THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY IN ROME
THE JEWISH COLONY IN ROME
At the beginning of the first century of the Christian era the Jewish colony in Rome had attained large dimensions. As early as B.C. 162 we hear of agreements—we can scarcely call them treaties—concluded between the Jews under the Maccabean dynasty and the Republic. After the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey, B.C. 63, a number more of Jewish exiles swelled the number of the chosen people who had settled in the capital. Cicero when pleading for Flaccus, who was their enemy, publicly alludes to their numbers and influence. Their ranks were still further recruited in B.C. 51, when a lieutenant of Crassus brought some thousands of Jewish prisoners to Rome. During the civil wars, Julius Cæsar showed marked favour to the chosen people. After his murder they were prominent among those who mourned him.
Augustus continued the policy of Julius Cæsar, and showed them much favour; their influence in Roman society during the earlier years of the Empire seems to have been considerable. They are mentioned by the great poets who flourished in the Augustan age. The Jewish Sabbath is especially alluded to by Roman writers as positively becoming a fashionable observance in the capital.
A few distinguished families, who really possessed little of the Hebrew character and nationality beyond the name, such as the Herods, adopted the manners and ways of life of the Roman patrician families; but as a rule the Jews in foreign lands preferred the obscurity to which the reputation of poverty condemned them. Some of them were doubtless possessors of wealth, but they carefully concealed it; the majority, however, were poor, and they even gloried in their poverty; they haunted the lowest and poorest quarters of the great city. Restlessly industrious, they made their livelihood, many of them, out of the most worthless objects of merchandise; but they obtained in the famous capital a curious celebrity. There was something peculiar in this strange people at once attractive and repellent. The French writer Allard, in the exhaustive and striking volumes in which he tells the story of the persecutions in his own novel and brilliant way, epigrammatically writes of the Jew in the golden age of Augustus as “one who was known to pray and to pore over his holy national literature in Rome which never prayed and which possessed no religious books” (“Il prie et il étudie ses livres saintes, dans Rome qui n’a pas de théologie et qui ne prie pas”).
They lived their solitary life alone in the midst of the crowded city—by themselves in life, by themselves, too, in death; for they possessed their own cemeteries in the suburbs,—catacombs we now term them,—strange God’s acres where they buried, for they never burned, their dead, carefully avoiding the practice of cremation, a practice then generally in vogue in pagan Rome. Upon these Jewish cemeteries the Christians, as they increased in numbers, largely modelled those vast cities of the dead of which we shall speak presently.
They watched over and tenderly succoured their own poor and needy, the widow and the orphan; on the whole living pure self-denying lives, chiefly disfigured by the restless spirit, which ever dwelt in the Jewish race, of greed and avarice. They were happy, however, in their own way, living on the sacred memories of a glorious past, believing with an intense belief that they were still, as in the glorious days of David and Solomon, the people beloved of God—and that ever beneath them, in spite of their many confessed backslidings, were the Everlasting Arms; trusting, with a faith which never paled or faltered, that the day would surely come when out of their own people a mighty Deliverer would arise, who would restore them to their loved sacred city and country; would invest His own, His chosen nation, with a glory and power grander, greater than the world had ever seen.
There is no doubt but that the Jew of Rome in Rome’s golden days, in spite of his seeming poverty and degradation, possessed a peculiar moral power in the great empire, unknown among pagan nations.[2]
In the reign of Nero, when the disciples of Jesus in Rome first emerged from the clouds and mists which envelop the earliest days of Roman Christianity, the number of Jews in the capital is variously computed as amounting to from 30,000 to 50,000 persons.
The Jewish colony in Rome was a thoroughly representative body of Jews. They were gathered from many centres of population, Palestine and Jerusalem itself contributing a considerable contingent. They evidently were distinguished for the various qualities, good and bad, which generally characterized this strange, wonderful people. They were restless, at times turbulent, proud and disdainful, avaricious and grasping; but at the same time they were tender and compassionate in a very high degree to the sad-eyed unfortunate ones among their own people,—most reverent, as we have remarked, in the matter of disposing of their dead,—on the whole giving an example of a morality far higher than that which, as a rule, prevailed among the citizens of the mighty capital in the midst of whom they dwelt.
