1. Je^vs in Rome. — The first known connexion of the Jews and Romans was in the 2nd cent. B.C., under the Maccabees ( 1 Mac 8'"'- 12'»- U''- « 15""'). Jewish embassies had gone to Rome, and had obtained treaties of alliance (B.C. 161, 144, 141, 129). Probably their earliest settlements in Rome date from this period, — tliough there is no need to seek a special occasion at Rome at a period when Jews were beginning to lind their way all over the civilized world. Cicero (pro Flarco, 59) tells us of a large Jewish community in Rome, which sent annual subsidies to Jeru- salem. The captives brought by Porapey from the East (B.C. 61) swelled their numbers. Many of these gained enfranchisement (Philo, Lc(j. ail Gaium, 2.3), and these are probably tlie Libertini who supiiorted a synagogue of their own at Jeru- salem (Ac 6'). Their worship was expressly toler- ated by Julius, Augustus, and Tiberius. They occupied, according to Philo, a quarter of tlieir own beyond the Tiber. But there is evidence of synagogues, and therefore of Jewish residents, in other parts of the city also. Josenhus tells us how 8000 Jews in Rome supported the complaints against the rule of Archelaus in Judiea (A.D. 2-4 ; Ant. X\ai. xi. 1; BJ II. vi. 1). The satires of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius show that the Jews were far from popular in Rome ; while yet, partly from the attraction which foreign rites had for the superstitious, partly, no doubt (Schiirer. HJP § 31, v.), from the more serious attraction of the fusion of a higher morality and a purer theism than were to be found elsewhere, they did not
ROJIAXS, EPISTLE TO THE
EOMA^"S, EPISTLE TO THE 297
lack very numerous adherents (' Unus multonim,' Hor. H'li. I. ix. 71). A temporary expulsion, A.D. 19, by Tiberius, did not long check tlieir growing numbers and imiKjrtance in the city (see, for de- tails, Scliiirer, Geinfindeverfassunr;, and HJP § 31, i. ii. ; Berliner, GiX'h. dcr Jwlin in Rom, 1893 ; Sanday-HeaiUam, liunians, Introd. § 2, and autho- ritie' cited by them).
2. Origin of Christianity in Rome. — A move- ment which so profoundly stirred Judaism at its religious centre could not fail to find an early response in the Jewish community at the centre of the world's intercourse. At everj' great festival ftt Jerusalem, Roman Jews would be present (^t- iriftovvrtt, Ac 2'", i.e. if iravriyvfKi, as Demosth. e. Mid. p. 584). This was the case at the first Christian Pentecost. We may see in the mention of the Konian Jews of Ac S'" a significant hint of what may possibly have happened. 'Some who had gone forth from Rome as Jews may well have returned there as Christians' (\V. H. Simcox). But we must look rather to the constant stream of movement to and fro than to the result of so momentary an impression as that of this one festival. ' It would take more than they brought away from the Day of Pentecost to lay the founda- tions of a church.' The origin of the Roman Church is to be looked for in the steady though obscure circulation, kept up among the Jews as among other cla.sses, between Rome and the pro- vinces. Aquila and Pii.scilla may have been Christians before their exjiatriation from Rome, A.D. 51, 52. It was, at any rate, in the class to which they belongeil that the seed of the vast tree of Roman Christianity was lirst sown and grew (see ul.so Sanday-Ueadlam, p. xxvii, for details from Ro 16).
3. Aposlulic fijundatiun of the Roman Church. — There is no need to assume that any apostle first planted the gospel in Rome, nor do the facts per- mit the supjiosition. St. Paul is not, in writing to the Romans (15^), building upon the foundation laid by another. He is, on the contrary, dischari;- ing an unfullilled portion of his mission as Apostle to the Uentil.- (11'" l"- "). The Roman Church, then, had hitherto lacked apostolic leadership and, 80 far as our Epistle informs us, organization on any permanent basis (see below, § vi. 5, and art. 1 Corinthians, vol. i. jj. 490). It is true that early tradition ascribes the foundation of the Roman (jliurch to St. Peter, and a le.ss ancient but still somewhat early tradition ascribes to that apostle a twenty -five years' episcopate of the Koman Church. The liighly contentious char- acter of the questions here at issue, their extra- ordinary comjilexity, and their secondary bearing uiKjn our main subject, forbid anything but the Bknderest di.scu.ssion of them in this article. But it may be said, with reference to the first-named tradition, that the earliest testimony on the sub- ject ascribes the foundation of the Roman Church to St. Peter and St. Paul jointly ; it is ' Petro- Pauline.' i.e. ascribes nothing to St. Peter which it does not equally luscribe to St. Paul. Moreover, it hinges primarily on the nvirtyrdoin of the two a|K)»tles at Rome. Clement, writing soon after 95 (.V), couples the death of the two apostles in a context suggestive of martyrdom ; he does not expressly locate their death at Rome, but speaks of it as if it were within the direct knowledge of those on whose behalf he is writing. Ignatius (ad Rom. iv. 3) is less explicit ; he suggests that the two apostles had given instructions to the Roman Christians. His language exemplilies the habitual association of the two names. This is stronger BtiH in DionyB. Cor. (in Eus. IIE II. xxv. 8) ; he makes the two plant the Church of Corinth as well as that of iiome. Iremeus {and perhaps