not yet given place to the incredulous spirit of the age. He arrives at length, at the port in Italy, where voyagers from Syria or Egypt usually disembarked, Puteoly. There appears to have been Christians in that town, who received Paul, and with whom he resided for seven days. Many of the Roman Christians, apprised of his arrival, went out to meet him as far the village of Appii Forum, or a place called the Three Taverns. But it is remarkable that so complete by this time was the separation between the Jewish and Christian communities, that the former had no intelligence of his arrival, and what is more singular, knew nothing whatever of his case (1). Possibly the usual correspondence with Jerusalem had been interrupted at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Rome, and had not been re-established with its former regularity; or, as is more probable, the persecution of Paul being a party and Sadducaic measure, was neither avowed nor supported by the great body of the nation. Those who had visited, and returned from, Jerusalem, being chiefly of the Pharisaic or more religious party, were either ignorant or imperfectly informed of the extraordinary adventures of Paul in their native city and two years had elapsed during his confinement at Cæsarea. Though still in form a prisoner, Paul enjoyed almost perfect freedom, and his first step was a general appeal to the whole community of the Jews then resident in Rome. To them he explained the cause of his arrival. It was not uncommon in disputes between two parties in Jerusalem, that both should be summoned or sent at once by the governor, especially if, like Paul, they demanded it as a right, to plead their cause before the imperial courts. More than once the High Priest himself had been reduced to the degrading situation of a criminal before a higher tribunal; and there are several instances in which all the arts of court intrigue were employed to obtain a decision on some question of Jewish politics. Paul, while he acknowledges that his conflict with his countrymen related to his belief in Christ, as the Messiah disclaims all intention of arraigning the ruling authorities for their injustice he had no charge to advance against the nation. The Jews, in general, seem to have been inclined to hear from so high an authority the real doctrines of the Gospel. They assembled for that purpose at the house in which the Apostle was confined; and, as usual, some were favourably disposed to the Christianity of Paul, others rejected it with the most confirmed obduracy. A. D. 63. But, at this instant, we pass at once from the firm and solid ground of authentic and credible history, upon the quaking and insecure footing of legendary tradition. A few scattered notices of Rome, the personal history of Paul may be gathered from the later epistles; but the last fact which we receive from the undoubted autho (1) Acts, xxviii, 21. of Rome. rity of the writer of the Acts is, that two years passed before the Apostle left Rome (1). To what examination he was subjected, in what manner his release was obtained, all is obscure, or rather without one ray of light. But to the success of Paul in Rome, and to the rapid progress of Christianity during these two eventful years, we have gloomy and melancholy evidence. The next year after his departure is darkly noted in the annals of Rome as the era of that fatal fire which enveloped in ruin all the ancient grandeur of the Eternal City;-in those of Christianity, as the epoch of the first heathen persecution. This event throws considerable light on the A. D. 64. state of the Christian church at Rome. No secret or very inconsiBurning derable community would have attracted the notice, or satisfied the blood-thirsty cruelty of Nero. The people would not have consented to receive as atoning victims for the dreadful disaster of the great conflagration, nor would the reckless tyranny of the emperor have condescended to select them as sacrificial offerings to appease the popular fury, unless they had been numerous, far above contempt, and already looked upon with a jealous eye. Nor is it less clear, that even to the blind discernment of popular indignation and imperial cruelty, the Christians were by this time distinguished from the Jews. They were no longer a mere sect of the parent nation, but a separate, a marked, and peculiar people, known by their distinctive usages, and incorporating many of Gentile descent into their original Jewish community. Though at first there appears something unaccountable in this proscription of a harmless and unobtrusive sect, against whom the worst charge, at last, was the introduction of a new and peaceful form of worshipping one Deity, a privilege which the Jew had always enjoyed without molestation; yet the process by which the public mind was led to this outburst of fury, and the manner in which it was directed against the Christians, is clearly indicated by the historian (2). After the first consternation and distress, an access of awe-struck superstition seized on the popular mind. Great public calamities can never be referred to obvious or accidental causes. The trembling people had recourse to religious rites, endeavoured to ascertain by what offended deities this dreadful judgment had been inflicted, and sought for victims to appease their yet perhaps unmitigated gods (3). But when superstition has once found out victims, to whose