St. Peter and St. Paul. That of the former rests altogether on unauthoritative testimony; that of the latter is rendered highly probable, from the authentic record of the second Epistle to Timothy. This letter was written by the author when in custody al Rome (1), apparently under more rigorous confinement than during his first imprisonment; not looking forward to his release (2), but with steadfast presentiment of his approaching violent death. It contains allusions to his recent journey in Asia Minor and Greece. He had already undergone a first examination (3), and the danger was so great, that he had been deserted by some of his most attached followers, particularly by Demas. If conjecture be admitted, the preparations for the reception of Nero at Corinth, during the celebration of the Isthmian games, may have caused well-grounded apprehensions to the Christian community in that city. Paul might have thought it prudent to withdraw from Corinth, whither his last journey had brought him, and might seize the opportunity of the emperor's absence, to visit and restore the persecuted community at Rome. During the absence of Nero, the government of Rome and of Italy was entrusted to the freed-slave Helius, a fit representative of the absent tyrant. He had full power of life and death, even over the senatorial order. The world, says Dion, was enslaved at once to two autocrats, Helius and Nero. Thus Paul may have found another Nero in the hostile capital; and the general tradition, that he was put to death, not by order of the emperor, but of the governor of the city, coincides with this state of things. The fame of St. Peter, from whom she claims the supremacy of the Christian world, has eclipsed that of St. Paul in the Eternal City. The most splendid temple which has been erected by Christian zeal, to rival or surpass the proudest edifices of heathen magnificence, bears the name of that apostle, while that of St. Paul rises in a remote and unwholesome suburb. Studious to avoid, if possible, the treacherous and slippery ground of polemic controversy, we must be permitted to express our surprise that in no part of the authentic scripture occurs the slightest allusion to the personal history of St. Peter, as connected with the western churches. At all events, the conversion of the Gentile world was the acknowledged province of St. Paul. In that partition treaty, in which these two moral invaders divided the yet unconquered world, the more civilised province of Greek and Roman heathenism was assigned to him who was emphatically called the Apostle of the Gentiles, while the Jewish population fell under the particular care of the Galilean Peter. For the operations of the latter, no part of the world, exclusive of Palestine, which seems to have been left to James the (1) All the names of the church who unite in the salutation, iv 21., are Roman. (2) 2 Tim. iv. 5, 6, 7. (3) 2 Tim. i. 12. 16. Rosenmuller however (in loc.) understands this of the examination during his first trial, Just, would afford such ample scope for success as Babylonia and the Asiatic provinces, to which the Epistles of Peter are addressed. His own writings distinctly show that he was connected by some intimate tie with these communities; and, as it appears, that Galatia was a stronghold of Judaical Christianity, it is probable that the greater part of those converts were originally Jews or Asiatics, whom Judaism had already prepared for the reception of Christianity. Where Judaism thus widely prevailed, was the appropriate province of the Apostle of the circumcision. While then those, whose severe historical criticism is content with nothing less than contemporary evidence, or, at least, probable inferences from such records, will question, at least, the permanent establishment of Peter in the imperial city, those who admit the authority of tradition will adhere to, and may, indeed, make a strong case in favour of St. Peter's residence (1); or his martyrdom at Rome (2). The spent wave of the Neronian persecution (3) may have recovered sufficient force to sweep away those who were employed in reconstructing the shattered edifice of Christianity in Rome. The return of an individual, however personally obscure, yet connected with a sect so recently proscribed, both by popular odium and public authority, would scarcely escape the vigilant police of the metropolis. One individual is named, Alexander, the coppersmith, (1) The authorities are Irenæus, Dionysius of Corinth apud Eusebium, and Epiphanius. (2) Pearson in his Opera Posthuma, Diss. de serie et successione Roma. Episcop. supposes. Peter to have been in Rome. Compare Townson on the Gospels. Diss. 5. sect. v. Barrow, (Treatise of the Pope's Supremacy,) will not "avow" the opinion of those who argue him never to have been at Rome, vol. vi. p. 139. Oxford ed. 1818. Lightfoot, whose profound knowledge of every thing relating to the Jewish nation entitles his opinions to respect, observes, in confirmation of his assertion, that Peter lived and died in Chaldea, -quam absurdum est statuere, ministrum præcipuum circumcisionis sedem suam figere in metropoli preputiatorum, Româ. Lightfoot's Works, 8vo. edit. x. 392. If, then, with Barrow I may "bear some civil respect to ancient testimonies and traditions" (loc. cit.), the strong bias of my own mind is to the following solution of this problem. With Lightfoot, I believe, that Babylonia was the scene of St. Peter's labours. But I am likewise confident that in Rome, as in Corinth, there were two communities,-a Petrine and a Pauline,-a