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

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.'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.

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.'Cicero (De Officiis, ii. 21) speaks of the number as 2000 in 102 B.C. Each of these possessed vast numbers of slaves,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. 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 CaesarSuetonius, Caesar, 41; Dion Cassius, xliii. 21. no fewer than 320,000 were supported by the state, and though Augustus was able to reduce this multitude of paupers to 200,000,Dion Cassius, lv, 10. 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.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.

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 originBerliner, 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. 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 manumittedPhilo, Leg. ad Caium, 568. that they were able to form a community apart on the far side of the Tiber.The Transtiberine ‘Ghetto,' which was first removed across the river in 1556. 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.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. Once in the reign of TiberiusJosephus (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. 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.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. 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.Tacitus, Hist. v. 5 ‘Non regibus haec adulatio, non Caesaribus honor.' 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.For the Herodian family at Rome see Josephus, Ant. xviii. 5, 6. 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.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. 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'These people, described in the Acts and elsewhere as σεβόμενοι (or φοβούμενοι) τὸν Θεόν or simply as σεβόμεηοι, 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. (σεβόμενοι τὸν Θεόν), i.e. people who adopted the Jewish monotheism, attended the synagogueThe 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) Αὐγουστησέων, (2) Ἀγριππησίων, (3) Bolumni, (4) Καμπησίων, (5) Σιβουρησίων, (6) Ἀιβρέων, (7) Ἐλαίας. 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. 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.For the chronology of these Lectures see Note A of the Appendix. 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.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.' 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.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.'

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.'Suet. Claudius, 25 ‘Iudaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.' 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,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. and both Tertullian and LactantiusTert. 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. 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 CassiusDion Cassius, lx. 6: τούς τε Ἰουδαίους, πλεονάσαντας αὖθις χαλεπῶς ἂν ἄνευ ταραχῆς ὑπὸ τοῦ ὄχλου σφῶν τῆς πόλεως εἰρχθῆναι, οὐκ ἐξήλασε μέν, τῷ δὲ δὴ πατρίῳ νόμῳ βίῳ χρωμένους, ἐκέλευσε μὴ συναθροίζεσθαι. τάς τε ἑταιρείας ἐπαναχθείσας ὑπὸ τοῦ Γαίου διέλυσε. 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 PontianI.e. a native of the Roman Province of Pontus. 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.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. 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.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.

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.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. 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.'Acts, xix, 21. 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,Acts, xix. 33-4. 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,Rom. xvi. 34: Ἀσπάσασθε Πρίσκαν καί Ἀκύλαν τοὺς συνεργούς μου ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, οἵτινες ὑπὲρ τῆς ψυχῆς μου τὸν ἑαυτῶν τράχηλον ὑπέθηκαν. Comp. 2 Cor. i. 8. The group of MSS. D, E, F, G, add παῤ οἷς καί ψενίζομαα, pointing to the tradition in the Western Church that St. Paul lived at Ephesus in the house of Aquila and Prisca. 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 compelledActs, xix. 31. 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,2 Cor. ii. 4, 5, 13; iv. 8-11; xi. 27-28; xii. 10, 20-21; Acts, xx. 19-25. 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 faith2 Rom. i. 8: ἡ πίστις ὑμῶν = your profession of Christianity. 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.'Rom. xv. 14: Πέπεισμαι δέ, ἀδελφοί μου, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐγὼ περὶ ὑμῶν, ὅτι καὶ αὐτοὶ μεστοί ἐστε ἀγαθωσύνης, πεπληρωμένοι πάσης γνώσεως, δυνάμενοι καὶ ἀλλήλους νουθετεῖν. Notice the emphatic position of καὶ αὐτὸς ἐγώ. Compare xvi. 19: ἡ γὰρ ὑμῶν ὑπακοὴ εἰς πάντας ἀφίκετο. 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.Rom. xv. 24. 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,2 Cor. x. 12-18; xii. 11-13; and elsewhere. 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,Rom. xvi. 7. whom later he describes as ‘apostles of note,' differed—perhaps it is implied—even from that of so eminent a man as Barnabas,There are grounds, as will appear in the sequel, for believing that Barnabas had already visited Rome. in that he [Paul] like the Twelve had been chosen out and set apartRom. i. 1: κλητὸς ἀπὸστολος, ἀφωρισμένος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ. 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.Rom. i. 5: δἰ οὗ [Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν] ἐλάβομεν χάριν καὶ ἀποστολὴν εἰς ὑπακοὴν πίστεως ἐν πᾶσιν τοῖς ἔθνεσιν. 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.'Rom. i. 12: τοῦτο δέ ἐστιν συνπαρακληθῆναι ἐν ὑμῖν διὰ τῆς ἐν ἀλλήλοις πιστέως ὑμῶν τε καὶ ἐμοῦ. See Zahn, Int. to N.T. pp. 355-8, 369. Kirsopp Lake, Early Epist. of St. Paul, pp. 378-9.

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.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. 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,So Sanday and Headlam give the force of the μὲν οὖν in this verse. Commentary on Romans, p. 324. in so far as I am the Gentiles' Apostle I make-the-most-ofLit. glorify. my ministry; if by any means I may stir to jealousy my own flesh and might save some.'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 κατὰ σάρκα 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 κατὰ σάρκα 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.

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.'Kirsopp Lake, The Early Epistles of St. Paul, their motive and origin, p. 325 ff. 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.Sanday and Headlam, Ep. to Romans, pp. xciii–xcv; Lightfoot, Ep. to Philippians, see dissertation on Caesar's Household, pp. 169–176. 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.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?' 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.'

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):

ΤΕΡΤΙΑΔΕΛΦΕ
ΕΥΨΥΧΙΟΥΔΙC
ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟC

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.

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.'παῤ οἷς καὶ ξενίζομαι. D, F, lat, goth, Bede. 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.The Church of St. Prisca and the Cemetery of Priscilla. See Appendix, Special Note B. 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.Relegatio, not deportatio. Dion Cassius, lx. 6. 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.See Zahn, Int. to N.T. p. 390, for a useful comment on the movements of Aquila and Prisca.

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.See Marucchi, Eléments d'Archéologie Chrétienne, iii. p. 180 ff and 364 ff. 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.They would consist of people of every nationality, but among those converted to Christianity probably a large proportion were Orientals by race. Certain of these are addressed by the Apostle as kinsmen (συγγενεῖς), and it is safe to assume that these were Jewish fellow-countrymen.Compare Rom. ix. 3: ηὐχόμην γὰρ ἀνάθεμα εἶναι αὐτὸς ἐγὼ ἀπὸ τοῦ χριστοῦ ὑπὲρ τῶν ἀδελφῶν μου, τῶν συγγενῶν μου κατὰ σάρκα, οἵτινές εἰσιν Ἰσραηλῖται. 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'ἀσπάσασθε Ἀνδρόνικον καὶ Ἰουνιᾶν τοὺς συγγενεῖς μου καὶ συναιχμαλώτους μου, οἵτινές εἰσιν ἐπίσημοι ἐν τοῖς ἀποστόλοις, οἳ καὶ πρὸ ἐμοῦ γέγοναν ἐν Χριστῷ. It is possible that Ἰουνίαν might be feminine = Junia, but it is generally taken as masculine, Junias an abbreviation for Junianus. 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 imprisonments2 Cor. xi. 23: ἐν φυλακαῖς περισσοτέρως. 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.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: ἀπόστολοι ἐκκλησιῶν. 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'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. 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 JosephusJosephus, Ant. xx. 1. 2; Bell. Iud. ii. 11. 6. 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.Lightfoot, Epistle to Philippians, Dissertation on Caesar's Household, p. 169; Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 405–6. 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.Lanciani (p. 132) says that in certain columbaria on the Esquiline at least 370 members of the household of Statilius Taurus are buried. 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.'Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp. 128–9; Hort, Romans and Ephesians, i. 52.