The nobler qualities which emphatically distinguished the race were no doubt fostered by the intense religious spirit which lived and breathed in every Jewish household. The fear of the eternal God, who they believed with an intense and changeless faith loved them, was ever before the eyes alike of the humblest, poorest little trader, as of the wealthiest merchant in their company.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH IN ROME—“A”
Into this mass of Jewish strangers dwelling in the great city came the news of the wonderful work of Jesus Christ. As among the Jews at Jerusalem, so too in Rome, the story of the Cross attracted many—repelled many. The glorious news of salvation, of redemption, sank quietly into many a sick and weary heart; these hearts were kindled into a passionate love for Him who had redeemed them—into a love such as had never before been kindled in any human heart. While, on the other hand, with many, the thought that the treasured privileges of the chosen people were henceforward to be shared on equal terms by the despised Gentile world, excited a bitter and uncompromising opposition—an opposition which oftentimes shaded into an intense hate.
The question as to who first preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to this great Jewish colony will probably never be answered. There is a high probability that the “story of the Cross” was told very soon after the Resurrection by some of those pilgrims to the Holy City who had been eye-witnesses of the miracle of the first Pentecost.
There is, however, a question connected with the beginnings of Christianity in Rome which is of the deepest interest to the student of ecclesiastical history, a question upon which much that has happened since largely hangs.
Was S. Peter in any way connected with the laying of the foundation of the great Christian community in Rome; can he really be considered as one of the founders of that most important Church? An immemorial tradition persists in so connecting him; upon what grounds is this most ancient tradition based?
Scholars of all religious schools of thought now generally allow that S. Peter visited Rome and spent some time in the capital city; wrote his great First Epistle from it, in which Epistle he called “Rome” by the not unusual mystic name of “Babylon,” and eventually suffered martyrdom there on a spot hard by the mighty basilica called by his name.
The only point at issue is, did he—as the favourite tradition asserts—pay his first visit to Rome quite early in the Christian story, circa A.D. 42, remaining there for some seven or eight years preaching and teaching, laying the foundations of the great Church which rapidly sprang up in the capital?
Then when the decree of the Emperor Claudius banished the Jews, A.D. 49–50, the tradition asserts that the apostle returned to the East, was present at the Apostolic Council held at Jerusalem A.D. 50, only returning to Rome circa A.D. 63. Somewhere about A.D. 64 the First Epistle of Peter was probably written from Rome.[3] His martyrdom there is best dated about A.D. 67.
A careful examination of the most ancient “Notices” bearing especially on the question of the laying of the early stories of the Roman Church, determines the writer of this little study to adopt the above rough statement of S. Peter’s work at Rome. Some of the principal portions of these “notices” will now be quoted, that it may be seen upon what basis the conclusion in question is adopted. The quotations will be followed by a sketch of the traditional and other evidence specially drawn from the testimony of the very early Roman catacomb of S. Priscilla. This sketch, which is here termed the “traditional evidence,” it will be seen, powerfully supports the deduction derived from the notices quoted from very early Christian literature.
THE QUOTATIONS
Clemens Romanus, A.D. 95–6. In the fifth chapter of the well-known and undoubtedly authentic Letter of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians, the writer calls the attention of the Corinthians to the examples of the Christian “athletes” who “lived very near to our own time.” He speaks of the apostles who were persecuted, and who were faithful to death. “There was Peter, who after undergoing many sufferings, and having borne his testimony, went to his appointed place of glory. There was Paul, who after enduring chains, imprisonments, stonings, again and again, and sufferings of all kinds ... likewise endured martyrdom, and so departed from this world.”
