THE CHURCH IN ROME
IN THE FIRST CENTURY

iii

MCMXCIX

iv

THE BAMPTON LECTURES

FOR 1913

LECTURE
VI

Rev.
12:11:
‘They loved not their life unto death.’

The
deaths by martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome towards the
close of Nero’s reign are among the facts of first-century Christian
history which may in these days be regarded as practically outside
controversy. The evidence of the letter of the Church of Rome to the
Church of Corinth written by Clement,[1]

a
first-century document of the most authentic character, even if it stood
alone, could not seriously be challenged. ‘Let us take the noble examples
of our own days. Through jealousy and envy the greatest and most righteous
pillars [of the Church] were persecuted and contended unto death. Let us
take before our eyes the good Apostles. Peter, who through unjust jealousy
endured not one, or two, but many toils, and having thus borne witness
went to the place of glory that was his due. Through jealousy and strife
Paul showed [how to obtain] the prize of endurance. . . . To
these men of holy life was gathered together a great multitude of the
elect, who having through jealousy suffered many insults and tortures
became very splendid examples amongst us.’ The instances mentioned here,
Peter, Paul, and the great multitude, cannot be separated. If language
means anything, it means here that these several examples of brave and
patient witness unto death took place ‘amongst us,’ i.e. recently
and at Rome.

That
the Church of Corinth to whom it was addressed thus interpreted the
passage in the latter half of the second century appears from the letter
of Dionysius bishop of 146Corinth
to Soter bishop of Rome written before 1174 A.D.,
in which the statement appears ‘Both alike [Peter and Paul], having taught
together in Italy, suffered martyrdom about the same time.’ And when we
learn from this same Dionysius that it had been the custom at Corinth to
read Clement’s Epistle in the Church on the Lord’s Day from the earliest
times, it may be assumed that the tradition of events, which, at the date
when Clement’s epistle was first received at Corinth, must still have been
fresh in men’s memories, had been handed down continuously.[2]
Both these passages have been preserved by Eusebius and in the same
chapter of his ‘Ecclesiastical History’ in which the first Dionysian
extract is found, Caius, a Roman presbyter, who lived in the days of Pope
Zephyrinus (198–217), is quoted as saying ‘I can show you the
trophies—i.e. the Memoriae or chapel-tombs—of the Apostles. For if
you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, you will find there the
trophies of those who founded the Church’—the apostles throughout this
chapter being Peter and Paul. Irenaeus, an Oriental by birth, in his youth
the disciple of Polycarp, in later life bishop of Lyons, spent some time
in Rome about 170 A.D.;
he was thus in a special way a representative man both of Eastern and
Western Christianity, and he speaks of the ‘Church at Rome, founded and
established by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, as being the
greatest, the most ancient and well known to all.’[3]

And
again ‘to this Church, on account of its more especial eminence, all other
Churches must gather,’ and he only spoke the truth, for as a recent writer
(Rev. C. H. Turner) quoting this passage has stated, ‘in the next
generation’ 147i.e.
after the Apostles—‘we might say all the Churches of the Empire “made
rendezvous” at Rome.’[4]

And
why? Not because it was the political capital, but because Peter and Paul
there gained the crown of martyrdom, and because at Rome their hallowed
remains at the Vatican and on the Ostian Way were piously preserved and
held in reverence. The authority of the Church of Rome during the early
centuries of Christianity obtained a general recognition accorded to no
other Church, not because Rome contained the palace of the Caesars, who
persecuted the faith, but because it was acknowledged everywhere and
always that the Church of Rome had the distinction of having been founded
by St. Peter and St. Paul and that it guarded the tombs of these ‘two most
glorious Apostles.’[5]

Many
legends gathered round the deaths of the two Apostles, but the ‘Acts’ in
which they have been preserved are of late date and mainly pure fiction,[6]

except
in their topographical references, which the archaeological researches of
De Rossi, Lanciani, Marucchi and others in recent years have shown to be
generally correct. In one important point the tradition embodied in these
Acts, that the martyrdom of Peter and Paul took place on the same day,
i.e. June 29, 67 A.D.—a
tradition which for centuries was universally accepted as historical—is
almost certainly wrong. Considerable obscurity must always surround the
actual date and manner of their death, but the only contemporary evidence
we possess seems to testify clearly to an interval of time separating the
two martyrdoms.

The
passage of St. Clement (already quoted) mentions the examples of St. Peter
and St. Paul in two distinct paragraphs, without any hint that they
suffered together; 148indeed
the words about St. Paul—‘when he had borne his witness before the rulers,
so he departed out of this world’ —by the use of the singular ‘he’ imply
that the witness-bearer—the martyr—stood alone.[7]

To
this may be added the silence of the Second Epistle to Timothy as to the
presence of St. Peter at Rome during the time of St. Paul’s last
imprisonment and trial. The evidence from silence is always a very
treacherous argument to rely upon, but in this case it would indeed be
strange, if St. Peter had been tried and condemned simultaneously with St.
Paul, that the latter should not have referred in any way to his brother
Apostle’s presence. As to the manner of their death Tertullian
(A.D.
200) writes: ‘We read in the lives of the Caesars that Nero was the first
who stained with blood the rising faith. Then is Peter girt by another,
when he is made fast to the Cross. Then does Paul obtain his birthright of
Roman citizenship, when in Rome he is born again ennobled by martyrdom.’ The language of the African Father
here shows plainly that he is referring to the undoubted first-century
testimony to St. Peter’s death by crucifixion from the last chapter of the
Fourth Gospel.[8]
Dionysius of Corinth, 149as
we have seen, merely states that both Apostles suffered about the same
time. The very early Judaeo-Christian Apocalypse, ‘The Ascension of
Isaiah’[9]

(79–80
A.D.),
seems to have a clear reference to St. Peter’s death at the hands of Nero,
but no allusion to that of St. Paul. The Liberian Catalogue, 354
A.D.,
is the first document in which the death of the Apostles on the same day
is mentioned, and from the Liberian Catalogue the ‘Liber Pontificalis’
adopted it, and June 29 was henceforth regarded as the common anniversary
of the martyrdom of the two Apostles. The origin of this mistake is
however revealed by certain entries in authentic lists of the feasts of
martyrs annually celebrated in the Church belonging to the second half of
the fourth century, from which it appears that in the year 258
A.D.,
owing to the outbreak of the Valerian persecution, the relics of the two
Apostles were taken from their resting-places at the Vatican and on the
Ostian Way and deposited for safety in a cemetery on the Appian Way known
as the Catacombs. The translation took place on June 29, and when
afterwards the relics were again restored to their original tombs, a hymn
of St. Ambrose tells us that henceforth on that clay there were three
feasts kept at Rome: one at the Vatican, a second on the Ostian Way, a
third at the Catacombs.[10]
From the beginning of the fourth century 150then
the belief that the Apostles suffered together in 67 A.D.
on the same day became general, though a passage in one of the poems of
Prudentius written quite early in that century is a proof that with the
acceptance of June 29 as the anniversary of both Apostles, a tradition
remained of their martyrdoms having taken place in different years.
Prudentius says[11]

that
St. Peter died exactly a year before St. Paul. It was the influence of St.
Jerome more than any other cause that led to the universal adoption in the
Western Church of the fourteenth year of Nero as the date of St. Peter’s
death, his account of that Apostle in the ‘De Viris Illustribus ‘being the
basis of the notice of St. Peter which appears in the ‘Liber
Pontificalis.’[12]151

The
internal evidence of St. Peter’s first Epistle shows that he survived the
Vatican fete and that the extension of the persecution to the provinces
was the chief cause of his writing.
It follows therefore that he must have been in concealment during the
climax of the Neronian attack upon the Roman Christians. Now among the
legends which have grown up around the death of St. Peter there is a very
beautiful one, which may possibly have an historical foundation, I mean
the well-known Quo Vadis? story. His friends, so runs the story,
had entreated the Apostle to save his life by leaving the city. Peter at
last consented, but on condition that he should go away alone. ‘But when
he wished to pass the gate of the city, he saw Christ meeting him. Falling
down in adoration he says to Him “Lord, whither goest Thou?” And Christ
replied to him “I am coming to Rome to be again crucified.” And Peter says
to Him “Lord, wilt Thou again be crucified?” And the Lord said to him
“Even so, I will again be crucified.” Peter said to Him “Lord, I will
return and will follow Thee.” And with these words the Lord ascended into
Heaven . . . And Peter, afterwards corning to himself,
understood that it was of his own passion that it had been spoken, because
that in it the Lord would suffer.’ The Apostle then returned with joy to
meet the death which 152the
Lord had signified that he should die. Now the mere existence of this
ancient tradition would indicate that the crucifixion of Peter took place
while the persecution was still active, i.e. some time in the
summer of 65 A.D.[13]

That
it contains a story that is authentic in the sense of being based on
events that really occurred is not improbable. The Peter described here is
the Peter of the Gospels—brave, loving, but in critical moments
irresolute. The persuasions of friends may have induced him to seek safety
in flight, but no sooner is he on his way than his conscience reproves
him. He who had just written to the persecuted disciples in Asia ‘if any
man suffer as a Christian let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God
on this behalf,’[14]

must
have felt that he was again denying his Master, and, as in the High
Priest’s palace, once more did the Lord look upon Peter. The vision came
to him now, as in former days the vision on the roof of the tanner’s house
at Joppa, as perhaps overwrought with fatigue he had flung himself on the
ground to rest. There is a passage in St. John’s Gospel which seems to me
to support the historicity of the Quo Vadis? tradition.[15]

It
was after the Supper on the last night of the Lord’s earthly life, when
(according to St. John) ‘Simon Peter said unto Him, Lord, 153whither
goest Thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow Me
now, but thou shalt follow Me afterwards. Peter saith unto Him, Lord, why
cannot I follow Thee now? I will lay down my life for Thy sake.’ Two
questions at once come into the mind: (1) Was the echo of those words
haunting Peter’s memory when he saw the vision? (2) Did his knowledge of
the cause of Peter’s voluntary return to death move the Fourth Evangelist
to insert those verses in his narrative? Possibly both should be answered
in the affirmative.