And now we come to a consideration of the all-important autobiographic passage in the fifteenth chapter,Rom. xv. 14-29. 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-carev. 20 φιλοτιμούμενον = (lit.) priding myself, or endeavouring earnestly. to preach not where Christ was named lest I should build upon another man's foundation,' Paul proceeds ‘wherefore also I was hindered many timesδιὸ καὶ ἐνεκοπτόμην τὰ πολλὰ τοῦ ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς. τὰ πολλὰ seems to be the equivalent of the πολλάκις of i. 13 = the many times to which I have already referred: ‘οὐ θέλω δὲ ὑμῠς ἀγνοεῖν, ἀδελφοί, ὅτι πολλάκις προεθέμην ἐλθεῖν πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ ἐκωλύθην ἄχρι τοῦ δεῦρο.' from coming to you. But now having no more place in these regions and having had these many years a keen-longingἐπιποθίαν. to come to you, whenever I journey to Spain [I will come to you]These words are omitted in the best MSS., but are necessary to complete the sense. 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.Bigg, Comment on 1 Peter, pp. 73-4. 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?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. 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.

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. RamsayThe Church in the Roman Empire before A.D. 170, 3rd ed. 1894; St. Paul the Traveller and Roman Citizen, 7th ed. 1903; A Historical Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians; The Cities of St. Paul; Luke the Physician and other Studies in the History of Religion, 1908; The First Christian Century, 1911, etc. etc. and Dr. Adolf HarnackLukas, der Arzt, der Verfasser des dritten Evangeliums und der Apostelgeschichte, 1906; Sprüche and Reden Jesu. Die zweite Quelle des Matthäus and Lukas, 1907; Die Apostelgeschichte, 1908; Neue Untersuchungen zur Apostelgeschichte, etc., 1911. All these volumes have been translated into English and published as vols. xx. xxiii. xxvii. and xxxiii. of the Crown Theological Library. 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. HarnackNeue Untersuchungen zur Apostelgeschichte, pp. 63–81. In this volume Dr. Harnack completes his defence of the date 62 A.D. for the Acts in favour of which he had already argued in his Apostelgeschichte, 5 Excurs, 217–221. How strong was the case he made out even in this earlier and more tentative argument may be judged by the following extract from Neue Untersuchungen, p. 64: ‘Nicht auffallend aber konnte es nur sein, dass andere sich durch die starken Argumente für die frühe Abfassung der lukanischen Schriften als vollkommen überzeugt erklärten. Nicht nur Delbrück hielt mir sofort vor, ich hätte mich in einer von mir selbst sicher entschiedenen Frage mit unnötiger Zurückhaltung ausgedrückt, sondern auch Maurenbrecher erkannte in meinen Beweisführungen die Lösung des chronologischen Problems. In seinem Werk “Von Nazareth nach Golgatha” (1909) S. 22–30, gibt er die wichtigsten der von mir geltend gemachten Beobachtungen für eine frühe Abfassungszeit der Acta zutreffend und eindrucksvoll wieder and beschliesst seine Darlegung also: “Die Annahme (eines späteren Ursprungs and geschichtlichen Wertlosigkeit der Lukasschriften) ist neuerdings immermehr gefallen and schliesslich durch eine gründliche Untersuchung von Prof. Harnack in allen Teilen gänzlich widerlegt and beseitigt worden. Viel mehr hat sich nach jeder Richtung hin, wenn auch nicht die unbedingte Glaubwürdigkeit, so doch das hohe Alter der Apostelgeschichte ergeben. Und wenn Prof. H. selbst nur zögernd und erst nur in letzten Moment seiner Arbeit die Konsequenz seiner Ergebnisse auch für die Datierung zog, so muss man doch sagen, dass nur in jener von ihm vorgeschlagenen Weise so wohl der Schlusssatz der Acta wie die ganze Tenor des Buchs verständlich wird, und dass daher schon um dieses äusseren Zeugnisses willen die Datierung auf d. J. 62 als bewiesen und nicht nur als möglich zu gelten hat.”' 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'Eine Revolution innerhaib der Kritik, p. 65. ) 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.St. Luke, xxiv. 50-53; Acts, xxviii. 29-31. 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.Codex Bezae D and the first hand of the Sinaitic Codex א‎¹ omit καὶ ἀνεφέρετο εἰς τὸν οὐρανόν. The difficulty which these words raised was probably the reason for their omission. 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'An inscription at Pompeii contains the words ‘Synagoga Libertinorum,' Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, p. 310. 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.A striking testimony to the authenticity of the Johannine account of our Lord's ministry. Had our Lord's mission been confined to Galilee up to the last week of His life, as the Synoptic narratives appear to suggest, it is almost inconceivable that the home of the Christian Church should from the very first have been at Jerusalem. 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 regularlySt. Luke, xxiv. 52, 53; Acts, ii. 46; iii. 1; v. 12, 25, 42. 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.Acts, ii. 32-36; iii. 14, 15, 20, 21, 26; iv. 10, 33; v. 30-32, 42. 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.St. John is singled out on several occasions by name, as being second only to St. Peter in influence and authority; see Acts, iii. 1; iv. 13; viii. 14. Compare Gal. i. 18; ii. 9; also St. John, xiii. 23-27; xviii. 15; xx. 3-10; xxi. 20-24. Again the history of the Acts confirms the account given in the Fourth Gospel. 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 yearsCompare St. Luke, xxiv. 44–49; St. John, xiv. 26; xvi. 13. —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.Harnack (Const. and Law of the Church, p. 31) describes this as ‘a very old and well-attested tradition.' Apollonius is stated by St. Jerome (De viris illust.) ‘to have learnt it from the ancients' and it is found in Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 5.

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.Philo, In Flaccum and Leg. ad Caium. Philo describes the Jews at this time as occupying entirely two out of the five districts of Alexandria, and says that in Egypt their numbers amounted to 1,000,000. See also Josephus, cont. Apion. ii. 4; B.J. xii. 3. 2. And after them the Cyrenians,Josephus, xiv. 7, Life, 76, B.J. vii. last chapter. In the revolt of the Jews in the time of Trajan (116–117) the number of Jews who perished in the district of Cyrene is given as 22,000, no doubt an exaggeration but pointing to a very large Jewish population. 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.Acts, vi. 8, vii. 54-60, viii. 1–3.

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.'πάντες δὲ διεσπάρησαν κατὰ τὰς χώρας τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ Σαμαρείας πλὴν τῶν ἀποστόλων. 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.Acts, viii. 5-24.

