The Closing Years of St. Paul's Life in Rome I

IMPROVEMENT ERA. Vol. X. MARCH. 1907. No. 5 THE

CLOSING YEARS OF ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. BY COL. R. M. BRYCE THOMAS, AUTHOR OF "mY REASONS FOR LEAV- ING THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. " Not the least, perhaps, of the many interesting facts with which Rome is associated, is that of St. Paul's imprisonment and martyrdom in the "Eternal City." The history of the life and work of the great apostle of the Gentiles up to his first visit to Rome, in A. D. 61, can be gathered from the New Testament scriptures, but his subsequent movements are more or less shrouded in mystery, and scripture history regarding him practically closes with the two concluding verses of the final chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: And Paul dwelt two whole years in his own hired house, and received all that came in unto him, preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him. The various accounts of this apostle given by writers of the earlier centuries tend to show that in general appearance he was decidedly short and slightly bent, facts to which he perhaps al- ludes in II Corinthians, x: 10. He was also bald, or partly so, and possessed an acquiline nose, sharp, piercing eyes, somewhat pale

322 IMPROVEMENT ERA. features, and a fairly longf and slightly curly, gray beard. Not- withstanding, however, that he was insignificant in general aspect, it is said that there was a certain dignity in his bearing, combined with a genial and pleasing expression in his countenance, which went far to remove any unfavorable first impressions that his ap- pearance might have created. A gilt vase upon which the head of the apostle is represented was found in one of the catacombs in Rome, and is now preserved in the Vatican library. The heads of Saints Paul and Peter, as herein illustrated, belong to a bronze medallion of the fourth century, some say of a still earlier date, discovered by Boldetti in the ceme- tery of Saint Domitilla in the catacombs of Saint Calixtus. This is probably the most important of the earliest portraits of the two great apostles. The illustration was copied from one given by Mr. S. Russell-Forbes in his book. The Footsteps of St. Paul in Rome. The life of St. Paul has been given to the world by various able authors, whose writings, although of the utmost interest, are as a rule somewhat voluminous. To many persons the most reli- able sources of information on the subject, both ancient and modern, are not accessible, such for instance as the works of Mac- Duff, Farrar, Barnes, Conybeare and Howson, S. Russell-Forbes, and Miss Hudson, the gifted authoress of a history of the Jews in Rome; while there are doubtless very many who are unable to find the necessary leisure to devote to the study of so interesting a life, and it is therefore with the object of being of assistance to those readers of the Era who may happen to fall into the cate- gory of one or both of these two classes that I have been led to pen this sketch of St. Paul in Rome. I have culled my informa- tion both from such writings as I have above made allusion to, and also from the opportunities that a couple of visits to Rome have afforded me of seeing some of the places with which the great apostle must himself have been very familiar, of traversing por- tions of the very roads along which he was marched as a chained prisoner, both into the city to take his stand before the imperial tribunal of Caesar, and out of the city some years afterwards to suffer martyrdom, and of visiting not only the house in which he is said to have resided, but also the place where his body was buried not far from the spot where, according to tradition, he was

ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 323 executed. While doubtless some of the subjects relating to these facts must be more or less of a traditional character, I venture to hope that they may be as interesting to the readers of this article as they certainly are to the writer of it. We learn from the scriptures that the apostle's visit to Rome, preordained by divine providence, came about in the following man- ner: When Paul had lingered in chains for two years in his dreary confinement at Caesarea,he was left bound there by Felix with the object, as we learn from the concluding verse of chapter 24 of the Acts of the Apostles, of showing the Jews a pleasure. Porcius Festus succeeded Felix in the Roman procuratorship, and ten days after assuming the reins of government, proceeded from Jerusa- lem to Csesarea to sit in judgment upon Paul, and perhaps upon other prisoners who were awaiting trial there. When Paul stood before the judgment seat, Festus suggested to him that he should return to Jerusalem and appear again before his court there, for there seemed to be no evidence to justify Paul's condemnation in Caesarea on any of the charges which had been brought against him. Paul, however, realizing that any such fresh inquiry in Jerusalem would be nothing short of a farce and a mockery, and that it would be absurd to expect a just hearing before a judge who was evidently bent upon playing into the hands of the very men who were not only the apostle's accusers, but were even then thirsting for his blood, decidedly declined, and at once exercised his undoubted right as a Roman citizen to apoeal to the Roman emperor for that justice which he saw was being denied to him in Judea. As soon as he had uttered the words, CcBsarem appello (I appeal unto Caesar), the prosecution and trial before Festus came necessarily to a conclusion, inasmuch as, under Roman law, the latter had no longer any jurisdiction in the case. Its final decision lay thenceforth in a higher tribunal than the one over which the Roman governor was at the time presiding, so that all that remained for Festus to do was to reply, as we learn he did do: CcBsarem appelasti,ad Ccesarem ibis (Hast thou appealed to Caesar? to Caesar shalt thou go.) (Acts xxv: 11, 12). This took place in the month of June, A. D. 60. Two months later Paul and other similar appellants to Caesar's tribunal, each linked, as was the Roman custom, with a long,

