Ramothgilead
(heights of Gilead), one of the great fastnesses on the east of jordan, and the key to an important district. ( 1 Kings 4:13 ) It was the city of refuge for the tribe of Gad, (4:43; Joshua 20:8 ; 21:38 ) and the residence of one of Solomon’s commissariat officers. ( 1 Kings 4:13 ) During the invasion related in ( 1 Kings 15:20 ) or some subsequent incursion, this important place had seized by Ben-hadad I., king of Syria. The incidents of Ahab’s expedition are well known. [ Ahab ] Later it was taken by Israel, and held in spite of all the efforts of Hazael who was now on the throne of Damascus, to regain it. ( 2 Kings 9:14 ) Henceforward Ramoth-gilead disappears from our view. Eusebius and Jerome specify the position of Ramoth as 15 miles from Philadelphia (Amman). It may correspond to the site bearing the name of Jel’ad, exactly identical with the ancient Hebrew Gilead, which is four or five miles north of es-Salt, 25 miles east of the Jordan and 13 miles south of the brook Jabbok.
Revelation Of St. John
the last book of the New Testament. It is often called the Apocalypse, which is its title in Greek, signifying “Revelation,” Canonical authority and authorship.—The inquiry as to the canonical authority of the Revelation resolves itself into a question of authorship. Was St. John the apostle and evangelist the writer of the Revelation? The evidence adduced in support of his being the author consists of (1) the assertions of the author and (2) historical tradition. (1) The author’s description of himself in the 1st and 22d chapters is certainly equivalent to an assertion that he is the apostle. He names himself simply John, without prefix or addition. is also described as a servant of Christ, one who had borne testimony as an eye-witness of the word of God and of the testimony of Christ. He is in Patmos for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. He is also a fellow sufferer with those whom he addresses, and the authorized channel of the most direct and important communication that was ever made to the Seven Churches of Asia, of which churches John the apostle was at that time the spiritual governor and teacher. Lastly, the writer was a fellow servant of angels and a brother of prophets. All these marks are found united in the apostle John, and in him alone of all historical persons. (2) A long series of writers testify to St. John’s authorship: Justin Martyr (cir. 150 A.D.), Eusebius, Irenaeus (A.D. 195), Clement of Alexandria (about 200), Tertullian (207), Origen (233). All the foregoing writers, testifying that the book came from an apostle, believed that it was a part of Holy Scripture. The book was admitted into the list of the Third Council of Carthage, A.D. 397. Time and place of writing.—The date of the Revelation is given by the great majority of critics as A.D. 95-97. Irenaeus says: “It (i.e. the Revelation) was seen no very long time ago, but almost in our own generation, at the close of Domitian’s reign. Eusebius also records that, in the persecution under Domitian, John the apostle and evangelist was banished to the Island Patmos for his testimony of the divine word. There is no mention in any writer of the first three centuries of any other time or place, and the style in which the messages to the Seven Churches are delivered rather suggests the notion that the book was written in Patmos. Interpretation .—Modern interpreters are generally placed in three great divisions: (a) The Historical or Continuous exposition, in whose opinion the Revelation is a progressive history of the fortunes of the Church from the first century to the end of time. (b) The Praeterist expositors, who are of opinion that the Revelation has been almost or altogether fulfilled in the time which has passed since it was written; that it refers principally to the triumph of Christianity over Judaism and Paganism, signalized in the downfall of Jerusalem and of Rome. (c) The Futurist expositors, whose views show a strong reaction against some extravagances of the two preceding schools. They believe that the whole book, excepting perhaps the first three chapters, refers principally, if not exclusively, to events which are yet-to come. Dr.Arnold in his sermons “On the Interpretation of Prophecy” suggests that we should bear in mind that predictions have a lower historical sense as well as a higher spiritual sense; that there may be one or more than one typical, imperfect, historical fulfillment of the prophecy, in each of which the higher spiritual fulfillment is shadowed forth more or less distinctly.
