_________________________________________________________________
Title: The Church in
Creator(s): Edmundson, George
(1849-1930)
CCEL Subjects: All; History;
LC Call no: BR182
LC Subjects:
Christianity
History
By period
Early and medieval
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THE CHURCH
IN
IN THE FIRST
CENTURY
George Edmundson
THE CHURCH
IN
IN THE FIRST CENTURY
AN EXAMINATION OF VARIOUS CONTROVERTED
QUESTIONS
RELATING TO ITS HISTORY, CHRONOLOGY,
LITERATURE AND
TRADITIONS
EIGHT LECTURES
PREACHED BEFORE THE
IN THE YEAR 1913
ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV.
JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.
CANON OF
BY
GEORGE EDMUNDSON, M.A.
LATE FELLOW AND TUTOR OF
VICAR OF ST. SAVIOUR, UPPER CHELSEA
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.
39 PATERNOSTER ROW,
1913
[A11 rights reserved]
CAROLO BULLER HEBERDEN
D.C.L.
AUL. REG. ET COLL. AEN. NAS. PRINCIPALI
ACAD. OXON. VICECANCELLARIO
AMICITIAE PROBATAE
TESTIMONIUM
OLIM PER DECENNIUM COLLEGA
_________________________________________________________________
EXTRACT
FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF THE LATE
REV. JOHN BAMPTON
CANON OF
‘. . . I give and bequeath my Lands
and Estates to the Chancellor, Masters,
and Scholars of the
and singular the said Lands or Estates
upon trust, and to the intents and
purposes hereinafter mentioned; that
is to say, I will and appoint that the
Vice-Chancellor of the
and receive all the rents, issues, and
profits thereof, and (after all
taxes, reparations, and necessary
deductions made) that he pay all the
remainder to the endowment of eight
Divinity Lecture Sermons, to be
established for ever in the said
University and to be performed in the
manner following:
‘I direct and appoint, that, upon the
first Tuesday in Easter Term, a
Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads
of Colleges only, and by no others,
in the room adjoining to the Printing-House,
between the hours of ten in the
morning and two in the afternoon, to
preach eight Divinity Lecture Sermons,
the year following, at
last month in Lent Term, and the end
of the third week in Act Term.
‘Also I direct and appoint, that the
eight Divinity Lecture Sermons shall be
preached upon either of the following
Subjects—to confirm and establish the
Christian Faith, and to confute all
heretics and schismatics—upon the divine
authority of the holy Scriptures—upon
the authority of the writings of the
primitive Fathers, as to the faith and
practice of the primitive Church—upon
the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour
testis Christ —upon the Divinity of the
Holy Ghost—upon the Articles of the
Christian Faith, as comprehended in the
Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds.
‘Also I direct, that thirty copies of
the eight Divinity Lecture Sermons
shall be always printed, within two
months after they are preached; and one
copy shall be given to the Chancellor of the University, and one copy to
the
Head of every College, and one copy to
the Mayor of the city of
one copy to be put into the Bodleian
Library; and the expense of printing
them shall be paid out of the revenue
of the Land or Estates given for
establishing the Divinity Lecture
Sermons; and the Preacher shall not be
paid, nor be entitled to the revenue,
before they are printed.
‘Also I direct and appoint, that no
person shall be qualified to preach the
Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he
hath taken the degree of Master of Arts
at least, in one of the two
Universities of Oxford or
the same person shall never preach the
Divinity Lecture Sermons twice.’
_________________________________________________________________
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
LECTURE I
Character of the theme—The
Nero—Intercourse—Population—Slavery—The ‘Freedman’ Class—Alien
admixture—The
Jewish Colony and its history—Its
privileges and characteristics—Judaism
attractive—Proselytes and
‘God-fearers’—The Synagogues—Soil prepared for
Christianity—The Laureolus—The Jews
expelled by Claudius—
at
Paul—
from
visit to
motive of the Epistle—The
Judaeo-Christians at
xvi. 1-23—Genuineness of the
passage—Criticism dealt with—The Church in the
house of Prisca and
A.D.?—The Apostles Andronicus and
Junias—The households of Aristobulus and
Narcissus—The auto-biographic passage
Chap. xv. 14-29—‘Another man’s
foundation’—Was the other man St.
Peter?
1–29
LECTURE II
The Lukan authorship of the
Acts—Fragmentary character of the narrative—The
Acts written before 62 A.D.—The
closing verses of the Acts—The Day of
Pentecost—The sojourning Romans—The
Twelve at
St. Stephen—Consequences of St.
Stephen’s martyrdom—Activity of St. Peter
—The vision at Joppa—Conversion of
Cornelius—Missionaries at
Agrippa persecutes the Church—St.
Peter escapes from prison—St. James and
the Brethren—Value of tradition—Oral
tradition—Early Christian written
records—Their destruction—Apocryphal
‘Acts’—Criteria of
authenticity—Evidence for St. Peter’s
martyrdom at
Isaiah’—Clement of
lists—Eusebius of Caesarea—Jerome—The
Petrine tradition universally accepted
in East and West alike—Archaeological
evidence—Portraits—Sepulchral
inscriptions—Mosaics—Frescoes—The
Petrine ‘legends’ based on fact—The
Preaching of Peter—Local memories—St.
Peter at
Twelve—Precedents of
30–58
LECTURE III
St. Peter encounters Simon Magus at
Magus—His visit to
Justin Martyr, of Irenaeus and
Hippolytus—The theories of Baur and Lipsius
untenable—Vogue of Oriental cults and
teachers at
interpreter—Origin of St. Mark’s
Gospel—Its date—Jerome’s version of the
Petrine tradition—His sources of
information—Relations with Pope Damasus—The
Hieronymian tradition and that of the
Liberian Catalogue—The differences
between them—Chronological
difficulties and discrepancies—Attempted
solution—The Antiochean narrative [
Acts xi. and xii.] examined—Barnabas and
Paul bear alms to
with Barnabas at
Corinthians—Accession of Nero—Peter
and Barnabas journey to
of Bamabas’ missionary activity in
St. Peter and
Peter’s presence there, 54–56
A.D.—First organisation of the Roman
Church—The trial of Julia Pomponia
Graecina—Inscription in the crypt of
Lucina
59–86
LECTURE IV
trustworthiness of the Lukan
narrative—
resources—Indulgent treatment of
Drusilla—Recall of Felix—Elymas or
Etoimos—Attitude of Festus—
appeal to Caesar—His motives in
appealing —
to
to him—
the chiefs of the Synagogues—The
Apostle’s appeal to the Jews is
fruitless—The Epistles of the First
Captivity—The earlier group—Colossians,
Ephesians, Philemon—Their tone
cheerful—Release expected—Many friends
surround the Apostle—Mark, the cousin
of Barnabas, at
to
situation—Friends absent—Issue of
trial in doubt but Paul hopeful—The letter
of a friend to friends—Discords at
yoke-fellow’—Clement—Caesar’s
household—
course of the trial
87–114
LECTURE V
A High-Priestly embassy in
Christian—The Christians accused of
anarchism and secret crimes—St. Peter’s
last visit to
genuineness—The Epistle written at
New Testament writings—St. Peter
acquainted with the Epistles to the Romans
and Ephesians—Mark and Silvanus with
Peter at
19, 64 A.D.—Rumour attributes the fire
to Nero—Steps taken by Nero to efface
the rumour—The Pisonian conspiracy and
its suppression—The charges brought
against the Christians—The Tacitean
account of their sufferings—Character of
the Neronian persecution—The personal
act of Nero—Tigellinus, the active
agent of Nero’s cruelty—The Christians
not implicated in the burning of
and Apollonius of Tyana: a
parallel—Atheism, Thyestean feasts, Oedipodean
intercourse—Hatred of the human race,
‘Institutum Neronianum’—‘Crimina
adhaerentia Nomini’—Christian
contemporary evidence—The spectacle in the
A.D.—Comparison of evidence from
Tacitus, Suetonius and Orosius fixes the
date—Persecution in the
Provinces
115–144
LECTURE VI
Deaths of St. Peter and
were not martyred on the same
day—Manner of their deaths—How the mistake as
to a common date arose —Statement of
Prudentius—The ‘Quo Vadis?’ story
examined —St. Peter’s crucifixion in
the early summer of 65 A.D.—The Epistle
to the Hebrews—Addressed to
Judaeo-Christians at
evidence for this—The Epistle never
received as Pauline in
West—Tertullian names Barnabas as the
author—Barnabas well qualified to
write this Epistle—Sent to
support the Barnabean hypothesis—The
Pastoral Epistles—
imprisonment at
Apocalypse written in 70
A.D.—Statements of Irenaeus and Origen
considered—Eusebius’ use of his
authorities—Evidence of Victorinus and
Jerome—The book reflects contemporary
history—Neronian Persecution—Events of
69 A.D.—Burning of the
Capitol—Domitian in power, Jan. to June, 70
A.D.—Nerva Consul, 71 A.D.—
the Beast—Nero Caesar—The Apocalypse,
a Neronian document—Nero is
Anti-Christ—The Nero
legend—Armageddon—Impressions of an
eye-witness—Earthquakes and
convulsions of nature—The islands of
Thera
145–179
LECTURE VII
The First Century Episcopal Succession
at
Christian Ecclesia—The Official
Ministry in the early Church—Duties and
position of episcopi—Pastors and
Stewards with cure of souls—They form an
inner Presbyterate—Its president The Bishop—Apostles, Prophets, Teachers
and
their functions—The Didache an
untrustworthy authority for the First
Century—The genuine Epistle of Clement
to the Corinthians—Not written in 96
A.D. but in beginning of 70 A.D.—The
recent examples of our own time—The
Neronian persecution fresh in
memory—The sudden and successive troubles and
calamities of 69 A.D.—Internal
evidence of the Epistle to its early
date—Church
Organisation—Christology—New Testament Quotations—The Daily
Sacrifice at
dissensions—Predisposing
circumstances, 66–68 A.D.—Reference to the
peace at
Epistle to
position of Clement in 96 A.D.—The
Epistle belongs to an earlier
time—Written by him as secretary to
the Presbyterate—Interesting inscription
180–205
LECTURE VIII
Attitude of the Flavian emperors to
the Christians—A quarter of a century of
moderation—Titus personally
hostile—‘The Shepherd’ of Hernias: a Flavian
writing—Blunder of the Muratorian
Fragmentist—The notice in the ‘Liberian
Catalogue’—The Muratorian and Liberian
statements derived from a common
source—Hermas confused with the
presbyter Pastor—Patristic testimony
supports the early date—Irenaeus,
Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian—Unity of
‘The Shepherd’—It contains a real life
story—Hermas a contemporary of
Clement of
period covered by it short—Hermas’
references to the Neronian persecution—To
the organisation of the Church—Its
primitive character—Signs of an
evolutionary movement—Contentions
about precedence—Growth of a Monarchical
Episcopate—The persecution of
Domitian—In its origin fiscal—The didrachma
tax—Many Christians of high position
suffer—Flavius Clemens put to death—His
wife Flavia Domitilla banished—Flavius
Sabinus, father and son—Flavius
Clemens the Consul and Clemens the
bishop—A third contemporary Clemens—M.
Arrecinus Clemens is Consul 94 A.D.—He
is put to death by his relative
Domitian—The two Flavia
Dornitillas—The ‘Acts of Nereus and
Achilles’—Plautilla the sister of
Clemens the Consul—Relationship between
the Flavian and Arrecinian families
—Is Clement the bishop brother of
Arrecinus Clemens?—The death of M.
Acilius Glabrio—The Acilian Crypt in the
206–237
APPENDICES
Note A. Chronological Statement
239–241
Note B.
242–3
Note C. The Pudens Legend
244–249
Note D. The Family Connexion of Clement
the Bishop
250–258
Note E. The Tombs of the Apostles St.
Peter and
259–272
Note F. The Cemeteries of Priscilla and
Domitilla
273–282
Index
283
Index of Scripture References
295–6
THE CHURCH IN
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LECTURE I
Rom. i. 8: ‘First, I thank my God
through Jesus Christ for you all, that
your faith is spoken of throughout the
whole world.’
The subject of these lectures is in
one sense a well-worn theme. The
literature bearing upon the history of
the Church in
century is enormous, and unfortunately
in modem times the prevailing note
has been controversial. It has seemed
as if it were impossible even for
those who have tried to write on the
beginnings of Roman Christianity in the
impartial spirit of the scientific
historian to free themselves from bias
and prejudice. This very fact,
however, only proves that this has been and
is a subject of profound and indeed of
absorbing interest, and it is so from
whatever point of view we regard it,
the political, no less than the.
ecclesiastical and religious. That
interest indeed, so far from diminishing,
has been greatly stimulated and
increased by the archaeological researches
and discoveries made in
half-century. Year by year additions
have been made to our knowledge, and it
is now generally admitted that the
last word on many most important and
critical questions has not yet been
spoken. Already many assertions once
confidently made have had to be
modified or abandoned, opinions put forward
with authority are constantly being
revised, and a careful study of
avail-able evidence has convinced me
that there are grounds for questioning
seriously certain conclusions now
generally received, and at the same time
for upholding the historical character
of some ancient traditions too
hastily rejected.
The first point to grasp is the
character of the spell exercised over the
minds of men by the very name of
Caesars.
influence unique in the annals of
history. It had become the magnetic centre
of the civilised world, and it was
itself the most cosmopolitan of cities
that have ever existed. The
absolute and centralised Government,
whose vast dominion stretched from the
shores of the
deserts, over diverse lands and many
races, all of them subdued after
centuries of conflict and of conquest
by the Roman arms, but now forming a
single empire under an administrative
system of unrivalled flexibility and
strength, which enforced obedience to
law and the maintenance of peace
without any unnecessary infringement
of local liberties or interference with
national religious cults. One of the
most remarkable features of this great
Empire was the freedom of intercourse
that was enjoyed, and the safety and
rapidity with which travelling could
be undertaken. Never until quite modern
times has any such ease and security
of communication between place and
place been possible. And this not
merely by those admirable military roads
which were one of the chief
instruments for the maintenance of the Roman
rule and for the binding together of
province with province and of the most
distant frontiers with the capital;
the facilities for intercourse by water
also were abundant and were, except
during the winter months, freely used.
The
zenith—essentially a Mediterranean
power. Its dominion consisted mainly of
the fringe of territory encircling
that sea. In the midst stood the capital.
The greatest cities of the Empire were
ports, and
among them, was dependent upon sea-borne
traffic for its daily food.’ [1]
At the beginning of the Christian era
the population of the imperial city
has been estimated at not less than
1,300,000, of which more than one half
were slaves. The entire number of
citizens owning private property was very
small—a few thousands only.’ [2] Each
of these possessed vast numbers of
slaves, [3] who were trained to
perform every kind of work, so that a
considerable portion of the free
inhabitants found themselves without
occupation or employment. In the time
of Julius Caesar [4] no fewer than
320,000 were supported by the state,
and though Augustus was able to reduce
this multitude of paupers to 200,000,
[5] the number afterwards rapidly
increased. This huge population was,
as has been already said, one of the
most cosmopolitan that has ever been
gathered together to form one
community. This was due in the first
instance to the practice of selling
prisoners of war, and the inhabitants
of captured cities, as slaves. The
institution of slavery therefore
implied that in every wealthy household in
large scale was continually admitting
batches of persons of foreign
extraction to many privileges of
citizenship. Thus was formed the large and
important class of freedmen (liberti)
containing men of culture and ability,
who not only filled posts of
responsibility in their former masters’
households but not seldom became rich
and rose to high official positions in
the state. Freedmen indeed and the
descendants of freedmen played no small
part in the history of the times with
which we are dealing, and Christianity
found among them many of its early
converts and most earnest workers. But
the freedmen and the slaves by no
means comprised all the foreign population
of
empire; the Pretorian camp contained
contingents drawn from distant frontier
tribes. Traders, travellers,
adventurers of every kind thronged to
philosophies, cults, and modes of
worship, Greek, Egyptian, and Phrygian.
The very language of ordinary everyday
life in
the whole atmosphere of the great city
was in no small measure orientalised.
[6]
Amongst this large alien element in
the population the Jews formed one of
the most marked and important
sections. Their position indeed was at once
singular and exclusive, for they had
privileges accorded to none others. The
origin [7] of the Jewish colony at
Pompeius after the capture of
prisoners, who were sold as slaves.
But the Jew, as a slave, was always
difficult to deal with, through his
obstinate adherence to his ancestral
faith and peculiar customs, and so
many of these slaves were speedily
manumitted [8] that they were able to
form a community apart on the far side
of the
favour to the Jews, and his policy was
continued by Augustus and, except for
brief intervals, by his successors.
The privileges thus conferred were very
great, and included liberty of
worship, freedom from military service and
from certain taxes, the recognition of
the Sabbath as a day of rest, the
right of living according to the
customs of their forefathers, and full
jurisdiction over their own members. [10] Once
in the reign of Tiberius [11]
the worshippers of Jahveh and of
the emperor; some were punished,
others expelled from the city, and the
consuls were ordered to enlist 4000
Jews for military service in the
malarious climate of
up a statue of himself in the
opposition, which would undoubtedly
have brought a fierce persecution upon
the Jews but for the assassination of
the tyrant (41 A.D.), before his
design was carried into effect. [12]
Claudius, however, on his accession at
once renewed all the old privileges,
and took steps to allay the fanatical
passions stirred up by the action of
his half-insane predecessor. From this
time forward the Jews were never
compelled to take part in Caesar-worship.
[13] To them alone of all the peoples
of the empire was this concession
made.
This Jewish colony in
writers to have had the same
characteristics as the Jewish colonies in
European cities throughout the Middle
Ages, and indeed much as we see them
to-day. A large proportion of these
Roman Jews were very poor, living in
rags and squalor, making a precarious
livelihood as hawkers, pedlars, and
dealers in second-hand goods. Above
these were then, as now, the
moneylenders, larger traders, and
shopkeepers, and at the head the wealthy
financiers, and in the days of
Tiberius and his successors many members of
the Herodian family made
intimacy with the Imperial circle.
[14] It is a curious fact that the Jewish
race, while hated and despised by the
people of
endowed with so many immunities by the
Emperors, and above all that its
exclusive religion and ceremonial
rites should have possessed such an
attraction as undoubtedly they did
possess, and should have drawn so many
adherents from all classes. [15] The
truth is that the privileges, as I have
said before, were granted from motives
of pure expediency. The Jewish race
was numerous, it had settlements in
practically every important city in the
empire, and it was financially
indispensable. The number of Jews in
5 B.C. has been estimated at 10,000;
in
700,000; in the whole
to sixty millions) four to four and a
half millions.
As 4000 adult males were actually sent
to
be said that a quarter of a century
later, allowing for the natural growth
of population, for fresh batches of
slaves receiving manumission, and for
immigration from outside, the total
Jewish settlement in
less than 30,000 and might reach
50,000.
Everywhere the Jew however held aloof
from his Gentile neighbours, and his
absolute refusal to mingle with them
and to share their life could only be
met either by coercion or by favoured
treatment. To the wise statesmanship
of the dictator Julius the latter
course commended itself, and the
permanence of the policy he adopted is
sufficient proof of its prescience.
The attractiveness of Judaism, as a
religious cult, is more difficult to
explain. It had neither the mysticism
nor the sensuousness of the worship of
became to a surprising degree the mode
in
the patrician houses. The number of
actual proselytes of Gentile origin was
large, and still larger the number of
those whom St. Luke in the Acts styles
‘God-fearers’ [16] (sebomenoi ton
Theon), i.e. people who adopted the Jewish
monotheism, attended the synagogue
[17] services, and observed the Sabbath
and certain portions of the ceremonial
law. These ‘God-fearers,’ in every
place where Jewish communities were to
be found, formed a fringe round the
Synagogue of bodies of men and women,
who, in this age of religious
electicism, without altogether
abandoning their connexion with Paganism, had
become semi-Jews.
In a city such as the
see a seed-plot ready prepared for the
planting of a new religion like
Christianity, oriental in its origin,
an outgrowth of Judaism, akin in so
many points to the Mystery-Religions
of
vogue, and bearing, as it did, in its
ethical teaching so striking a
resemblance to the moral code of the
Stoics. That the message of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ in some primitive form
reached the banks of the
early there is, as I shall show later,
good reason to believe, but of the
when or how we know nothing directly.
The converts at first would be almost
certainly few in number and drawn from
the humbler class of Jews. [18] The
new sect, if it were noticed at all by
the authorities, would be regarded
with contemptuous indifference as a
variety of Judaism, and therefore
sheltered by the privileges which
Judaism, as a religio licita, enjoyed.
[19] The only possible allusion in the
first decade after the Crucifixion to
the existence in
passage of Suetonius’ ‘Life of
Caligula,’ in which he tells of the
performance before the Emperor of a
play in which a certain Laureolus, who
gives his name to the piece, is
crucified upon the stage. Might there not be
here a cruel parody upon the central
theme of Christian preaching? Probably
not, though such an exhibition is at
any rate thoroughly illustrative of the
spirit of mockery with which the idea
of a crucified Saviour would be
received. [20]
There is evidence, however, in the
pages of the same historian, Suetonius,
that almost exactly a decade after the
aforesaid production of the Laureolus
Christianity in
down upon it the fanatical antagonism
of the Jews. Tumults and disorders
seem to have arisen in the Jewish
quarter of the city in 50 A.D. of such a
threatening character as to force the
Government, in spite of its favourable
inclination to the Jews, to take
strong action. This appears to me to be
nothing more than a fair
interpretation of Suetonius’ words—‘the Jews who
were continually rioting at the
instigation of Chrestus he (Claudius)
expelled from
to a Latin historian, for Chrestus was
a name in use at
inscriptions show, [22] and both
Tertullian and Lactantius [23] tell us that
in their time the common pronunciation
was “Chrestus’ and ‘Chrestianos’ for
‘Christus’ and ‘Christianos.’ The
French word ‘chrétien’ is to this day a
living proof that this mode of
spelling still survives. Dion Cassius [24]
informs us that the edict of
expulsion, owing to the disturbance that it
caused, was only partially carried
out, but that the synagogues were closed
and the clubs licensed by Caligula
dissolved. Among the Jews that were
expelled were no doubt the chief
leaders of the contending factions. Among
these were
the Apostles that in consequence of
Claudius’ edict of banishment they had
left
personal contact with
visited that city.
The intercourse which thus began was
destined to be long-continued and
intimate, and it was through this
intercourse (such at least is my firm
persuasion) that that eager desire to
visit
such strong expression in his Epistle
to the Romans some five or six years
later, was first fanned into flame.
Not without purpose did St. Luke, who
never wastes words, give such an
elaborate description of this husband and
wife upon their first entry on the
stage of his history. ‘Having departed
from
certain Jew, by name
from
that all the Jews should depart from
because they were of the same trade he
abode with them and wrought at his
craft, for they were tentmakers by
trade.’ Here undoubtedly St. Luke
intended in the first place to give
the reason for the strong bond of
sympathy which at once sprang up
between these two Asiatic Jews and fellow
craftsmen. The description of
a Christian. Had he and his wife
required to be converted and baptised, it
is almost impossible that so important
a fact should not here have been
mentioned. Compare the notice about
Apollos, Acts xviii. 24-27, The Jews who
were actually exiled by Claudius were
no doubt the leaders of the contending
factions,
foremost of the Christian
congregation. In the eyes of the Roman
authorities, as has already been
pointed out, Christianity was as yet simply
a Jewish sect. The emphatic statement
that
context shows, not to his religion but
to his race, and the separate mention
of Priscilla without that epithet may
be taken to imply, firstly, that she
was not Jewish but Roman, and secondly
that she was to play an independent
role in the furtherance of
New Testament is the one name
mentioned without the other, and in four out
of the six places in which they occur
the name of Prisca or Priscilla stands
first. [26] From this fact the
deduction has been made, and in my opinion
rightly, that Prisca was of more
honourable position by birth than her
husband, and that she possessed
private means which she freely used in
furthering the cause of the Gospel.
[27]
I have spoken, not without good
reason, of this intercourse which began in
51 A.D. at
of his eighteen months’ sojourn in
that city
roof, and when he sailed from
Cenchraea for
53 A.D.
abode, Acts, xviii. 11 and 18, 19. and
at once set about active missionary
work, while awaiting the Apostle’s
return some six months later. During this
interval it was by their
instrumentality that the eloquent and learned
Apollos was instructed in the full
Christian faith, and probably it was by
their advice that he entered upon,
what we know to have been, his fruitful
ministry at
quarter Acts, xix. 10. that
Apostle’s home; in any case we know
that it was a meeting-place in which the
faithful gathered for worship, for in
his First Epistle to the Corinthians,
I Cor. xvi. 19. which was written from
A.D.,
Church that is in their house.’ From
these his close friends and
fellow-workers, with whom he was for
some five or six years in constant
communication,
learning much about the condition of
the Church in
from
travellers and traders from the
capital whom he must have met at their
house, and who would bring with them
the latest news as to the state of
things in the
of the accession of the young and
popular Nero in the place of Claudius, and
of the happy prospects that his reign
promised, a promise that was justified
so long as the boy emperor was content
in his public administration to place
himself under the guidance of his wise
counsellors Seneca and Burrhus. [28]
What is certain is that
activity. His first task was to
journey through
his presence was called for and needed;
his next to pay another visit after
a long absence to
see
expected, for in the riots raised by
Demetrius and his fellow-craftsmen
against the Christians and the Jews
with whom as usual they were confounded,
[30] Paul seems to have narrowly
escaped from the violence of the angry
throng, and to have succeeded in doing
so only through the self-sacrificing
courage of
save his.
It had been Paul’s intention to remain
at
serious tumult compelled [32] him to
leave much earlier in the year 56 A.D.,
and at the same time and for the same
reasons his friends
may have taken the opportunity to
start on their return journey to
edict of banishment having now been
allowed to lapse by the conciliatory
policy of Nero’s advisers. The friendly
Asiarchs, who warned Paul not to
adventure himself into the theatre,
would indeed feel it their duty, as soon
as the riot was appeased, for the sake
of the peace of the city to insist
that both Paul and his protectors
a time. Paul himself carried out his
plan of journeying by way of
The project of a visit to
began to assume a concrete shape in
his mind, and the result was the
writing, almost certainly in the early
spring of the year 57 A.D., of the
Epistle to the Romans. Now this great
epistle stands in the forefront of the
Pauline writings chiefly as a
theological treatise, but apart from its
theology it has other claims, as an
historical document of the highest
evidential value, deserving from the
Church historian’s point of view the
closest and most attentive
study.
In the first place then this Epistle
bears upon its face the clearest
testimony to the existence in 57 A.D.
of a distinguished and
well-established Christian Church in
and in which the Gentile element
predominated. The mere fact that the
Apostle, at a time when many cares
pressed heavily upon him, [33] took the
pains to write this elaborate and
carefully reasoned statement of his
doctrinal teaching to a body of
Christians that he had never visited, is
evidence to the very important place
they occupied in his thoughts. His
words, ‘I thank my God through Jesus
Christ for you all that your faith [34]
is proclaimed in all the world,’ may
be somewhat hyperbolic, but they mean
at any rate that the Roman Church was
well known and highly spoken of in all
the various Christian communities with
which
the impression these words convey is
emphasised by the Apostle’s later
declaration affirming even in stronger
terms his personal assent to this
widely received estimate of the
character of Roman Christianity, for no
language could be more explicit than
this—‘I am persuaded, my brethren, I
myself also concerning you, that even
of yourselves’—i.e. without any
extraneous help derived from such an
epistle as I am sending to you—‘you are
full of goodness, filled with all
knowledge, able also to admonish one
another.’ [35] Such a declaration
implies a conviction based upon
trustworthy evidence, otherwise his
readers would be the first to perceive
that here was only high-flown language
covering an empty compliment. Such an
utterance from a man and a writer like
existing acquaintance with a
considerable number of Roman Christians, whose
goodness, knowledge, and sound
judgment he has tested and learnt to
appreciate. Indeed it is not too much
to say that Paul in writing this
epistle is somewhat oppressed by a
sense that those whom he is
addressing—for a reason, which will
appear presently—may possibly think that
they have no special need either of
his instruction or of his admonition.