guilt or impiety it may ascribe the divine anger, human revenge mingles itself up (1) Whatever might be the reason for the abrupt termination of the book of the Acts, which could neither he the death of the author, for he probably survived St. Paul, nor his total separation from him, for he was with him towards the close of his career (2 Tim. iv. 11.), the expression in the last verse but one of the Acts limits the residence of St. Paul in Rome, at that time, to two years. (2) Mox petita diis piacula, aditique Sibyllæ libri, ex quibus suplicatum Vulcano et Cereri Proserpinæque, ac propitiata Juno per matronas, primùm in Capitolio, deinde apud proximum mare, etc. Tac. Ann. xv. 44. (3) Sed non ope humanâ, non largitionibus principis, aut deum placamentis decedebat infamia, quin jussum incendium crederetur. with the relentless determination to propitiate offended Heaven, and contributes still more to blind the judgment and exasperate the passions. The other foreign religions, at which the native deities might take offence, had been long domiciliated in Rome. Christianity was the newest, perhaps was making the most alarming progress it was no national religion; it was disclaimed with eager animosity by the Jews, among whom it originated; its principles and practices were obscure and unintelligible; and that obscurity the excited imagination of the hostile people might fill up with the darkest and most monstrous forms. causes Chris this event. We have sometimes thought it possible that incautious or misin- Probable terpreted expressions of the Christians themselves might have at- which im tracted the blind resentment of the people. The minds of the Chris-plicated tians were constantly occupied with the terrific images of the final tians with coming of the Lord to judgment in fire; the conflagration of the world was the expected consummation, which they devoutly supposed to be instantly at hand. When, therefore, they saw the great metropolis of the world, the city of pride, of sensuality, of idolatry, of bloodshed, blazing like a fiery furnace before their eyes,the Babylon of the West wrapped in one vast sheet of destroying flame, the more fanatical-the Jewish part of the community (1) -may have looked on with something of fierce hope, and eager anticipation; expressions almost triumphant may have burst from unguarded lips. They may have attributed the ruin to the righteous vengeance of the Lord; it may have seemed the opening of that kingdom which was to commence with the discomfiture, the desolation, of heathenism, and to conclude with the establishment of the millennial kingdom of Christ. Some of these, in the first instance, apprehended and examined, may have made acknowledgments before a passionate and astonished tribunal, which would lead to the conclusion that, in the hour of general destruction, they had some trust, some security, denied to the rest of mankind; and this exemption from common misery, if it would not mark them out in some dark manner (2), as the authors of the conflagration, at all events would convict them of that hatred of the human race so often advanced against the Jews. Inventive cruelty sought out new ways of torturing these victims of popular hatred and imperial injustice. The calm and serene patience with which they were armed by their religion against the most excruciating sufferings, may have irritated still further their ruthless persecutors. The sowing up men in the skins of beasts, and setting dogs to tear them to pieces, may find precedent in the annals (1) Some deep and permanent cause of hatred against the Christians, it may almost seem, as connected with this disaster, can alone account for the strong expressions of Tacitus, writing so many years after :- Sontes et novissima exem- (2) Haud perinde in crimine incendii quam of human barbarity (1); but the covering them over with a kind of dress smeared with wax, pitch, or other combustible matter, with a stake under the chin, to keep them upright, and then placing them to be slowly consumed, like torches in the public gardens of popular amusement,-this seems to have been an invention of the time ; and, from the manner in which it is mentioned by the Roman writers, as the most horrible torture known, appears to have made a profound impression on the general mind. Even a people habituated to gladiatorial shows and to the horrible scenes of wholesale execution which were of daily occurrence during the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero, must yet have been in an unusual state of exasperated excitement to endure, or rather to take pleasure, in the sight of these unparalleled barbarities. Thus, the gentle, the peaceful religion of Christ, was welcomed upon earth by new applications of man's inventive faculties, to inflict suffering, and to satiate revenge (2). The Apostle was, no doubt, absent from Rome at the commencement, and during the whole, of this persecution. His course is dimly descried by the hints scattered through his later epistles It is probable that he travelled into Spain. The assertion of Irenæus, that he penetrated to the extreme West (3) coincides with his intention of visiting that province declared at an earlier period. As it is difficult to assign to any other part of his life the establishment of Christianity in Crete, it may be permitted to suppose, that from Spain his course lay eastward, not improbably with the design of revisiting Jerusalem. That he entertained this design, there appears some evidence; none, however, that he accomplished it (4). The slate of Judæa, in which Roman oppression had now begun, under Albinus, if not under Florus (5), to grow to an intolerable height; the spirit of indignant resistance which was fermenting in the mind (1) Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis obtecti, laniatu canum interirent; aut crucibus affixi, aut flammandi, atque ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur. Tac. Ann. xv. 54. Juvenal calls this "tunica molesta," viii. 235. tædà lucebis in illå Qua stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant Et latum mediâ sulcum deducit arenȧ.