Before
leaving the subject of the Quo Vadis? tradition I should like to
point out that the remarkable language of Hebrews 6:6, if it were possible
to regard it as suggested by the words of the Lord to Peter, I am coming
to Rome to be crucified again, acquires a living force and becomes full of
meaning as a reference to an event fresh in the minds of the readers. The
writer of Hebrews was acquainted with 1st Peter, and if, as I venture for
the moment to assume, this Epistle was addressed to the Jewish Christians
in Rome about a year or a year and a half after St. Peter’s death then the
solemn words in which those who in times of persecution shall fall away
were warned that it was impossible to renew them again to
repentance—‘seeing that (by such an act of apostasy) they crucify the Son
of God afresh and put him to an open shame’—recalling, as they did, the
very words which had caused Peter to turn back and welcome martyrdom,
would strike home to the hearts and consciences of any waverers that heard
them. For the Quo Vadis? story, if in any sense historical, must
have been widely known from the first.

Having
made this reference to the Epistle to the Hebrews let us now turn to the
consideration of the problems that it presents.  The internal
evidence tells us that this epistle was sent to a Church containing a
considerable body of Jewish Christians, who though they spoke Greek and
used the LXX. version, were accustomed to style themselves ‘Hebrews.’ They
had been exposed to a severe persecution, ‘having 154endured
a great conflict of sufferings, being made a gazing-stock both by
reproaches and afflictions’—a conflict in which certain persons had
apostatised.[16]
Further it would appear that persecution had not ceased, but that some
were still in bonds.[17]
Among those who had suffered were leaders, who had set an example to be
followed.[18]
The place of martyrdom is plainly indicated as lying outside the city
walls.[19]
Those who would be the readers of the Epistle had not yet themselves
resisted unto blood, but they needed encouragement to persevere, and as a
deterrent to the weak-kneed and faint-hearted the terrible judgments of
God against apostasy are painted in the sternest colours.[20]

Now
all this applies to the Judaeo-Christian community of Rome in the year 66
A.D.

That
there was such a body of Judaeo-Christians at Rome and that the writer of
this Epistle should address them as Hebrews, there is a sufficiency of
evidence, apart from that furnished by the document itself. In the Epistle
to the Philippians, which was written at Rome some four years before the
Epistle to the Hebrews, St. Paul makes mention of a party among the
Christians there, who ‘preach Christ of envy and strife, of contention and
not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds.’ And in this same
epistle he warns the Philippians ‘Beware of dogs, beware of the concision,
for we are the circumcision which worship God in the spirit,’ and then
proceeds ‘if any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in
the flesh, I more. Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, an
Hebrew of the Hebrews.’ We may gather from this that the party who tried
to add affliction to the Apostle’s bonds ‘of envy, strife, and
contention,’ were the party that held that circumcision was binding on
Christians, and who styled themselves Hebrews.[21]

Of
this extreme Jewish party, who 155were
Jews first and Christians afterwards, some under the stress of persecution
seem to have apostatised, probably by reverting to Judaism and seeking
protection under its privilege. Moreover in an extant inscription one of
the Jewish congregations at Rome is described as the synagogue of the
Hebrews.[22]
And Professor Lanciani writes ‘the whole district outside the Porta
Portese has retained its connexion with the Ghetto of Ancient Rome up to
our own days, being called Ortaccio degli Ebrei, just as in bygone
times it bore the name of Campus Iudaeorum or Contrata
Hebreorum.[23]

The
external evidence that the Epistle to the Hebrews was addressed to Roman
Christians is circumstantially strong and convincing. It was so familiar
to Clement of Rome that in his own epistle to the Church of Corinth he
incorporates its phrases and its ideas freely, but without mentioning the
writer’s name. This proves that Hebrews was well known in Rome during the
last half of the first century and that it had for Clement an attraction
which may reasonably be attributed to an acquaintance with and respect for
the author. The extent of Clement’s indebtedness may be gathered from the
fact that at a later time the actual authorship of Hebrews, despite the
great dissimilarity of style, was ascribed at him.[24]

Again
the frequency with which the anchor appears as the emblem of Christian
hope, in the most ancient inscriptions found in the Catacombs,
156may
be regarded as a testimony to a very early and wide-spread knowledge of
the Epistle to the Hebrews among Roman Christians.[25]

Into
the whole question of patristic evidence of a later date I cannot enter
here, space forbids it, but it may be stated broadly that in the middle of
the second century Hebrews was accepted at Alexandria by Pantaenus and his
school as an epistle of St. Paul’s; that the great Alexandrian Fathers,
Clement and Origen, both quote Hebrews frequently as St. Paul’s, though
Clement expressed doubts whether it was actually written by St. Paul, and
Origen goes further and declares that the name of the writer was
absolutely unknown. The same indecision and indefiniteness of opinion
appear in Eusebius’ ‘Ecclesiastical History’ in a number of passages, and
he may be taken as reflecting the general attitude of the Alexandrian and
Eastern Churches at the beginning of the fourth century.[26]
Very different was the attitude of the Roman or Western Church during the
same period. There never seems to have been the smallest doubt in Rome and
the West at any time that the epistle was not Paul’s. Not until the middle
of the fourth century does any Western writer cite any passage from
Hebrews as Pauline. Indeed, in the course of the second century a distinct
line of division between canonical and uncanonical writings began to be
drawn, and there seems to have been no hesitation in the Western Church in
placing the Epistle to the Hebrews among the uncanonical. Irenaeus in all
his works never appears to have cited the epistle, though in his ‘Treatise
against Heresies’ many passages would have been effective. He may be
regarded as a representative man of the last quarter of the second
century. Tertullian and Hippolytus, the one at the beginning, the other in
the second quarter of the third century, both deny the Pauline authorship.
157Later
still in that century neither Novatian at Rome nor Cyprian at Carthage, in
their controversy about ‘the Lapsed,’ ever brings forward the passage from
Hebrews 6:2-6 which bears directly upon it, nor do they make any
quotations from this epistle in their writings. This affords conclusive
evidence that Rome and the West, unlike Alexandria and the East, were not
in two minds about this epistle: it was not Paul’s and therefore not
authoritative. But there is evidence to show that their knowledge was not
merely negative. They were sure it was not Paul’s because they were
acquainted with the name of the actual writer.

Tertullian
in his treatise ‘De Pudicitia’ makes the following statement:[27]
‘for there is extant [a testimony] of Barnabas with the title “To the
Hebrews”—a man moreover sufficiently accredited, as one whom Paul had
placed next to himself in the observance of abstinence. . . .
And at any rate the Epistle of Barnabas is more received among the
Churches than that apocryphal “Shepherd” of adulterers.’ Then, after
quoting the passage at the opening of the sixth Chapter of Hebrews,
Tertullian adds ‘He who learnt this from Apostles, and taught it with
Apostles, never knew of any second repentance promised to the adulterer
and 158fornicator.’
Now here it will be noticed that the great African Father is not
attempting to reckon the Epistle to the Hebrews as authoritative, or to
place it among the Apostolical Scriptures; he quotes the epistle as the
work of a man whose credentials are simply that he was a companion and
fellow-worker with Apostles. But on the question of authorship there is
not a sign that he was making an assertion about which there was any
doubt. He assumes that his readers were aware of it and would admit it. In
fact as he is inveighing, as a Montanist, against what he regarded as ‘the
lax discipline of the Church of Rome,’ he would not be likely to have
quoted this passage in support of his argument as written by Barnabas,
unless he knew that his opponents would not impugn his assertion. It is
clear then from this that the tradition of the Barnabas authorship was
held without dispute not only in Provincial Africa but in the Church of
Rome itself in the time of Tertullian. But if so, does not the existence
of such an accepted tradition in a Church where no counter-tradition
existed, except that the author of Hebrews was not St. Paul, virtually
postulate its truth?

Now
it is needless for me to dilate on the fact here that Barnabas was
peculiarly qualified to be the writer of such a hortatory homily or
dissertation as the Epistle to the Hebrews. He was at once a Cypriote Jew,
brought up in close contact with Alexandrian influences and modes of
thought, and a Levite by descent, who had relatives living at Jerusalem.
The writer himself styles his epistle a ‘Word of Exhortation’—λόγος
παρακλήσεως—a
technical expression for those expositions or interpretations of Scripture
which it was customary to deliver in the synagogues, and Barnabas’ very
name in its Greek form, υἱὸς
παρακλήσεως,
signifies a man gifted with powers of such exhortation. The addresses of
St. Stephen to the Sanhedrin or of St. Paul at Antioch are specimens of
such hortatory expositions of Scripture, and it has been noted how closely
the Epistle to the Hebrews follows in many places the lines of St.
Stephen’s speech. The influence of St. Stephen is particularly observable
159in
the eleventh chapter. The whole character of this Epistle is moreover
exactly in accordance with what we should expect from the man who in the
Acts of the Apostles is brought before us as the mediator between the two
schools of Judaistic and Pauline conceptions of Christianity. His epistle,
possibly written at Paul’s wish and with his full approval, was sent to
Rome as an eirenicon, with the aim of drawing nearer together the
Hebrews and the Gentiles—the party of the circumcision and those converts
who were followers of St. Paul’s doctrines. His object is to show that
Christianity is the historical outcome of Judaism, and that, so far from
being in any way opposed, the Law, the Temple, and all the characteristic
Jewish rites and ceremonies were but types and shadows of the more perfect
dispensation that was to come; and that they all found their spiritual
fulfilment in Christ.

