Romano, Giovanni Battista, a convert from Judaism, was a native of Alexandria, and flourished in the 16th century. His grandfather was the famous Elias Levita (q. v.), who instructed him while in Ger- many. He then went to Italy, and in Venice he tried to bring his brother back into the fold of the syna- gogue, in which he did not succeed ; on the contrary, he became himself a convert to Christianity, and was baptized in 1551. For a long time he was professor of Hebrew and Arabic in Rome. In 1561. pope Pius IV sent him to the patriarch of the Copts, together with Roderich, a member of his order. He translated Giov. Bruno's catechism, which was written against the Ori- ental heretics, into three Shemitic languages, and trans- lated into Arabic the decrees of the Council of Trent, for the sake of having them circulated in the East. He died at Rome, March 3, 1580. See Delitzsch, KiinsI, Wissenschaft u.Jvdenthum, p. 291 sq.; Phil. Alegambe, De Scriptor. Soc. Jesv, p. 225 sq. ; R. Simon, Bibl. Se- lecta, i, 148 ; Griitz, Gesch. d. Juden, ix, 356. (B. P.)
Romano, Jehudah Leone, bkn-^Moses, of Rome, was born about the year 1292. He was the teacher of king Robert of Naples, whom he instructed in the lan- guages of the Bible. He was very well acquainted with scholastic literature, and translated the philosoph- ical writings of Albertus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and others for his coreligionists. He also wrote Elucidations on passages of the Bible from a philosophical stand- point, excerpts of which have been published in Im- raanuel of Rome's Commentary on Prorerbs ( Naples, 1486). The date of Romano's death is not known. Most of his writings are still in MS. in Rome, Florence, Paris, Munich, Oxford, and London. See Flirst, Bibl. .hid. iii, 165 sq. ; Delitzsch, A"e/?;s/, Wissenschaft ii. Jiuknthum, p. 257 ; De Rossi, Dizionario Stofico deyli A vtori Ebrei, p. 277 (Germ.transl.) ; GnU7,,Gesch.d.Jiiden (Leips. 1873), vii, 298 sq. ; more especially Zunz, .fehiida b.-Moses Ro- mano, reprinted in Geiger's Wissenschaftl. Zeitschr.fiir jiid. Theoloffie (Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1836), ii, 321- 330; and Steinschneider, Giudu Romano, Notizia es- tratta del giorn. Romano II Buonarotti, Gennaio, 1870 (Roma, 1870), mentioned in Kayserling's Bibliothek jii- discher Kanzelredner, ii, Bcilage, p. 14 sq. (B. P.)
Romans, Episti.e to the. This is naturally placed first among the epistles in the New Test., both on account of its comparative length and its impor- tance. It claims our interest more than the otiier di- dactic epistles of Paul, because it is more systematic, and because it explains especially that truth which subsequently became the principle of the Reformation, viz. righteousness through faith. ( In the following
ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE 102 ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE
account we largely adopt the articles in the diction- aries of Kitto and Smith.)
I. Authorship. — Internal evidence is so strongly in favor of the genuineness of the Epistle to the Romans that it has never been seriously questioned. Even the sweeping criticism of Baur did nut go beyond condemn- ing the last two chapters as spurious. But while the epistle bears in itself the strongest proofs of its Pauline authorship, the external testimony in its favor is not inconsiderable. The reference to Rom. ii, 4 in 2 Pet. iii, 15 is indeed more than doubtful. In the Epistle of James, again (ii, 14), there is an allusion to perversions of Paul's language and doctrine which has several points of contact with the Epistle to the Romans; but this may perhaps be explained by the oral rather than the written teaching of the apostle, as the dates seem to require. It is not the practice of the apostolic fa- thers to cite the New-Test, writers by name, but marked passages from the Romans are found imbedded in the epistles of Clement and Polycarp (Rom. i, 29-32 in Clem. Cor. XXXV, and Rom. xiv, 10, 12, in Polyc. Phil. vi). It seems also to have been directly cited by the elder quoted in Irenreus (iv, 27, 2, '• ideo Paulum dixisse;" comp. Rom. xi, 21, 17), and is alluded to by the writer of the Epistle to Diognetus (c. ix; comp. Rom. iii, 21 fol. ; V, 20), and by Justin Martyr (Dial. c. 23 ; comp. Rom. iv, 10, 11, and in other passages). The title of Melito's treatise On the fle.uring of Faith seems to be an allu- sion to this epistle (see, however. Gal. iii, 2, 3). It has a place, moreover, in the Muratorian Canon and in the Syriac and Old -Latin versions. Nor have we the testimony of orthodox writers alone. Tiie epistle was commonly quoted as an authority b_y the heretics of the subapostolic age : bj' the Ophites (Hippol. Adv. Hmr. p. 99 ; comp. Rom. i, 20-20), by Basilides {ihid. p. 238 ; comp. Rom. viii, 19, 22, and v, 13, 14), by Valentinus (ihid. p. 195; comp. Rom. viii, 11), by the Valentinians Heracleon and Ptolemajus (Westcott, On the Canon, p. 335, 340), and perhaps also by Tatian ((?/•«<. c. iv ; comp. Rom. i, 20), besides being included in Marcion's Canon. In the latter part of the 2d century the evi- dence in its favor is still fuller. It is obviously alluded to in the letter of the churches of Vienne and Lyons (Euseb. //. E. V, 1 ; comp. Rom. viii, 18), and by Athe- nagoras (p. 13 ; comp. Rom. xii, 1 ; p. 37 ; comp. Rom. i, 24) and Theophilus of Antioch (Ad A utol. p. 79; comp. Kom. ii, 6 fol.; p. 126; comp. Rom. xiii, 7, 8); and is quoted frequently and b}' name by Irenajus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria ( see Kirch hofer, Quellen, p. 198, and especially Westcott, On the Canon, passim).