The reason why Clement of Rome mentions these two special apostles (other apostles had already suffered martyrdom) is obvious. Clement was referring to examples of which they themselves had been eye-witnesses. Paul, it is universally acknowledged, was martyred in Rome; is not the inference from the words of Clement, that Peter suffered martyrdom in this same city also, overwhelming?
Ignatius, circa A.D. 108–9, some twelve or thirteen years after Clement had written his Epistle to the Corinthians, on his journey to his martyrdom at Rome, thus writes to the Roman Church: “I do not command you like Peter and Paul: they were apostles; I am a condemned criminal.” Why now did Ignatius single out Peter and Paul? So Bishop Lightfoot, commenting on this passage, forcibly says: “Ignatius was writing from Asia Minor. He was a guest of a disciple of John at the time. He was sojourning in a country where John was the one prominent name. The only conceivable reason why he specially named Peter and Paul was that these two apostles had both visited Rome and were remembered by the Roman Church.”
Papias of Hierapolis, born circa A.D. 60–70. His writings probably date somewhat late in the first quarter of the second century. On the authority of Presbyter John, a personal disciple of the Lord, Papias tells us about Mark: he was a friend and interpreter of S. Peter, and wrote down what he heard his master teach, and there (in Rome) composed his “record.” This notice seems to have been connected by Papias with 1 Pet. v. 13, where Mark is alluded to in connexion with the fellow-elect in Babylon (Rome).
“It seems,” concludes Bishop Lightfoot, referring to Irenæus (S. Clement of Rome, ii. 494), “a tolerably safe inference, therefore, that Papias represented S. Peter as being in Rome, that he stated Mark to have been with him there, and that he assigned to the latter a Gospel record (the second Gospel) which was committed to writing for the instruction of the Romans.”
Dionysius of Corinth, A.D. 170, quoted by Eusebius (H. E. II. xxv.), wrote to Soter, bishop of Rome, as follows: “Herein by such instructions (to us) ye have united the trees of the Romans and Corinthians (trees) planted by Peter and Paul. For they both alike came also to our Corinth, and taught us; and both alike came together to Italy, and having taught there, suffered martyrdom at the same time.”
Irenæus, circa A.D. 177–90, writes: “Matthew published also a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own language, while Peter and Paul were preaching and founding the Church in Rome. Again after their departure, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, himself also handed down to us in writing the lessons preached by Peter.”—H. E. III. i. 1.
Clement of Alexandria, circa A.D. 193–217 (Hypotyposes, quoted by Eusebius, H. E. vi. 14) tells us how, “when Peter had preached the word publicly in Rome, and declared the gospel by the Spirit, the bystanders, being many in number, exhorted Mark as having accompanied him for a long time, and remembering what he had said, to write out his statements, and having thus composed his Gospel, to communicate it to them; and that when Peter learnt this, he used no pressure either to prevent him or to urge him forwards.”
Tertullian, circa A.D. 200, adds his testimony thus: “We read in the lives of the Cæsars, Nero was the first to stain the rising faith with blood. Thus Peter is girt by another (quoting the Lord’s words) when he is bound to the Cross. Thus Paul obtains his birthright of Roman citizenship when he is born again there by the nobility of Martyrdom.”—Scorpiace, 15.
Tertullian again writes: “Nor does it matter whether they are among those whom John baptized in the Jordan, or those whom Peter baptized in the Tiber.”—De Baptismo, 4.
Tertullian once more tells us: “The Church of the Romans reports that Clement was ordained by Peter.”—De Præscriptione Hær. 36.
Tertullian again bears similar testimony: “If thou art near to Italy, thou hast Rome.... How happy is that Church on whom the apostles shed all their teaching with their blood, where Peter is conformed to the passion of the Lord, where Paul is crowned with the death of John (the Baptist), where the Apostle John after having been plunged in boiling oil, without suffering any harm, is banished to an island!”—De Præscriptione, 36.