Roman Empire
The first historic mention of Rome in the Bible is in 1 Macc. 1:10 , about the year 161 B.C. in the year 65 B.C., when Syria was made a Roman province by Pompey, the Jews were still governed by one of the Asmonaean princes. The next year Pompey himself marched an army into Judea and took Jerusalem. From this time the Jews were practically under the government of Rome. Finally, Antipater’s son Herod the Great was made king by Antony’s interest, B.C. 40, and confirmed in the kingdom by Augustus, B.C. 30. The Jews, however, were all this time tributaries of Rome, and their princes in reality were Roman procurators, On the banishment of Archelaus, A.D. 6, Judea became a mere appendage of the province of Syria, and was governed by a Roman procurator, who resided at Caesarea. Such were the relations of the Jewish people to the Roman government at the time when the New Testament history begins. Extent of the empire .—Cicero’s description of the Greek states and colonies as a “fringe on the skirts of barbarism” has been well applied to the Roman dominions before the conquests of Pompey and Caesar. The Roman empire was still confined to a narrow strip encircling the Mediterranean Sea. Pompey added Asia Minor and Syria. Caesar added Gaul. The generals of Augustus overran the northwest Portion of Spain and the country between the Alps and the Danube. The boundaries of the empire were now the Atlantic on the west, the Euphrates on the east, the deserts of Africa, the cataracts of the Nile and the Arabian deserts on the south, the British Channel, the Rhine, the Danube and the Black Sea on the north. The only subsequent conquests of importance were those of Britain by Claudius and of Dacia by Trajan. The only independent powers of importance were the Parthians on the east and the Germans on the north. The population of the empire in the time of Augustus has been calculated at 85,000,000. The provinces .—The usual fate of a country conquered by Rome was to be come a subject province, governed directly from Rome by officers sent out for that purpose. Sometimes, however, petty sovereigns were left in possession of a nominal independence on the borders or within the natural limits of the province. Augustus divided the provinces into two classes— (1) Imperial; (2) Senatorial; retaining in his own hands, for obvious reasons, those provinces where the presence of a large military force was necessary, and committing the peaceful and unarmed provinces to the senate. The New Testament writers invariably designate the governors of senatorial provinces by the correct title anthupatoi, proconsuls. ( Acts 13:7 ; 18:12 ; 19:38 ) For the governor of an imperial province, properly styled “legatus Caesaris,” the word hegemon (governor) is used in the New Testament. The provinces were heavily taxed for the benefit of Rome and her citizens. They are said to have been better governed under the empire than under the commonwealth, and those of the emperor better than those of the senate. The condition of the Roman empire at the time when Christianity appeared has often been dwelt upon as affording obvious illustrations of St. Paul’s expression that the “fullness of time had come.” ( Galatians 4:4 ) The general peace within the limits of the empire the formation of military roads, the suppression of piracy, the march of the legions, the voyages of the corn fleets, the general in crease of traffic, the spread of the Latin language in the West as Greek had already spread in the East, the external unity of the empire, offered facilities hitherto unknown for the spread of a world-wide religion. The tendency, too, of despotism like that of the Roman empire to reduce all its subjects to a dead level was a powerful instrument in breaking down the pride of privileged races and national religious, and familiarizing men with the truth that “God had made of one blood all nations on the face of the earth.” ( Acts 17:24 , 26 ) Put still more striking than this outward preparation for the diffusion of the gospel was the appearance of a deep and wide-spread corruption, which seemed to defy any human remedy.
Romans, Epistle To The
The date of this epistle is fixed at the time of the visit recorded in Acts 20:3 during the winter and spring following the apostle’s long residence at Ephesus A.D. 58. On this visit he remained in Greece three months. The place of writing was Corinth. The occasion which prompted it, and the circumstances attending its writing, were as follows:—St. Paul had long purposed visiting Rome, and still retained this purpose, wishing also to extend his journey to Spain. Etom. 1:9-13; 15:22-29. For the time, however, he was prevented from carrying out his design, as he was bound for Jerusalem with the alms of the Gentile Christians, and meanwhile he addressed this letter to the Romans, to supply the lack of his personal teaching. Phoebe, a deaconess of the neighboring church of Cenchreae, was on the point of starting for Rome, ch. ( Romans 16:1 , 2 ) and probably conveyed the letter. The body of the epistle was written at the apostle’s dictation by Tertius, ch. ( Romans 16:22 ) but perhaps we may infer, from the abruptness of the final doxology, that it was added by the apostle himself. The origin of the Roman church is involved in obscurity. If it had been founded by St. Peter according to a later tradition, the absence of any allusion to him both in this epistle and in the letters written by St. Paul from Rome would admit of no explanation. It is equally clear that no other apostle was like founder. The statement in the Clementines—that the first tidings of the gospel reached Rome during the lifetime of our Lord is evidently a fiction for the purposes of the romance. On the other hand, it is clear that the