ROME
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ROME
grams in which the name appears may be found in Martial (vii, 55 ; ix, 28). In the same author (xi, 91) a diminutive from the word, namely, Chrestillus, may be found. The word assumed, also, a feminine form, Chres- ta, as found in an ancient inscription. Comp. also Mar- tial (vii, 55). There can therefore be little risk in asserting th^t Suetonius intended to indicate Jesus Christ by Chrestus; and we have already seen that the terms which he employs to describe the cause of the expulsio.i, though peculiar, are not irreconcilable with a reference on the part of the writer to Christians. The terms which Suetonius employs are accounted for, though they may not be altogether justified, b}' those passages in the Acts of the Apostles in which the col- lision between the Jews who had become Christians and those who adhered to the national faith is found to have occasioned serious disturbances (Kuinol, Acts xviii, 2; Eorsal, De Christo per Errorem in Chrest. Comm. [Groning. 1717]). Both Suetonius and Luke, in men- tioning the expulsion of the Jews, seem to have used the official term employed in the decree. The Jews were known to the Roman magistrate ; and Christians, as be- ing at first Jewish converts, would be confounded un- der the general name of Jews. But that the Christians as well as the Jews strictly so called were banished by Claudius appears certain from the book of Acts; and, independenth^ of this evidence, seems very probable from the other authorities of which mention has been made. See Chrestus; Rome, Jews in.
III. Christianity at Rome. — Nothing is known of the first founder of the Christian Church at Rome. Roman Catholics assign the honor to Peter, and on this ground an argument in favor of the claims of the papacy. There is, however, no sufficient reason for believing that Peter was ever even so much as within the walls of Rome (EUendorf, 1st Petrus in Rom und Bischof der romischen Kirche f/eicesen? [Darmstadt, 1843]), See Peter. Christianity may, perhaps, have been intro- duced into the city, not long after the outpouring of the Holj' Spirit on the day of Pentecost, by the "strangers of Rome" who were then at Jerusalem (Acts ii, 10). It is clear that there were many Christians at Rome before Paul visited the citj^ (Rom. i, 8, 13, 15; xv, 20). The names of twenty-four Christians at Rome are given in the salutations at the end of the Epistle to the Ro- mans. For the difficult question whether the Roman Church consisted mainly of Jews or Gentiles, see Cony- beare and Howson, Life of St. Paid, ii, 157; Alford, Pro- ley. ; and especially Prof Jowett, Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans, Galatians, and Thessalonians, ii, 7-26. The view there adopted, that they were a Gentile Church, but with many Jewish converts, seems most in harmony with such passages as i, 5, 13 ; xi, 13, and with the gen- eral tone of the epistle. See Rojians, Epistle to.
It may be useful to give some account of Rome in the time of Nero, the " Caesar" to whom Paul appealed, and in whose reign he suffered martvrdom (Eusebius, //. E. ii, 25).
1. The city at that time must be imagined as a large and irregular mass of buildings unprotected bj' an outer wall. It had long outgrown the old Servian wall (Di- onys. Hal. Ant. Horn, iv, 13; ap. Merivale, Rom. Hist. iv, 497) ; but the limits of the suburbs cannot be exactly defined. Neither the nature of the buildings nor the configuration of tlie ground was such as to give a strik- ing appearance to the city viewed from without. "An- cient Rome had neither cupola nor campanile" (Cony- beare and Howson, Life of St. Paid, ii, 371 ; Merivale, Rom. Emp. iv, 512), and the hills, never lofty or impos- ing, would i)resent, when covered with the buildings and streets of a huge city, a confused appearance like the hills of modern London, to which they have some- times been compared. The visit of Paid lies between two famous epochs in the history of the city, viz. its restoration by Augustus and its restoration by Nero (Conybeare and Howson, i, 13). Some parts of the city, especiallj' the Forum and Campus Martins, must now
have presented a magnificent appearance; but many of the principal buildings which attract the attention of modern travellers in ancient Rome were not yet built. The streets were generally narrow and winding, flanked by densely crowded lodging-houses (insvlce) of enor- mous height. Augustus found it necessary to limit their height to seventy feet (Strabo, v, 235). Paid's first visit to Rome took place before the Neronian con- flagration, but even after the restoration of the city, which fc)llowed upon that event, many of the old evils continued (Tacitus, Hist, iii, 71 ; Juvenal, Sat. iii, 193, 269). One half of the population consisted, in all prob- ability, of slaves. The larger part of the remainder consisted of pauper citizens supported in idleness by the miserable system of public gratuities. There appears to have been no middle class and no free industrial pop- ulation. Side by side with the wretched classes just mentioned was the comparatively small body of the wealthy nobility, of whose luxury and profligacy we hear so much in the heathen writers of the time. (See for calculations and proofs the works cited.)