It
only remains to point out that the personal references in the epistle
support the hypothesis of a Barnabas author-ship. The tone of authority is
marked,[28]
and has led some commentators on this ground to hold that, even if St.
Paul was not the actual writer, the epistle was sent to its destination in
his name. But there was one man who could write with an authority second
only to that of the chief Apostles, Barnabas, and, if the destination of
the epistle were Rome, from what has already been said of the connexion of
Barnabas with the Roman Church[29]

it
is certain that after St. Peter’s death the words of no other leader would
carry so much weight with the Judaeo-Christians there as his. From one
passage we gather that the writer had not been a personal hearer of the
Lord, and from the Acts it would appear that Barnabas did not become a
Christian until some short time after the Great Day of Pentecost.[30]

Lastly,
the writer, 160who
had himself been in bonds, sends the news that Timothy had been
released,[31]

and
that he was hoping that he would shortly be able to pay a visit to his
readers with Timothy as his companion. But according to the First Epistle
to Timothy, that disciple had at Ephesus ‘confessed a good confession
before many witnesses’[32]

;
this city, then, it may be safely inferred, had been the scene of
Timothy’s imprisonment and release. But it will be remembered that in the
last lecture some reasons were given for believing that Barnabas and
Timothy were the joint bearers from Rome of the Epistle to the
Philippians, and that from Philippi they went on to Asia Minor.[33]

If
then Barnabas were the author of Hebrews, nothing would be more natural
than that they should be in 66 A.D.
the one in Ephesus, the other in some neighbouring town, and that Barnabas
should be planning in company with Timothy to journey once again to Rome.
The words ‘they of Italy salute you’ are a fitting greeting, if sent to
Rome by a man well known to the Christian congregations in Italy, and to
whom Italian Christians sojourning in the province of Asia would resort as
a proved friend and teacher: conditions which, unless tradition be
altogether untrustworthy, apply pre-eminently to Barnabas and to no one
else,

At
the close of the year 66 A.D.
or the beginning of 67 A.D.
we find St. Paul again at Rome. In the interval that had elapsed since his
release in the year 62 A.D., he seems first to have carried out his
intention of making a missionary journey to Spain and then to have
revisited the scenes of his former labours in Asia Minor and Greece.
Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians speaks of his having reached
‘the farthest bounds of the West,’[34]

and
the Muratorian 161fragment
on the Canon speaks of ‘the departure of Paul from the city on his journey
to Spain.’[35]

The
authorities for his later travels are the Pastoral Epistles. With those
travels, or with the authenticity of the Pastoral Epistles as a whole,
these lectures have no necessary concern. It is enough that the
autobiographical sections of the Second Epistle to Timothy should be
recognised as derived from a genuine Pauline source, and this recognition
is generally conceded even by some who most strenuously deny that the
entire epistle as we possess it was written by Paul,[36]
for it is these sections only which deal with the second imprisonment of
the Apostle in Rome. At the same time I should like at this point to
record my complete agreement with the conclusion of Sir William Ramsay
that ‘it is far more difficult to frame any rational theory how these
letters came into existence, if they are not the work of Paul, than it is
to understand them as composed by him, and as completing our conception of
his character’; and again, ‘regarded in the proper perspective, they [the
Pastorals] are historically perhaps the most illuminative of all the
Pauline epistles; and this is the best and the one sufficient proof that
they are authentic compositions.’[37]
162

In
the Second Epistle to Timothy we find Paul at Rome in prison awaiting
inevitable death in the calm consciousness of having fought the good fight
and finished his course.[38]

Of
what befell him on his arrival at Rome we know nothing. But his previous
captivity of two years and trial would make him well known as a Christian
leader, and the swarms of informers[39]

would
lose no time in denouncing him to the authorities as suspect. Possibly he
may have been arrested under the edict of 66 A.D.
forbidding philosophers to reside in Rome, which had sent Apollonius into
banishment. Clement tells us he was brought ‘before the governors,’[40]

which,
in the absence of Nero in Greece accompanied by Tigellinus, may be taken
to mean the freedman Helius, to whom the government had been entrusted,
and Nymphidius Sabinus, the Pretorian Prefect.[41]
In any case, whatever the original cause of his arrest, it was as a
malefactor (κακοῦργος)
that he was—at the time he was writing—suffering hardship even unto bonds;
in other words, he was being charged with the crimes imputed to those who
bore the name of Christian.[42]

Already
he had been once before the tribunal, and bitterly does he complain that
he could find no one to stand by his side and aid him in his defence, but
by God’s help he had been able fully to proclaim his message so that all
the Gentiles might hear, and he had for the time been delivered ‘from the
mouth of the lion’[43]

and
escaped immediate condemnation. But he was still in prison, his enemies
were busy, and he does not anticipate any issue but death. In his
captivity, however, he is feeling lonely and deserted. Of his personal
friends and disciples some 163like
Demas had openly forsaken him, others were engaged on various missions,
Prisca and Aquila probably in consequence of the persecution had left Rome
and were once more at Ephesus. Only the faithful Luke was with him.[44]

For
some reason or other the Apostle appears in these last months of his life
to have been under a cloud. Sadly he recalls to Timothy—‘this thou
knowest, that all that are in Asia turned away from me,’[45]

and
the whole tone of the Epistle shows that the Roman Christians as a body
were, if not unfriendly, at least unsympathetic. There were of course
exceptions, such as Eubulus, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia, who send their
salutations by him to Timothy, and well-authenticated tradition points to
two of these, Pudens and Linus, as being among the foremost leaders of the
Roman Church at the close of the seventh decade of our era.[46]
The whole soul of Paul however is filled with a longing desire to see once
more his own beloved son Timothy before the end, and twice does he
earnestly in the course of the concluding verses of this most touching and
noble letter beseech him—‘do thy diligence to come shortly unto me’—‘do
thy diligence to come to me before winter.’[47]

And
then the veil falls. Whether Timothy arrived in time to comfort the
Apostle in the final hours of his life we shall never know. We trust it
was so. All tradition says that St. Paul, as became his status as a Roman
citizen, suffered martyrdom by decapitation, being led out of the city to
the third milestone upon the Ostian Road, at the spot known as Aquae
Salviae. The site of his tomb is now covered by the basilica which bears
his name.[48]

A
document now claims our attention which has a closer relation to Rome and
throws more light upon the feelings with which first-century Christianity
regarded the World- 164Empire
of the Caesars than any other book of the New Testament. I mean the
apocalypse of St. John. The Apocalypse is full of references to historical
events of which the author had quite recently been himself an eyewitness
at Rome, or which were fresh in the memories of the Roman Christians with
whom he had been associating, and it can be dated with great exactitude
from internal evidence as having been written at the beginning of the year
70 A.D.
The witness of the contents of the book itself, as will be shown, amply
justifies such an assertion. There is how-ever a certain amount of
external evidence, which has had much more weight than it deserves,
apparently supporting a later date. I think it best to deal with this
first, with the object of tracing to its source the error on which I
believe it rests. The witness of Irenaeus, 180 A.D.,
is no doubt important, especially on the question of the authorship of the
Apocalypse, for he had himself in Asia been instructed by Polycarp, who
was a personal disciple of St. John. Now Irenaeus several times states
that John the disciple of the Lord, whom he identifies with the author of
the fourth Gospel, was the writer.[49]
The vexed question of this identity only concerns us now in as far as it
throws light on the passage of Irenaeus bearing upon the date, which I
proceed to quote. It is commonly rendered as follows: ‘We are not bold
enough to speak confidently of the name of Antichrist. For if it were
necessary that his name should be declared clearly at the present time, it
would have been announced by him who saw the revelation. For it was seen
no such long time ago, but almost in our generation toward the end of the
reign of Domitian.’ But surely this rendering is wrong. It should be ‘for
he [St. John the writer] was seen . . . almost in our
generation toward the 165end
of the reign of Domitian.’[50]

It
is of the Seer and his ability to declare the name of Antichrist that
Irenaeus is speaking. The misunderstanding about the meaning of the
passage is largely due to Eusebius, who after a reference to Domitian’s
persecution proceeds ‘in this [persecution] report affirms that the
Apostle and Evangelist John, who was still living, in consequence of his
testimony to the divine word was condemned to dwell on the island of
Patmos,’ and then he quotes Irenaeus in support of his statement. Now
Eusebius was very familiar with the works of Origen, and more particularly
his commentaries, and it seems to me that in making this statement he had
in his mind the following comment by Origen upon St Matthew 20:22: ‘And the sons of Zebedee were
baptised with the baptism, since Herod killed James the [brother] of John
with the sword, while the king of the Romans, as tradition teaches,
condemned John bearing testimony through the word of truth unto the island
Patmos. And John speaks of the things concerning his testimony, not saying
who condemned him . . . and he seems to have beheld the
Apocalypse in the island.’[51]