His epistle is an apologia for
venturing to be so bold as to propose to pay
a visit to
in the course of a journey farther
west. [36] He evidently had in his mind
the fear that in
disparaging rumours concerning
himself, his teaching, and his office, and
that he might be regarded as an
intruder. If he had found it necessary even
in
writing, to defend strenuously his
Apostolic claims and doctrine, [37] how
much more in
had had no hand. So in the
Introductory Salutation St. Paul sets forth his
credentials. He is no mere ordinary
apostle, a man commissioned by the
Twelve or by some particular Church to
go forth to some limited field of
missionary work. His Apostleship
differed from that of their own Junias and
Andronicus, [38] whom later he
describes as ‘apostles of note,’
differed—perhaps it is implied—even
from that of so eminent a man as
Barnabas, [39] in that he [Paul] like
the Twelve had been chosen out and set
apart [40] for the preaching of the
Gospel by the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself—chosen and set apart for
preaching the Gospel among all nations and
bringing them to the obedience of the
faith. [41] And though the Gospel has
already been preached in
Roman Christians is spoken of
everywhere in terms of praise, yet
lies within the bounds of his
commission, and so he has many times planned,
though hitherto always hindered, to
come to them that he might have some
fruit amongst them also. Indeed he
calls God to witness that he had prayed
continually that he might be prospered
on his way to visit them, that he
might be able to impart to them some
spiritual gift for their confirmation.
Immediately, however, adding lest he
should offend their susceptibilities by
any assumption of superiority—‘that is
that while I am amongst you we may be
jointly strengthened by the mutual
faith of you and me.’ [42]
But if the note of apologia can be
discerned here in the introductory
verses, it comes out much more
strongly in what may be styled the body of
the epistle. The difficulties of
interpretation theologically of the
Apostle’s reasoning and arguments, in
that grand series of chapters which
end with chapter xi., lie outside my
province. Those difficulties,
admittedly very great, are caused in
no small degree by our ignorance of the
circumstances, of the persons,
parties, questions, and situation generally
with which
It is my present object to try to
trace out from the materials, which the
epistle itself supplies in definite
even though in parts but in faint
outline, such features of that
background as are discernible through the
mist of ages. Leaving on one side for
the present the extremely important
autobiographical passage in chapter
xv., also the valuable testimony as to
the composition of the Roman Church
furnished by the list of salutations in
chapter xvi., which require special
and separate treatment, we can, I think,
make certain well-grounded assertions
concerning the three distinct groups
of persons whom
three groups are (1) a body of Jewish
Christians, (2) a larger body of
converted Gentiles, (3) the mass of
unbelieving Jews.
doubt that the third group comprised
the vast majority of the Roman Jews,
including practically the whole of
official
these rabbis, elders, and rulers of
the Synagogues were not so much actively
hostile to the preaching of
Christianity as simply deaf, contemptuously
indifferent. Those of Group No. 1, the
Jewish Christians, were relatively
small in number, but though small they
were divided into two very distinct
sections or parties. One of these
sections consisted of Jews like
others mentioned in the salutations,
who were Paul’s friends and
fellow-workers; the other, an
extremely influential and energetic section of
Judaeo-Christians, Jews rather than
Christians, who, like the Judaisers who
are brought before us in the Epistle
to the Galatians and elsewhere, were
bitterly opposed to
misrepresented his teaching, and
denounced him as a renegade from the faith
of his fathers. The Gentiles of the
second group formed the chief element
in. the Roman Church. Of these no
doubt a certain number had been converted
straight from heathendom, but the
assumption which runs through the epistle,
that they were familiar with the
Jewish Scriptures in the Septuagint
version, and with the Jewish
ceremonial law, would seem to point to their
being largely drawn from the class of
Greek-speaking ‘God-fearers,’ which,
as I have already stated, in all the
chief towns of the Empire, and
conspicuously in
what was the impelling motive which
led to the writing of this epistle, and
which dictated the order and character
of the arguments, the answer surely
is not far to seek.
visit
happy about the reception he would
meet. To the Christian community of the
imperial city as a whole he was a
stranger, and as I have said, he was aware
that there was a Judaising faction there busy at their usual task
of
stirring up enmity against him. His
own words (Rom. iii. 8), ‘as we are
slanderously reported and as some
affirm that we say, let us do evil that
good may come,' are a proof that he
had been informed that his great
doctrine of Justification by Faith had
been seized upon by these adversaries
to represent him as an antinomian. He
therefore felt it to be incumbent upon
him to answer at once and in advance
these Judaistic attacks by a full
exposition of his teaching on the
subject of Justification by Faith, and at
the same time he desired to make clear
what was his real attitude towards
many disputed questions concerning
Judaism and the observance of the Mosaic
Law, and the relation between Jew and
Gentile in the
If this be granted then a flood of
light is immediately thrown on the
interpretation and import of that
central portion of this epistle, which
begins with the words (Rom. ii. 17)—‘but
if thou bearest the name . . . of
Jew and possessest a law to rest
upon’—up to the end of chapter xi. It is
unmistakably addressed to Jews. [43]
Not to the strict orthodox Jews of the
Synagogues, who in their haughty
aloofness would not be likely either to see
or to read the Apostle’s arguments.
The Jews addressed were men who had
indeed accepted Jesus as the Jewish
Messiah but who perhaps only the more
obstinately for that very reason clung
to their Judaism, and hated the
thought of losing any of those
exclusive religious privileges, as
Israelites, which were their pride and
boast. The doors of the Christian
Church, as they conceived it, might be
open to Gentiles, but only if they
would consent to be circumcised and to
conform to the ordinances of the
Mosaic Law.
But though in form he is addressing
himself to Jews, Paul’s thoughts are all
the time directed to his Gentile
readers, and it is for their sake and for
their edification quite as much as for
the persuasion of his Jewish
fellow-countrymen that he step by step
leads up to the establishment of the
fundamental principles of the Gospel
that he preached. This is made quite
clear by his own words (chap. xi.
13–14): ‘For it is to you the Gentiles
that I am speaking. Nay, more, [44] in so far
as I am the Gentiles’ Apostle
I make-the-most-of [45] my ministry;
if by any means I may stir to jealousy
my own flesh and might save some.’
[46]
The lengthy list of salutations to be
found in the first twenty-three verses
of chapter xvi. is a passage of great
and peculiar interest historically,
for it enables us to form some
estimate, not conjecturally but positively,
concerning the social and racial
composition of the Roman Christian
community at this time. It also gives
indirectly an indication of the close
relations of intercourse subsisting
between the Churches of the chief cities
of the Mediterranean coast. The very
fact of its historical importance has
however caused doubts to be raised by
certain critics of the hypercritical
school whether the passage is really
an integral part of the Epistle to the
Romans. Its Pauline authorship is not
assailed, but attempts have been made
to show that the list where it stands
has (wholly or in part) been displaced
and that it should be attached to some
hypothetical epistle addressed at
some unknown time to another Church,
most probably to that of
must suffice here to say that I accept
without hesitation the whole of this
sixteenth chapter as an original and
authentic portion of the Epistle to the
Romans on the following grounds.
First, to quote the words of Professor
‘There is no trace of any external
evidence for doubting that this section
has always belonged to the epistle.’
[47] This then is admitted, and it
counts heavily. Secondly, all the
names, some of them rare and uncommon
names, contained in the list of salutations
have been discovered in the
inscriptions found in the colurnbaria
and cemeteries of
contemporary or nearly contemporary
with the date of the epistle: an
evidence in favour of authenticity,
which, if not absolutely conclusive, is
at least remarkably convincing. [48]
The arguments in favour of the
anti-Roman hypothesis are of a purely
a priori character, and there are only
two of them, it seems to me, of weight
sufficient to deserve consideration.
The first is the difficulty of
imagining that Paul could possibly have been
acquainted with the names of so many
members of a Church he had never
visited, and still more that he should
have been able in quite a large
proportion of cases to add personal
details. With this argument I have
already dealt in part. Besides the
information which he must have acquired
from
centres of Mediterranean traffic with
a constant stream of travellers and
traders from
would be to find their way to the
friendly house of their banished
fellow-citizens. Criticism here, as in
many other instances, has gone astray
from its failure to recognise the
great facilities for intercourse in
Apostolic times, especially between
cities on the shores of the
travels of Apollonius of Tyana as told
by Philostratus are a good instance
in point, for Apollonius was a
contemporary of
draw up, we may be sure, this
unusually long list of salutations without an
object. Diffident, as he seems to have
been, of the welcome he would receive
upon his visit to
a tactful act of diplomacy? He wished
to remind those who are mentioned that
he bore them in his remembrance and
affection, and at the same time to
bespeak, as it were, their good
offices with their brethren for the time
when he actually came amongst them.
[49] That Paul himself could not have
made out such a list with its many
details without assistance is possibly
true, but that assistance was at his
very side, as his words were being
written down. Very interesting, as a
mark of the genuineness of this
passage, is the sudden interpolation,
in the midst of the Pauline phrases,
of a salutation from another hand, ‘I,
Tertius, the scribe of this epistle,
salute you.’ [50] Tertius was then a
Roman Christian, and he had doubtless
been chosen by Paul on this occasion
to act as his amanuensis, for this very
reason.
The second argument relied upon by the
critics is at first sight more
plausible. Paul in writing his First
Epistle to the Corinthians from
sends salutations from
adding according to one group of
authorities the words ‘with whom also I am
a guest.’ [51] Nothing could be more
natural, and the inference seems to
follow that when previously the
Apostle was a guest in their house at
congregation. About a year and a
quarter after this Paul, writing from
(
risked their lives to save his, and
thanking them not only in his own name
but in that of all the Churches of the
Gentiles, he proceeds to salute ‘the
Church that is in their house.’ Now to
the critics with whom I am dealing it
appears very improbable that if
so recently there could have been
already a Church in their house with the
existence of which
it worthy of a special salutation. It
is pointed out, moreover, that in his
Second Epistle to Timothy (an epistle,
by the by, not accepted by these same
critics as Paul’s or contemporary)
Paul sends salutations from
Prisca and
that during the decade which
intervened between the first and last of these
salutations the home of this husband
and wife had always been at
This being so, this section of the
sixteenth chapter of the Romans cannot
belong to the epistle in which we find
it.
It might be thought a sufficient
answer to this allegation that external
authority in its favour is confessedly
nonexistent—to say nothing of the
fact that tradition with no uncertain
voice connects the names of Prisca and
there is no real difficulty in
accepting the usual interpretation of the
salutation.
When the Apostle parted at
fellow-workers who had been so long of
such service to him, one may be quite
sure it would not be without full
knowledge on both sides of their future
intentions and plans. On his reaching
must have passed, ample time for news
to have come, by some of those using
the highway of traffic across the
isthmus, that
settled at
certainly to afford the slightest
pretext for the rejection of a
well-authenticated text. Personally
however I do not believe that there is
any necessity for entering upon the
consideration of what I venture to call
‘time-table calculations.’ There is
nothing in
us in assuming that this ‘Church in
the house’ of
to Roman Christianity. The banishment
decreed by Claudius was according to
Dion Cassius most leniently carried
out and would not involve the
confiscation of property. [53] It is
one of those minute points that are
often so significant, that
of
Prisca were, as is commonly supposed,
when they were resident at
more important person of the two
spouses, and the owner of property, then
the unusual inversion of the names is
explicable. But at
were strangers the house would
naturally be described as that of
Prisca, the husband’s name standing
first in order of precedence. [54]
Since
said, because they were recognised
leaders of that faction of ‘Chrestus’ of
which Suetonius speaks. May one not be
justified then in the assumption that
the readiness of the exiles at
and a room for worship in their house
was but the continuation of their
previous practice at their Roman home
before their banishment? But if the
Church in their house was thus in
existence before 50 A.D., it is scarcely
likely that the owners in their
enforced absence would forbid its use. It
would but lessen their sense of
separation, if they were thus able to be of
continued service to their poorer
Christian brethren in
supposition of course involves certain
assumptions about the state of the
Church in
reasonable assumption, and consistent
alike with the positive and
traditional data that we possess. [55]
The Epistle to the Romans is itself a
proof that Christianity was firmly
established in the metropolis some time
before 57 A.D.; there must therefore before that date have been houses
where
the faithful met. Tradition mentions
only two such places of assembly—the
house of Prisca and
supposed to be marked by the very
ancient Churches of St. Prisca and St.
Pudenziana.
Granting then that this list of
salutations is addressed to the Roman
community, let us glance very briefly
at its general features. A study of
the names enables us to draw the
conclusion that the Roman Christians mainly
belonged to the class of
Greek-speaking freedmen and slaves. [56] Certain of
these are addressed by the Apostle as
kinsmen (sungeneis), and it is safe to
assume that these were Jewish
fellow-countrymen. [57] It is possible that
some others not so designated may have
been Jews, but the probability is the
other way. The evidence already
adduced points clearly to a hostility to
Paul among the Judaeo-Christians at
from receiving friendly greetings. Two
names in this group deserve special
mention. ‘Salute Andronicus and Junias
my kinsmen and my fellow-prisoners,
who are men of mark among the
apostles, who also were in Christ before me’
[58] is the remarkable language of the
seventh verse. When and where these
two had been Paul’s fellow-prisoners
we know not. Paul in his Second Epistle
to the Corinthians—only a few months
before—had spoken of frequent
imprisonments [59] of which we know
nothing. The very fact that he describes
Andronicus and Junias as ‘men of mark
among the apostles’ makes it probable
that he had encountered them in his
journeys, for the term ‘apostle’ at this
early period seems to have been
applied generally to delegates sent out with
a commission by some Church for some
special field of missionary work, and
to have carried with it as a necessary
qualification the possession of
charismatic gifts. [60] But a still
greater distinction is conferred on
these two by Paul’s admission that
‘they were in Christ before me,’ words
which imply that their conversion
dated back at least as far as the days of
St. Stephen’s activity. Possibly they
belonged to that ‘Synagogue of the
Libertines’ [61] in which Stephen
argued, and afterwards became, a little
later, the first preachers of the
Gospel at
salutations to the households of
Aristobulus and Narcissus. These would all
be freedmen or slaves. Aristobulus may
well have been that grandson of Herod
the Great who is described by Josephus
[62] as making his permanent home at
intervening between those of the two
households. The name suggests a member
of the family to which Aristobulus
belonged. Narcissus can scarcely be any
other than the freedman and favourite
of Claudius. He had been put to death
some three years before this epistle
was written, but his slaves and
dependents, though they would after
his execution be incorporated in the
Imperial household, might still retain
the distinctive name of Narcissiani.
[63] It is possible that Aristobulus
may have been dead in 57 A.D., and have
bequeathed his slaves to the emperor.
If so, both these groups would form
part of that vast body of freedmen and
slaves known as Caesar’s Household,
to which
Saints salute you, specially they of
Caesar’s Household.’
How vast a number composed the
imperial household may be gathered from the
statement of Lanciani (‘Ancient Rome
in the Light of Recent Discoveries,’ p.
130) that in two columbaria of the
servants and freedmen of Augustus and
Livia the remains of no fewer than
6000 persons have been found. The two
groups of names in verses 14-15 seem
to indicate that they were members of
two smaller households belonging to
private persons. [64] The expression
‘all the Churches of Christ salute
you’ (v. 16) is unique in the New
Testament, and when taken in connexion
with the language of this epistle
elsewhere upon the high repute of the
Roman Church may be held (to quote the
words of Dr. Hort) to signify that
that Church was already ‘an object of
love and respect to Jewish and Gentile
Churches alike.’ [65]
And now we come to a consideration of
the all-important autobiographic
passage in the fifteenth chapter, [66]
which contains, if rightly
interpreted, an explanation at once of
the Roman Church and the widespread
esteem in which, as he declares, it was
held by its sister Churches. This
passage may be regarded as an expansion of
the earlier autobiographic section
with which the epistle opens. The object
and the tone are the same, only here
the Apostle enters more into detail.
After recounting how ‘from
have fully carried the Gospel of
Christ, but in doing so making it my
pride-and-care [67] to preach not
where Christ was named lest I should build
upon another man’s foundation,’ Paul
proceeds ‘wherefore also I was hindered
many times [68] from coming to you.
But now having no more place in these
regions and having had these many
years a keen-longing [69] to come to you,
whenever I journey to
as I am journeying through, and to be
sent forward on my way thitherward by
you after I have first in some measure
enjoyed-my-fill of your company.’ The
meaning of this statement, though the
language and sequence of thought are
somewhat involved, is nevertheless, so
it seems to me, as plain and direct
as it is possible to be.
to trespass in fields opened out by
other men’s labours, in Churches whose
foundations others had laid. May not
this ordinance of limitation imposed by
the Apostle on himself afford the
explanation of Acts xvi. 6-7, ‘And they
went through the region of
Holy Ghost to preach the word in
them not’? If the South Galatian
theory be accepted (I myself accept it
unreservedly), it is really remarkable
how small a portion of what is now
known as
does not propose to come to
prolonged spell of missionary work,
but merely to pay a brief passing visit
on his journey further west, in order
to make the acquaintance of the Roman
Christians, of whom he had heard so
much, and to receive at their hands a
friendly and encouraging send-off when
he leaves them for the scene of his
new labours in
that another had preached at
did not mention his name? The answer
is a very simple one: he was not
writing for the information of
students and critics of the twentieth
century, but for the Roman Christians,
who knew the facts.
There had then been a founder of this
great Church of world-wide fame with
whom Paul was well acquainted and into
whose special sphere of successful
preaching he did not think it right to
intrude. Who was he? [72] All
tradition answers with one voice the
name of St. Peter. In the next lecture
I shall attempt to set forth the
grounds on which this tradition rests, and
to show that its acceptance, so far
from being inconsistent with those
fragments of early Christian history
which have been preserved to us in the
Acts and in the Epistles, serves to
complete and bind them together and to
explain much that is otherwise
inexplicable in the rapid spread of
Christianity in the three decades
which followed the Great Day of Pentecost.
_________________________________________________________________
[1] See Sir W. Ramsay’s Article in
Hasting’s Dict. vol. v. ‘Roads and Travel
in N.T. Times’; his
Friedlander, Sittengeschichte Roms,
ii. 3; Sanday and Headlam, Ep. to
p. xxvi; Merivale,
First Century; Renan, Hibbert
Lectures, 1850, ‘The Influence of the
Institutions, Thought, and Culture of
Development of the Catholic Church,’
[2] Cicero (De Officiis, ii. 21)
speaks of the number as 2000 in 102 B.C.
[3] At the end of the Republic and
under the Empire it was not a rare thing
to meet rich Romans possessing many
thousands. Under Augustus a simple
freedman, C. Caecilius Isidorus,
although he had lost a considerable part of
his fortune during the civil wars,
still left at his death 4116 slaves.
Pliny, Historia Naturalis, xxxiii.
47.
[4] Suetonius, Caesar, 41; Dion Cassius,
xliii. 21.
[5] Dion Cassius, lv, 10.
[6] Among the upper classes it had
become the fashion to speak and write
Greek; for trade purposes and among
the lowest classes of mixed race a
debased Greek was used, as the
language most generally understood. Juvenal,
Sat. iii. 60 ‘Non possum ferre,
Quirites, Graecam urbem’; ibid. 62 ‘Jam
pridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit
[7] Berliner, Abraham (Geschichte der
Juden in Rom, one of the best
monographs on the subject), thinks
that there must have been Jewish settlers
in
pleading for Flaccus in 59 B.C.,
affecting to be intimidated by the crowd of
Jews thronging the Aurelian
steps—‘multitudinem Iudaeorum flagrantium
nonnunquam in concionibus’ (Cic. pro
Flacco xxviii.), and probably he was
right.
advocate’s purpose. See Sanday and
Headlam, Ep. to Rom. p. xix.
[8] Philo, Leg. ad Caium, 568.
[9] The Transtiberine ‘Ghetto,’ which
was first removed across the river in
1556.
[10] Schürer, Hist. of the Jewish
People in N.T. Times, 2nd Div., vol. ii.
pp. 234, 259, 264. Josephus (
conferring these privileges. See also
Suet. Caesar, 42. The action of Julius
Caesar was the more remarkable as he
took energetic steps to repress all
collegia which were unable to prove
ancient prescriptive rights and liberty
of association generally. Consult also
Harnack, Expansion of Christianity,
vol. i. pp. 5–10, 350–371; Fouard,
Renan, Hibbert Lectures,
[11] Josephus (
aroused by the complaint of
Saturninus, a friend of the emperor, that his
wife Fulvia, who was a proselyte, had
been induced to give money for the
service of the
Tib. 36) writes: ‘Iudaeorum iuventutes
per speciem sacramenti in provincias
gravioris caeli distribuit, reliquos
gentis eiusdem vel similia sectantes
urbe summovit, sub poena perpetuae
servitutis nisi obtemperassent.’ Tacitus
(Ann. ii. 85) confirms the account of
Josephus about the sending of this
body of Jews to
caeli interiissent; vile damnum.’ The
action of Tiberius was confined to the
Jews of
[12] Much may be learnt about the position
of the Jews in the Empire and of
Caligula’s disposition towards them in
Philo’s Legatio ad Caium, in which he
gives an account of the reception by
the emperor of a deputation from the
Jews of Alexandria headed by
himself.
[13] Tacitus, Hist. v. 5 ‘Non regibus
haec adulatio, non Caesaribus
honor.’
[14] For the Herodian family at
[15] Harnack, Expansion of
Christianity, i. 7–11; Schürer, 2 Div. ii.
220–242; Allard, Hist. de Perséc. c.
i. sec. 1; Hardy, Studies in Roman
Hist. pp. 14–28; Workman, Persecutions
in Early Church, pp. 108–115.
[16] These people, described in the
Acts and elsewhere as sebomenoi (or
phoboumenoi) ton Theon or simply as
sebomeēoi, were by Schürer, in the 1st
ed. of his Geschichte d. Jüdischen
Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu Christi,
described as being ‘the Proselytes of
the Gate’ of the Talmud. He followed
the commonly received opinion. He has
however since then, by a careful study
of inscriptions, been led to change
his opinion. In his 4th ed. 1909 (iii.
173 ff.) he is able to show that the
term ‘proselyte of the gate’ was not
used until a much later period than
that with which we are dealing, and that
the real meaning is that given above,
heathen who had partially adopted
Judaism, but without becoming
proselytes.
of
[17] The synagogues in
The entire body of Jews of the capital
were not allowed, as at
to form a state within a state,
self-administered with an Alabarch at their
head. The names of seven synagogues
have been discovered in the inscriptions
of the ancient Jewish cemeteries: (1)
Augoustēseōn, (2) Agrippēsiōn, (3)
Bolumni, (4) Kampēsiōn, (5)
Sibourēsiōn, (6) Aibreōn, (7) Elaias. The first
two were probably the synagogues of
the households of Augustus and Agrippa.
The fourth and fifth belong to Jewish
settlements on the outskirts of the
Campus Martius and in the crowded
Suburra. The third may have been built by
some one of the name of Volumnus, or
have been associated with him in some
unknown way. The seventh, the
synagogue of the Olive Tree, may have
suggested the simile of Rom. xi.
17–24. The sixth inscription does not seem
to have referred to any special
synagogue but to have been a generic term,
‘a synagogue of the Hebrews (or
Jews).’ In addition to settlements in the
Suburra and near the Campus Martius,
the discovery of two ancient Jewish
cemeteries on the
evidence to yet another Jewish colony
at this point, not inconsiderable in
numbers. The Transtiberine, however,
was always by far the largest of the
Jewish quarters. See Schürer, 2 Div.,
ii. 247–249; Fouard,
316–322; Garrucci, Cimetero degli
antichi Ebrei in Roma, and Marucchi,
Elements d’Archéologie Chrétienne,
vol. ii. pp. 208–226, 259–274.
[18] For the chronology of these Lectures
see Note A of the Appendix.
[19] Tertullian (Apol. xxi.) says that
the Church until the time of Nero’s
persecution grew up under the shadow
of the synagogue: ‘quasi sub umbraculo
religionis insignissimae certe
licitae.’
[20] Suet. Calig. 57. See also for
later notices of Laureolus, Jos. Ant.
xix. 18; Martial, Spect. 7;
Tertullian, Valent. 14. In Mayor’s Juvenal, vol.
ii. p. 40, the following note appears
to Sat. viii. 167: ‘Laureolum Schol.
In ipso mimo Laureolo figitur crux unde
vera cruce dignus est Lentulus, qui
tanto detestabilior est quanto melius
gestum imitatus est scenicum. . . .
Hic Lentulus nobilis fuit et suscepit
servi personam in agendo mimo.’
[21] Suet. Claudius, 25 ‘Iudaeos
impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma
expulit.’
[22] CIL. vi. 10233. The following
inscription, which I came across, seemed
to me specially interesting from the
collocation of the names Chrestus and
Paula. ‘P. Ćlius Chrestus et Cornelia
Paula hoc scalare adplicitum huic
sepulchro quod emerunt a fisco agente
Agathonico proc [-uratore] Augustorum
nostrorum quod habet scriptura infra
scripta. Gentiano et Basso cons. vii
Kal. April.’ Date, 211 A.D.
[23] Tert. Apol. 3: ‘Sed ut cum
perperam Chrestianos pronuntiatur a vobis,
nam nec nominis certa est notitia
penes vos’; Lact. Inst. Divin. iv. 17:
‘Sed exponenda huius nominis [Christi]
ratio est propter ignorantium
errorem, qui eum immutata litera
Chrestum solent dicere.’ Compare the title
Le Roy trčs Chréstien of the French
Kings.
[24] Dion Cassius, lx. 6: tous te
Ioudaious, pleonasantas authis chalepōs an
aneu tarachēs hupo tou ochlou
sphōn tēs poleōs eirchthēnai, ouk exēlase men,
tō de dē patriō
nomō biō chrōmenous, ekeleuse mē sunathroizesthai. tas
te
hetaireias epanachtheisas hupo tou
Gaiou dieluse.
[25] I.e. a native of the Roman
Province of Pontus.
[26] For further details about Prisca
and
noteworthy that
authenticated readings always calls
the wife Prisca, while St. Luke names
her Priscilla. Both writers, except in
one case, I Cor. xvi. 19, place the
name of the wife first. St. Luke is
wont to use the diminutive forms of
names, which were usual in
conversation, i.e. Priscilla, Silas, Sopatros;
Traveller, pp. 267–8.
[27] Plumptre, Biblical Studies, p.
417; Hort, Romans and Philippians, pp.
12–14; Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller,
pp. 253 f., 267 f.; Zahn, Intr. to
N.T. i. 263, etc. etc.
[28] For the good government of the
Empire during the first five years of
Nero’s reign, known in history as the
quinquennium of Nero, see
Life and Principate of the Emperor
Nero.
[29] Acts, xix, 21.
[30] Acts, xix. 33-4.
[31] Rom. xvi. 34: Aspasasthe Priskan
kai Akulan tous sunergous mou en
Christō Iēsou, hoitines
huper tēs psuchēs mou ton heautōn trachēlon
hupethēkan. Comp. 2 Cor. i. 8.
The group of MSS. D, E, F, G, add par hois
kai psenizomaa, pointing to the
tradition in the
Paul lived at
[32] Acts, xix. 31.
[33] 2 Cor. ii. 4, 5, 13; iv. 8-11; xi.
27-28; xii. 10, 20-21; Acts, xx.
19-25.
[34] 2 Rom. i. 8: hē pistis
humōn = your profession of Christianity.
[35] Rom. xv. 14: Pepeismai de,
adelphoi mou, kai autos egō peri humōn, hoti
kai autoi mestoi este
agathōsunēs, peplērōmenoi pasēs gnōseōs,
dunamenoi kai
allēlous nouthetein. Notice the
emphatic position of kai autos egō. Compare
xvi. 19: hē gar humōn
hupakoē eis pantas aphiketo.
[36] Rom. xv. 24.
[37] 2 Cor. x. 12-18; xii. 11-13; and
elsewhere.
[38] Rom. xvi. 7.
[39] There are grounds, as will appear in the sequel, for believing
that
Barnabas had already visited
[40] Rom. i. 1: klētos apostolos,
aphōrismenos eis euangelion theou.
[41] Rom. i. 5: di hou [Iēsou
Christou tou kuriou hēmōn] elabomen charin kai
apostolēn eis hupakoēn
pisteōs en pasin tois ethnesin.
[42] Rom. i. 12: touto de estin
sunparaklēthēnai en humin dia tēs en
allēlois pisteōs humōn
te kai emou. See Zahn, Int. to N.T. pp. 355-8, 369.
[43] Rom. ii. 17–29; iii. 1, 2; iv. 1.
That this body of Judaeo-Christians
were still active in
counteract
16; iii. 1-6. It was to these same
Jews that chap. xiv. 1–23 appears to have
been addressed. The extreme
particularity about meats and rigid asceticism
were characteristic of the party of
the circumcision. See Zahn, Int. to N.T.
pp. 366-7.
[44] So Sanday and Headlam give the
force of the men oun in this verse.
Commentary on Romans, p. 324.
[45] Lit. glorify.
