When Paul arrived in Rome he invited the rulers of the synagogues to a conference, that he
might show them his good will and give them the first offer of the gospel, but they replied to his
explanations with shrewd reservation, and affected to know nothing of Christianity, except that it
was a sect everywhere spoken against. Their best policy was evidently to ignore it as much as
possible. Yet a large number came to hear the apostle on an appointed day, and some believed,
while the majority, as usual, rejected his testimony.^493
Christianity in Rome.
From this peculiar people came the first converts to a religion which proved more than a
match for the power of Rome. The Jews were only an army of defense, the Christians an army of
conquest, though under the despised banner of the cross.
The precise origin of the church of Rome is involved in impenetrable mystery. We are
informed of the beginnings of the church of Jerusalem and most of the churches of Paul, but we
do not know who first preached the gospel at Rome. Christianity with its missionary enthusiasm
for the conversion of the world must have found a home in the capital of the world at a very early
day, before the apostles left Palestine. The congregation at Antioch grew up from emigrant and
fugitive disciples of Jerusalem before it was consolidated and fully organized by Barnabas and
Paul.
It is not impossible, though by no means demonstrable, that the first tidings of the gospel
were brought to Rome soon after the birthday of the church by witnesses of the pentecostal miracle
in Jerusalem, among whom were "sojourners from Rome, both Jews and proselytes."^494 In this case
Peter, the preacher of the pentecostal sermon, may be said to have had an indirect agency in the
founding of the church of Rome, which claims him as the rock on which it is built, although the
tradition of his early visit (42) and twenty or twenty-five years’ residence there is a long exploded
fable.^495 Paul greets among the brethren in Rome some kinsmen who had been converted before
him, i.e., before 37.^496 Several names in the list of Roman brethren to whom he sends greetings are
found in the Jewish cemetery on the Appian Way among the freedmen of the Empress Livia.
Christians from Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece must have come to the capital for various
reasons, either as visitors or settlers.
The Edict of Claudius.but his successors, Clement VIII., Clement XI., and Innocent XIII., forbade them all trade except that in old clothes, rags, and
iron. Gregory XIII. (1572-’85), who rejoiced over the massacre of St. Bartholomew, forced the Jews to hear a sermon every
week, and on every Sabbath police agents were sent to the Ghetto to drive men, women, and children into the church with
scourges, and to lash them if they paid no attention! This custom was only abolished by Pius IX., who revoked all the oppressive
laws against the Jews. For this and other interesting information about the Ghetto see Augustus J. C. Hare, Walks in Rome, 1873,
165 sqq., and a pamphlet of Dr. Philip, a Protestant missionary among the Jews in Rome, On the Ghetto, Rome, 1874.(^493) Acts 28:17-29.
(^494) Acts 2:10:οἱ ἐπιδημοῦντεσ Ῥωμαῖοι, Ἰουδαῖοι τε καὶ προσήλυτοι. Sojourners are strangers (comp. 17:21, οἱ επιδημοῦντες
ζένοι), as distinct from inhabitants (κατοικοῦντες, 7:48; 9:22; Luke 13:4). Among the Hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem who disputed
with Stephen were Libertini, i.e., emancipated Roman Jews, descendants of those whom Pompey had carried captive to Rome,
Acts 6:9.
(^495) Given up even by Roman Catholic historians in Germany, but still confidently reasserted by Drs. Northcote and Brownlow,
l.c. I.,p. 79, who naively state that Peter went to Rome with Cornelius and the Italian band in 42. Comp. on this subject §26, pp.
254 sqq.
(^496) Rom. 16:7, "Salute Andronicus and Junias (or Junia), my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners who ... have been in Christ
before me." If Junias is masculine, it must be a contraction from Junianus, as Lucas from Lucanus. But Chrysostom, Grotius,
Reiche, and others take it as a female, either the wife or sister of Andronicus.
A.D. 1-100.