Judaising and an Hellenising church. The origin of the two communities in the doctrines attributed to the two apostles, may have been gradually transmuted into the foundation first of each community, then generally of the church of Rome, by the two apostles. All the difficulties in the arrangement of the succession to the episcopal see of Rome vanish, if we suppose two colemporary lines. Here, as elsewhere, the Judaising church either expired or was absorbed in the Pauline community. The passage in the Corinthians by no means necessarily implies the personal presence of Peter in that city. There was a party there, no doubt a judaising one, which professed to preach the pure doctrine of " Cephas," in opposition to that of Paul, and who called themselves, therefore," of Cephas." Dum primos ecclesiæ Romanæ fundatores quæro occurrit illud. Acts, ii. 10. O d μοῦντες Ῥωμαῖοι Ιουδαῖοι τε καὶ προσή AUTO. Lightfoot's Works, 8vo. edit. x. 392. (3) As to the extent of the Neronian persecution, whether it was general, or confined to the city of Rome, I agree with Mosheim that only one valid argument is usually advanced on either side. On the one hand, that of Dodwell, that the Christians being persecuted not on account of their religion, but on the charge of incendiarism, that charge could not have been brought against those who lived beyond the precincts of the city. Though as to this point, it is to be feared that many an honest Protestant would have considered the real crime of the gunpowder plot, or the imputed guilt of the fire of London, ample justification for a general persecution of the Roman Catholics. On the other hand, is alleged the authority of Tertullian, who refers, in a public apology to the laws of Nero and Domitian against the Christians, an expression too distinct to pass for rhetoric, even in that passionate writer, though he may have magnified temporary edicts into general laws. The Spanish inscription not only wants confirmation, but even evidence that it ever existed. There is however point of some importance in favour of the first opinion. Paul appears to have travelled about through a great part of the Roman empire during this interval, yet we have no intimation of his being in more than ordinary personal danger. It was not till his return to Rome that he was again apprehended, and at length suffered martyrdom, dom of whose seemingly personal hostility had caused or increased the danger in which Paul considered himself during his second imprisonment. He may have been the original informer, who betrayed his being in Rome, or his intimate alliance with the Christians; or, he may have appeared as evidence against him during his examination. Though there may have been no existing law, or imperial rescript against the Christians; and Paul, having been absent from Rome at the time, could not be implicated in the charge of incendiarism; yet the representative of Nero, if faithfully described by Dion Cassius (1), would pay little regard to the forms of criminal justice, and would have no scruple in ordering the sumMartyr mary execution of an obscure individual, since it does not appear, Paul. that in exercising the jurisdiction of præfect of the city, he treated the lives of knights or of senators with more respect. There is, therefore, no improbability that the Christian church in Rome may have faithfully preserved the fact of Paul's execution, and even cherished in their pious memory the spot on the Ostian road, watered by the blood of the Apostle. As a Roman citizen, Paul is said to have been beheaded, instead of being suspended to a cross, or exposed to any of those horrid tortures invented for the Christians; and so far the modest probability of the relation may confirm rather than impeach its truth. The other circumstances-his conversion of the soldiers who carried him to execution, and of the executioner himself bear too much the air of religious romance. Though, indeed, the Roman Christians had not the same interest in inventing or embellishing the martyrdom of Paul, as that of the other great Apostle from whom they derive their supremacy. Great re CHAPTER IV. CHRISTIANITY TO THE CLOSE OF THE FIRST CENTURY.-CONSTITUTION OF CHRISTIAN THE changes in the moral are usually wrought as imperceptibly volutions as those in the physical world. Had any wise man, either congradual. vinced of the divine origin of Christianity, or even contemplating slow and with philosophical sagacity the essential nature of the new religion, and the existing state of the human mind, ventured to predict, that from the ashes of these obscure men would arise a moral sove (1) Τοὺς μέντοι ἐν τῇ Ρώμη καὶ τῇ Ιταλία πάντας Ηλίω τινὶ Καισαρείῳ ἐκδότους παρέδωκε. Πάντα γὰρ ἁπλῶς ἐπετέτραπτο, ὥστε καὶ δημεύειν, καὶ φυγαδεύειν, καὶ αποκτιννύναι (καὶ πρὶν δηλῶσαι τῷ Νέρωνι) καὶ ἰδιώτας ὁμοίως, καὶ ἱππέας καὶ βουλευτὰς. Οὕτω μέν δὲ τότε ἡ τῶν Ρωμαίων ἀρχὴ δύο αὐτ τοκράτορσιν ἅμα ἐδούλευε, Νέρωνι καὶ Ἡλίῳ. Οὐδὲ ἔχω εἰπεῖν ὁπότερος αὐτῶν χείρων ἦν. Dion. Cassius, (or Xiphilin) lxiii. c. 12. reignty more extensive and lasting than that of the Cæsars; that buildings more splendid than any which adorned the new marble city, now rising from the ruins of the conflagration, would be dedicated to their name, and maintain their reverence for an incalculably longer period; such vaticinations would have met the fate inseparable from the wisdom which outstrips its age, would have been scorned by cotemporary pride, and only admired after their accomplishment, by late posterity. The slight and contemptuous notice excited by