The question, Who founded the church at Rome ? is one of some interest as between Catholic and Protestant. The former assigns the honour to Peter, and on this grounds an argument in favour of the claims of the papacy. There is, however, no sufficient reason for believing that Peter was ever even so much as within the walls of Rome. But we have no intention of entering here on that disputed point, and content ourselves with referring the reader to the most recent work on the subject -which has come to our knowledge, in which he will find the argument well and learnedly handled (D. J. Ellendorf, Ist Petrus in Rom una' der Romischen Kirehe geuresen ? Darmstadt 1843).
Rome, as being their tyrannical mistress, IN as an object of special hatred to the Jews, who there foie denominated her by the name of Babylon— the state in whose dominions they had endured a long and heavy servitude (SchOttgen, Hor. Heb., p. 1125; Eisenmenger, Entdecht 7udenth.,i. Soo). Accordingly, Rome, under the name of Babylon, is set forth in the Apocalypse (xiv. 8 ; xvi. 19 ; xvii. 5 ; xviii. 2) as the centre and representative of heathenism ; while Jerusalem appears as the symbol of Judaism. In ch. xvii. 9 allusion is clearly made to the Septicollis, the seven-hilled city— ' seven mountains on which the woman sitteth.' The description of this woman, in whom the profli gacy of Rome is vividly personified, may be seen in ch. xvii. of the Revelation. In ch. xiii. Rome is pictured as a huge unnatural beast, whose name or number is the number of a man, and his num ber is xEcrr,' not improbably Aaripos, Latin, Ro man. This beast has been most variously inter prcted. The several theories serve scarcely more than to display the ingenuity or the bigotry of their originators, and to destroy each other. IVIhnster (De oeculto Urbis Roma nonune, Hafn. 18u) thinks there is a reference to the secret name of Rome, the disclosure of which, it was thought, would be destructive to the state (Plin., Hist. iii. 9 ; Macrob., Sat., id. 5 ; Plutarch, Quasi. Rom., c. 61; Serv., ad /En., ii. z93). Pliny's words occur in the midst of a long and picturesque account of Italy. Coming in the course of it to speak of Rome, he says, the uttering of whose other name is accounted impious, and when it had been spoken by Valerius Soranus, who immediately suffered the penalty, it was blotted out with a faith no less excellent than beneficial.' He then proceeds to
speak of the rites observed on the 1st of January in connection with this belief, in honour of Diva Angerona, whose image appeared with her mouth bound and sealed up. This mystic name tradition reports to have been Valencia.
The most recent view of the name of the beast, from the pen of a Christian writer, we find in Hyponoia, or Thoughts Olt a Spiritual Understand ing of the Apocalypse, London 1844. The num ber in question (666) is expressed in Greek by three letters of the alphabet ; x, six hundred ; sixty ; CT six. Let us suppose these letters to be the initia'ls of certain names, as it was common with the ancients in their inscriptions upon coins, medals, monuments, etc., to indicate names of distimmished characters by initial letters, and some times6by an additional letter, where the initial might be considered insufficient, as C. Caius, Cn. Cneus. The Greek letter x (ch) is the initial of Xptcrtbs (Christ) ; the letter is the initial of tu'Xoy (wood .or tree)—sometimes figuratively put in the N. T. for the cross ; and in the Revelation applied to the tree of life, the spiritual cross. The last letter o is equivalent to o- and T, but whether an s or an st, it is the initial of the word Satanas, Satan, or the adversary. Taking the two first names in the genitive, and the last in the nominative, we have the following appellation, name, or title : Xino-1-00 .ZoNou acurakis, the adversary of the cross of Christ,' a character corresponding with that of cer tain enemies of the truth, described by Paul (Phil.
D9).' The spiritual hyponoia, or underthought, embodied in this the author thus states : Any doc trine tending to represent the intervention of a divine propitiation as unnecessary, or militating with a belief and trust in the vicarious sacrifice of Jesus, as the only hope of salvation, must be an adversary of the cross of Christ ; of this character we consider every principle of self-righteousness,' etc. (See Ansald, De Roma= Tutelar. Dem evocatione, Brix. 1743 ; Plin., Hist. Nat., iii. 9 ; Cellar., Rout., p. 632, seg. ; Mannert., Geog.,ix. 1. 581, seq. ; Sachse, Versuch ein Hist. Topogr. Besehreib. von Ronz, Hannov. 1812 ; Hilscher, De Chresto eujus mention. fait Suet., Lips. ; also Ernesti and Wolf, ad Szeeton. ; Eichhorn, Comm. in Apocal., p. 104, seq.) ROOF. [HousE.] ROOM. [HousE.]