Origen
does not give the name of the Roman king, since, as he says, John does not
tell us who condemned him. He certainly does not say that the Roman king
was Domitian, indeed he is but repeating what Irenaeus had said before,
who after discussing the meaning of ‘the number of the Beast’ declares
himself in doubt, ‘for if it were necessary that his name should be
declared clearly at the present time, it would have been announced by him
who saw the vision.’ But the enigma, which Irenaeus and Origen both left
unsolved, is no longer sealed to us. In his 166‘Life
and Principate of the Emperor Nero’ Mr. Henderson writes ‘The number of
the Beast is now fairly generally admitted to be’ Nero Caesar.[52]

Eusebius,
again, after speaking of Trajan succeeding Nerva in the Empire writes:
‘About this time also, John, the beloved disciple of Jesus, at once
Apostle and Evangelist, still surviving in Asia, supervised the Churches
there, having returned from his banishment to the island after the death
of Domitian.’ He then refers to Clement of Alexandria and Irenaeus as his
authorities. With Irenaeus we have already dealt. The words of Clement
are: ‘For when the tyrant was dead he (John) departed from the island of
Patmos to Ephesus; he also, when called upon, went to the neighbouring
districts of the Gentiles, in some appointing bishops, in some organising
entire Churches.’[53]

But
Clement does not say ‘the tyrant’ was Domitian, the name might with even
greater propriety be applied to Nero.

The
evidence of Victorinus and of Jerome next calls for notice. Victorinus,
who suffered martyrdom in 303 A.D.,
is a pre-Eusebian witness to the tradition. In his commentary on the
Apocalypse, which is the earliest extant, he writes ‘When John saw these
things, he was in the island Patmos, condemned to the mines by Domitian
Caesar. There it was therefore that he saw the Apocalypse; and when
already the Elder had thought that he through his passion would receive
acceptance, Domitian having been slain all his sentences were quashed and
John, freed from the mines, then afterwards published this same
Apocalypse, which he had received from God.’[54]

Jerome
is still more explicit: ‘In his fourteenth year when Domitian was stirring
up the second persecution after Nero, John having been banished into the
island Patmos wrote the Apocalypse . . . but when Domitian had
been slain and his acts on account of their excessive cruelty repealed by
the Senate in the reign of Nerva he returned to Ephesus.’[55]

167

Now
the first comment I make on all these passages is, that one and all of
these early Christian writers that I have quoted had no doubt that the
author of the Apocalypse was John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee; rightly
or wrongly that was their belief, yet he is at the close of Domitian’s
reign condemned to exile in a lonely island as a criminal (to work in the
mines according to Victorinus), and after his release by Nerva he returns
to Ephesus, and as Clement of Alexandria (quoted by Eusebius) tells us—‘he
also when called upon went to the neighbouring districts of the Gentiles,
in some appointing bishops, in others organising Churches
&c. . . .’ But John, son of Zebedee, must in the year 96
A.D.
have been well-nigh a centenarian; is it seriously contended that he at
such an age could have survived the hardships of such an exile, even
without the mines, or that he would have been able physically, had he
survived, to have taken in hand in the reign of Nerva the organisation
over a large area of the Churches in Asia and the neighbouring districts?
It is on the face of it absurd. The evidence for this late date is
moreover, when critically examined, decidedly weak. It is extremely
doubtful whether any of the three earliest authorities which refer to the
exile at Patmos support it. Eusebius, as we have seen, read his own
interpretation of the words of Irenaeus into the passages from Origen and
Clement, neither of whom here names Domitian. Of the other two witnesses,
however, Victorinus certainly did not write under the influence of
Eusebius, and the similarity of his version of the tradition to that of
Jerome seems to point to their common derivation from some documentary
source, which connected the condemnation to Patmos and the subsequent
release with the names of Domitian and Nerva. But, as I shall now proceed
to show, a condemnation by Domitian and a release by Nerva is not merely
not inconsistent with but is strongly confirmatory of the fact, attested
so strongly by the internal evidence of the book, that the Apocalypse was
written in the early part of the year 70 A.D.168

Let
us examine that portion of the internal evidence which chiefly concerns us
in this lecture, the portion which reflects the events of contemporary
history in the city of Rome.

In
the seventeenth chapter of the Revelation ‘the great city which reigneth
over the kings of the earth’ is brought before us under the likeness of a
woman seated un a scarlet-coloured beast with seven heads, which are
explained to be seven hills, and on her forehead is written her name of
Mystery—Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and the Abominations of
the Earth. On this woman drunken with the blood of the saints and with the
blood of the martyrs of Jesus[56]
judgment is pronounced. Again in the following chapter the Seer repeats
this last indictment: ‘And in her was found the blood of prophets and of
saints and of all that were slain upon the earth.’[57]

There
are other passages of similar import, but these two are sufficient to make
it clear that the writer is referring to the Neronian persecution with its
multitude of victims, and not to that of Domitian, which was not a general
persecution at all, but a series of isolated acts directed chiefly against
a few influential persons, including members of his own
family.

Again
both in chapter 14:8, and chapter 18:2, an angel
is represented as crying with a mighty voice ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon
the Great,’ and the lurid picture which is given of that fall is no mere
effort of ecstatic imagination, it is the picture of a real event, fresh
in the memory. As we read of the kings of the earth and the merchants of
the earth standing afar off and weeping and lamenting for her, as they see
the smoke of her burning, and crying out ‘Alas, alas that great city
Babylon, that mighty city; for in one hour is thy judgment come,’ and as
we read again—‘of the winepress of the wrath of God being trodden without
the city and blood came out of the winepress even to the horses’
bridles’—there is but one occasion in the whole 169of
the first century to which such a description could be applied: the writer
had seen it with his own eyes—the storming and burning of the Capitol by
the foreign mercenaries of Vitellius, and the subsequent capture and
sacking of the city by the infuriated Flavian army under Mucianus and
Antonius Primus on December 19 to 21, 69 A.D.
At no other time, certainly not in the end of Domitian’s reign, was it
possible to speak of Rome as fallen, or for the Seer to have raised his
triumphant cry ‘Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and
prophets; for God hath avenged you on her’ (Rev.
18:20).

The
following passages from the ‘Histories’ of Tacitus, if read side by side
with the passages telling of the fall of Babylon the Great in the
Apocalypse, will carry conviction that both writers are describing one and
the same unique event. Of the burning of the Capitol Tacitus writes ‘The
fire extended itself to the porticoes adjoining the temples; soon the
eagles that supported the cupola caught fire, and as the timber was old
they fed the flame. Thus the Capitol . . . was burned to the
ground. . . . From the foundation of the city to that hour the
Roman republic had felt no calamity so deplorable, so shocking as that.’
And again of the capture of the city by the Flavian troops: ‘The city
exhibited one entire scene of ferocity and abomination. . . .
Rivers of blood and heaps of bodies at the same time; and by the side of
them harlots, and women that differed not from harlots—all that unbridled
passion can suggest in the wantonness of peace—all the enormities that are
committed when a city is sacked by its relentless foes—so that you could
positively suppose that Rome was at one and the same time frantic with
rage and dissolved in sensuality. . . . lamentation was heard
from every quarter, and Rome was filled with cries of despair and the
horrors of a city taken by storm.’[58]
Well might they who stood afar off as they saw the smoke of her burning
and the 170terror
of her torment exclaim ‘Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty
city; for in one hour is thy judgment come.’[59]

Even the description—‘mother of harlots and of the abominations of the
earth’—what a realistic intensity and force it gains, as the utterance of
one who had seen with his own eyes the scenes in the streets of Rome on
those terrible December days.

In
the course of eighteen months four emperors had perished and Italy had
been the scene of continuous and savage civil war. In consequence of the
events just described Vespasian became emperor, but at the opening of the
year 70 A.D.
both he and his elder son Titus were abroad. Vespasian in Egypt, Titus in
Judaea. Domitian was the sole representative of his family in Rome, and he
was at once presented to the people by the victorious Flavian general,
Mucianus, was saluted as Caesar, and made praetor. His father and brother
were appointed consuls, but as they were absent, Domitian was invested
with full consular authority—imperio
consulari.
For six months he in conjunction with Mucianus acted as regent,
administered public affairs, restored order and distributed offices. His
name, says Tacitus,[60]

was
placed at the head of all despatches and edicts. Though but a boy of
eighteen his head became filled with ambitious ideas, and he began, says
Suetonius,[61]
to use his power in so arbitrary a manner as to give proof of what he was
to become later. To such an extent was this the case that Dion Cassius[62]
tells us that Vespasian wrote to him from Alexandria ‘I am much obliged to
you, my son, for letting me still be emperor, and for not having as yet
deposed me.’

