Appreciating the Apostle Paul

We are in Rome, Italy for two years. The Apostle Paul was in Rome, Italy for two years. We came here to serve in the temple, he came here to be tried before the Emperor Nero on charges of heresy. We roam freely around Rome, he spent his time under house arrest in rooms that we were able, through special arrangement, to visit. We walked away from this experience with a great appreciation for the Apostle Paul's courage, mission and teachings. 

Located under the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata church, a portion of this space was once thought to be a crypt. In the 1600's further excavations revealed much more.  Our visit took us backwards in time. It seemed like every step down the ancient stairs took us 100 years into the past.  

Interesting features included a 1st century deep, dark, well that still has water in it...

Remnants of frescoes that had once decorated the walls of the apartment, believed to be 8th-century...

Large limestone foundation stones...

A column with a cross carved on it and a spiral inscription that reads: Verbum Del non est alligatum ("The word of God is not bound").  

A 17th-century altar on higher ground topped with a marble relief showing Peter and Paul reminiscing while Luke listens... 

The space pictured here was the most recent to be unearthed, in 2016, and is believed to be a bedroom. It could have been in a space like this that Paul wrote some of his epistles and last letters to early Christians. Paul was martyred in about A.D. 65.

The following observation is from Reverend Matthew Cowden: "This house once looked out onto the Via Lata which was the parade route to the city center where gladiators strolled in great triumph to receive their green victory laurels, literally a ring of bay leaves placed on their heads. Up the Via Lata, Roman generals paraded to the city center to receive their laurel leaf crowns made of gold. From the front doorway and windows looking over the first century Roman porch, Paul would have witnessed this victory parade very regularly over the two years he was held here.

One could easily imagine Paul contemplating his own, inevitable martyrdom from this view as he writes, 2 Timothy 4: "I am now  ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not only to me only, but unto all them also that love [him]."  

https://www.matthewcowden.com/2016/10/23/pauls-house-arrest-apartments-discovered/