[252] This involves, however, the supposition that St. Luke's narrative had then obtained its more modern name of "the Gospel," which is in my opinion an anachronism. In the earliest writings which refer to apostolic narratives they are simply called the writings or memoirs or commentaries of the apostles, as in Aristides, c. xvi., and Justin Martyr, _Apol._, i. 67. In Aristides there is one passage in ch. ii. where the word gospel is used, but not in the sense of a special title for a book: "This is taught from that Gospel which a little while ago was spoken among them as being preached; wherein if ye also will read, ye will comprehend the power that is upon it." Irenæus, III. xi. 7, 8, is the earliest I can now recall who uses the word gospel in this technical sense. He speaks there of the Gospel of St. Matthew, etc. But this was in the last quarter of the second century. In the year 57, when Second Corinthians was written, the word gospel was applied to the whole body of revealed truth held by the Church, and not to a book.
[253] Iren., iii. 1: "Luke, also the companion of Paul, recorded in a book the gospel preached by him." With respect to the relation between St. Paul and St. Luke, see also Iren., iii., xiv., xv.
The Apostle's Roman imprisonment again was most profitable to the Church of the imperial capital. The Church of Rome had been founded by the efforts of individuals. Private Christians did the work, not apostles or eminent evangelists. St. Paul came to it first of all as a prisoner, and found it a flourishing church. And yet he benefited and blessed it greatly. He could not, indeed, preach to crowded audiences in synagogues or porticoes as he had done elsewhere. But he blessed the Church of Rome most chiefly by his individual efforts. This man came to him into his own hired house, and that man followed him attracted by the magnetic influence he seemed to bear about. The soldiers appointed as his keepers were told the story of the Cross and the glad tidings of the resurrection life, and these individual efforts were fruitful in vast results, so that even into the household and palace of the Cæsars did this patient, quiet, evangelistic work extend its influence.[254] Nowhere else, in fact, not even in Corinth, where St. Paul spent two whole years openly teaching without any serious interruption; not even in Ephesus, where he laboured so long that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word; nowhere else, was the Apostle's ministry so effective as here in Rome, where the prisoner of the Lord was confined to individual effort and completely laid aside from more public and enlarged activity. It was with St. Paul as it is with God's messengers still. It is not eloquent or excited public efforts, or platform addresses, or public debates, or clever books that are most fruitful in spiritual results. Nay, it is often the quiet individual efforts of private Christians, the testimony of a patient sufferer perhaps, the witness all-powerful with men, of a life transformed through and through by Christian principle, and lived in the perpetual sunshine of God's reconciled countenance. These are the testimonies that speak most effectually for God, most directly to souls.
[254] The subject of Christianity and the household of Cæsarea would form an interesting subject of inquiry did only space permit. I have, however, the less hesitation in passing it over because it has been exhaustively discussed by Bishop Lightfoot in the following places, to which I must refer my readers: _Philippians_, Introduction pp. 1-28, and in dissertations on, pp. 97-102 and 169-76. This is also the subject of an elaborate monograph by Professor Harnack in the _Princeton Review_ for July 1878, entitled "Christians and Rome," with which should be compared Schürer's _Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes_, ii. 506-512, and a treatise published by him _Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden in Rom._, Leipzig 1879.