I’m strongly inclined to believe that the body of Paul the Apostle does in fact rest beneath a basilica dedicated to him in Rome. But I recognize that my belief is not based on any great knowledge of the evidence regarding his death and burial. I just like the name of the place, the “Basilica of St Paul outside the Walls.” Though expanded and updated over the centuries, it was originally built by Constantine to mark a traditional place of his death, at the third mile marker outside the city along the Ostian Way.
In our text for this week, Acts 28:11-31, as we come to the conclusion of the book of Acts, we find Paul still very much alive. With little fanfare, he and Luke arrive in Rome after wintering on Malta. Paul is allowed house arrest in a lodging of his own. For two years, we are told in verse 30, he received freely received visitors and proclaimed the Gospel to everyone who came to him. We’re not told what happened at the end of those two years.
Following F. F. Bruce at the end of his masterful biography Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free, I will simply assume that Paul was set free from that original imprisonment in Rome, that he perhaps fulfilled his desire to visit Spain, and that finally he was arrested again and beheaded at that traditional location marked by St Paul outside the Walls. I recognize that there are several other possibilities, including death at the end of the two years marked in Acts and exile.
Maybe what I also like about that “outside the walls” location for Paul’s death is that it connects with the last word of Acts, “unhindered.” During his imprisonment, says verse 31, Paul was “without hindrance” in “proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness.” Dying outside of the walls resonates with that freedom from hindrance.
Outside walls and unhindered also reflects Paul’s dispute with some in the Jewish community in Rome reflected in verses 23 to 28. Though some within the traditional boundaries of God’s people reject Paul’s message, others outside those boundaries, Gentiles, are gladly receiving it, as Paul says in verse 28. That movement beyond walls of ethnicity is another way in which Paul’s good news about Jesus is unhindered.
So whether or not Paul died outside of Rome there along the Ostian Way, his preaching of Jesus Christ allows anyone, anywhere to live in unhindered by the restraints of sin and oppression by the powers of the world. He truly was a man outside and free of the walls which humans put up and his message offers that same freedom to all people.