_________________________________________________________________ Title: The Church in Rome in the First Century Creator(s): Edmundson, George (1849-1930) CCEL Subjects: All; History; LC Call no: BR182 LC Subjects: Christianity History By period Early and medieval _________________________________________________________________ THE CHURCH IN ROME IN THE FIRST CENTURY George Edmundson’s The Church in Rome in the First Century Is in the Public Domain PDF Format Dedicated to The Glory of God and Salvation Through Jesus the Messiah MCMXCIX THE BAMPTON LECTURES FOR 1913 THE CHURCH IN ROME IN THE FIRST CENTURY AN EXAMINATION OF VARIOUS CONTROVERTED QUESTIONS RELATING TO ITS HISTORY, CHRONOLOGY, LITERATURE AND TRADITIONS EIGHT LECTURES PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD IN THE YEAR 1913 ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A. CANON OF SALISBURY BY GEORGE EDMUNDSON, M.A. LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE, VICAR OF ST. SAVIOUR, UPPER CHELSEA LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY AND CALCUTTA 1913 [A11 rights reserved] CAROLO BULLER HEBERDEN D.C.L. AUL. REG. ET COLL. AEN. NAS. PRINCIPALI ACAD. OXON. VICECANCELLARIO AMICITIAE PROBATAE TESTIMONIUM D. D. D. OLIM PER DECENNIUM COLLEGA _________________________________________________________________ EXTRACT FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON CANON OF SALISBURY ‘. . . I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and purposes hereinafter mentioned; that is to say, I will and appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents, issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations, and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the remainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be established for ever in the said University and to be performed in the manner following: ‘I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary’s in Oxford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term. ‘Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Subjects—to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics—upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures—upon the authority of the writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church—upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour testis Christ —upon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost—upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. ‘Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months after they are preached; and one copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library; and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the Divinity Lecture Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed. ‘Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be qualified to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge; and that the same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons twice.’ _________________________________________________________________ SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS LECTURE I Character of the theme—The Rome of Claudius and of Nero—Intercourse—Population—Slavery—The ‘Freedman’ Class—Alien admixture—The Jewish Colony and its history—Its privileges and characteristics—Judaism attractive—Proselytes and ‘God-fearers’—The Synagogues—Soil prepared for Christianity—The Laureolus—The Jews expelled by Claudius—Aquila and Prisca at Corinth—Their antecedents and position—Their close intercourse with St. Paul—St. Paul at Ephesus—His Journey to Greece—He writes to the Roman Church from Corinth—The Epistle to the Romans: an Apologia—St. Paul’s proposed visit to Rome—Three groups of Roman Christians addressed—The impelling motive of the Epistle—The Judaeo-Christians at Rome—The Salutations of Chap. xvi. 1-23—Genuineness of the passage—Criticism dealt with—The Church in the house of Prisca and Aquila—Was this Ecclesia Domestica existent before 57 A.D.?—The Apostles Andronicus and Junias—The households of Aristobulus and Narcissus—The auto-biographic passage Chap. xv. 14-29—‘Another man’s foundation’—Was the other man St. Peter? 1–29 LECTURE II The Lukan authorship of the Acts—Fragmentary character of the narrative—The Acts written before 62 A.D.—The closing verses of the Acts—The Day of Pentecost—The sojourning Romans—The Twelve at Jerusalem—The Hellenists and St. Stephen—Consequences of St. Stephen’s martyrdom—Activity of St. Peter —The vision at Joppa—Conversion of Cornelius—Missionaries at Antioch—Barnabas sent to Antioch—He seeks Saul—The name Christiani—Herod Agrippa persecutes the Church—St. Peter escapes from prison—St. James and the Brethren—Value of tradition—Oral tradition—Early Christian written records—Their destruction—Apocryphal ‘Acts’—Criteria of authenticity—Evidence for St. Peter’s martyrdom at Rome—‘Ascension of Isaiah’—Clement of Rome—Ignatius—Dionysius of Corinth—Irenaeus—The Episcopal lists—Eusebius of Caesarea—Jerome—The Petrine tradition universally accepted in East and West alike—Archaeological evidence—Portraits—Sepulchral inscriptions—Mosaics—Frescoes—The Petrine ‘legends’ based on fact—The Preaching of Peter—Local memories—St. Peter at Rome—The envoy of the Twelve—Precedents of Samaria and Antioch—Analogy of circumstances 30–58 LECTURE III St. Peter encounters Simon Magus at Rome—Eusebius on the story of Simon Magus—His visit to Rome in Claudius’ reign, and success—Weighty evidence of Justin Martyr, of Irenaeus and Hippolytus—The theories of Baur and Lipsius untenable—Vogue of Oriental cults and teachers at Rome—John Mark Peter’s interpreter—Origin of St. Mark’s Gospel—Its date—Jerome’s version of the Petrine tradition—His sources of information—Relations with Pope Damasus—The Hieronymian tradition and that of the Liberian Catalogue—The differences between them—Chronological difficulties and discrepancies—Attempted solution—The Antiochean narrative [ Acts xi. and xii.] examined—Barnabas and Paul bear alms to Jerusalem, 46 A.D.—They meet Peter on his return from Rome—Peter makes Antioch the missionary centre of his work, 47–54 A.D.—Peter with Barnabas at Corinth, 54 A.D.—Testimony of the First Epistle to the Corinthians—Accession of Nero—Peter and Barnabas journey to Italy—Evidence of Bamabas’ missionary activity in Rome and North Italy—No rivalry between St. Peter and St. Paul at Corinth—Paul’s delay in visiting Rome due to Peter’s presence there, 54–56 A.D.—First organisation of the Roman Church—The trial of Julia Pomponia Graecina—Inscription in the crypt of Lucina 59–86 LECTURE IV St. Paul’s visit to Jerusalem, Pentecost, 57 A.D., and captivity at Caesarea—Character of the administration of Felix—Accuracy and trustworthiness of the Lukan narrative—St. Paul’s financial resources—Indulgent treatment of St. Paul by Felix—Influence of Drusilla—Recall of Felix—Elymas or Etoimos—Attitude of Festus—St. Paul’s appeal to Caesar—His motives in appealing —St. Paul’s journey from Puteoli to Rome—He is delivered in charge to the Stratopedarch—The favours accorded to him—St. Paul invites the Jewish leaders to meet him—His interviews with the chiefs of the Synagogues—The Apostle’s appeal to the Jews is fruitless—The Epistles of the First Captivity—The earlier group—Colossians, Ephesians, Philemon—Their tone cheerful—Release expected—Many friends surround the Apostle—Mark, the cousin of Barnabas, at Alexandria—His visit to Rome and mission to Colossae—The Epistle to the Philippians—Changed situation—Friends absent—Issue of trial in doubt but Paul hopeful—The letter of a friend to friends—Discords at Philippi—The ‘true yoke-fellow’—Clement—Caesar’s household—St. Paul is set at liberty—Probable course of the trial 87–114 LECTURE V A High-Priestly embassy in Rome—Growth of hostility between Jew and Christian—The Christians accused of anarchism and secret crimes—St. Peter’s last visit to Rome in 63 A.D.—The First Epistle of St. Peter—Its genuineness—The Epistle written at Rome—Its literary indebtedness to other New Testament writings—St. Peter acquainted with the Epistles to the Romans and Ephesians—Mark and Silvanus with Peter at Rome—The great fire of July 19, 64 A.D.—Rumour attributes the fire to Nero—Steps taken by Nero to efface the rumour—The Pisonian conspiracy and its suppression—The charges brought against the Christians—The Tacitean account of their sufferings—Character of the Neronian persecution—The personal act of Nero—Tigellinus, the active agent of Nero’s cruelty—The Christians not implicated in the burning of Rome—Origin of the charge of incendiarism—Apocalyptic utterances—Tigellinus and Apollonius of Tyana: a parallel—Atheism, Thyestean feasts, Oedipodean intercourse—Hatred of the human race, ‘Institutum Neronianum’—‘Crimina adhaerentia Nomini’—Christian contemporary evidence—The spectacle in the Vatican Gardens —The arrest of the great multitude, end of April, 65 A.D.—Comparison of evidence from Tacitus, Suetonius and Orosius fixes the date—Persecution in the Provinces 115–144 LECTURE VI Deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome—Their tombs piously preserved—They were not martyred on the same day—Manner of their deaths—How the mistake as to a common date arose —Statement of Prudentius—The ‘Quo Vadis?’ story examined —St. Peter’s crucifixion in the early summer of 65 A.D.—The Epistle to the Hebrews—Addressed to Judaeo-Christians at Rome—Internal and external evidence for this—The Epistle never received as Pauline in Rome or the West—Tertullian names Barnabas as the author—Barnabas well qualified to write this Epistle—Sent to Rome, as an eirenicon—The personal references support the Barnabean hypothesis—The Pastoral Epistles—St. Paul’s second imprisonment at Rome—His sense of desertion—His death, 67 A.D.—The Apocalypse written in 70 A.D.—Statements of Irenaeus and Origen considered—Eusebius’ use of his authorities—Evidence of Victorinus and Jerome—The book reflects contemporary history—Neronian Persecution—Events of 69 A.D.—Burning of the Capitol—Domitian in power, Jan. to June, 70 A.D.—Nerva Consul, 71 A.D.—Temple of Jerusalem still standing—The Number of the Beast—Nero Caesar—The Apocalypse, a Neronian document—Nero is Anti-Christ—The Nero legend—Armageddon—Impressions of an eye-witness—Earthquakes and convulsions of nature—The islands of Patmos and Thera 145–179 LECTURE VII The First Century Episcopal Succession at Rome—The Jewish Synagoge and the Christian Ecclesia—The Official Ministry in the early Church—Duties and position of episcopi—Pastors and Stewards with cure of souls—They form an inner Presbyterate—Its president The Bishop—Apostles, Prophets, Teachers and their functions—The Didache an untrustworthy authority for the First Century—The genuine Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians—Not written in 96 A.D. but in beginning of 70 A.D.—The recent examples of our own time—The Neronian persecution fresh in memory—The sudden and successive troubles and calamities of 69 A.D.—Internal evidence of the Epistle to its early date—Church Organisation—Christology—New Testament Quotations—The Daily Sacrifice at Jerusalem had not ceased—The Corinthian dissensions—Predisposing circumstances, 66–68 A.D.—Reference to the Phoenix—Episcopal succession—Apostolical regulations—The disturbers of the peace at Corinth rebuked—Force of the word archaian—The bearers of the Epistle to Corinth—No allusion to Clement as the writer—Authoritative position of Clement in 96 A.D.—The Epistle belongs to an earlier time—Written by him as secretary to the Presbyterate—Interesting inscription 180–205 LECTURE VIII Attitude of the Flavian emperors to the Christians—A quarter of a century of moderation—Titus personally hostile—‘The Shepherd’ of Hernias: a Flavian writing—Blunder of the Muratorian Fragmentist—The notice in the ‘Liberian Catalogue’—The Muratorian and Liberian statements derived from a common source—Hermas confused with the presbyter Pastor—Patristic testimony supports the early date—Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian—Unity of ‘The Shepherd’—It contains a real life story—Hermas a contemporary of Clement of Rome—Harnack’s views discussed—The book in three parts, but the period covered by it short—Hermas’ references to the Neronian persecution—To the organisation of the Church—Its primitive character—Signs of an evolutionary movement—Contentions about precedence—Growth of a Monarchical Episcopate—The persecution of Domitian—In its origin fiscal—The didrachma tax—Many Christians of high position suffer—Flavius Clemens put to death—His wife Flavia Domitilla banished—Flavius Sabinus, father and son—Flavius Clemens the Consul and Clemens the bishop—A third contemporary Clemens—M. Arrecinus Clemens is Consul 94 A.D.—He is put to death by his relative Domitian—The two Flavia Dornitillas—The ‘Acts of Nereus and Achilles’—Plautilla the sister of Clemens the Consul—Relationship between the Flavian and Arrecinian families —Is Clement the bishop brother of Arrecinus Clemens?—The death of M. Acilius Glabrio—The Acilian Crypt in the cemetery of Priscilla—Conclusion 206–237 APPENDICES Note A.  Chronological Statement 239–241 Note B.  Aquila and Prisca or Priscilla 242–3 Note C.  The Pudens Legend 244–249 Note D.  The Family Connexion of Clement the Bishop 250–258 Note E.  The Tombs of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul 259–272 Note F.  The Cemeteries of Priscilla and Domitilla 273–282 Index 283 Index of Scripture References 295–6 THE CHURCH IN ROME _________________________________________________________________ LECTURE I Rom. i. 8: ‘First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.’ The subject of these lectures is in one sense a well-worn theme. The literature bearing upon the history of the Church in Rome during the first century is enormous, and unfortunately in modem times the prevailing note has been controversial. It has seemed as if it were impossible even for those who have tried to write on the beginnings of Roman Christianity in the impartial spirit of the scientific historian to free themselves from bias and prejudice. This very fact, however, only proves that this has been and is a subject of profound and indeed of absorbing interest, and it is so from whatever point of view we regard it, the political, no less than the. ecclesiastical and religious. That interest indeed, so far from diminishing, has been greatly stimulated and increased by the archaeological researches and discoveries made in Rome and its immediate neighbourhood during the past half-century. Year by year additions have been made to our knowledge, and it is now generally admitted that the last word on many most important and critical questions has not yet been spoken. Already many assertions once confidently made have had to be modified or abandoned, opinions put forward with authority are constantly being revised, and a careful study of avail-able evidence has convinced me that there are grounds for questioning seriously certain conclusions now generally received, and at the same time for upholding the historical character of some ancient traditions too hastily rejected. The first point to grasp is the character of the spell exercised over the minds of men by the very name of Rome during the period of the early Caesars. Rome in the first century of our era occupied a position of influence unique in the annals of history. It had become the magnetic centre of the civilised world, and it was itself the most cosmopolitan of cities that have ever existed. The Rome of Claudius and of Nero was the seat of an absolute and centralised Government, whose vast dominion stretched from the shores of the Atlantic to the borders of Parthia, from Britain to the Libyan deserts, over diverse lands and many races, all of them subdued after centuries of conflict and of conquest by the Roman arms, but now forming a single empire under an administrative system of unrivalled flexibility and strength, which enforced obedience to law and the maintenance of peace without any unnecessary infringement of local liberties or interference with national religious cults. One of the most remarkable features of this great Empire was the freedom of intercourse that was enjoyed, and the safety and rapidity with which travelling could be undertaken. Never until quite modern times has any such ease and security of communication between place and place been possible. And this not merely by those admirable military roads which were one of the chief instruments for the maintenance of the Roman rule and for the binding together of province with province and of the most distant frontiers with the capital; the facilities for intercourse by water also were abundant and were, except during the winter months, freely used. The Roman Empire, as a glance at the map reveals, was—even at its zenith—essentially a Mediterranean power. Its dominion consisted mainly of the fringe of territory encircling that sea. In the midst stood the capital. The greatest cities of the Empire were ports, and Rome itself, the chief among them, was dependent upon sea-borne traffic for its daily food.’ [1] At the beginning of the Christian era the population of the imperial city has been estimated at not less than 1,300,000, of which more than one half were slaves. The entire number of citizens owning private property was very small—a few thousands only.’ [2] Each of these possessed vast numbers of slaves, [3] who were trained to perform every kind of work, so that a considerable portion of the free inhabitants found themselves without occupation or employment. In the time of Julius Caesar [4] no fewer than 320,000 were supported by the state, and though Augustus was able to reduce this multitude of paupers to 200,000, [5] the number afterwards rapidly increased. This huge population was, as has been already said, one of the most cosmopolitan that has ever been gathered together to form one community. This was due in the first instance to the practice of selling prisoners of war, and the inhabitants of captured cities, as slaves. The institution of slavery therefore implied that in every wealthy household in Rome there was a great mixture of races, and the custom of manumission on a large scale was continually admitting batches of persons of foreign extraction to many privileges of citizenship. Thus was formed the large and important class of freedmen (liberti) containing men of culture and ability, who not only filled posts of responsibility in their former masters’ households but not seldom became rich and rose to high official positions in the state. Freedmen indeed and the descendants of freedmen played no small part in the history of the times with which we are dealing, and Christianity found among them many of its early converts and most earnest workers. But the freedmen and the slaves by no means comprised all the foreign population of Rome at this epoch. The legionaries were recruited in all parts of the empire; the Pretorian camp contained contingents drawn from distant frontier tribes. Traders, travellers, adventurers of every kind thronged to Rome—particularly from the East. So did the preachers and teachers of many philosophies, cults, and modes of worship, Greek, Egyptian, and Phrygian. The very language of ordinary everyday life in Rome had become Greek, and the whole atmosphere of the great city was in no small measure orientalised. [6] Amongst this large alien element in the population the Jews formed one of the most marked and important sections. Their position indeed was at once singular and exclusive, for they had privileges accorded to none others. The origin [7] of the Jewish colony at Rome may be traced back to 63 B.C., when Pompeius after the capture of Jerusalem brought back a large number of prisoners, who were sold as slaves. But the Jew, as a slave, was always difficult to deal with, through his obstinate adherence to his ancestral faith and peculiar customs, and so many of these slaves were speedily manumitted [8] that they were able to form a community apart on the far side of the Tiber. [9] Julius Caesar from motives of expediency showed especial favour to the Jews, and his policy was continued by Augustus and, except for brief intervals, by his successors. The privileges thus conferred were very great, and included liberty of worship, freedom from military service and from certain taxes, the recognition of the Sabbath as a day of rest, the right of living according to the customs of their forefathers, and full jurisdiction over their own members. [10] Once in the reign of Tiberius [11] the worshippers of Jahveh and of Isis fell under the heavy displeasure of the emperor; some were punished, others expelled from the city, and the consuls were ordered to enlist 4000 Jews for military service in the malarious climate of Sardinia, 19 A.D. The determination of Caligula to set up a statue of himself in the Temple of Jerusalem aroused a storm of opposition, which would undoubtedly have brought a fierce persecution upon the Jews but for the assassination of the tyrant (41 A.D.), before his design was carried into effect. [12] Claudius, however, on his accession at once renewed all the old privileges, and took steps to allay the fanatical passions stirred up by the action of his half-insane predecessor. From this time forward the Jews were never compelled to take part in Caesar-worship. [13] To them alone of all the peoples of the empire was this concession made. This Jewish colony in Rome seems from the descriptions of contemporary writers to have had the same characteristics as the Jewish colonies in European cities throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed much as we see them to-day. A large proportion of these Roman Jews were very poor, living in rags and squalor, making a precarious livelihood as hawkers, pedlars, and dealers in second-hand goods. Above these were then, as now, the moneylenders, larger traders, and shopkeepers, and at the head the wealthy financiers, and in the days of Tiberius and his successors many members of the Herodian family made Rome their home and lived on terms of close intimacy with the Imperial circle. [14] It is a curious fact that the Jewish race, while hated and despised by the people of Rome, should have been endowed with so many immunities by the Emperors, and above all that its exclusive religion and ceremonial rites should have possessed such an attraction as undoubtedly they did possess, and should have drawn so many adherents from all classes. [15] The truth is that the privileges, as I have said before, were granted from motives of pure expediency. The Jewish race was numerous, it had settlements in practically every important city in the empire, and it was financially indispensable. The number of Jews in Rome in 5 B.C. has been estimated at 10,000; in Egypt, 1,000,000; in Palestine, 700,000; in the whole Roman Empire (out of a total population of fifty-four to sixty millions) four to four and a half millions. As 4000 adult males were actually sent to Sardinia in 19 A.D. it may safely be said that a quarter of a century later, allowing for the natural growth of population, for fresh batches of slaves receiving manumission, and for immigration from outside, the total Jewish settlement in Rome would not be less than 30,000 and might reach 50,000. Everywhere the Jew however held aloof from his Gentile neighbours, and his absolute refusal to mingle with them and to share their life could only be met either by coercion or by favoured treatment. To the wise statesmanship of the dictator Julius the latter course commended itself, and the permanence of the policy he adopted is sufficient proof of its prescience. The attractiveness of Judaism, as a religious cult, is more difficult to explain. It had neither the mysticism nor the sensuousness of the worship of Isis or of Cybele. Yet although the Jew was hated and scorned, his religion became to a surprising degree the mode in Rome, especially among ladies of the patrician houses. The number of actual proselytes of Gentile origin was large, and still larger the number of those whom St. Luke in the Acts styles ‘God-fearers’ [16] (sebomenoi ton Theon), i.e. people who adopted the Jewish monotheism, attended the synagogue [17] services, and observed the Sabbath and certain portions of the ceremonial law. These ‘God-fearers,’ in every place where Jewish communities were to be found, formed a fringe round the Synagogue of bodies of men and women, who, in this age of religious electicism, without altogether abandoning their connexion with Paganism, had become semi-Jews. In a city such as the Rome we have been describing it is not difficult to see a seed-plot ready prepared for the planting of a new religion like Christianity, oriental in its origin, an outgrowth of Judaism, akin in so many points to the Mystery-Religions of Egypt and Asia Minor then so much in vogue, and bearing, as it did, in its ethical teaching so striking a resemblance to the moral code of the Stoics. That the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in some primitive form reached the banks of the Tiber very early there is, as I shall show later, good reason to believe, but of the when or how we know nothing directly. The converts at first would be almost certainly few in number and drawn from the humbler class of Jews. [18] The new sect, if it were noticed at all by the authorities, would be regarded with contemptuous indifference as a variety of Judaism, and therefore sheltered by the privileges which Judaism, as a religio licita, enjoyed. [19] The only possible allusion in the first decade after the Crucifixion to the existence in Rome of a knowledge of Christian teaching is contained in a passage of Suetonius’ ‘Life of Caligula,’ in which he tells of the performance before the Emperor of a play in which a certain Laureolus, who gives his name to the piece, is crucified upon the stage. Might there not be here a cruel parody upon the central theme of Christian preaching? Probably not, though such an exhibition is at any rate thoroughly illustrative of the spirit of mockery with which the idea of a crucified Saviour would be received. [20] There is evidence, however, in the pages of the same historian, Suetonius, that almost exactly a decade after the aforesaid production of the Laureolus Christianity in Rome had already become a force sufficiently potent to draw down upon it the fanatical antagonism of the Jews. Tumults and disorders seem to have arisen in the Jewish quarter of the city in 50 A.D. of such a threatening character as to force the Government, in spite of its favourable inclination to the Jews, to take strong action. This appears to me to be nothing more than a fair interpretation of Suetonius’ words—‘the Jews who were continually rioting at the instigation of Chrestus he (Claudius) expelled from Rome.’ [21] To write Chrestus for Christus was quite natural to a Latin historian, for Chrestus was a name in use at Rome as extant inscriptions show, [22] and both Tertullian and Lactantius [23] tell us that in their time the common pronunciation was “Chrestus’ and ‘Chrestianos’ for ‘Christus’ and ‘Christianos.’ The French word ‘chrétien’ is to this day a living proof that this mode of spelling still survives. Dion Cassius [24] informs us that the edict of expulsion, owing to the disturbance that it caused, was only partially carried out, but that the synagogues were closed and the clubs licensed by Caligula dissolved. Among the Jews that were expelled were no doubt the chief leaders of the contending factions. Among these were Aquila and Priscilla or Prisca, of whom we read in the Acts of the Apostles that in consequence of Claudius’ edict of banishment they had left Rome and taken up their abode at Corinth, and were there brought into personal contact with St. Paul, when in the summer of 51 A.D. he first visited that city. The intercourse which thus began was destined to be long-continued and intimate, and it was through this intercourse (such at least is my firm persuasion) that that eager desire to visit Rome, to which the Apostle gives such strong expression in his Epistle to the Romans some five or six years later, was first fanned into flame. Not without purpose did St. Luke, who never wastes words, give such an elaborate description of this husband and wife upon their first entry on the stage of his history. ‘Having departed from Athens’ we read Acts, xviii. 1. ‘Paul came to Corinth and having met a certain Jew, by name Aquila, a Pontian [25] by birth, who had lately come from Italy, and Priscilla his wife, in consequence of the decree of Claudius that all the Jews should depart from Rome, betook himself to them, and because they were of the same trade he abode with them and wrought at his craft, for they were tentmakers by trade.’ Here undoubtedly St. Luke intended in the first place to give the reason for the strong bond of sympathy which at once sprang up between these two Asiatic Jews and fellow craftsmen. The description of Aquila as a Jew does not mean that he was not a Christian. Had he and his wife required to be converted and baptised, it is almost impossible that so important a fact should not here have been mentioned. Compare the notice about Apollos, Acts xviii. 24-27, The Jews who were actually exiled by Claudius were no doubt the leaders of the contending factions, Aquila and Prisca having been in 50 A.D. as afterwards among the foremost of the Christian congregation. In the eyes of the Roman authorities, as has already been pointed out, Christianity was as yet simply a Jewish sect. The emphatic statement that Aquila was a Jew applies, as the context shows, not to his religion but to his race, and the separate mention of Priscilla without that epithet may be taken to imply, firstly, that she was not Jewish but Roman, and secondly that she was to play an independent role in the furtherance of St. Paul’s missionary work. Never indeed in the New Testament is the one name mentioned without the other, and in four out of the six places in which they occur the name of Prisca or Priscilla stands first. [26] From this fact the deduction has been made, and in my opinion rightly, that Prisca was of more honourable position by birth than her husband, and that she possessed private means which she freely used in furthering the cause of the Gospel. [27] I have spoken, not without good reason, of this intercourse which began in 51 A.D. at Corinth, as being long-continued and intimate. During the whole of his eighteen months’ sojourn in that city St. Paul lived under their roof, and when he sailed from Cenchraea for Ephesus in the early spring of 53 A.D. Aquila and Prisca accompanied him. At Ephesus they took up their abode, Acts, xviii. 