[46] On
extremely interesting section of
Harnack’s Neue Untersuchungen sur
Apostelgeschichte, 1911 (
Lib.), pp. 28–47. Of the evidence
supplied by that section of the Epistle to
the Romans from which these words are
taken, Harnack writes: ‘Der Grosse
Abschnitt—c. 9–11—ist aus der Feder
eines Juden geflossen der mit allen
Fasern seiner Seele an seinem Volke
hängt’ (p. 31). And again concerning the
simile of the olive-tree in c. xi.:
‘Man beachte wohl, das (gläubige)
kata sarka ist and bleibt “der güte
Ölbaum” (gegenüber dem wilden Ölbaum der
Heiden); jeder Israelit ist ein
“naturlicher Zweig” dieses guten Ölbaums,
wenn er auch unter Umständen abgehauen
werden muss, and er d.h. das gläubige
eingepropften wilden Schösslinge
teilnehmen und die sie trägt’ (p. 32). See
also the quotation from Herzog in
note. I have already pointed out the
possibility that the name of one of
the Roman synagogues ‘The Olive Tree’
may have suggested this simile to
[47]
p. 325 ff.
[48] Sanday and Headlam, Ep. to
Romans, pp. xciii–xcv; Lightfoot, Ep. to
Philippians, see dissertation on
Caesar’s Household, pp. 169–176.
[49] Zahn (Int. to N.T. i. 388) says:
‘Who does not see that all these
personal references are due to Paul’s
desire to make the Church feel that it
is not such a stranger to him as it
seems, and at the same time are
indications of an effort on his part
to bring himself into closer touch with
the Church where as yet he was really
a stranger?’
[50] Rom. xvi. 22.In the first-century
mausoleum of the noble family of the
Acilii there may be seen to-day a Greek
inscription in red (a proof of its
very early date):
TERTIADELPhE
EUPsUChIOUDIC
AThANATOC
The Tertius here mentioned is probably
not
is no reason why he should not be. It
is interesting that a
well-authenticated tradition places
the tombs of
vicinity of this inscription. Horace
Marucchi, Eléments d’Archéologie
Chrétienne, ii. 419. See also i.
104.
[51] par hois kai xenizomai. D, F,
lat, goth, Bede.
[52] The
Special Note B.
[53] Relegatio, not deportatio. Dion
Cassius, lx. 6.
[54] See Zahn, Int. to N.T. p. 390,
for a useful comment on the movements of
[55] See Marucchi, Eléments
d’Archéologie Chrétienne, iii. p. 180 ff and 364
ff.
[56] They would consist of people of
every nationality, but among those
converted to Christianity probably a
large proportion were Orientals by
race.
[57] Compare Rom. ix. 3:
ēuchomēn gar anathema einai autos egō apo tou
christou huper tōn adelphōn
mou, tōn sungenōn mou kata sarka, hoitines eisin
Israēlitai.
[58] aspasasthe Andronikon kai Iounian
tous sungeneis mou kai
sunaichmalōtous mou, hoitines
eisin episēmoi en tois apostolois, ohi kai pro
emou gegonan en Christō. It is
possible that Iounian might be feminine =
Junia, but it is generally taken as
masculine, Junias an abbreviation for
Junianus.
[59] 2 Cor. xi. 23: en phulakais
perissoterōs.
[60] See Harnack, Expansion of
Christianity, i. 398–412; Lightfoot, Epistle
to Galatians, p. 93;
Comp. 2 Cor. viii. 23: apostoloi
ekklēsiōn.
[61] Acts, vi. 9. Andronicus and
Junias may, of course, have been among the
‘strangers of
Day of Pentecost.
[62] Josephus,
[63] Lightfoot, Epistle to
Philippians, Dissertation on Caesar’s Household,
p. 169; Sanday and Headlam, Romans,
pp. 405–6.
[64] Lanciani (p. 132) says that in
certain columbaria on the
least 370 members of the household of
Statilius Taurus are buried.
[65] Sanday and Headlam, Romans, pp.
128–9; Hort, Romans and Ephesians, i.
52.
[66] Rom. xv. 14-29.
[67] v. 20 philotimoumenon = (lit.)
priding myself, or endeavouring
earnestly.
[68] dio kai enekoptomēn ta polla
tou elthein pros humas. ta polla seems to
be the equivalent of the pollakis of
i. 13 = the many times to which I have
already referred: ‘ou thelō de
humῠs agnoein, adelphoi, hoti
pollakis
proethemēn elthein pros
humas kai ekōluthēn achri tou deuro.’
[69] epipothian.
[70] These words are omitted in the
best MSS., but are necessary to complete
the sense.
[71] Bigg, Comment on 1 Peter, pp.
73-4.
[72]
writes: ‘
foundation, and that he had hitherto
refused to preach in such places where
others had made a beginning: this was
the reason why he had never yet been
to
That “you” implies that the Church was
someone else’s foundation and the
“wherefore” explains that this was his
reason for not coming. He then goes
on to explain why he now proposes to
depart from his principle: there is now
“no place left for him in these
districts,” i.e. from
the Church of Rome was founded by some
one else, and the question will
always remain, why not St. Peter?’ A
remarkable admission on the part of
this writer.
_________________________________________________________________
LECTURE II
Romans, x. 14: ‘How shall they call on
Him, in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him whom
they have not heard? And how shall
they hear without a preacher?’
The narrative of St. Luke in that
earlier part of the Acts of the Apostles
which leads up and is introductory to
the main theme of the work is
obviously fragmentary. The object of
the writer however stands out clearly.
He intended to give such an account,
step by step, of the beginnings of
Christianity, as was necessary for a
full understanding of the life-work and
missionary labours of
Every episode appears to have been
carefully selected with a definite and
precise purpose, and if the story, as
told by him, seems at times to be
tantalisingly brief and scanty, even
disjointed, we must remember that those
for whom it was written had access to
oral sources of information from
persons who had witnessed or taken
part in the events described, which would
place each episode in its proper
setting and give to it its rightful
significance. This we cannot do now,
but if we bear in mind that not only
the facts recorded by Luke but even
his silences are suggestive, we may, I
think, by the help of evidence
gathered in from various sources, from
contemporary or nearly contemporary
writings, from the accumulated results
of archaeological research, and from
well-authenticated tradition, be able
to show that the spread of
Christianity during the period covered by the
Acts was not by any means confined to
the sphere of Paul’s activity, nor
intended to be so confined, but that
one most important field was reserved
for the Apostle who fills the
foreground of the Lucan narrative up to the
year 42 A.D. and then, except for a
single brief appearance, is seen no
more.
It is, of course, evident from what I
have said that I am assuming that St.
Luke the physician, the travelling
companion of
the Acts of the Apostles. I do so
without feeling that such an assumption at
the present time requires defence. In
these lectures it is my aim, as far as
possible, to avoid the mere collecting
or comparing of other men’s opinions,
or the balancing of the authority of
one set of scholars against another. It
is the results of personal
investigation into the history of the Church in
before you, not a recapitulation of
what has recently been written about
that history. My own experience has
taught me that the only way to arrive at
conclusions in historical questions
satisfying to the historical conscience
is to study the original authorities
for oneself with an independent mind,
using indeed all the light and all the
suggestions that modern critical
scholarship can throw upon the many
problems and difficulties that have to
be solved, but never accepting any of
the so-called ‘results of criticism’
without testing for oneself with the
greatest care and at first hand the
grounds on which they are supposed to
rest.
The case for the Lucan authorship of
the Third Gospel and of the Acts I
consider however to have been so
thoroughly established by the remarkable
series of works published by Sir
William M. Ramsay [73] and Dr. Adolf
Harnack [74] upon the subject, as to
have been placed, if not beyond the
reach of controversy—for alas ! the
spirit of controversy is not quickly
laid—on a solid bedrock of reasoned
and exhaustive argument against which
the waves of controversy will beat in
vain. And not merely have they proved
the unity of authorship. They have
shown that we have in St. Luke a cultured
writer possessed of literary power and
historical grasp and well acquainted
with the details of Roman provincial
administration and of the distinct
characteristics, geographical and
political, of different localities, who in
a considerable part of his work speaks
as an eyewitness, and who elsewhere
uses first-hand evidence, if at times
with a certain freedom, yet always
with honesty and intelligence. My own
conviction that the book of the Acts
must have been written during
completed before his release has long
been firmly held, but this conviction
has been strengthened and deepened by
the extraordinarily powerful way in
which Dr. Harnack [75] has quite
recently set forth in serried array the
reasons which have slowly driven him
to abandon his earlier prepossessions
on this question, and forced him (in
spite of the knowledge that he was—to
use his own words—‘creating a
revolution within the domain of criticism’
[76] ) to fix on grounds alike of
external and of internal evidence the end
of
possess the book, was finished.
It is needless to say that the
acceptance of such a conclusion has a very
important bearing on the subject of
these lectures. For, if St. Luke wrote
the Acts at
the Roman Christians, but if so the question
naturally arises, why should
there be a total omission in the book
of any reference to the founding of
the Church in
that city? This is one of those
silences of St. Luke, of which I have spoken
already as being suggestive. A
comparison of the last verses of the Third
Gospel and of the Acts may help us to
an answer. [77] Had the Gospel stood
alone all commentators and critics
would have asserted unanimously that the
Evangelist believed the Ascension of
our Lord to have taken place on the
evening of the day of the
Resurrection. [78] But from the opening passage of
the Acts we learn that they would have
been wrong, and that St. Luke in the
conclusion of his Gospel deliberately
foreshortened the events of six weeks
in this way, because he intended to
take up the thread of the story and fill
in the details later. The. similar
foreshortening of the events of two
years, which we find in Acts xxviii.
30-1, suggests that St. Luke in writing
this otherwise strangely puzzling and
abrupt ending to his narrative had
already planned in his mind a third
book, which should supplement the Acts
as the Acts had supplemented the
Gospel, and that this book would have begun
by taking up the account of Peter’s
life-work, so sharply broken off at his
release from prison, and that a brief
sketch would have been given of the
history of the Church in
during his captivity.
With this preface let us now turn to
those introductory chapters of the Acts
in which St. Luke sketches for us the
steps by which Christianity emerged
from the condition of a strictly
Jewish sect to that of a universal religion
intended for all mankind. It will be
seen that the enlargement of view,
which is so clearly traced, was very
gradual; that it came from below rather
than from above; from the
subordinates, to some extent from the rank and
file, rather than from the acknowledged
leaders. On the Great Day of
Pentecost when St. Luke so carefully
enumerates the various nationalities
from which the great crowd of pilgrims
was drawn, it should be noted that
St. Peter addresses them as ‘Men of
Israel,’ and his whole discourse is that
of a man concerned only with proving
to an assembly of Jews that Jesus of
Nazareth was the promised Messiah of
their sacred Scriptures. The passage is
in fact a striking testimony both to
the wide extent of the Jewish Diaspora
and to the fact of the intense love and
reverence for the Holy City and for
the injunctions of the Mosaic Law,
which brought together such a throng of
worshippers from far-distant regions,
including people speaking many
different tongues, to this feast at
Jerusalem. In the list of those forming
St. Peter’s audience we find the names
of six different peoples and the
inhabitants of nine different
districts, and it is implied that Jews from
these various places had come up
specially for the occasion—with one
exception. The phrase ‘the sojourning
Romans, Jews as well as proselytes’
seems capable of only one
interpretation, that St. Luke is here referring to
a body of Roman Jews and converts to
Judaism, who were temporarily residing
in Jerusalem, and whom it may be permitted
with considerable probability to
identify with the ‘Synagogue of the
Libertines’ [79] mentioned in Acts vi.
9. Among this body may have been
numbered the Roman Christians Junias and
Andronicus, who were some quarter of a
century later saluted by St. Paul in
his Epistle to the Romans ‘as men of
mark among the Apostles and who were in
Christ before me.’
In his record of the period that
follows St. Luke makes it quite clear that
the first organised Christian
community was at Jerusalem, not in Galilee.
[80] After the day of Pentecost when
certain of the multitude exclaimed ‘Are
not all these that speak
Galilaeans?’—there is not a word in the Acts to
indicate that the early Church had any
connexion with Galilee. The Twelve,
whose authority, as being derived
directly from the Lord, no one called in
question, made Jerusalem their
headquarters from this time forward, and from
this centre carried on their mission
work. But that mission work was limited
to. Jews. The Twelve, moreover, we are
expressly told, visited the Temple
regularly [81] and they seem to have
conformed in every way to the
regulations of the Mosaic Law, and to
have differed from the Jews amongst
whom they lived only in that they
taught that the crucified Jesus, to whose
Resurrection from the Dead they bore
personal testimony, had by His
Resurrection proved Himself to be the
Messiah. [82] Among the Twelve St.
Peter on every occasion takes the lead
and is the spokesman of the rest, and
occupies a position of undisputed
pre-eminence. [83] In all that they did
during these years, which immediately
followed their Lord’s departure from
them, it is scarcely possible that
these personal disciples should not have
been acting in strict accordance with
their Master’s last commands.
Eventually they were to go forth upon
a wider mission to the nations, but
for awhile—an ancient tradition of
considerable weight says definitely for
twelve years [84] —they were to abide
at Jerusalem, and restrict themselves
to proclaiming in its simplest form
the message of the Gospel to the
Palestinian Jews, meanwhile resting in
the promise that in the future
whenever fresh calls should be made
upon them they should receive
illumination and guidance from the
Holy Spirit. [85]
Not until the sixth chapter of the
Acts do we find any indication of a
widening of view. But here reading
between the lines of the brief narrative
one cannot but feel something more
than a suspicion that the movement of
which the appointment of the Seven was
the outcome, and at the head of which
St. Stephen placed himself, was not
one with which the Twelve were at the
time in entire sympathy. The work to
which St. Stephen specially addressed
himself was the preaching of the
Gospel to the members of those Synagogues
which were set apart for the use of
the Hellenistic settlers and sojourners
in Jerusalem, i.e. for Jews of foreign
origin, speaking a foreign tongue,
and trained amidst Gentile
associations. Those mentioned seem to belong in
order of importance to the chief
Jewish Colonies of the Dispersion. The
first place, be it noted, is assigned
to the Libertines or Roman freedmen,
men conspicuous probably alike for
their wealth and their close connexion
with the Imperial City. Then come the
Alexandrians, members of a Jewish
settlement of ancient date and high
culture, in numbers exceeding probably
the entire population of Palestine.
[86] And after them the Cyrenians, [87]
second only to the Alexandrians in
number, and like them thoroughly
Hellenised. Lastly, mention is made of
those of Cilicia and Asia—traders no
doubt connected by ties of family and
business with those characteristically
Graeco-Asiatic cities, Tarsus and
Ephesus. Among such a body of
‘Hellenists’ the message of the Gospel
would naturally be interpreted in a
larger and more universal sense than
in those stricter ‘Hebrew’ circles to
which as yet the Twelve had chiefly
directed their appeal.
What we do know is that St. Stephen’s
ardour and activity and the special
character of his teaching speedily
aroused the intense enmity of the Jewish
rulers. He was seized, brought before
the Sanhedrim, and without proper
trial or condemnation in a sudden
outburst of fanatic fury stoned to death.
It was the signal for a persecution
which scattered far and wide those who
had attached them-selves to him and
the doctrines that he taught. [88]
But fierce though the persecution was,
St. Luke expressly tells us, it did
not touch the Twelve. ‘They were all,’
we read ‘scattered abroad, except the
Apostles.’ [89] Apparently at this
time the accusers of Stephen did not
regard the Twelve, and the Judaeo-Christians
who held with them, as men
‘speaking against this Holy Place and
trying to change the customs that
Moses hath delivered unto us.’ As yet
they (the original Apostles) seem not
to have offended the susceptibilities
of the High-Priestly caste by any
neglect in their outward observance of
the rites and ceremonies of the
Jewish law. But tliis scattering
abroad of the friends and disciples of
Stephen was to be, under God’s
providence, gradually productive of great
results. It led directly to the
conversion of Saul the persecutor. It
brought Philip, one of the Seven, to
Samaria, where many were converted by
his preaching. Such indeed was his
success that for the first time the
Apostles broke through their rule of
confining themselves to Jerusalem and
its neighbourhood, and Peter and John,
the two leaders, were sent to take
official charge of the new field of
missionary operations. And there at
Samaria (mark the emphasis Luke lays
upon the incident) Peter was confronted
with the man who, under the name of
Simon Magus, was according to tradition
to exercise a large, perhaps a
decisive, influence upon his action at a
critical point in his career.
[90]
Nor was this all. After an interval,
probably of some three years, [91] we
find that persecution has for the time
entirely ceased, and that already the
Christian Church is peacefully and
firmly established throughout the whole
of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria, [92]
and Peter engaged on a tour of
visitation in all parts. [93] Finally
he reaches Joppa and there takes up
his abode for some time in the house,
we are told, of one Simon a tanner.
Now this very fact, that the Apostle
chose to reside with a man whose trade
in the eyes of strict orthodox Judaism
was unclean, points to the advance he
had already made in casting himself
loose from the fetters of Jewish
prejudice. The vision which sent him
to Cornelius was probably the
reflection of the doubts and
questionings which had been previously filling
his thoughts and an answer to his
prayers. [94] It was a preparation for
that which was to follow, for his
visit to the Roman centurion was not
merely to teach him that the law which
forbade intercourse between Jew and
Gentile was henceforth done away, but
to open his eyes to the startling and
all-important fact that it was the
revealed will of God that uncircumcised
Gentiles should be admitted to the
full privileges of Christianity. The
question how far such Gentiles would
have to conform to the Jewish law was
indeed not yet settled, nor was it to
be settled without much prolonged and
even embittered controversy in the
years that were to come. The collocation
by St. Luke in juxtaposition of the
defence of St. Peter [95] to the
brethren at Jerusalem for his action
in regard to Cornelius, and of the news
reaching those same brethren that
certain men from Cyprus and Cyrene, on
their own initiative, without sanction
or authority from the Mother Church,
were preaching to the Greeks at
Antioch and had converted a large number of
them to the faith, [96] was clearly
intentional. St. Peter’s apologia was
apparently somewhat grudgingly
accepted, for there is little of spontaneous
enthusiasm about the words—‘and when
they had heard these things they held
their peace and glorified God, saying
“Then also—ara ge kai—to the Gentiles
hath God granted repentance unto
life.”’
On receiving information, therefore,
about what was occurring at Antioch, it
was only natural that those at the
head of the Church in Jerusalem should
determine to send to the Syrian
capital one of their own body with
instructions to inquire personally
into the truth of the reports that had
reached them, and to establish
official control over a movement which seemed
at first sight to be revolutionary,
and which was in fact a long step in
advance towards a totally new
conception of the mission of Christianity in
the world.
Joseph, surnamed Barnabas, whom they
selected as their emissary, was a man
singularly well qualified for dealing
wisely and sympathetically with the
new situation. He had been intimately
associated from the very first with
the Jerusalem Church. [97] He was at
once a Levite and a Cypriote Hellenist,
and the surname which was given to him
by the Apostles themselves tells us
that he was a man endowed with
prophetic gifts for the exposition and
interpretation of Scripture. [98] And
he was to remain for some years,
probably to the end of his life, a
mediator and reconciler between the
opposing schools of thought and ideals
of Christianity associated later with
the names of St. James and St. Paul.
It is noteworthy how large a part
Barnabas, who had now gone to Antioch
as the representative of the Church at
Jerusalem, took in preparing the way
for him who was to be pre-eminently the
Apostle of the Gentiles. The two men
may possibly have first become friends
in their youth, when Saul of Tarsus
was studying at the feet of Gamaliel. In
any case when Saul, three years after
his memorable conversion, came up to
Jerusalem to make the acquaintance of
Peter, he found, perhaps not
unnaturally, that the brethren looked
askance at the erstwhile persecutor,
until Barnabas took him by the hand
and, as it were, stood voucher for his
good faith. [99] His reception,
however, on this occasion appears to have
been so far discouraging that Saul
withdrew for a considerable time to his
native place Tarsus. Thither Barnabas
after a brief sojourn at Antioch now
went to seek in his retirement the man
whom he knew to be specially well
fitted to act as his colleague at this
juncture. His judgment and prevision
were more than justified. For a whole
year, we read in the Acts, Barnabas
and Saul taught with such success that
the assemblies of the faithful,
whether of Jewish or Gentile origin,
met together harmoniously and in such
numbers [100] that even in this vast
city, [101] of mixed population,
professing every known variety of
religion, the new sect became sufficiently
large and well known to attract public
attention. The scoffing nick-name,
Christiani, was now for the first time
given to the disciples of Jesus by
the pagan Antiocheans—a term of shame
and reproach, which soon was to become
a title of glory.
While at Antioch under the leadership
of Barnabas the preaching of the
Gospel was thus making rapid progress,
events were taking place in Judaea of
critical importance for the future of
the Church. The peace which the
Christians in Palestine enjoyed in the
period preceding the conversion of
Cornelius had been due, not to any
increase of good-will on the part of the
Jewish rulers, but to the fact that
thesewere too much occupied at that time
with their own serious troubles. The
order given by the Emperor Caligula to
place his statue in the Holy of Holies
had filled the whole nation with
horror and made them resolve rather to
be massacred than allow such a
profanation of the Temple. [102] The
assassination of Caligula alone averted
a general revolt. According to
Josephus, Herod Agrippa, who was then in
Rome, played a very important part in
securing the peaceful accession of
Claudius, who rewarded him for his
services by bestowing upon him, in
addition to Galilee, Peraea and the
territory beyond the Jordan with which
he had been invested by Caligula, also
Judaea, Samaria and Abilene, making
his kingdom thus equal in extent to
that of his grandfather Herod the Great.
[103] Claudius became emperor, January
24, 41 A.D., and towards the end of
that year King Agrippa went to
Palestine with the intention of using every
means to ingratiate himself with his
new subjects. He was especially
desirous of impressing them with his
careful observance of the Mosaic law
and his zeal for the national
religion, being to some extent suspect through
his long residence in Rome and alien
descent. [104] Accordingly having gone
to Jerusalem to keep the first
Passover after his accession, he resolved to
give a signal mark of his fervour as a
defender of the faith, by the summary
execution of James the son of Zebedee.
Possibly he was the only one of the
Christian leaders on whom for the
moment he could lay hands. But finding his
action had pleased the Jews, he
proceeded to arrest Peter also, and, as the
days of unleavened bread had already
begun, he placed the Apostle in prison
under the strictest guard with the
intention of bringing him forth before
the people as soon as the Passover was
over. [105] The story of his escape
as told by St. Luke, which ends so
abruptly, has every internal mark of
having been derived directly from the
maid-servant Rhoda, whose name is
otherwise so unnecessarily mentioned.
We learn from this graphic narrative
that the house in Jerusalem where the
disciples were accustomed to hold
their gatherings for prayer was that
of Mary, the mother of John Mark, and
the aunt of Barnabas. It was to this
house that the Apostle naturally turned
his steps, as soon as he found himself
outside the prison gates, but with no
intention of remaining in so well
known a spot. As he entered the room with
a movement of his hand he at once
checked their cries of astonishment,
briefly told his tale, probably almost
in the rapid words recorded, asked
his hearers to repeat it to James and
the brethren, and then immediately,
while it was still dark, he went out
to betake himself to a more secure
hiding-place. And as the Apostle
disappears into the obscurity of the night,
so does he, so far as his active
career is concerned, disappear henceforth
from the pages of St. Luke’s
history.
There are difficulties in this brief
account of the Herodian persecution of
the spring of 42 A.D. There is no hint
that the Twelve were at Jerusalem at
this critical time. St. Peter himself
does not seem to have been there when
St. James was beheaded. His parting
words point to two conclusions: (1) that
the other James, the Lord’s Brother,
was already the recognised head of the
Jerusalem community; and (2) that the
speaker had no expectation of being
able to tell his tale to ‘James and
the brethren’ in person. The explanation
however lies to our hand, if we accept
the ancient and well-attested
tradition of which I have already
spoken, that the Lord Jesus had bidden his
Apostles to make Jerusalem the centre
of their missionary activity for
twelve years, after which they were to
disperse and go forth to preach to
the nations. Already before Herod
Agrippa struck his blow the Twelve had
begun to set out each one to his
allotted sphere of evangelisation, the care
of the Mother Church being confided to
James, the Lord’s Brother, assisted
by a body of presbyters, of whom he
was one, but over whom he presided with
something of monarchical authority. It
would be an anachronism to give him
the Gentile title of Bishop, but in
this earliest constitution of the
Jerusalem Church we have the model
which other Churches were to follow and
out of which episcopacy grew.
But even if this be granted, it throws
no light on the after-life of St.
Peter.
For his after-life we have again to
fall back mainly upon tradition, a
tradition already referred to by me at
the close of my first lecture, which
makes St. Peter to have been the
founder of the Church in Rome. St. Paul in
his Epistle to the Romans, as I have
shown, speaks of that Church as already
in 57 A.D. long established and of
world-wide repute, into which as being
built on another man’s foundation he
had not thought it right to intrude.
[106] The question then arises, what
grounds are there for believing that
the man to whom he refers was St.
Peter?
Now there are traditions and
traditions. First let it be premised that we
are not dealing here with a tradition
handed down orally by illiterate
people. Not that oral tradition is to
be neglected or despised. There is
abundant evidence to show with what
accuracy historical traditions including
long lists of names have been handed
down from generation to generation even
among tribes unacquainted with
writing. After describing the pre-Hispanic
civilisation in Peru, a recent writer
remarks: ‘It is not surprising, in
spite of the fact that no form of
writing was known, that the people capable
of such political organisation had
pre-served in traditional form much of
their early history. Feats of memory,
which seem almost miraculous to
civilised races, who have become
dependent on written records, have been
chronicled of several peoples below
the Peruvians in the scale of culture.
The nobility among the Polynesians
received regular instruction in their
past history, and the chiefs could
repeat long genealogies, which had been
faith-fully handed down from
generation to generation. Even among African
races traditional records are not
unknown, and in one case a list of even
one hundred chiefs, together with
historical details, has been recently
obtained from a tribe in the heart of
the Southern Belgian Congo.’ [107] In
the first century, however, in Rome
and in all the chief centres of
population, where the early Christian
Churches were established, writing was
familiarly employed by all classes. At
one time it was assumed, with an
assurance that had absolutely no
basis, that the events of early Christian
history could only have been known
through oral transmission, that it was
most unlikely that anything was
committed to writing at the time, and the
idea that the separate Churches kept
any records of the appointment of their
officers, or any statements concerning
the various vicissitudes of their
fortunes, was dismissed as untenable.
‘There is a very strong body of
opinion,’ said Sir W. Ramsay [108]
about nine years ago, ‘that the earliest
Christians wrote little or nothing. It
is supposed that partly they were
either unable to write or at least
unused to the familiar employment of
writing for the purposes of ordinary
life. Put aside that prejudice, and the
whole body of opinion, which maintains
that the Christians at first did not
set down anything in writing about the
life and death of Christ, strongly
and widely accepted as it is,
dominating as a fundamental premise much of
the discussion of this whole subject
in recent times, is devoid of any
support. . . . One of the initial
presumptions, plausible in appearance and
almost universally assumed and
conceded, is that there was no early
registration of the great events in
the beginning of Christian history. This
presumption we must set aside as a
mere prejudice, contrary to the whole
spirit and character of that age and
entirely improbable.’ Such a
presumption has in fact been proved by
recent discoveries to be in all
probability quite erroneous, and
indeed there are strong grounds for making
an assumption of a precisely opposite
character, i.e. that the chief
Christian Churches did keep more or
less regular archives, which, like the
bulk of ancient records, perished
through fire or other accidents, [109]
through the ruthless sacking of the
city by barbarian conquerors, and in the
case of these Christian archives by
systematic destruction at the hands of
the imperial authorities, more
especially during the persecution of
Diocletian. But though the documents
themselves disappeared, [110] the
memory of their contents would remain
to be worked up afresh into new
narratives tinged with the opinions,
beliefs and modes of thought of the
time at which they were written, and
in such a setting as the pious fancy of
the compilers thought to be edifying,
and in harmony with their subject.
What criteria then, it may be asked,
have we for judging whether these later
Acts and Passions of Saints and
Martyrs contain in the midst of apocryphal
accretion a real core of sound and
trustworthy historical fact? A tradition
before it can be accepted as embodying
authentic history should, I think,
satisfy the following conditions: (1)
It must be concerned with an event or
series of events that had a great
number of witnesses, and of witnesses who
would have a strong motive to record
or bear in memory what they had seen.
(2) The beginning of the tradition
should appear at a time not too remote
from the facts it records, at a time,
that is to say, in which it should not
be possible for the notices handed
down by contemporaries to be obscured.
