Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 20.djvu/751

Rh o M R o M 727 original work, the Metamorphoses, has nothing of Roman or Italian colouring. The last writer who combines genius with something of national spirit is the poet Claudian, who wrote his epics under the immediate inspiring influ- ence of a great national crisis and a national hero. As fresh blood came to the nearly exhausted literary genius of Italy from Spain in the first century of the empire, so in the later centuries it came from Africa. Whatever of original literary force appears either in the pagan or Christian literature written in the Latin language between the 2d and the 6th century is due to Romanized settle- ments in Africa. We have to remember during all these comparatively barren centuries that secular literature had again found its organ in the Greek language, and that the new spiritual life of the world had come into stern antagonism with many of the most powerful motives of classical poetry. Literature. The most important books on the subject are the Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, by J. C. F. Bahr ; the Grund- riss der rb'mischen Litteratur, by G. Bernhardy ; and the Geschichte der romischen Litteratur, by W. S. Teuffel. The last of these has been translated into JEnglish. There is also a Geschiclite der ramiscJien Litteratur by G. Munck. The most recent books on the subject in English are Mr. G. A. Shncox's History of Latin Literature from Ennius to Boethius, and the History of Roman Literature from the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius, by Mr C. T. Cruttwell. (W. Y. S.) ROMANS, a town of France, in the department of Drome, 12 miles north-east of Valence by the railway con- necting this town with Grenoble, stands at the foot of an eminence on the right bank of the Isere, 530 feet above the sea. A fine stone bridge unites it with Bourg du Peage on the other side of the river. Both towns owe their prosperity to their situation in the most fertile part of the valley of the Isere, where land is sometimes sold at 200 per acre. The population of Romans was 11,916 (13,806 in the commune) in 1881. The present parish church belonged to an abbey founded in 837 by St Bernard, forty-ninth bishop of Vienne. The north portal, now condemned, dates from the llth century; the prin- cipal portal is one of the finest specimens of 12th-century Romanesque; and the choir and the transept are striking examples of the style of the 13th. Romans has also a wealthy hospital and a large seminary. Besides the silk- trade the local industries comprise shoemaking, tanning, hat-making, oil-refining, &c. ROMANS, EPISTLE TO THE. The origin of the Chris- tian community at Rome is involved in obscurity. Accord- ing to Catholic tradition it was founded by Peter, who was its bishop for a quarter of a century. But neither allega- tion has historical support. The most striking proof of the contrary is precisely this epistle of Paul. It does not contain the remotest reference to either the one fact or the other. And if Paul had written such an epistle to a community founded by Peter he would not only have vio- lated the agreement mentioned in Gal. ii. 9, but would also have gone against his own principle of refraining from intrusion on the mission fields of others (Rom. xv. 20 ; 2 Cor. x. 16). But neither was Paul the founder of the church in Rome. This also is shown by the present epistle, in which he for the first time opens relations with a community already formed. Thus we are thrown upon mere conjecture. In pursuing the investigation we have this fact to start from, that even before the Christian era there already existed in Rome a strong Jewish colony. After the conquest of Jerusalem by Pompey (63 B.C.) numbers of Jewish prisoners of war were brought to Rome and there sold as slaves. Of these many were soon after- wards emancipated by their masters, Jewish slaves being a peculiarly inconvenient kind of property on account of the strictness of their observance of their law, especially in the matter of clean and unclean meats (Philo, Leg. ad Caium, ii. 568, ed. Mangey). These freedmen became the micleus of a Jewish community, which ultimately settled in Trastevere and organized itself into an independent religious communion. It rapidly increased and became an important element in the life of the capital. By the time of Herod's death (4 B.C.) the independent Jews of Rome that is, besides women and children already numbered 8000 according to Josephus (Antiq., xvii. 11, 1 ; Bell. Jud., ii. 6, 1). In the reign of Tiberius indeed this large and powerful organization was dissolved at a single stroke, a decree of the senate (19 A.D.) having sent to Sardinia for military service all Jews capable of bearing arms (Tac., Ann., ii. 85 ; Suet., Tiber., 36 ; Joseph., Antiq., xviii. 3, 5). It is probable, however, that after the death (31 A.D.) of Sejanus, to whom this measure had been mainly due, the Jews were expressly permitted to return to Rome, for we are told by Philo (Leg. ad Caium, ii. 569, ed. Mangey) that after the death of his favourite Tiberius perceived the Jews to have been unjustly calumniated, and ordered the authorities to refrain from oppressing them. At all events the community must ultimately have come together again, for in the reign of Claudius its existence is again presupposed, the idea of expelling the Jews from the capital having anew been entertained under that emperor. Regarding this proposal, however, accounts vary. According to the Acts of the Apostles (xviii. 2), and also Suetonius (Claud., 25), it was actually carried out ; but according to Dio Cassius (Ix. 6) the expulsion was only proposed, and, when it was seen to be impracticable without great tumult, all that was done was to withdraw from the Jews their right of meeting. The latter version is doubtless the more correct. The withdrawal of the right of meeting was equivalent to the prohibition of public worship, and sufficiently explains why numbers left the city (Acts xviii. 2). But the main body must have remained and doubtless have again obtained the privilege of assembly, for from the time of Nero onwards we find the Jews in Rome once more flourishing with undiminished vigour. From the midst of this Jewish community it was that the Christian congregation doubtless arose. The Jews of the Dispersion, it is well known, kept up an active corre- spondence with the mother-country in Palestine. Every year they sent their gifts and offerings thither, and every one in a position to do so went in person to the great festivals of the Holy City. As a result of this vigorously maintained intercourse, which was aided also by the interests of trade, tidings of Jesus as the promised Messiah did not fail to reach the capital of the empire. Individual Jews who had become believers came forward in Rome as preachers of the gospel and found acceptance with a section of their countrymen. They found a perhaps still more numerous following among the "God-fearing" or "devout" (cre/3o/zei/oi, (/>o/3otyzevoi, TOV #eov) heathen, i.e., within that large circle which consisted of those who had adopted the faith of the Jews, observed certain of the more important precepts of their law, and also attended their public worship, but did not, strictly speaking, belong to the communion, and thus represented a sort of Judaism of the second order. 1 In proportion as faith in Jesus as the Messiah gained ground within the Jewish community, a separation between the believers and the others would of course become more 1 Many scholars identify these "devout" heathen with the "pro- selytes of the gate " who are met with in Rabbinical literature ; but in reality the two are quite distinct and unrelated.