11 and 18, 19. and at once set about active missionary work, while awaiting the Apostle’s return some six months later. During this interval it was by their instrumentality that the eloquent and learned Apollos was instructed in the full Christian faith, and probably it was by their advice that he entered upon, what we know to have been, his fruitful ministry at Corinth. Acts, xviii. 24-27. Throughout the two years and a quarter Acts, xix. 10. that St. Paul made Ephesus the centre of his labours, Aquila and Prisca resided there. Probably their house was as before the Apostle’s home; in any case we know that it was a meeting-place in which the faithful gathered for worship, for in his First Epistle to the Corinthians, I Cor. xvi. 19. which was written from Ephesus some time in the autumn of 55 A.D., St. Paul sends the salutations of Aquila and Priscilla and ‘of the Church that is in their house.’ From these his close friends and fellow-workers, with whom he was for some five or six years in constant communication, St. Paul would therefore have ample opportunities for learning much about the condition of the Church in Rome, and this not only from Aquila and Prisca themselves but from other exiles and the many travellers and traders from the capital whom he must have met at their house, and who would bring with them the latest news as to the state of things in the Imperial City. Among other things would come the glad tidings of the accession of the young and popular Nero in the place of Claudius, and of the happy prospects that his reign promised, a promise that was justified so long as the boy emperor was content in his public administration to place himself under the guidance of his wise counsellors Seneca and Burrhus. [28] What is certain is that St. Paul at the close of his two years’ ministry at Ephesus began to look ahead and to plan fresh schemes of missionary activity. His first task was to journey through Macedonia to Corinth, where his presence was called for and needed; his next to pay another visit after a long absence to Jerusalem, but ‘fter I have been there,’ he said, ‘I must see Rome.’ [29] His departure from Ephesus was more hurried than he expected, for in the riots raised by Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen against the Christians and the Jews with whom as usual they were confounded, [30] Paul seems to have narrowly escaped from the violence of the angry throng, and to have succeeded in doing so only through the self-sacrificing courage of Aquila and Prisca, [31] who risked their own lives in order to save his. It had been Paul’s intention to remain at Ephesus till Pentecost, but this serious tumult compelled [32] him to leave much earlier in the year 56 A.D., and at the same time and for the same reasons his friends Aquila and Prisca may have taken the opportunity to start on their return journey to Rome, the edict of banishment having now been allowed to lapse by the conciliatory policy of Nero’s advisers. The friendly Asiarchs, who warned Paul not to adventure himself into the theatre, would indeed feel it their duty, as soon as the riot was appeased, for the sake of the peace of the city to insist that both Paul and his protectors Aquila and Prisca should quit Ephesus for a time. Paul himself carried out his plan of journeying by way of Troas and Philippi to Corinth, where he passed the three winter months of 56–57 A.D. The project of a visit to Rome, so long cherished, so often hindered, now began to assume a concrete shape in his mind, and the result was the writing, almost certainly in the early spring of the year 57 A.D., of the Epistle to the Romans. Now this great epistle stands in the forefront of the Pauline writings chiefly as a theological treatise, but apart from its theology it has other claims, as an historical document of the highest evidential value, deserving from the Church historian’s point of view the closest and most attentive study. In the first place then this Epistle bears upon its face the clearest testimony to the existence in 57 A.D. of a distinguished and well-established Christian Church in Rome, a Church already of some standing and in which the Gentile element predominated. The mere fact that the Apostle, at a time when many cares pressed heavily upon him, [33] took the pains to write this elaborate and carefully reasoned statement of his doctrinal teaching to a body of Christians that he had never visited, is evidence to the very important place they occupied in his thoughts. His words, ‘I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all that your faith [34] is proclaimed in all the world,’ may be somewhat hyperbolic, but they mean at any rate that the Roman Church was well known and highly spoken of in all the various Christian communities with which St. Paul was acquainted. And the impression these words convey is emphasised by the Apostle’s later declaration affirming even in stronger terms his personal assent to this widely received estimate of the character of Roman Christianity, for no language could be more explicit than this—‘I am persuaded, my brethren, I myself also concerning you, that even of yourselves’—i.e. without any extraneous help derived from such an epistle as I am sending to you—‘you are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.’ [35] Such a declaration implies a conviction based upon trustworthy evidence, otherwise his readers would be the first to perceive that here was only high-flown language covering an empty compliment. Such an utterance from a man and a writer like St. Paul presupposes an already existing acquaintance with a considerable number of Roman Christians, whose goodness, knowledge, and sound judgment he has tested and learnt to appreciate. Indeed it is not too much to say that Paul in writing this epistle is somewhat oppressed by a sense that those whom he is addressing—for a reason, which will appear presently—may possibly think that they have no special need either of his instruction or of his admonition. His epistle is an apologia for venturing to be so bold as to propose to pay a visit to Rome, even though that visit should be no more than a brief pause in the course of a journey farther west. [36] He evidently had in his mind the fear that in Rome he had, as a preparatory step, to fight down disparaging rumours concerning himself, his teaching, and his office, and that he might be regarded as an intruder. If he had found it necessary even in Corinth, a Church which he himself had planted, and where even now he was writing, to defend strenuously his Apostolic claims and doctrine, [37] how much more in Rome among Christians of old standing, in whose conversion he had had no hand. So in the Introductory Salutation St. Paul sets forth his credentials. He is no mere ordinary apostle, a man commissioned by the Twelve or by some particular Church to go forth to some limited field of missionary work. His Apostleship differed from that of their own Junias and Andronicus, [38] whom later he describes as ‘apostles of note,’ differed—perhaps it is implied—even from that of so eminent a man as Barnabas, [39] in that he [Paul] like the Twelve had been chosen out and set apart [40] for the preaching of the Gospel by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself—chosen and set apart for preaching the Gospel among all nations and bringing them to the obedience of the faith. [41] And though the Gospel has already been preached in Rome and with such success that the faith of the Roman Christians is spoken of everywhere in terms of praise, yet Rome too lies within the bounds of his commission, and so he has many times planned, though hitherto always hindered, to come to them that he might have some fruit amongst them also. Indeed he calls God to witness that he had prayed continually that he might be prospered on his way to visit them, that he might be able to impart to them some spiritual gift for their confirmation. Immediately, however, adding lest he should offend their susceptibilities by any assumption of superiority—‘that is that while I am amongst you we may be jointly strengthened by the mutual faith of you and me.’ [42] But if the note of apologia can be discerned here in the introductory verses, it comes out much more strongly in what may be styled the body of the epistle. The difficulties of interpretation theologically of the Apostle’s reasoning and arguments, in that grand series of chapters which end with chapter xi., lie outside my province. Those difficulties, admittedly very great, are caused in no small degree by our ignorance of the circumstances, of the persons, parties, questions, and situation generally with which St. Paul was dealing. We lack in fact the historical background. It is my present object to try to trace out from the materials, which the epistle itself supplies in definite even though in parts but in faint outline, such features of that background as are discernible through the mist of ages. Leaving on one side for the present the extremely important autobiographical passage in chapter xv., also the valuable testimony as to the composition of the Roman Church furnished by the list of salutations in chapter xvi., which require special and separate treatment, we can, I think, make certain well-grounded assertions concerning the three distinct groups of persons whom St. Paul had in his thoughts as he wrote this epistle. These three groups are (1) a body of Jewish Christians, (2) a larger body of converted Gentiles, (3) the mass of unbelieving Jews. St. Paul leaves in no doubt that the third group comprised the vast majority of the Roman Jews, including practically the whole of official Israel. And what is more, as yet these rabbis, elders, and rulers of the Synagogues were not so much actively hostile to the preaching of Christianity as simply deaf, contemptuously indifferent. Those of Group No. 1, the Jewish Christians, were relatively small in number, but though small they were divided into two very distinct sections or parties. One of these sections consisted of Jews like Aquila and others mentioned in the salutations, who were Paul’s friends and fellow-workers; the other, an extremely influential and energetic section of Judaeo-Christians, Jews rather than Christians, who, like the Judaisers who are brought before us in the Epistle to the Galatians and elsewhere, were bitterly opposed to St. Paul, disputed his Apostolic authority, traduced and misrepresented his teaching, and denounced him as a renegade from the faith of his fathers. The Gentiles of the second group formed the chief element in. the Roman Church. Of these no doubt a certain number had been converted straight from heathendom, but the assumption which runs through the epistle, that they were familiar with the Jewish Scriptures in the Septuagint version, and with the Jewish ceremonial law, would seem to point to their being largely drawn from the class of Greek-speaking ‘God-fearers,’ which, as I have already stated, in all the chief towns of the Empire, and conspicuously in Rome, formed a fringe round the synagogue. If it be asked, what was the impelling motive which led to the writing of this epistle, and which dictated the order and character of the arguments, the answer surely is not far to seek. St. Paul had made up his mind after many hesitations to visit Rome, but from information that had come to him he was not altogether happy about the reception he would meet. To the Christian community of the imperial city as a whole he was a stranger, and as I have said, he was aware that there was a Judaising faction there busy at their usual task of stirring up enmity against him. His own words (Rom. iii. 8), ‘as we are slanderously reported and as some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come,' are a proof that he had been informed that his great doctrine of Justification by Faith had been seized upon by these adversaries to represent him as an antinomian. He therefore felt it to be incumbent upon him to answer at once and in advance these Judaistic attacks by a full exposition of his teaching on the subject of Justification by Faith, and at the same time he desired to make clear what was his real attitude towards many disputed questions concerning Judaism and the observance of the Mosaic Law, and the relation between Jew and Gentile in the Church of Christ. If this be granted then a flood of light is immediately thrown on the interpretation and import of that central portion of this epistle, which begins with the words (Rom. ii. 17)—‘but if thou bearest the name . . . of Jew and possessest a law to rest upon’—up to the end of chapter xi. It is unmistakably addressed to Jews. [43] Not to the strict orthodox Jews of the Synagogues, who in their haughty aloofness would not be likely either to see or to read the Apostle’s arguments. The Jews addressed were men who had indeed accepted Jesus as the Jewish Messiah but who perhaps only the more obstinately for that very reason clung to their Judaism, and hated the thought of losing any of those exclusive religious privileges, as Israelites, which were their pride and boast. The doors of the Christian Church, as they conceived it, might be open to Gentiles, but only if they would consent to be circumcised and to conform to the ordinances of the Mosaic Law. But though in form he is addressing himself to Jews, Paul’s thoughts are all the time directed to his Gentile readers, and it is for their sake and for their edification quite as much as for the persuasion of his Jewish fellow-countrymen that he step by step leads up to the establishment of the fundamental principles of the Gospel that he preached. This is made quite clear by his own words (chap. xi. 13–14): ‘For it is to you the Gentiles that I am speaking. Nay, more, [44] in so far as I am the Gentiles’ Apostle I make-the-most-of [45] my ministry; if by any means I may stir to jealousy my own flesh and might save some.’ [46] The lengthy list of salutations to be found in the first twenty-three verses of chapter xvi. is a passage of great and peculiar interest historically, for it enables us to form some estimate, not conjecturally but positively, concerning the social and racial composition of the Roman Christian community at this time. It also gives indirectly an indication of the close relations of intercourse subsisting between the Churches of the chief cities of the Mediterranean coast. The very fact of its historical importance has however caused doubts to be raised by certain critics of the hypercritical school whether the passage is really an integral part of the Epistle to the Romans. Its Pauline authorship is not assailed, but attempts have been made to show that the list where it stands has (wholly or in part) been displaced and that it should be attached to some hypothetical epistle addressed at some unknown time to another Church, most probably to that of Ephesus. It must suffice here to say that I accept without hesitation the whole of this sixteenth chapter as an original and authentic portion of the Epistle to the Romans on the following grounds. First, to quote the words of Professor Kirsopp Lake, one of the most recent advocates of the Ephesian hypothesis, ‘There is no trace of any external evidence for doubting that this section has always belonged to the epistle.’ [47] This then is admitted, and it counts heavily. Secondly, all the names, some of them rare and uncommon names, contained in the list of salutations have been discovered in the inscriptions found in the colurnbaria and cemeteries of Rome, of a date contemporary or nearly contemporary with the date of the epistle: an evidence in favour of authenticity, which, if not absolutely conclusive, is at least remarkably convincing. [48] The arguments in favour of the anti-Roman hypothesis are of a purely a priori character, and there are only two of them, it seems to me, of weight sufficient to deserve consideration. The first is the difficulty of imagining that Paul could possibly have been acquainted with the names of so many members of a Church he had never visited, and still more that he should have been able in quite a large proportion of cases to add personal details. With this argument I have already dealt in part. Besides the information which he must have acquired from Aquila and Prisca during those four years they spent together at Corinth and Ephesus, he would be brought into contact at those two great centres of Mediterranean traffic with a constant stream of travellers and traders from Rome. Among these would be Christians, whose first thought would be to find their way to the friendly house of their banished fellow-citizens. Criticism here, as in many other instances, has gone astray from its failure to recognise the great facilities for intercourse in Apostolic times, especially between cities on the shores of the Mediterranean, and the freedom with which those facilities were used. The travels of Apollonius of Tyana as told by Philostratus are a good instance in point, for Apollonius was a contemporary of St. Paul. The Apostle did not draw up, we may be sure, this unusually long list of salutations without an object. Diffident, as he seems to have been, of the welcome he would receive upon his visit to Rome, may we not regard these salutations as in some sense a tactful act of diplomacy? He wished to remind those who are mentioned that he bore them in his remembrance and affection, and at the same time to bespeak, as it were, their good offices with their brethren for the time when he actually came amongst them. [49] That Paul himself could not have made out such a list with its many details without assistance is possibly true, but that assistance was at his very side, as his words were being written down. Very interesting, as a mark of the genuineness of this passage, is the sudden interpolation, in the midst of the Pauline phrases, of a salutation from another hand, ‘I, Tertius, the scribe of this epistle, salute you.’ [50] Tertius was then a Roman Christian, and he had doubtless been chosen by Paul on this occasion to act as his amanuensis, for this very reason. The second argument relied upon by the critics is at first sight more plausible. Paul in writing his First Epistle to the Corinthians from Ephesus sends salutations from Aquila and Prisca and the Church in their house, adding according to one group of authorities the words ‘with whom also I am a guest.’ [51] Nothing could be more natural, and the inference seems to follow that when previously the Apostle was a guest in their house at Corinth, there likewise that house was a meeting-place for a Christian congregation. About a year and a quarter after this Paul, writing from Corinth to the Romans, again sends salutations to these same fellow-workers (Aquila and Prisca), and then after a eulogistic reference to their having risked their lives to save his, and thanking them not only in his own name but in that of all the Churches of the Gentiles, he proceeds to salute ‘the Church that is in their house.’ Now to the critics with whom I am dealing it appears very improbable that if Aquila and Prisca had only returned to Rome so recently there could have been already a Church in their house with the existence of which St. Paul could have been sufficiently acquainted to deem it worthy of a special salutation. It is pointed out, moreover, that in his Second Epistle to Timothy (an epistle, by the by, not accepted by these same critics as Paul’s or contemporary) Paul sends salutations from Rome to Prisca and Aquila apparently at Ephesus, and the suggestion is put forward that during the decade which intervened between the first and last of these salutations the home of this husband and wife had always been at Ephesus. This being so, this section of the sixteenth chapter of the Romans cannot belong to the epistle in which we find it. It might be thought a sufficient answer to this allegation that external authority in its favour is confessedly nonexistent—to say nothing of the fact that tradition with no uncertain voice connects the names of Prisca and Aquila with definite localities in Rome. [52] But quite apart from this there is no real difficulty in accepting the usual interpretation of the salutation. When the Apostle parted at Ephesus with the faithful companions and fellow-workers who had been so long of such service to him, one may be quite sure it would not be without full knowledge on both sides of their future intentions and plans. On his reaching Corinth a whole twelve-month at least must have passed, ample time for news to have come, by some of those using the highway of traffic across the isthmus, that Aquila and Prisca were again settled at Rome and carrying on their work there on the same lines as at Corinth and Ephesus. There is nothing whatever impossible in this, nothing certainly to afford the slightest pretext for the rejection of a well-authenticated text. Personally however I do not believe that there is any necessity for entering upon the consideration of what I venture to call ‘time-table calculations.’ There is nothing in St. Paul’s words to warrant us in assuming that this ‘Church in the house’ of Aquila and Prisca was new to Roman Christianity. The banishment decreed by Claudius was according to Dion Cassius most leniently carried out and would not involve the confiscation of property. [53] It is one of those minute points that are often so significant, that St. Paul speaks of the house at Ephesus as that of Aquila and Prisca, of the house at Rome as that of Prisca and Aquila. If Prisca were, as is commonly supposed, when they were resident at Rome the more important person of the two spouses, and the owner of property, then the unusual inversion of the names is explicable. But at Ephesus where they were strangers the house would naturally be described as that of Aquila and Prisca, the husband’s name standing first in order of precedence. [54] Since Aquila and Prisca were expelled, it must have been, as I have already said, because they were recognised leaders of that faction of ‘Chrestus’ of which Suetonius speaks. May one not be justified then in the assumption that the readiness of the exiles at Corinth and at Ephesus to offer hospitality and a room for worship in their house was but the continuation of their previous practice at their Roman home before their banishment? But if the Church in their house was thus in existence before 50 A.D., it is scarcely likely that the owners in their enforced absence would forbid its use. It would but lessen their sense of separation, if they were thus able to be of continued service to their poorer Christian brethren in Rome. Such a supposition of course involves certain assumptions about the state of the Church in Rome in 50 A.D., but I hope to be able to show that it is a reasonable assumption, and consistent alike with the positive and traditional data that we possess. [55] The Epistle to the Romans is itself a proof that Christianity was firmly established in the metropolis some time before 57 A.D.; there must therefore before that date have been houses where the faithful met. Tradition mentions only two such places of assembly—the house of Prisca and Aquila and the house of Pudens. The localities are still supposed to be marked by the very ancient Churches of St. Prisca and St. Pudenziana. Granting then that this list of salutations is addressed to the Roman community, let us glance very briefly at its general features. A study of the names enables us to draw the conclusion that the Roman Christians mainly belonged to the class of Greek-speaking freedmen and slaves. [56] Certain of these are addressed by the Apostle as kinsmen (sungeneis), and it is safe to assume that these were Jewish fellow-countrymen. [57] It is possible that some others not so designated may have been Jews, but the probability is the other way. The evidence already adduced points clearly to a hostility to Paul among the Judaeo-Christians at Rome, which would naturally exclude them from receiving friendly greetings. Two names in this group deserve special mention. ‘Salute Andronicus and Junias my kinsmen and my fellow-prisoners, who are men of mark among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me’ [58] is the remarkable language of the seventh verse. When and where these two had been Paul’s fellow-prisoners we know not. Paul in his Second Epistle to the Corinthians—only a few months before—had spoken of frequent imprisonments [59] of which we know nothing. The very fact that he describes Andronicus and Junias as ‘men of mark among the apostles’ makes it probable that he had encountered them in his journeys, for the term ‘apostle’ at this early period seems to have been applied generally to delegates sent out with a commission by some Church for some special field of missionary work, and to have carried with it as a necessary qualification the possession of charismatic gifts. [60] But a still greater distinction is conferred on these two by Paul’s admission that ‘they were in Christ before me,’ words which imply that their conversion dated back at least as far as the days of St. Stephen’s activity. Possibly they belonged to that ‘Synagogue of the Libertines’ [61] in which Stephen argued, and afterwards became, a little later, the first preachers of the Gospel at Rome. Very interesting are the salutations to the households of Aristobulus and Narcissus. These would all be freedmen or slaves. Aristobulus may well have been that grandson of Herod the Great who is described by Josephus [62] as making his permanent home at Rome. This is borne out by the salutation to ‘Herodion my kinsman’ intervening between those of the two households. The name suggests a member of the family to which Aristobulus belonged. Narcissus can scarcely be any other than the freedman and favourite of Claudius. He had been put to death some three years before this epistle was written, but his slaves and dependents, though they would after his execution be incorporated in the Imperial household, might still retain the distinctive name of Narcissiani. [63] It is possible that Aristobulus may have been dead in 57 A.D., and have bequeathed his slaves to the emperor. If so, both these groups would form part of that vast body of freedmen and slaves known as Caesar’s Household, to which St. Paul refers writing from Rome to the Philippians: ‘all the Saints salute you, specially they of Caesar’s Household.’ How vast a number composed the imperial household may be gathered from the statement of Lanciani (‘Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries,’ p. 130) that in two columbaria of the servants and freedmen of Augustus and Livia the remains of no fewer than 6000 persons have been found. The two groups of names in verses 14-15 seem to indicate that they were members of two smaller households belonging to private persons. [64] The expression ‘all the Churches of Christ salute you’ (v. 16) is unique in the New Testament, and when taken in connexion with the language of this epistle elsewhere upon the high repute of the Roman Church may be held (to quote the words of Dr. Hort) to signify that that Church was already ‘an object of love and respect to Jewish and Gentile Churches alike.’ [65] And now we come to a consideration of the all-important autobiographic passage in the fifteenth chapter, [66] which contains, if rightly interpreted, an explanation at once of St. Paul’s attitude of deference to the Roman Church and the widespread esteem in which, as he declares, it was held by its sister Churches. This passage may be regarded as an expansion of the earlier autobiographic section with which the epistle opens. The object and the tone are the same, only here the Apostle enters more into detail. After recounting how ‘from Jerusalem and round about even to Illyricum I have fully carried the Gospel of Christ, but in doing so making it my pride-and-care [67] to preach not where Christ was named lest I should build upon another man’s foundation,’ Paul proceeds ‘wherefore also I was hindered many times [68] from coming to you. But now having no more place in these regions and having had these many years a keen-longing [69] to come to you, whenever I journey to Spain [I will come to you] [70] for I hope to see you, as I am journeying through, and to be sent forward on my way thitherward by you after I have first in some measure enjoyed-my-fill of your company.’ The meaning of this statement, though the language and sequence of thought are somewhat involved, is nevertheless, so it seems to me, as plain and direct as it is possible to be. St. Paul had been hindered hitherto from visiting Rome, because he had made it a cardinal principle of his missionary life not to trespass in fields opened out by other men’s labours, in Churches whose foundations others had laid. May not this ordinance of limitation imposed by the Apostle on himself afford the explanation of Acts xvi. 6-7, ‘And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia; and when they came over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not’? If the South Galatian theory be accepted (I myself accept it unreservedly), it is really remarkable how small a portion of what is now known as Asia Minor was actually evangelised by St. Paul. [71] Even now he does not propose to come to Rome with any intention of undertaking a prolonged spell of missionary work, but merely to pay a brief passing visit on his journey further west, in order to make the acquaintance of the Roman Christians, of whom he had heard so much, and to receive at their hands a friendly and encouraging send-off when he leaves them for the scene of his new labours in Spain. It has often been asked, why St. Paul, if he meant that another had preached at Rome and been the founder of the Roman Church, did not mention his name? The answer is a very simple one: he was not writing for the information of students and critics of the twentieth century, but for the Roman Christians, who knew the facts. There had then been a founder of this great Church of world-wide fame with whom Paul was well acquainted and into whose special sphere of successful preaching he did not think it right to intrude. Who was he? [72] All tradition answers with one voice the name of St. Peter. In the next lecture I shall attempt to set forth the grounds on which this tradition rests, and to show that its acceptance, so far from being inconsistent with those fragments of early Christian history which have been preserved to us in the Acts and in the Epistles, serves to complete and bind them together and to explain much that is otherwise inexplicable in the rapid spread of Christianity in the three decades which followed the Great Day of Pentecost. _________________________________________________________________ [1] See Sir W. Ramsay’s Article in Hasting’s Dict. vol. v. ‘Roads and Travel in N.T. Times’; his Seven Churches, p. 15, and elsewhere in his writings. Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms, ii. 3; Sanday and Headlam, Ep. to Rom. p. xxvi; Merivale, St. Paul at Rome, p. 5; Miss C. Skeet, Travel in the First Century; Renan, Hibbert Lectures, 1850, ‘The Influence of the Institutions, Thought, and Culture of Rome on Christianity and the Development of the Catholic Church,’ Eng. tr., pp. 17–19. [2] Cicero (De Officiis, ii. 21) speaks of the number as 2000 in 102 B.C. [3] At the end of the Republic and under the Empire it was not a rare thing to meet rich Romans possessing many thousands. Under Augustus a simple freedman, C. Caecilius Isidorus, although he had lost a considerable part of his fortune during the civil wars, still left at his death 4116 slaves. Pliny, Historia Naturalis, xxxiii. 47. [4] Suetonius, Caesar, 41; Dion Cassius, xliii. 21. [5] Dion Cassius, lv, 10. [6] Among the upper classes it had become the fashion to speak and write Greek; for trade purposes and among the lowest classes of mixed race a debased Greek was used, as the language most generally understood. Juvenal, Sat. iii. 60 ‘Non possum ferre, Quirites, Graecam urbem’; ibid. 62 ‘Jam pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes.’ Also 73–80. [7] Berliner, Abraham (Geschichte der Juden in Rom, one of the best monographs on the subject), thinks that there must have been Jewish settlers in Rome before 63 B.C., or else it is difficult to account for Cicero, when pleading for Flaccus in 59 B.C., affecting to be intimidated by the crowd of Jews thronging the Aurelian steps—‘multitudinem Iudaeorum flagrantium nonnunquam in concionibus’ (Cic. pro Flacco xxviii.), and probably he was right. Cicero however was no doubt greatly exaggerating his fear for his advocate’s purpose. See Sanday and Headlam, Ep. to Rom. p. xix. [8] Philo, Leg. ad Caium, 568. [9] The Transtiberine ‘Ghetto,’ which was first removed across the river in 1556. [10] Schürer, Hist. of the Jewish People in N.T. Times, 2nd Div., vol. ii. pp. 234, 259, 264. Josephus (Ant. xiv.) gives a number of the edicts conferring these privileges. See also Suet. Caesar, 42. The action of Julius Caesar was the more remarkable as he took energetic steps to repress all collegia which were unable to prove ancient prescriptive rights and liberty of association generally. Consult also Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, vol. i. pp. 5–10, 350–371; Fouard, S. Pierre, c. xiv. ‘Les Juifs de Rome’; Renan, Hibbert Lectures, Eng. tr., pp. 45–55. [11] Josephus (Ant. xviii. 5) tells us that the anger of Tiberius was aroused by the complaint of Saturninus, a friend of the emperor, that his wife Fulvia, who was a proselyte, had been induced to give money for the service of the Temple at Jerusalem under false pretences. Suetonius (Vit. Tib. 36) writes: ‘Iudaeorum iuventutes per speciem sacramenti in provincias gravioris caeli distribuit, reliquos gentis eiusdem vel similia sectantes urbe summovit, sub poena perpetuae servitutis nisi obtemperassent.’ Tacitus (Ann. ii. 85) confirms the account of Josephus about the sending of this body of Jews to Sardinia and characteristically remarks ‘si ob gravitatem caeli interiissent; vile damnum.’ The action of Tiberius was confined to the Jews of Rome. [12] Much may be learnt about the position of the Jews in the Empire and of Caligula’s disposition towards them in Philo’s Legatio ad Caium, in which he gives an account of the reception by the emperor of a deputation from the Jews of Alexandria headed by himself. [13] Tacitus, Hist. v. 5 ‘Non regibus haec adulatio, non Caesaribus honor.’ [14] For the Herodian family at Rome see Josephus, Ant. xviii. 5, 6. [15] Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, i. 7–11; Schürer, 2 Div. ii. 220–242; Allard, Hist. de Perséc. c. i. sec. 1; Hardy, Studies in Roman Hist. pp. 14–28; Workman, Persecutions in Early Church, pp. 108–115. [16] These people, described in the Acts and elsewhere as sebomenoi (or phoboumenoi) ton Theon or simply as sebomeēoi, were by Schürer, in the 1st ed. of his Geschichte d. Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, described as being ‘the Proselytes of the Gate’ of the Talmud. He followed the commonly received opinion. He has however since then, by a careful study of inscriptions, been led to change his opinion. In his 4th ed. 1909 (iii. 173 ff.) he is able to show that the term ‘proselyte of the gate’ was not used until a much later period than that with which we are dealing, and that the real meaning is that given above, heathen who had partially adopted Judaism, but without becoming proselytes. See Kirsopp Lake, Early Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 37–39. [17] The synagogues in Rome were each separately organised and independent. The entire body of Jews of the capital were not allowed, as at Alexandria, to form a state within a state, self-administered with an Alabarch at their head. The names of seven synagogues have been discovered in the inscriptions of the ancient Jewish cemeteries: (1) Augoustēseōn, (2) Agrippēsiōn, (3) Bolumni, (4) Kampēsiōn, (5) Sibourēsiōn, (6) Aibreōn, (7) Elaias. The first two were probably the synagogues of the households of Augustus and Agrippa. The fourth and fifth belong to Jewish settlements on the outskirts of the Campus Martius and in the crowded Suburra. The third may have been built by some one of the name of Volumnus, or have been associated with him in some unknown way. The seventh, the synagogue of the Olive Tree, may have suggested the simile of Rom. xi. 17–24. The sixth inscription does not seem to have referred to any special synagogue but to have been a generic term, ‘a synagogue of the Hebrews (or Jews).’ In addition to settlements in the Suburra and near the Campus Martius, the discovery of two ancient Jewish cemeteries on the Appian Way, one of them close to the Porta Capena, bears evidence to yet another Jewish colony at this point, not inconsiderable in numbers. The Transtiberine, however, was always by far the largest of the Jewish quarters. See Schürer, 2 Div., ii. 247–249; Fouard, S. Pierre, pp. 316–322; Garrucci, Cimetero degli antichi Ebrei in Roma, and Marucchi, Elements d’Archéologie Chrétienne, vol. ii. pp. 208–226, 259–274. [18] For the chronology of these Lectures see Note A of the Appendix. [19] Tertullian (Apol. xxi.) says that the Church until the time of Nero’s persecution grew up under the shadow of the synagogue: ‘quasi sub umbraculo religionis insignissimae certe licitae.’ [20] Suet. Calig. 57. See also for later notices of Laureolus, Jos. Ant. xix. 18; Martial, Spect. 7; Tertullian, Valent. 14. In Mayor’s Juvenal, vol. ii. p. 40, the following note appears to Sat. viii. 167: ‘Laureolum Schol. In ipso mimo Laureolo figitur crux unde vera cruce dignus est Lentulus, qui tanto detestabilior est quanto melius gestum imitatus est scenicum. . . . Hic Lentulus nobilis fuit et suscepit servi personam in agendo mimo.’ [21] Suet. Claudius, 25 ‘Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.’ [22] CIL. vi. 10233. The following inscription, which I came across, seemed to me specially interesting from the collocation of the names Chrestus and Paula. ‘P. Ælius Chrestus et Cornelia Paula hoc scalare adplicitum huic sepulchro quod emerunt a fisco agente Agathonico proc [-uratore] Augustorum nostrorum quod habet scriptura infra scripta. Gentiano et Basso cons. vii Kal. April.’ Date, 211 A.D. [23] Tert. Apol. 3: ‘Sed ut cum perperam Chrestianos pronuntiatur a vobis, nam nec nominis certa est notitia penes vos’; Lact. Inst. Divin. iv. 17: ‘Sed exponenda huius nominis [Christi] ratio est propter ignorantium errorem, qui eum immutata litera Chrestum solent dicere.’ Compare the title Le Roy très Chréstien of the French Kings. [24] Dion Cassius, lx. 6: tous te Ioudaious, pleonasantas authis chalepōs an aneu tarachēs hupo tou ochlou sphōn tēs poleōs eirchthēnai, ouk exēlase men, tō de dē patriō nomō biō chrōmenous, ekeleuse mē sunathroizesthai. tas te hetaireias epanachtheisas hupo tou Gaiou dieluse. [25] I.e. a native of the Roman Province of Pontus. [26] For further details about Prisca and Aquila see Appendix, Note B. It is noteworthy that St. Paul according to the authority of the best authenticated readings always calls the wife Prisca, while St. Luke names her Priscilla. Both writers, except in one case, I Cor. xvi. 19, place the name of the wife first. St. Luke is wont to use the diminutive forms of names, which were usual in conversation, i.e. Priscilla, Silas, Sopatros; St. Paul the forms Prisca, Silvanus, Sosipatros. See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 267–8. [27] Plumptre, Biblical Studies, p. 417; Hort, Romans and Philippians, pp. 12–14; Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 253 f., 267 f.; Zahn, Intr. to N.T. i. 263, etc. etc. [28] For the good government of the Empire during the first five years of Nero’s reign, known in history as the quinquennium of Nero, see Henderson’s Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero. [29] Acts, xix, 21. [30] Acts, xix. 33-4. [31] Rom. xvi. 34: Aspasasthe Priskan kai Akulan tous sunergous mou en Christō Iēsou, hoitines huper tēs psuchēs mou ton heautōn trachēlon hupethēkan. Comp. 2 Cor. i. 8. The group of MSS. D, E, F, G, add par hois kai psenizomaa, pointing to the tradition in the Western Church that St. Paul lived at Ephesus in the house of Aquila and Prisca. [32] Acts, xix. 31. [33] 2 Cor. ii. 4, 5, 13; iv. 8-11; xi. 27-28; xii. 10, 20-21; Acts, xx. 19-25. [34] 2 Rom. i. 8: hē pistis humōn = your profession of Christianity. [35] Rom. xv. 14: Pepeismai de, adelphoi mou, kai autos egō peri humōn, hoti kai autoi mestoi este agathōsunēs, peplērōmenoi pasēs gnōseōs, dunamenoi kai allēlous nouthetein. Notice the emphatic position of kai autos egō. Compare xvi. 19: hē gar humōn hupakoē eis pantas aphiketo. [36] Rom. xv. 24. [37] 2 Cor. x. 12-18; xii. 11-13; and elsewhere. [38] Rom. xvi. 7. [39] There are grounds, as will appear in the sequel, for believing that Barnabas had already visited Rome. [40] Rom. i. 1: klētos apostolos, aphōrismenos eis euangelion theou. [41] Rom. i. 5: di hou [Iēsou Christou tou kuriou hēmōn] elabomen charin kai apostolēn eis hupakoēn pisteōs en pasin tois ethnesin. [42] Rom. i. 12: touto de estin sunparaklēthēnai en humin dia tēs en allēlois pisteōs humōn te kai emou. See Zahn, Int. to N.T. pp. 355-8, 369. Kirsopp Lake, Early Epist. of St. Paul, pp. 378-9. [43] Rom. ii. 17–29; iii. 1, 2; iv. 1. That this body of Judaeo-Christians were still active in Rome, and doing their utmost at a later time to counteract St. Paul’s influence and oppose his teaching, see Phil. i. 15, 16; iii. 1-6. It was to these same Jews that chap. xiv. 1–23 appears to have been addressed. The extreme particularity about meats and rigid asceticism were characteristic of the party of the circumcision. See Zahn, Int. to N.T. pp. 366-7. [44] So Sanday and Headlam give the force of the men oun in this verse. Commentary on Romans, p. 324. [45] Lit. glorify. [46] On St. Paul’s attitude towards Jewish Christianity and Judaism see the extremely interesting section of Harnack’s Neue Untersuchungen sur Apostelgeschichte, 1911 (Eng. tr. by Rev. J. R. Wilkinson in Crown Theol. Lib.), pp. 28–47. Of the evidence supplied by that section of the Epistle to the Romans from which these words are taken, Harnack writes: ‘Der Grosse Abschnitt—c. 9–11—ist aus der Feder eines Juden geflossen der mit allen Fasern seiner Seele an seinem Volke hängt’ (p. 31). And again concerning the simile of the olive-tree in c. xi.: ‘Man beachte wohl, das (gläubige) Israel kata sarka ist and bleibt “der güte Ölbaum” (gegenüber dem wilden Ölbaum der Heiden); jeder Israelit ist ein “naturlicher Zweig” dieses guten Ölbaums, wenn er auch unter Umständen abgehauen werden muss, and er d.h. das gläubige Israel kata sarka ist die Wurzel an deren Safte and Fettigkeit die eingepropften wilden Schösslinge teilnehmen und die sie trägt’ (p. 32). See also the quotation from Herzog in note. I have already pointed out the possibility that the name of one of the Roman synagogues ‘The Olive Tree’ may have suggested this simile to St. Paul. [47] Kirsopp Lake, The Early Epistles of St. Paul, their motive and origin, p. 325 ff. [48] Sanday and Headlam, Ep. to Romans, pp. xciii–xcv; Lightfoot, Ep. to Philippians, see dissertation on Caesar’s Household, pp. 169–176. [49] Zahn (Int. to N.T. i. 388) says: ‘Who does not see that all these personal references are due to Paul’s desire to make the Church feel that it is not such a stranger to him as it seems, and at the same time are indications of an effort on his part to bring himself into closer touch with the Church where as yet he was really a stranger?’ [50] Rom. xvi. 22.In the first-century Cemetery of Priscilla close to the mausoleum of the noble family of the Acilii there may be seen to-day a Greek inscription in red (a proof of its very early date): TERTIADELPhE EUPsUChIOUDIC AThANATOC The Tertius here mentioned is probably not St. Paul’s amanuensis, but there is no reason why he should not be. It is interesting that a well-authenticated tradition places the tombs of Aquila and Prisca in the vicinity of this inscription. Horace Marucchi, Eléments d’Archéologie Chrétienne, ii. 419. See also i. 104. [51] par hois kai xenizomai. D, F, lat, goth, Bede. [52] The Church of St. Prisca and the Cemetery of Priscilla. See Appendix, Special Note B. [53] Relegatio, not deportatio. Dion Cassius, lx. 6. [54] See Zahn, Int. to N.T. p. 390, for a useful comment on the movements of Aquila and Prisca. [55] See Marucchi, Eléments d’Archéologie Chrétienne, iii. p. 180 ff and 364 ff. [56] They would consist of people of every nationality, but among those converted to Christianity probably a large proportion were Orientals by race. [57] Compare Rom. ix. 3: ēuchomēn gar anathema einai autos egō apo tou christou huper tōn adelphōn mou, tōn sungenōn mou kata sarka, hoitines eisin Israēlitai. [58] aspasasthe Andronikon kai Iounian tous sungeneis mou kai sunaichmalōtous mou, hoitines eisin episēmoi en tois apostolois, ohi kai pro emou gegonan en Christō. It is possible that Iounian might be feminine = Junia, but it is generally taken as masculine, Junias an abbreviation for Junianus. [59] 2 Cor. xi. 23: en phulakais perissoterōs. [60] See Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, i. 398–412; Lightfoot, Epistle to Galatians, p. 93; Kirsopp Lake, Early Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 108–110. Comp. 2 Cor. viii. 23: apostoloi ekklēsiōn. [61] Acts, vi. 9. Andronicus and Junias may, of course, have been among the ‘strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes,’ who were converted on the Great Day of Pentecost. [62] Josephus, Ant. xx. 1. 