Christianity during the first century of its promul gation is in strict accordance with this ordinary development of the great and lasting revolutions in human affairs. The moral world has sometimes, indeed, its volcanic explosions, which suddenly and violently convulse and reform the order of things; but its more enduring changes are in general produced by the slow and silent workings of opinions, remotely prepared and gradually expanding to their mature and irresistible influence. In default therefore of real information, as to the secret but simultaneous progress of Christianity in so many quarters, and among all ranks, we are left to speculate on the influence of the passing events of the time, and of the changes in the public mind, whether favourable or prejudicial to the cause of Christianity, catching only faint and uncertain gleams of its peculiar history through the confused and rapidly changing course of public affairs. vided inte four pe riods. The Imperial history from the first promulgation of Christianity Imperial down to the accession of Constantine, divides itself into four dis- history di tinct, but unequal periods. More than thirty years are occupied by the line of the first Cæsars, rather less by the conflicts which followed the death of Nero, and the government of the Flavian dynasty. The first years of Trajan, who ascended the Imperial throne. A. D. 98., nearly synchronize with the opening of the second century of Christianity; and that splendid period of internal peace and advancing civilisation, of wealth, and of prosperity, which has been described as the happiest in the annals of mankind, extends over the first eighty years of that century (1). Down to the accession of Constantine, nearly at the commencement of the fourth century, the empire became, like the great monarchies of the East, the prize of successful ambition and enterprise almost every change of ruler is a change of dynasty; and already the borders of the empire have ceased to be respected by the menacing, the conquering Barbarians. pe riod to the death of It is remarkable how singularly the political character of each First period was calculated to advance the growth of Christianity. During the first of these periods the government, though it still Nero. held in respect the old republican institutions, was, if not in form, (1) Among the writers who have discussed this question may be consulted Hegewisch, whose work has heen recently translated by M. Solvet, under the title of Essai sur l'Epoque de l'Histoire in its administration purely despotic. The state centered in the person of the Emperor. This kind of hereditary autocracy is essentially selfish it is content with averting or punishing plots against the person, or detecting and crushing conspiracies against the power, of the existing monarch. To those more remote or secret changes, which are working in the depths of society, eventually perhaps threatening the existence of the monarchy, or the stability of all the social relations, it is blind or indifferent (1). It has neither sagacity to discern, intelligence to comprehend, nor even the disinterested zeal for the perpetuation of its own despotism, to counteract such distant and contingent dangers. Of all innovations it is, in general, sensitively jealous; but they must be palpable and manifest, and directly clashing with the passions or exciting the fears of the sovereign. Even these are met by temporary measures. When an outcry was raised against the Egyptian religion as dangerous to public morality, an edict commanded the expulsion of its votaries from the city. When the superstition of the Emperor shuddered at the predictions of the mathematicians, the whole fraternity fell under the same interdict. When the public peace was disturbed by the dissensions among the Jewish population of Rome, the summary sentence of Claudius visited both Jews and Christians with the same indifferent severity. So the Neronian persecution was an accident arising out of the fire at Rome, no part of a systematic political plan for the suppression of foreign religions. It might have fallen on any other sect or body of men, who might have been designated as victims to appease the popular resentment. The provincial administrations would be actuated by the same principles as the central government, and be alike indifferent to the quiet progress of opinions, however dangerous to the existing order of things. Unless some breach of the public peace demanded their interference, they would rarely put forth their power; and content with the maintenance of order, the regular collection of the revenue, the more rapacious with the punctual payment of their own exactions, the more enlightened with the improvement and embellishment of the cities under their charge, they would look on the rise and propagation of a new religion with no more concern than that of a new philosophic sect, particularly in the eastern part of the empire, where the religions were in general more foreign to the character of the Greek or Roman Polytheism. The popular feeling during this first period would only under peculiar circumstances outstrip the activity of the government. Accustomed to the separate worship of the Jews, to them Christianity appeared at first only as a modification of that belief. Local jealousies or personal animosities might (1) Sævi proximis ingruunt. In this one sometimes been comparatively unoppressed pregnant sentence of Tacitus is explained the under the most sanguinary tyranny. political secret, that the mass of the people have |