-i. 156. lilam tunicam alimentis ignium illitam et intextam.-Senec. Epist. xix. It was probably thought appropriate to consume with slow fire the authors of the conflagration. (2) Gibbon's extraordinary "conjecture" that the Christians in Rome were confounded with the Galileans, the fanatical followers of Judas the Ganlonite, is most improbable. The sect of Judas was not known beyond the precincts of Palestine. The insinuation that the Jews may have escaped the proscription, through the interest of the beautiful Poppea and the favourite Jewish player Aliturus, though not very likely, is more in character with the times. (3) The visit of St. Paul to Britain, in our opinion, is a fiction of religious national vanity. It has few or no advocates except English eccle siastical antiquarians. In fact, the state of the island, in which the precarious sovereignty of Rome was still fiercely contested by the native barbarians, seems to be entirely forgotten. Civilisation had made little progress in Britain till the conquest of Agricola. Up to that time, it was occupied only by the invading legionaries, fully employed in extending and guarding their conquests, and our wild ancestors with their stern Druidical hierarchy. From which class were the Apostle's hearers or converts? My friend Dr. Cardwell, in a recent essay on this subject, con curs with this opinion. (4) This is inferred from Hebr. xiii. 23. This inference, however, assumes several points. In the first place, that Paul is the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. To this opinion, though by no means certain, we strongly incline. But it does not follow that Paul fulfilled his intention; and even the intention was conditional, and dependent on the speedy arrival of Timothy, which may or may not have taken place. (5) Florus succeeded Albinus, ▲. D. 64. of the people, might either operate to deter or to induce the Apostle to undertake the journey. On the one hand, if the Jews should renew their implacable hostility, the Christians, now having become odious to the Roman government, could expect no protection; the rapacious tyranny of the new rulers would seize every occasion of including the Christian community under the grinding and vexatious system of persecution: and such occasion would be furnished by any tumult in which they might be implicated. On the other hand, the popular mind among the Jews being absorbed by stronger interests, engrossed by passions even more powerful than hatred of Christianity, the Apostle might have entered the city unnoticed, and remained concealed among his Christian friends; particularly as the frequent change in the ruling authorities, and the perpetual deposal of the High Priest, during the long interval of his absence, may have stripped his leading adversaries of their authority. Be this as it may, there are manifest vestiges of his having visited many cities of Asia Minor-Ephesus, Colossæ (1), Miletus (2), Troas (3); that he passed a winter at Nicopolis, in Epirus (4). From hence he may have descended to Corinth (5), and from Corinth, probable reasons may be assigned for his return to Rome. In ail these cities, and, doubtless, in many others, where we have no record of the first promulgation of the religion, the Christians formed regular and organised communities. Constant intercourse seems to have been maintained throughout the whole confederacy. Besides the Apostles, other persons seem to have been constantly travelling about, some entirely devoted to the dissemination of the religion, others uniting it with their own secular pursuits. Onesiphorus (6), it may be supposed, a wealthy merchant, resident at Ephesus, being in Rome at the time of Paul's imprisonment, laboured to alleviate the irksomeness of his confinement. Paul had constantly one, sometimes many, companions in his journeys. Some of these he seems to have established, as Titus, in Crete, to preside over the young communities; others were left behind for a time to superintend the interests of the religion; others, as Luke, the author of the Acts, were in more regular attendance upon him, and appear to have been only occasionally separated by accidental circumstances. But, if we may judge from the authentic records of the New Testament, the whole Christianity of the West emanated from Paul alone. The indefatigable activity of this one man had planted Christian colonies, each of which became the centre of a new moral civilisation, from the borders of Syria, as far as Spain, and to the city of Rome. Tradition assigns to the last year of Nero the martyrdom both of (1) Philem. 22. (2) 2 Tim. iv. 20. (3) 2 Tim. iv. 13. Compare Paley, Hora Pau (4) Titus, iii. 12. (5) 2 Tim. iv. 20. A. D. 66. |