§ 36. Christianity in Rome.
I. On the general, social, and moral condition of Rome under the Emperors:
Ludwig Friedländer: Sittengeschichte Roms. Leipzig, 1862, 5th ed. revised and enlarged, 1881, 3
vols.
Rod. Lanciani: Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries. Boston, 1889 (with 100
illustrations).
II. On the Jews in Rome and the allusions of Roman Writers to Them:
Renan: Les Apôtres, 287–293; Merivale:History of the Romans, VI., 203 sqq.; Friedländer: l.c. III.,
505 sqq.; Hausrath: Neutestamentliche Zeitgeschichte, III., 383–392 (2d ed.); Schürer: Lehrbuch
der Neutestamentlichen Zeitgeschichte, pp. 624 sq., and Die Gemeindeverfassung der Juden
in Rom in der Kaiserzeit, Leipz., 1879; Huidekoper: Judaism at Rome, 1876. Also John Gill:
Notices of the Jews and their Country by the Classic Writers of Antiquity. 2d ed. London, 1872.
On Jewish Roman inscriptions see Garrucci (several articles in Italian since 1862), von
Engeström (in a Swedish work, Upsala, 1876), and Schürer (1879).
III. On the Christian Congregation in Rome:
The Histories of the Apostolic Age (see pp. 189 sqq.); the Introductions to the Commentaries on
Romans (mentioned p. 281), and a number of critical essays on the origin and composition of
the Church of Rome and the aim of the Epistle to the Romans, by Baur (Ueber Zweck und
Veranlassung des Römerbriefs,1836; reproduced in his Paul, I., 346 sqq., Engl. transl.),
Beyschlag (Das geschichtliche Problem des Römerbriefs in the "Studien und Kritiken" for
1867), Hilgenfeld (Einleitung in das N. T., 1875, pp. 302 sqq.), C. Weizsäcker (Ueber die älteste
römische Christengemeinde, 1876, and his Apost. Zeitalter, 1886, pp. 415–467).
W. Mangold: Der Römerbrief und seine gesch. Voraussetzungen, Marburg, 1884. Defends the
Jewish origin and character of the Roman church (against Weizsäcker).
Rud. Seyerlen: Entstehung und erste Schicksale der Christengemeinde in Rom. Tübingen, 1874.
Adolf Harnack: Christianity and Christians at the Court of the Roman Emperors before the Time
of Constantine. In the "Princeton Review," N. York, 1878, pp. 239–280.
J. Spencer Northcote and W. R. Brownlow (R. C.): Roma Sotterranea, new ed., London, 1879, vol.
I., pp. 78–91. Based upon Caval. de Rossi’s large Italian work under the same title (Roma,
1864–1877, in three vols. fol.). Both important for the remains of early Roman Christianity in
the Catacombs.
Formby: Ancient Rome and its Connect. with the Chr. Rel. Lond., 1880.
Keim: Rom. u. das Christenthum. Berlin, 1881.
[MAP INSET] From "Roma Sotteranea," by Northcote and Brownlow.
The City of Rome.
The city of Rome was to the Roman empire what Paris is to France, what London to Great
Britain: the ruling head and the beating heart. It had even a more cosmopolitan character than these
modern cities. It was the world in miniature, "orbis in urbe." Rome had conquered nearly all the
nationalities of the then civilized world, and drew its population from the East and from the West,
from the North and from the South. All languages, religious, and customs of the conquered provinces
found a home there. Half the inhabitants spoke Greek, and the natives complained of the
preponderance of this foreign tongue, which, since Alexander’s conquest, had become the language
of the Orient and of the civilized world.^482 The palace of the emperor was the chief centre of Oriental(^482) Friedländer, I. 372 sqq.
A.D. 1-100.