824 IMPROVEMENT ERA. light chain by the right wrist to the left wrist of a soldier, a gall- ing experience which the apostle had had presumably to undergo for two whole years at Caesarea, embarked in charge of a Roman centurion named Julius, in a small coasting vessel of Adramyttium, a port of Mysia, on their long sea journey to Rome, Luke and Aris- tarchus accompanying Paul as his friends. The voyage after leaving Sidon, which place they reached on the day following their embarkation at Caesarea, was, as we find recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, very unpropitious, storms and counter winds succeeding one another to such an extent as to greatly retard the ship's progress. Arriving at length at Myra, the then capital of Lycia, Julius the centurion found an Alexan- drian corn ship sailing to Italy in which he secured accommodation for his prisoners and their escort. Baffling gales and heavy seas continued apparently to accompany the party, until at length the series of dangers through which they had to -pass culminated in the total wreck of their ship on a cold and dismal morning in the month of November, A. D. 60, on the wild coast of the island of Melita (Malta). Fortunately, not one of the two hundred and seventy-six souls on board was lost. In that island they were compelled to remain for the space of three months, during which time Paul healed the father of Publius, the chief man of the place, and cured also many others who were diseased and afiiicted in various ways. Here it was that he shook off into the fire the venomous viper that had fastened onto his hand as he was gathering sticks, and yet received no harm there- from. (Acts xxviii: 5). At the end of three months, Julius discovered another Alex- andrian cornship ready to sail to Italy, which presumably had win- tered in the harbor of Malta, and the name of which, as we learn from Acts xxviii: 11, was Castor and Pollux. On that vessel Julius and his party embarked in February, A. D. 61, and sailed away once more on their journey to Rome. Arriving at Syracuse, in the island of Sicily, they were again detained by the inclemency of the weather for three days, after which, having crossed over to Pheguim, in Italy, they fell in with a favorable south wind, and were carried on next day to Puteoli, (the modern Pozzuoli), near Naples, in the beautiful bay and fine harbor of which their sea

57'. PAUUS LIFE IN ROME. 325 passage came to an end. The quay on which St. Paul disembarked is still to be seen. Dr. MacDuff, in the year 1871, writes of hav- ing felt it a privilege to stand on the only remaining step, covered with bright sea weed and furrowed with age, on which St. Paul set foot in Puteoli. . Vesuvius at that time must have been a quiescent volcano, and the now ruined cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii must have been standing in all their magnificence, glistening in the sunlight, and reflecting themselves in the deep blue waters of the Mediter- ranean sea, a sight that could not but have attracted the atten- tion and admiration of Paul and his companions. It was not till two years after this that a great part of Herculaneum was ruined by an earthquake, its final destruction, along with that of Pompeii and Stabise, by the great eruption of Mount Vesuvius, oc- curring in A. D. 79. Puteoli, even in A. D. 61, was a very an- cient seaport, having been founded by the Greeks of Cumae in B. C. 521, under the name of Dicacarchia. Here Paul gladly found himself once more in the congenial at- mosphere of a small community of Christian brethren and sisters, who invited him tu tarry with them seven days, a delay that was permitted by the kind'y hearted centurion Julius, thus affording Paul and his two friends a brief but pleasant rest in perhaps one of the most beautiful spots on earth, a fter their late perilous and trying experiences. At the end of that time Julius started off with his prisoners to the capital of the empire, a distance of about one hundred and seventy miles, proceeding along the Via Consul- aris—or consular way, and so on through the Arco Felice, and by the shores of lake Avernus (the waters of which filled the crater of an extinct volcano, and were known for the mephitic vapors which are said to have arisen from them and killed any birds that attempted to fly over them), and at last arrived at Ca- pui,one hundred and fifty miles from Rome, where they struck the renowned Appian Way. News is said to travel fast, and that it did not belie its char- acter in the present instance is evident from the fact that the ap- proach of Paul and his party was known in Rome in time to permit of a number of the Christian residents of that city going a con- siderable distance along the road to meet him, so that by the time