Caius (or Gaius) the Roman presbyter, circa A.D. 200–20, who lived in the days of Pope Zephyrinus, and was a contemporary of Hippolytus, if not (as Lightfoot suspects) identical with him (Hippolytus of Portus), gives us the following detail: “I can show you the trophies (the Memoriæ or Chapel-Tombs) of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, thou wilt find (there) the trophies (the Memoriæ) of those who founded the Church.”
Caius is here claiming for his own Church of Rome the authority of the Apostles SS. Peter and Paul, whose martyred bodies rest in Rome.—Quoted by Eusebius, H. E. II. xxv.
Thus at that early date when Caius wrote, the localities of the graves of the two apostles were reputed to have been the spots where now stand the great basilicas of SS. Peter and Paul.
Eusebius, H. E. II. xiv., gives a definite date for the first coming of Peter to Rome, and his preaching there. The historian was describing the influence of Simon Magus at Rome. This, he adds, did not long continue, “for immediately under the reign of Claudius, by the benign and gracious providence of God, Peter, that powerful and great apostle who by his courage took the lead of all the rest, was conducted to Rome against this pest of mankind. He (S. Peter) bore the precious merchandise of the revealed light from the East to those in the West, announcing this light itself, and salutary doctrine of the soul, the proclamation of the kingdom of God.”
Eusebius also writes that “Linus, whom he (Paul) has mentioned in his Second Epistle to Timothy as his companion at Rome, has been before shown to have been the first after Peter that obtained the Episcopate at Rome.”—Eusebius, H. E. III. iv.
The traditional memories of Peter’s residence in Rome and his prolonged teaching there are very numerous. De Rossi while quoting certain of these as legendary, adds that an historical basis underlies these notices. Some of the more interesting of these are connected with the house and family of Pudens on the Aventine, and with the cemetery of Saint Priscilla on the Via Salaria.
To the pilgrims of the fifth and following centuries were pointed out the chair in which Peter used to sit and teach (Sedes ubi prius sedit S. Petrus), and also the cemeterium fontis S. Petri—cemeterium ubi Petrus baptizaverat. Marucchi, the pupil and successor of De Rossi, believes that this cemetery where it was said S. Peter used to baptize, is identical with parts of the vast and ancient catacomb of Priscilla. These and further traditional notices are dwelt on with greater detail presently when the general evidence is summed up.[4]
A SUMMARY OF LITERARY NOTICES
And now to sum up the evidence we have been quoting:
The Literary Notices have been gathered from all parts of the Roman world where Christianity had made a lodgment.
From Rome (Clement of Rome) in the first and second centuries and early in the third century.
From Antioch (Ignatius, Papias) (including Syria and Asia Minor) very early in the second century.
From Corinth (Greece) (Dionysius) in the second half of the second century.
From Lyons (Gaul) (Irenæus) in the second half of the second century.
From Alexandria (Egypt) (Clement of Alexandria) in the second half of the second century.
From Carthage (North Africa) (Tertullian) in the close of the second century.
These and other literary notices, more or less definitely, all ascribe the laying of the foundation stories of the Church of Rome to the preaching and teaching of the Apostles Peter and Paul. All without exception in their notices of this foundation work place the name of Peter first. It is hardly conceivable that these very early writers would have done this had Peter only made his appearance in Rome for the first time in A.D. 63 or 64, after Paul’s residence in the capital for some two years, when he was awaiting the trial which resulted in his acquittal.
Then again, the repeated mention of the two great apostles as the Founders of the Roman Church would have been singularly inaccurate if neither of them had visited the capital before A.D. 60–1, the date of Paul’s arrival, and A.D. 63–4, the date of S. Peter’s coming, supposing we assume the later date for S. Peter’s coming and preaching.
When we examine the literary notices in question we find in several of them a more circumstantial account of Peter’s work than Paul’s; for instance:
Papias and Irenæus give us special details of S. Mark’s position as the interpreter of S. Peter, and tell us particularly how the friend and disciple of S. Peter took down his master’s words, which he subsequently moulded into what is known as the second Gospel.
