ROME. Founded traditionally in 753 bc on its seven hills (the bluffs formed where the Latin plain falls away into the Tiber bed at the first easy crossing up from the mouth), Rome, as the excavations have shown, was in origin a meeting-place and a melting-pot, rather than the home of a pre-existing people. The process of accretion, stimulated at an early stage by the strategic requirements of the Etruscan states to the N and S, acquired its own momentum, and by a liberal policy of enfranchisement unique in antiquity Rome attracted to herself men and ideas from all over the Mediterranean, until nearly 1,000 years from her beginning she had incorporated every other civilized community from Britain to Arabia. Rome was cosmopolitan and all the world was Roman. Yet this very comprehensiveness destroyed the uniqueness of the city, and the strategic centrality that had dictated her growth was lost with the opening up of the Danube and the Rhine, leaving Rome in the Middle Ages little more than a provincial city of Italy.

In NT times Rome was in the full flush of her growth. Multi-storey tenement blocks housed a proletariat of over a million, drawn from every quarter. The aristocracy, becoming just as international through the domestic favours of the Caesars, lavished the profits of three continents on suburban villas and country estates. The Caesars themselves had furnished the heart of the city with an array of public buildings perhaps never equalled in any capital. The same concentration of wealth provided the overcrowded masses with generous economic subsidies and entertainment. It also attracted literary and artistic talent from foreign parts. As the seat of the senate and of the Caesarian administration Rome maintained diplomatic contact with every other state in the Mediterranean, and the traffic in foodstuffs and luxury goods fortified the links.

I. Rome in New Testament thought

The Acts of the Apostles has often been supposed to be an apostolic odyssey set between Jerusalem and Rome as the symbols of Jew and Gentile. The opposite pole to Jerusalem is, however, given as the ‘end of the earth’ (Acts 1:8), and, while the narrative certainly concludes at Rome, no great emphasis is laid on that. Attention is concentrated on the legal struggle between Paul and his Jewish opponents, and the journey to Rome serves as the resolution of this, culminating in Paul’s denunciation of the Jews there and the unhindered preaching to the Gentiles. The theme of the book seems to be the release of the gospel from its Jewish matrix, and Rome provides a clear-cut terminal point in this process.

In Revelation, however, Rome acquires a positively sinister significance. ‘The great city, which has dominion over the kings of the earth’ (Rev. 17:18), seated upon seven mountains (v. 9), and upon ‘the waters’ which are ‘peoples and multitudes and nations and tongues’ (v. 15), is unmistakably the imperial capital. The seer, writing in Asia Minor, the greatest centre of luxury trade in antiquity, discloses the feelings of those who suffered through the consortium with Rome. He scorns the famous compromise with ‘the kings of the earth’ who ‘were wanton with her’ (Rev. 18:9), and catalogues the sumptuous traffic (vv. 12–13) of the ‘merchants of the earth’ who have ‘grown rich with the wealth of her wantonness’ (v. 3). He stigmatizes the artistic brilliance of the city (v. 22). How widespread such hatred was we do not know. In this case the reason is plain. Rome has already drunk the ‘blood of the martyrs of Jesus’ (Rev. 17:6).

II. The origin of Christianity at Rome

So far as the NT goes, it is not clear how the circle of Christians was established in Rome, nor even whether they constituted a church in the regular way. There is no unequivocal reference to any meeting or activity of the church as such, let alone to bishops or sacraments. The church of Rome simply fails to appear in our documents. Let it be said at once that this need not mean that it was not yet formed. It may merely be the case that it was not intimately connected with Paul, with whom most of our information is concerned.

Paul’s first known link with Rome was when he met *Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth (Acts 18:2). They had left the city as a result of Claudius’ expulsion of the Jews. Since it is not stated that they were already Christians, the question must be left open. Suetonius says (Claudius, 25) that the trouble in Rome was caused by a certain Chrestus. Since this could be a variant of Christus, it has often been argued that Christianity had already reached Rome. Suetonius, however, knew about Christianity, and, even if he did make a mistake, agitation over Christus could be caused by any Jewish Messianic movement, and not necessarily by Christianity alone. There is no hint in the Epistle to the Romans that there had been any conflict between Jews and Christians at Rome, and when Paul himself reached Rome the Jewish leaders professed personal ignorance of the sect (Acts 28:22). This not only makes it unlikely that there had been a clash, but sharpens the question of the nature of the Christian organization at Rome, since we know that by this stage there was a considerable community there.

Some few years after meeting Aquila and Priscilla, Paul decided that he ‘must also see Rome’ (Acts 19:21). When he wrote the Epistle shortly afterwards his plan was to visit his friends in the city on the way to Spain (Rom. 15:24). A considerable circle of these is named (ch. 16), they had been there ‘many years’ (Rom. 15:23), and were well known in Christian circles abroad (Rom. 1:8). Paul’s reference to his not building ‘on another man’s foundation’ (Rom. 15:20) does not necessarily refer to the situation in Rome; it need only mean that this was the reason why his work abroad had been so lengthy (Rom. 15:22–23); indeed, the authority he assumes in the Epistle leaves little room for an alternative leader. The most natural assumption, on the internal evidence, is that Paul is writing to a group of persons who have collected in Rome over the years after having had some contact with him in the various churches of his foundation. A number of them are described as his ‘kinsmen’, others have worked with him in the past. He introduces a new arrival to them (Rom. 16:1). Although some bear Roman names, we must assume that they are recently enfranchised foreigners, or at least that the majority of them are not Romans, since Paul’s references to the government allude to its capital and taxation powers over non-Romans in particular (Rom. 13:4, 7). Although some are Jews, the group seems to have a life of its own apart from the Jewish community (ch. 12). The reference in at least five cases to household units (Rom. 16:5, 10–11, 14–15) suggests that this may have been the basis of their association.

When Paul finally reached Rome several years later, he had been met on the way by ‘the brethren’ (Acts 28:15). They do not appear again, however, either in connection with Paul’s dealings with the Jewish authorities or, so far as the brief notice goes, during his 2 years’ imprisonment. The seven letters that are supposed to belong to this period do sometimes contain greetings from ‘the brethren’, though they are mainly concerned with personal messages. The reference to rival preachers (Phil. 1:15) is the nearest we come to any positive NT evidence for a non-Pauline contribution to Roman Christianity. On the other hand, the assumption of a church organized independently of Paul might explain the amorphous character of Roman Christianity in his writings.