326 IMPROVEMENT ERA. the weary prisoners and iheir escort had reached Appii Forum, a distance of about forty-three miles from Rome, the hearts of Paul and his two friends were gladdened by the sight of Christian brethren who had come out there to give them a welcome. Several miles further on (ten to fifteen miles according to some authorities, but thirty miles according to Mr. Russell- Forbes), at a place known as Tres Tiburnce, or the three taverns, situated not far from the modern city of Cisterna, they found themselves greeted once again by another body of brethren, sup- posed by some writers to have been the older and less able bodied people who were not equal to the longer journey to Appii Forum. Thus cheered by the presence and sympathy of these Christian friends, Paul, the chained prisoner, and his two faithful companions, proceeded toward Rome, and entered the imperial city, then in the zenith of its magnificence and power, under tha thraldom of that bloodthirsty and cruel tyrant the Emperor Nero, in the month of March, A. D. 61. The Appian Way was at that time the principal road leading into Rome, and bad received from the poet Statius the appellation of Regina viarum, or the Queen of ways. It was a paved mili- tary road commenced by the blind Roman senator Appius Claudius Csecus, in B. C. 312, and led out of the city by the ancient Porta Capena (one of the gates in the old Servian wall), and ran through the towns of Aricia, Tarracina, Fundi, and Formise, across rivers and swamps, rocks and hills, till it reached Capua, whence it was subsequently carried across the peninsula by Beneventum to the ancient seaport of Brundisium on the Adriatic, now called Brindisi, and well known to English people as the port from which the week- ly overland mail and passenger service via the continent of Europe leaves for British India, Australia, and China by the magnificent vessels Of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company. Portions of the old Roman road which Paul and his companions trod are still to be seen, clearly showing the wear and tear of cart wheels which passed over the great polygonal blocks of lava stone with which the road is paved, over two thousand years ago. After leaving Puteoli many scenes of interest must have pre- sented themselves to Paul and those with him on their journey towards Rome. Mr. Russel-Forbes writes that two days after

SI. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 327 leaving Capua they would arrive at Terracina, seventy-five miles from Rome, and next morning continuing their way, in two and a half miles they would cross the stream which flows from the foun- tain of Feronia. "And where Feronia's grove and temple stand."—Virgil JEh. viii: 800. Feronia was an ancient Italian divinity, whose principal shrine was situated at Terracina near Mount Soracte. The grove was on the edge of the Pontine marshes, and Mr. Forbes tells us that no road through them existed in St. Pauls' day, it having been subsequently made by Trajan in his third consulship. Trajan, the best of all the Roman emperors, was born at Italica, near Se- ville, in Spain, on the 18th September, A. D. 52, and was the first foreigner that ever reigned in Rome. He succeeded Nerva in A. D. 98, or thirty-seven years after Paul's visit to the imperial city. In A. D. 91, he was consul, but was afterwards adopted as his suc- cessor by the Emperor Nerva. A canal which is still to be seen ran through the marshes, and passengers and merchandise had to be towed in barges from the grove of Feronia through the canal up to Appii Forum. It was in this manner, therefore, that the party to which Paul belonged had to travel for a distance of some twenty odd miles. Appii Forum was founded by Appius Claudius Csecus, the con- structor of the Appian Way. Horace, the Roman poet, calls the town busy and noisy, and full of sailors and surly landlords. It was a place of some considerable importance, as the canal brought up a great deal of merchandise for the imperial city, all of which had to pass through it, consequently the sailors (or bargemen) and landlords spoken of by Horace were always much in evidence. All that is left of this once flourishing town is composed of a few fragments of ruins and an ancient milestone. That Paul must have been acquainted with some of the Roman Christians before his arrival at Rome, or at least have known them well by reputation, is scarcely to be doubted, for in concluding his epistle to the Romans written from Corinth, in A. D. 58, he salutes many of them by name. He certainly knew Aquila and his wife Priscilla for they were formerly together at Corinth (Acts xviii: 2), and he also took them with him when he sailed into Syria (verse 18). It is highly probable, therefore, that the little band of the