Nor was this all. After an interval, probably of some three years,Comp. Acts ix. 26-31 with Gal. i. 18. 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,καθ᾽ ὅλης τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ Γαλιλείας καὶ Σαμαρείας. ix. 31. and Peter engaged on a tour of visitation in all parts.ἐγένετο δὲ Πέτρον διερχόμενον διὰ πάντων. ix. 32. Comp. xv. 41 and xviii. 23. 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.We are here in presence of one of those strange psychical communications of which we have been learning so much in recent years. They are far more common than most of us dream of, and come we know not how or whence. In the trance into which Peter, exposed on the housetop to the full heat of the mid-day sun and faint for lack of food, fell, just in proportion to the deadening of the ordinary senses would be the sensitiveness of those faculties which lie below the threshold of wake-a-day consciousness. First the spirit of the Centurion in his anxious search after truth is moved to seek out Peter, as his guide and teacher; then the spirit of Peter, while still unconsciously conscious of the approach of the messengers who were on their way to seek him, receives the intimation, which is the response to his own prayers. Men like Peter and John and Paul were in a manner far beyond the normal, what we should now call ‘sensitives'; their spiritual faculties attuned to constant and intimate intercourse with that Divine Spirit who, their Master had promised, should in their hours of doubt and darkness be their guide and helper towards light and truth. 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. PeterActs, xi. 1-18. 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,Acts, xi. 19-27. These men were of those Hellenist Christians who had been driven from Jerusalem by the persecution which followed the death of Stephen. The exiles, St. Luke tells, preached the word in Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch (and no doubt in many other places), but at first to the Jews only. Then, after an interval probably of five or six years, certain of them, who had meanwhile settled in Cyprus and Cyrene, came to Antioch, and, finding that the Greeks were willing to listen to their preaching, began with success a work of evangelisation among them. 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—ἄρα γε καὶ—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.His aunt Mary resided in Jerusalem, and her house appears to have been used as a place of assembly (Acts, xii. 12); indeed there is a tradition that the upper room of the Last Supper was in this house. Bamabas himself seems to have had property in Jerusalem or its neighbourhood. Acts, iv. 37. 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.Bar-nabas = son of exhortation; Nabi = a prophet. The Greek form υἱὸς παρακλήσεως may be illustrated by Acts xiii. 15, where Barnabas and Paul are asked by the rulers of the Synagogue if they have any λόγος παρακλήσεως to address to the congregation. Compare also παράκλητος =Comforter, Advocate, Helper, St. John, xiv. 16, 26. In accordance with his surname we find that on his arrival at Antioch Barnabas παρακάλει πάντας. In Acts xiii. 1 Barnabas is classed as ‘a prophet and teacher.' 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.Acts, ix. 25–27; Gal. i. 18-21. 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 numbersActs, xi. 26. This seems to be the force of the words συναχθῆναι ἐν τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ. that even in this vast city,The population of Antioch at this time was probably about half a million. Ottfried Müller (Antiquitates Antiochenae) has collected all that can be learnt from ancient sources about Antioch. 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.Josephus (Ant. xviii. 8) and Philo (Leg. ad Caium) tell the whole story in detail, and also the fruitless efforts made by Agrippa to induce the Emperor to abandon his intention. 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.Jos. Ant. xix. 4, 5; B.J. ii. 11. H. Lehmann, Claudius und seine Zeit (Leipzig, 1877), 118–121, 161–164. Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii. 126–158. 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.Jos. Ant. xix. 6. Jost (Geschichte des Judenthums, i. 420 ff.) quotes many anecdotes from the Talmud of Agrippa's eagerness to give proof of his orthodoxy and piety. See also Fouard, S. Pierre, pp. 207–212. 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.St. Luke, xii. 1–18. 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.

LECTURE III

Rev. xvii. 18—The great city, which reigneth over the Kings of the earth.

In my previous lectures I have attempted to show from the internal evidence of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans that there existed at Rome in 57 A.D. a Christian Church of high repute and many years' standing, and that this Church had been founded and built up by a man into the sphere of whose labours he [St. Paul] had been careful not to intrude. Moreover though St. Paul does not mention the name of the man, circumstantial evidence has been brought forward making a very strong prima facie case in favour of the ancient tradition that he was none other than St. Peter.

To-day I propose to consider how far that tradition in the form in which it has been handed down to us by Eusebius and JeromeEusebius, Hist. Eccl. book ii. cc. xiii, xiv, xv; Jerome, De Viris Illustribus. The evidence of Eusebius, it must be remembered, was based upon a wide acquaintance with earlier Christian literature and with a mass of official Church documents and state papers, as well as local traditions now lost to us, and that Jerome had studied Eusebius' works, and that he had access to the Eusebian sources. Eusebius for example tells us that he was acquainted with the five books of the Commentaries of Hegesippus, a Hebrew Christian who journeyed to Rome from the East expressly to learn what was the true doctrine taught there (Hist. Eccl. iv. 22). It appears that when at Rome Hegesippus drew up a list of the Roman bishops. See Bright, Introd. to Eusebius' Eccl. History, pp. xxviii-xxix; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Clement of Rome, i. 202–3; Lawlor, Eusebiana. is consistent with the facts of the early Apostolic history contained in the Acts and the Pauline Epistles and fits in with the chronological framework of that history.

LECTURE IV

Acts xxviii. 15—Whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage.

The hope expressed by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans that he might, after accomplishing his mission of alms-bearing to Jerusalem, be able shortly to pay a passing visit to the Roman Christians on his way to Spain,Rom. xv. 24. was not to be realised in the way that he proposed. The journey to Jerusalem was overshadowed from the first by dark forebodings,Acts, xix. 22-24; xxi. 4, 11-14; Rom. xv. 30, 31. and it proved disastrous for a lengthened period to all his plans of active missionary work. It lies outside the scope of these lectures to relate in detail all that hap­pened to St. Paul between his arrival at Jerusalem to keep the Pentecost feast of 57 A.D. and the early spring of 60 A.D.These dates can, now that the discovery of an inscription at Delphi makes it practically certain that Gallio was proconsul in Achaia in 52 A.D., be regarded as ascertained results. when at length he entered Rome as a prisoner. It is, however, necessary for a right understanding of the character of St. Paul's captivity in the Imperial Capital to consider with some care what St. Luke has to tell us about his treat­ment by the Roman authorities during his earlier captivity in Caesarea. There are few passages in ancient historical literatures more clearly the work not merely of a contem­porary writer but of an observant eye-witness than is the narrative contained in the last seven chapters of the Acts. These chapters abound in first-hand material for the history of the time, and incidentally are valuable for the side-lights that they throw upon many features of the Roman pro­vincial administration and legal procedure, and upon the state of Judaea in the years 57 to 59 A.D.