2; Bell. Iud. ii. 11. 6. [63] Lightfoot, Epistle to Philippians, Dissertation on Caesar’s Household, p. 169; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 405–6. [64] Lanciani (p. 132) says that in certain columbaria on the Esquiline at least 370 members of the household of Statilius Taurus are buried. [65] Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 128–9; Hort, Romans and Ephesians, i. 52. [66] Rom. xv. 14-29. [67] v. 20 philotimoumenon = (lit.) priding myself, or endeavouring earnestly. [68] dio kai enekoptomēn ta polla tou elthein pros humas. ta polla seems to be the equivalent of the pollakis of i. 13 = the many times to which I have already referred: ‘ou thelō de humῠs agnoein, adelphoi, hoti pollakis proethemēn elthein pros humas kai ekōluthēn achri tou deuro.’ [69] epipothian. [70] These words are omitted in the best MSS., but are necessary to complete the sense. [71] Bigg, Comment on 1 Peter, pp. 73-4. [72] Professor Kirsopp Lake in his Early Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 378-9, writes: ‘St. Paul clearly implies that the Roman Church was another man’s foundation, and that he had hitherto refused to preach in such places where others had made a beginning: this was the reason why he had never yet been to Rome. “Wherefore” he says “I was greatly hindered from coming to you.” That “you” implies that the Church was someone else’s foundation and the “wherefore” explains that this was his reason for not coming. He then goes on to explain why he now proposes to depart from his principle: there is now “no place left for him in these districts,” i.e. from Jerusalem to Illyricum. Thus with a proper exegesis the meaning of this passage is that the Church of Rome was founded by some one else, and the question will always remain, why not St. Peter?’ A remarkable admission on the part of this writer. _________________________________________________________________ LECTURE II Romans, x. 14: ‘How shall they call on Him, in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?’ The narrative of St. Luke in that earlier part of the Acts of the Apostles which leads up and is introductory to the main theme of the work is obviously fragmentary. The object of the writer however stands out clearly. He intended to give such an account, step by step, of the beginnings of Christianity, as was necessary for a full understanding of the life-work and missionary labours of St. Paul up to the time of his captivity at Rome. Every episode appears to have been carefully selected with a definite and precise purpose, and if the story, as told by him, seems at times to be tantalisingly brief and scanty, even disjointed, we must remember that those for whom it was written had access to oral sources of information from persons who had witnessed or taken part in the events described, which would place each episode in its proper setting and give to it its rightful significance. This we cannot do now, but if we bear in mind that not only the facts recorded by Luke but even his silences are suggestive, we may, I think, by the help of evidence gathered in from various sources, from contemporary or nearly contemporary writings, from the accumulated results of archaeological research, and from well-authenticated tradition, be able to show that the spread of Christianity during the period covered by the Acts was not by any means confined to the sphere of Paul’s activity, nor intended to be so confined, but that one most important field was reserved for the Apostle who fills the foreground of the Lucan narrative up to the year 42 A.D. and then, except for a single brief appearance, is seen no more. It is, of course, evident from what I have said that I am assuming that St. Luke the physician, the travelling companion of St. Paul, was the author of the Acts of the Apostles. I do so without feeling that such an assumption at the present time requires defence. In these lectures it is my aim, as far as possible, to avoid the mere collecting or comparing of other men’s opinions, or the balancing of the authority of one set of scholars against another. It is the results of personal investigation into the history of the Church in Rome in the first century that I am now specially desirous of bringing before you, not a recapitulation of what has recently been written about that history. My own experience has taught me that the only way to arrive at conclusions in historical questions satisfying to the historical conscience is to study the original authorities for oneself with an independent mind, using indeed all the light and all the suggestions that modern critical scholarship can throw upon the many problems and difficulties that have to be solved, but never accepting any of the so-called ‘results of criticism’ without testing for oneself with the greatest care and at first hand the grounds on which they are supposed to rest. The case for the Lucan authorship of the Third Gospel and of the Acts I consider however to have been so thoroughly established by the remarkable series of works published by Sir William M. Ramsay [73] and Dr. Adolf Harnack [74] upon the subject, as to have been placed, if not beyond the reach of controversy—for alas ! the spirit of controversy is not quickly laid—on a solid bedrock of reasoned and exhaustive argument against which the waves of controversy will beat in vain. And not merely have they proved the unity of authorship. They have shown that we have in St. Luke a cultured writer possessed of literary power and historical grasp and well acquainted with the details of Roman provincial administration and of the distinct characteristics, geographical and political, of different localities, who in a considerable part of his work speaks as an eyewitness, and who elsewhere uses first-hand evidence, if at times with a certain freedom, yet always with honesty and intelligence. My own conviction that the book of the Acts must have been written during St. Paul’s first captivity at Rome and completed before his release has long been firmly held, but this conviction has been strengthened and deepened by the extraordinarily powerful way in which Dr. Harnack [75] has quite recently set forth in serried array the reasons which have slowly driven him to abandon his earlier prepossessions on this question, and forced him (in spite of the knowledge that he was—to use his own words—‘creating a revolution within the domain of criticism’ [76] ) to fix on grounds alike of external and of internal evidence the end of St. Paul’s imprisonment as the date when the Acts, in the form we now possess the book, was finished. It is needless to say that the acceptance of such a conclusion has a very important bearing on the subject of these lectures. For, if St. Luke wrote the Acts at Rome, the work must have been written in the first instance for the Roman Christians, but if so the question naturally arises, why should there be a total omission in the book of any reference to the founding of the Church in Rome or to the names of those who first preached the Gospel in that city? This is one of those silences of St. Luke, of which I have spoken already as being suggestive. A comparison of the last verses of the Third Gospel and of the Acts may help us to an answer. [77] Had the Gospel stood alone all commentators and critics would have asserted unanimously that the Evangelist believed the Ascension of our Lord to have taken place on the evening of the day of the Resurrection. [78] But from the opening passage of the Acts we learn that they would have been wrong, and that St. Luke in the conclusion of his Gospel deliberately foreshortened the events of six weeks in this way, because he intended to take up the thread of the story and fill in the details later. The. similar foreshortening of the events of two years, which we find in Acts xxviii. 30-1, suggests that St. Luke in writing this otherwise strangely puzzling and abrupt ending to his narrative had already planned in his mind a third book, which should supplement the Acts as the Acts had supplemented the Gospel, and that this book would have begun by taking up the account of Peter’s life-work, so sharply broken off at his release from prison, and that a brief sketch would have been given of the history of the Church in Rome previous to St. Paul’s two years’ministry during his captivity. With this preface let us now turn to those introductory chapters of the Acts in which St. Luke sketches for us the steps by which Christianity emerged from the condition of a strictly Jewish sect to that of a universal religion intended for all mankind. It will be seen that the enlargement of view, which is so clearly traced, was very gradual; that it came from below rather than from above; from the subordinates, to some extent from the rank and file, rather than from the acknowledged leaders. On the Great Day of Pentecost when St. Luke so carefully enumerates the various nationalities from which the great crowd of pilgrims was drawn, it should be noted that St. Peter addresses them as ‘Men of Israel,’ and his whole discourse is that of a man concerned only with proving to an assembly of Jews that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah of their sacred Scriptures. The passage is in fact a striking testimony both to the wide extent of the Jewish Diaspora and to the fact of the intense love and reverence for the Holy City and for the injunctions of the Mosaic Law, which brought together such a throng of worshippers from far-distant regions, including people speaking many different tongues, to this feast at Jerusalem. In the list of those forming St. Peter’s audience we find the names of six different peoples and the inhabitants of nine different districts, and it is implied that Jews from these various places had come up specially for the occasion—with one exception. The phrase ‘the sojourning Romans, Jews as well as proselytes’ seems capable of only one interpretation, that St. Luke is here referring to a body of Roman Jews and converts to Judaism, who were temporarily residing in Jerusalem, and whom it may be permitted with considerable probability to identify with the ‘Synagogue of the Libertines’ [79] mentioned in Acts vi. 9. Among this body may have been numbered the Roman Christians Junias and Andronicus, who were some quarter of a century later saluted by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans ‘as men of mark among the Apostles and who were in Christ before me.’ In his record of the period that follows St. Luke makes it quite clear that the first organised Christian community was at Jerusalem, not in Galilee. [80] After the day of Pentecost when certain of the multitude exclaimed ‘Are not all these that speak Galilaeans?’—there is not a word in the Acts to indicate that the early Church had any connexion with Galilee. The Twelve, whose authority, as being derived directly from the Lord, no one called in question, made Jerusalem their headquarters from this time forward, and from this centre carried on their mission work. But that mission work was limited to. Jews. The Twelve, moreover, we are expressly told, visited the Temple regularly [81] and they seem to have conformed in every way to the regulations of the Mosaic Law, and to have differed from the Jews amongst whom they lived only in that they taught that the crucified Jesus, to whose Resurrection from the Dead they bore personal testimony, had by His Resurrection proved Himself to be the Messiah. [82] Among the Twelve St. Peter on every occasion takes the lead and is the spokesman of the rest, and occupies a position of undisputed pre-eminence. [83] In all that they did during these years, which immediately followed their Lord’s departure from them, it is scarcely possible that these personal disciples should not have been acting in strict accordance with their Master’s last commands. Eventually they were to go forth upon a wider mission to the nations, but for awhile—an ancient tradition of considerable weight says definitely for twelve years [84] —they were to abide at Jerusalem, and restrict themselves to proclaiming in its simplest form the message of the Gospel to the Palestinian Jews, meanwhile resting in the promise that in the future whenever fresh calls should be made upon them they should receive illumination and guidance from the Holy Spirit. [85] Not until the sixth chapter of the Acts do we find any indication of a widening of view. But here reading between the lines of the brief narrative one cannot but feel something more than a suspicion that the movement of which the appointment of the Seven was the outcome, and at the head of which St. Stephen placed himself, was not one with which the Twelve were at the time in entire sympathy. The work to which St. Stephen specially addressed himself was the preaching of the Gospel to the members of those Synagogues which were set apart for the use of the Hellenistic settlers and sojourners in Jerusalem, i.e. for Jews of foreign origin, speaking a foreign tongue, and trained amidst Gentile associations. Those mentioned seem to belong in order of importance to the chief Jewish Colonies of the Dispersion. The first place, be it noted, is assigned to the Libertines or Roman freedmen, men conspicuous probably alike for their wealth and their close connexion with the Imperial City. Then come the Alexandrians, members of a Jewish settlement of ancient date and high culture, in numbers exceeding probably the entire population of Palestine. [86] And after them the Cyrenians, [87] second only to the Alexandrians in number, and like them thoroughly Hellenised. Lastly, mention is made of those of Cilicia and Asia—traders no doubt connected by ties of family and business with those characteristically Graeco-Asiatic cities, Tarsus and Ephesus. Among such a body of ‘Hellenists’ the message of the Gospel would naturally be interpreted in a larger and more universal sense than in those stricter ‘Hebrew’ circles to which as yet the Twelve had chiefly directed their appeal. What we do know is that St. Stephen’s ardour and activity and the special character of his teaching speedily aroused the intense enmity of the Jewish rulers. He was seized, brought before the Sanhedrim, and without proper trial or condemnation in a sudden outburst of fanatic fury stoned to death. It was the signal for a persecution which scattered far and wide those who had attached them-selves to him and the doctrines that he taught. [88] But fierce though the persecution was, St. Luke expressly tells us, it did not touch the Twelve. ‘They were all,’ we read ‘scattered abroad, except the Apostles.’ [89] Apparently at this time the accusers of Stephen did not regard the Twelve, and the Judaeo-Christians who held with them, as men ‘speaking against this Holy Place and trying to change the customs that Moses hath delivered unto us.’ As yet they (the original Apostles) seem not to have offended the susceptibilities of the High-Priestly caste by any neglect in their outward observance of the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish law. But tliis scattering abroad of the friends and disciples of Stephen was to be, under God’s providence, gradually productive of great results. It led directly to the conversion of Saul the persecutor. It brought Philip, one of the Seven, to Samaria, where many were converted by his preaching. Such indeed was his success that for the first time the Apostles broke through their rule of confining themselves to Jerusalem and its neighbourhood, and Peter and John, the two leaders, were sent to take official charge of the new field of missionary operations. And there at Samaria (mark the emphasis Luke lays upon the incident) Peter was confronted with the man who, under the name of Simon Magus, was according to tradition to exercise a large, perhaps a decisive, influence upon his action at a critical point in his career. [90] Nor was this all. After an interval, probably of some three years, [91] we find that persecution has for the time entirely ceased, and that already the Christian Church is peacefully and firmly established throughout the whole of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria, [92] and Peter engaged on a tour of visitation in all parts. [93] Finally he reaches Joppa and there takes up his abode for some time in the house, we are told, of one Simon a tanner. Now this very fact, that the Apostle chose to reside with a man whose trade in the eyes of strict orthodox Judaism was unclean, points to the advance he had already made in casting himself loose from the fetters of Jewish prejudice. The vision which sent him to Cornelius was probably the reflection of the doubts and questionings which had been previously filling his thoughts and an answer to his prayers. [94] It was a preparation for that which was to follow, for his visit to the Roman centurion was not merely to teach him that the law which forbade intercourse between Jew and Gentile was henceforth done away, but to open his eyes to the startling and all-important fact that it was the revealed will of God that uncircumcised Gentiles should be admitted to the full privileges of Christianity. The question how far such Gentiles would have to conform to the Jewish law was indeed not yet settled, nor was it to be settled without much prolonged and even embittered controversy in the years that were to come. The collocation by St. Luke in juxtaposition of the defence of St. Peter [95] to the brethren at Jerusalem for his action in regard to Cornelius, and of the news reaching those same brethren that certain men from Cyprus and Cyrene, on their own initiative, without sanction or authority from the Mother Church, were preaching to the Greeks at Antioch and had converted a large number of them to the faith, [96] was clearly intentional. St. Peter’s apologia was apparently somewhat grudgingly accepted, for there is little of spontaneous enthusiasm about the words—‘and when they had heard these things they held their peace and glorified God, saying “Then also—ara ge kai—to the Gentiles hath God granted repentance unto life.”’ On receiving information, therefore, about what was occurring at Antioch, it was only natural that those at the head of the Church in Jerusalem should determine to send to the Syrian capital one of their own body with instructions to inquire personally into the truth of the reports that had reached them, and to establish official control over a movement which seemed at first sight to be revolutionary, and which was in fact a long step in advance towards a totally new conception of the mission of Christianity in the world. Joseph, surnamed Barnabas, whom they selected as their emissary, was a man singularly well qualified for dealing wisely and sympathetically with the new situation. He had been intimately associated from the very first with the Jerusalem Church. [97] He was at once a Levite and a Cypriote Hellenist, and the surname which was given to him by the Apostles themselves tells us that he was a man endowed with prophetic gifts for the exposition and interpretation of Scripture. [98] And he was to remain for some years, probably to the end of his life, a mediator and reconciler between the opposing schools of thought and ideals of Christianity associated later with the names of St. James and St. Paul. It is noteworthy how large a part Barnabas, who had now gone to Antioch as the representative of the Church at Jerusalem, took in preparing the way for him who was to be pre-eminently the Apostle of the Gentiles. The two men may possibly have first become friends in their youth, when Saul of Tarsus was studying at the feet of Gamaliel. In any case when Saul, three years after his memorable conversion, came up to Jerusalem to make the acquaintance of Peter, he found, perhaps not unnaturally, that the brethren looked askance at the erstwhile persecutor, until Barnabas took him by the hand and, as it were, stood voucher for his good faith. [99] His reception, however, on this occasion appears to have been so far discouraging that Saul withdrew for a considerable time to his native place Tarsus. Thither Barnabas after a brief sojourn at Antioch now went to seek in his retirement the man whom he knew to be specially well fitted to act as his colleague at this juncture. His judgment and prevision were more than justified. For a whole year, we read in the Acts, Barnabas and Saul taught with such success that the assemblies of the faithful, whether of Jewish or Gentile origin, met together harmoniously and in such numbers [100] that even in this vast city, [101] of mixed population, professing every known variety of religion, the new sect became sufficiently large and well known to attract public attention. The scoffing nick-name, Christiani, was now for the first time given to the disciples of Jesus by the pagan Antiocheans—a term of shame and reproach, which soon was to become a title of glory. While at Antioch under the leadership of Barnabas the preaching of the Gospel was thus making rapid progress, events were taking place in Judaea of critical importance for the future of the Church. The peace which the Christians in Palestine enjoyed in the period preceding the conversion of Cornelius had been due, not to any increase of good-will on the part of the Jewish rulers, but to the fact that thesewere too much occupied at that time with their own serious troubles. The order given by the Emperor Caligula to place his statue in the Holy of Holies had filled the whole nation with horror and made them resolve rather to be massacred than allow such a profanation of the Temple. [102] The assassination of Caligula alone averted a general revolt. According to Josephus, Herod Agrippa, who was then in Rome, played a very important part in securing the peaceful accession of Claudius, who rewarded him for his services by bestowing upon him, in addition to Galilee, Peraea and the territory beyond the Jordan with which he had been invested by Caligula, also Judaea, Samaria and Abilene, making his kingdom thus equal in extent to that of his grandfather Herod the Great. [103] Claudius became emperor, January 24, 41 A.D., and towards the end of that year King Agrippa went to Palestine with the intention of using every means to ingratiate himself with his new subjects. He was especially desirous of impressing them with his careful observance of the Mosaic law and his zeal for the national religion, being to some extent suspect through his long residence in Rome and alien descent. [104] Accordingly having gone to Jerusalem to keep the first Passover after his accession, he resolved to give a signal mark of his fervour as a defender of the faith, by the summary execution of James the son of Zebedee. Possibly he was the only one of the Christian leaders on whom for the moment he could lay hands. But finding his action had pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also, and, as the days of unleavened bread had already begun, he placed the Apostle in prison under the strictest guard with the intention of bringing him forth before the people as soon as the Passover was over. [105] The story of his escape as told by St. Luke, which ends so abruptly, has every internal mark of having been derived directly from the maid-servant Rhoda, whose name is otherwise so unnecessarily mentioned. We learn from this graphic narrative that the house in Jerusalem where the disciples were accustomed to hold their gatherings for prayer was that of Mary, the mother of John Mark, and the aunt of Barnabas. It was to this house that the Apostle naturally turned his steps, as soon as he found himself outside the prison gates, but with no intention of remaining in so well known a spot. As he entered the room with a movement of his hand he at once checked their cries of astonishment, briefly told his tale, probably almost in the rapid words recorded, asked his hearers to repeat it to James and the brethren, and then immediately, while it was still dark, he went out to betake himself to a more secure hiding-place. And as the Apostle disappears into the obscurity of the night, so does he, so far as his active career is concerned, disappear henceforth from the pages of St. Luke’s history. There are difficulties in this brief account of the Herodian persecution of the spring of 42 A.D. There is no hint that the Twelve were at Jerusalem at this critical time. St. Peter himself does not seem to have been there when St. James was beheaded. His parting words point to two conclusions: (1) that the other James, the Lord’s Brother, was already the recognised head of the Jerusalem community; and (2) that the speaker had no expectation of being able to tell his tale to ‘James and the brethren’ in person. The explanation however lies to our hand, if we accept the ancient and well-attested tradition of which I have already spoken, that the Lord Jesus had bidden his Apostles to make Jerusalem the centre of their missionary activity for twelve years, after which they were to disperse and go forth to preach to the nations. Already before Herod Agrippa struck his blow the Twelve had begun to set out each one to his allotted sphere of evangelisation, the care of the Mother Church being confided to James, the Lord’s Brother, assisted by a body of presbyters, of whom he was one, but over whom he presided with something of monarchical authority. It would be an anachronism to give him the Gentile title of Bishop, but in this earliest constitution of the Jerusalem Church we have the model which other Churches were to follow and out of which episcopacy grew. But even if this be granted, it throws no light on the after-life of St. Peter. For his after-life we have again to fall back mainly upon tradition, a tradition already referred to by me at the close of my first lecture, which makes St. Peter to have been the founder of the Church in Rome. St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans, as I have shown, speaks of that Church as already in 57 A.D. long established and of world-wide repute, into which as being built on another man’s foundation he had not thought it right to intrude. [106] The question then arises, what grounds are there for believing that the man to whom he refers was St. Peter? Now there are traditions and traditions. First let it be premised that we are not dealing here with a tradition handed down orally by illiterate people. Not that oral tradition is to be neglected or despised. There is abundant evidence to show with what accuracy historical traditions including long lists of names have been handed down from generation to generation even among tribes unacquainted with writing. After describing the pre-Hispanic civilisation in Peru, a recent writer remarks: ‘It is not surprising, in spite of the fact that no form of writing was known, that the people capable of such political organisation had pre-served in traditional form much of their early history. Feats of memory, which seem almost miraculous to civilised races, who have become dependent on written records, have been chronicled of several peoples below the Peruvians in the scale of culture. The nobility among the Polynesians received regular instruction in their past history, and the chiefs could repeat long genealogies, which had been faith-fully handed down from generation to generation. Even among African races traditional records are not unknown, and in one case a list of even one hundred chiefs, together with historical details, has been recently obtained from a tribe in the heart of the Southern Belgian Congo.’ [107] In the first century, however, in Rome and in all the chief centres of population, where the early Christian Churches were established, writing was familiarly employed by all classes. At one time it was assumed, with an assurance that had absolutely no basis, that the events of early Christian history could only have been known through oral transmission, that it was most unlikely that anything was committed to writing at the time, and the idea that the separate Churches kept any records of the appointment of their officers, or any statements concerning the various vicissitudes of their fortunes, was dismissed as untenable. ‘There is a very strong body of opinion,’ said Sir W. Ramsay [108] about nine years ago, ‘that the earliest Christians wrote little or nothing. It is supposed that partly they were either unable to write or at least unused to the familiar employment of writing for the purposes of ordinary life. Put aside that prejudice, and the whole body of opinion, which maintains that the Christians at first did not set down anything in writing about the life and death of Christ, strongly and widely accepted as it is, dominating as a fundamental premise much of the discussion of this whole subject in recent times, is devoid of any support. . . . One of the initial presumptions, plausible in appearance and almost universally assumed and conceded, is that there was no early registration of the great events in the beginning of Christian history. This presumption we must set aside as a mere prejudice, contrary to the whole spirit and character of that age and entirely improbable.’ Such a presumption has in fact been proved by recent discoveries to be in all probability quite erroneous, and indeed there are strong grounds for making an assumption of a precisely opposite character, i.e. that the chief Christian Churches did keep more or less regular archives, which, like the bulk of ancient records, perished through fire or other accidents, [109] through the ruthless sacking of the city by barbarian conquerors, and in the case of these Christian archives by systematic destruction at the hands of the imperial authorities, more especially during the persecution of Diocletian. But though the documents themselves disappeared, [110] the memory of their contents would remain to be worked up afresh into new narratives tinged with the opinions, beliefs and modes of thought of the time at which they were written, and in such a setting as the pious fancy of the compilers thought to be edifying, and in harmony with their subject. What criteria then, it may be asked, have we for judging whether these later Acts and Passions of Saints and Martyrs contain in the midst of apocryphal accretion a real core of sound and trustworthy historical fact? A tradition before it can be accepted as embodying authentic history should, I think, satisfy the following conditions: (1) It must be concerned with an event or series of events that had a great number of witnesses, and of witnesses who would have a strong motive to record or bear in memory what they had seen. (2) The beginning of the tradition should appear at a time not too remote from the facts it records, at a time, that is to say, in which it should not be possible for the notices handed down by contemporaries to be obscured. (3) Shortly after that time to which the beginning of the tradition goes back there should appear in the community to which it relates a firm and general persuasion of its truth. (4) This persuasion should spread gradually until everywhere the facts are accepted as true without any doubts being raised even by those who, had they not been plainly true, would have desired to reject them. Let us now apply these criteria to the Petrine tradition at Rome. That Peter visited Rome between the years 62 A.D. and 65 A.D. and that he was put to death there by crucifixion is admitted by everyone who studies the evidence in a fair and reasonable spirit. [111] This is not a tradition, it may rather be described as a fact vouched for by contemporary or nearly contemporary evidence. On this point no statement could be stronger than that of Professor Lanciani: ‘I write about the monuments of Rome from a strictly archaeological point of view, avoiding questions which pertain or are supposed to pertain to religious controversy. For the archaeologist, the presence and execution of SS. Peter and Paul in Rome are facts established beyond a shadow of doubt by purely monumental evidence.’ It is now generally conceded that the first epistle bearing the name of Peter was written from Rome. The ‘Apocalypse of St. John’ and the ‘Sibylline Oracles’ show that Babylon was a common synonym for Rome in the second half of the first century. [112] The language of Clement of Rome [113] in his Epistle to the Corinthians leaves no doubt—for it is the witness of a contemporary—that Peter was martyred at Rome. ‘But leaving ancient examples let us come to the athletes who were very near to our own times, let us take the illustrious examples of our own generation. . . . Peter who through unjust jealousy endured not one or two but many sufferings and so having borne witness—marturēsas—departed to the place of glory that was his due.’ The statement in the apocalyptic ‘Ascension of Isaiah’ [114] —also the work of a contemporary—that ‘a lawless king, the slayer of his mother, will persecute the plant which the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be delivered into his hands’ can scarcely refer to another event than the death of Peter at the time of the Neronian persecution. A comparison of St. John xxi. 18, 19 with St. John xiii. 36, 37 and with 2 Peter i. 14 is evidence as to the manner of that death. The question of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel or of 2 Peter is immaterial, for the writers, whoever they were, belong to the first century, and the testimony to the received belief of the Christian Church which they give is authentic. But a solitary brief visit to Rome after St. Paul had previously spent in that city two years of fruitful work does not account for the position assigned by tradition to St. Peter in relation to the Roman Church. Though the two names are on several occasions coupled together, as joint founders of the Roman Church, in all the earliest notices in which the two are named together the name of Peter stands first. Thus Ignatius in his Epistle to the Romans written about 109 A.D. says: ‘I do not command you like Peter and Paul; they were Apostles; I am a condemned criminal.’ [115] Dionysius of Corinth 171 A.D. writing to Soter bishop of Rome [116] a speaks ‘of the plantation by Peter and Paul that took place among the Romans and Corinthians.’ Irenaeus a few years later is filled with respect for ‘the most great and ancient and universally known Church established at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, and also the faith declared to men, which comes down to our own time through the succession of her bishops. For unto this Church, on account of its more powerful lead, every Church, meaning the faithful who are from everywhere, must needs resort; since in it that tradition which is from the Apostles has been preserved by those who are from everywhere. The Blessed Apostles, having founded and established the Church, entrusted the office of the episcopate to Linus. Paul speaks of this Linus in his epistles to Timothy, Anencletus succeeded him, and after Anencletus, in the third place from the Apostles, Clement received the episcopate.’ Now Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, and acquainted with others who had known St. John, and who in 177 A.D. became bishop of Lyons, had spent some years in Rome. This passage was written, as he tells us, in the time of Eleutherus, probably about 180 A.D. [117] Eusebius of Caesarea has left us two lists of the Roman bishops, one in his ‘Ecclesiastical History,’ the other in his ‘Chronicle.’ The first is the list of Irenaeus, the beginning of which has just been quoted. The second is derived from the lost ‘Chronicle’ of Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, written about half a century later. In the ‘Chronicle’ St. Peter’s episcopate at Rome is stated to have lasted twenty-five years. [118] In the ‘Ecclesiastical History’ we read—‘under the reign of Claudius by the benign and gracious providence of God, Peter that great and powerful apostle, who by his courage took the lead of all the rest, was conducted to Rome.’ In other passages his martyrdom with that of Paul is represented as taking place after Nero’s persecution. [119] The interval between these two dates would roughly be about twenty-five years. Now it is evident that these figures, derived as they are from men like Irenaeus and Hippolytus, who had access to the archives and traditions in Rome itself, cannot be dismissed as pure fiction. They must have a basis of fact behind them. Eusebius tells us ‘that after the martyrdom of Paul and Peter Linus was the first that received the episcopate at Rome.’ Now the date of this martyrdom was according to the received tradition the fourteenth year of Nero or 67 A.D.; if then we deduct twenty-five years, we arrive at 42 A.D., which is precisely the date given for St. Peter’s first visit to Rome by St. Jerome in his work ‘De Viris Illustribus.’ Remembering that Jerome was a translator of the Eusebian Chronicle his words may be taken to embody a close acquaintance with Eusebius’ works, including his lost ‘Records of Ancient Martyrdoms,’ and with the sources that he used. Jerome writes as follows: ‘Simon Peter, prince of the Apostles, after an episcopate of the Church at Antioch and preaching to the dispersion of those of the circumcision, who had believed in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, in the second year of Claudius goes to Rome to oppose Simon Magus, and there for twenty-five years he held the sacerdotal chair until the last year of Nero, that is the fourteenth.’ [120] Now here amidst a certain confusion, which will be dealt with presently, a definite date is given for Peter’s first arrival at Rome, and, be it noted, it is the date of his escape from Herod Agrippa’s persecution and his disappearance from the narrative of the Acts. This evidence of Jerome, it will be thus seen, rests upon that of Eusebius, and that of the earlier authorities which that historian consulted. It has been said that one of the conditions of the soundness of an historical tradition was the wideness and unanimity of its reception. Now probably never was any tradition accepted so universally, and without a single dissentient voice, as that which associates the foundation and organisation of the Church of Rome with the name of St. Peter and which speaks of his active connexion with that Church as extending over a period of some twenty-five years. It is needless to multiply references. In Egypt and in Africa, in the East and in the West, no other place ever disputed with Rome the honour of being the see of St. Peter; no other place ever claimed that he died there or that it possessed his tomb. Most significant of all is the consensus of the Oriental, non-Greek-speaking, Churches. A close examination of Armenian and Syrian MSS., [121] and in the case of the latter both of Nestorian and Jacobite authorities, through several centuries, has failed to discover a single writer who did not accept the Roman Petrine tradition. No less striking is the local evidence (still existing) for a considerable residence of St. Peter in Rome. ‘There is no doubt,’ is the judgment of Lanciani, once more to quote his well-known work ‘Pagan and Christian Rome’ (p. 212), ‘that the likenesses of St. Peter and St. Paul have been carefully preserved in Rome ever since their lifetime, they are familiar to every one, even to school-children. These portraits have come down to us by scores. They are painted in the cubiculi of the Catacombs, engraved in gold leaf in the so-called vetri cemeteriali, cast in bronze, hammered in silver or copper, and designed in mosaic. The type never varies. St. Peter’s face is full and strong with short curly hair and beard, while St. Paul appears more wiry and thin, slightly bald with a long pointed beard. The antiquity and the genuineness of both types cannot be doubted.’ Other noticeable facts are: (l) the appearance of the name of Peter, both in Greek and Latin, among the inscriptions of the most ancient Christian cemeteries, especially in the first-century catacomb of Priscilla. [122] The appearance of this unusual name on these early Christian tombs can most easily be explained by the supposition that either those who bore it or their parents had been baptised by Peter. In any case it may be taken that his memory was held in especial reverence by them. Again, on a large number of early Christian sarcophagi now in the Lateran Museum the imprisonment of Peter by Herod Agrippa and his release by the angel is represented. The French historian of the ‘Persecutions of the first two Centuries,’ Paul Allard, [123] was the first to point out that the frequency with which this subject was chosen might be accounted for by the existence of a traditional belief in a close connexion between this event and the first visit of St. Peter to Rome. Orazio Marucchi, the learned and accomplished pupil and successor of De Rossi, in his latest volume upon recent researches in the catacombs, commenting upon this suggestion of Allard, adds that this scene is often united to others, in which Moses and Peter appear as the representative founders of the Jewish and Christian Churches with particular reference to the Church in Rome. [124] In some representations may be seen the Lord handing to Peter a volume on which is written Lex Domini, or beneath which is the legend Dominus Legem Dat. [125] More remarkable still are those in which Moses, with the well-known traits of St. Peter, strikes the rock out of which flow the waters of cleansing through baptism in the name of Jesus Christ. [126] Taken together all these authentic records of the impressions that had been left upon the minds of the primitive Roman Church of a close personal connexion between that Church and the Apostle Peter cannot be disregarded. They are existent to-day to tell their own tale. Once more the number of legends and the quantity of apocryphal literature that grew up around the Petrine tradition are witnesses not merely to the hold that it had upon popular regard but to its historical reality. Many of these legends, much of this literature may in the main be evidently fictitious, but even in those which are most clearly works of imagination, there is almost always a kernel of truth overlaid with invention. [127] It is perfectly well known that most of these documents have behind them other documents, which are now lost, but out of which those we now possess have grown by gradual accretions and interpolations. [128] But it is not impossible even now for sound and scholarly criticism to arrive with fair certainty in many cases at the ultimate basis of fact on which the edifice of fiction rests. One of these apocryphal documents we have in a very early form—the Ebionite ‘Preaching of Peter’—which was produced in the first decade of the second century; as a proof of its early date it may be mentioned that it was used by Heracleon in Hadrian’s time. [129] The work bears on the face of it testimony to the fact that Peter did labour and preach at Rome, for it was written at a time when some of those who actually saw and heard him may have been still alive, and there must have been numbers whose fathers were grown-up men even in the time of Claudius. The traditions connected with the cemetery ‘ad Nymphas’ where Peter baptised, with the primitive chair now in St. Peter’s Basilica, with the very ancient churches of St. Pudenziana, St. Prisca and St. Clement, with the Quo Vadis? story, whatever their real historical value or lack of value, undoubtedly stretch back long before the fifth and sixth centuries, when pilgrims flocked to Rome with their ‘itineraries’ in their hands, and they spring from a general and deep-rooted belief in a long and active ministry of the Apostle in the See that had become identified with his name. [130] Returning then once more to the undisputedly historical ground of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, we find that in 57 A.D. there was in Rome a Christian community not of yesterday, but of many years’ standing: an important community, whose faith and whose high repute were well known in all churches of the Empire with which the writer was acquainted. Further that St. Paul himself for some years past had been longing to visit this Rdman community, but had been hindered from doing so by the restriction he had imposed upon himself of not building on another man’s foundation. If again the question be repeated—Who was this man? with greater emphasis than before the same answer must be returned—It cannot be any other than St. Peter. But having arrived so far, we are confronted with certain difficulties that arise in making this earlier ministry of St. Peter at Rome fit in with the New Testament records relating to the same period. These difficulties will be dealt with in the next lecture. To-day I shall confine myself to pointing out that the circumstances which led to St. Peter’s mission to Rome very soon after his escape from prison in the second year of Claudius were strictly analogous to those described in the earlier part of the present lecture, which led first to the mission of Peter accompanied by John to Samaria, and then to that of Barnabas to Antioch. The dispersion of the Hellenist disciples of St. Stephen, after the persecution in which their brilliant leader died a martyr’s death, was the direct cause of the evangelisation first of Samaria and then some years later of Syrian Antioch. Philip, like Stephen one of the Seven, preache