L. ii. C. 40. De Script. Eccles. p. 35. ed. Fabric.

ferred, in my former letter, to a passage quoted in Gibson's translation of Camden's Britannia. The passage is not in the Epituphium Marcella, as cited on the margin of Gibson's translation, but in the letter ad Marcellam, which was written to invite Marcella to Bethlehem *. " Quicumque in Gallia fuerit primus, huc properat. Divisus ab orbe nostro Britannus, si in religione profecerit, occiduo sole dimisso, quærit locum fama sibi tantum et scripturarum relatione cognitum. Quid referam Armenios, quid Persas, &c. "

If we recapitulate the evidence respecting St. Paul's journies, and the western situation. of Britain, it will, I think, leave no doubt as to the meaning of Clement. Of the competency of his testimony, as the fellow-labourer of St. Paul, there can be no question. Clement, then, says that St. Paul went to the utmost bounds of the West. Catullus calls

* Hieron. Op. vol. i. p. 128. ed. Lugd. 1530. These words, which in the English edition of Camden are translated, if they go in pilgrimage, are explained in Erasmus's Scholia by si (in religione) provectior fuerit.

It is a great loss to young students in Theology and to the lovers of devotional reading, that the epistles and miscellaneous works of Jerome are not more accessible to common readers.