The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

This striking and unique custom, which no doubt very largely contributed to the feeling of Christian brotherhood, was, of course, based upon the directions so often repeated in the New Testament Epistles.

“Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares,” Heb. xiii. 2. “Distributing to the necessity of saints, given to hospitality,” Rom. xii. 13. “Use hospitality one to another, without grudging,” 1 Pet. iv. 9. “Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren and to strangers,” 3 John 5, etc.

This urgent recommendation to practise hospitality in the New Testament Epistles of Peter and Paul, of John and the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, repeated with insistence and earnestness by writers of the second and third centuries, was, as Justin Martyr tells us in his picture of the Sunday gathering of Christians, incorporated among the special exhortations to the brethren urging them to generous almsgiving.

The duty of “hospitality” thus pressed home at these gatherings as important enough to rank with the claims of the widow and the orphan and the sick poor, needs a few words of explanation.

In the early days of Christianity it must be borne in mind that the widely extended world of Rome was not as in mediæval and modern times, made up of different nations and peoples, but that the Roman world was all one, that men were fellow-subjects of one great Empire, and that the passing to and fro from land to land was far more common than in after times; and that Christians, whether belonging to Asia or to Greece, to Italy or to Gaul, made up one great Brotherhood.

For a Christian coming into a strange city to find there at once a home and a warm welcome, and if poor and needy, help and assistance, would constitute a very powerful inducement to very many to join the new Society in which lived such a spirit of loving brotherhood and kindness.

Special means of intercourse through letters and messages and other means were provided. Cæcilius in Minucius Felix (c. ix.), an early writing, as we have said, belonging to the middle of the second century or even earlier, especially tells us that “Christians recognize each other by means of secret marks and signs, and love one another almost before they are acquainted.”

It was to give effect to this far-reaching spirit of brotherhood that the apostles and their successors insisted so earnestly upon the new and beautiful duty of “hospitality.” It was a practical proof that all Christians were really brothers and sisters—“that goodness among the Christians was not an impotent claim or a pale ideal, but a power which was developed on all sides, and was actually exercised in common everyday life.”

We have dwelt at some length upon what were the principal objects to which the alms of the Brotherhood, asked so earnestly at the various weekly assemblies, were devoted; there were, however, other “causes” pleaded for besides these—no doubt principally in such great centres as Rome, where a proportion of rich and well-to-do persons formed part of the little gatherings; of these, relief and assistance to “prisoners of the faith” occupy a prominent place.

There were many Christians, especially in the more acute periods of persecution, who were arrested and imprisoned by the government, and not a few condemned to the harsh discipline of the mines. Justin Martyr especially names assistance to imprisoned Christians as one of the regular objects to which a portion of the collections at the “meetings” was devoted. It was ever a matter of love, if not of absolute duty, to help and succour these. “If,” wrote Aristides in his Apology quoted above, “the Christians learn that any one of their number is imprisoned or is in distress for the sake of the Name of Christ, they should all render aid to such a one in his necessity.”—Apol. xv.