St. Paul here appears in an historical setting, the truth-fulness of which we can estimate by a comparison with the narrative of the period of Felix and Festus contained in Josephus' writings, and in the less detailed but more pungent references of Tacitus. It was the period when the great revolt was preparing. Probably there was no provincial post that was more difficult and less desirable than that of Procurator of Judaea. The celebrated character-sketch of Felix given by Tacitus,Tac. Hist. v. 9: ‘Antonius Felix per omnem saevitiam et libidinem ius regium servili ingenio exercuit'; Ann. xii. 54: ‘Cuncta malefacta sibi impune ratus tanta potentia subnixo.' ‘in the practice of all kinds of lust and cruelty he exercised the power of a king with the temper of a slave,' no less than the fierce accusations brought against this Procurator by Josephus of cruelty, rapacity, and treachery,Josephus, Ant. xx. 8; Bell. Jud. ii. 13. are tinted with prejudice and exaggeration. The judgment of Mr. Henderson, the historian of Nero's Principate, is very different.Henderson, Life and Principate of the Emperor Nero, pp. 364–5. ‘Alike in Jerusalem and in the country generally Felix found a widespread turmoil and insecurity alikeof person and of property. Bands of robbers were roaming up and down, sweeping in adherents from every class of malcontent debtor and malefactor. The sect of the Zealots, founded years before by one Judas of Galilee, were hardly distinguishable from the Sicarii, those robbers and murderers whose evil deeds load the page of Josephus, and both plagued the unhappy land, as they disturbed the unfortunate Governor's peace. Felix acted vigorously. Robber bands were dispersed yet always reappeared. Daily assassinations in Jerusalem defied the Roman garrison. The mob was always the credulous prey of any fanatic. One Jew from Egypt gathered thousands together on the Mount of Olives promising them that the walls of the city shall fall at his bidding as those of Jericho before Joshua's trumpets, and his adherents' excited belief, stimulated by their lust and hope of rapine and of plunder, was only chilled by Felix' appearance at the head of Roman troops. The mob was scattered, but the leader escaped. . . . Wherever Felix appears in the history of these troubled years, we find him struggling with disorder, and crushing, so far as he could with the small force at his disposal, both brigandage in the country and rioting in the city. Difficult cases he duly refers to Nero. Pending decision he will keep the peace firmly. There is no good evidence to warrant the accusa­tions of cruelty and lust so lightly brought against him.' How accurately the Lukan narrative pictures this state of things.'‘The witness to Felix' or Festus' endeavours of the other contem­porary writer, St. Luke, is far more trustworthy. His Christianity secured to him a greater neutrality in his attitude alike to Jew and to Roman, and his simple tale of proceedings in which both were concerned is of the highest historical merit, striking with at least one shaft of clear light into the enwrapping mist of prejudice and hatred.'—Henderson, p. 363. The strong Roman garrison in Fort Antonia keeping watch and ward over the faction-torn city at the time of the Feast. The swoop of the tribune Lysias to rescue Paul from the hands of the raging and howling crowd in the Temple Courts. His mistake in thinking that his prisoner was ‘the Egyptian.' The scene on the stairs and within the fort. The growing respect of the officer as he notes that the man whom he had taken to be a leader of banditti can speak Greek, then that he is, though a Jew by race, not merely an inhabitant but a citizen of a famous Greek university city, and lastly, most important of all, that he inherits from his father the privileges of Roman citizenship. His own naive remark ‘with a great sum obtained I this citizenship' only enhancing the superior position of the man who can reply ‘but I was Roman born.'Acts xxi. 37-40; xxii. 22-30. Tarsus was an urbs libera. The scene in the Sanhedrin is quite explicable when we read in Josephus, ‘about this time King Agrippa gave the High-Priesthood to Ishmael, the son of Fabi. And now arose discussions between the high priests and the leading men of the multitude of Jerusalem . . . and when they met together, they cast reproachful words and threw stones at one another.'Josephus, Ant. xx. 8. 8. See also Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii. 171–2. If Ananias were High Priest de facto, while Ishmael was High Priest de jure, the exclamation of Paul, ‘I wist not that he was High Priest,' was not unjustifiable.Acts, xxiii. 5. Again the request of the chief priest to Lysias that Paul should again appear before the Council, and the plot that was made whereby forty assassins were bound together by an oath to waylay and murder him, is quite in accordance with the evidence of Josephus, when he tells us that precisely at this period ‘robbers went up with the greatest security to the festivals and having their weapons concealed [under their garments] and mingling themselves with the multitude, they slew both their own enemies and those whom other men wanted them to kill for money.'Acts, xxiii. 12-22. Josephus, Ant. xx. 8. 5; Bell. Jud. ii. 13. 3.

The reticences of St. Luke upon many points on which we should like to have fuller information are quite as remarkable as his accuracy. We would gladly know more about the causes which secured for St. Paul such favoured and even indulgent treatment for four or five years at the hands of the succession of Roman officials with whom he was brought in contact.See Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, pp. 310–313; also pp. 30–37. How was it, one asks, that he was able during the whole of this time to find sufficient means to meet the heavy expenses that must have been thrown upon him? Had Paul been a mere penniless Jewish preacher of a new superstition, an ordinary commonplace enthusiast of no position or resources, it is practically certain that he would not have received so much attention from Procurators like Felix and Festus, or such courtesy as was shown by the tribune Claudius Lysias and the Centurion Julius. At Fort Antonia he was allowed to re­ceive visitors and to bid a centurion conduct his nephew to the presence of his superior officer. Does this visit of his nephew signify that some change had taken place in Paul's relations with his family, that that family was one of distinction and wealth, and that money had come to Paul possibly on the death of his father? We do not know. We can only conjecture, but the fact remains that in dealing with him the Roman authorities treated him as if he were a person of some consequence.

The first mark of this was exhibited in the extraordinary precautions taken to ensure Paul's safe convoy to Caesarea. Four hundred and seventy troops—legionaries, horsemen, and light-armed auxiliaries—were sent to make a swift night march to Antipatris, and then the horsemen continued the journey apparently without a halt to Caesarea. The next was when Felix, after declining to condemn Paul, when the High Priest in person with a deputation of the Sanhedrin brought their threefold accusation against the Apostle by the mouth of a trained advocate, not only deferred the trial indefinitely on the pretext that he must wait until Claudius Lysias also could appear and give evidence, but he ordered that Paul, while kept in charge, should be treated with indulgence, and leave was given to any of his friends to minister unto him.The confinement of Paul both at Caesarea and Rome was not the severe confinement of a prison, custodia publica,, but the lighter one, custodia militaris, where the prisoner was bound by a chain to an attendant guard. There were however degrees of the custodia militaris and the word here used for indulgence—ἄνεσις—is the same as is used by Josephus (Ant. xviii. 6–10), where he describes how Caligula on his accession did not liberate Agrippa (Herod Agrippa I) from custody (he had been put in chains by Tiberius) yet gave him indulgence or relaxation—τήρησις μετὰ ἀνέσεως. The reason given by St. Luke why Felix thus deferred the trial and treated Paul well was ‘that he had more accurate knowledge concerning the Way,'Acts, xxiv. 22: ἀκριβέστερον εἰδὼσ τὰ περὶ τῆς ὁδοῦ. i.e. the Christian religion, implying more accurate knowledge than to be deceived by the prejudiced ex parte statements of the Jewish accusers. The explanation lies in the verse which follows: ‘and after certain days Felix came with Drusilla his wife, who was a Jewess, and heard him [Paul] concerning the faith in Christ.' And during the long interval of two years that he kept him in captivity, ‘hoping,' says St. Luke, ‘that money would be given him of Paul, he sent for him the oftener and had communion with him.'Acts, xxiv. 26: ἐλπίζων ὅτι χρήματα δοθήσεται ὑπὸ τοῦ Παύλου· διὸ καὶ πυκνότερον αὐτὸν μεταπεμπόμενος ὡμίλει αὐτῷ. Now these statements point to two things: first, that Felix knew about Paul and Christianity from Drusilla, and, secondly, that from what Drusilla told him he was sufficiently interested in the man and his teaching to have repeated private interviews with him, and further that he believed him to be possessed of sufficient means to offer him a bribe to secure his release. No Roman governor, more especially a man of the type of Felix, would have such consideration as all this implies for a commonplace prisoner. At this time of political unrest and ferment in Judaea the Procurator's relations with the Jewish leaders were sufficiently strained without his extending his protection to a man against whom they displayed such fierce animosity. It would not have been difficult for him to condemn Paul as a disturber of the peace, and it was his interest to do so. At the same time he clearly was afraid to release him, lest he should provoke one of those outbursts of Jewish fanaticism which actually took place in Caesarea itself after St. Paul had been confined in the barracks attached to Herod's palace for two years. The stern way in which in this year 59 A.D. the Governor dealt with the Jewish rioters led to a deputation of the principal Jewish inhabitants of Caesarea going to Rome to accuse him for his misdeeds and harshness before Nero himself, and finally to Felix' recall to Rome to answer the charges brought against him.Josephus, Ant. xx. 8—9: Πορκίου δὲ Φήστου διαδόχου Φήλικι πεμφθέντος ὑπὸ Νέρωνος, οἱ πρωτεύοντες τῶν κατὰ τὴν Καισάρειαν κατοικούντων Ἰουδαίων εἰς τὴν Ῥώμην ἀναβαίνουσι Φήλικος κατηγοροῦ_τες· καὶ πάντως ἂν ἐδεδώκει τιμωρίαν τῶν εἰς Ἰουδαίους ἀδικημάτων, εἰ μὴ πολλὰ αὐτὸν ὁ Νέρων τῷ ἀδελφῷ Πάλλαντι παρακαλέσαντι συνεχώρησε, μάλιστα δὴ τότε διὰ τιμῆς ἔχων ἐκεῖνοι It is perhaps no wonder that in such a crisis of his life the accused man, who only narrowly escaped condemnation by the powerful influence of friends at court, should have ‘desired,' as St. Luke tells us, ‘to gain favour with the Jews by leaving Paul bound.'The reading of Cod. 137 is τὸν δὲ Παῦλον εἴασεν ἐν τηρήσει διὰ Δρυσίλλαν. There is a curious Western reading here, which possibly records an ancient authentic tradition that Felix left Paul in confinement ‘because of Drusilla.'There occurs in Josephus, Ant. xx. 7. 2, a passage in which he says: ‘When Felix was Governor of Judaea, he saw this Drusilla and fell in love with her, for she did indeed exceed all other women in beauty, and he sent to her a person whose name was Simon, one of his friends, a Jew, born in Cyprus, who pretended to be a magician and endeavoured to persuade her to leave her present husband and marry Felix.' As Drusilla had required her first husband to become a Jewish proselyte and submit to circumcision, so it was thought that her subsequent desertion of him for the Gentile, Felix, could only have been brought about by magic arts. She was, however, at the time of her marriage with Felix still a girl in her teens, and this Magian may have been the instrument employed by the unscrupulous Felix to cajole her into an act which as an Herodian princess must have been repugnant to her. But who was this Simon, a Jew of Cyprus, who pretended to be a magician? Professor Rendel Harris in the Expositor, v. pp. 190–4 (1902), identifies him with Elymas the Sorcerer of Acts xiii. 8. Now Codex Bezae for Ἐλυμας reads Ἐτοιμας, and this reading is confirmed by several other Western authorities who read either ετοιμος or its equivalent ‘paratus.' Ramsay adopts Ετοιμος as the correct name in St. Paul the Traveller (p. 74). And there is the same uncertainty in the text of Josephus. The Ambrosian MS. A has Ατομον for Σίμονα, also the Epitome of Josephus at Vienna. Ετοικος and Ατομος are, it may reasonably be assumed, different forms of this man's name. Was he then one source of Felix' ‘more accurate knowledge' of Paul and The Way? As Drusilla was the sister of Agrippa II, who had an official residence in Jerusalem and in whose hands was the appoint­ment of the High Priest, she may well have counselled her husband, for her brother's sake even more than for his own, not to irritate Jewish fanaticism by any act that might fan it in its present state of fever heat to yet further deeds of violence.