(3) Shortly after that time to which
the beginning of the tradition goes
back there should appear in the
community to which it relates a firm and
general persuasion of its truth. (4)
This persuasion should spread gradually
until everywhere the facts are
accepted as true without any doubts being
raised even by those who, had they not
been plainly true, would have desired
to reject them.
Let us now apply these criteria to the
Petrine tradition at Rome. That Peter
visited Rome between the years 62 A.D.
and 65 A.D. and that he was put to
death there by crucifixion is admitted
by everyone who studies the evidence
in a fair and reasonable spirit. [111]
This is not a tradition, it may
rather be described as a fact vouched
for by contemporary or nearly
contemporary evidence. On this point
no statement could be stronger than
that of Professor Lanciani: ‘I write
about the monuments of Rome from a
strictly archaeological point of view,
avoiding questions which pertain or
are supposed to pertain to religious
controversy. For the archaeologist, the
presence and execution of SS. Peter
and Paul in Rome are facts established
beyond a shadow of doubt by purely
monumental evidence.’ It is now generally
conceded that the first epistle
bearing the name of Peter was written from
Rome. The ‘Apocalypse of St. John’ and
the ‘Sibylline Oracles’ show that
Babylon was a common synonym for Rome
in the second half of the first
century. [112] The language of Clement
of Rome [113] in his Epistle to the
Corinthians leaves no doubt—for it is
the witness of a contemporary—that
Peter was martyred at Rome. ‘But
leaving ancient examples let us come to the
athletes who were very near to our own
times, let us take the illustrious
examples of our own generation. . . .
Peter who through unjust jealousy
endured not one or two but many
sufferings and so having borne
witness—marturēsas—departed to
the place of glory that was his due.’ The
statement in the apocalyptic
‘Ascension of Isaiah’ [114] —also the work of a
contemporary—that ‘a lawless king, the
slayer of his mother, will persecute
the plant which the Twelve Apostles of
the Beloved have planted. Of the
Twelve one will be delivered into his
hands’ can scarcely refer to another
event than the death of Peter at the
time of the Neronian persecution. A
comparison of St. John xxi. 18, 19
with St. John xiii. 36, 37 and with 2
Peter i. 14 is evidence as to the
manner of that death. The question of the
authorship of the Fourth Gospel or of
2 Peter is immaterial, for the
writers, whoever they were, belong to
the first century, and the testimony
to the received belief of the
Christian Church which they give is authentic.
But a solitary brief visit to Rome
after St. Paul had previously spent in
that city two years of fruitful work
does not account for the position
assigned by tradition to St. Peter in
relation to the Roman Church. Though
the two names are on several occasions
coupled together, as joint founders
of the Roman Church, in all the
earliest notices in which the two are named
together the name of Peter stands
first. Thus Ignatius in his Epistle to the
Romans written about 109 A.D. says: ‘I
do not command you like Peter and
Paul; they were Apostles; I am a
condemned criminal.’ [115] Dionysius of
Corinth 171 A.D. writing to Soter
bishop of Rome [116] a speaks ‘of the
plantation by Peter and Paul that took
place among the Romans and
Corinthians.’ Irenaeus a few years
later is filled with respect for ‘the
most great and ancient and universally
known Church established at Rome by
the two most glorious Apostles Peter
and Paul, and also the faith declared
to men, which comes down to our own
time through the succession of her
bishops. For unto this Church, on
account of its more powerful lead, every
Church, meaning the faithful who are
from everywhere, must needs resort;
since in it that tradition which is
from the Apostles has been preserved by
those who are from everywhere. The
Blessed Apostles, having founded and
established the Church, entrusted the
office of the episcopate to Linus.
Paul speaks of this Linus in his
epistles to Timothy, Anencletus succeeded
him, and after Anencletus, in the
third place from the Apostles, Clement
received the episcopate.’ Now
Irenaeus, who was a disciple of Polycarp, and
acquainted with others who had known
St. John, and who in 177 A.D. became
bishop of Lyons, had spent some years
in Rome. This passage was written, as
he tells us, in the time of
Eleutherus, probably about 180 A.D. [117]
Eusebius of Caesarea has left us two
lists of the Roman bishops, one in his
‘Ecclesiastical History,’ the other in
his ‘Chronicle.’ The first is the
list of Irenaeus, the beginning of
which has just been quoted. The second is
derived from the lost ‘Chronicle’ of
Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, written
about half a century later. In the
‘Chronicle’ St. Peter’s episcopate at
Rome is stated to have lasted
twenty-five years. [118] In the
‘Ecclesiastical History’ we
read—‘under the reign of Claudius by the benign
and gracious providence of God, Peter
that great and powerful apostle, who
by his courage took the lead of all
the rest, was conducted to Rome.’ In
other passages his martyrdom with that
of Paul is represented as taking
place after Nero’s persecution. [119]
The interval between these two dates
would roughly be about twenty-five
years. Now it is evident that these
figures, derived as they are from men
like Irenaeus and Hippolytus, who had
access to the archives and traditions
in Rome itself, cannot be dismissed as
pure fiction. They must have a basis
of fact behind them. Eusebius tells us
‘that after the martyrdom of Paul and
Peter Linus was the first that
received the episcopate at Rome.’ Now
the date of this martyrdom was
according to the received tradition
the fourteenth year of Nero or 67 A.D.;
if then we deduct twenty-five years,
we arrive at 42 A.D., which is
precisely the date given for St.
Peter’s first visit to Rome by St. Jerome
in his work ‘De Viris Illustribus.’
Remembering that Jerome was a translator
of the Eusebian Chronicle his words
may be taken to embody a close
acquaintance with Eusebius’ works,
including his lost ‘Records of Ancient
Martyrdoms,’ and with the sources that
he used. Jerome writes as follows:
‘Simon Peter, prince of the Apostles,
after an episcopate of the Church at
Antioch and preaching to the
dispersion of those of the circumcision, who
had believed in Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, in the
second year of Claudius goes to Rome
to oppose Simon Magus, and there for
twenty-five years he held the
sacerdotal chair until the last year of Nero,
that is the fourteenth.’ [120] Now
here amidst a certain confusion, which
will be dealt with presently, a
definite date is given for Peter’s first
arrival at Rome, and, be it noted, it
is the date of his escape from Herod
Agrippa’s persecution and his
disappearance from the narrative of the Acts.
This evidence of Jerome, it will be
thus seen, rests upon that of Eusebius,
and that of the earlier authorities
which that historian consulted. It has
been said that one of the conditions
of the soundness of an historical
tradition was the wideness and unanimity of
its reception. Now probably
never was any tradition accepted so
universally, and without a single
dissentient voice, as that which
associates the foundation and organisation
of the Church of Rome with the name of
St. Peter and which speaks of his
active connexion with that Church as
extending over a period of some
twenty-five years.
It is needless to multiply references.
In Egypt and in Africa, in the East
and in the West, no other place ever
disputed with Rome the honour of being
the see of St. Peter; no other place
ever claimed that he died there or that
it possessed his tomb. Most
significant of all is the consensus of the
Oriental, non-Greek-speaking,
Churches. A close examination of Armenian and
Syrian MSS., [121] and in the case of
the latter both of Nestorian and
Jacobite authorities, through several
centuries, has failed to discover a
single writer who did not accept the
Roman Petrine tradition.
No less striking is the local evidence
(still existing) for a considerable
residence of St. Peter in Rome. ‘There
is no doubt,’ is the judgment of
Lanciani, once more to quote his
well-known work ‘Pagan and Christian
Rome’ (p. 212), ‘that the likenesses
of St. Peter and St. Paul have been
carefully preserved in Rome ever since
their lifetime, they are familiar to
every one, even to school-children.
These portraits have come down to us by
scores. They are painted in the
cubiculi of the Catacombs, engraved in gold
leaf in the so-called vetri
cemeteriali, cast in bronze, hammered in silver
or copper, and designed in mosaic. The
type never varies. St. Peter’s face
is full and strong with short curly
hair and beard, while St. Paul appears
more wiry and thin, slightly bald with
a long pointed beard. The antiquity
and the genuineness of both types
cannot be doubted.’ Other noticeable facts
are: (l) the appearance of the name of
Peter, both in Greek and Latin, among
the inscriptions of the most ancient
Christian cemeteries, especially in the
first-century catacomb of Priscilla.
[122] The appearance of this unusual
name on these early Christian tombs
can most easily be explained by the
supposition that either those who bore
it or their parents had been baptised
by Peter. In any case it may be taken
that his memory was held in especial
reverence by them. Again, on a large
number of early Christian sarcophagi
now in the Lateran Museum the
imprisonment of Peter by Herod Agrippa and his
release by the angel is represented.
The French historian of the
‘Persecutions of the first two
Centuries,’ Paul Allard, [123] was the first
to point out that the frequency with
which this subject was chosen might be
accounted for by the existence of a
traditional belief in a close connexion
between this event and the first visit
of St. Peter to Rome. Orazio
Marucchi, the learned and accomplished
pupil and successor of De Rossi, in
his latest volume upon recent
researches in the catacombs, commenting upon
this suggestion of Allard, adds that
this scene is often united to others,
in which Moses and Peter appear as the
representative founders of the Jewish
and Christian Churches with particular
reference to the Church in Rome.
[124] In some representations may be seen the Lord handing to Peter a
volume
on which is written Lex Domini, or
beneath which is the legend Dominus Legem
Dat. [125] More remarkable still are
those in which Moses, with the
well-known traits of St. Peter,
strikes the rock out of which flow the
waters of cleansing through baptism in
the name of Jesus Christ. [126] Taken
together all these authentic records
of the impressions that had been left
upon the minds of the primitive Roman
Church of a close personal connexion
between that Church and the Apostle
Peter cannot be disregarded. They are
existent to-day to tell their own
tale.
Once more the number of legends and
the quantity of apocryphal literature
that grew up around the Petrine
tradition are witnesses not merely to the
hold that it had upon popular regard
but to its historical reality. Many of
these legends, much of this literature
may in the main be evidently
fictitious, but even in those which
are most clearly works of imagination,
there is almost always a kernel of
truth overlaid with invention. [127] It
is perfectly well known that most of
these documents have behind them other
documents, which are now lost, but out
of which those we now possess have
grown by gradual accretions and
interpolations. [128] But it is not
impossible even now for sound and
scholarly criticism to arrive with fair
certainty in many cases at the
ultimate basis of fact on which the edifice
of fiction rests. One of these
apocryphal documents we have in a very early
form—the Ebionite ‘Preaching of
Peter’—which was produced in the first
decade of the second century; as a
proof of its early date it may be
mentioned that it was used by
Heracleon in Hadrian’s time. [129] The work
bears on the face of it testimony to
the fact that Peter did labour and
preach at Rome, for it was written at
a time when some of those who actually
saw and heard him may have been still
alive, and there must have been
numbers whose fathers were grown-up
men even in the time of Claudius. The
traditions connected with the cemetery
‘ad Nymphas’ where Peter baptised,
with the primitive chair now in St.
Peter’s Basilica, with the very ancient
churches of St. Pudenziana, St. Prisca
and St. Clement, with the Quo Vadis?
story, whatever their real historical
value or lack of value, undoubtedly
stretch back long before the fifth and
sixth centuries, when pilgrims
flocked to Rome with their
‘itineraries’ in their hands, and they spring
from a general and deep-rooted belief
in a long and active ministry of the
Apostle in the See that had become
identified with his name. [130]
Returning then once more to the
undisputedly historical ground of St.
Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, we find
that in 57 A.D. there was in Rome a
Christian community not of yesterday,
but of many years’ standing: an
important community, whose faith and
whose high repute were well known in
all churches of the Empire with which
the writer was acquainted. Further
that St. Paul himself for some years
past had been longing to visit this
Rdman community, but had been hindered
from doing so by the restriction he
had imposed upon himself of not
building on another man’s foundation. If
again the question be repeated—Who was this
man? with greater emphasis than
before the same answer must be
returned—It cannot be any other than St.
Peter.
But having arrived so far, we are
confronted with certain difficulties that
arise in making this earlier ministry
of St. Peter at Rome fit in with the
New Testament records relating to the
same period. These difficulties will
be dealt with in the next lecture.
To-day I shall confine myself to pointing
out that the circumstances which led
to St. Peter’s mission to Rome very
soon after his escape from prison in
the second year of Claudius were
strictly analogous to those described
in the earlier part of the present
lecture, which led first to the
mission of Peter accompanied by John to
Samaria, and then to that of Barnabas
to Antioch.
The dispersion of the Hellenist
disciples of St. Stephen, after the
persecution in which their brilliant
leader died a martyr’s death, was the
direct cause of the evangelisation
first of Samaria and then some years
later of Syrian Antioch. Philip, like
Stephen one of the Seven, preached in
Samaria meeting with great success,
and there encountered a certain man,
Simon by name, who gave himself out to
be some great one, and who had by his
sorceries astonished and drawn to him
great numbers of the people. On the
news of this state of affairs being
brought to the Apostles at Jerusalem,
Peter and John were despatched in the
name of the Twelve, to deal with the
situation authoritatively. The result
for a time, according to the Acts, was
the triumph of St. Peter, Simon
himself being baptised and seeking to be
endowed by the Apostle with a portion
of his wonder-working spiritual gifts.
And as with Samaria so it was with
Syrian Antioch. Men of Cyprus and Cyrene,
who had been obliged to fly from
Jerusalem ‘upon the tribulation that arose
about Stephen,’ after preaching in
their own native regions found their way
to Antioch, and preaching in that city
of mixed nationalities, not only to
Jews but also to the Greeks, converted
many. This news again, that a Church
was arising in the Syrian capital with
a considerable Gentile element in its
midst, when it reached the Twelve at
Jerusalem, led to immediate action
being taken. Barnabas was sent to
exercise super-vision over the new
movement, and to see that a precedent
of far-reaching consequences should
not be established with-out the
knowledge and sanction of those in
authority.
Events at Rome probably followed on
precisely the same lines. Just as the
men of Cyprus and Cyrene in the face
of persecution made their way back to
their own homes carrying with them the
message of the Gospel, so would it be
with some of ‘the sojourners of Rome’
belonging to the Synagogue of the
Libertines. They would return to the
capital inspired by the spirit and
example of St. Stephen to form there
the first nucleus of a Christian
community. As I have already
suggested, St. Paul’s salutation to Andronicus
and Junias seems to point to these two
men as the leaders of this first
missionary band. Among those converted
would be, as at Antioch, both Jews
and Gentiles.
Some time may well have elapsed before
any news of these first small
beginnings of Christianity in Rome
reached Jerusalem. Possibly St. Peter’s
intercourse with Cornelius the
centurion and his relatives and friends at
Caesarea first made him acquainted
with the fact that the Gospel had
obtained a foothold in the capital,
for the body of troops to which
Cornelius belonged—the Cohors
Italica—consisted of volunteers from Italy.
[131] From this source too he may in
due course have learnt that Simon Magus
was in Rome, and that there as in
Samaria previously he was proclaiming
himself ‘to be the Great Power of God’
and was leading many astray by his
magical arts.
This information in any case, whether
derived from Cornelius or from Roman
Christians, who came up for the
feasts, would reach the Apostles about the
time when their twelve years’
residence in Jerusalem was drawing to a close,
and when, according to tradition, they
divided among themselves separate
spheres of missionary work abroad. To
St. Peter, as the recognised leader,
it may well have been that the charge
of the Christian Church in the
Imperial capital should have been
assigned as the post of honour. If so, it
will be seen that the persecution of
Herod Agrippa only hastened on a
journey already planned. After his
imprisonment and escape St. Peter’s first
object would be to place himself out
of the reach of the persecutor and to
set about his voyage as quickly as
possible. If so, his arrival at Rome
would be in the early summer of 42
A.D., the date given by St. Jerome.
_________________________________________________________________
[73] The Church in the Roman Empire
before A.D. 170, 3rd ed. 1894; St. Paul
the Traveller and Roman Citizen, 7th
ed. 1903; A Historical Commentary on
St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians;
The Cities of St. Paul; Luke the
Physician and other Studies in the
History of Religion, 1908; The First
Christian Century, 1911, etc.
etc.
[74] Lukas, der Arzt, der Verfasser
des dritten Evangeliums und der
Apostelgeschichte, 1906; Sprüche and
Reden Jesu. Die zweite Quelle des
Matthäus and Lukas, 1907; Die
Apostelgeschichte, 1908; Neue Untersuchungen
zur Apostelgeschichte, etc., 1911. All
these volumes have been translated
into English and published as vols.
xx. xxiii. xxvii. and xxxiii. of the
Crown Theological Library.
[75] Neue Untersuchungen zur
Apostelgeschichte, pp. 63–81. In this volume
Dr. Harnack completes his defence of
the date 62 A.D. for the Acts in favour
of which he had already argued in his Apostelgeschichte,
5 Excurs, 217–221.
How strong was the case he made out
even in this earlier and more tentative
argument may be judged by the
following extract from Neue Untersuchungen, p.
64: ‘Nicht auffallend aber konnte es
nur sein, dass andere sich durch die
starken Argumente für die frühe
Abfassung der lukanischen Schriften als
vollkommen überzeugt erklärten. Nicht
nur Delbrück hielt mir sofort vor, ich
hätte mich in einer von mir selbst
sicher entschiedenen Frage mit unnötiger
Zurückhaltung ausgedrückt, sondern
auch Maurenbrecher erkannte in meinen
Beweisführungen die Lösung des
chronologischen Problems. In seinem Werk “Von
Nazareth nach Golgatha” (1909) S.
22–30, gibt er die wichtigsten der von mir
geltend gemachten Beobachtungen für
eine frühe Abfassungszeit der Acta
zutreffend und eindrucksvoll wieder
and beschliesst seine Darlegung also:
“Die Annahme (eines späteren Ursprungs
and geschichtlichen Wertlosigkeit der
Lukasschriften) ist neuerdings
immermehr gefallen and schliesslich durch
eine gründliche Untersuchung von Prof.
Harnack in allen Teilen gänzlich
widerlegt and beseitigt worden. Viel
mehr hat sich nach jeder Richtung hin,
wenn auch nicht die unbedingte
Glaubwürdigkeit, so doch das hohe Alter der
Apostelgeschichte ergeben. Und wenn
Prof. H. selbst nur zögernd und erst nur
in letzten Moment seiner Arbeit die
Konsequenz seiner Ergebnisse auch für
die Datierung zog, so muss man doch
sagen, dass nur in jener von ihm
vorgeschlagenen Weise so wohl der
Schlusssatz der Acta wie die ganze Tenor
des Buchs verständlich wird, und dass
daher schon um dieses äusseren
Zeugnisses willen die Datierung auf d.
J. 62 als bewiesen und nicht nur als
möglich zu gelten hat.”’
[76] Eine Revolution innerhaib der
Kritik, p. 65.
[77] St. Luke, xxiv. 50-53; Acts,
xxviii. 29-31.
[78] Codex Bezae D and the first hand
of the Sinaitic Codex א1 omit kai
anephereto eis ton ouranon. The
difficulty which these words raised was
probably the reason for their
omission.
[79] An inscription at Pompeii
contains the words ‘Synagoga Libertinorum,’
Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome, p.
310.
[80] A striking testimony to the
authenticity of the Johannine account of
our Lord’s ministry. Had our Lord’s
mission been confined to Galilee up to
the last week of His life, as the
Synoptic narratives appear to suggest, it
is almost inconceivable that the home
of the Christian Church should from
the very first have been at
Jerusalem.
[81] St. Luke, xxiv. 52, 53; Acts, ii.
46; iii. 1; v. 12, 25, 42.
[82] Acts, ii. 32-36; iii. 14, 15, 20,
21, 26; iv. 10, 33; v. 30-32, 42.
[83] St. John is singled out on
several occasions by name, as being second
only to St. Peter in influence and authority;
see Acts, iii. 1; iv. 13;
viii. 14. Compare Gal. i. 18; ii. 9;
also St. John, xiii. 23-27; xviii. 15;
xx. 3-10; xxi. 20-24. Again the
history of the Acts confirms the account
given in the Fourth Gospel.
[84] Compare St. Luke, xxiv. 44–49;
St. John, xiv. 26; xvi. 13.
[85] Harnack (Const. and Law of the
Church, p. 31) describes this as ‘a very
old and well-attested tradition.’
Apollonius is stated by St. Jerome (De
viris illust.) ‘to have learnt it from
the ancients’ and it is found in
Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 5.
[86] Philo, In Flaccum and Leg. ad
Caium. Philo describes the Jews at this
time as occupying entirely two out of
the five districts of Alexandria, and
says that in Egypt their numbers
amounted to 1,000,000. See also Josephus,
cont. Apion. ii. 4; B.J. xii. 3.
2.
[87] Josephus, xiv. 7, Life, 76, B.J.
vii. last chapter. In the revolt of
the Jews in the time of Trajan
(116–117) the number of Jews who perished in
the district of Cyrene is given as 22,000,
no doubt an exaggeration but
pointing to a very large Jewish
population.
[88] Acts, vi. 8, vii. 54-60, viii.
1–3.
[89] pantes de diesparēsan kata
tas chōras tēs Ioudaias kai Samareias plēn
tōn apostolōn.
[90] Acts, viii. 5-24.
[91] Comp. Acts ix. 26-31 with Gal. i.
18.
[92] kath' holēs tēs
Ioudaias kai Galileias kai Samareias. ix. 31.
[93] egeneto de Petron dierchomenon
dia pantōn. ix. 32. Comp. xv. 41 and
xviii. 23.
[94] We are here in presence of one of
those strange psychical
communications of which we have been
learning so much in recent years. They
are far more common than most of us
dream of, and come we know not how or
whence. In the trance into which
Peter, exposed on the housetop to the full
heat of the mid-day sun and faint for
lack of food, fell, just in proportion
to the deadening of the ordinary
senses would be the sensitiveness of those
faculties which lie below the
threshold of wake-a-day consciousness. First
the spirit of the Centurion in his
anxious search after truth is moved to
seek out Peter, as his guide and
teacher; then the spirit of Peter, while
still unconsciously conscious of the
approach of the messengers who were on
their way to seek him, receives the
intimation, which is the response to his
own prayers. Men like Peter and John
and Paul were in a manner far beyond
the normal, what we should now call
‘sensitives’; their spiritual faculties
attuned to constant and intimate
intercourse with that Divine Spirit who,
their Master had promised, should in
their hours of doubt and darkness be
their guide and helper towards light
and truth.
[95] Acts, xi. 1-18.
[96] Acts, xi. 19-27. These men were
of those Hellenist Christians who had
been driven from Jerusalem by the
persecution which followed the death of
Stephen. The exiles, St. Luke tells,
preached the word in Phoenicia, Cyprus
and Antioch (and no doubt in many
other places), but at first to the Jews
only. Then, after an interval probably
of five or six years, certain of
them, who had meanwhile settled in
Cyprus and Cyrene, came to Antioch, and,
finding that the Greeks were willing
to listen to their preaching, began
with success a work of evangelisation
among them.
[97] His aunt Mary resided in
Jerusalem, and her house appears to have been
used as a place of assembly (Acts,
xii. 12); indeed there is a tradition
that the upper room of the Last Supper
was in this house. Bamabas himself
seems to have had property in Jerusalem
or its neighbourhood. Acts, iv. 37.
[98] Bar-nabas = son of exhortation;
Nabi = a prophet. The Greek form huios
paraklēseōs may be
illustrated by Acts xiii. 15, where Barnabas and Paul are
asked by the rulers of the Synagogue
if they have any logos paraklēseōs to
address to the congregation. Compare
also paraklētos =Comforter, Advocate,
Helper, St. John, xiv. 16, 26. In
accordance with his surname we find that
on his arrival at Antioch Barnabas
parakalei pantas. In Acts xiii. 1
Barnabas is classed as ‘a prophet and
teacher.’
[99] Acts, ix. 25–27; Gal. i.
18-21.
[100] Acts, xi. 26. This seems to be
the force of the words sunachthēnai en
tē ekklēsia.
[101] The population of Antioch at
this time was probably about half a
million. Ottfried Müller (Antiquitates
Antiochenae) has collected all that
can be learnt from ancient sources
about Antioch.
[102] Josephus (Ant. xviii. 8) and
Philo (Leg. ad Caium) tell the whole
story in detail, and also the
fruitless efforts made by Agrippa to induce
the Emperor to abandon his
intention.
[103] Jos. Ant. xix. 4, 5; B.J. ii.
11. H. Lehmann, Claudius und seine Zeit
(Leipzig, 1877), 118–121, 161–164.
Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii. 126–158.
[104] Jos. Ant. xix. 6. Jost
(Geschichte des Judenthums, i. 420 ff.) quotes
many anecdotes from the Talmud of
Agrippa’s eagerness to give proof of his
orthodoxy and piety. See also Fouard,
S. Pierre, pp. 207–212.
[105] St. Luke, xii. 1–18.
[106] Supra, pp. 28–9.
[107] Joyce, South American
Archaeology, 1912, p. 76.
[108] Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven
Churches, 1904, pp. 4, 5.
[109] In sixteen years three great
fires destroyed much of Rome and an
enormous quantity of documents, i.e.
in 64, 69 and 80 A.D. There was a most
destructive fire in the reign of
Commodus 191 A.D. Think of the meaning of
the following facts: Rome was taken
and sacked by Alaric, 410 A.D.; by
Genseric, 455 A.D.; by Ricimer, 472
A.D. ; by Vitiges, 537 A.D.; by Totila,
546 A.D. In 846 A.D. the Saracens
plundered Rome. See Lanciani, Ancient Rome
in the Light of Recent Discoveries,
pp. 147–9; also The Destruction of
Ancient Rome, p. 131.
[110] Horace Marucchi, Eléments
d'Archéologie Chrétienne, vol. i. xiv.
writes thus: ‘Malheureusement les Actes [des Martyrs] authentiques
ont
presque tous disparu. . . . L’Eglise
romaine non possčde aucun. Les actes de
ces martyrs ont dű ętre détruits
pendant la grande persécution de
Dioclétien; il est certain qu’ŕ cette
époque on a brűlé les Archives de de
1’Eglise romaine; on a d’ailleurs agi
de męme en Afrique, ainsi que nous
1’apprend S. Augustin.’ Of the
principal contemporary historians of the
period dealt with in these
lectures—Fabius Rusticus, Cluvius Rufus, and
Pliny the Elder—not a single line has
survived. A. Peter (Hist. Rom. frag.
pp. 291–324) gives a list of
thirty-five historical writers upon the period
from Caligula to Hadrian (37–138) all
of whose writings have perished. Of
the works of Tacitus only a portion
have come down to us, and the Histories
in a single MS.
[111] Lanciani, Pagan and Christian
Rome, p. 125.
[112] In that portion of the fifth
book of the Sibylline Oracles which was
probably written 71–74 A.D. the flight
of Nero from Rome is thus described;
v. 143 pheuxetai ek Babulōnos
anax phoberos kai anaidēs.
[113] Clement Rom. 1 Cor. v.
[114] See Clemen, ‘Die Himmelfahrt des
Isaia, ein ältestes Zeugnis für das
römische Martyrium des Petrus’ in Zeitsch.
für Wissensch. Theologie, 1896.
The discovery among the papiri of Lord
Amhurst of the Greek text of the
Ascension makes the reference clear.
kai (t)ōn dōdeka (heis) tais chersin
autou p(arad)othēsetai. Grenfell,
The Amhurst Papiri. Ascensio Isaiah, etc.,
1900.
[115] Ep. S. Ignatii ad Romanos, c.
iv: ouch hōs Petros kai Paulos
diatassomai humin; ekeinoi apostoloi,
egō katakritos.
[116] Quoted by Eus. Hist. Eccl. ii.
25: tauta kai humeis dia tēs tosautēs
nouthesias tēn apo Petrou kai
Paulou phuteian genētheisan Rhōmaiōn te kai
Korinthiōn sunekerasate. A
comparison with the passage from the Ascension of
Isaiah, from which a quotation has
already been made, is most interesting.
ho basileus houtos (Nero the
matricide) tēn phuteian hēn phuteusousin hoi
apostoloi tou agapētou
diōxei kai tōn dōdeka heis tais chersin autou
paradothēsetai.
[117] Irenaeus, Adv. Haereses, iii. 3;
Eus. Hist. Eccl. v. 6.
