REVIEW
This review lesson is fully as important as any other lesson of the first three quarters. Without reviewing, the study of history is unproductive; only a review can make of the facts a permanent possession. The story of the apostolic age, as it is narrated in the work of Luke, is really very simple; it becomes confusing only when it is imperfectly mastered. A little time spent in turning over the pages of the Lucan narrative, or even of the Student's Text Book, will accomplish wonders.
1. UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
The New Testament account of the apostolic age is indeed only fragmentary. Many questions must be left unanswered. Of the original twelve apostles only Peter and the sons of Zebedee and Judas Iscariot receive in The Acts anything more than a bare mention; and even the most prominent of these disappears after the fifteenth chapter. What did Paul do in Arabia and in Tarsus? What was the origin of the great church at Alexandria? Who founded the church at Rome? These questions, and many like them, must forever remain unanswered.
If, moreover, even the period covered by The Acts is obscure, far deeper is the darkness after the guiding hand of Luke has been withdrawn. For the death of the apostle Paul, there is only a meager tradition; the latter years of Peter are even more obscure. For the important period between the release of Paul after his first Roman imprisonment and the death of the apostle John at about the end of the first century, anything like a connected narrative is quite impossible.
2. THE NERONIAN PERSECUTION
A few facts, however, may still be established. The Roman historian Tacitus tells of a persecution of the Christians at Rome at the time of the burning of the city in A. D. 64. The emperor Nero, suspected of starting the fire, sought to remove suspicion from himself by accusing the Christians. The latter had already become unpopular because of their peculiar ways, and were thought to be guilty of abominable crimes; but the cruelty of Nero almost exceeded the wishes of the populace. The Christians were put to death under horrible tortures. Many were burned, and their burning bodies served as torches to illumine the emperor's gardens.
The beheading of Paul has often been brought into connection with this persecution, but more probably it occurred a few years later. Paul had been released from his first imprisonment, and his second imprisonment, at the time of the Neronian outbreak, had not yet begun.
The extent of the Neronian persecution cannot be determined with certainty. Probably, however, although there was no systematic persecution throughout the empire, the provinces would not be altogether unaffected by what was happening at Rome. The causes of popular and official disfavor were always present; it required only a slight occasion to bring them actively into play.