Such
incendiary language as we find in the Apocalypse, if used publicly, would
at such a time soon bring down upon the offenders the repressive arm of
those charged with the maintenance of order in the capital after the
171terrible
experiences of the year 69 A.D.
Tradition says that John narrowly escaped martyrdom[63]

;
however this may be, there is a high probability that his deportation to
Patmos took place very early in the year 70 A.D.
(in January or February) through a sentence passed in Domitian’s name. In
the month of June of that year Domitian and Mucianus left Rome to take
part in a campaign in Gaul, and a little later Vespasian arrived in Rome
and at once assumed the direction of affairs.[64]

Suetonius
informs us that from the beginning he was anxious to conduct himself with
great moderation and clemency.[65]

One
of his first cares was to take in hand the administration of justice,
which had been sadly interrupted by the civil wars, and to examine into
the accumulation of law-suits which had arisen, and to provide for the
restitution of what had been seized by violence in the disorders of the
time. Now Vespasian associated Titus with himself in the government in the
course of the year 71 A.D.
and was very jealous during the whole of his reign of allowing authority
to be vested in any but members of his own family. But Vespasian took as
his colleague in the consulship in 71 A.D.
M. Cocceius Nerva. Now Nerva—the future emperor—was the representative of
a family distinguished for three generations as jurists, and no doubt his
appointment at this particular time was due to Vespasian’s desire to have
a skilled lawyer at his side for dealing with the mass of sentences of
exile and of confiscation which were the legacy of the successive
revolutions. Nerva held office during the first nundinum
of 71 A.D.,
and it is permissible to believe that in accordance with tradition one of
the sentences quashed by him was that which sent John to Patmos. If by an
order of Nerva 172he
were now released, his exile would have lasted almost exactly one year.[66]

The
external evidence, which was supposed to be adverse to the acceptance of
the early date for the writing of the Apocalypse, having thus been
transformed into an argument in its favour, we will now proceed by a
further examination of certain crucial passages of the book to make
assurance on this matter doubly sure.

The
opening verses of chapter xi. imply that the Temple of Jerusalem was still
standing, and that there was no expectation of the destruction of the
Shrine itself. But the outer court was to be given to the nations, who for
a period represented by 42 months would trample it under foot.[67]

This
statement must have been made at the time when the legions of Titus were
already closing round Jerusalem and its doom was sealed, but before it was
known that the desperate character of the defence would carry with it the
entire destruction of the city and its world-famous sanctuary. That
Jerusalem was not destroyed when the words (xi. 8) were written—‘their dead bodies
lie in the street of the Great City, which spiritually is called Sodom and
Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified’—is evident. In 95 A.D.
the city was in ruins.

The
central theme of the Apocalypse is the struggle between Christ and
Antichrist, between Christianity and the Imperial World-Power of Rome. To
St. John the Roman World-Power is Antichrist and both of them are
personified by Nero. The baleful figure of Nero dominates the entire
picture of the struggle between the forces of good and evil. 173The
wild beast,[68]

coming
up out of the sea with its seven heads and ten horns, and the imagery
connected with it, was suggested to the Seer by the apocalyptic visions of
Daniel 7, the fourth kingdom of Daniel being identified by him with the
Roman Empire. The name of the beast[69]

is
expressed by a number—‘the number of a man’—and the number is Six Hundred
and Sixty-Six. Irenaeus discusses the meaning of this number which
concealed the name of Antichrist, and already when he wrote his treatise
‘Against Heresies’ in 180 A.D.
the key had been lost. And he is puzzled by the fact that he found in some
MSS. the number 616 instead of 666—one such MS. exists still—and he
supposes it due to the error of copyists. But there is a solution now
generally accepted, and whose correctness this very variant reading
actually confirms. For if the Greek spelling of Nero Caesar be
transliterated into Hebrew and the numerical values of the Hebrew letters
added together they make 666. If however the Latin spelling be treated in
the same way, the total comes to 616. Nero then was Antichrist, and the
interpretation of the seven heads, the ten horns and the other symbolic
imagery of this portion of the Apocalypse must be approached from the
point of view that they all belong to the Neronian period. St. John was
not an historian, his mind was stored with the language and ideas of
Daniel and Ezekiel and other Apocalyptic writers, 174who
had preceded him; and his own Apocalypse was but one out of a number of
Jewish or Judaeo-Christian Apocalypses of the first century, with some of
which he shows himself to be acquainted. Nevertheless in all that he
writes there is a distinctive historical background, and it is limited to
what he himself knew of the actual contact of Christianity with the
Imperial power at Rome: a contact which began in the days of Claudius and
which had issued in the reign of Nero in a conflict for life and death,
which was still undecided. Indeed I may go further and say that it is only
when the Apocalypse is treated historically as a Neronian document that
any satisfactory interpretation can be found for the imagery of certain
difficult passages. For example, nothing is more remarkable in the years
which followed Nero’s death than the belief that gained firm possession of
the popular imagination, that the Emperor was not really dead, but that he
had fled to the East and would speedily reappear and once more possess
himself of power. In 69 A.D.
a false Nero was put to death in the island of Cythnus, and twenty years
later another Nero pretender raised a revolt in Asia.[70]
The Christian Sibylline Oracles are evidence as to the character and
prevalence of this Nero legend in the reign of Vespasian,[71]
and the references 175to
it in the Apocalypse are a proof of the strong impression which it had
made upon the writer. In the thirteenth chapter, after describing the
beast with its seven heads and ten horns, St. John proceeds: ‘and I saw
one of his heads as though it had been smitten unto death; and his
death-stroke was healed’; and in chapter
xvii. verses 7, 8,
he writes ‘I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast
that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and the ten horns. The beast
that thou sawest was, and is not; and is about to come up out of the
abyss, and goeth into perdition.’ Then a few verses further on comes the
passage which has caused so much trouble to commentators, in no small
measure because they allow themselves to wander out of a strictly limited
field of investigation—i.e. the Neronian cycle. St. John says (verses
9-12)
'The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth: and they
are seven kings; the five are fallen, the one is, the other is not yet
come; and when he cometh, he must continue a little while. And the beast
that was, and is not, is himself also an eighth, and is of the seven; and
he goeth into perdition.’ Now the key to this passage is found as soon as
it is recognised that it deals with no other period of Roman history than
that which I have called ‘the Neronian cycle’—the period during which the
Church and the Empire, Christ and Antichrist, were first brought face to
face as forces irreconcilably opposed. For note that throughout Nero is
not merely one of the seven heads, he is identified with the Beast
itself.[72]

In
one passage (xiii.
3)
he is the head that ‘was smitten unto death and his wound was healed,’ in
another (xiii.
14)
‘the beast that had the wound of a sword and did live,’ and again
(xvii.
8)
the beast ‘that was, and is not, and yet is.’ Now the words ‘five are
fallen’ (ἔπεσαν)
imply that in each of these five cases there was a violent death
176Augustus
and Tiberius could not be described as ‘fallen,’ even had their reigns
come within the Seer’s purview. The five are Claudius, who adopted Nero as
his son and heir, Nero himself, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. ‘The one who
is’ signifies the man for the moment invested with imperial power,
Domitian, the acting Emperor, who banished the writer. ‘The one not yet
come’ is the real Emperor Vespasian, who had not yet arrived at Rome to
take into his hands the reins of government, and ‘he will continue only a
short while,’ for Nero—‘the beast that was, and is not, who is also an
eighth, and is of the seven’—will quickly return from the East whither he
had fled, and once more seat himself on the throne. And ‘his end is
perdition,’ for after his return will immediately follow the great
struggle between Christ and Antichrist, when the latter will be overthrown
and cast alive into the lake of fire.[73] Again ‘the ten horns with ten diadems,’ of
chapter
xiii. verse 1,
are generally considered to be the governors of the chief provinces of the
Empire,
and this is borne out by the reference to them in chapter xvii. verses 12-13: ‘And the ten
horns that thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as
yet, but they receive authority as kings, with the beast, for one hour’;
and then a few verses lower ‘and the ten horns that thou sawest, and the
beast, these shall hate the harlot, and shall make her desolate and naked,
and shall eat her flesh, and burn her utterly with fire.’ Is there not a
direct reference here to the events of the two preceding years? The revolt
of Vindex was the signal for the overthrow of Nero. The armies of Galba,
Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian in succession occupied Rome, and the
imperial city was held in subjection by foreign troops, sacked, and its
most sacred edifices burnt. All these five men were governors of
provinces.

Lastly
it seems to me impossible to dissociate the gathering together of the
nations to battle at Armageddon, ‘the nations which are in the four
corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to the war,
the number 177of
whom is as the sand of the sea,’[74]

from
the actual gathering of the nations in those battles near Bedriacum which
had taken place in the year 69. Gog and Magog had come to signify in the
Apocalyptic literature the uncivilised tribes of the earth, and surely if
ever Armageddon was realised in the history of the world it was in that
second battle of Bedriacum ending in the sack of Cremona in which the
armies of Vitellius and Vespasian contended for the mastery. On the one
side were troops from Italy, Spain and Portugal, Gaul, the German Rhine
frontier, even from far distant Batavia and Britain; on the other, legions
from the Danube frontier, and behind these the armies of Syria, Judaea and
Egypt, with auxiliaries from the furthermost East, from the borderlands of
the Euphrates and Tigris.[75]

The
Seer is not describing these battles, but he saw the medley of troops from
every nation under heaven actually fighting in the streets of Rome, and
the scenes he witnessed still so freshly imprinted in his mind are vividly
reflected in the imagery of his vision.

