The Closing Years of St. Paul’s Life in Rome. IV

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." IV. Next came the beautiful temple of Castor and Pollux, built in B. C. 495, to commemorate the victory of Lake Regillus, of which only three Corinthian columns now remain, but they are among the most beautiful of those to be found in Rome. The two fabu- lous youths. Castor and Pollux, known generally as the Dioscuri, were heroes who received divine honors at Sparta, and were wor- shiped in Italy, Greece, and Sicily. They are said to have ren- dered great aid to the Romans in their fight against the Latins at the battle of Lake Regillus, and it is said that the temple was erected to their honor at the place where they had been seen after the battle, close to the "^Edes Vestse" or temple of Vesta. This last named structure is attributed originally to Numa Pompilius, who reigned in Rome from B. C. 715 to B. C. 673. In close proximity to it stood the "Atrium Vestae, " or residence of the six Vestal Virgins, whose duty it was to keep up the sacred fire day and night in the temple, and who were the constiiuted custodians of certain sacred objects, including the renowned "Palla- dium" or image of Pallas, which, it is said, fell from heaven when Ilus was founding Ilium or Troy, and which ^Eneas the Trojan prince carried away with him afterwards to Italy along with the Phrygian "Penates," or household gods. It was for the perpetual

578 IMPROVEMENT ERA. custody of such that Numa at first appointed four Vestals, for it was a belief among the Romans, that so long as the image was safe the city would be safe also, but that if ever the image should be stolen or lost, the city would be inevitably destroyed. The sa- cred fire was kept continually burning from about B.C. 700 till the worship of Vesta was abolished by the Emperor Theodosius the Great, in A. D. 394, or for about the period of eleven hundred years. The original four Vestal priestesses were increased in num- ber by two under the great fundamental political changes that King Tarquin, the first, introduced among the Romans during his reign of thirty-eight years, from B. C. 617 to B. C. 579. To the right would be seen the 'Curia", or senate house, built ' by Tullus Hostilius, who reigned in Rome from B. C. 673 to B. C. 641, for the accommodation of the Roman parliament. The build- ing was called from its founder the 'Curia Hostilia." * Close by was the triumphal arch of Fabius Quintus Maximus, the conqueror of the Allobroges, a powerful people of Gaul, in the year B. C. 121. This was the first arch ever erected in the Roman forum. Next stood the temple of Janus, a deity occupying a very import- ant position in Roman mythology, and usually represented with two faces looking in opposite directions, sometimes with four faces looking to the four quarters of the globe, because he was a god who presided over the four seasons. As he was believed to pre- side over the beginning of everything, he was always involved first in every undertaking, and as he thus opened the year, the first month was named after him —January. This temple was built by Numa Pompilius, before B. C. 673, at the extremity of the street called by the Romans "Argiletus," its doors being always closed in seasons of peace, but open in times of war. Only on three dif- ferent occasions in seven hundred years were the doors closed, as during almost the whole of that period the Romans were involved in war in various parts of the then known world. Adjoining the temple would be seen the renowned Basilica Emilia, named after M. ^milius Lepidus, the consul, who was subsequently Pontifex Maximus. It was originally erected in B.C. 179 by M. Fulvius Nobilioe, who was censor in that year, and was thoroughly repaired and enlarged in B. C. 55, by L. ^Emilius Paul- lus, brother of the above named M. ^milius Lepidus. The latter

ST. PAUUS LIFE IN ROME 579 with Antony and Octavian Augustus formed the second triumvirate, in B.C. 43, and they then agreed to divide the world between them, an arrangement that was to last for five years. In Dr. Smith's classical dictionary it is stated that these three published a list of all their enemies whose lives were to be sacrificed and their prop- erty confiscated, resulting in upwards of two thousand equites or knights, and three hundred senators, being put to death, among whom was the great orator Cicero. From the present excavations of the forum, it is not difficult to conceive of the stateliness of the Basilica Emilia, with its grand marble columns, and its lofty colonnades. Probably the most noticeable of its features were the four rows of these same mag- nificent columns of pavonazzetto (or Phrygian) marble. It is said that in A. D. 386 they were removed to the church of St. Paul's outside the walls, when Valentinian was emperor and Sulpicius was pope. The tomb of Romulus, a comparatively late discovery, is situated close by, as is also the Dailian column. Towards the center of the forum stood the temple tomb of Julius Caesar, built in B. C. 29 by Caesar Augustus, wherein the latter deposited the ashes of that great man. There was also an altar, and a beautiful porphyry column of the deified hero. A rostrum, too, had been erected in front of the temple, called the rostra Julia, and it was from that same tribune that Mark Antony, at the funeral of the murdered dictator, on the 19th or 20th March, B. C. 41, pronounced his celebrated oration which produced so great an excitement among the people that, when he held up the toga of the murdered man covered with blood, the disturbance rose to a tumultuous riot. Other fine edifices and columns, with statues and bas-reliefs of exquisite workmanship, met the gaze of Paul and his companions as they took a rapid survey of the great forum which lay before and a little below them, notably the Regia, or official residence of the Pontifex Maximus, said to have been erected on the site where Numa Pompilius had his palace seven hundred years before the Christian era. stood by the side of the ''Sacra Via," near the It shrine of Vesta and the house of the Vestals, and was the de- pository of the celebrated spears of Mars. There is a legend that before any great calamity happened to the nation, these spears

