THE EARLY CHURCH

New Zealand Tablet, 12 February 1920, Page 9

THE EARLY CHURCH

(A Series of Lectures by Rev. P. J. Sheehy, Manly College) lI.—CHRONICLE OF ST. PETER IN ROME. In last lecture I brought before you documentary evidence collected from all parts of the Christian Church of the early ages to show that the Catholic contention of the Roman journey . and episcopate of St. Peter is beyond reasonable question. I also showed that this contention, though once denied in the interests of Protestant prepossessions, is nowadays generally accepted by all classes of historians, « Moreover, I pointed* out that modern writers are beginning generally to agree with the Roman archaeologists, • and indeed with the unanimous view of early Christian tradition, in admitting a very considerable stay of - St. Peter in Rome as Bishop of the city. Otherwise we would find it impossible to explain the prosperous state of the Christian Church in Rome in the year 57 A.D., when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Christians there.

To-day we will try the more difficult task of piecing together the early records and the findings of modern writers in the .hope .of - constructing a consistent narrative of those eventful years of missionary labors. And first of all we must have a word about the city of Rome itself as it was in the first century of the Christian era. The first point to -grasp is that in this first Christian century the very name of Rome cast a spell over the minds of men. The city occupied a position of influence unique in the annals of history. It had become the magnetic centre of the civilised world and was one of the most cosmopolitan cities that ever . existed. It was, in the days of the Emperor Claudius and Nero, the seat of an absolute and centralised government stretching from the Atlantic to Parthia, from Britain to the Libyan Deserts, embracing many lauds and races conquered after centuries of conflict by the Roman arms and now forming a single empire under an administrative system of unrivalled flexibility and strength. Local liberties and particular religious cults were not much interfered with; only in Egypt, the granary of the Empire, the support of Rome itself, was the Roman regime at all close and severe. Right through this vast Empire there were extraordinary facilities for free, safe, and rapid intercourse, such as has not been rivalled in Europe till comparatively modern times. Admirable military roads, easy and frequent communication by water, an excellent system binding one province to another, linked up the most distant frontiers with the capital and thus made Roman rule easy and secure.

At the beginning of our era, the population of the imperial city is estimated at no less than 1,300,000. More than half of these were slaves. Only a few thousand citizens possessed any considerable private property. In some of the wealthier estates round the city the number of slaves would amount to three or four thousand. Pliny .mentions one estate with over four thousand. These slaves were trained to all kinds of work, and so a considerable number of the city’s free population was without any employment. Paupers abounded in the city as a consequence. In the days of Julius Caesar no fewer than 320,000 paupers of the city and surrounding places were supported by the State with daily rations. This vast slave population was cosmopolitan since they were from various countries and races conquered by the Romans. Roman custom sanctioned selling prisoners of war and inhabitants of captured cities as slaves. In every wealthy Roman household, therefore, the great mixture of races was to be found. And since the practice of freeing slaves -— manumissionwas common, large batches of persons of foreign extraction were being continually admitted to many privileges of Roman citizenship. Thus was formed the large and important class of freedmen —“liberati” containing often men of culture and ability, who not only filled important posts of trust in the households of their former masters, but often became rich and filled high official posts of State. Freedmen and their descendants played an important part in the history of early Christianity in Rome amongst them were found the , earliest converts and most earnest workers. Besides the slaves and freedmen the city had large numbers of soldiers, and these too were to a very large extent drawn from the foreign parts of the Empire. The great Praetorian camp was on the east of the city and had contingents drawn from the most distant frontiers of the Roman State. Besides these, traders, travellers, adventurers of every kind thronged Rome, and particularly from the East. So did preachers, teachers of many philosophies, cults, and modes of worship— Egyptian, Phrygian. The ordinary language spoken was Greek and the 7 whole atmosphere or the great city was in no small measure Orientalised,