Renan[76]

has
pointed out in his well-known work ‘L’Antéchrist’ that the portents,
scourges, and convulsions of nature which in the Apocalypse follow upon
the opening of the seals, the blowing of the trumpets, and the emptying of
the vials were far from being merely imaginative. The years that preceded
70 A.D.
were years marked by every kind of disaster and catastrophe. Earthquakes
were frequent and violent, especially in that part of Asia to which John
addressed his seven letters.[77]

The
great pestilence at Rome in 65 A.D.
was followed by a wild hurricane, which laid waste the Campagna.[78]

All
sorts of portents were said to have foreshadowed the death of Nero in 68
A.D.
and the succession of political convulsions that followed.[79]

This
same year 68 178was
marked by a famine at Rome,[80]

the
year 69 by a very disastrous inundation of the Tiber.[81]

It
was no wonder that a visionary mystic like St. John should have perceived
the signs of the consummation of all things in such a series of
catastrophes, political and physical. Surely there could not be a more
convincing piece of circumstantial evidence for fixing the date of the
book.

Moveover
as the Seer in the island of Patmos sat brooding over and recording his
visions, before his very eyes there was a spectacle which has left its
traces upon his language. The volcano in the neighbouring island of Thera
was in violent activity during the greater part of the first century,
after which it had a long period of quiescence until 726 A.D.
No one can read a number of passages in the Apocalypse[82]

without
feeling that the writer must have been the witness of a volcanic eruption
on a grand scale, and there are other passages which point to familiarity
with such scenes. Now the very remarkable fact stands recorded, that on
two separate occasions, in 196 B.C.
and in 46 A.D.,
so extraordinary was the violence of the eruptive forces in the very
neighbourhood of this island that new islands came into existence, whose
modern names still recall the character of their origin. A vivid
description is given by Strabo of the eruption of 196 B.C.:
‘Midway between Thera and Therasia flames rushed forth from the sea,
causing the whole of it to boil and be on fire, and afterwards an island,
twelve stadia in circumference, composed of the burning mass was thrown up
as if raised by machinery.’[83]

Compare
with this the language of Rev. viii. 8, 9: ‘and the second angel
sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into
the sea: and the third part of the 179sea
became blood; and the third part of the creatures that were in the sea and
had life died, and the third part of the ships were destroyed.’ All these
graphic touches are such as we should expect from a writer who had
actually resided in a group of islands where such catastrophic convulsions
had recently taken place. There was an eruption in Thera in 6o
A.D.,
and the following decade was marked by continued seismic and volcanic
disturbances.

[1] Clement,
I Cor. 5:6; supra , p. 47.

[2] Eus.
Hist. Eccl. ii. 25; iv. 23: ὁμοίως
δὲ
καὶ
τὴν
Ἰταλίαν
ὁμόσε
ειδάξαντες,
ἐμαρτύρησαν
κατὰ
τὸν
αὐτὸν
καιρόν.

[3] Irenaeus,
adv. Haer . iii. 3. 2: ‘ Sed quoniam valde longum est in hoc tali volumine
omnium Ecclesiarum numerare successiones, maximae et antiquissimae et
omnibus cognitae, a gloriosissimis duobus apostolis Petro et Paulo Romae
fundatae et constitutae Ecclesiae , eam quam habet ab apostolis
traditionem et annuntiatam hominibus fidem, per successiones episcoporum
pervenientem usque ad nos indicantes, confundimus omnes eos, qui quoquo
mode, vel per sibi placenta, vel per vanam gloriam, vel per caecitatem et
malam sententiam praeter quam oportet, colligunt.
’

[4] C.
H. Turner, Studies in Early Church History , p. 222.

[5] Iren.
adv. Haer . ‘ Ad hanc enim Ecclesiam propter potiorem principalitatem
necesse est omnem convenire ecclesiam, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique
fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ea, quae
est ab apostolis traditio. ’ On the universal acceptance by all Churches
of the martyrdom of the Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome, see P. Martin,
Revue des Questions historiques , xiii. pp. 31 ff.

[6] Richard
A. Lipsius, Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten and Apostellegenden , 2er
Band, 1e Hälfte.

[7] A.
Harnack, Altchristl. Lit. 2er Theil, 1er Band, pp. 549–60. See Chase’s
admirable article on St. Peter in Hastings’s Dict. of the Bible ; 1 Clem.
v: καὶ
μαρτυρήσαςm
ἐπὶ
τῶν
ἡγουμένων
οὕτως
ἀπηλλάγη
τοῦ
κόσμου
.

[8] Tert.
Scorp . 15. See also Praescript . 36: ‘ Ista quam felix ecclesia
. . . ubi Petrus passioni dominicae adaequatur ’; Adv. Marc .
iv. 5; John 21:18, 19:
‘Verily, verily I say unto thee, when thou wast young, thou girdedst
thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest; but when thou shalt be old
thou shalt stretch forth thy hands and another shall gird thee and carry
thee whither thou wouldest not. Now this he spake signifying by what
manner of death he should glorify God.’ Comp. 13:36. Seneca ( Cons. ad Marciam , 20) writes of
those crucified ‘ brachia patibulo explicuerunt. ’ The tradition that St.
Peter at his own request was crucified head-downwards was first mentioned
by Origen, ἀνεσκολοπίσθη
κατὰ
κεφαλῆς
(Op. ii. 24 de la Rue), in his Commentary on Genesis to which Eusebius
refers ( Hist. Eccl. iii. 1). This shows that the tradition was known
early in the third century, and the letter of Seneca quoted above is
evidence that such a method of execution was not unknown in Rome, for he
writes: ‘ Video istic cruces non unius quidem generis, sed aliter ab aliis
fabricatas; capite quidem conversos in terrain suspendere. ’ It is
impossible to say whether this tradition of the mode of St. Peter’s death
be true, on the whole it is improbable.

[9] Ascension
of Isaiah , Charles, pp. 25 and 95, iv. 2, 3: ‘A lawless king, the slayer
of his mother: who himself, even this king, will persecute the plant which
the Twelve Apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the Twelve one will be
delivered into his hands.’ Comp. τὴν
φυτείαν
ἢν
φυτεύσουσιν
οἱ
δώδεκα
ἀπόστολοι
and the words of the letter of Dionysius of Corinth, τὴν
ἀπὸ
Πέτρου
καὶ
Παύλου
φυτείαν
γενηθεῖσαν
Ῥωμαίων
τε καὶ
Κορινθίων
. Eus. Hist. Eccl . ii. 25. In the Ascension of Isaiah St. Paul is not
reckoned among the Twelve.

[10] On
the Liberian Catalogue, its sources and its relation to the Liber
Pontificalis , see Duchesne’s great edition of the Liber Pontificalis ;
Light-foot’s excursus on the early Roman succession in his Apostolic
Fathers ( St. Clement of Rome ), part I. vol. i. 201–345; Harnack, Chron.
der Altchristl. Literatur , vol. i: ‘Die ältesten Bischofslisten,’ 79–230;
also the chapter ‘The Western Church’ in Turner’s Studies in Early Church
History , 1912. The burial and tombs of the Apostles Peter and Paul and
the translation of their bodies for a time to the Catacombs are the
subject of a special Note, Note E, Appendix. The fact of the date of the
translation and of the triple feast being on June 29 will be found in
Duchesne, pp. civ–cvii; also in Barnes, St. Peter in Rome , pp. 107 ff. In
the Hieronymian Martyrology (in a Codex discovered by De Rossi at Berne)
the following entry occurs: ‘ III Kal. iul. Romae, natale sanctorum Petri
et Pauli: Petri in Vaticano, via Aurelia; Pauli vero in via Ostensi;
utriusque in Catacumbas; passi sub Nerone, Basso et Tusco Consulibus. ’
The words passi sub Nerone must be regarded as in a parenthesis, the date
of the consulship of Bassus and Tuscus is 258 A.D. A somewhat earlier and
more abbreviated entry is found in the so-called Feriale Philocalianum
(335–354 A.D. , Duchesne). The title of the document is Depositio Martyrum
, and we find ‘ III. Kal. iul. Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Ostense Basso
et Tusco Consulibus. ’ A hymn attributed to St. Ambrose (Daniel, Thesaurus
hymnologicus , Halle, 1841, No. 71) has this verse: ‘Tantae per urbis
ambitum Stipata tendunt agmina, Trinis celebrator viis Festum sacrorum
Martyrum. This hymn was written for the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul on
June 29. The ‘ trinis viis ’ signifies the Aurelian, the Ostian, and the
Appian Ways.

[11] Prudentius,
Περιστεφανων , hymn xii. ‘Prima Petrum   *   *  rapuit sententia
legibus Neronis, Pendere iussum praeminente ligno. *   * Ut
teres orbis iter flexi rota percucurrit anni Diemque eundem  *
*   *  *  sol reduxit ortus, Evomit in iugulum Pauli Nero
fervidum furorem, Iubet feriri gentium magistrum.’ St. Augustine ( Sermons
, 296–7) held a similar opinion.

[12] Duchesne,
Lib. Pont . vol. i. p. 119: ‘ Ce d’but, de même que plusieurs autres
parties de la notice, étant emprunté au De Viris de Saint-Jérôme. ’ C. H.
Turner in his chapter on St. Cyprian’s correspondence in Studies in Early
Church History , p. 101, writes; ‘The older critics, following St.
Jerome’s statement ( De Viris , lxvii.) that Cyprian suffered ‘ eodem die
quo Romae Cornelius sed non eodem anno ,” naturally placed Cornelius with
Cyprian on September 14. But we know from the Liberian Catalogue that
Cornelius died at Centumcellae, and September 14 was perhaps the day of
the translation of his remains to Rome.’ Hence it appears how easily these
confusions of dates may have arisen through the commemoration of a
depositio . The passages of St. Jerome bearing upon the date are: (1) ‘
Simon Petrus . . . Romam pergit, ibique viginti quinque annis
cathedram sacerdotalem tenuit usque ad ultimum Neronis annum, id est,
quartum decimum ’ (c. i.). (2) ‘ Paulus Apostolus . . . quarto
decimo anno Neronis eodem die quo Petrus, Romae pro Christo capite
truncatur . . . anno post passionem Domini XXXVII ’ (c. v.). (3)
‘ Hic [Lucius Annaeus Seneca] ante biennium quam Petrus et Paulus martyrio
coronarentur, a Nerone interfectus est ’ (c. xii.). Seneca was put to
death end of April, 65. A.D.