Tertullian relates that S. Peter baptized in the Tiber, and mentions, too, how this apostle ordained Clement.
Eusebius, the great Church historian to whom we owe so much of our knowledge of early Church history, writing in the early years of Constantine’s reign, in the first quarter of the fourth century, goes still more into detail, and gives us approximately the date of S. Peter’s first coming, which he states to have been in the reign of Claudius, who was Emperor from A.D. 41 to A.D. 54 (Eusebius, H. E. II. xiv.). The same historian also repeats the account above referred to of Mark’s work as Peter’s companion and scribe in Rome (H. E. II. xv.), adding that the “Church in Babylon” referred to by S. Peter (1 Ep. v. 13) signified the Church of Rome.
Jerome, writing in the latter years of the same century (the fourth), is very definite on the question of the early arrival of S. Peter at Rome—“Romam mittitur,” says the great scholar, “ubi evangelium prædicans XXV annis ejusdem urbis episcopus perseverat.” Now, reckoning back the twenty-five years of S. Peter’s supervision of the Roman Church would bring S. Peter’s first presence in Rome to A.D. 42–3; for Jerome tells us how “Post Petrum primus Romanam ecclesiam tenuit Linus,” and the early catalogues of the Roman Bishops—the Eusebian (Armenian version), the catalogue of Jerome, and the catalogue called the Liberian—give the date of Linus’ accession respectively as A.D. 66, A.D. 68, A.D. 67.
The early lists or catalogues of the Bishops of Rome, just casually referred to, are another important and weighty witness to the ancient and generally received tradition of the early visit and prolonged presence of S. Peter at Rome.
The first of these in the middle of the second century was drawn up, as far as Eleutherius, A.D. 177–90 by Hegesippus, a Hebrew Christian. Eusebius is our authority for this. This list, however, has not come down to us. It is, however, probable that it was the basis, as far as it went, of the list drawn up by Irenæus circa A.D. 180–90. This is the earliest catalogue of the Roman Bishops which we possess. Irenæus, after stating that the Roman Church was founded by the Apostles Peter and Paul, adds that they entrusted the office of the Episcopate to Linus.
In the Armenian version of the Chronicles of Eusebius, the only version in which we possess this Eusebian Chronicle, Peter appears at the head of the list of Roman Bishops, and twenty years is given as the duration of his government of the Church. Linus is stated to have been his successor. In the list of S. Jerome a similar order is preserved—with the slight difference of twenty-five years instead of twenty as the duration of S. Peter’s rule. The deduction which naturally follows these entries in the two lists has been already suggested. The Liberian Catalogue, compiled circa A.D. 354, places S. Peter at the head of the Roman Bishops—giving twenty-five years as the duration of his government. Linus follows here.
The Liberian Catalogue was the basis of the great historical work now generally known as the “Liber Pontificalis,” which in its notices of the early Popes embodies the whole of the Liberian Catalogue—only giving fresh details. The “Liber Pontificalis” in its first portion in its present form is traced back to the earlier years of the sixth century.
The traditional notices of the early presence of S. Peter in Rome are many and various. Taken by themselves they are, no doubt, not convincing—some of them ranking as purely legendary—though we recognize even in these “purely legendary” notices an historical foundation; but taken together they constitute an argument of no little weight.
Among the “purely legendary” we have touched upon the memories which hang round the house of Pudens, and the church which in very early times arose on its site.[5] Of far greater historical value are the memories which belong to the Catacomb of Priscilla, memories which recent discoveries in that most ancient cemetery go far to lift many of the old traditions into the realm of serious history.
The historical fact of the burial (depositio) of some ten or eleven of the first Bishops round the sacred tomb of the Apostle S. Peter (juxta corpus beati Petri in Vaticano), gives additional colour to the tradition of the immemorial reverence which from the earliest times of the Church of Rome encircles the memory of S. Peter.