[118] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. v. 6, see
also iv. 22. Hippolytus’ Chronicle was
written during the first quarter of
the third century and was undoubtedly
used by Eusebius. For an account of
this learned and essentially Roman
writer see Lightfoot’s Apostolic
Fathers, part i. vol. ii. pp. 317–477. The
original Greek of Eusebius’ Chronicle
or Chronography is lost, but it
survives in three translations, a
Latin version by Jerome, a Syriac and an
Armenian. The Hieronymian and Syriac
versions give twenty-five years as the
length of Peter’s episcopate. On the
other hand the Armenian has twenty
years, but Duchesne (Liber
Pontificalis, p. v) says: ‘Ann. XX dans le texte
arménien, évidemment fautif.’ The
Armenian version has in fact many
divergences from the Hieronymian, but
Lightfoot, who has discussed the
matter very thoroughly (Apost.
Fathers, part i. vol. i. pp. 212–246), comes
to the conclusion that these
divergences are due ‘probably to the errors and
caprice of transcribers’ (p. 245).
Duchesne, Mommsen, and others hold the
Latin Chronography, known as the Liber
Generationis, to be a translation
from the Greek of Hippolytus’
Chronicle dating from about 234 A.D.
[119] Eus. Hist. Eccl. ii. 14—the
whole of this passage will be considered
later. For the death: Hist. Eccl. ii.
25, iii. 1, 4.
[120] Jerome, De Viris Illust. i.
Jerome must have had access to the
Chronography of Julius Africanus, the
Chronicle of Hippolytus, the Memorials
of Hegesippus, and other lost
works.
[121] P. Martin, ‘S. Pierre, sa venue
et son martyre ŕ Rome,’ Rev. des
Questions historiques, xiii. 5, xv. 5,
xviii. 202. This writer gives an
array of quotations from Armenian and
Syrian (Jacobite and Nestorian)
authors from the fifth to the
thirteenth centuries.
[122] The oldest parts of the Catacomb
of Priscilla are regarded by De
Rossi, Marucchi, Lanciani and the best
authorities as dating from the middle
of the first century. The most ancient
inscriptions are in red and many in
the Greek language. Among them is one
containing only the single word
[lect2.1pix.gif] . Another on the left
side of the main gallery thus:—
[lect2.2pix.gif] a third:—
[lect2.3pix.gif] In this catacomb is the
mausoleum of the Acilii Glabriones,
the family of the consul M. Acilius
Glabrio, put to death by Domitian in
95 A.D. His own tomb has been
destroyed. According to the Liber
Pontificalis Pope Leo IV, in the ninth
century, removed from this catacomb
the bodies of Aquila and Priscilla, with
others, into the city to protect them
from profanation at the hands of the
Saracen invaders. Marucchi,
Archéologie Chédtienne, vol. ii. pp. 586 ff; Le
Memorie degli Apostoli Pietro e Paolo
in Roma, p, 119, pp. 160–164. On p.
162 may be seen a copy of the
beautiful medallion containing the heads of
SS. Peter and Paul found by Boldetti
in the first-century catacomb of
Domitilla and now in the Museo Sacro
delta Biblioteca Vaticana.
[123] Allard, Hist. des Persécutions,
vol. i. p. 15.
[124] Roma Sotterranea Christiana
(nuova serie) Tom. I.: Monumenti del
Cemitero di Domitilla sulla Via
Ardeatina descritti da Orazio Marucchi,
1911, p. 9.
[125] Marucchi, Le Memorie degli
Apostoli Pietro e Paolo in Roma, pp.
180–182.
[126] G. B. de Rossi, Bullettino di
Archeologia Christiana, 1868, p. 1 ff.;
1874, p. 174; 1877, p. 77 ff. In the
Vatican museum this scene is depicted
on two glasses. Behind the figure
striking the Rock is written the word
‘Petrus.’ There is no doubt a
reminiscence here of St. Paul’s words, 1 Cor.
x. 4: epinon gar ek pneumatikēs
akolouthousēs petras; hē de petra ēn ho
Christos, and of the declaration of
Christ: Su ei Petros kai epi tautē tē
petra oikodomēsō mou
tēn ekklēsian, St. Matt. xvi. 18.
[127] ‘Les Actes des Martyrs.
Supplément aux Acta sincera de Dom Ruinart,’
par Edmond Le Blant. Mémoires de
l’Institut Nat. de France, tom. xxx. part
2, p. 81: ‘Les gentils, aux temps de
Dioclétien, avaient recherché, pour les
anéantir, les livres, les écrits
religieux des fidčles. Cette destruction,
qui nous est attestée par des
procčs-verbaux contemporains, fut
rigoureusement poursuivi, et l’Eglise,
aprčs la tourmente, dut pourvoir ŕ la
réfection de ses archives dévastées.
Ce fut souvent ŕ l’;aide de souvenirs
de traditions orales, que l’on dut
réconstituer alors nombre d’Acta et de
Passiones et souvent . . . ces
rédactions nouvelles furent accommodées, pour
le détail, ŕ la mode du temps oů elles
étaient faites’; p. 81: ‘Ces
interpolations, ŕ mon avis, ne doivent
donc ni déconcerter ni rébuter la
critique. Sous la couche des
inventions, les traits originaux existent, et
un grand nombre d’entre eux
apparaissent come ŕ fleur de sol. Il les faut
dégager patiemment,’ p. 87.
[128] G. B. de Rossi in an Archaeological
Conference held at Rome, December
11, 1881, said: ‘Che nella formazione
degli Atti dei martiri devono esser
distinti e considerati molti periodi
successivi; it primo della relazione
contemporanea dei testimoni oculari;
il secondo delle interpolazioni fatte
al testo originale fino dal seculo
incerca quarto e forse prima: poi vengono
le amplificazioni e parafrasi composte
dai retort nei secoli quinto e sesto:
finalmente le abbreviazioni delle
prolisse parafrasi ad use delle Lectiones
liturgicae, e le nuove forme di stile date alle vecchie leggende dal
seculo
decimo in poi per opera di scrittori
diversi, i cui nome in parte
conosciamo; i quali vollero togliere
ogni oscuritŕ e rossezza al dettato e
vestirlo di nuove fogge di lingua. In
tutte queste trasformazioni
naturalmente si venne assai alterando
l’indole genuina dei documenti; furono
aggiunti prolissi discorsi,
circostanze meravigliose, leggende strane, ma
generalmente rimase sempre il fondo e
la sostanza del primitivo discorso.’
Bullettino di Arch. Chr. serie IV.
1882, p. 162.
[129] Clem. Alex. Strom. vi. 5. 6. 15;
Origen, tom. xiii., comment on St.
John, c. 17. It is from Origen we
learn that the kērugma was known to
Heracleon. Clement regards the work as
genuine, but Origen doubted.
[130] Carlo Macchi, La Critica Storica
e l’origine della Chiesa Romana,
1903, p. 93: ‘Non tutte le memorie di
S. Pietro in Roma hanno per se stesse
il medesimo valore. Altre sono
d’indubitata autenticitŕ; altre sono
d’autenticitŕ probabile, altre per se
stesse neppur di probabile. Ma quando
anche si prescinda dai monumenti per
se stessi autorevoli, l’unione di tante
memorie in Roma e nella sola Roma č un
fatto che non puň spiegarsi, se non
si ammetta quel che abbiamo giŕ
dimostrato con argotnenti, i quali crediamo
the non possano venir dispregiati da
una critica veramente sincera.’
[131] Cohors Italica. Vid. Gruter,
Inscr. p. 434: ‘Cohors militum Italicorum
voluntaria, quae est in Syria.’
_________________________________________________________________
LECTURE III
Rev. xvii. 18—The great city, which
reigneth over the Kings of the earth.
In my previous lectures I have
attempted to show from the internal evidence
of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans
that there existed at Rome in 57 A.D. a
Christian Church of high repute and
many years’ standing, and that this
Church had been founded and built up
by a man into the sphere of whose
labours he [St. Paul] had been careful
not to intrude. Moreover though St.
Paul does not mention the name of the
man, circumstantial evidence has been
brought forward making a very strong
prima facie case in favour of the
ancient tradition that he was none
other than St. Peter.
To-day I propose to consider how far
that tradition in the form in which it
has been handed down to us by Eusebius
and Jerome [132] is consistent with
the facts of the early Apostolic
history contained in the Acts and the
Pauline Epistles and fits in with the
chronological framework of that
history.
Eusebius [133] tells us, on the
authority of Justin Martyr (a passage of
whose ‘Apology’ [134] he quotes at
length), that a certain Simon of the
village of Gitton in Samaria, whom
nearly all the Samaritans worshipped,
confessing him to be the Supreme God,
came to Rome in the reign of Claudius
Caesar and having there performed many
magic rites was regarded as a god.
After further describing, this time on
the authority of Irenaeus, the
character of this man’s teaching, as
being the fountain-head of all heresy,
Eusebius proceeds to say that when in
Judaea Simon was convicted of his
wickedness by the Apostle Peter, and
later journeying from the east to the
west arrived at Rome and was there
successful in bringing many to believe in
his pretensions. ‘Not for long,
however,' adds the historian, ‘did his
success continue; for on his steps in
this same reign of Claudius, the
all-good and most beneficent
providence of God conducts the mighty and great
one of the Apostles, Peter, on account
of his virtue the leader of all the
rest, to Rome against so great a
corruption of life, who like some noble
warrior of God armed with divine
weapons, brought the precious merchandise
of the light that had been made
manifest from the east to those in the west,
preaching the true light and the word
that is the salvation of souls, the
proclamation of the Kingdom of God.’
[135]
It is not necessary here to enter into
any detailed examination of the
theories of Christian Baur [136] and
his disciples of the Tübingen School or
of the arguments of Richard Lipsius
[137] in their attempt to prove that the
Roman Petrine legend was without
foundation and that Simon Magus never had
any real existence, but was a lay
figure concealing the personality of St.
Paul; for later research has shown
that their conception of the course of
early Christian History is
fundamentally false and it is becoming generally
discredited. These distinguished
scholars indeed, while brushing aside the
pseudo-Clementine literature with one
hand, as pure romance invented by
Essene-Ebionite writers of the third
and fourth centuries, at the same time
laid hold with the other hand on those
very fictions, on which the
Clementine romance is built up, in
order to erect thereon a romance of their
own equally unsubstantial, and no less
inconsistent with the clear evidence
of the earlier authorities that we
possess. Dr. Hort as long ago as 1884 in
his ‘Lectures on the Clementine
Recognitions’ (pp. 130–1) declared—‘all
these impossible theories [of the
Tübingen School] have no other real basis
than the assumption that Simon is only
St. Paul in disguise. The true
relations of the Syrian and Roman
stories are much simpler, according to
what seems to me the most natural
interpretation. Simon at Rome was familiar
in the second century; of Simon in
conflict with Peter in Syria, we hear
nothing till the third century has
well begun.’
Indeed with regard to this second
century evidence, how is it possible to
set aside the statements of Justin
Martyr and Irenaeus ? The evidence of
Justin is of great weight. He was
himself born at Flavia Neapolis in Samaria
in 103 A.D., a place only a few miles
distant from the native place of Simon
Magus. His account of Simon’s earlier
activity and great success in the
neighbourhood of his own home must be
regarded as first-hand evidence, and
it is in exact agreement with the other
account of that earlier activity
which we have in the eighth chapter of
the Acts, an account which it is more
than probable that St. Luke derived
directly from that best of all
witnesses, Philip the Evangelist. I
have already pointed out that the
emphasis with which St. Luke dwells
upon this episode of the encounter
between Peter and Simon at Samaria
suggests that he had in his mind that
later encounter at Rome, which would
be fresh in the memories of the first
readers of the Acts. [138] Be this as
it may, Justin was himself at Rome for
some years between 150 and 160 A.D.,
and wrote his ‘Apology’ to the Emperor
Antoninus Pius in that city. In
writing a defence intended for the Imperial
eyes it may surely be taken for granted
that Justin would not twice over
have ventured (for in a slightly
different form in c. 56 [139] he repeats
the statement from c. 26 already
quoted) to declare that the Magician Simon
of Samaria visited Rome in the reign
of Claudius and that a statue was
erected in his honour and that he was
worshipped as a god, unless it were
well known that such had been the
case. Yet a third time in his ‘Dialogue
with Trypho’ [140] Justin speaks of
the Simonians as an existing sect that
took their name from the arch-heretic.
Two points have been pressed against
the evidence of Justin. The first that
he states that Simon ‘had been
honoured with a statue as a god in the
river Tiber, (on an island) between
the two bridges, having the superscription
in Latin Simoni Deo Sancto, which
is, To Simon the Holy God.’ Now in
this same island was found in the
sixteenth century an inscription to
the Sabine God Semo Sancus, i.e. Semoni
Sanco Deo Fidio. It is of course quite
possible that Justin saw this
inscription, and being a Samaritan
ignorant of Latin mythology mistook this
for an inscription referring to Simon
Magus. It was a natural mistake. That
Justin was right in saying that a
statue was erected to Simon and worshipped
is sustained, as will be seen, by
other evidence. The other point is that
while Justin states that Simon was in
Rome in the reign of Claudius he makes
no mention of his encounter with St.
Peter. The only argument here is that
most treacherous and worthless of all
arguments—the argumentum ex silentio.
Justin was not writing for our
instruction, but was offering a defence of
Christianity to a Roman Emperor. If
anyone has thought that the omission of
Peter’s name here was an argument
against his presence in Rome in the reign
of Claudius, let him read the
summaries of Justin’s pleading in the latest
edition of the ‘Apologia’ by Mr. A. W.
F. Blunt (Camb. Univ. Press, 1911),
and he will see that neither in the
twenty-sixth nor in the fifty-sixth
chapter was there any place for a
reference to Peter.
The evidence of Irenaeus, who was in
Rome some ten or fifteen years after
Justin, is equally striking. Irenaeus
writes at some length about Simon. He
describes the rudimentary gnosticism of
his teaching, and, like Justin, he
mentions the tradition that an image
was erected by Claudius Caesar to his
honour in the figure of Jupiter, which
the people worshipped, and he speaks
of him as the father of all heretics.
[141] Even these testimonies to the
still living fame of Simon, as a
religious leader whose lofty pretensions
and skilful charlatanry had made a
deep impression at Rome and elsewhere, do
not stand alone. The discovery in the
middle of the last century of a MS. at
Mount Athos containing a Iarge part of
the ‘Philosophumena’ or ‘Refutation
of all Heresies’ by Hippolytus, the
learned bishop of Portus, has thrown
much fresh light upon Simon and his
teaching. [142] Hippolytus, who is
described as a disciple of Irenaeus,
[143] spent at least twenty years of
his life at or pear Rome and also
travelled widely. He devotes a long
section of his sixth book, which was
probably written about 225 A.D., to an
account of the heresy of which Simon
was the author. Of the man himself he
writes thus [144] : ‘This Simon
deceiving many by his sorceries in Samaria
was reproved by the Apostles and was
laid under a curse, as it has been
written in the Acts. But he afterwards
abjured the faith and attempted
[these practices]. And journeying as
far as Rome he fell in with the
Apostle, and to him, deceiving many by
his sorceries, Peter offered repeated
opposition.’ Here then is another
absolutely clear statement that Simon went
to Rome and there encountered St.
Peter.
Frankly then the contention that Simon
is merely Paul in disguise, Paul the
heretic in the eyes of all good Jews,
whom the orthodox Peter is represented
as triumphantly pursuing from place to
place, has not a shred of early
evidence behind it, and must be given
up. Indeed Professor Kirsopp Lake in
his recent work on the early epistles
of St. Paul does not express himself a
whit too strongly, when he says ‘The
figure of a Judaizing St. Peter is a
figment of the Tübingen critics with
no basis in history.’ [145] So far
indeed from Peter and Paul being
bitterly opposed, there is every ground for
believing that they worked at Rome
during their latter years in the closest
harmony. The First Epistle of Peter is
saturated with Pauline thoughts and
language, and its amanuensis was
Silvanus, the companion of Paul on his
second missionary journey. St. Paul
twice mentions Mark, the disciple and
interpreter of Peter, as being with
him during his first imprisonment, and
writing to Timothy immediately before
his death shows anxiety to have him at
his side, because ‘he is profitable to
me in the ministry.’ [146] Whatever
misunderstandings concerning their
attitude towards Judaism or divergences
in practice there may have been
between the two great Apostles in early
days, it is evident that they have
been greatly exaggerated. It was rather
on questions of expediency than of
principle that they differed, and the
experience of years spent in earnest
work had long before the end drawn them
together into the friendliest
co-operation.
The appearance of Simon Magus at Rome
followed by Simon Peter, so far from
being an extraordinary or even an
unusual event, is one in complete accord
with all that we know from
non-Christian sources of the way in which during
the reigns of Claudius and of Nero
religious teachers, preachers, and
wonder-workers from the East found
their way to Rome. Oriental cults,
especially the worship of Cybele and
of Isis, were all the vogue. Judaism
had great attractions for the Roman
upper classes. Priests, magicians,
soothsayers, astrologers crowded the
capital and found a ready welcome.
Claudius, we are told, was so struck
by ‘the progress of foreign
superstitions’ that he thought it an
act of sound political conservatism to
re-establish the haruspices. [147]
Harnack makes the statement in his
‘Expansion of Christianity’ that ‘the
majority of the Christians with whose
travels we are acquainted made [Rome]
their goal,’ and he admits that there
are no real grounds for doubting that
Simon Magus did so. [148] Of prominent
Christians who were in Rome in the
time of St. Peter’s and St. Paul’s
ministry, Timothy, Apollos, Silas,
Titus, Epaphras, Aristarchus, Mark and
Luke are mentioned in the salutations
of extant epistles, and in all
probability the names of John and of
Barnabas should be added to the list.
The travels and experiences of
Apollonius of Tyana are most instructive
(even when full allowance has been
made for the element of romance
introduced by his biographer
Philostratus), for he was an exact contemporary
of the Apostles, and a kind of second
Simon Magus. His vast journeys, which
extended from the Ganges to the
Pillars of Hercules, are a proof of the
facilities with which such
wonder-working teachers of philosophy and
religion made their way from place to
place, and the honour and respect with
which they were generally received.
Apollonius was in Rome in 65 and 66 A.D.
[149]
Of St. Peter’s first Roman visit and
preaching early tradition has handed
down few details; a series, however,
of witnesses affirm that Mark
accompanied the Apostle to Rome and
there wrote his Gospel. Both Irenaeus
and John the Presbyter, as reported by
Papias, speak of Mark as Peter’s
‘interpreter,’ [150] as do later
writers. That Peter should have chosen John
Mark to go with him is quite what one
might expect from the narrative of the
Acts, for Peter was clearly on terms
of the closest intimacy with Mary, the
mother of Mark and the aunt of
Barnabas, whose house was a centre of reunion
for the Christians of Jerusalem. There
is no reason for thinking that this
was the first time that Mark had acted
as the Apostle’s companion and
interpreter ; his services would ‘be
profitable to the ministry’ in
Palestine, scarcely less than in Rome,
and the suggestion that he was a
catechist to whom the instruction of
the Apostle’s Greek-speaking converts
in the elements of the Gospel story
was entrusted, is both plausible and
probable. [151] His surname, Marcus,
may be taken as indicating that his
family had some Roman connexion; he
may have been, like Paul and Silas, a
Roman citizen. Eusebius relates that
as a consequence of Peter’s preaching
‘the power of Simon was soon
extinguished and destroyed together with the
man,’ but that the Apostle’s hearers
were not content with listening but
once ‘to the unwritten doctrine of the
Divine Message, but they persisted in
supplicating Mark, who was Peter’s
companion and whose Gospel is extant,
that he should leave them also in
writing a memorial of the doctrine that
had been orally delivered. Nor did
they cease their entreaties until they
had prevailed with the man, and in
this way that writing which is called the
Gospel according to Mark is due to
them. And they say that when the Apostle
through the revelation of the Spirit
knew what was done he was pleased with
the zeal of the men and gave authority
for the writing to be read publicly
in the churches.’ [152] This, says
Eusebius, is the account given by Clement
[of Alexandria] in the sixth book of
his ‘Hypotyposeis’ and that it is also
corroborated by Papias the bishop of
Hierapolis. In other parts of his work
Eusebius actually gives the quotations
to which he here refers, from which
it appears that he has really combined
more than one passage of Clement in
his statement. [153] The evidence of
John, as recorded by Papias [154]
—‘that Mark being the interpreter of
Peter wrote whatsoever he remembered
with great accuracy, but not in the
order in which the things were said or
done by the Lord ’—is interesting, for
it seems to point to the Gospel in
its present form having been compiled
from a set of separate lections
intended for public exposition and for
catechetical instruction. Harnack has
come to the conclusion that ‘internal
indications place no impediment in the
way of assigning Mark at the latest to
the sixth decade of the first
century.’ [155] But it is fairly
certain that Mark was not at Rome during
the sixth decade, and there can
therefore be no objection to accepting the
voice of tradition, which makes the
Gospel to have been written for the use
of St. Peter’s Roman converts about
the year 45 A.D.
The evidence of St. Jerome, as to the
form of the Petrine tradition, which
was current in the Rome of Pope
Damasus during the latter part of the fourth
century, now demands our most careful
attention, for it is of great
importance. His words (to which I have
already referred) are: ‘Simon Peter
. . . prince of the Apostles, after an
episcopacy of the Antiochean Church,
and after preaching to the dispersion
of those of the circumcision, who had
believed in Pontus, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, in the second
year of Claudius journeys to Rome to
combat Simon Magus, and there for
twenty-five years he occupied the
sacerdotal chair, until the last year of
Nero, that is the fourteenth.’ [156]
The biographical notice of St. Peter,
which appears in the edition of the
‘Liber Pontificalis’ published about 530
A.D., is, as the Abbé Duchesne states,
[157] borrowed from St. Jerome, and
this notice has remained as what may
be justly styled the standard Roman
tradition ever since. I have said that
this represents the form of that
tradition as it obtained at Rome in
the pontificate of Damasus (366–384).
Damasus has been well named the first
Christian archaeologist. Some of his
many beautifully engraved
inscriptions, embodying often the results of
personal research and investigation,
above the tombs of the martyrs in the
catacombs and in the churches of Rome
are still extant. [158] Tradition
connects the name of this Pope,
coupled with that of Jerome, with the
compilation of the original ‘Liber
Pontificalis,' as the forged letters
prefixed to the work testify. Indeed
so long and to such an extent did this
tradition survive that in the thirteenth
century and later we find the work
designated as the ‘Chronica Damasi’ or
‘Damasus de Gestis Pontificum.’ [159]
In any case Damasus did make the early
history of the Roman Church his
special study, and Jerome was his
secretary at the time of his death in 384.
Nor was this all. Jerome spent some
time in his earlier life at Rome, as a
student, and he has himself left on
record, [160] how at that time he
visited the sepulchres of the Apostles
and martyrs in the catacombs, and it
must be borne in mind that in those
days there were in existence very many
tombs and inscriptions of the highest
historical interest, which have long
since been destroyed, and that others
were then accessible, which have not
yet been unearthed. Lastly in assaying
the value of Jerome’s evidence, as to
the received Petrine tradition in the
pontificate of Damasus, it is a matter
of no small interest to know that he
must have met at Rome in 382–84 and
been the companion at the Papal Court
of Furius Dionysius Filocalus. [161]
This man was the artist who engraved
the Damasene inscriptions, so noted for
the peculiar beauty and special
character of their calligraphy. He was the
illuminator and probably the editor of
the Liberian or Filocalian Catalogue
of the Roman Bishops, which was
compiled and edited in 354 A.D. and which
was the basis of the later ‘Liber
Pontificalis.’ [162] With this Liberian
catalogue it is impossible that Jerome
should have been unacquainted, and
the differences between its form of
the Petrine tradition and that given by
Jerome are of interest and will demand
our consideration. What is, however,
important now to note is that Jerome,
the later writer, in differing from
the Liberian notice of St. Peter must
have done so intentionally.
The quotation given above from the ‘De
Viris Illustribus’ closely follows
the lines of the passage from the
Chronicle of Eusebius about St. Peter,
which in the Hieronymian version is
thus rendered—‘Peter the Apostle . . .
when he had first founded the
Antiochean Church, sets out to Rome, where as
bishop (episcopus) of the same city he
continues for twenty-five years
preaching the Gospel. After Peter
Linus first held the Roman Church for
eleven years.’ [163] The notice in the
‘De Viris Illustribus’ adds the
detail, which appears later in the
‘Liber Pontificalis,’ that it was in the
second year of Claudius that Peter
arrived in Rome, and as Peter’s death is
asserted to have taken place in the
last year of Nero, the interval gives
exactly the twenty-five years of the
so-called episcopacy, or, as in this
case it would be better rendered,
overseership of the Roman Church. The
Abbé Duchesne in his monumental work
on the ‘Liber Pontificalis,’ while
stating that it is only after the time
of Xystus I (117–126) that there is
sufficient uniformity in the
catalogues to inspire confidence in the figures
given for the duration of the earlier
episcopates, writes: ‘As far as
regards St. Peter the figure of his
twenty-five years is as well attested as
the figures of the years of his
successors after Xystus I. I have then
believed myself able to note it, but
without indicating from what date one
ought to count it, for there are on
this point grave incertitudes.’ [164]
With these grave incertitudes let me
now deal very briefly. The Eusebian
History and Chronicle give lists of
the Roman bishops, and the Chronicle the
lengths of their term-years, while the
Liberian or Filocalian Catalogue
gives a list of bishops and their
term-years, but (as I have already said)
with considerable divergences. Both
are based on earlier authorities—the
Eusebian on the lists of Hegesippus
and Irenaeus, i.e. on documents
belonging to the second half of the
second century; the Liberian on a
chronicler, most probably Hippolytus,
about fifty years later. Now both the
Eusebian Chronicle and the Liberian
Catalogue give twenty-five years as the
term of St. Peter’s episcopacy, but
they differ as to the dates of its
beginning and its end. We have already
seen that the Eusebian date-limits
are from 42 A.D. to 67 A.D.; the
Liberian, however, are from 30 A.D. to 55
A.D. The Liberian chronicler states
that ‘after the Lord’s Ascension the
most blessed Peter received the office
of a bishop (episcopatum).’ [165] He
further states that Linus succeeded
him at Rome in 56 A.D. At first sight it
may appear that these two sets of
dates are hopelessly inconsistent. [166]
That this is not necessarily the case,
I will now endeavour to show.
First, let me point out that the
Liberian Chronicler’s account of the whole
of the early history of the Roman
episcopate is full of blunders; his errors
are not confined to his statement
about St. Peter. By him Clement is
reckoned as the second bishop instead
of the third, and Anencletus or Cletus
is represented as two persons [167]
instead of one. In the case of St. Peter
the Chronicler apparently regards the
Ascension as being the date of the
assumption of a general episcopate by
the Apostle, who after that date
became undoubtedly the acknowledged
leader of the Twelve. Moreover St. Luke
emphatically mentions sojourners from
Rome, Jews and proselytes as being
present at the feast of Pentecost when
by Peter’s preaching 3000 converts
were made. But what about the other
date, 56 A.D.? It will be my aim now to
show that this date also may be one of
real historical significance in the
life-work of St. Peter.
The Hieronymian-Eusebian version of
the Petrine tradition is indeed, as it
stands, scarcely less in conflict with
the Lukan history than is the
Liberian. Jerome’s statement that
before Peter went to Rome in 42 A.D. he
had been bishop of the Church at Antioch
and had preached to the Jewish
Diaspora in various provinces of Asia
Minor is obviously irreconcilable with
the narrative in the Acts. The
explanation however of all these difficulties
seems to me to lie in the hypothesis
of a sojourn of Peter at Rome about
midway between the sojourn in the
early part of Claudius and the final
sojourn towards the close of Nero’s
reign, which ended with his martyrdom. I
propose therefore to examine the
possibilities of such an hypothesis, and to
see whether any evidence,
circumstantial or otherwise, exists to give it
support.
The sequence of events as given in the
Acts has been frequently
misunderstood. In the eleventh
chapter, verses 19-20, St. Luke tells us of
the rapid spread of the Christian
faith at Antioch through the efforts of
evangelists from Cyprus and Cyrene,
men who had once been among the
Hellenist disciples of Stephen at
Jerusalem, and further that in this
company of the new converts were many
Greeks as well as Jews. He then
proceeds to state that when news of
this was brought to the Apostles in
Jerusalem, they resolved to send, in
their name and as their representative,
Barnabas, as being at once a prominent
member of the Church at Jerusalem and
a Cypriote by nationality, to take
charge of this important new movement and
to assume its leader-ship. Barnabas
was successful in his mission and having
brought Saul from Tarsus to help him
in his task, by the joint efforts of
these two men of special gifts and
earnest zeal the growth of the Church
made such conspicuous progress as to
attract public notice and to gain for
the new sect in the mouth of the
multitude that scoffing but distinctive
nickname of Christiani which was to be
in the coming centuries a title of
honour the profession of which would
bring to thousands of martyrs terrible
sufferings and death.
