been early spring-the year, e,ccording to received dates, having been, ae ea.id above, A.D. 58. We may conclude the letter to have been finished a.nd committed to Phwbe before he changed hie intention of going by sea in consequence of the discovered plots of the Jews e.ga.inst him (Acts x:x. 3) ; for in the letter, though he expresses apprehension of danger from the Jews in Judma after his arrival there (eh. xv. 31), he gives no intimation of e.ny plots age.inst him known of at the time of writing ; and he speaks as if he were about to go at once to Jerusalem. Thus our knowledge of the time and circumstances of the sending of this Epistle is exact, and the correspondence between the references to them in the Epistle and elsewhere complete. Further correspondence of this kind is found in eh. i. 10-13 and xv. 22-28 compared with Acts xix. 21. In the Epistle is expressed his fixed intention of visiting Rome after carrying the alms of the Churches to Jerusalem, as well as hie desire to do so having been entertained for some time past ; and from Acts rix. 21 it appears that the desire had been already in hie mind before he left EpheBUS for Macedonia.. His further intention, expressed in the Epistle, of proceed- ing from Rome to Spain, does not indeed appear in Acts xix. 21 ; but he may have had it, though there was no need to mention it there; or he may have enlarged the plan of westward travel subsequently. For consideration of the reason of his strong desire to visit Rome, of hie having been "let hitherto" ( eh. i. 13), and of hie finally determining to take Rome only on hie we.y to Spa.in, see notes on oh. i. 13 a.nd xv. 21, etc.
§ 3. OCCASION' OF WlllTING, Thus the occasion and reason of St. Paul's sending a letter to the Roman Christiane e.t the time he did are sufficiently obvious. He had long been intending to visit them as soon as he had finished the business he had in hand; he had probably been for some time preparing his long and impor- tant letter, which could not have been written ha.etily, to be sent at the first favourable opportunity ; and PhCBbe's voyage to Rome afforded him one. But why his letter took the form of e.n elaborate dogmatic treatise, and what was the then condition, as well as the origin, of the Roman Church, are further questions that have been much discussed. So much has been written on these subjects, to be found in various commentaries, that it has not been thought necessary here to go at any length over beaten ground. It may suffice to show briefly what is obvious or probable with regard to these questions.
§ 4. ORIGIN 01' THE ROMAN CHURCH. First, e.s to the origin of the Roman Church. It had not been founded by St. Paul himself, since it is plain from the Epistle that, when he wrote, he had never been to Rome, o.nd only knew of the Roman Church by reJ)Qrt. ,,. INTRODUCTION TO
Nor doc>s the nnrrati.e of t.hc Acts allow any time when he could possibly ha,<' ,isit<>d Rome. The tradition, which in time came to be accepted, that St. Pet;er had e.lready founded it, cannot be true. Eusebiue (' Ecol. Hist.. ,' ii. 14), expressing this tradition, says the.t he had gone to Romo in the reign of ClandillB to encounter Simon Ma.gns, and thus brought the light of the gospel from the Ee.st to those in the West ; and in his 'Chronioon' he gi,es the second year of Claudius (i.e. A.D. 42) as the date, adding that he rema.ined at Rome twenty years. The probable origin of this tradition is well e.nd concisely shown in the Introduction to Romane in the ' Speaker's Commentary' (pp. 4, 5). Enough to say here that it has no trustworthy evidence in its fa.vour, and that it is inconsistent with the twofa.cts-firstly, -1\hat certainly up to the time of the apostolic conference at Jerusalem (A.D. 52) Pet.er was still there ( of. Acts xii. 4; xv. 7 ; Gal. ii. 1, seq.) ; and secondly, that in the Epistle to the Romans St. Paul makes no mention whatever of St. Peter, as he surely would have done if so prominent e.n apostle had founded, or even so far visited, the Roman Church. A different and independent tradition, to the effect that St. Peter a.n.d St. Paul jointly preached the gospel at Rome, a.nd were both martyred there, is too well supported to be set aside. It is attested by IreD.IBns, iii. c. i. and o. iii. 2, and by other early authorities quot.ed in addition to Ireil&lns by Eusebius, namely, DionysillB of Corinth (Eusebius, 'Eccl. Hist.,' ii. 25), Cains, an ecclesi&sti.c of Rome in the time of Pope Zephyrinns (ibid.), a.n.d Origen (' Eccl Hist.,' iii. 1). Eusebins also quot.es the aforesaid Caius as pointing in proof to the monuments of the two apostles in his time existing on the Vatican a.n.d on the road to Ostia (ii. 25). Indeed, even apart from this testi1tl.ony, it would be very difficult t.o account for the general and early association of the see of Rome with the name of St. Peter, had that apostle had no connection witb the Ro:msn Church at some time before his death. But it must have been a considerable time after the writing of the Epistle to the Romans, and after the writing of the Epistle to the Philippians too, which was undoubtedly sent by Paul from Rome during his detention there, in which the hist.ory of the Acts leaves him. For in it, though he speaks much of the state of things in the Church at Rome, he says nothing about St. Peter. Further, the statement of Irenmns that Peter and Paul together jc,um,de,d ((hp.,EALovvruw} the Church in Rome cannot be accepted in the sense that either of them first planted it there ; for St. Paul spoke of it as existing, and even notorious, when he wrot.e his letter. But still they JDJJY, at a later period, have founded it in the sense of consolidating and organizing it, a.nd providing, as they are said to have done, for its govern- ment aft,er their own decease. This is not the place for considering why, in after-times, the Church of Rome came to be regarded SB peculiarly St. Peter's see, ,whereas in the early testimonies above refeITed to the two apostles e.re spoken of together without distinction. St. Panl at any rate, in point of time, has been seen to have had to do with it before St. Peter, tbolli"h neither of them ca.n have been. ita original planter. THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. 7