Amongst the ? large foreign element in the population The nrfcf- °? e th ® most marked and important. Ihe origin of this Jewish colony is traced back to 63 8.C.. vPompey,,after the .capture of Jerusalem, brought a large number of prisoners who were sold as slaves. But the Jew as a slave was difficult to handle owing to obstinate adherence to his national customs and ancestral faith, and so, more quickly than in other cases, Jewish slaves were manumitted. Thus they early formed ' a community apart on the far side of the Tiber. Strange to say their- position was singular and exclusive: they had privileges . accorded to none others: they had liberty of worship freedom from military service and from certain taxes ; the Sabbath was in their respect recognised as a day of rest; they were exempt from the Caesar-worship tfhich was supposed to be the test of imperial loyalty; they had certain jurisdiction over their own members and the right generally of living according to the customs of their forefathers Rarely did the civil authorities in Rome interfere with the Jews. : This Jewish colony seems to have had much of the characteristics of similar colonies in the European cities or our own and the medieval days. The greater number was poor, making a precarious living as hawkers, pedlars, dealers in second-hand goods. Above this section were the money-lender, large traders, and shopkeepers. At the head, just as in our day, were the wealthy financiers, men who lived on terms of close intimacy with the Imperial circle. It was the .power of these financiers that won such exclusive, privileges for the Jews in the Roman world. These men were absolutely indispensable to the various Emperors. Moreover ; the number of Jews was very considerable. In I'fero’s tinle they must have numbered some -twenty or thirty thousand in the city of Romo itself; while' in the whole Empire, including Palestine, out of a total population of some fifty or sixty millions the Jews must have counted, nearly five millions. Holding aloof from others, living their own life and on the old lines, crowded into the dingy regions of the Suburra or the Trastevere, a noisy, dirty, malodorous colony with such abundance of children as to excite the comment of Tacitus —“A world in rags,” yet animated with the keenest religious feelings quarrelsome, yet “ever ready to show compassion “amongst themselves” as Tacitus says, a teeming, active population ever anxious to snatch at scanty profit; poor yet distinguished for high moral standards : such were the Jews in Rome when St. Peter came. The large numbers of the Jews in Rome and in the Empire, the importance of their financiers to the Emperors and the secular authorities, explain the position of influence and privilege they held as a body in the Empire. Public men were cautious in speaking of these Jews. Even in 59 8.C., when there seems to have been a strong Jewish colony in Rome, we find Cicero when pleading for Flaccus, lowering his voice and affecting to be influenced by fear of the Jews thronging the Aurelian steps. Probably he exaggerated in his client’s interests. But the incident goes to show my point concerning Jewish influence in Rome. As an individual the Jew was scorned and hated by the Romans. His very aloofness and peculiar customs made him so. And yet the Jewish religion had a great attraction for the cultured Roman of the first century. It is difficult to explain it, except on the ground that the simple truth in Judaism had its own force and attraction. Certainly Judaism had none of sensuousness and mysticism of the " many Eastern and Egyptian cults whose teachers thronged the city, and yet it became quit© the fashion, especially amongst the sons and daughters of the patrician houses. The number of actual proselytes of Gentile origin was large; larger still was the number, of those who are styled in the Acts of the Apostles as “Godfearers.” These converts, while not observing the whole round of the Jewish Law, still adopted Jewish monotheism, attended synagogue services, observed the Sabbath and certain other portions of the ceremonial law. The names of some seven or eight Jewish synagogues in Rome of this time have been discovered in the inscriptions of ancient Jewish cemeteries in Rome, and these multitudes of “God-fearers” formed a fringe of semi-Jews around the Synagogue proper. Thus Nero’s wife, Poppaea, belonged to this class, and on all occasions was favorable to the Jews and their interests. Into the midst of this teeming and active population came the first news of the Gospel’s message. And it is probable that many years before the coming of St. Peter there were Christians found amongst the Jews in Rome. But Christianity, carried in this haphazard way by traders, • slaves, and —people perhaps not very well informed themselves about the new religion—would be vague and inchoate. For the organisation of scattered believers into a Church there was needed the visit of <an Apostle, or some one with the necessary authority, and we do not know of any such Apostolic visit during the first twelve years after the Ascension of Our Lord. The occasion was provided by the persecution that commenced