Between verse 26 and verse 27,
however, a certain interval elapsed. The
phrase ‘now in these days’—as in the
opening verse of the sixth chapter—is
one of those loose chronological
expressions common to the Lukan writings,
implying an uncertain interval of
time. In this case the statement that
‘certain prophets came down from
Jerusalem unto Antioch’ may be taken to
have suggested the insertion at this
point of the episode with which Chapter
xii. opens: ‘Now about that time Herod
the King put forth his hands to
afflict certain of the Church.’ The
departure of the prophets for Antioch
was in fact one of the results of the
persecution of Herod, and as the story
of the persecution was essential to
the writer’s purpose he has interpolated
it here in the midst of his Antiochean
narrative, which is resumed at verse
25 of this same twelfth chapter. One
of these prophets, whose name Agabus is
given, is stated to have predicted the
coming of a great famine over all the
world, and such was the belief
inspired by his utterance that the Christian
community of Antioch determined to
collect a contribution for the relief of
the brethren that dwelt in Judaea. Now
the famine, which was, in accordance
with Agabus’ prophecy, of wide extent
throughout the Eastern portion of the
Roman world, [168] seems to have begun
in Judaea in the year 45 A.D. and to
have reached its height in the
following year. According to Josephus [169]
the famine took place when Tiberius
Alexander was procurator in Judaea, and
his term of office did not begin
before the latter part of 45 A.D. As this
same historian gives a circumstantial
account of the relief brought
personally to Jerusalem by Queen
Helena, mother of Izates, King of Adiabene
in 45 A.D., and of her remaining there
some considerable time distributing
corn that she imported from Egypt and
figs from Cyprus, it is evident that
the dearth lasted for at least two
years. The probability is that the
prophecy of Agabus was delivered some
time in 44 A.D. and that with the
first reports of a failure of the
crops being imminent the fund in aid at
Antioch was started. The raising of a
sufficient sum by weekly collections
would take some time, and it is not
likely that the delegates Barnabas and
Saul left Antioch until the spring of
46 A.D. was sufficiently advanced for
a voyage to one of the Palestinian
ports to be possible. The Feast of
Pentecost would have been a very
fitting time for the arrival of men
bringing alms to supply the needs of
those suffering from the loss of the
harvest.
At this point let us carry our
thoughts back to St. Peter, whom we left at
Rome with Mark, as his companion and
interpreter. There exists no record to
tell us what was the duration of this
his first sojourn in that city. At
this critical stage however of the
development of the Christian Church the
advice and guidance of so trusted a
leader must have been frequently needed
both at Jerusalem and at Antioch, The
longest stay that St. Paul ever made
in one place was at Ephesus, where he
remained for three years, and three
years may be safely regarded as the
extreme limit of St. Peter’s absence in
these opening years of the reign of
Claudius. [170] In any case the news of
the famine would be sure to hasten his
departure, and if, as I myself
strongly hold, the second visit of Paul
to Jerusalem in company with
Barnabas, described in the second
chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians,
[171] be identical with their mission
from Antioch as the bearers of the
relief fund, then in the spring of 46
A.D. they would find both Peter and
Mark on their arrival already at
Jerusalem. The only other member of the
Twelve present in the Holy City at
this juncture seems to have been St.
John, and no more suitable opportunity
could have been afforded for a
private discussion of the situation
raised by the admission into the
Antiochean Church, without any Jewish
restrictions, of a large number of
Gentile converts, and of an
understanding being arrived at upon the vital
issues that were in question. The five
principal representatives of what may
be styled the old, the moderate and
the new schools of Christian thought and
opinion were now brought together by
the discharge of a common charitable
duty, and the result was an agreement
on general principles and a working
arrangement as to missionary spheres,
which approved itself, if not to the
Judaistic extremists, to the
recognised leaders Peter, John and James no
less than to Paul and Barnabas, as
satisfactory.
The measure of Peter’s satisfaction
may be gathered from the fact that John
Mark accompanied the two delegates on
their return to Antioch, probably in
the spring of 47, and that some months
later, but before the period for
sailing was over, Barnabas and Saul
set out on their missionary journey to
Cyprus, taking Mark with them. Their
work in Cyprus, for they went through
the whole island, would occupy them
till the spring, when they crossed to
Perga in Pamphylia where Mark left
them and returned to Jerusalem. Many
reasons have been suggested as the
cause of this abandonment at this time.
It may have been due in part to
dissatisfaction with Paul’s methods of
teaching, more probably to a feeling
that now the Cyprian mission was over
it was his duty to return once more to
the side of his old leader in that
new sphere of work with
to Mark’s knowledge, for some time
planning. [172]
No tradition from early Christian
times is stronger or more persistent than
that which asserts that before Peter
entered upon his Roman ‘episcopate,’ he
for seven years filled a similar
office at
so-called Roman episcopate be taken to
date strictly from the second year of
Claudius, it is quite clear that Peter
did not spend seven years at
previously. So it has come to pass
that even those who have been willing to
accept the Roman visit of 42 A.D. as
historical have dismissed the
Antiochean tradition as baseless
fable. But in my opinion no tradition of
this character can have come into
existence and held its ground as this did
without there being a genuine
substratum of truth in it. The real difficulty
is the chronological one. Can this be
overcome? I believe it may be. If
Peter sojourned at Rome a second time
in the years 54–56 A.D., and I hope to
show grounds for believing that he may
have done so, then there is no reason
why the seven years that preceded this
(47–54 A.D.) should not have been
years during which Peter made Antioch
the centre of his missionary work, a
starting-point for journeys to
Mesopotamia in the east or even to Cappadocia
and Pontus in the north, an abode from
which visits to the feasts at
Jerusalem could be easily undertaken.
It is certain that he was in Antioch
at the same time as Paul and Barnabas
after the return of the latter from
their first missionary journey in the
autumn of 49 A.D. [174] The account,
which Paul gives in the second chapter
of his Epistle to the Galatians, of
the dispute he had with Peter
concerning the question of eating with the
Gentiles, would indeed lead one to
think that the Apostle’s stay at that
time had been one of some duration. As
St. Luke from the thirteenth chapter
of the Acts and onward confines his
narrative entirely to the missionary
life of St. Paul, it is with gratitude
that we welcome these flashes of
light from the autobiographical
portions of the Pauline epistles, which from
time to time suddenly illumine the
darkness of these early decades of the
first century, through which we are
pain-fully striving to grope our way,
and, however evanescent, prove to us
at any rate that for the moment we are
walking upon the right track. There is
probably no epistle which is so rich
in passages of this kind as St. Paul’s
First Epistle to the Corinthians. It
is generally agreed that this epistle
was written at Ephesus towards the end
of St. Paul’s stay of three years in
that city. Now the recent discovery of
an inscription at Delphi [175]
practically fixes the date of Gallio’s
proconsulship in Achaia as 52 A.D.,
and with it the chronology of this part
of St. Paul’s life. The date of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians can
therefore be given with something approaching
to certainty. It was written
towards the end of the year 55 A.D.
Now one of the chief objects of this
epistle was to reprove the Corinthians
for their divisions and party spirit.
There was a party there which called
itself by the name of Cephas. Again
there is a direct reference to the
fact that Cephas was accompanied in his
missionary journeys by his wife. [176]
What other explanation can be given
of such statements than the obvious
one, that Peter had been paying a visit
of such duration to Corinth as to have
created a following who boasted
themselves distinctively, as being the
disciples of one whom they looked
upon as a ‘super-eminent Apostle.’
[177] Further a chance reference is made
to Barnabas, as working for his
maintenance, [178] a reference which would
be meaningless unless the Corinthians
were acquainted with Barnabas
personally and had seen him so
working. That Peter was really regarded in
the second century as a founder of the
Corinthian Church conjointly with
Paul is proved by the quotation,
preserved by Eusebius, from a letter of
Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, to
Soter, bishop of Rome, who speaks of ‘the
plantation of Peter and Paul at Rome
and at Corinth. For they both together
here in Corinth planted us and taught
alike; and both together in Italy
taught alike, and then were martyred
about the same time.’ [179]
These almost casual references
preserved in the First Epistle to the
Corinthians relating to an event of
much significance in the history of an
important Church, to which an eminent
bishop of that Church bears witness as
a recognised and established tradition
about a century later, bring before
us in a startling way how widespread
were the activities of Peter and other
members of the Apostolic band in those
years when the narrative of the Acts
is dumb as to their very existence,
and therefore how little right we have
to express ourselves dogmatically and
without reservation upon questions of
first-century Christian history, of
which our knowledge is so utterly
fragmentary, or to reject
unceremoniously traditions which, if carefully
sifted, will generally be found to
contain some precious bits of authentic
historical fact. The particular episode
of Petrine history with which I am
now dealing affords an excellent
illustration of these remarks.
Granted then that the natural
interpretation of certain passages of the
First Epistle to the Corinthians
implies that both Peter and Barnabas were
in Corinth and working there in the
autumn of 54 A.D., it may well be asked
is it not strange that these two
Apostolic men of all others should have
thus gone apparently out of their way
to visit a Church so recently founded
by the efforts of St. Paul, and which
should have been regarded as in his
special charge ? The reply is that not
by a single word does St. Paul make
any complaint on the subject. What
then is the explanation ? It is, I
believe, that Peter on hearing of the
death of Claudius on October 13, 54
A.D., had thought the time opportune
for revisiting his Roman converts and
had asked Barnabas to accompany him.
They had stopped at Corinth simply as a
convenient halting-place, being the
half-way house between Syria and Italy.
And now let us turn to tradition.
There are many traditions which associate
Barnabas with Rome and Italy. The
forms in which they have come down to us
are, like most of the fifth and sixth
century Acts, Passions and Travels,
full of chronological errors and
contain many impossibilities and
contradictions due to the later
inventions and interpolations of
hagiographers careless or ignorant of
history and anxious only to glorify
the memory of the particular saint or
martyr in whom for local or other
reasons they are interested. But as
the learned French writer, Edmond le
Blant, [180] who is a specialist on
this subject, well says ‘These
interpolations, in my opinion, ought
not either to disconcert or to repel
criticism. Under a layer of invention
the original traits exist, and a great
number of them appear on the very
surface. One must extricate them
patiently.’ The earliest reference to
Barnabas [181] is that found in the
‘Clementine Recognitions.’ [182] This
work, an Ebionite romance of a much
later age than Clement the supposed
writer, is prefaced by an account of
Clement’s early life at Rome. The
author says that Clement was converted by
the preaching of Barnabas, who
afterwards introduced him to St. Peter. The
object of the author of the
‘Recognitions’ is to magnify the authority and
orthodox teaching of Peter, so that
the introduction here of Barnabas, who
is never mentioned again, is purely
gratuitous, and indeed inexplicable in
such a narrative unless the fact
recorded were one based on a received and
ancient tradition too well known to be
ignored. The mention of Barnabas’
preaching has nothing to do with the
story. The insertion thus of this
incident without cause in an Ebionite
document of Eastern origin strongly
speaks for its authenticity. The
traditions represent Barnabas as having
preceded Peter [183] as a preacher at
Rome, and it is quite possible that he
may now have left Corinth some weeks
or months before Peter followed him,
and that one of the first-fruits of
his ministry in the Imperial City was
the conversion of the man who was to
occupy so important a place in the
history of the Church in Rome during
the latter half of the first century.
[184]
If certain passages of St. Paul’s
First Epistle to the Corinthians have
suggested that St. Peter visited
Corinth in 54 A.D., certain other passages
of the Epistle to the Romans, sent by
St. Paul from Corinth to its
destination in the early spring of 57
A.D., suggest no less strongly that he
[Paul] had been recently hindered from
going to Rome by the presence in that
Church of one who was its founder. And
here I would venture to say that we
may rest assured that the principle
‘not to build on another man’s
foundation’ [185] was an Apostolic and
not merely a Pauline rule of action.
That Peter went to Corinth with any
intention of interfering with Paul’s
great work in that town, or of placing
himself before the Corinthians as a
rival and superior to the Apostle of the Gentiles, is inconceivable.
But
just as Paul proposed in Peter’s
absence to pay a passing visit to Rome on
his way to Spain in order that he
might be refreshed by personal intercourse
with those of whose faith in Christ he
had heard so much, and that he might
in his turn be able to impart to them
some spiritual gift, [186] so would
Peter be anxious to break his voyage
to Rome at the Isthmus of Corinth, so
as to make acquaintance during a brief
sojourn with a Christian community in
whose first conversion and
establishment as a Church his own Roman
disciples, Aquila and Prisca, had
played so considerable a part.
Now St. Paul in his Epistle to the
Romans twice emphatically declares that
though he had for some time longed to
visit Rome, he had been many times
hindered, and the cause is plainly
stated, i.e. that it was his settled
practice not to trespass in another
man’s sphere of work. As I do not wish
to go over old ground, I shall assume
that ‘the other man’ here referred to
is St. Peter. But this being granted,
the more often I read over these
autobiographical passages from this
epistle the more thoroughly am I
convinced that the writer is not here
simply alluding to so distant an event
as the preaching of that Apostle in
the Imperial City in the early days of
Claudius, but to Peter being actually
present at Rome in person at the times
when otherwise he, Paul, might have
been able to carry out his wished-for
visit. For such a friendly visit of
short duration need not, as I have
already said, any more than the
contemplated visit on the way to Spain, have
been regarded as a ‘building upon
another man’s foundation.’ The
‘often-times’ of c. i. 13 and the ‘many
times’ of c. xv. 22 are practically
confined within somewhat narrow
limits. Paul after what he must have learned
from Aquila and Prisca would scarcely
have thought of adventuring himself in
Rome before the death of Claudius. At
that date be was in Ephesus, a city
that was in direct and constant
communication with the capital, and during
the next two years he might have found
several opportunities for undertaking
a voyage to Rome: one, for instance,
when from Ephesus he paid that second
visit to Corinth of which there is no
record in the Acts, but which is
mentioned in the Second Epistle to the
Corinthians. [187] Another, and a
most tempting one, when his tried
friends and fellow helpers, Aquila and
Prisca, returned home after the
tumult. Yet a third when after leaving
Ephesus he went to Macedonia and then
apparently followed the Via Egnatia to
Illyricum before making that third
sojourn in Corinth, when he wrote the
Epistle to the Romans. If he were
hindered from doing so, it was because
precisely during this period Peter was
himself in Rome.
I now turn to the evidence of the
Liberian or Filocalian Catalogue of 354
A.D., which has been traced back by
those who speak with the highest
authority upon the subject to the lost
Chronicle of Hippolytus, written
about 234 or 235 A.D. [188] The
Liberian Catalogue makes several palpable
blunders in the early part of its list
of the Roman bishops, as I have
already said, but the most curious is
that which makes the twenty-five years
of St. Peter’s episcopate to begin in
30 A.D. and to end in 55 A.D. Now this
last date can scarcely be intended as
that of St. Peter’s martyrdom, for the
Chronicler goes on to say that he
suffered with St. Paul on June 29 in the
reign of Nero, showing clearly his
acquaintance with the common tradition.
But the fact that the names of the
Consuls (in a corrupted form) for the
year 55 are correctly given is a piece
of strong circumstantial evidence
that this date was one of special
importance in the early history of the
Roman Church. [189] The assertion that
Linus at this time succeeded Peter as
bishop supplies, I believe, a clue by
which to arrive at a solution of the
difficulty. Later writers and the ‘Liber
Pontificalis’ itself mention both
Linus and Anencletus as having been
ordained by Peter as bishops and as
having exercised the duties of that
office in his name during his lifetime,
[190] and there is likewise a
tradition that Clement also was ordained
bishop by Peter in his lifetime. This
is a quite possible representation of
what really took place. The date 55
A.D. occupied a permanent place in the
records of the Roman Church because at
this date Peter personally gave to
that Church its local organisation by
appointing out of the general body of
presbyters an inner presbyteral
council entrusted with special pastoral
duties of administration and
overseership, the members of which bore the
name of episcopi, which as St. Peter
himself in his first epistle tells us
was virtually the equivalent of
pastores. Not until after the death of St.
Peter however did this administrative
episcopal body deem it necessary to
select one of their number to succeed
him as presiding episcopus and chief
pastor of the Church.
There is one event which should, I
think, be connected with this visit of
St. Peter in 55 A.D., of considerable
interest. It has generally been
assumed that the mass of the early
Christians belonged to the lowest classes
and that many of them were slaves.
This is no doubt to a certain extent
true, but not by any means altogether
so. Aquila and Prisca may have
belonged to the ‘freedman’ class, but
they were well-to-do people, and it is
probable that Prisca was Roman by
birth and a person of some position. Again
after dismissing all that is worthless
and utterly fictitious in the account
given of Clement’s family and their
adventures in the so-called Clementine
literature, that literature bears
evidence that long after his death Clement
was given a place apart among the men
of the sub-apostolic age not merely
because he was a disciple of St. Peter
or the author of a well-known
epistle, but because he was connected
by ties of relationship with the
Imperial house. It seems unlikely that
Ebionite writers in Eastern lands
should have gone out of their way to
lay stress on this relationship, unless
it had some foundation in fact. To
this matter I shall return later.
The case of Julia Pomponia Graecina,
the wife of Aulus Plautius, the
conqueror of Britain, is exceedingly
interesting. It is best told in the
words of Tacitus—‘Pomponia Graecina, a
distinguished lady, wife of the
Plautius who returned from Britain
with an ovation, was accused of some
foreign superstition and handed over
to her husband’s judicial decision.
Following ancient precedent, he heard
his wife’s cause in the presence of
kinsfolk, involving, as it did, her
legal status and character, and he
reported that she was innocent. This
Pomponia lived a long life of unbroken
melancholy. After the murder of Julia,
Drusus’ daughter, by Messalina’s
intrigues, for forty years she wore
only the attire of a mourner, with a
heart ever sorrowful. For this, during
Claudius’ reign, she escaped
unpunished, and it was afterwards
counted a glory to her.’ [191] It had been
long surmised that the ‘foreign
superstition’ of which this lady was accused
was the profession of Christianity. At
that time Christianity was still
regarded by the Roman authorities as a
mere sect of Judaism, and Judaism
being a religio licita Pomponia would
be entitled to acquittal. Possibly
public rumour was already beginning to
accuse the Christians, as
distinguished from the Jews, of
indulging in impure and impious orgies, but
if this were the ground of the
accusation, it would not be difficult to
refute it. The discovery by the famous
archaeologist Giovanni Battista De
Rossi in 1867, in the very ancient
crypts of Lucina in the catacomb of
Callistus, of a Christian sepulchral
inscription bearing the name, only
slightly injured, of a Pomponius
Graecinus is a piece of testimony of
considerable weight. He may well have
been a great-nephew of the Pomponia
Graecina of Tacitus, for De Rossi
dates the inscription as belonging to the
second half of the second century. The
conjecture then that Pomponia
Graecina, who was not only a friend
but a relative of Julia and of the
Claudian family, was a Christian
convert is rendered very probable. It is
worthy of note that the death of
Julia, when Pomponia’s mourning began, was
in 43 A.D. during St. Peter’s first
visit to Rome, and that her trial before
the family tribunal occurred in 57
A.D. or about a year (according to the
hypothesis I have been endeavouring to
sustain) after the second visit of
the Apostle. It may well have been her
intercourse with him that led to this
public notice being taken of her
addiction to a ‘foreign superstition.’
_________________________________________________________________
[132] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. book ii.
cc. xiii, xiv, xv; Jerome, De Viris
Illustribus. The evidence of Eusebius,
it must be remembered, was based upon
a wide acquaintance with earlier
Christian literature and with a mass of
official Church documents and state
papers, as well as local traditions now
lost to us, and that Jerome had
studied Eusebius’ works, and that he had
access to the Eusebian sources.
Eusebius for example tells us that he was
acquainted with the five books of the
Commentaries of Hegesippus, a Hebrew
Christian who journeyed to Rome from
the East expressly to learn what was
the true doctrine taught there (Hist.
Eccl. iv. 22). It appears that when at
Rome Hegesippus drew up a list of the
Roman bishops. See Bright, Introd. to
Eusebius’ Eccl. History, pp.
xxviii-xxix; Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers,
Clement of Rome, i. 202–3; Lawlor,
Eusebiana.
[133] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 13. 14.
[134] Justin, Apologia, i. 26.
[135] ou mēn eis makron autō
tauta prouchōrei. Para podas goun epi tēs autēs
Klaudiou basileias, hē panagathos
kai philanthrōpotatē tōn holōn pronoia ton
karteron kai megan tōn
apostolōn, ton aretēs heneka tōn loipōn hapantōn
proēgoron, Petron, epi tēn
Rhōmēn hōs epi tēlikouton lumeōna biou
cheiragōgei, hos hoia tis
gennaios Theou stratēgos tois theiois hoplois
phraxamenos, tēn polutimēton
emporian tou noētou phōtos ex anatolōn tois
kata dusin ekomizen, phōs auto
kai logon psuchōn sōtērion, to kērugma tēs
tōn ouranōn basileias
euangelizomenos. Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 14.
[136] See Baur’s Kirchengeschichte der
drei ersten Christl. Jahrhunderten;
Paulus der Apostel Jesu Christi; Die
Christus Partei in Korinth &c.
[137] Lipsius, Die Apokryphen
Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden,
Quellen d. röm. Petrus Sage and other
works.
[138] See p. 38.
[139] proeballonto allous Simōna
men kai Menandron apo Samareias ohi kai
magikas dunameis poiēsantes
pollous exēpatēsan kai eti apatōmenous echousi.
kai gar par humin, hōs
proephēmen, en tē basilidi Rhōmē epi Klaudiou
Kaisaros genomenos ho Simōn kai
tēn hieran sunklēton kai ton dēmon Rhōmaiōn
eis posouto kateplēxato hōs
theos nomisthēnai, kai andrianti, hōs tous
allous par humin timōmenous
theous, timēthēnai.. Apol. 56.
[140] Dial. cum Trypho. 126.
[141] Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. (Library of
Ante-Nicene Fathers, tr. by Keble),
p. 68; Irenaeus speaks of the
Simonians as an existing sect, i. 33.
[142] Hippolytus, Philosophumenos, vi.
2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 15.
[143] Photius speaks of him as a
disciple of Irenaeus.
[144] Philos. vi. 15.
[145] Kirsopp Lake, Early Epistles of
St. Paul, p. 116. See the Introduction
to Dr. Bigg’s First Epistle of St.
Peter (Int. Crit. Commentary), pp. 52–67.
[146] 2 Tim. iv. 11.
[147] Renan, Hibbert Lectures, p. 54.
See Lehmann, Claudius und seine Zeit,
p. 326: ‘Widersetzte er (Claudius) sich
energisch, wiewohl erfolglos der
mystischen Richtung der Zeit, welche
sich namentlich in der Vorliebe für
Superstitions peregrinae
kundgab.’
[148] Harnack, Expansion of
Christianity (Eng. tr.), i. 463.
[149] Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana,
iv. 35–41; Justin, Irenaeus and
Hegesippus were all Eastern Christians
who came to Rome. Also the Jews,
Josephus and Philo.
[150] The testimony of Irenaeus (Cont.
Haer. iii. i. 1) will be found in
Eusebius Hist. Eccl. v. 8; that of
Papias, 39. See Chapman, Journ. of Theol.
Stud. July 1905, p. 563 ff.; Harnack,
Neue Untersuchungen zur Apost.
Geschichte, pp. 88–93; Macchi, Critica
Storica e 1'origine della Chiesa
Romana, pp. 25–29.
[151] See The Composition of the Four
Gospels by Rev, A. Wright, ch. iii,
‘St. Mark a Catechist.’
[152] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. xv.:
paraklēsesi de pantoiais Markou, hou to
Euangelion pheretai, akolouthon onta
Petrou liparēsai, hōs an kai dia
graphēs hupomnēma tēs
dia logou paradotheisēs autois kataleipsoi
didaskalias, mē proteron te
aneinai, ē katergasasthai ton andra, kai tautē
aitious genesthai tēs tou
legomenou kata Markon euangeliou graphēs. Gnonta
de to prachthen phasi ton apostolon,
apokalupsantos autō tou pneumatos,
hēsthēnai tē tōn
andrōn prothumia, kurōsai te tēn graphēn eis enteuxin
tais
ekklēsiais.
[153] The clause above beginning phasi
ton apostolon is Eusebius’ own,
derived not from the Hypotyposeis book
vii. quoted Eccl. Hist. vi. 14, but
from some other source. The words of
Clement in the Hypotyposeis are
remarkable—huper epignonta ton Petron
protreptikōs mēte kōlusai mēte
protrepsasthai. Eusebius seems to have
had in his mind another passage of
Clement from Adumb. in 1 Peter v. 13
(quoted by Harnack, Neue
Untersuchungen, p. 89)—‘Marcus, Petri
sectator, praedicante Petro evangelium
palam Romae coram quibusdam
Caesareanis equitibus et multa Christi
testimonia proferente, petitus ab eis,
ut possent quae dicebantur memoriae
commendare, scripsit ex his, quae a
Petro dicta sunt, evangelium quod
secundum Marcum vocitatur.’
[154] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. iii.
39.
[155] Harnack, New Untersuchungen, p.
88. The difficulties in accepting the
Gospel of St. Mark, as we now possess
it, as the common narrative source of
St. Matthew and St. Luke, appear to me
well-nigh insuperable. But if we
suppose that this Gospel is a revised
continuous narrative formed from a
number of separate lections or
instructions written by Mark previously for
the use of Greek-speaking converts in
Judaea, the difficulty is largely
removed. If St. Luke had completed the
Acts in 62 A.D., it is highly
probable that he composed his Gospel
at Caesarea during St. Paul’s captivity
under Felix. Such a set of
catechetical instructions correspond almost
exactly to the type of
diēgēsis of which Luke speaks in his preface. He
would find the Marcan lections,
embodying as they did the teaching of St.
Peter, almost certainly in the
possession of such a leader among the
Hellenist teachers as Philip the
Evangelist, who was residing at Caesarea at
the same time as Luke.
[156] Simon Petrus . . . princeps
Apostolorum, post episcopatum Antiochensis
ecclesiae et praedicationem
dispersionis eorum qui de circumcisione
crediderant, in Ponto, Galatia,
Cappadocia, Asia et Bithynia, secundo
Claudii anno ad expugnandum Simonem
Magum Romam pergit, ibique viginti
quinque annis cathedram sacerdotalem
tenuit, usque ad ultimum annum Neronis,
id est decimum quartum. De Viris
Illust. i.
[157] Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, i.
51, 119.
[158] Marucchi, Eléments d'Archéologie
Chrétienne, 226–240; Lightfoot,
Apostolic Fathers, part i. vol. i. p.
296.
[159] Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, part
i. vol. i. p. 304.
[160] ‘Dum essem puer et liberalibus
studiis erudirer, solebam cum caeteris
eiusdem aetatis et propositi, diebus
dominicis sepulchra Apostolorum et
martyrum circuire, crebroque cryptas
ingredi, quae in terrarum profunda
defossae, ex utraque parte
ingredientium per parietes habent corpora
sepultorum, et ita obscura sunt omnia,
ut propemodum illud propheticum
compleatur: Descendant ad infernum
viventes (Ps. liv. 16); et raro desuper
lumen admissum horrorem temperet tenebrarum,
ut non tam fenestram quam
foramen demissi luminis putes et caeca
nocte circumdatis illud Virgilianum
proponitur: “Horror ubique animos,
simul ipsa silentia terrent.”’ Migne,
P.L. t. xxv. c. 375. In Ezeck. xii.
40.
[161] Marucchi, Eléments d’Archéologie
Chrétienne, i. 230, 235; De Rossi,
Roma Sotterranea, i. 118 ff, ii. 196
ff.; Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, part i.
vol. i. pp. 64, 249.
[162] Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, i.
4; Lipsius, ‘Die Bischofslisten des
Eusebius’ in ‘Neue Studien zur
Papstgeschichte,’ Jahrb. f. Protest. Theol.
vi. 233 ff. 1880; Mommsen, ‘Ueber den
Chronographen vom Jahre 354’ in
Abhandlungen der Philol. Hist. Classe
d. K. Sächs. Gesellschaft der
Wissenschaften, 1854; Lightfoot,
Apost. Fathers, part i. vol. i. ‘Early
Roman Succession,’ pp. 199–345; vol.
ii. ‘Hippolytus of Portus,’ pp.
317–477.
