4. In bonds, not the former, but the latter. Which is proven against Baronius, with the objections of the same resolved.
Hence it follows that from bonds, not the former, but the latter and final, when Saint Paul was able to say, 2 Timothy 4:6, ἐγὼ γὰρ ἤδη σπένδομαι, καὶ ὁ καιρὸς τῆς ἐμῆς ἀναλύσεως ἐφέστηκε, for I am now ready to be poured out, and the time of my departure is at hand, which are the words of one reaching the end of life, he wrote this Epistle, the last of all, and his swan song. This is the position of Eusebius, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Jerome, and others of the ancients. To which opinion Baronius, on 59 AD, rashly offers opposition, when he insists that it was written in the former bonds, before the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Philemon, trusting in weak arguments, that Paul, in 2 Timothy 4:16, mentions his πρώτην ἀπολογίαν, first answer/defense; and asserts that he was freed from the mouth of the lion, so that he might fulfill his preaching ministry, verse 17: that in verse 11 he writes that Luke alone was with him, who was his companion in the former captivity: that in verse 13 he asks for his cloak, books, and parchments, left behind at Troas, which he would not seek after twelve years, positioned in the last moments of life. As a matter of fact, he was able, although bound in chains, in the same latter bonds to have completed more than one defense, after the first to have been freed from death; to have fulfilled his preaching ministry in those very bonds, and by that, as also by martyrdom, to reach the ears of the Gentiles. And Luke, who had adhered to him as a companion in the former bonds, the same was able to adhere to him in the latter. Finally, what would prevent, that he, traveling again through the East after his first liberation from bonds, would appear again at Troas a little before the latter captivity, and there leave his cloak, books, and parchments?