Festus on his arrival was confronted by a difficult and critical situation. But he was a firm and just magistrate and was determined that the prisoner should despite the clamours of the Jews have a fair trial in his presence. The principal charge brought against Paul was the crime of majestas—the inciting of the Jewish communities through the world to treason against Caesar. The other accusations—the being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes and a profaner of the Temple—on the other hand were, in the scornful words of the Procurator to King Agrippa, only ‘certain questions of their own superstition.'Acts, xxv. 19: ζητήματά τινα περὶ τῆς ἰδίας δεισιδαιμονίας. The profanation of the Temple was also an offence against Roman Law—Judaism being a religio licita. These charges, St. Luke tells us, they failed to prove, and the Apostle no doubt hoped that the Governor would pronounce judgment in his favour. But Festus, aware of the excited state of Jewish feeling, was naturally anxious not at the very outset of his official term to get himself into disfavour with these embittered representatives of the dominant faction at Jerusalem, and he asked Paul whether he would be willing to go up to that city, there to be judged by him. But the Apostle was determined not thus to place himself in the midst of enemies thirsting for his life and utterly unscrupulous about the means employed; he was sick, too, of delay, and he no longer hesitated. ‘To the Jews I have done no wrong, as thou well knowest,' he replied to the Governor (I am somewhat paraphrasing the actual words as recorded), and ‘if I have committed any offence against Caesar, I, as a Roman citizen, should be tried not at Jerusalem but before Caesar's judgment seat. As you do not acquit me of treason, I claim my right of appeal—ad Caesarem appello.'It is more than probable that St. Paul was acquainted with the Latin language. The employment of Tertullus before Felix shows that the pleading was in Latin. On this the Procurator, after a conference with his assessorsActs, xxv. 12: συλλαλήσας μετὰ τοῦ συμβουλίου. This body was com­posed of consiliarii or assessores, in Greek πάρεδροι. Suet. Tib. 33; Galba, 19; Josephus, Bell. Jud. ii. 16. 1. (consiliarii) on the legal aspects of the case, quashed all further proceedings in Judaea, ‘Thou hast appealed to Caesar, to Caesar shalt thou go.'

I have dwelt at some length on the circumstances which brought about Paul's visit to Rome, in order to make it clear that the charge against him was political, not religious, the offence one of majestas, not of preaching new doctrines subversive of the Jewish law. And it is noteworthy that even in regard to the political charge both Festus and King Agrippa were agreed that Paul had done nothing worthy of death or of bonds. He had however appealed to Caesar, and so he obtained, not indeed his liberty, but an escape from an irksome confinement in the midst of his deadly foes, and a prospect of at length making acquaintance with that Church in Rome which he had so many years been longing to visit. Whatever the risks, he would gladly face them, for his deep faith assured him that he was going to Rome as God's appointed instrument to do good work in Christ's Name amidst the thronging population of that great world-centre of Imperial rule. Those words that came to him, as on that first night of his incarceration in Fort Antonia he beheld in mystic vision the Lord Jesus standing at his side—‘Be of good cheer, for as thou hast testified concerning me at Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness even at Rome'Acts, xxiii. 11. See Ramsay's article in the Expositor, March 1913: ‘Suggestions on the History and Letters of St. Paul,' pp. 269–76. —had, we may well believe, been his comfort and stay during the whole of those two weary years spent to all appearance so uselessly in the guard-rooms of Herod's palace at Caesarea. Now, at last, the opportunity had come of bearing witness in the presence of Caesar him-self: an opportunity embraced with his whole heart and soul, even though the witness should be that witness which is crowned with the martyr's death.

The Apostle left Caesarea some time during the month of August, 59 A.D., only after many hardships and life-and­death perils to be shipwrecked in November on the coast of Malta. Compelled with his companions in misfortune to winter on the island, it was not until the end of February 60 A.D. that Paul landed at Puteoli, a centre of the corn traffic with Alexandria and the chief commercial sea-port of Italy and Rome.Puteoli shared with Ostia the trade between Rome and the provinces, more especially the corn supply. It was originally named Dicaearchia. Three years after St. Paul, the historian Josephus (as he himself tells us) on his way to Rome had experiences extraordinarily similar to those of the apostle. He writes: ‘I reached Rome after an extremely perilous voyage; for our ship, having foundered mid-way in the Adriatic, we, to the number of about six hundred, had recourse to swimming and had already remained the entire night in the water, when, at daybreak, a vessel from Cyrene providentially hove in sight, and received on board myself and others, eighty in all—more fortunate than our companions. Thus rescued from destruction, I landed at Dicaearchia, called by the Italians Puteoli.' This passage is interesting, for here as in Acts xxvii. 27 we find the term ‘Adriatic' applied to the sea between Greece and Cyrenaica. Comp. Strabo, ii. 123: Ἰόνιον πέλαγος, ὁ νῦν Ἀδρίας. Also the number on board St. Paul's ship, 276, is seen not to be excessive as compared with the 600 with whom Josephus voyaged. In this busy and prosperous place thronged with seamen and traders of many nations the Apostle found a body of Christians who gave a right brotherly welcome to him and his companions, Luke and Aristarchus, and entertained them seven days. Of the origin of this Christian community the Acts tells us nothing, but its presence here will occasion no surprise to those who have followed the arguments of the previous lectures. It is but one proof more of the early evangelisation of Rome and other towns in Italy.

