Tiber, by themselves, and they had ceaseless communications with Jerusalem. Hence many have supposed that Christianity came to Rome by some such channel as this. If it did, we should expect it to have originated in the synagogues, the existence of nine of which is definitely attested (Sanday and Headlam, p. xxiv.). The epistle itself gives no direct evidence of any such connection: if the Church originated in the synagogue at Rome, the connection had been com- pletely severed by the time Paul wrote. It has been supposed that the well-known sentence in Suetonius, Claud., 25 (« ludaeos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit’’: see also Acts xviii. 2) refers to conflicts which arose in the synagogues over the alleged Messiahship of Jesus, and that the separation of the Church and the synagogue, and even a change in the prevailing complexion of the Church, which from Jewish-Christian became mainly Gentile- Christian, date from this event ; but no stress can be laid on this. It is clear from Acts xxviii. 17-22 that when Paul came to Rome the leaders of the synagogue either knew nothing or affected to know nothing about the new sect which was growing up beside them. This makes it at least improbable, whatever its actual origin, that the Christian Church at Rome can have had strongly Jewish sym- pathies. Besides, even if the Church had originated in the syna- gogue, it is practically certain, from the analogy of other places whose history is known, that the mass of the members would not be Jews by birth, but of the class of proselytes (εὐσεβεῖς, φοβούμενοι τὸν θεόν), whose attachment to Judaism was less rigid, and whose spiritual receptivity was as a rule greater.
Many scholars, impressed by these considerations, have sought rather a Gentile-Christian origin for the Church. Communication, they point out, was constant, not only between Rome and Jerusalem, ‘but between Rome and all the East, and especially all the great towns. There was constant coming and going between Rome and such cities as Antioch, Corinth and Ephesus, not to mention others which had been the scene of Paul’s labours. Early Christianity, too, was largely self-propagating. “They that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word” (Acts viii. 4). Hort (Romans and Ephesians, p. 9) speaks of “a process of quiet and as it were fortuit- ous filtration” ; and it was probably by such a process, initiated, suspended, and renewed on different occasions, that the new religion was introduced to Rome. To conceive the matter in this way is no doubt to conceive it very indefinitely, but it is hardly possible to go further. Attempts have been made to do so. Assuming, for
instance, that chap. xvi. is in its right place, and really formed part of )