under Herod Agrippa in Jerusalem in the year 42 A D and which is narrated in the 12th Chapter of the Acts. V was intended ■to _ utterly destroy the Church rising in Jerusalem, but in the ways of Divine Providence it provided the . occasion for the? spread of organised Christianity beyond the confines? of Palestine,' and for the founding of the pnmatial See in the very centre of the Empire. In the Acts we read —“At this time Herod the King stretched forth his hand to afflict some of the Church. And he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also. Then follows the story of the miraculous delivery of the Apostle from prison, and of his decision forthwith to place himself in safety beyond the confines okHerod 8 jurisdiction. Thus began the first of the Apostohc journeys outside the boundaries of Palestine. Wo read that . Peter “departed and went into another place.” Ihe time of Peter’s departure can be fixed definitely in the year 42 A.D. The tradition of Antioch, of the East generally, and of the Christian writers of the end of the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries is that Peter’s immediate destination was Antioch. His stay there must have been short, merely long enough to organise a Christian congregation there and to appoint Evodius as its bishop. After this St. Jerome tells us that he preached for a short time amongst his countrymen dispersed in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia— after this brief mission tour arrived in Rome at the close of the year 42 A.D. Thus the traditional seven years’ episcopate of St. Peter at Antioch cannot be referred to this period. It is clear that in a city such as Rome was, with a teeming Jewish colony...gathered in the Suburra and in the Trastevere and perhaps in other Ghettos also, having moreover a few scattered Christians amongst them, there' was prepared a seed-plot ready for the planting of the new religion. It is most natural that St. Peter should first of all betake himself to his own countrymen, ahd as we should expect, hoary tradition marks the Church of' St. Prisca ,in the Aventine as his first dwelling place. On the spot occupied by the present Church, Aquilla, a Jew of Pontus, and his wife Priscilla— a wealthy Roman lady— Christians, both mentioned frequently in connection with the journeys of St. Paul, had their home. With them dwelt St. Peter, and from this home as a centre he preached amongst the Jews crowded in the Ghettos on both sides of the Tiber. It was not for long, however. We know from parallel experiences of St. Paul in other cities, as narrated in the Acts of the Apostles, that Christian propaganda amongst the Jews aroused fierce opposition. From St. Justin’s Jewish controversy called “Dialogue with the- Jew Trypho,” we learn that picked men were sent out from Jerusalem into various cities of the Empire with the express object of rousing the Jews everywhere against the preachers of the new doctrine and of spreading calumnious reports against those who professed it. Indeed right' through all the period of subsequent conflict between the Christian Church and the Imperial authorities, we find the Jews in every part exercising a wicked influence in stirring up the anger of the secular -authorities against the Christians. In the contemporary acts of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, we find it stated that the Jews, “as is their custom,” fetched the faggots for the fire which was to be the means of martyrdom. In the operations of such a propaganda we cannot .suppose that Rome and the Chief of the Apostles were left out of sight. It is natural to connect these men and their activities with the removal of St. Peter to a more, secluded part of the city and with the serious dsturbance which, as we shall see, broke out in Rome a few years later. ' " ■ - Anyhow St. Peter did not stay long in the Aventine quarter of The city. Ho was too near the Ghetto, „and the opposition roused against him made him move across the city and outside its walls to the Via Nomentana. Here had recently been erected the barracks of the Praetorian guards whose close proximity secured public order. Moreover the region was low, marshy, and had water for Baptism. The region was known by the name “Ad Nymphas” or “palus Caprea” on this account. There was also a distinguished Christian family dwelling there, bearing the name of Ostorius, and possessing a villa surrounded by extensive grounds, as commonly was the case among the richer classes in Rome of the time. Within these private grounds was an underground cemetery hollowed in the soft “tufa” or yellow sandstone on which Rome is built. In the underground passage of this cemetery Peter taught and baptised undisturbed. Here he set up his chair—his “Cathedra” —and thus we come to the ; first Cathedral in Rome, The tourist to Rome to-day going out - the old Nomentan way past the Church of St. Agnes may go down into the underground cemetery which had its beginning in the days of the Apostle, and deep in the earth he will still seenot indeed the chair on which Peter