From Puteoli the company of prisoners with their military guard journeyed along the Appian Way to Rome. But the news of the approach of the Apostle had already reached the Christians of the capital, and two separate deputations came to greet him, one as far as Appii Forum, one of the regular halting places on this route, the other to Tres Tabernae still nearer Rome.Appii Forum was 41, Tres Tabernae 23 miles from Rome. ‘Ab Appii Foro hora quarta: dederam aliam paullo ante Tribus Tabernis.'—Cicero, ad Atticum, ii. 10. Probably among these delegates were a number of those whose names are so affectionately men­tioned in the Epistle to the Romans, Ampliatus, Urbanus, Stachys and the rest, and surely Aquila and Prisca, his old and tried friends. St. Luke mentions no names, but his one brief statement of the effect of this meeting upon the way-worn and much burdened Apostle is worth a whole volume. In the midst of a strange and foreign land, a prisoner in bonds, Paul was feeling perhaps, as was natural, somewhat lonely and depressed, but at the sight of his friends his spirit revived. How expressive are the words ‘whom when Paul saw, he thanked God and took courage.'Acts, xxviii. 15: οὓς ἰδὼν ὁ Παῦλος εὐχαριστήσας τῷ θεῷ ἔλαβεν θάρσος·

LECTURE V.

1 Peter iv. 16: ‘If a man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this name.'

The reasons that were given at the close of the last lecture for holding that St. Paul was released from his bonds and left Rome at the beginning of the year 62 A.D. are greatly strengthened by the consideration of certain facts recorded by Josephus. He tells us that during the short procuratorship of Festus a serious quarrel had arisen between King Agrippa and the priestly party at Jerusalem. Agrippa had built a lofty tower to his palace, from the top of which he was able to overlook the Temple courts. This the Jews bitterly resented, and in their turn erected a high wall to block out the view. Agrippa thereupon applied to Festus, who at first commanded the Jews to pull down the wall and then, fearing an outbreak of violence, afterwards permitted them to send an embassy to lay the matter before Caesar. This embassy consisted of twelve persons headed by the High Priest Ishmael, son of Fabi, and Hilkiah the treasurer. The probable date of their arrival in Rome was April or May, 62 A.D., for Festus died in the spring of this year. Nero had just married his mistress, the beautiful and profligate Poppaea Sabina, to satisfy whose ambition he had first divorced his long-suffering wife Octavia and was within a few weeks to order her murder. Now Poppaea was, if not actually a Jewish proselyte, one of that outer circle of adherents to Judaism known as ‘God-fearers.' Her influence with the Emperor was now exerted on behalf of the Jewish embassy, with the result that Nero decided in their favour. Ishmael and Hilkiah were, however, retained at Rome as hostages, a very necessary precaution, for Agrippa on hearing the news had at once deposed Ishmael from the High Priesthood, and Jerusalem was in a very disturbed state.Josephus, Ant. xx. 8. 11: τῇ γυναικὶ Ποππαίᾳ, θεοσεβὴς γὰρ ἦν, ὑπὲρ τῶν Ἰουδαίων δεηθείσῃ χαριζόμενος, ἣ τοῖς μὲν δέκα προσέταξεν ἀπιέναι. Poppaea was buried after the Jewish custom, Tac. Ann. xvi. 6; Hist. i. 22. Had these two men been in Rome at the time of Paul's trial, they would have been important witnesses in support of the charges against him, and it would not have been difficult with the help of Poppaea to secure his condemnation.The above was not an isolated act of interference by Poppaea on behalf of the Jews. Josephus in his autobiography tells us of the hard case of certain priests who were his friends. They had been sent in irons to Rome by Felix to be tried before Caesar, and remained there in strict confinement without trial for some four years. Josephus describes how in 63 A.D. he went to Rome to see if he could do anything on their behalf. After a perilous voyage, in which he was shipwrecked in the Adriatic, he finally, like St. Paul, landed at Puteoli, and there met a Jewish actor, named Aliturus, who was a favourite with Nero. By this man's help he obtained an introduction to Poppaea, who not only secured for him the liberation of the priests but gave to him some costly presents before his return to Judaea.—Josephus, Vita, c. 3. Josephus tells us that he was at this time twenty-six years of age, and as he was born in the year of the accession of Caligula, i.e. 37 A.D., this fixes the date of his voyage to Rome as 63 A.D.

The growth of a bitter feeling of hostility between the Jews and the new Christian sect which had sprung up out of their midst was in this sixth decade of the first century becoming more accentuated. The men of the synagogues hated this new faith, which had for a number of years found shelter under the protection of the privileges accorded to Judaism, as a religio licita, throughout the empire, but which by its principle of universalism struck a blow at the very foundations of Judaic exclusiveness. And it was against the Jewish converts, much more than against the far larger number of Gentiles who had embraced the Gospel, that their anger was especially directed. The Jewish Christians were in the eyes of their orthodox fellow-countrymen traitors to their race and to the traditions of their fathers. Hence the vindictive spite with which St. Paul was pursued, and the fierce outburst of fanaticism at Jerusalem which in this very spring of 62 A.D. had led to the stoning of St. James the Just.Josephus, Ant. xx. 9. 1; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 23. The animosity of the Roman Jews was probably much less pronounced than that of the fierce priestly fanatics in Judaea, but they would naturally be anxious not to add to the hatred and contempt in which they were held by all classes of the population of Rome, by allowing public opinion to regard Christianity as a mere sect of Judaism.It was not until the second century that the hatred between Jew and Christian became irreconcilable. In the period we are considering the Christians had no enmity against the Jews, as a race. Despite the bad treatment he received at their hands at Antioch in Pisidia, Iconium, Thessalonica, Corinth, Ephesus, and, above all, at Jerusalem, St. Paul always showed the strongest affection for his fellow-countrymen, and in his preaching held fast to the rule ‘the Jew first.' But Tertullian's words ‘synagogas Iudaeorum fontes persecutionum' were true always. Tert. Scorp. 10. About this time it is certain that the distinction between Jew and Christian began to be generally recognised, and rumours to spread abroad, which probably had their origin in Jewish malice, by which the Christians were accused of holding impious orgies and horrible Thyestean feasts and of being a secret society of anarchists and criminals. It is not difficult to see that such slanders might be based upon distorted versions of Christian teaching, of the baptism of infants in the Catacombs, and of the nocturnal meetings of the brethren for the holding of the Agape meal and the partaking of the Eucharist.The well-known Roman archaeologist, Orazio Marucchi, has discovered in the 1st-century cemetery of Priscilla on the lower floor an ancient baptistery that he has identified with the ‘Coemeterium ad Nymphas Beati Petri ubi baptizaverat,' Acta Liberii [according to their Acts the Martyrs Papias and Maurus were interred ‘via Nomentana ad nymphas Beati Petri ubi baptizabat']. In any case this baptistery dates from the first century and the local traditions in the Acta are generally correct. Marucchi, Eléments d'Archéologie Chrétienne, ii. 385–6, 457–61; also Le Memorie degli Apostoli Pietro e Paolo in Roma, pp. 93–102. The language of Tacitus (Ann. xv. 44) and Suetonius (Nero, 31, 39) testifies that the charges against the Christians in the time of Nero were of the same kind as those mentioned in detail at a later date by Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. 10, 17, 108; I Apol. 26; Athenagoras, Apol. 3; Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. vi. 1 (as to the charges brought against the Christians at Lyons).

LECTURE VI

Rev. xii. 11: ‘They loved not their life unto death.'