[163] ‘Petrus Apostolus . . . cum
primum Antiochenam Ecclesiam fundasset,
Romam proficiscitur, ubi Evangelium
praedicans xxv annis eiusdem urbis
Episcopus perseverat. Post Petrum
primus Romanam ecclesiam tenuit Linus
annis xi.’ See Schoene, Die
Weltchronik des Eusebius in ihrer Bearbeitung
durch Hieronymus.
[164] Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis,
ccxviii: ‘En ce qui regarde Saint Pierre
le chiffre de ses vingt-cinq années
est aussi bien attesté que les chiffres
d’années de ses successeurs depuis
Xystus I^er. J’ai donc cru pouvoir le
noter, mais sans indiquer, ŕ partir de
quelle date il faut le compter, car
il y a, sur ce point, de graves
incertitudes.’
[165] ‘Post ascensum eius beatissimus
Petrus episcopatum suscepit’; ‘. . .
Linus fuit temporibus Neronis, a
consulatu Saturnini et Scipionis’ (A.D.
56).
[166] See the authorities above
quoted: Duchesne, Mommsen, Harnack, Lipsius,
Lightfoot, De Rossi, &c.
[167] The evidence for the order of
succession (as given by Irenaeus and
Hegesippus), Peter, Linus, Anencletus
(or Cletus), Clemens is very strong.
Lightfoot’s judgment is—‘We have to
reckon with three conflicting
statements, as far as regards the
position of Clement in the Roman
succession—a tradition, the Irenaean—a
fiction, the Clementine—and a
blunder, the Liberian or perhaps the
Hippolytean. Under these circumstances
we cannot hesitate for a moment in our
verdict. Whether the value of the
tradition be great or small, it alone
deserves to be considered. The
sequence therefore which commends
itself for acceptance is Linus, Anencletus
or Cletus, Clemens, Euarestus’ (Apost.
Fathers, part i. vol. i. p. 66).
[168] Sir W. M. Ramsay writes (St.
Paul the Traveller, pp. 48–49): ‘The
famine appears to me to be singularly
well attested considering the
scantiness of evidence for this
period. Suetonius alludes to assiduae
sterilitates causing famine prices
under Claudius, while Dion Cassius and
Tacitus speak of two famines in Rome,
and famine in Rome implied dearth in
the great corn-growing countries of
the Mediterranean; Eusebius mentions
famine in Greece and an inscription
perhaps refers to famine in Asia
Minor.’
[169] As to the famine in Judaea
Josephus is full and explicit (Ant. iii.
15. 3; xx. 2. 5 and 5. 2). The story
of Queen Helena’s munificence is told
also by Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. ii. 12).
Ramsay in a note on the date of the
famine says that Tiberius Alexander’s
entry into office cannot be fixed with
absolute certainty: ‘July 45 A.D. is
the earliest admissible date and 46
A.D. is far more probable’ (St. Paul
the Traveller, p. 68). In the article
on ‘Chronology’ in Hastings’s
Dictionary of the Bible, Mr. C. H. Turner
gives 46 A.D. as the date of the visit
of the Antiochean delegates.
[170] Both the Latin (Hieronymian) and
Syriac translation of Eusebius’
Chronicle make Peter to have gone to
Rome in the second year of Claudius and
to Antioch two years later (ed.
Schoene, p. 211). This two years may
represent the time actually spent in
Rome according to tradition.
[171] Gal. ii. 1–10. For an eminently
fair and thorough examination of the
arguments for identifying the Galatian
visit ‘after fourteen years’ with (1)
the visit of Paul and Barnabas
described in Acts xi and (2) with the visit
to the Council described in Acts xv,
see Professor Kirsopp Lake, The Early
Epistles of St. Paul, pp. 274–293.
Professor Lake after stating the case for
the identification with (1) says ‘To
my mind it is extremely strong’ (p.
281). Again after weighing the
objections against (1) and (2) he concludes
‘my own view is that the objections
[against] placing Gal. ii. at the time
of the famine are much less serious,
but I recognise that they are real, and
prevent one from claiming the right to
feel quite certain on the subject’
(p. 293). It will be seen that, in the
circumstances under which I suppose
the interview to have taken place, the
case for the identification is much
strengthened.
[172] It is a curious fact that
Barnabas and Paul made no attempt to preach
in Pamphylia either on the outward or
the return journey, nor is there any
evidence to show that Paul ever
revisited that country. The idea suggests
itself that Pamphylia may already have
become ‘another man’s sphere.’
Possibly Peter himself may have paused
on his voyage back from Rome to
preach to the Jewish Diaspora
scattered along the Southern coast of Asia
Minor. If so, Mark’s refusal to
proceed to Pamphylia would be explained on
this ground.
[173] The Liber Pontificalis, both in
its original form as restored by
Duchesne and in its later recension,
gives seven years as the length of the
Petrine episcopate at Antioch.
Duchesne, Liber Pontificalis, i. 51, 118;
also St. Gregory, Ep. vii. 40.
[174] Certain, that is, if the second
visit of Paul to Jerusalem be
identical with that in Galatians ii,
which I am now assuming. It cannot fail
to strike anyone how much more
fittingly the dispute between Peter and Paul
falls into its place with this
assumption, than if it be regarded as
occurring after the Council of Jerusalem.
Indeed the difficulty of regarding
this meeting as happening at this
later time just after the Apostolic decree
had been drawn up is so overwhelmingly
great that some authorities, i.e.
Harnack, Zahn, and Turner (Hastings’s
Dict.) have felt compelled to suggest
that the order of events has been
inverted by St. Paul. See Kirsopp Lake,
Early Epistles of St. Paul, p. 294
ff.
[175] See Revue d’Histoire et de la
Littérature Religieuses, Mars–Avril
1911: E. Ch. Babut, p. 139 ff., describes
the discovery by M. Ed. Bourget of
four fragments of a letter of Claudius
to the city of Delphi. In the
inscription, part of which is
obliterated or wanting, the twenty-sixth
salutation of Claudius is mentioned
and Gallio is Proconsul. M. Babut shows
that the date must lie between narrow
limits. Claudius had his
twenty-seventh salutation on August 1,
52 A.D., and the twenty-sixth
salutation probably not before April
or May of that year. Also consult Adolf
Deissmann’s St. Paul (Eng. tr. 1912),
where a facsimile of the inscription
is given and the Proconsulate of
Gallio forms the subject of a special
Appendix, p. 235 ff.
[176] 1 Cor. i. 12; iii. 22; ix.
5.
[177] 2 Cor. xii. 11: husterēsa
tōn huperlian apostolōn.
[178] 1 Cor. ix. 6.
[179] Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. ii. 25:
tauta kai humeis dia tēs tosautēs
nouthesias tēn apo Petrou kai
Paulou phuteian genētheisan Rhōmaiōn tekai
Korinthiōn sunekerasate. Kai gar
amphō kai eis tēn hēmeteran Korinthon
phuteusantes hēmas, homoiōs
edidaxan; homoiōs de kai eis tēn Italian homose
didaxantes, emarturēsan kata ton
auton kairon. See also Eusebius, Hist.
Eccl. iv. 23 and Kirsopp Lake, Early
Epistles of St. Paul, p. 112.
[180] ‘Les Actes des Martyrs.
Supplement aux Acta Sincera de Dom Ruinart’
(part 2, p. 87).
[181] The traditions about Barnabas
have been collected and fully treated by
Braunsberger. Der Apostel Barnabas.
Sein Leben and der ihm beigelegte Brief.
Mainz, 1876. See also Harnack in the
Theologische Literaturzeitung, 1876,
No. 19, 487 ff. and Lipsius, Die
Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und
Apostellegenden, 2er Band, 2e Hälfte,
270 ff. The chief document relating to
Barnabas’ work first at Rome then at
Milan is entitled Datiana historia
Ecclesiae Mediolanensis ed. Biraghi,
Milan 1848. Braunsberger’s conclusion
is that the preaching of Barnabas in
North Italy was ‘zwar nicht sicher,
aber sehr wahrscheinlich’ (p.
83).
[182] Hort in his lectures on the
Clementine Recognitions shows that this
pseud-epigraphic writing, and the
Clementine Homilies, which closely
resemble it, are two separate Ebionite
versions of a much earlier work known
as the Circuits of Peter—Periodoi
Petror. See also Salmon’s article in Smith
and Wace’s Dict. of Christian
Biography. The date of these versions is about
the end of the third century, of the
Periodoi about a century earlier. Both
had their origin in the East.
[183] In the Datiana historia the
Barnabas story as told by the author,
after relating Barnabas’ work with
Paul at Antioch and the choice made of
him and Paul as Apostles to the
Gentiles in the fourteenth year after
Christ’s Passion, and his first
missionary journey, and second visit to
Cyprus after his separation from Paul,
proceeds to state that thereon—in the
first year of Claudius, eight years
after Christ’s ascension—he takes ship
with some of his disciples for
Rome—‘velut totius orbis dominam visere
cupiens,’ where he, as the first
Apostle, proclaims the Word of God and
among others converts Clement,
afterwards the third successor of Peter in
the Roman episcopate (Lipsius, ii. 2,
p. 311). Here it is obvious that the
chronology contradicts itself. It
ought to be the first year of Claudius
Nero, i.e. 55 A.D. If the eight years be
counted from Barnabas’ appointment
as an Apostle of the Gentiles, 47
A.D., we arrive at the same date.
[184] A prima-facie case is made out
for the authenticity of the tradition
of Barnabas’ preaching in Rome and
North Italy from the fact that it was so
greatly in the interest of the
upholders of the Petrine origin of the Roman
Church to suppress it; as Harnack
points out, its existence ‘musste dem
römischen Bischofe höchst unbequem
werden: denn sie drohte die einzigartige
Bedeutung des Petrus für das Abendland
and die einzigartige Stellung Roms im
Abendlande zu gefärhrden.’—Literatur
Zeitung, 1876. No. 19, 488.
[185] Rom. xv. 20.
[186] Rom. i. 10-12, xv. 23, 24.
[187] 2 Cor. xii. 24 and xiii.
1.
[188] See pp. 49, n. 2, 71,
supra.
[189] Petrus, ann. xxv. mens. uno, d.
viiii. Fuit temporibus Tiberii
Caesaris et Gai et Tiberi Claudi et
Neronis, a cons. Minuci [vinicii] et
Longini [A.D. 30] usque Nerine at Vero
[Nerone et Vetere A.D. 55]. Passus
autem cum Paulo die iii. Kal. Iulias,
cons. ss, imperante Nerone. Linus,
ann. xii. m. iiii, dies xii. Fuit
temporibus Neronis, a consulatu Saturnini
et Scipionis [A.D. 56] usque Capitone
et Rufo [A.D. 67] (Light-foot, Apost.
Fathers, I. i. p. 253).
[190] Hic [Petrus] ordinavit duos
episcopos, Linum et Cletum, qui
praesentaliter omne ministerium
sacerdotale in urbe Roma populo vel
supervenientium exhiberent; beatus
autem Petrus ad orationem et
praedicationem, populum erudiens,
vacabat. . . . Hic beatum Clementem
episcopum conservavit, eique cathedram
vel ecclesiam omnem disponendam
commisit.—Duchesne, Liber
Pontificalis, i. 118. See evidence of Epiphanius
derived from Hegesippus, Lawlor,
Eusebiana, p. 9.
[191] Pomponia Graecina, insignis
femina, Plautio qui ovans se de Britanniis
rettulit nupta ac superstitionis
externae rea, mariti·iudicio permissa;
isque prisco instituto, propinquis
coram, de capite famaque coniugis
cognovit et insontem nuntiavit. Longa
huic Pomponiae aetas et continua
tristis fuit; nam post Iuliam Drusi
filiam dolo Messalinae interfectam per
quadraginta annos non cultu nisi
lugubri, non animo nisi maesto egit; idque
illi imperitante Claudio impune, mox
ad gloriam vertit.—Tacitus, Ann. xiii.
32.
_________________________________________________________________
LECTURE
IV
Acts xxviii. 15—Whom when Paul saw, he
thanked God and took courage.
The hope expressed by St. Paul in his
Epistle to the Romans that he might,
after accomplishing his mission of
alms-bearing to Jerusalem, be able
shortly to pay a passing visit to the
Roman Christians on his way to Spain,
[192] was not to be realised in the
way that he proposed. The journey to
Jerusalem was overshadowed from the
first by dark forebodings, [193] and it
proved disastrous for a lengthened
period to all his plans of active
missionary work. It lies outside the
scope of these lectures to relate in
detail all that happened to St. Paul
between his arrival at Jerusalem to
keep the Pentecost feast of 57 A.D.
and the early spring of 60 A.D. [194]
when at length he entered Rome as a
prisoner. It is, however, necessary for
a right understanding of the character
of St. Paul’s captivity in the
Imperial Capital to consider with some
care what St. Luke has to tell us
about his treatment by the Roman
authorities during his earlier captivity in
Caesarea. There are few passages in
ancient historical literatures more
clearly the work not merely of a
contemporary writer but of an observant
eye-witness than is the narrative
contained in the last seven chapters of
the Acts. These chapters abound in
first-hand material for the history of
the time, and incidentally are
valuable for the side-lights that they throw
upon many features of the Roman
provincial administration and legal
procedure, and upon the state of
Judaea in the years 57 to 59 A.D.
St. Paul here appears in an historical
setting, the truth-fulness of which
we can estimate by a comparison with
the narrative of the period of Felix
and Festus contained in Josephus’
writings, and in the less detailed but
more pungent references of Tacitus. It
was the period when the great revolt
was preparing. Probably there was no
provincial post that was more difficult
and less desirable than that of
Procurator of Judaea. The celebrated
character-sketch of Felix given by
Tacitus, [195] ‘in the practice of all
kinds of lust and cruelty he exercised
the power of a king with the temper
of a slave,’ no less than the fierce
accusations brought against this
Procurator by Josephus of cruelty,
rapacity, and treachery, [196] are tinted
with prejudice and exaggeration. The judgment
of Mr. Henderson, the
historian of Nero’s Principate, is
very different. [197] ‘Alike in Jerusalem
and in the country generally Felix
found a widespread turmoil and insecurity
alikeof person and of property. Bands
of robbers were roaming up and down,
sweeping in adherents from every class
of malcontent debtor and malefactor.
The sect of the Zealots, founded years
before by one Judas of Galilee, were
hardly distinguishable from the
Sicarii, those robbers and murderers whose
evil deeds load the page of Josephus,
and both plagued the unhappy land, as
they disturbed the unfortunate
Governor’s peace. Felix acted vigorously.
Robber bands were dispersed yet always
reappeared. Daily assassinations in
Jerusalem defied the Roman garrison.
The mob was always the credulous prey
of any fanatic. One Jew from Egypt
gathered thousands together on the Mount
of Olives promising them that the
walls of the city shall fall at his
bidding as those of Jericho before
Joshua’s trumpets, and his adherents’
excited belief, stimulated by their
lust and hope of rapine and of plunder,
was only chilled by Felix’ appearance
at the head of Roman troops. The mob
was scattered, but the leader escaped.
. . . Wherever Felix appears in the
history of these troubled years, we find him struggling with disorder,
and
crushing, so far as he could with the
small force at his disposal, both
brigandage in the country and rioting
in the city. Difficult cases he duly
refers to Nero. Pending decision he
will keep the peace firmly. There is no
good evidence to warrant the
accusations of cruelty and lust so lightly
brought against him.’ How accurately
the Lukan narrative pictures this state
of things.’ [198] The strong Roman
garrison in Fort Antonia keeping watch
and ward over the faction-torn city at
the time of the Feast. The swoop of
the tribune Lysias to rescue Paul from
the hands of the raging and howling
crowd in the Temple Courts. His
mistake in thinking that his prisoner was
‘the Egyptian.’ The scene on the
stairs and within the fort. The growing
respect of the officer as he notes
that the man whom he had taken to be a
leader of banditti can speak Greek,
then that he is, though a Jew by race,
not merely an inhabitant but a citizen
of a famous Greek university city,
and lastly, most important of all,
that he inherits from his father the
privileges of Roman citizenship. His
own naive remark ‘with a great sum
obtained I this citizenship’ only
enhancing the superior position of the man
who can reply ‘but I was Roman born.’
[199] The scene in the Sanhedrin is
quite explicable when we read in
Josephus, ‘about this time King Agrippa
gave the High-Priesthood to Ishmael,
the son of Fabi. And now arose
discussions between the high priests
and the leading men of the multitude of
Jerusalem . . . and when they met
together, they cast reproachful words and
threw stones at one another.’ [200] If
Ananias were High Priest de facto,
while Ishmael was High Priest de jure,
the exclamation of Paul, ‘I wist not
that he was High Priest,’ was not
unjustifiable. [201] Again the request of
the chief priest to Lysias that Paul
should again appear before the Council,
and the plot that was made whereby forty
assassins were bound together by an
oath to waylay and murder him, is
quite in accordance with the evidence of
Josephus, when he tells us that
precisely at this period ‘robbers went up
with the greatest security to the
festivals and having their weapons
concealed [under their garments] and
mingling themselves with the multitude,
they slew both their own enemies and
those whom other men wanted them to
kill for money.’ [202]
The reticences of St. Luke upon many
points on which we should like to have
fuller information are quite as
remarkable as his accuracy. We would gladly
know more about the causes which
secured for St. Paul such favoured and even
indulgent treatment for four or five
years at the hands of the succession of
Roman officials with whom he was
brought in contact. [203] How was it, one
asks, that he was able during the
whole of this time to find sufficient
means to meet the heavy expenses that
must have been thrown upon him? Had
Paul been a mere penniless Jewish
preacher of a new superstition, an
ordinary commonplace enthusiast of no
position or resources, it is
practically certain that he would not
have received so much attention from
Procurators like Felix and Festus, or
such courtesy as was shown by the
tribune Claudius Lysias and the
Centurion Julius. At Fort Antonia he was
allowed to receive visitors and to bid
a centurion conduct his nephew to the
presence of his superior officer. Does
this visit of his nephew signify that
some change had taken place in Paul’s
relations with his family, that that
family was one of distinction and
wealth, and that money had come to Paul
possibly on the death of his father?
We do not know. We can only conjecture,
but the fact remains that in dealing
with him the Roman authorities treated
him as if he were a person of some
consequence.
The first mark of this was exhibited
in the extraordinary precautions taken
to ensure Paul’s safe convoy to
Caesarea. Four hundred and seventy
troops—legionaries, horsemen, and light-armed
auxiliaries—were sent to make
a swift night march to Antipatris, and
then the horsemen continued the
journey apparently without a halt to
Caesarea. The next was when Felix,
after declining to condemn Paul, when
the High Priest in person with a
deputation of the Sanhedrin brought
their threefold accusation against the
Apostle by the mouth of a trained
advocate, not only deferred the trial
indefinitely on the pretext that he
must wait until Claudius Lysias also
could appear and give evidence, but he
ordered that Paul, while kept in
charge, should be treated with
indulgence, and leave was given to any of his
friends to minister unto him. [204]
The reason given by St. Luke why Felix
thus deferred the trial and treated
Paul well was ‘that he had more accurate
knowledge concerning the Way,’ [205]
i.e. the Christian religion, implying
more accurate knowledge than to be
deceived by the prejudiced ex parte
statements of the Jewish accusers. The
explanation lies in the verse which
follows: ‘and after certain days Felix
came with Drusilla his wife, who was
a Jewess, and heard him [Paul]
concerning the faith in Christ.’ And during
the long interval of two years that he
kept him in captivity, ‘hoping,’ says
St. Luke, ‘that money would be given
him of Paul, he sent for him the
oftener and had communion with him.’
[206] Now these statements point to two
things: first, that Felix knew about
Paul and Christianity from Drusilla,
and, secondly, that from what Drusilla
told him he was sufficiently
interested in the man and his teaching
to have repeated private interviews
with him, and further that he believed
him to be possessed of sufficient
means to offer him a bribe to secure
his release. No Roman governor, more
especially a man of the type of Felix,
would have such consideration as all
this implies for a commonplace
prisoner. At this time of political unrest
and ferment in Judaea the Procurator’s
relations with the Jewish leaders
were sufficiently strained without his
extending his protection to a man
against whom they displayed such
fierce animosity. It would not have been
difficult for him to condemn Paul as a
disturber of the peace, and it was
his interest to do so. At the same time he clearly was afraid to
release
him, lest he should provoke one of
those outbursts of Jewish fanaticism
which actually took place in Caesarea
itself after St. Paul had been
confined in the barracks attached to
Herod’s palace for two years. The stern
way in which in this year 59 A.D. the
Governor dealt with the Jewish rioters
led to a deputation of the principal
Jewish inhabitants of Caesarea going to
Rome to accuse him for his misdeeds
and harshness before Nero himself, and
finally to Felix’ recall to Rome to
answer the charges brought against him.
[207] It is perhaps no wonder that in
such a crisis of his life the accused
man, who only narrowly escaped
condemnation by the powerful influence of
friends at court, should have
‘desired,’ as St. Luke tells us, ‘to gain
favour with the Jews by leaving Paul
bound.’ [208] There is a curious
Western reading here, which possibly
records an ancient authentic tradition
that Felix left Paul in confinement
‘because of Drusilla.’ [209] As Drusilla
was the sister of Agrippa II, who had
an official residence in Jerusalem and
in whose hands was the appointment of
the High Priest, she may well have
counselled her husband, for her
brother’s sake even more than for his own,
not to irritate Jewish fanaticism by
any act that might fan it in its
present state of fever heat to yet
further deeds of violence.
Festus on his arrival was confronted
by a difficult and critical situation.
But he was a firm and just magistrate
and was determined that the prisoner
should despite the clamours of the
Jews have a fair trial in his presence.
The principal charge brought against
Paul was the crime of majestas—the
inciting of the Jewish communities
through the world to treason against
Caesar. The other accusations—the
being a ringleader of the sect of the
Nazarenes and a profaner of the
Temple—on the other hand were, in the
scornful words of the Procurator to
King Agrippa, only ‘certain questions of
their own superstition.’ [210] These
charges, St. Luke tells us, they failed
to prove, and the Apostle no doubt
hoped that the Governor would pronounce
judgment in his favour. But Festus,
aware of the excited state of Jewish
feeling, was naturally anxious not at
the very outset of his official term
to get himself into disfavour with
these embittered representatives of the
dominant faction at Jerusalem, and he
asked Paul whether he would be willing
to go up to that city, there to be
judged by him. But the Apostle was
determined not thus to place himself
in the midst of enemies thirsting for
his life and utterly unscrupulous
about the means employed; he was sick,
too, of delay, and he no longer
hesitated. ‘To the Jews I have done no
wrong, as thou well knowest,’ he
replied to the Governor (I am somewhat
paraphrasing the actual words as
recorded), and ‘if I have committed any
offence against Caesar, I, as a Roman
citizen, should be tried not at
Jerusalem but before Caesar’s judgment
seat. As you do not acquit me of
treason, I claim my right of appeal—ad
Caesarem appello.’ [211] On this the
Procurator, after a conference with
his assessors [212] (consiliarii) on the
legal aspects of the case, quashed all
further proceedings in Judaea, ‘Thou
hast appealed to Caesar, to Caesar
shalt thou go.’
I have dwelt at some length on the
circumstances which brought about Paul’s
visit to Rome, in order to make it
clear that the charge against him was
political, not religious, the offence
one of majestas, not of preaching new
doctrines subversive of the Jewish
law. And it is noteworthy that even in
regard to the political charge both
Festus and King Agrippa were agreed that
Paul had done nothing worthy of death
or of bonds. He had however appealed
to Caesar, and so he obtained, not
indeed his liberty, but an escape from an
irksome confinement in the midst of
his deadly foes, and a prospect of at
length making acquaintance with that Church
in Rome which he had so many
years been longing to visit. Whatever
the risks, he would gladly face them,
for his deep faith assured him that he
was going to Rome as God’s appointed
instrument to do good work in Christ’s
Name amidst the thronging population
of that great world-centre of Imperial
rule. Those words that came to him,
as on that first night of his
incarceration in Fort Antonia he beheld in
mystic vision the Lord Jesus standing
at his side—‘Be of good cheer, for as
thou hast testified concerning me at
Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness
even at Rome’ [213] —had, we may well
believe, been his comfort and stay
during the whole of those two weary
years spent to all appearance so
uselessly in the guard-rooms of Herod’s
palace at Caesarea. Now, at last,
the opportunity had come of bearing
witness in the presence of Caesar
him-self: an opportunity embraced with
his whole heart and soul, even though
the witness should be that witness
which is crowned with the martyr’s death.
The Apostle left Caesarea some time
during the month of August, 59 A.D.,
only after many hardships and
life-anddeath perils to be shipwrecked in
November on the coast of Malta.
Compelled with his companions in misfortune
to winter on the island, it was not
until the end of February 60 A.D. that
Paul landed at Puteoli, a centre of
the corn traffic with Alexandria and the
chief commercial sea-port of Italy and
Rome. [214] In this busy and
prosperous place thronged with seamen
and traders of many nations the
Apostle found a body of Christians who
gave a right brotherly welcome to him
and his companions, Luke and
Aristarchus, and entertained them seven days.
Of the origin of this Christian
community the Acts tells us nothing, but its
presence here will occasion no
surprise to those who have followed the
arguments of the previous lectures. It
is but one proof more of the early
evangelisation of Rome and other towns
in Italy.
From Puteoli the company of prisoners
with their military guard journeyed
along the Appian Way to Rome. But the
news of the approach of the Apostle
had already reached the Christians of
the capital, and two separate
deputations came to greet him, one as
far as Appii Forum, one of the regular
halting places on this route, the
other to Tres Tabernae still nearer Rome.
[215] Probably among these delegates
were a number of those whose names are
so affectionately mentioned in the
Epistle to the Romans, Ampliatus,
Urbanus, Stachys and the rest, and
surely Aquila and Prisca, his old and
tried friends. St. Luke mentions no
names, but his one brief statement of
the effect of this meeting upon the
way-worn and much burdened Apostle is
worth a whole volume. In the midst of
a strange and foreign land, a prisoner
in bonds, Paul was feeling perhaps, as
was natural, somewhat lonely and
depressed, but at the sight of his
friends his spirit revived. How
expressive are the words ‘whom when
Paul saw, he thanked God and took
courage.’ [216]
The Apostle after his entrance into
Rome was conducted by the centurion
Julius to an officer who bore the
title of the Stratopedarch. [217] This
centurion, in whose charge St. Paul
with his fellow-prisoners had been for
the seven months since they left
Caesarea, is described in the Acts as being
of the Augustan band (speira
Sebastē) or as it probably should be more
correctly translated, of the Imperial
Service Corps. That great authority,
Dr. Mommsen, has been able to give an
explanation of the meaning of these
unusual terms, which affords one more
example of the marked accuracy of St.
Luke in his references to Roman or
local officials. Professor Ramsay has
thus summarised Mommsen’s conclusions.
[218] ‘Augustus had reduced to a
regular system the maintenance of
communications between the centre of con-
trol in Rome and the armies stationed
in the great frontier provinces.
Legionary centurions, called commonly
frumentarii, went to and fro between
Rome and the armies and were employed
for numerous purposes between the
Emperor and his armies and provinces.
They acted not only for commissariat
purposes (whence the name) but as
couriers and for police purposes, and for
conducting prisoners. They all
belonged to legions stationed in the
provinces, and were considered to be
on detached duty when they went to
Rome; and hence in Rome they were
“soldiers from abroad”—peregrini. While in
Rome they resided in a camp on the
Coelian Hill called Castra Peregrinorum.
In this camp there were always a
number of them present, changing from day
to day, as some came and others went
away. This camp was under the command
of the Princeps Peregrinorum, and it
is clear that the Stratopedarch in Acts
is the Greek name for that
officer.’
Julius in any case had now fulfilled
his duty and handed over his prisoners
to his chief. But the exceptionally
favoured treatment now accorded to Paul
by the Roman authorities in the
capital itself was even more remarkable than
that which had been shown to him in
Judaea, and it may be added throughout
his voyage. I have already spoken of
the behaviour of Felix to him as a
proof that the Apostle was regarded as
a man of some distinction, and that
at this period of his life he was in
no lack of means. This impression is
deepened as the narrative of the
captivity proceeds. Festus and his
assessors would not have been likely
to have troubled themselves to send to
Caesar’s judgment seat a poor and
obscure man. The courtesy of Julius to him
and the privileged position he
occupied during the voyage must have been due
in the first instance to instructions
given by the Governor. It can only
have been by express permission that
Luke and Aristarchus were allowed to
accompany the Apostle in the vessel, a
most unusual thing. [219] And it was
the same upon his arrival at Rome.