[13] Lipsius,
Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten.and Apostellegenden , 2er Band, 1e
Hälfte, p. 318. The following extract is from the Passio Petri by
pseudo-Linus: ‘ Ut autem portam civitatis voluit egredi, vidit sibi
Christum occurrere. Et adorans eum ait: “Domine, quo vadis?” Respondit ei
Christus: “Romam venio iterum crucifigi.” Et ait ad eum Petrus: “Domine,
iterum crucifigeris?” Et dixit ad eum dominus: “Etiam, iterum crucifigar.”
Petrus autem dixit: “Domine, revertar et sequar te.” Et his dictis dominus
ascendit in coelum . . . Et [Petrus] post haec rediens in se
ipsum, intellexit de sua dictum passione. ’ Compare St. John 13:36, 37: ‘
Dicit ei Simon Petrus: Domine, quo vadis? Respondit Iesus: Quo ego vado,
non potes me mode sequi: sequeris autem postea. Dicit ei Petrus: Quare non
possum te sequi modo? animam meam pro te ponam. ’ Wordsworth’s edition of
the Vulgate.

[14] I Pet. 4:16;
also see 2:19-21,
3:14-18.

[15] If,
on the other hand, the Quo Vadis? story were a pure invention of a later
age, then the original romancer must have based it on the two passages St.
John 13:36, 37, and Hebrews 6:6, taken with St. John
21:15-23.

[16] Heb. 19:32, 33,
comp. 6:6, 10:39, 15-25.

[17] Heb. 13:3.

[18] Heb. 13:7.

[19] Heb. 13:12, 13.

[20] Heb. 12,
the whole chapter.

[21] Phil.
i. 13, 14, iii. 2-5.
The very words St. Paul uses of these opponents at Rome, διὰ
φθόνον
καὶ ἔριν
, are the
words used by Clement of the causes which led to St. Peter’s death,
διὰ
ζῆλος
καὶ
φθόνον , and to
St. Paul’s διὰ
ζῆλος
καὶ ἔριν
.

[22] Corp.
Inscr. Graec . 9909, see Garrucci’s Cimitero degli antichi Ebrei , p. 39.
This synagogue doubtless belonged to a small isolated settlement of Jews,
which had only one place of worship; it therefore had no distinctive name,
but was known simply as the synagogue of the Hebrews.

[23] Lanciani,
New Tales of Old Rome , p. 248. The love of the Hellenist Jews of the
Dispersion, living as strangers and sojourners in a foreign land, for the
name of Hebrews was probably due to the desire to emphasise the fact that
they were the heirs of the promises made to Abraham who ‘by faith
sojourned in the land of promise as a stranger' ( Heb. xi. 9). Corp. Inscr. Graec . 9922
is a striking proof that the Roman Jews called themselves ‘Hebrews’:
Ἀλῦπις
Τιβεριεὺς
καὶ
οἱ
αὐτοῦ,
Ἰοῦστος
καὶ
Ἀλῦπις,
Ἐβρẽοι,
μετὰ
τοῦ
πατρὸς
αὐτῶν
ὧδε
κῖντε
.

[24] Origen,
Hom. in Hebr . quoted by Eus. Hist. Eccl . vi. 25; Philastrius, de Haeres
. 89; Jerome, de Viris Illustribus , 15. Others suggest that Clement was
the translator into Greek of an Epistle of Paul written in Hebrew. Eus.
Hist. Eccl. iii. 37. Euthalius, Migne, P.G. lxxv.
776.

[25] Marucchi,
Arch. Chrét . ii. 173.

[26] Eus.
Hist. Eccl . vi. 14, 25, 41. Origen believed the thoughts to be those of
St. Paul, the actual language and argument those of a disciple. As to the
authorship however he declares— τίς
δὲ
ὁγράψας
τὴν
ἐπιστολὴν
τὸ
μὲν
ἀληθὲς
θεὸς
οἶδεν
. Later the opinion at Alexandria that Paul himself was the author became
dominant and at last accepted by all.

[27] Tertullian,
De Pudicitia , 20: ‘ Volo tamen ex redundantia alicuius etiam comitis
apostolorum testimonium superinducere, idoneum confirmandi de proximo iure
disciplinam magistrorum. Extat enim et Barnabae titulus ad Hebraeos, adeo
satis auctoritatis viri, utquem Paulus iuxta se constituerit in
abstinentiae tenore ( 1 Cor. ix. 6). Et utique receptior apud
ecclesias epistola Barmabae illo apocrypho pastore moechorum. ’ Another
and a much later witness, that in the Western Church the authorship of the
Epistle to the Hebrews was assigned to Barnabas, is to be found in the
Index Claromontanus , D. 2, a MS. of the sixth century. In the
stichometrical catalogue of the books of the Old and New Testaments at the
end of this codex there is no mention of the Epistle to the Hebrews. After
Jude, however, and before the Apocalypse comes ‘the epistle of Barnabas,’
the length of which is set down as 850 stichoi or lines, the Apocalypse as
1200. This corresponds to the length of the Epistle to the Hebrews and not
to that of the epistle of the pseudo-Barnabas, which the stichometry of
Nicephorus, 850 A.D. , shows to be practically the same as the Apocalypse,
i.e. pseudo-Barnabas, 1360 stichoi ; Apocalypse, 1400. The position of the
epistle in the Codex Claromontanus and the length assigned are well-nigh
positive proof that the Epistle of Barnabas here signifies the Epistle to
the Hebrews.

[28] Renan,
L'Antéchrist , xvi–xvii: ‘ I1 (l’auteur) n’en tenait pas moins un rang
élevé dans l’Eglise; il parle avec autorité; il est très-respecté des
frètres auxquels il écit; Timothée paraît lui être subordonné. Le seul
fait d’adresser une épitre à une grande Eglise indique un homme important,
un des personnages qui figurent dans 1’histoire apostolique et dont le nom
est célèbre . . . L’attribution à Barnabé est la plus
vraisemblable. ’

[29] Supra
, pp. 80–2.

[30] II Acts 4:36-7.

[31] Heb.
x. 32, xiii. 23.

[32] 1
Tim. vi. 12
and i. 3.

[33] Supra
, p. 121.

[34] Clement,
1 Cor. v.: ἐπὶ
τὸ
τέρμα
τῆς
δύσεως
ἐλθών
. In the year
66 A.D. , according to Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana being banished
from Rome
‘turned westwards to the land which they say is bounded by the Pillars. He
intended to see Gades and the tides of the ocean, for he heard some report
of the philosophy of the men in those parts and their proficiency in
religion.’ In 68 or 69 A.D. he was once more in Greece. See Phillimore’s
Philostratus , ii. 48, 63 ff.

[35] 334334‘
Profectione Pauli ab urbe ad Spaniā proficiscentis. ’ The Muratorian
fragment is generally supposed to be of the age of Hippolytus, if not his
work. Lightfoot ( Apostolic Fathers , part i. vol. ii. 405 ff) places its
date towards the close of the second century. Also Zahn and
Harnack.

[36] Salmon
( Int. to N.T. p. 511) writes: ‘As for the general Pauline character of
these letters there cannot be a better witness than Renan, who, while
continuing to assert them not to be genuine, every now and then seems
staggered by the proofs of authenticity that strike him. He says in one
place “Some passages of these letters are so beautiful that we cannot help
asking if the forger had not in his hands some authentic notes of Paul
which he has incorporated in his apocryphal composition’ ( L'Eglise
Chrétienne , p. 95).’ Of those who reject the Epistle (2 Tim.) Hausrath,
Pfleiderer and Ewald recognise the sections i. 15-18, iv. 9-22 as fragments of a genuine
Pauline letter. Salmon, p. 303.

[37] Ramsay,
‘Hist. Commentary on 1st Epist. to Timothy,’ Expositor , Ser. vii. 7, June
1909, p. 488, and Ser. vii. 8, p. 1. Prof. Vernon Bartlett ( Expositor ,
Ser. viii. 25, Jan. 1913, p. 29) writes: ‘When one approaches these
Epistles fresh front the few pages on them in Hort’s Lectures on Judaistic
Christianity , and in The Christian Ecclesia , and from Sir W. M. Ramsay’s
recent “Historical Commentary on the Epistles to Timothy” in the Expositor
, one feels the subject has been lifted to a new level of reality and that
much criticism between Baur and Jülicher is simply out of date and
irrelevant.’

[38] 2
Tim. iv. 6-8.

[39] Henderson’s
Principate of Nero , p. 392.

[40] Clement,
1 Cor. v.: μαρτυρήσας
ἐπὶ
τῶν
ἡγουμένων
.

