HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME, ETC. INTRODUCTION. THE historian of the Church of Rome has no need to preface his labours by describing the city out of which that Church was gathered, and in which it professed to live a stranger. It will be enough for him to say that she was the queen of the cities of the ancient world, the mother of those legions, dreadful, terrible, and strong exceedingly, which had broken in pieces all the nations of the earth, and given her name to the world's empire. Seated on her seven hills, Rome beheld no rival. At the time when the Apostles received from our Lord the command to go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, the earth was one vast scene of moral darkness. It was a darkness which was even felt; and in no part of it, if we may trust B 4 to the historian, the poet, and the satirist, was the darkness more intense and palpable than in Rome. Pre-eminent in glory and power, that city was pre-eminent also in guilt. Vice rushed to it from all quarters, either for concealment or display. Its magnitude served for either purpose. To the eye of the Christian moralist, looking down on such a city, and beholding its abandoned myriads, few events would have seemed more hopeless than their conversion few cries would have seemed less likely to have been attended to than "the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying; but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." And ineffectual no doubt such a cry would have proved, had it been only the weak and helpless voice of man; but he who had put the word into the mouth of his messengers, was the Lord of all power and might, and it accomplished that which he pleased, and prospered in the thing whereto he sent it. The precise year when the tidings of a Saviour, and of the means of a moral restoration, were first announced in Rome, is unknown. As St. Paul, however, in his letter to the Roman Church (presumed to have been written about A.D. 57 or 58), stated that their faith was already spoken of throughout the whole world, it is probable that the first messenger had arrived there not very long after our Lord's ascension; but who he was, and of what nation, does not appear. This only seems certain, that he was not an apostle. But although the first stone of that building, which was to rear itself so high above the nations of the earth, was not placed by the hands of an apostle, yet an apostle laid its foundations; an apostle too of unrivalled usefulness and influence, and one who alone, of all the Apostles, was, in the days which this volume embraces, generally called by the short, but significant, title of "the Apostle." St. Paul's letter to the Roman Church cannot be exceeded in importance. It might have been imagined that he had foreseen her future destiny, and was providing that her light to the surrounding nations should be of the purest brightness. But not only was the Church at Rome favoured by his writings; it was blessed also by his presence. The malice of the Jews, overruled by the providence of God, led to his residence in Rome for "two whole years in his own hired house, where he received all that came unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concerned the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no man forbidding him." It is to St. Paul, in all probability, that the Roman Church is indebted for its episcopate. He is the only apostle whose name is connected in the Holy Scriptures with the city; and it is inconsistent with his letter to imagine a previous arrival of any other apostle. At the time of St. Paul's visit, the Roman Church was in a flourishing condition; there were apparently many members and several congregations. Satan, too, envious of the Church's progress, had already begun to sow his tares. Divisions had sprung up among them. There was clearly need, therefore, of a chief minister to correct what was erring, and put in order what was in confusion, as well as to continue the sacred ministry; and yet no one of the persons whom St. Paul saluted in his letter appears to have held that office. If such was the state of the Church at the time of his arrival, it is difficult to believe, if we consider his proceedings in the East, that after he had lived at Rome for two years, he would leave the Church of that city, whether his removal was by death or otherwise, in a still unorganised and unprotected state. If divisions and heresies, if the wants of increasing congregations, required the episcopal office and control at Ephesus and in Crete, they would surely require it at Rome, the imperial city; and if they did, we cannot reasonably doubt that St. Paul would supply the want. The claim of St. Peter to be the founder of the Roman episcopate, rests on much slighter evidence. The Holy Scriptures impliedly oppose it. It is not only difficult to believe that St. Peter had been in Rome previous to the letters of St. Paul to Timothy (A.D. 65 or 66), but the sacred writings say nothing of any of his labours beyond the bounds of Asia Minor, Palestine, and Babylon; and it is probable that he spent his days among the dispersed |