satbut the chair cut out of: the solid stone. in the 2nd century and held in honor ever afterwards as the symbol and memorial of the fact • that here had been set up for the first time in Rome the Apostolic Throne. And since the essence of a Cathedral depends not on the possession of a vast and noble building but simply on the possession °fy* bishop’s teaching chair, here we must locate the first and earliest Cathedral of Christian Rome. To this spot came the pilgrims of the 6th, 7th,: and • following centuries tot visit and'venerate Peter’s Chair; here too was celebrated that Feast of the Chair of St. Peter which in later years, by a misunderstanding, came to be known as the Feast of “The Chair of St. Peter at Antioch.” We may note too another circumstance in connection with this spot. Livy, Ovid, -and Plutarch narrate that it was precisely on this spot that Romulus so mysteriously disappeared after a review of his army. The place, then, is connected alike With the last records of the work of the founder of secular Rome and with the first labors of that second and- greater founder who began in Rome that spiritual dominion wider even than the old Roman Empire itselfa work which has procured for the city its title of “eternal.” •

$ Of the converts to the Faith made by St. Peter in these earliest years we have but the faintest indications. Probably the bulk of them was from the poorer classes of the Jews. The names of a few converts belonging to the highest Roman nobility have come down to us. For instance,' Pomponia Graecina was the wife of one of the chiefK men in the city, Aulius Plautius, general of the Roman forces in Britain during the successful campaign 43-47 A.D. Tacitus in his Annals, xiii. 12, tells us that when the victorious general returned to Rome from Britain he found his wife given over to grief and mourning and taking no part in the joys of social life in the city. The ostensible cause for this sorrow was the untimely death of a friend. But as the years went on and brought no change in her habits of life it was felt that some deeper cause must be looked for to account for such strange and lasting effects. People began to whisper abroad that this lady had abandoned the religion of the State and had taken up some foreign and unlawful superstition which forbade its votaries indulgence in the pleasures or dissipations of Roman society. Things went so for some fourteen years. Then, after the fashion of the old patrician families, she was brought before a court composed of her husband and immediate relatives and was charged with “foreign superstition” ; she was acquitted, but she continued her manner of life for some years, respected by all for her character and virtues. It is argued, and with probabilty, that the “foreign superstition” in question was Christianity. It was not Judaism, even of the strictest kind, for this was tolerated. Nor was it any of the Eastern mystery-cults so common in Rome, for they were not very remarkable for the culture of virtues quite the opposite. The acquittal is explained on the ground that at the time Christianity was in the ordinary pagan view confounded with Judaism as one of its sects. Findings of inscriptions bearing like names in the Catacombs of the 2nd century show that descendants of this family were thus early members of the Christian Church in Rome. f> Another distinguished convert of St. Peter’s early years in Rome must be mentioned. This is Cornelia Pudens. The Roman general, Aulius Plautius, on his return to Rome brought as a hostage the daughter or a British king or chief. She became known by the Roman name of Claudia. In the care of his wife she became a Christian and married a Roman nobleman, Cornelius iudeus "He was also a convert to the Faith, and in his house at Rome the Apostle set up a church or oratory. Later on the church of the title of Pudens, and still later the venerable Church of St. Pudenziana, grew out of this domestic church or oratory. In the second Epistle ot St. ‘Paul to Timothy we read “there salute thee . . . I udcns and Linus and Claudia. Statements made by Tacitus and Martial make the story probable. It is interesting that the hostess of St. Peter and afterwards of St 1 aui m Rome was a lady of the Celtic race, and that her home was the very centre of the Christian religion in Rome of the latter part of the first century. . . „ '>. tin my next lecture I will speak of the beginnings o those troubles in Rome which issued in the martyrdom of St Peter and St. Paul and started that momentous conflict between the Church and the Empire which went its way through blood, and slaughter till the edict of peace issued by Constantine in the early fourth century.