From the third century onward we find the Roman Bishops claiming as their proudest title to honour their position as successors of S. Peter. In all the controversies which subsequently arose between Rome and the East this position was never questioned. Duchesne, in his last great work,[6] ever careful and scholarly, does not hesitate to term the “Church of Rome” (he is dwelling on its historical aspect) the “Church of S. Peter.”
This study on the work of S. Peter in the matter of laying the early stories of the great Church which after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 indisputably became the metropolis of Christianity, has been necessarily somewhat long—the question is one of the highest importance to the historian of ecclesiastical history. Was this lofty claim of the long line of Bishops of Rome to be the successors of S. Peter, ever one of their chief titles to honour, based on historic evidence, or was it simply an invention of a later age?
All serious historians now are agreed that S. Peter taught in Rome, wrote his Epistle from Rome, and subsequently suffered martyrdom there.
But historians, as we have stated, are not agreed upon the date of his first appearance in the queen city. Now the sum of the evidence massed together in the foregoing brief study, leads to the indisputable conclusion that the date of his coming to Rome must be placed very early in the story of Christianity, somewhere about A.D. 41–3.
Everything points to this conclusion. How could Peter be, with any accuracy, styled the “Founder of the Church of Rome” if he never appeared in Rome before A.D. 64? Long before this date the Church of the metropolis had been “founded,” had had time to become a large and flourishing Christian community. This estimate of the signal importance of the Church of Rome is based on various testimonies, among which may be ranked the long list of salutations in S. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, written circa A.D. 58.
All the various notices of the leading Christian writers of the first and second centuries in all lands carefully style him as such. Paul, it is true, in most, not in all these early writings, is associated with him as a joint founder: this in a real sense can also be understood; for although Paul came at a later date to Rome and dwelt there some two years, the presence of one of the greatest of the early Christian teachers would surely add enormously to the stability of the foundations laid years before. The teaching of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, continued for two years, was, of course, a very important factor in the “foundation work,” and was evidently always reckoned as such.
But even then, as we have seen, while the two apostles are frequently joined together as founders in the writings of the early Christian teachers, in several notable instances Peter’s work is especially dwelt upon by them.
Then again in the traditional “Memories” preserved to us, some of them of the highest historical value, it is Peter, not Paul, who is ever the principal figure. Paul rarely, if ever, appears in them. Great though undoubtedly Paul was as a teacher of the Christian mysteries and as an expounder of Christian doctrine, it is emphatically Peter, not Paul, who lives in the “memories” of the Roman Christian community.
The place which the two basilicas of S. Peter and S. Paul on the Vatican Hill and on the Ostian Way have ever occupied in the minds and hearts not only of the Roman people, but of all the innumerable pilgrims in all ages to the sacred shrines of Rome, seems accurately to measure the respective places which the two apostles hold in the estimate of the Roman Church.
The comparative neglect of S. Paul’s basilica in Rome when measured with the undying reverence shown to, and with the enormous pains and cost bestowed on the sister basilica of S. Peter, is due not to any want of reverence or respect for the noble Apostle of the Gentiles, but solely because Rome and the pilgrims to Rome were deeply conscious of the special debt of Rome to S. Peter, who was evidently the real founder of the mighty Church of the capital.
The writer of this work is fully conscious that the conclusion to which he has come after massing together all the available evidence, is not the usual conclusion arrived at by one great and influential school of thought in our midst; nor does it accord with the conclusion of that eminently just scholar-Bishop Lightfoot, who while positively affirming the presence of S. Peter in Rome, whence, as he allows, he wrote his First Epistle, and where through pain and agony he passed to his longed-for rest in his Master’s Paradise, yet cannot accept the tradition of his early presence in the metropolis.
The writer of this study has no doubt whatever that the teaching of the vast majority of the Roman Catholic writers on this poi