is only part of a general silence on the subject of her history. How Christianity first reached her shores we must be content not to know with any certainty. Legend of St. Joseph of Arima thea. It is extremely unlikely that St. Paul himself ever visited Britain: though such a journey might conceivably be covered (without altogether undue straining) by St. Clement's vague phrase, "the utmost bounds of the West." Nor can any credence be given to the legend which makes St. Joseph of Arimathea Britain's first Apostle. The story of his coming from Gaul with eleven others at the bidding of St. Philip in 63 A.D. (the probable year of St. Paul's visit to Spain) is first found as "hearsay" in William of Malmesbury; and the romance which makes him bring the Holy Grail to Glastonbury is probably an invention of Walter Map (c. 1200).1 A germ of truth may lie in the legend, to wit, that the Gospel must almost certainly have come to Britain from Gaul, and may have established itself first, or very early, at Glastonbury. As for St. Philip's connexion with Gaul, there is no strong or early tradition in its favour. Graecina. The earliest name associated at once with Britain and with Christianity is that of Pomponia Graecina, wife of Aulus Plautius, who spent some time here at the head of the victorious Pomponia Roman army, and was governor of Britain from 44 to 47 A.D.2 Pomponia, of whom we shall have more to say in the next chapter, was probably (though not certainly) a Christian; and, though her 1 Hastings' Dict., s. v. "Joseph of Arimathea," p. 778. 2 We have names of ten of Plautius' successors, carrying us down to the reign of Domitian (85 A.D.). conversion would doubtless have taken place after her return to Rome, there are further possibilities associated with her name round which a modern "legend" has grown up. The Claudia and Claudia and Pudens mentioned together with Linus at Pudens. the end of St. Paul's latest Epistle1 have been identified by some with a couple whose marriage is recorded by Martial in an Epigram written in the year 88 A.D. Martial's Claudia was a British princess, who presumably came to Rome in Pomponia's train. St. Paul's Pudens has further been identified with a son of Pudentinus who, in an inscription found at Chichester, is associated with a British king, Cogidubnus, hence presumed to be Claudia's father. The romance which would make this pair the first evangelists of Britain is as ingenious as it is attractive: but it appears inconsistent with the date of Martial's Epigram, and with the character of his friend Pudens; and it has against it also the order in which St. Paul mentions the three names, inserting Linus between the other two.2 For the rest Pudens is a common name, and Claudia very common indeed both for members of the imperial family and its dependents and freedwomen or slaves. With this romance perishes the one possibility of connecting British Christianity directly with St. Paul. There remains only the fact-of greater or less significance that, well before the close of the first century, in a Rome in which the heads of society, and indeed all classes, were rapidly falling under the influence of Christian teaching, some of Britain's best blood was to be found. The unknown evangelists of 1 2 Tim. iv. 21. 2 Lightfoot, Clement, vol. i., p. 76 sqq. these islands, whose work had at any rate left its mark by the time of Origen (c. 230 A.D.), may have been released captives or returned hostages who had learnt their Gospel lessons in Rome.1 Germany. Germany need not detain us, for her own latest historian declares that her Church history begins with the statement of Irenaeus,2 from which we can gather only the vague information that there were "churches planted in Germany before 185 A.D." When her Church appears upon the scene at Arles in 314 A.D., its representation is less impressive than that of the poverty-stricken Church of Britain. Italy. For Christianity in Italy outside Rome we have very little to go upon till the close of the second. century. It is tempting to imagine that wherever St. Paul touched he must have sowed the seeds of a future church. Three days at Syracuse would not, however, leave a prisoner much opportunity of solid work, still less a single day at Reggio; and though previous Christians from the east would have touched at these same ports on their way to Rome, St. Luke's narrative has no mention of "brethren" in either city. The existing catacombs of Syracuse, and of Sicily in general, are of comparatively late date though they may possibly carry our data back as early as the first half of the second century.3 When we come to Pozzuoli (Puteoli) we are on firmer ground. This large and flourishing port, one of the two great corn-marts of the Alexandrian trade, was almost certainly the first Puteoli. landing-place of Christianity on Italian soil. Here, 1 Hom. iv. 1 in Ezek. (Lomm., xiv., p. 59); Harnack, ii. 272. 2 Iren., Haer., i. 10; Harnack, ii. 269. 3 Harnack, ii. 254 sq. when St. Paul arrived, he was welcomed by a Christian community, whose hospitality he and his companions enjoyed for an entire week.1 Puteoli may well have been already an active centre for the spread of the faith for there is evidence of a kind, though not incontrovertible, of the existence of Christianity Naples at a very early date in Naples and Pompeii. and In Naples the catacombs of St. Gennaro Pompeii. bespeak a Christianity as early as the second century;2 and at Pompeii the doubtful inscription," HRICTIAN," together with the other, "SODOMA GOMORA," so significant of the city's appalling fate, and the lamp bearing the well-known Christian monogram, if not conclusive as evidence, are at least worthy of consideration. Following in St. Paul's track along the Appian Way, we do not find any mention of resident Christians at Appii Forum or Tres Tabernae: but we know that the latter was the seat of a bishop a couple of centuries later. Northern In North Italy, as in Gaul, the progress of Christianity was slow. Rimini and Milan seem to have been the principal centres from which the influence eventually radiated: but there is no evidence that either of them was evangelised in the Apostolic Age. And it is at least possible that the Gospel came to Upper Italy, not from Rome, but from Macedonia, by the road that led through Sardica and Sirmium.4 1 Acts xxviii. 13, 14. 2 Harnack, ii. 253. 4 Ibid., ii. 258. CHAPTER XI GENTILE CHRISTIANITY: ROME ND so "AN we came to Rome"-the goal of St. Luke's narrative and of St. Paul's evangelistic ambition. Rome had a large and flourishing Jewish colony settled in the Trastevere quarter. As early as the second century B.C., we hear of Jewish Jewish embassies to Rome: the Asmonaean princes colony had cultivated friendly relations with the in Rome. Senate and people, paralleled later by the personal intimacy of the imperial family at Rome with the Herodian dynasty.2 But the importance of the colony dates from Pompey's conquest of Judaea in 63 B.C. Commercial advantages, backed by the kindness of Julius Caesar to the Jews, brought additions to swell the nucleus formed by Pompey's numerous captives; and inscriptions witness to the existence of half a dozen synagogues in the city. Prosperity bred jealousy and suspicion. Already in Cicero's time the persistent influence and the perfect organisation of the Jews had induced a sort of fear of them akin to that felt in Russia to-day.3 Tiberius* was moved to harsh measures in 19 A.D., and banished four thousand Jews to Sardinia in the secret hope, 1 Acts xxviii. 14. 3 Cic., Pro Flacco (59 B. C.). 2 1 Macc. viii. 17 sqq.; xii. 1, 3. Tac., Ann., ii. 85; Suet., Tib., 66. 4 |