Page:The early Christians in Rome (1911).djvu/51

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

II

A SUMMARY OF LITERARY NOTICES


And now to sum up the evidence we have been quoting:

The Literary Notices have been gathered from all parts of the Roman world where Christianity had made a lodgment.

From Rome (Clement of Rome) in the first and second centuries and early in the third century.

From Antioch (Ignatius, Papias) (including Syria and Asia Minor) very early in the second century.

From Corinth (Greece) (Dionysius) in the second half of the second century.

From Lyons (Gaul) (Irenæus) in the second half of the second century.

From Alexandria (Egypt) (Clement of Alexandria) in the second half of the second century.

From Carthage (North Africa) (Tertullian) in the close of the second century.

These and other literary notices, more or less definitely, all ascribe the laying of the foundation stories of the Church of Rome to the preaching and teaching of the Apostles Peter and Paul. All without exception in their notices of this foundation work place the name of Peter first. It is hardly conceivable that these very early writers would have done this had Peter only made his appearance in Rome for the first time in A.D. 63 or 64, after Paul's residence in the capital for some two years, when he was awaiting the trial which resulted in his acquittal.

Then again, the repeated mention of the two great apostles as the Founders of the Roman Church would have been singularly inaccurate if neither of them had visited the capital before A.D. 60-1, the date of Paul's arrival, and A.D. 63-4, the