foundation of this church dates very far back. It may be that some of these Romans, “both Jews and proselytes,” present. On the day of Pentecost ( Acts 2:10 ) carried back the earliest tidings of the new doctrine; or the gospel may have first reached the imperial city through those who were scattered abroad to escape the persecution which followed on the death of Stephen. ( Acts 8:4 ; 11:10 ) At first we may suppose that the gospel had preached there in a confused and imperfect form, scarcely more than a phase of Judaism, as in the case of Apollos at Corinth, ( Acts 18:25 ) or the disciples at Ephesus. ( Acts 19:1-3 ) As time advanced and better-instructed teachers arrived the clouds would gradually clear away, fill at length the presence of the great apostle himself at Rome dispersed the mists of Judaism which still hung about the Roman church. A question next arises as to the composition of the Roman church at the time when St. Paul wrote. It is more probable that St. Paul addressed a mixed church of Jews and Gentiles, the latter perhaps being the more numerous. These Gentile converts, however, were not for the most part native Romans. Strange as the: paradox appears, nothing is more certain than that the church of Rome was at this time a Greek and not a Latin church. All the literature of the early Roman church was written in the Greek tongue. The heterogeneous composition of this church explains the general character of the Epistle to the Romans. In an assemblage so various we should expect to find, not the exclusive predominance of a single form of error, but the coincidence of different and opposing forms. It was: therefore the business of the Christian teacher to reconcile the opposing difficulties and to hold out a meeting-point in the gospel. This is exactly what St. Paul does in the Epistle to the Romans. In describing the purport of this epistle we may start from St. Paul’s own words, which, standing at the beginning of the doctrinal portion, may be taken as giving a summary of the contents. ch. ( Romans 1:16 , 17 ) Accordingly the epistle has been described as comprising “the religious philosophy of the world’s history “The atonement of Christ is the centre of religious history. The epistle, from its general character, lends itself more readily to an analysis than is often the case with St. Paul’s epistles. While this epistle contains the fullest and most systematic exposition of the apostle’s teaching, it is at the same time a very striking expression of his character . Nowhere do his earnest and affectionate nature and his tact and delicacy in handling unwelcome topics appear more strongly than when he is dealing with the rejection of his fellow country men the Jews. Internal evidence is so strongly in favor of the genuineness of the Epistle to the Romans that it has never been seriously questioned.
Rome
the famous capital of the ancient world, is situated on the Tiber at a distance of about 15 miles from its mouth. The “seven hills,” ( Revelation 17:9 ) which formed the nucleus of the ancient city stand on the left bank. On the opposite side of the river rises the far higher side of the Janiculum. Here from very early times was a fortress with a suburb beneath it extending to the river. Modern Rome lies to the north of the ancient city, covering with its principal portion the plain to the north of the seven hills, once known as the Campus Martius, and on the opposite bank extending over the low ground beneath the Vatican to the north of the ancient Janiculum. Rome is not mentioned in the Bible except in the books of Maccabees and in three books of the New Testament, viz., the Acts, the Epistle to the Romans and the Second Epistle to Timothy. Jewish inhabitants. the conquests of Pompey seem to have given rise to the first settlement of Jews at Rome. The Jewish king Aristobulus and his son formed part of Pompey’s triumph, and many Jewish captives and immigrants were brought to Rome at that time. A special district was assigned to them, not on the site of the modern Ghetto, between the Capitol and the island of the Tiber, but across the Tiber. Many of these Jews were made freedmen. Julius Caesar showed them some kindness; they were favored also by Augustus, and by Tiberius during the latter part of his reign. It is chiefly in connection with St. Paul’s history that Rome comes before us in the Bible. In illustration of that history it may be useful to give some account of Rome in the time of Nero, the “Caesar” to whom St. Paul appealed, and in whose reign he suffered martyrdom. The city in Paul’s time.—The city at that time must be imagined as a large and irregular mass of buildings unprotected by an outer wall. It had long outgrown the old Servian wall; but the limits of the suburbs cannot be exactly defined. Neither the nature of the buildings nor the configuration of the ground was such as to give a striking appearance to the city viewed from without. “Ancient Rome had neither cupola nor camyanile,” and the hills, never lofty or imposing, would present, when covered with the buildings and streets of a huge city, a confused appearance like the hills of modern London, to which they have sometimes been compared. The visit of St. Paul lies between two famous epochs in the history of the city, viz, its restoration by Augustus and its restoration by Nero. The boast of Augustus is well known, “that he found the city of brick, and left it of marble.” Some parts of the city, especially the Forum and Campus Martius, must have presented a magnificent appearance, of which Niebur’s “Lectures on Roman History,” ii. 177, will give a general idea; but many of the principal buildings which attract the attention of modern travellers in ancient Rome were not yet built. The streets were generally