INFORMATION FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT GENERALLY

First, the Roman Church and its origin. At the outset we have to notice the prominent negative fact that it had never been visited by St Paul; much less had it been founded by him. We shall have to return to this fact presently to bring out its influence on St Paul's thoughts in connexion with the purpose of the Epistle: but for the moment it concerns us only as affecting the Romans themselves. Neither here nor anywhere else in the New Testament have we the smallest hint as to the origin of this great Church; and practically we are left to conjecture respecting it. After a while indeed it was said that St Peter was the founder. He was represented as the first bishop of Rome, and was assigned an episcopate of twenty-five or twenty years, reaching back almost to the beginning of the reign of Claudius. Possibly, as has been suggested, this date may be due to a combination of the statement of Justin, repeated by Irenæus, that Simon Magus was worshipped at Rome in the time of Claudius, with the tradition that St Peter encountered Simon Magus at Rome. However this may be, the whole story of St Peter's early connexion with Rome is a manifest error or fiction; and all that we know on good authority respecting the early spread of the Gospel is adverse to the belief that the Roman Church was founded by any apostle or envoy of the apostles; nor is it likely that had such been the case there would have been no trace of it in the Epistle itself.