From the very first the prisoner ‘was
suffered to abide by himself with the
soldier that guarded him,’ and to call
together the chief of the Jews to meet
him twice in the friend’s house [220]
in which for a short time he remained,
and then for the whole of the next
two years of his light captivity he
lived in his own hired house, receiving
freely and without hindrance all who
came in to him. Where this friend’s
house or this hired dwelling was
situated we have no hint, but it must have
been in the immediate neighbourhood
of, perhaps even within, the extensive
barracks of the Praetorian Guard
outside the Collin Gate, for this would be
necessary for the convenience of the
change of the guards to whom he was
chained. The custodia militaris at its
best was most irksome, and as we
learn from his epistles was felt to be
so by the Apostle, but he had at
least the opportunity, which was so
near to his heart, of being able to have
unrestricted intercourse with his
Roman friends, and to preach the Gospel to
all who wished to hear him. This
liberty, which, as we have seen, was
conceded at once after his arrival,
can only have been due to the contents
of the official report—the literae
dimissoriae and relatio—sent by Festus
concerning the prisoner, which would
be handed by Julius to the
Stratopedarch and by him in his turn
to Burrhus, who was in 60 A.D. still
sole Praetorian Prefect. [221]
Three days only had passed before St.
Paul saw the leading men of the Jewish
synagogues gathered round him in the
room where he was confined. So eager
was he to be at work again in his
Master’s business that he must have sent
out the invitations to the heads of
the six or seven independent Jewish
congregations in Rome immediately
after his arrival. Apostle of the Gentiles
as he was, he always adhered to his
unbroken rule—to the Jew first. His
words at the opening of his Epistle to
the Romans acquire added force in the
new situation in which he now found
himself—‘as much as in me lies I am
ready to preach the Gospel to you also
in Rome. For I am not ashamed of the
Gospel; for it is the power of God
unto salvation to every one that
believeth, to the Jew first and also
to the Greek.’ [222] These words were
indeed addressed to the Christians of
Rome, but he knew well how small a
number out of the great Jewish
population in that city had been converted to
the Gospel, and even at a distance the
thought saddened him, and his heart
yearned towards them, the more so
because he felt keenly the prejudice which
his preaching to the Gentiles had
aroused against him in the minds of his
countrymen further east. There are few
more touching passages in the
writings of St. Paul, none which
reveal the innermost depth of his soul more
fully than portions of the ninth and
tenth chapters of the Epistle to the
Romans. No estimate of St. Paul is
complete which does not take account of
these impassioned utterances: ‘I say
the truth in Christ, I lie not, my
conscience bearing witness with me in
the Holy Ghost, that I have great
sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart.
For I could wish that I myself were
anathema from Christ for my brethren’s
sake, my kinsmen according to the
flesh. . . . Brethren, my heart’s
desire and my supplication to God is for
them that they may be saved.’ [223]
And now, as the chiefs of the Roman
synagogues stand around him, he
endeavoured to persuade them that it was not
for anything that he had done against
the Jewish people or contrary to the
customs of the fathers that he had
been put upon his trial and compelled to
appeal to Caesar. On the contrary, he
wished to make it clear to them that
all the proceedings against him were
due to a misunderstanding, because—and
in these words lies the whole force of
his apology—‘for the hope of Israel I
am bound with this chain.’ The reply
was a purely non-committal one. The
Jews declared that they had received
from Judaea no letters concerning Paul,
nor had any of the brethren that came
to Rome spoken harm of him. They were
therefore quite ready to hear what he
had to say and appointed a day for a
conference. But they added, with a
cold hostility which must have chilled
any hopes he may have had of the issue
of his appeal, ‘as concerning this
sect it is known to us that it is
everywhere spoken against.’ [224] This
declaration was no doubt strictly
correct, and is of great importance. It
shows that already those charges of
‘atheism,’ immorality, and of abominable
practices at their feasts, which were
shortly to be so freely brought
against them, were being widely
accepted, and that the Jews them-selves were
taking pains to dissociate Judaism
from any connexion with the new
sectaries, whom they disowned. The
period during which the Christians were
to find shelter beneath the privileges
accorded by the Imperial Government
to the Jewish people and religion was
well-nigh over. The essential note of
the Christianity preached by Paul was
universalist, that of the Judaism
protected by Roman law was national
and particularist: between the two there
could be no reconciliation. No wonder
that when a body of Jewish delegates
more numerous apparently than the
first gathered in the Apostle’s room, they
remained unconvinced by his arguments.
These chiefs of the Synagogues were
not of the stuff of which converts are
easily made, and though St. Luke says
they reasoned among themselves and had
clearly some difference of opinion,
yet of their generally unbending
attitude the scathing words with which the
Apostle closed the interview are a
proof that he regarded all his efforts as
thrown away and futile. [225] It was a
repetition of what had happened at
Antioch in Pisidia and elsewhere, and
there his previous experiences cannot
have given him much encouragement that
now, as a prisoner accused by the
Jews of Jerusalem, he would meet with
more success. In any case his breach
with official Judaism in Rome seems to
have been final. At this point the
actual narrative of the Acts ceases.
The next two verses, which state that
‘he (Paul) abode two whole years in
his own hired dwelling, and received all
that went in to him, preaching the
Kingdom of God the things concerning the
Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness,
none forbidding him,’ [226] are a kind
of appendix. The brief summary of events which it contains forms—as did
the
last verses of the Gospel with the
opening passage of the Acts—a bridge of
connexion with another narrative, in
which the author intended to take up
the story at the point where it is
left, i.e. the departure of the Jewish
delegates, and continue it in a third
treatise in fuller detail.
This abrupt breaking off of the Lukan
history at a most interesting point is
much to be regretted. We are not
however left without information about St.
Paul’s personal condition, his
missionary activity, and his relations with
the outside world during the two years
he spent in his hired house. Four
epistles were written by the Apostle
during this period, containing a number
of references to his life and to the
friends who were with him or helping
him. Of these a group of three, the
Epistles to the Colossians and Philemon
and the circular epistle (commonly
called) to the Ephesians, were clearly
dictated in rapid succession and were
dispatched together, somewhere about
the middle of the imprisonment. The
fourth epistle, to the Philippians, is
later; internal evidence points to a
date not long before the final trial
and release.
The tone of the group of three is on
the whole cheerful and full of
confidence. The Apostle is surrounded
by a number of his most trusted
disciples and fellow-workers. In each
of these epistles he refers to his
bonds, but in every case not to
complain, nay, rather to give added weight
to his advice or his pleading. To the
Colossians he writes: ‘Pray for us
that God may open unto us a door for
the Word, to speak the mystery of
Christ, for which I am also in bonds,
that I may make it manifest as I ought
to speak,’ while in a corresponding
passage of the circular epistle lie asks
for the prayers and supplications of
his readers, ‘on my behalf that
utterance may be given to me in
opening my mouth, to make known with
boldness the mystery of the Gospel for
which I am an ambassador in chains;
that in it I may speak boldly, as I
ought to speak’—passages which testify
that his whole thoughts at this time
were directed to the opportunity—the
door—which his position gave him for
preaching the Gospel in the very heart
of the world’s capital. [227] Notice
on the other hand the force of the
appeal with which the Epistle to the
Colossians closes—‘the salutation of me
Paul with mine own hand. Remember my
bonds,’ [228] or in that most
delightful passage from the beautiful
epistle to Philemon, in which he so
tenderly and affectionately pleads
with the master at Colossae to receive
back the slave Onesimus, who had run
away from him and robbed him, but had
now been converted by Paul at Rome and
so become Philemon’s brother in the
faith. ‘Wherefore, though I have all
boldness in Christ to enjoin thee that
which is befitting, yet for love’s
sake I rather beseech, being such an one
as Paul the aged, and now also a
prisoner of Christ Jesus: I beseech thee
for my child, Onesimus, whom I have
begotten in my bonds, Onesimus, who was
aforetime unprofitable to thee, but
now is profitable to thee and to me;
whom I have sent back to thee in his
own person, that is my very heart; whom
I would fain have kept with me, that
in thy behalf he might minister to me
in my bonds of the Gospel.’ A few
verses further on the declaration ‘if he
have wronged thee at all or oweth thee
ought, put that to my account: I Paul
write it with mine own hand, I will
repay it’ affords one more testimony to
those already given that the Apostle
at this time did not lack means. One
reason for St. Paul’s cheerfulness
was, no doubt, that his release was
approaching and not far distant,
otherwise he would not have concluded his
letter to Philemon with the words
‘Withal prepare for me a lodging: for I
hope that through your prayers I shall
be granted unto you.’ The other
reason was that he had at his side at
this time a body of faithful friends,
[229] who were a comfort to him.
Aristarchus and Luke, who accompanied the
Apostle on his voyage probably in the
capacity of slave-attendants, still
continued their willing service.
Aristarchus is mentioned as ‘my
fellow-prisoner,’ Luke as ‘the beloved
physician.’ Epaphras, a native of
Colossae, one of those who had
originally carried the Gospel to that town,
had arrived in Rome bringing news of
the state of the Church of which he was
so prominent a member. He also is
styled by the Apostle ‘his
fellow-prisoner,’ and possibly all
these three lived with him in his hired
house. Then, too, Tychicus of Ephesus
had joined him in company with Paul’s
specially loved disciple Timothy, whom
we now find acting as his amanuensis.
In addition to these were Jesus
surnamed Justus, one of the few among the
circumcision who had been a
fellow-worker and a comfort to him, and Demas,
of whom we know nothing, except that
he some years later deserted him.
One name remains which deserves a
longer notice.
‘Mark, the cousin of Barnabas,
saluteth you, touching whom ye received
injunctions, if he come unto you
receive him,’ the very phraseology of this
salutation sent by St. Paul to the
Colossians suggests that more lies behind
the words than they actually express.
Since Barnabas and Paul parted in
anger at Antioch in 50 A.D. because of
Mark, and Paul chose Silas to be his
fellow missionary, while Barnabas took
Mark and sailed to Cyprus, no mention
is made of the latter in the Acts at
all nor in the pre-captivity epistles
of Paul. What was he doing during the
interval, and how are we to account
for this greeting being sent by Paul
from Rome in Mark’s name in 61 A.D. to
the Church at Colossae?
In studying the history of the
Apostolic age it should always be remembered
that the character of our extant
authorities only too often has caused a
one-sided and very warped view of the
expansion of Christianity (during the
period of which we are treating) to be
taken. The happy fact that St. Paul
found a sympathetic biographer in his
disciple and companion St. Luke, and
still more the fact that, owing to his
exceptional power and weight as a
writer, a very considerable collection
of his letters have survived the
general destruction of early Christian
literature, has led to a quite false
estimate being formed of the
widespread and successful activity of other
leading missionaries and preachers of
the Gospel. The influence they exerted
and the large area covered by their
work have been too much overlooked and
ignored. The late Professor Bigg was
one of the few who have shown a really
comprehensive grasp of what actually
took place. In his admirable
‘Introduction to the First Epistle of
St. Peter’ he has pointed out how
small a portion of Asia Minor was ever
visited by St. Paul. He also suggests
not only that many of the Churches in
that part of the Empire were planted
at an early date but that the reason
why St. Paul deliberately refrained
from entering Asia, Mysia and Bithynia
on his second missionary journey was
that those provinces were already
being evangelised by others. [230] To say
this is no disparagement to St. Paul,
he would be the last to wish to take
credit for other men’s labours, and he
himself expressly states in his
Epistle to the Colossians that neither
the Christians of that city nor those
of Laodicea had seen his face in the
flesh! [231]
Now the emphatic mention by St. Paul
in this epistle of Mark as Barnabas’
cousin (with the enigmatic parenthesis
that follows) appears to me to be one
of those seemingly incidental notices,
which, when placed in its right
setting, is then seen to be the
central link in a chain of circumstantial
evidence drawn from a variety of
sources. Once more I ask, therefore, What
had been the history of Mark since in
50 A.D. he sailed with Barnabas for
Cyprus? According to one of the best
authenticated traditions of these early
times he went to Alexandria and spent
some years in organising the Church in
that great city and in evangelising
the neighbouring districts of Egypt.
[232] Another tradition of a less
trustworthy character, but reasonably
probable, relates that Barnabas
himself went in the first instance with Mark
to Alexandria. [233] It is quite
likely that this choice by Barnabas of
Egypt as the scene of Mark’s
missionary labours may have been dictated by
the fact that it lay outside the
Pauline sphere of activity. Now Eusebius
tells us—and he had exceptional
opportunities of obtaining accurate
information about the Alexandrian
Church—that in the eighth year of Nero’s
reign Annianus succeeded Mark the
Evangelist in the administration of the
Church in Alexandria. [234] The date
of Mark’s leaving Egypt thus
corresponds with the date at which we
find him in Paul’s company at Rome,
i.e. 61 A.D. When he is introduced to
us it is as one about to journey to
Colossae with the Apostle’s
commendation. But the question again naturally
arises, why should he from Alexandria
have gone out of his way to Rome in
order to visit Colossae, what was his
object? Those words of St. Paul—‘Mark,
the cousin of Barnabas, about whom ye
received injunctions’—gives, I think,
the answer. If Mark is thus described
to the Colossian Christians as ‘the
cousin of Barnabas,’ it follows that
Barnabas was well known in Colossae,
and that the injunctions referred to
were Barnabas’ injunctions, and, if so,
that Barnabas himself had been with
Paul and had been one of those who had
furnished him with information about
the state of the Asian Churches. The
course of events, that the passage
suggests to me, is this. One of the
objects of the Epistles to the
Colossians and Ephesians was to give comfort
to the hearts of these Asian
Christians, who were afflicted by hearing of
St. Paul’s imprisonment at Rome.
Barnabas, at Colossae, on receiving the
news had resolved to go to his old
friend in this crisis of his fate and at
the same time revisit the scenes of
his previous labours in Rome and in
Italy. He travelled by Alexandria to
see Mark, and finding that the work of
organisation there was satisfactorily
advanced, it was agreed between them
that Mark should seek a new field for
his energies in Asia Minor and that
Barnabas should write to prepare the
minds of the Colossians for his
cousin’s coming among them. Meanwhile,
as Pauline influence was still strong
in the Asian cities—he first took Mark
with him to Rome to effect a
reconciliation between him and Paul
and secure a few words of commendation
from the Apostle, as a further
credential to the former deserter. It has
been pointed out above that the
traditional date of Mark’s departure from
Egypt synchronises with the date at which we
find him at Rome with St. Paul
making ready shortly to depart for
Colossae. The presence of Barnabas at
Rome at this time is vouched for by
the Gnostic Acts of Peter [Actus Petri
Vercellenses], which state that
Barnabas accompanied Timothy, when the
latter was sent a little later by Paul
to Macedonia as the bearer of the
Epistle to the Philippians. [235] The
same argument holds good here as in
the case of the mention of Barnabas in
the opening of the ‘Clementine
Recognitions’; his name would never
have been introduced in documents
written expressly to exalt the
position of St. Peter, unless he had actually
visited Italy and worked there. There
are strong grounds for believing that
Timothy after carrying out his mission
to Philippi went on to Ephesus and
made that town the centre of his
ministerial activity for some years. The
Pastoral Epistles represent Timothy
and Mark as together a few years later
in this same district. In a future
lecture I shall bring forward reasons of
considerable weight for holding that
the Epistle to the Hebrews was written
by Barnabas and sent by him to Rome
from some place not far from Ephesus,
where he had been in touch with
Timothy. [236] There is much that is
disputable in all this, but all
critics who approach the subject with an
open mind must at least admit that a
cumulative presumption has been
established in favour of the
conclusion that Barnabas and Mark were together
in Italy and Rome in 61 A.D. and
afterwards in Colossae.
At the time when the Epistle to the
Philippians was written the
circumstances and surroundings of St.
Paul had undergone a complete change.
He had no longer around him a group of
trusted friends and companions. Only
Timothy (whom in the opening
salutation we find as sharing with Paul the
responsibility of joint authorship of
the epistle) is left of those
mentioned in the earlier epistles, the
rest being probably dispersed on
various missions. The situation is in
fact precisely similar to that
described in the Second Epistle to
Timothy, and curiously it was at the time
of his trial in each case that the
Apostle has to complain of being thus
left alone. [237] As on the occasion
of his second trial he sorrowfully
writes ‘only Luke is with me,’ so now
of his intimate disciples there is
only Timothy. Epaphroditus, the bearer
of a gift from the Church of Philippi
to the Apostle, was indeed still in
Rome, having been detained by a sickness
that had been well-nigh unto death,
but he was about to return as the bearer
of the epistle, and such was the
unselfishness of St. Paul, moved as he was
by the tenderest feelings of gratitude
and affection towards these
Philippians, who had always from the
very first been the most liberal and
helpful of all the Churches that he
founded, that he was ready to spare even
Timothy from his side to go with
Epaphroditus to testify to the Apostle’s
deep sense that once again they had
borne his needs in kindly remembrance.
He has ‘no one like-minded’ with
Timothy to fulfil this office, and he
promises that ‘as soon as I shall see
how it will go with me’ he will send
this beloved disciple, of whom he
touchingly says ‘ye know the proof of him,
that as a child serveth a father, so
he served with me in the furtherance of
the Gospel.’ [238]
Those words, ‘as soon as I shall see
how it will go with me,’ tell their own
tale. St. Paul was no longer ‘in his
own hired house’ but in the Pretorian
camp, where he was in closer
confinement while his case was being brought at
last before the Imperial Appeal Court.
This alone can be the meaning of the
passage, ‘now I would have you know,
brethren, that the things that are
happening to me have rather turned out
unto the progress of the Gospel, so
that my bonds became manifest in
Christ in the whole Praetorium and to all
the rest; and that most of the
brethren in the Lord, being confident through
my bonds, are more abundantly bold to
speak the Gospel without fear.’ [239]
The publicity of the trial, in fact,
and the opportunity that it gave the
Apostle in the course of his defence
against the charges brought against him
to set forth the true nature of the
faith that he preached had caused the
message of the Gospel to be known
throughout the Imperial Court, the
Praetorian Guards, and generally in
Rome. The whole tone of the epistle
shows that so far all had gone well,
that the brethren were filled with
confidence that the issue would be
favourable, and that Paul himself,
although not free from serious anxiety
and quite prepared for death should
it come, is full of hope that he will
speedily be released and be able once
more to revisit his beloved
Philippians. [240]
This Epistle differs widely in
character and contents from those to the
Colossians and Ephesians. In the
latter St. Paul was combating certain
subtle forms of heretical belief of a
gnostic character which had been
creeping in and making headway among
the mixed Greek and Oriental
populations of a group of Asian
Churches, to whom he him-self, though well
known by name and repute was, except
at Ephesus itself, personally a
stranger. To Philippi he writes, as a
Roman citizen to Roman citizens, as a
friend to dear friends, as an Apostle
to a body of personal disciples who
had above all others shown him
unceasing sympathy and kindness. His Epistle
is primarily a letter of thanks called
forth by the gift of money that had
been sent to him by the hands of
Epaphroditus. [241] Such a letter was bound
to be rich in personal references and
allusions. I have already referred to
those which relate to the hopes and
fears aroused by his pending trial. He
had however other troubles that
worried him. Despite all he had endured and
was enduring for the Gospel’s sake, it
is clear that there was a Judaising
faction among the Roman Christians,
who even now could not abate their
opposition and spite against the
Apostle of the Gentiles. ‘Most of the
brethren in the Lord,’ he writes,
‘being confident through my bonds, are
more abundantly bold to speak the word
of God without fear. Some indeed
preach Christ of envy and strife; some
also of good will; the one do it of
love, knowing I am set for the defence
of the Gospel; but the other proclaim
Christ of faction, not sincerely,
thinking to raise up affliction for me in
my bonds. What then? Let but in every
way, whether in pretence or in truth,
Christ be proclaimed; and therein I
rejoice, yea, and will rejoice.’ Who
they were of whom he is here speaking
is revealed in the later warning:
‘Beware of the dogs, beware of the
evil workers, beware of the concision;
for we are the circumcision, who
worship by the spirit of God and glory in
Jesus Christ and have no confidence in
the flesh.’ [242]
Among the Philippian Christians there
had been discords, the opening of the
fourth chapter pointing to the
existence of acute dissensions between two
women, named Euodia and Syntyche,
possibly deaconesses, and probably each of
them with a following. ‘I exhort
Euodia and I exhort Syntyche,'’ writes the
Apostle, the word exhort being
repeated, as being addressed to each
separately, ‘to be of one mind in the
Lord.’ He then proceeds, ‘Yea, I
beseech thee also, true yokefellow,
help them [to be reconciled]; seeing
that they laboured with me in the
Gospel together with Clement also and my
other fellow-workers, whose names are
in the book of life.’ These words have
caused much difficulty to
commentators, and have been interpreted in many
different ways. To myself their
meaning does not seem doubtful. The passage
is a sudden parenthesis and is
addressed by St. Paul to Timothy, the man
whose name is coupled with his own at
the beginning of the Epistle, and who
was sitting at his side as his
amanuensis. He was his yoke-fellow, since he
was sharing with him the duty and the
burden at that very moment of a common
task. He commends him to the
Philippians in the words ‘I have no man
like-minded, who will truly care for
your state.’ The word here descriptive
of the character of that care which
Timothy alone could be trusted to give,
be it noted, is the same word which is
used as the epithet qualifying the
‘yoke-fellow’ of chapter iv. 3, a word
which in the original Greek signifies
‘genuine.’ This identity of epithet is
of some evidential significance in
support of the identification of the
yoke-fellow with Timothy, and it is
strengthened when we find that the
Apostle again uses this same epithet in
the opening salutation of the First
Epistle to Timothy, where he addresses
that disciple as ‘my true [or genuine]
child in the faith.’ [243]
The appeal of St. Paul ‘to his true
yoke-fellow’ to strive to heal the
dissensions between the two women
Euodia and Syntyche is accompanied by the
suggestion that he should secure the
help of ‘Clement and the rest of my
fellow-workers’ in the task of
conciliation. Who this Clement was, we do not
know. Origen, Eusebius and others
regard this passage as a reference to the
well-known Clement, who wrote in the
name of the Roman Church an Epistle to
the Corinthians, but it is extremely
doubtful whether they had any sound
historical authority for their
statement. The name of Clement was not
uncommon, and this Clement may have
been one of the leading Christians in
Philippi. Nevertheless it is not at
all impossible that he may have been the
Roman Clement. The title
‘fellow-worker’—sunergos—is frequently used by St.
Paul of those like Timothy, Titus, and
others, sent out by him on some
mission as his delegates. Clement may
have been thus sent to Philippi by
Paul. It will be observed that he
alone is named, and this implies that he
stood apart from the rest as a person
of some authority. The final
salutation is of some interest. ‘The
brethren who are with me salute
you’—the brethren here being those of
his companions, not inhabitants of
Rome, who were still at his side. ‘All
the saints’—i.e. the body of Roman
Christians—‘salute you, but especially
those of Caesar’s household.’ Why
especially? Surely because Paul was
now during his trial confined in the
barracks close to the palace, and he
had therefore special opportunities of
intercourse at this time with those
members of the Roman Church who belonged
to the vast Imperial
household—numbering many thousands of freedmen and
slaves. This phrase and the earlier
one, ‘my bonds have become manifest in
Christ in the whole Praetorium,’
supplement and partly explain one another.
The spread of the Gospel among
Caesar’s household was no new thing. Already
in his Epistle to the Romans St. Paul
had sent his salutations to those who
were of the households of Aristobulus
and of Narcissus. These households had
almost certainly even in 57 A.D. been
incorporated in the household of the
Emperor. [244]
Over the further progress and issue of
the trial a veil falls. It was during
the early months of this year 62 A.D.
that Burrhus died, and a little later
Seneca retired from public life.
Burrhus had been sole Praetorian Prefect,
but Nero now reverted to the usual
custom of appointing two. One of these,
Sofonius Tigellinus, has left an
infamous name as a man who encouraged the
cruel propensities of Nero and
pandered to all his vicious excesses. It is
probable therefore that the trial of
Paul took place while Burrhus was still
prefect, and that it may have been
furthered by the friendly offices of
Seneca. [245] That he was acquitted at
the beginning of 62 A.D. there can be
no reasonable doubt. Clement of Rome,
a contemporary, affirms that Paul
after-wards travelled to the far West,
and the fragment of the Muratorian
Canon, about 200 A.D., states that he
carried out his intention of visiting
Spain. The Pastoral Epistles also
refer to extensive journeyings of the
Apostle later still in Asia Minor.
What probably occurred was that when Paul
was brought before the Court the
charges preferred against him in the
literae dimissoriae of Festus would be
read and considered, and then an
interval of time would be given for
the appearance of witnesses. Then, as no
witnesses came, and the relatio of
Festus was found to be favourable, a
dismissal followed. [246]
_________________________________________________________________
[192] Rom. xv. 24.
[193] Acts, xix. 22-24; xxi. 4, 11-14;
Rom. xv. 30, 31.
[194] These dates can, now that the
discovery of an inscription at Delphi
makes it practically certain that
Gallio was proconsul in Achaia in 52 A.D.,
be regarded as ascertained
results.
[195] Tac. Hist. v. 9: ‘Antonius Felix
per omnem saevitiam et libidinem ius
regium servili ingenio exercuit’; Ann.
xii. 54: ‘Cuncta malefacta sibi
impune ratus tanta potentia
subnixo.’
[196] Josephus, Ant. xx. 8; Bell. Jud.
ii. 13.
[197] Henderson, Life and Principate
of the Emperor Nero, pp. 364–5.
[198] ‘The witness to Felix’ or
Festus’ endeavours of the other contemporary
writer, St. Luke, is far more
trustworthy. His Christianity secured to him a
greater neutrality in his attitude
alike to Jew and to Roman, and his simple
tale of proceedings in which both were
concerned is of the highest
historical merit, striking with at
least one shaft of clear light into the
enwrapping mist of prejudice and
hatred.’—Henderson, p. 363.
[199] Acts xxi. 37-40; xxii. 22-30.
Tarsus was an urbs libera.
[200] Josephus, Ant. xx. 8. 8. See
also Milman, Hist. of the Jews, ii.
171–2.
[201] Acts, xxiii. 5.
[202] Acts, xxiii. 12-22. Josephus,
Ant. xx. 8. 5; Bell. Jud. ii. 13. 3.
[203] See Ramsay, St. Paul the
Traveller, pp. 310–313; also pp. 30–37.
[204] The confinement of Paul both at
Caesarea and Rome was not the severe
confinement of a prison, custodia
publica,, but the lighter one, custodia
militaris, where the prisoner was
bound by a chain to an attendant guard.
There were however degrees of the
custodia militaris and the word here used
for indulgence—anesis—is the same as
is used by Josephus (Ant. xviii. 6–10),
where he describes how Caligula on his
accession did not liberate Agrippa
(Herod Agrippa I) from custody (he had
been put in chains by Tiberius) yet
gave him indulgence or
relaxation—tērēsis meta aneseōs.
[205] Acts, xxiv. 22: akribesteron
eidōs ta peri tēs hodou.
[206] Acts, xxiv. 26: elpizōn
hoti chrēmata dothēsetai hupo tou Paulou; dio
kai puknoteron auton metapempomenos
hōmilei autō.
[207] Josephus, Ant. xx. 8—9: Porkiou
de Phēstou diadochou Phēliki
pemphthentos hupo Nerōnos, hoi
prōteuontes tōn kata tēn Kaisareian
katoikountōn Ioudaiōn eis
tēn Rhōmēn anabainousi Phēlikos katēgorou_tes;
kai
pantōs an ededōkei
timōrian tōn eis Ioudaious adikēmatōn, ei mē polla
auton
ho Nerōn tō adelphō
Pallanti parakalesanti sunechōrēse, malista dē tote dia
timēs echōn ekeinoi
[208] The reading of Cod. 137 is ton
de Paulon eiasen en tērēsei dia
Drusillan.
[209] There occurs in Josephus, Ant.
xx. 7. 2, a passage in which he says:
‘When Felix was Governor of Judaea, he
saw this Drusilla and fell in love
with her, for she did indeed exceed
all other women in beauty, and he sent
to her a person whose name was Simon, one of
his friends, a Jew, born in
Cyprus, who pretended to be a magician
and endeavoured to persuade her to
leave her present husband and marry
Felix.’ As Drusilla had required her
first husband to become a Jewish
proselyte and submit to circumcision, so it
was thought that her subsequent
desertion of him for the Gentile, Felix,
could only have been brought about by
magic arts. She was, however, at the
time of her marriage with Felix still
a girl in her teens, and this Magian
may have been the instrument employed
by the unscrupulous Felix to cajole
her into an act which as an Herodian
princess must have been repugnant to
her. But who was this Simon, a Jew of
Cyprus, wh