328 IMPROVEMENT ERA. brethren who greeted Paul both at Appii Forum and at Tres Tibur- nse, contained some whom he had seen and known previously, and their affectionate welcomes must have been most gratifying to the chained prisoner in his then distressing eircumstances. Thus mutually comforted, they journeyed on to the great cap- ital of the then dominant Roman empire. The Appian Way for some miles out of the city was a street of stately tombs, and mon- uments of illustrious dead, some of which were ancient even in the days of St. Paul. In Rome, as elsewhere in days gone by, burial places were always situated outside the walls. It was so in Pompeii where ran the famous "Street of Tombs," and it was also so in Greece and in Palestine, and we can all readily recall to mind the instance described in the seventh chapter of St. Luke's Gospel, in which Jesus and his disciples, while passing through J udea, ar- rived at the gate of the city of Nain, and saw the people carrying out the corp5J9 of a young man to be buried, the only son of a disconsolate mother, who, bathed in tears, was amongst the mourn- ers. Oiir Lord, it will be remembered, was so moved with com- passion at the sight that he told her not to weep, and, advancing io the bier, he raised the dead youth to life again. Tombs formed a special feature in ancient communities. They •were not crowded into church yards or into cemeteries as in these later days, but were always placed when possible in the most con- spicuous localities by the sides of public roads. Roman tombs were characterized by their impressive magnificence, so that the long line of sculptured grandeur of these stately marble sepulchres must by their very solemnity have made a deep impression upon Paul and his companions, and left a feeling of admiration for the beautiful designs both of these nionuments for the dead, and also for the many splendid temples, and fine country seats of the wealthy Roman patricians which they met with day by day on their way Romewards. I think, with Dr. Fairar, that it is not unnatural to suppose that some of the brethren who had gone to meet Paul, may have been fully conversant with the names, and perhaps the histories, of these structures, and may thus have helped to lighten the tedium of the journey by pointing out to him those of them which claimed the most attention, either by thoir appearance, or by their special historical characteristics. Several of these old

ST. PAULS LIFE IN ROME. 329 tombs still exist, although in a condition more or less ruinous, but to us they possess considerable attraction, if only on the ground that they are the very same upon which the great Apostle and his friends cast their eyes with curiosity and interest on their sad journey to Rome. On leaving the Appii Forum, the party to which Paul v^^as at- tached would pass beneath the walls of Lanuvium, founded by iEneas, the birthplace of P. Sulpicius Quirinus who is mentioned by St. Luke (chap, ii: 2) as Cyrenius, the Governor of Syria, at the time when the Emperor Augu-tus made a decree that all the world should be taxed. The slope of the Alban hills would then be as- cended, and from the vale of Aricia the Apostle would get his first glimpse of Rome, far away in the Campagna beyond, its buildings glistening in the summer sun. Descending the fine causeway of the Via Appia, the massive ruins of which still excite our admira- tion, and passing by the tgmb of Aruns the son of Lars' Porsena of Clusium (immortalized in Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome), and by the Villa of Pompey, which afterward belonged to the Em- peror Domitian,and is now called the town of Albano, the company would enter what must be described as a street of tombs.* Dr. Farrar in his Life and Work of St. Paul writes in respect to this journey on the Appian way as follows: "Perhaps as they left the Alban hills on the right, thi brethren would tell the Apostle the grim annals of the little temple which had been built beside —the still, glassy lake which sleeps Beneath Aricia's trees — Those trees in whose dim shadow The ghastly priest doth reign, The priest who slew the slayer And shall himself be slain." The allusion here is to the grove and temple of Diana Aracina on the borders of Lake Nemorensis in the neighborhood of Aricia, a town of Latium at the foot of Mount Alba on the Appian Way about sixteen miles from Rome. Dr. Smith in his classical diction- ary tells us that it was here that Diana was worshiped with bar- barous customs, her priest, called rex nemorensis, being always *The Footsteps of St. Paul in Rome, by S. Russel-Forbes.

