icai 0X^fei irivroi' te jiaduv KaMji' Ba/SvXwfa 'IroXfas ydiav 0',
In the Jer. Talm. (Aborfa znrn, c. 1) there is a curious pa.ssage to the ellcct that, on the day when Jeroboam set up the golden calves, Remus and Romulus built two huts at Rome. The story is repeated with variations in the Midrash Rabba (on Ca P), and it is said that the huts repeatedly fell down, until water brought from the Euphrates was mixed with the clay, and the huts thus made stable received the name [I'^a^ -Dn. (Cf. Otho, Lex. Babb.).
The general opinion even among interpreters of opposite schools is that Babylon in the Apocalypse (H" 16'" 17» 18--">-2') must be understood as Rome. The reference to it as the seat of universal empire (17'"), as the centre of a bloody persecution (17*), above all to the seven mountains (17"), shows that, whether we are to give a mystical sense or not to that which is signitied, Babylon stands for Rome. As the citj' of the seven hills, Rome is lauded by Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Claudian ; it is so repre- sented on coins ; it is so designated in the Sibyll (ii. 18, etc.); in the month of December it cele- brated the feast of the Septimontium, and, if a statement of TertuUian is to be trusted, Septi- vwntius was one of its many divinities (ad Nationes, ii. 15).
The question of the visit of St. John the apostle to Rome Is one that is so far wrapped in obscurity. The lirst mention of it is in Tcrtullian (dc I'ra's. Uccr. :JG), who 5a>s : * Uhi Apostolus Joannes posteaquam, in oleum igneum deniersus, nihil passiia est, in insulam relegatur.' The only other early notice of this event is found in the P'ragiiunta Folycatyiana (see Liglitfoot, I'jnatiius), which is, however, both of uncertain authorsnijt and date. The catena of which it forms a part was compiled by some writer later than Victor of Capua, 4SO-.'>rt4 (Lightfoot. op. cit. iii. 420ff.), This fragment rune thus : ' Idem ad ho^c verba Christi : Calicem meum bibetis, etc. (Mt 20-']. Per huiusniudi potum signiflcat possionem, et Jacobum quidem novissitmun martyrio consummandum, fratrem vero eius Joannem trun- siturum absque martyrio, quamvis et alllictiones plurimas et exsilia tolerarit, Bed prjoparutam martyrio mentem Christus martyrem iudicavit. Nam apostolus Paulus, Quolitlie, inquit, morior : cum impossihile sit quotidie mori hominem ea morto qua semel vita ha;c finitur. Sed quoniam pro evangelio ad mortem iugiter erat pOBParatus, ee mori (luotidio sub ea signifl- cutione testatus est. Lcgitur et in dolio ferventis olei pro nomineChristi beatus Joannes fuissodemersus.' Thetroditional site on which this confession of St. John took place is outside the Porta Latina (now closed). Hence the celebration in the Calendar of S. John ante PorL Latina. The church of S. Giovanni a Porta Latina was founded by Pope Adrian I. in 772, and the adjoining circular chapel of S. Giovanni in Oleo was erected so recently as 1509. liut although there are no documentary records earlier than those cited, and no evidence for the existence of a shrine on this spot earlier than the 8th cent., yet it is hanlly a place likely to have been chosen unless there were some reasons (lost to us now) for the selection. It is out of the way, near no- where, and very inaccessible even to-diiy. So that there is no a fyriori groundfor setting aside the traditional spot. Not without nterest in the same connexion is the dedication of the cathedral of Rome (oimiium Urb\$ et Orbi* KccUMarum matrr et caput) from about the 6th cent., ' to Christ the Saviour, and In honour of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist.' The earlier dedication was 'to Christ the Saviour' alone. It U ditHcult to resist the belief that probably at the time of the Neronian persecution, and for some cause and length of time as yet unknown to us, St. John did visit the city of the seven hills, and thence, perhaps, derived his conception of Nero as the Beast from (as Reiian suggests, L'A nlich riti, p. 176) seeing the emperor
' disffuised as a wild beast, and in that disguise let loose from a cajje, and personating the furies of a tiger or a panther.' Cf. Suet. A'ero, 29.
4. Connected with the Apostolic Chnrch in Rome there were many whose names are mentioned in tlie NT, and with wliom associations remain in the city of to-day. Chief among these are PrisCA and Aquila (which see). Plumptre claimed for them (Biblical Studies, p. 415 fl".) the honour of being tlie real founders of the Church of Rome. But certain it is that their house (Ro 16') was one, if not the only one or the earliest, of the meeting- places of the primitive Church ; and here St. Peter IS said to have stayed, for some time at least, during his residence in Rome. The church of S. Prisca on the Aventine Hill marks the spot. The dedication to Prisca is older than the saint of the same name (Virgin and Martyr, commemorated in the Calendar on January 18th), whose body was placed there by Eutychus towards the end of the 3rd century. The original designation of the church is the Titulus Priscce, and even in the 12th cent, it is known as the ' titulus hcatorum Aqtiilm et Pnscce.' De Rossi has published accounts of two very remarkable discoveries made in the 18th cent. The original oratory was discovered in 1776 in a garden near the church. It was decorated with frescoes in which the symbol of the tish and the figures of the apostles were clearly discernible. No attention was paid to the discovery, and the only record of it is in 'a scrap of paper in Codex 9697 of the Bibliothfeque Nationale in Paris, in which a man named Carrara speaks of having found a subterranean chapel near S. Prisca, decorated with paintings of the 4th cent. A copy of the frescoes seems to have been made at the time, but no trace of it has been found ' (Lanciani's Pagan and Christian Rome). A few years later the ruins of an old Roman house were discovered close to the church, but oratory and house have alike now disappeared. Lanciaui gives an account of part of this latter excavation, which is important. 'A bronze tablet was found, which had been ottered to Gains Marcus Pudens Comelianus by the people of Clunia as a token of gratitude. . . . The tablet, dated A.D. 222, proves that the house of Aquila and Prisca in apostolic times had subsequently passed into the hands of a Cornelius Pudens ; in other words, that the relations formed between the two families during the sojourn of the apostles had been faithfully maintained by their descendants. Their intimate connexion is also proved by the fact that Pudens, Pudentiana, Praxedes, and Prisca were all buried in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria.' So that, in all probability, beside that lonely church on the Aventine must we look for the cradle of the infant Church of Rome.