580 IMPROVEMENT ERA. would oscillate and tremble of themselves, and that previous to the murder of Julius Csesar they were seen to shake, thus indicating the impending catastrophe which immediately followed. Notable also were the Milliarium aureum, erected by Augustus in B. C. 28, and the Umbilicus urbis Romx. In Piali's hand book on Rome I find the following description of these two columns: The former was the golden milestone or bronze column gilt, which stood at the end of the Rostra Nova near to where the column of Phocas now stands. On this milestone was written the distance from every gate of the city to the princi- pal provincial towns in subjection to Rome. The Umbilicus stood at the other end of the Grseco-stasis, or curved part of the Rostra, and denoted the exact center of the city. I cannot imagine a more striking prospect, to one seeing it for the first time, than must have been this renowned Roman forum, with its superb, delicate and perfect styles of Grseco-Roman archi- tecture, its fine statues and exquisite bas-reliefs, and variegated and rare kinds of marbles, which tended so greatly to enhance the beauty and stateliness of its buildings. Through a portion of this forum, St. Paul was conducted, amid temples and shops, round the base of the Palatine hill to the Excubitorium {excubiw means sentinels) or barracks of the house- hold troops attached to the imperial palace, and was there handed over to Afranius Burrus, the prefect of the pretorian guards, whose was to maintain in custody all accused persons who ofiicial duty it were to be tried before the emperor himself. Burrus, from all ac- counts, was an honest and kindly dispositioned man, and it may perhaps have been in some degree due to this fact, and to the good report of the Apostle made to him by the Centurion Julius, that Paul was permitted to enjoy a certain amount of freedom, being merely subjected, as Dr. Farrar tells us, to that kind of custodia militarisy which was known as observatis. Instead of being con- fined in the cells of the barracks, he was "suffered to dwell by himself with a soldier that kept him" (Acts xxviii: 16); but under the harsh Roman system, the favored prisoner, although treated as leniently as possible, had to bear the almost intolerable trial of be- ing always chained to a soldier. We find Paul referring to his bonds in all the epistles which he wrote while a captive in Rome, namely, those to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to

ST. PAUUS LIFE IN ROME. 581 Philemon, and we further find him alluding to them on the day on which he made his first public discourse, after his arrival in Rome; "For the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain" (Acts xxviii: 20). Doubtless these galling links must have been exceedingly irksome to the great Apostle, but may we not conclude that his consistent and upright life cannot but have created the most favor- able impression possible upon those soldiers with whom, from time to time, he was coupled and brought into such close association, and that in this way our Heavenly Father was furthering his great purposes in the dissemination of the truths of the gospel, even into the very household of Caesar himself. In writing to the Phil- ippians Paul would seem to have taken this same view of his trials, for he wrote: "But I would ye should understand, brethren, that the things which happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel; so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace, and in all other places, " (Philippians i: 12, 13); and in concluding this epistle he added: "All the saints ' salute you, chiefly they that are of Caesar's household. ' (Philip- pians iv: 22). It was but very shortly after Paul had reached Rome that he sent for the principal men of the Roman Jews in order to explain matters to them, and to unfold some of those glorious truths for which he was in bonds, for we read, in Acts xxviii: 17, that he called them together only three days after his arrival in the city, and having then apparently raised their desire to hear him dis- course upon Christian doctrines, a day was appointed (verse 23) for the purpose, upon which "there came many to him into his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets from morning till evening;" and thus Paul lost no time in commencing the great work for which the Lord had sent him to Rome. This closes the history of the Apos- tle as recorded in the scriptures, with the exception of an intima- tion to the effect that he was in Rome for two whole years, resid- ing in his own hired house, gladly receiving all who cared to go to him, and always busily employed in preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ. (Acts xxviii: 30, 31).

582 IMPROVEMENT ERA. The dilitoriness on the part of Caesar in disposing of Paul's ap- peal, and thus subjecting him to an irksome durance for two whole years, may not have been altogether the emperor's fault. Doubt- less the Roman emperors were never much in the habit of consider- ing any one but themselves, certainly not their prisoners, and least of all the despised Christian ones, who had therefore not un- frequently to wait the imperial pleasure for months and perhaps years together; but in this special case of the Apostle, the charges which had been brought against him of causing factious disturbances, of being a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes, and of attempting to profane the temple at Jerusalem, (an offense punishable under the Roman law, inasmuch as that law protected the Jews in the exercise of their worship), necessitated the sum- moning of witnesses from Judea, and those remote places in Asia where Paul had journeyed and preached the gospel. Means of communication and locomotion were slow and uncertain in those days, and it probably took months for the processes of the courts of justice to reach their distant destinations, followed by months of trsvel for the witnesses to reach Rome. Under these circum- stances it was fortunate for Paul that he was not confined in some gruesome prison cell during his two years Roman residence, and the special leniency with which he was treated, in not only being per- mitted to live in his own hired house, but also to receive all who came to see him and to preach the gospel, was probably due, among other causes to which reference has already been made, to the fact that he was a Roman citizen, although a Jew, the law not permitting of a Roman being incarcerated without having been first tried and condemned. Paul, it will be remembered, had on more than one occasion strongly asserted his citizen rights. In Acts xvi: 37, 38, we read that when at Philippi, in Macedonia, Paul and Silas were beaten and imprisoned, and when the magis- trates sent word next day to let them go, Paul said 'They have : ' beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? Nay verily, but let them come themselves and fetch us out." Again we find in the twenty-second chapter of the Acts a de- scription of Paul's speech which Claudias Lysias, the chief captain, after rescuing him, had permitted him to address the people at

ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 583 Jerusalem. That speech having resulted in a great disturbance, Lysias commanded him to be brought into the castle, and directed that he should be examined by scourging. Paul naturally re- sented so unjust an act on the part of the chief captain, so while being bound he said to the Centurion, "Is it lawful for you to scourge a man that is a Roman, and uncondemned?" Then again, it was in the exercise of the rights which he de- cidedly possessed as a Roman citizen that he made his appeal from the court of Festus to that of Caesar, for such a right could not be claimed by any subject of Rome other than one who pos- sessed full citizenship. To this fact therefore may be attributed in a very great measure the general treatment meted out to the Apostle Paul while in Rome, a treatment which permitted him as much freedom as was consistent with the harsh laws then in force regarding accused persons, and which accorded him the privilege of residing in his own hired house, instead of being de. tained as a prisoner in some dark cell or other dismal place of cus- tody. The exact location of the house occupied by the Apostle is a somewhat debated point. Dr. Farrar believes that Paul would not have been permitted to seek a lodging in the Jewish quarter near the river Tiber, since it would have been a long way from the guard that supplied the soldier to whom Paul was continually linked, and he therefore infers that the Apostle's hired apartment must have been within close range of the Praetorian camp, which was on the opposite side of the city to the ghetto. This view is altogether opposed to Jewish tradition in Rome, which has handed down a house in the Jewish quarter as the hired house of Paul. This tradition is greatly supported by the assertion of the Romish church to the effect that the great Apostle of the Gentiles had a school on the site of the present church of St. Paolo alia Regola, which is situated near to the house claimed by Jewish tradition to be the one which Paul occupied. This house stands in via degli Strengari, close to the corner of that street and of via di S. Bartolomeo dei Vaccinari, not far from the Tiber and in the ghetto. The ancient name of the street in which the house stands was Vicus ^scletus. Both the Reverend Dr. Philip, the author of The Ghetto in

584 IMPROVEMENT ERA. Rome, who seems to have made a careful investigation into the subject, and also a learned lecturer whom I had the opportunity of hearing on the question when at Rome, greatly prefer the Jewish tradition; and it seems to me that they have good reasons for so doing; because, since Paul was indulged to the extent of being per- mitted to reside in his own hired house, and to receive his friends and all who chose to visit him, he would have been far more likely to have selected a residence in a quarter frequented by his own countrymen than one in proximity to the military barracks, where it would have probably been extremely difl&cult for his Chris- tian friends and Jewish acquaintances to pay him frequent visits, or to see very much of him at any time. The house is still standing, and, although upper additions were made to it in mediaeval times; the old inner walls are still to be seen, as well as the old entrance whicKhas one of its ancient columns remaining up to the present time. Rome, at the time of Paul's arrival in A. D. 61, was ruled by an emperor who has left behind him a record of perhaps the gross- est licentiousness, tyranny, cruelty, and brutality to be found in any portion of the civilized world. His original name was Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, but after his mother, Agrippina, had mar- ried the Emperor Claudius, and as soon as his step-father had form- ally adopted him as his successor, he changed his name to Nero Claudius Csesar Drusus Germanicus. Nero is a Sabine word mean- ing brave. He inaugurated his reign by murdering Britannicus, the son of the late Emperor Claudius (A. D. 55), and four years after- wards he put his own mother to death. In A. D. 62, he divorced and executed his wife Octavia, so that he might marry his mistress Poppasa Sabina, the wife of Otho, who was one of his own boon companions. It is understood that it was at Poppsea's instigation that all these atrocious crimes were committed. She is reported to have been a woman of great personal beauty, but not of the strictest morals. Josephus, the Jewish historian, tells us that she was half a proselyte to Judaism, and a patroness of the Jews; and this would therefore account for the fact that, when Josephus himself came to Rome in the second year of Paul's stay in that city, to try and obtain the liberation of certain Jewish priests Felix had sent to Rome as prisoners, he found a powerful friend

ST. PAUL'S LIFE IN ROME. 585 at court, and returned to Judea laden with gifts presented to him by Poppaea. It is supposed that Paul, being a Jew, shared some of the favors which were at that time being extended to the Jews at Rome, for, as we have already seen, he was being treated with comparative leniency, and had been granted a considerable degree of freedom of speech, and of intercourse with those of his own nation and faith without let or hindrance. [to be continued.] Paris, France.