narrow and winding, flanked by densely crowded lodging-houses (insulae) of enormous height. Augustus found it necessary to limit their height to 70 feet. St, Paul’s first visit to Rome took place before the Neronian conflagration but even after the restoration of the city which followed upon that event, many of the old evils continued. The population of the city has been variously estimated. Probably Gibbon’s estimate of 1,200,000 is nearest to the truth. One half of the population consisted, in all probability, of slaves. The larger part of the remainder consisted of pauper citizens supported in idleness by the miserable system of public gratuities. There appears to have been no middle class, and no free industrial population. Side by side with the wretched classes just mentioned was the comparatively small body of the wealthy nobility, of whose luxury and profligacy we learn so much from the heathen writers of the time, Such was the population which St. Paul would find at Rome at the time of his visit. We learn from the Acts of the Apostles that he was detained at Rome for “two whole years,” “dwelling in his own hired house with a soldier that kept him,” ( Acts 28:16 ; 30 ) to whom apparently, according to Roman custom, he was hound with a chain. ( Acts 28:20 ; Ephesians 6:20 ; Philemon 1 :13) Here he preached to all that came to him, no man forbidding him. ( Acts 28:30 , 31 ) It is generally believed that on his “appeal to Caesar” he was acquitted, and after some time spent in freedom, was a second time imprisoned at Rome. Five of his epistles, viz., those to the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, that to Philemon, and the Second Epistle to Timothy, were in all probability written from Rome, the latter shortly before his death ( 2 Timothy 4:6 ) the others during his first imprisonment. It is universally believed that he suffered martyrdom at Rome. The localities in and about Rome especially connected with the life of Paul are— (1) The Appian Way, by which he approached Rome. ( Acts 28:15 ) [ Appii Forum FORUM] (2) “The palace,” Or “Caesar’s court” (praetorium,) ( Philemon 1 :13) This may mean either the great camp of the Praetorian guards which Tiberius established outside the walls on the northeast of the city, or, as seems more probable, a barrack attached to the imperial residence on the Palatine. There is no sufficient proof that the word “praetorium” was ever used to designate the emperors palace, though it is used for the official residence of a Roman governor. ( John 18:28 ; Acts 23:35 ) the mention of “Caesar’s household,” ( Philemon 4 :22) confirms the notion that St. Paul’s residence was in the immediate neighborhood of the emperor’s house on the Palatine. (3) The connection of other localities at home with St. Paul’s name rests only on traditions of more or less probability. We may mention especially— (4) The Mamertine prison, of Tullianum, built by Ancus Martius near the Forum. It still exists beneath the church of St. Giuseppe dei Falegnami. It is said that St. Peter and St. Paul were fellow prisoners here for nine months. This is not the place to discuss the question whether St. Peter was ever at Rome. It may be sufficient to state that though there is no evidence of such a visit in the New Testament, unless Babylon in ( 1 Peter 5:13 ) is a mystical name for Rome yet early testimony and the universal belief of the early Church seems sufficient to establish the fact of his having suffered martyrdom there. [ Peter ] The story, however, of the imprisonment in the Mamertine prison seems inconsistent with ( 2 Timothy 4:11 ) (5) The chapel on the Ostian road which marks the spot where the two apostles are said to, have separated on their way to martyrdom. (6)The supposed scene of St. Paul’s martyrdom, viz., the church of St. Paolo alle tre fontane on the Ostian road. To these may be added— (7) The supposed scene of St. Peter’s martyrdom, viz., the church of St. Pietro in Montorio, on the Janiculum. (8) The chapel Domine que Vadis, on the Aypian road, the scene of the beautiful legend of our Lord’s appearance to St. Peter as he was escaping from martyrdom. (9) The places where the bodies of the two apostles, after having been deposited first in the catacombs, are supposed to have been finally buried—that of St. Paul by the Ostian road, that of St. Peter beneath the dome of the famous Basilica which bears his name. We may add, as sites unquestionably connected with the Roman Christians of the apostolic age— (10) The gardens of Nero in the Vatican. Not far from the spot where St. Peter’s now stands. Here Christians, wrapped in the skins of beasts, were torn to pieces by dogs, or, clothed in inflammable robes, were burnt to serve as torches during the midnight games. Others were crucified. (11) The Catacombs. These subterranean galleries, commonly from 8 to 10 feet in height and from 4 to 6 in width, and extending for miles, especially in the neighborhood of the old Appian and Nomentan Ways, were unquestionably used as places of refuge, of worship and of burial by the early Christians. The earliest dated inscription in the catacombs is A.D. 71. Nothing is known of the first founder of the Christian Church at Rome. Christianity may, perhaps, have been introduced into the city not long after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost by the “strangers of Rome, who were then at Jerusalem, ( Acts 2:10 ) It is clear that there were many Christians at Rome before St. Paul visited the city. ( Romans 1:8 , 13 , 15 ; 15:20 ) The names of twenty-four Christians at Rome are given in the salutations at the end of the Epistle to the Romans. Linus, who is mentioned ( 2 Timothy 4:21 ) and Clement, Phil 4:3 Are supposed to have succeeded St. Peter as bishops of Rome.