330 IMPROVEMENT ERA. a runaway slave who obtained his office by killing his predecessor in single combat. The tomb of Cn. Pompeius Magnus, commonly known as Pompey, would scarcely be passed by in silence, for he had been one of Rome's greatest military leaders, and was greeted by the notorious Sulla with the surname of Magnus or "the Great," after his victories in Africa. In B. C. 70, he was consul, and ten years later, after conquering Mithridates, King of Pontus, and his son Tigranes, King of Armenia, and also alter taking Jerusalem, he made a triumphal entry into Rome on September 30, B. C. 60. It was he who with Caesar and Crassus formed the first triumvirate. He was put to death in Egypt on September 29, B. C. 48, by the ministers of King Ptolemy through their fear of the vengeance of Crassus, with whom Pompey had quarrelled. The story of how Csesar shed tears when Pompey's head was shown to him is a mat- ter of history. / At about twelve miles from Rome, the tomb of another well known Roman was passed, namely that of Publius Clodius Pulcher, the enemy of Cicero, the orator, and the most profligate of men. In the year B. C. 62, he profaned the mysteries of the Bona Dea which were then being celebrated in the house of the consul Csesar. Bona Dea was a Roman deity who revealed her oracles only to women, and her festival was held each year on the first day of May in the house of the then consul or praetor. Clodius obtained access to the ceremony in Caesar's house disguised as a woman, and on being discovered was brought to trial, but evidently did not find it difficult to obtain an acquittal by bribing his judges. He was killed on January 20, B. C. 57, on the Appian Way near Bo- villae, an ancient city of Latium, in an affray between his followers and those of Milo, who was then a candidate for the consulship. The ruins of Bovillae are now to be seen near the inn of the Fra- tochise close to Albano. A little further on, Paul and his companions reached Tres Tiburnae, translated in the Scriptures as the "three taverns," but said by Mr. Russel-Forbes to be "three shops." Probably wine was to be obtained at these shops, so that practically they were taverns. Here it was that Paul's heart was gladdened at finding another little band of brethren who had come out to offer him a

ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 331 welcome. ' 'And from thence, when the brethren heard of us, they came to meet us as for as Appii Forum and the three trav- ems; whom when Paul saw, he thanked God, and took courage, " (Acts xxviii: 15.) Doubtless there was a halt here for refreshments,and perhaps for a night's rest for the weary travelers, followed by an early start next morning, so as to avoid as far as possible the heat of the midday sun. From this onward to Rome the party would pass the principal monuments of the road, for it is said that a burial on the Apppian way was to an illustrious Roman as great an honor as an interment in Westminster Abbey would be to an illustrious Briton. Here and there they would pass by some stately temple, or some great patrician's country seat, and would, of course, be in the midst of endless streams of traffic to and from the imperial city. The temple of Hercules would doubtless attract attention. It was one of those founded during the Republic many years before Paul's visit to Rome. The Emperor Domitian restored it after- wards, and had the face of the god made to represent his own. Martial, the epigrammatic poet, mentions this fact. A little further on, on the descent of the hill to the right, would be passed the villa of Persius Flaccus, the young Roman poet. It was only in the following year (A. D. 62) that he died before he had completed his twenty-eight year. Between the sixth and seventh milestones from Rome was seen the ground where the noted battle took place between the Horatii and the Curatii, three Roman brothers against three Alban brothers, and they fought till only one of the Horatii was left alive. It was in consequence of this defeat of the Curatii that Alba became subject to Rome. The Romans gave a magnificent burial to the two dead Horatii on the spot, and erected over their remains a stately tomb of which there do not appear to be any tri^ces now left. At the sixth milestone would be met the round tomb of M. Valerius Messala Corvinus, one of Rome's chief generals, and the friend of the Emperor Augustus, a patron of learning, and himself a poet, historian, and orator. He was also the friend of the poets Horace and Tibullus, the latter of whom not unfrequently refers to Messala in his elegies. He died between B. C. 3 and A. D. 3. The monument was erected to him by Marcus Aurelius Messalinus