Then, most probably, he left Rome when the decree of the Emperor Claudius, A.D. 49, was promulgated: the decree which was the result of the disturbances among the turbulent Jewish colony,—disturbances no doubt owing to bitter and relentless opposition to the fast spreading of the Christian faith in their midst. As Suetonius (Claudius, 25) tersely but clearly tells us: “Judæos, impulsore Christo assidue tumultuantes Roma expulit.”
From the year 49, when he left the Queen City, S. Peter apparently was absent from the Church in which for some seven or eight years he had laboured so well and so successfully, continuing his work, however, in other lands. Then in A.D. 63–4 he returned, resumed his Roman work, wrote the First Epistle which bears his name, and eventually suffered martyrdom.
This conclusion, of such deep importance in early ecclesiastical history, has been arrived at—as the student of the foregoing pages will see—from no one statement, from no whole class, so to speak, of evidences, but from the cumulative evidence afforded by the massing together the statements of early writers, the testimony of the catacombs, the witness of tradition, and the voice of what may almost be accurately termed immemorial history.[7]
PART II
I
THE FOUNDATION OF THE CHURCH IN ROME—“B”
The Roman Church in the year of grace 61 was evidently already a powerful and influential congregation: everything points to this conclusion: its traditions, we might even say its history, and, above all, the notices contained in S. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans written not later than A.D. 58.
Virtually alone among the Churches of the first thirty years of Christianity does S. Paul give to this congregation unstinting, unqualified praise—very different to his words addressed to the Church in Corinth in both of his Epistles to that notable Christian centre, or to the Galatian congregation in his letter to the Church of that province; or even to the Thessalonians, the Church which he loved well, where reproach and grave warnings are mingled with and colour his loving words.
But to the Church of Rome, in which in its many early years of struggle and combat he bore no part whatever, his praise is quite unmingled with rebuke or warning. As regards this congregation (Rom. i. 8), Paul thanks God for them all that their faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. In the concluding chapter of the Epistle, some twenty-five specially distinguished members of the Roman congregation are saluted by name, though it by no means follows that S. Paul was personally acquainted with all of those who were named by him.