[41] Dion
Cassius, lxiii. 12: οὕτω
μὲν
δὴ
τότε
ἡ
τῶν
Ῥωμαίων
ἀρχὴ
δύο
αὐτοκράτορσιν
ἅμα
ἐδούλευσε,
Νέρωνι
καὶ
Ἡλίῳ·
οὐδὲ
ἔχω
εἰπεῖν
ὁπότερος
αὐτῶν
χείρων
ἦν
.

[42] Comp.
1 Pet. ii. 12, iii. 16, iv. 13, 16,
19.

[43] 2
Tim. iv. 17:
Helius—probably.

[44] 2
Tim. iv. 10-13, 19, 20.

[45] 2
Tim. i. 15.

[46] 2
Tim. iv. 21.
Linus is no doubt the man who appears in the episcopal lists as the first
bishop of Rome after Peter. Pudens was a man of senatorial rank, who
according to tradition played a considerable part in the early history of
the Church in Rome. See Appendix, Note C.

[47] 2
Tim. iv. 9, 21.

[48] See
Appendix, Note E, The Tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul.

[49] For
the question of the identity of John the Apostle the son of Zebedee, John
the disciple of the Lord, who reclined on His Breast at Supper, John the
author of the Epistles and the Fourth Gospel, and John the Presbyter—see
the convincing arguments of Dom John Chapman, O.S.B., in his John the
Presbyter and the Fourth Gospel : Clarendon Press, 1911.

[50] Irenaeus,
Adv. Haer . v. 30. 1–3; Eus. Hist. Eccl . iii. 18 and v. 8: τοὔνομα
αὐτοῦ
δἰ
ἐκείνου
ἂν
ἐρρέθη,
τοῦ
καὶ
τὴν
ἀποκάλυψιν
ἑωρακότος·
οὐδὲ
γὰρ
πρὸ
πολλοῦ
χρόνου
ἑωράθη,
ἀλλὰ
σχεδὸν
ἐπὶ
τῆς
ἡμετέρας
γενεᾶς,
πρὸς
τῷ
τέλειτῆς
Δομετιανοῦ
ἀρχῆς
. That John is the subject before ἑωράθη
seems to follow necessarily from the words which precede in the same
passage— μαρτυρούντων
αὐτῶν
ἐκείνων
τῶν
κατ᾽
ὔψιν
Ἰωάννην
ἑωρακότων.
. . .

[51] ὁ
δὲ
Ῥωμαίων
βασιλείς,
ὡς
ἡ
παράδοσις
διδάσκει,
κατεδίκασε
τὸν
Ἰωάννην
μαρτυροῦντα
διὰ
τὸν
τῆς
ἀληθείας
λόγον
εἰς
Πάτμον
τὴν
νῆσον·
διδάσκει
δὲ
τὰ
περὶ
τοῦ
μαρτυρίου
αὐτοῦ
Ἰωάννης,
μὴ
λέγων
τίς
αὐτὸν
κατεδίκασε.

[52] Henderson,
Life of Nero , p. 440. See infra , p. 173.

[53] Eus.
Hist. Eccl . 23.

[54] Migne,
P.L. v. 1665.

[55] 4De
Viris Illust . 9.

[56] Rev.
xvii. 3-7, 9.

[57] Rev.
xviii. 24.
Compare vi. 9-11, 14, xiii. 15, xvi. 5-7.

[58] Tac.
Hist . iii. 72, 83, iv. 1. Rev. xiv. 8, 17-20, xvii. 16, xviii.
passim .

[59] Rev.
xviii. 10.

[60] Tac.
Hist . iv. 3, 44–47, 51, 68; Josephus, Bell. Iud. iv. 11.
4.

[61] Suetonius,
Domitian , 1.

[62] Dion
Cassius, lxv. 22, lxvi. 1–3.

[63] Tertullian
( Praescrip . 36), after speaking of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul,
relates that John was cast into burning oil but escaped unhurt. Jerome in
his commentary on Matt. xx. 23 refers to the same
tradition. Whatever the grounds of the tradition, there can be no question
that the writer of the Apocalypse speaks of himself ‘as a partaker in the
tribulation.’

[64] Gsell,
Règne de 1’Enapéreur Domilien , pp. 13–14.

[65] Suetonius,
Vespasian , 8, 10.

[66] Gsell,
17–18. C.I.L. vi. 1984. In the ten years from 70 to 79, Vespasian filled
the office of [ordinary] consul nine times, Titus seven times, Domitian
once. Domitian was consul suffectus five times during the same period. In
80 Titus and Domitian were consuls. For complete list see Bouche-Leclerc,
Institutions Rornaines , p. 603. For Nerva and his father and grandfather,
see Profumo, Le fonte ed i tempi dello Incendio Neroniano , p. 511 ff.
Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie , under Cocceius.

[67] Rev.
xi. 1, 2.
See Daniel, vii. 25, three and a half years
or 42 months. It is the time of the duration of the Fourth Kingdom or
Roman Empire.

[68] Rev. xiii.
1. At a short distance
from Patmos the island of Thera
or ‘the Wild Beast‘ rises out of the sea.

[69] Rev.
xiii. 18.
Irenaeus, cont. Haer . v. 30. C. 11 gives the reading 616. In
Philostratus, Apollonius of Tyana , Apollonius is represented as saying on
his arrival at Rome—‘In my travels, which have been wider than ever man
yet accomplished, I have seen many, many wild beasts of Arabia and India;
but this beast, which is commonly called a Tyrant, I know not how many
heads it has, nor if it be crooked of claw, and armed with horrible fangs.
However they say it is a civil beast and inhabits the midst of cities; but
to this extent it is more savage than the beasts of mountain and of
forest, that whereas lions and panthers can sometimes by flattery be
tarried and change their disposition, stroking and petting this beast does
but instigate it to surpass itself in ferocity and devour at large. And of
wild beasts you cannot say that they were ever known to eat their own
mothers, but Nero has gorged himself on this diet.’—Phillimore’s tr. vol.
ii. p. 38.

[70] Henderson’s
Life and Principate of Nero , p. 440. Tac. Hist . ii. 8: ‘ vario super
exitu eius rumore eoque pluribus vivere eum fingentibus credentibusque. ’
Sueton. Nero , 57: ‘ edicta quasi viventis et brevi magno inimicorum malo
reversuri. ’ The pretender of 69 A.D. , driven by stress of weather to the
island of Cythnus, was taken by Calpurnius Asprenas, Governor of Galatia,
and put to death. Tac. Hist . ii. 8, 9. Dion Cassius, lxiv. 9; also Tac.
Hist . i. 2: ‘ mota prope etiam Parthorum arma falsi Neronis ludibrio. ’

[71] Sibylline
Oracles , v. 143–147, 361–373. This portion of the Sibylline Oracles was
written 71–74 A.D. : so Bousset, Zahn and Charles. Φεύξεται
ἐκ
Βαβυλῶνος
[Rome] ἄναξ
φοβερὸς
καὶ
ἀναιδής
ὃν
πάντες
στυγέουσι
βροτοὶ
*  καὶ
φῶτες
ἄριστοι·
ὤλεσε
γὰρ
πολλοὺς
καὶ
γαστέρι
χεῖρας
ἐφῆκεν
. 143–5. *   * ἥξει
δ᾽
ἐκ
περάτων
γαίης
μητροκτόνος
ἀνήρ
ὃς
πᾶσαν
γαῖαν
*   *   *   *  *  καθελεῖ
καὶ
πάντα
κρατήσει
. 363–4. See also iv. 119–122, 137–139; this part of the Sibylline Oracles
is dated about 80 A.D. See also Ascension of Isaiah, iv. 2–4. It is of
importance to notice, says Dr. Charles in his note on this passage, that
the persecution under Nero is the only one known to the writer (p. 25).

[72] Rev.
xi. 7:
‘And when they shall have finished their testimony the beast that cometh
up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill
them.’ Dr. Charles in the Introduction to the Ascension of Isaiah (p.
lxiv) makes the following comment on this passage: ‘The antichrist in this
instance makes his advent in Jerusalem (see v. 8), therefore before 70 A.D.
’

[73] Rev.
xix. 20.

[74] Rev.
xvi. 14-16, xx. 8.

[75] Henderson,
Civil War in the Roman Empire , pp. 21–35, 128–144.

[76] Renan,
L’Antéchrist , pp. 327–329.

[77] Tac.
Ann . xiv. 13, 27; Suet. Nero , 20; Philostratus, Apollonius , vi. 38, 41;
Seneca, Quaest. Nat . vi. 1: ‘ Mundus ipse concutitur . . .
consternatio omnium ’; Sibyll. orac . iii. 471 ff.

[78] Tac.
Ann . xvi. 13; Suet. Nero , 39.

[79] Tac.
Ann . xv. 47; Hist . i. 18, 86; Dion Cassius, lxiii. 26.

[80] Suet.
Nero , 45; Sibyll. Orac . iii. 475 ff.

[81] Tac.
Hist . i. 86; Plutarch, Otho , 4.

[82] Rev.
vi. 12-17, viii. 5-9, xvi. 3, 18, 20, 21.

[83] See
Pauly, Real-Encyclopädie under ‘Thera.’ The name of the island described
by Strabo as thrown up was Hiera, now Nea Kaumeni; that thrown up in 46
A.D. Theia, now Mikra Kaumeni. Seneca, Nat. Quaest. vi. 21; Dion Cassius,
lx. 29; Orosius, vii. 6. The modern name of Thera is Santorin (a
corruption of St. Irene), see Encyclopaedia Britannica (ed. 1911) under
‘Santorini’