ROME
ROME
309
■abeequeot and varied history of the famous ba.silica need not be detailed herr. Suffice it to say that within the walla of that most glorious fane, into which the kings of the earth poured their treasure after the fire of 18;^, rests all that is mortal of the great apostle. The remains were enclosed by Constaiiline tn a bronze sarcopha^is, and Lanciani (o;j. cit. p. 167) relates that in 1691 he examined the grave so far as he then could. * I found myself ou a Hat surface paved with slabs of marble, on one of which (placed ne;,'lit,'entlv in a slanting direction) are engraved the words, PAVLO APOSTOLO HART. . . . This in- ecription belongs to the 4th cent.,' and is, it will be observed, dedicatory and not declaratory. It is possible that ere long more will be known of this tomb and of the garden in which it stood. Tlie Italian Government is constructing a sewer from Eome to Ostia, and the excavations will include the garden of Lucina. E. Stevenson (since dead) has recorded in an article full of interest, * Osservazioni suUa topografia della via Ostiense e sul cimitero ove fu sepolto I'apostolo S. Paolo' (Knovo BuHettino di Archeotcxjia CrUtiana, Anno iii. n. 3, c, 4, 1897), all that is known about the tomb up to the time of writing, and the Bulletlino will contain an account of any discoveries that are nude during the progress of the engineering works. On the possibility of the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul having been carried oil by the Saracens in A.D. 846, see Lanciani, Destruction ^Ancient limne, p. 129 fl.
During his imprisonment St. Paul wTote the Ep. to Philemon, and the Kpp. to the Churches in Phil- ipjii, Colos.sjv, and Epliesus. From Rome also was written tlie second £p. to Timotliy shortly heforo his martyrdom, in a.D. 67 (?). (For a discussion of questions connected with St. Paul's imprisonment, Bee Paul, and cf. Kamsay, Church in the lionian Empire, and St. Pauf the Trav. ; for tlie constitu- tion of the early Church at Rome, see Romans ; cf. Lightfoot, Philippians ', 1-27, 97-102 ; Hort, Chris- tian Ecclesia).
The relation of St. Peter to Rome has been a matter of keen controversy. The general questions of St. Peter's presence and martyrdom in Rome have been fully discussed in tlie urticle PETf;R, and there is now an almost unanimous agreement among scholars that the apostle suffered martyrdom in the eternal city, the only point of dili'erence being as to the date, some adhering to the earlier date, simultaneously with or shortly after the death of St. Paul, some (notably W. M. Ramsay and Swete, see Church in lioman Empire, p. 279 : St. Mark, p. xviii) inclining to a later date, in the persecu- tion of Doniitian, but not later than that. What has been already said about the burial-place of St. Paul applies to that of St. Peter. His tomb in the Vatican Cemetery was well kno^vn in the days of Caius of Rome, and therefore anterior to the trans- lation of the body to the catacomb of S. Sebastiano. This has been recently questioned in an able book (cited above) by Mr. A. S. Rames — a work full of interest, in its later parts dealing with the site of the tomb in old and new St. Peter's, but vitiated in the earlier chapters by an insuflicient review of evidence and many inaccuracies (see review by Rani.say in Ilonkmnn, September 1900). The site of the martyrdom is sometimes stated to have been where the ohelisk now stands in the centre of the piazza ; but this is inaccurate. The obelisk was moved when new St. Peter's was built, and the true site is marked by a slab with an inscription (worn, neglected, and needing renewal) to be found in the pavement of the courtyard behind the sacristy on the north side of the present ba.silica. The sites of the sup[iosed parting of St. Peter and St. Paul, and of the Dvmine quo vadi.i? story may or may not be genuine. The chapels in both in- stances are moilcrn. The archaeological evidence Bupporting the residence of St. Peter in Rome is strong, it should be borne in mind, however, that his residence there, if proved, does not carry with it the episcopate, nor, if it did, docs that involve the further claims of supremacy and infallibility. If Ramsay is right and St. Peter did not die till the lo-st quarter of the 1st cent., there is then room (though not at the period traditionally assigned to them) for the alleged twenty-five years' residence •n 1 work in Rome. Two spots are locally connected
with this tradition — the house of Prisca and the house of Pudens, on which see below.
The question as to the significance of Babylon in 1 P 5" and in the Apoc. has already been discussed in a separate article. (See BABYLON IN NT, and add to the literature there given, Butcher, The Church in Egypt). At what date the name of Babylon came to be so used cannot be definitely determined ; but it was a familiar designation in the 1st cent, of the Christian era. In 2 Es. (3' 15"), which Is now usually assigned to the age of Domitian, it is so used. In the Sibylline Oracles, v. 158 — written about A.D. SO, or earlier, in the judgment of Ewal*^ and Hilgenfeld — we find the words —