'STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

New Zealand Tablet, 25 September 1913, Page 3

' STAND FAST IN THE FAITH'

(A Weekly Instruction specially -written for the N.Z. Tablet by ‘Ghimel’.)

THE ROMAN CHURCH IN ITS INFANCY—I. More than one inquirer has lately asked for information about the Roman Church in its earliest days, the persecution of the Church under Nero, the coming of St. Peter to Rome, his martyrdom there, and so on. An attempt will now be made to answer these questions and to reconstruct the early history of Catholicity at Rome. The material at hand for building up the story is small few references in two or three pagan writers some parts of the New Testament, and some early Christian traditions and legends; but there is enough to lend interest to the story to Catholics, and a simple sketch of the Church’s infancy at Rome should serve to draw us closer to the Fisherman who ‘ keeps ward on his lonely watch-tower among the Seven Hills beside the yellow Tiber, and (who) straining ever eager eyes athwart the waste of waters, tempest-borne and darkling, watches for his Master, and, if perchance he may to catch the souls of men.’ To commence with, let us try to get a glimpse of the Roman Church in these first days as it must have appeared to an outsider. In his life of Claudius the pagan writer Suetonius tells how that Emperor expelled the Jews from Rome on account of the persistent riots which were stirred up among them by one Chrestus. The only satisfactory explanation of this statement is .that the disturbances among the Jews were caused when the Gospel message, especially that part of it which proclaimed Christ as God, was first preached by Christian missionaries in the Jewish synagogues;, riots, though perhaps on a larger scale, like those which had broken out when the Gospel was preached at Thessaionica, Antioch of Pisidia, and Lystra. , The date of this expulsion is not given by Suetonius, but another writer, Orosius, assigns it to the ninth year of Claudius, A.D., 49-50— that is, about the same time as the First Council of the Church at Jerusalem. But what is more important than the precise date, Suetonius’s reference to the expulsion of the Jews affords us some insight into the state of Christianity at Rome less than twenty years after its Founder’s death. Up to this time, outsiders could see no difference between Christians and Jews: the Christians were a mere Jewish sect. We can understand this view readily enough, when we remember that in accordance with our Lord’s command the Apostles felt it their duty to preach first to the house of Israel. Further, we gather that ‘ the Christian propaganda must have met with considerable success. The huge Jewish community at Rome,’ writes F. J. Bacchus, ‘with all its multifarious interests would not have been thrown into tumultuous confusion because two or three missionaries gathered round them a small group of converts. If this had been all, the mobbing of a few individuals would have been retaliation enough. Biots that exasperated the Government to such a pitch that it issued orders for several thousands of persons to leave the city must have been excited by a persistent, and to a large extent successful preaching of a new religion. Thus, a casual sentence in a pagan writer reveals to us the existence in Rome of a considerable Christian community before St. Paul had even set foot in Borne. v The natural result of this order of expulsion was to make the Christians keep away from the Jews, and henceforth spend most of their energy in trying to convert the pagan Romans. So completely did Christians and Jews drift apart, that when, some ten years later, St. Paul came to Rome, the Jewish leaders there could pretend to know nothing more about the sect than _ that ‘it is everywhere spoken against’ (Acts vl “\, )- ‘ lt; is everywhere spoken against.’ - If the Catholic Church of the 19th and 20th centuries had no other means of establishing its identity with the Church of the first century, this description might go

a long way to prove its claim. But —and this is more to our present pointit also helps us to understand the following' significant event related- by the Roman historian, Tacitus:—' Pomponia Graecina, a distinguished lady, wife of Plautius, who returned from Britain with an ovation, was accused of some foreign superstition and handed over to her husband's judicial decision. Following ancient precedent, he heard his wife's cause in the presence of kinsfolk, involving, as it did, her legal status and character, and he reported that she was innocent. This Pomponia lived a long life of unbroken melancholy. After the death of Julia, Drusus's daughter, by Messalina's treachery, she wore the attire of a mourner, with a heart ever sorrowful. For this, during Claudius's reign, she escaped unpunished, and it was afterwards counted a glory unto her.'. The Roman lady thus accused of some foreign superstition, was evidently a Christian, for when an historian like Tacitus could not find a name for her religion, . it must have been something new and unfamiliarand such was Catholicity in these early days. And as a matter of fact, some inscriptions unearthed in the Roman Catacombs during the past century show that fifty or sixty years after Pomponia's death many of her family were Christians. Her story brings into prominence two things: In the first place, whereas in the years 49-50 outsiders could see no distinction between Christians and Jews, now, seven years later, the distinction was beginning to be realised even by them. Secondly, infamous re ports were already in circulation about Christians, who were now becoming objects of hatred and calumny to the people, and of suspicion to the Government. .This prepared the way for the persecution under Nero, Emperor from 54 to 68. .