The deaths by martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome towards the close of Nero's reign are among the facts of first-century Christian history which may in these days be regarded as practically outside controversy. The evidence of the letter of the Church of Rome to the Church of Corinth written by Clement,Clement, 1 Cor. v. 6; supra, p. 47. a first-century document of the most authentic character, even if it stood alone, could not seriously be challenged. ‘Let us take the noble examples of our own days. Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous pillars [of the Church] were persecuted and contended unto death. Let us take before our eyes the good Apostles. Peter, who through unjust jealousy endured not one, or two, but many toils, and having thus borne witness went to the place of glory that was his due. Through jealousy and strife Paul showed [how to obtain] the prize of endurance. . . . To these men of holy life was gathered together a great multitude of the elect, who having through jealousy suffered many insults and tortures became very splendid examples amongst us.' The instances mentioned here, Peter, Paul, and the great multitude, cannot be separated. If language means anything, it means here that these several examples of brave and patient witness unto death took place ‘amongst us,' i.e. recently and at Rome.

That the Church of Corinth to whom it was addressed thus interpreted the passage in the latter half of the second century appears from the letter of Dionysius bishop of Corinth to Soter bishop of Rome written before 1174 A.D., in which the statement appears ‘Both alike [Peter and Paul], having taught together in Italy, suffered martyrdom about the same time.' And when we learn from this same Dionysius that it had been the custom at Corinth to read Clement's Epistle in the Church on the Lord's Day from the earliest times, it may be assumed that the tradition of events, which, at the date when Clement's epistle was first received at Corinth, must still have been fresh in men's memories, had been handed down continuously.Eus. Hist. Eccl. ii. 25; iv. 23: ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ τὴν Ἰταλίαν ὁμόσε ειδάξαντες, ἐμαρτύρησαν κατὰ τὸν αὐτὸν καιρόν.

Both these passages have been preserved by Eusebius and in the same chapter of his ‘Ecclesiastical History' in which the first Dionysian extract is found, Caius, a Roman presbyter, who lived in the days of Pope Zephyrinus (198–217), is quoted as saying ‘I can show you the trophies—i.e. the Memoriae or chapel-tombs—of the Apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, you will find there the trophies of those who founded the Church'—the apostles throughout this chapter being Peter and Paul. Irenaeus, an Oriental by birth, in his youth the disciple of Polycarp, in later life bishop of Lyons, spent some time in Rome about 170 A.D.; he was thus in a special way a representative man both of Eastern and Western Christianity, and he speaks of the ‘Church at Rome, founded and established by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, as being the greatest, the most ancient and well known to all.'Irenaeus, adv. Haer. iii. 3. 2: ‘Sed quoniam valde longum est in hoc tali volumine omnium Ecclesiarum numerare successiones, maximae et antiquissimae et omnibus cognitae, a gloriosissimis duobus apostolis Petro et Paulo Romae fundatae et constitutae Ecclesiae, eam quam habet ab apostolis traditionem et annuntiatam hominibus fidem, per successiones episcoporum pervenientem usque ad nos indicantes, confundimus omnes eos, qui quoquo mode, vel per sibi placenta, vel per vanam gloriam, vel per caecitatem et malam sententiam praeter quam oportet, colligunt.' And again ‘to this Church, on account of its more especial eminence, all other Churches must gather,' and he only spoke the truth, for as a recent writer (Rev. C. H. Turner) quoting this passage has stated, ‘in the next generation' i.e. after the Apostles—‘we might say all the Churches of the Empire “made rendezvous” at Rome.'C. H. Turner, Studies in Early Church History, p. 222. And why? Not because it was the political capital, but because Peter and Paul there gained the crown of martyrdom, and because at Rome their hallowed remains at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way were piously preserved and held in reverence. The authority of the Church of Rome during the early centuries of Christianity obtained a general recognition accorded to no other Church, not because Rome contained the palace of the Caesars, who persecuted the faith, but because it was acknowledged everywhere and always that the Church of Rome had the distinction of having been founded by St. Peter and St. Paul and that it guarded the tombs of these ‘two most glorious Apostles.'Iren. adv. Haer. ‘Ad hanc enim Ecclesiam propter potiorem principalitatem necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea, quae est ab apostolis traditio.' On the universal acceptance by all Churches of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome, see P. Martin, Revue des Questions historiques, xiii. pp. 31 ff.

Many legends gathered round the deaths of the two Apostles, but the ‘Acts' in which they have been preserved are of late date and mainly pure fiction,Richard A. Lipsius, Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten and Apostellegenden, 2er Band, 1e Hälfte. except in their topographical references, which the archaeological researches of De Rossi, Lanciani, Marucchi and others in recent years have shown to be generally correct. In one important point the tradition embodied in these Acts, that the martyrdom of Peter and Paul took place on the same day, i.e. June 29, 67 A.D.—a tradition which for centuries was universally accepted as historical—is almost certainly wrong. Considerable obscurity must always surround the actual date and manner of their death, but the only contemporary evidence we possess seems to testify clearly to an interval of time separating the two martyrdoms.

The passage of St. Clement (already quoted) mentions the examples of St. Peter and St. Paul in two distinct paragraphs, without any hint that they suffered together; indeed the words about St. Paul—‘when he had borne his witness before the rulers, so he departed out of this world' —by the use of the singular ‘he' imply that the witness-bearer—the martyr—stood alone.A. Harnack, Altchristl. Lit. 2er Theil, 1er Band, pp. 549–60. See Chase's admirable article on St. Peter in Hastings's Dict. of the Bible; 1 Clem. v: καὶ μαρτυρήσαςm ἐπὶ τῶν ἡγουμένων οὕτως ἀπηλλάγη τοῦ κόσμου. To this may be added the silence of the Second Epistle to Timothy as to the presence of St. Peter at Rome during the time of St. Paul's last imprisonment and trial. The evidence from silence is always a very treacherous argument to rely upon, but in this case it would indeed be strange, if St. Peter had been tried and condemned simultaneously with St. Paul, that the latter should not have referred in any way to his brother Apostle's presence. As to the manner of their death Tertullian (A.D. 200) writes: ‘We read in the lives of the Caesars that Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith. Then is Peter girt by another, when he is made fast to the Cross. Then does Paul obtain his birthright of Roman citizenship, when in Rome he is born again ennobled by martyrdom.' The language of the African Father here shows plainly that he is referring to the undoubted first-century testimony to St. Peter's death by crucifixion from the last chapter of the Fourth Gospel.Tert. Scorp. 15. See also Praescript. 36: ‘Ista quam felix ecclesia . . . ubi Petrus passioni dominicae adaequatur'; Adv. Marc. iv. 5; John xxi. 18, 19: ‘Verily, verily I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry thee whither thou wouldest not. Now this he spake signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God.' Comp. xiii. 36. Seneca (Cons. ad Marciam, 20) writes of those crucified ‘brachia patibulo explicuerunt.' The tradition that St. Peter at his own request was crucified head-downwards was first mentioned by Origen, ἀνεσκολοπίσθη κατὰ κεφαλῆς (Op. ii. 24 de la Rue), in his Commentary on Genesis to which Eusebius refers (Hist. Eccl. iii. 1). This shows that the tradition was known early in the third century, and the letter of Seneca quoted above is evidence that such a method of execution was not unknown in Rome, for he writes: ‘Video istic cruces non unius quidem generis, sed aliter ab aliis fabricatas; capite quidem conversos in terrain suspendere.' It is impossible to say whether this tradition of the mode of St. Peter's death be true, on the whole it is improbable. Dionysius of Corinth, as we have seen, merely states that both Apostles suffered about the same time. The very early Judaeo-Christian Apocalypse, ‘The Ascension of Isaiah'Ascension of Isaiah, Charles, pp. 25 and 95, iv. 2, 3: ‘A lawless king, the slayer of his mother: who himself, even this king, will persecute the plant which the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be delivered into his hands.' Comp. τὴν φυτείαν ἢν φυτεύσουσιν οἱ δώδεκα ἀπόστολοι and the words of the letter of Dionysius of Corinth, τὴν ἀπὸ Πέτρου καὶ Παύλου φυτείαν γενηθεῖσαν Ῥωμαίων τε καὶ Κορινθίων. Eus. Hist. Eccl. ii. 25. In the Ascension of Isaiah St. Paul is not reckoned among the Twelve. (79–80 A.D.), seems to have a clear reference to St. Peter's death at the hands of Nero, but no allusion to that of St. Paul. The Liberian Catalogue, 354 A.D., is the first document in which the death of the Apostles on the same day is mentioned, and from the Liberian Catalogue the ‘Liber Pontificalis' adopted it, and June 29 was henceforth regarded as the common anniversary of the martyrdom of the two Apostles. The origin of this mistake is however revealed by certain entries in authentic lists of the feasts of martyrs annually celebrated in the Church belonging to the second half of the fourth century, from which it appears that in the year 258 A.D., owing to the outbreak of the Valerian persecution, the relics of the two Apostles were taken from their resting-places at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way and deposited for safety in a cemetery on the Appian Way known as the Catacombs. The translation took place on June 29, and when afterwards the relics were again restored to their original tombs, a hymn of St. Ambrose tells us that henceforth on that clay there were three feasts kept at Rome: one at the Vatican, a second on the Ostian Way, a third at the Catacombs.

On the Liberian Catalogue, its sources and its relation to the Liber Pontificalis, see Duchesne's great edition of the Liber Pontificalis; Light-foot's excursus on the early Roman succession in his Apostolic Fathers (St. Clement of Rome), part I. vol. i. 201–345; Harnack, Chron. der Altchristl. Literatur, vol. i: ‘Die ältesten Bischofslisten,' 79–230; also the chapter ‘The Western Church' in Turner's Studies in Early Church History, 1912. The burial and tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul and the translation of their bodies for a time to the Catacombs are the subject of a special Note, Note E, Appendix. The fact of the date of the translation and of the triple feast being on June 29 will be found in Duchesne, pp. civ–cvii; also in Barnes, St. Peter in Rome, pp. 107 ff. In the Hieronymian Martyrology (in a Codex discovered by De Rossi at Berne) the following entry occurs: ‘III Kal. iul. Romae, natale sanctorum Petri et Pauli: Petri in Vaticano, via Aurelia; Pauli vero in via Ostensi; utriusque in Catacumbas; passi sub Nerone, Basso et Tusco Consulibus.' The words passi sub Nerone must be regarded as in a parenthesis, the date of the consulship of Bassus and Tuscus is 258 A.D. A somewhat earlier and more abbreviated entry is found in the so-called Feriale Philocalianum (335–354 A.D., Duchesne). The title of the document is Depositio Martyrum, and we find ‘III. Kal. iul. Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Ostense Basso et Tusco Consulibus.' A hymn attributed to St. Ambrose (Daniel, Thesaurus hymnologicus, Halle, 1841, No. 71) has this verse:

This hymn was written for the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul on June 29. The ‘trinis viis' signifies the Aurelian, the Ostian, and the Appian Ways.

LECTURE VIII

Daniel, xi. 3, 6: ‘And the king shall do according to his will; and he shall exalt himself, and magnify himself above every god till the indignation be accomplished.'

During the period which followed the accession of the Flavian dynasty to the Imperial throne the Church in Rome seems to have lived in comparative repose. For more than a quarter of a century after the martyrdom of St. Paul there is no record of any violent persecution of the Christians. But there is no reason to believe that the ban under which those professing the Christian faith lay since the Neronian persecution of 65 A.D. was in any way lightened or removed. The Christians were then condemned for crimes which were summed up by Tacitus as constituting ‘hatred of the human race,' in other words they were condemned as enemies of the Roman state and people. The mere confession of the Christian name henceforth in itself entailed punishment. The principle of action, which Tertullian calls the Neronian Institution, continued to be the settled policy of the Roman government. This did not mean that the Christian so long as he lived quietly and did nothing to bring himself under the notice of the police was sought out and dragged before the magistrate. But it did mean that he was an outlaw, liable as such at any moment to be dealt with summarily by the authorities, as a mere matter of police administration. No regular judicial trial was needed, the inquiry (cognitio) was confined to the establishment of the charge of being a Christian, and once established by the confession of the accused the death penalty followed.

The policy of the Flavian emperors, Vespasian, Titus, and—during the first part of his reign—Domitian, was on the whole both towards Jews and Christians one of singular moderation. After the merciless suppression of the terrible revolt in Judaea and the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, the position of the Jews in the empire was however no longer the same. As a political entity, a nation in any sense of the word, they had ceased to exist, they were but a number of separate communities scattered throughout the Roman world. But Vespasian granted to them a continuation of the religious privileges they had hitherto enjoyed on condition that all Jews were registered and paid to Roman officials as a tax for the maintenance of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus the didrachma that they had previously contributed for the support of the Temple at Jerusalem.Josephus, Bell. Iud. vii. 6. 6; Dion Cassius, lxvi. 7. This conciliatory attitude of Vespasian and Titus to the Jewish Diaspora was due in part to the fact that the non-Palestinian Jews had taken no share in the revolt and that they were financially useful, in part to the influence of Agrippa II and his sister, who lived at Rome on terms of close intimacy with the Imperial family. Vespasian had also special cause to be grateful to the Jew, Tiberius Alexander, who was the first to proclaim him emperor at Alexandria and who secured the allegiance to him of the legions in Egypt, 1 July 69. See Tac. Hist. ii. 79. But the very fact of this registration for fiscal purposes served to accentuate the distinction between Jew and Christian the more clearly. The Christian Church could no longer find shelter under the shadow of the privileges of the synagogues.

That Titus was himself well aware of the difference, and that he was personally hostile to Christianity, is shown by an interesting passage in the fourth-century historian, Sulpicius Severus, which in the opinion of scholars is generally regarded as an extract from one of the lost books of Tacitus. It tells of a council held by Titus at the time of the final storming of Jerusalem to decide whether the Temple should be destroyed or not. Titus himself, it is reported, with some of his officers held that it was necessary, ‘so as to abolish more completely the religion both of Jews and Christians, since these religions, although opposed to each other, both sprang from the same origin; the Christians had issued from the Jews; if the root were taken away, the stem would quickly perish.'Sulp. Severus, Chron. ii. 30. 6: ‘Fertur Titus adhibito consilio prius deliberasse . . . at contra alii et Titus ipse evertendum templum in primis censebant quo plenius Iudaeorum et Christianorum religio tolleretur; quippe has religiones, licet contrarias sibi, iisdem auctoribus profectas: Christianos ex Iudaeis extitisse: radice sublata, stirpem facile perituram.' With the destruction of the Temple and the crushing out of the revolt, however, the situation was changed, moderate and statesmanlike views prevailed, the Jews secured religious toleration and lenient treatment, and no systematic persecution was directed against the Christians so long as Titus lived or for some years after his untimely death.

There is no contemporary Christian writing which throws any light upon the state of the Church during this time, unless it be ‘The Shepherd' of Hermas. This remarkable work bears every mark from internal evidence of being a product of the Flavian age. We have already seen in the last lecture that the author speaks of a certain Clement, who, if not the well-known writer of the ‘Epistle to the Corinthians,' which is the general opinion, must be a fictitious personage. Were it not for certain statements in the documents known as the ‘Muratorian Fragment on the Canon' and the ‘Liberian Catalogue' probably few would have given to ‘The Shepherd' a later date than the beginning of the second century. The reference to Hermas and his book by the Muratorian writer runs thus:

Zahn, Gesch. N.T. Kanons, p. 8; both Zahn and Lightfoot render nuperrime by νεωστί.

APPENDICES

Indexes