ROMANS, Epistle to the. Authorship.— That the Apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans is practically undisputed, for the very few critics who have ever denied it (scarcely more than the little °Dutch School)) of the lat ter part of the last century) have found no recognition for either their arguments or their conclusions. The claim of Pauline authorship in the opening address (i, 1) is confirmed not only by unanimous tradition but also by the whole tone and contents of the letter, so that sane historical criticism unanimously asserts it with the utmost positiveness.
Destination.— It is as little to be doubted that the letter was addressed to the Christians in the city of Rome. The name of the city stands both in the opening address and a little later in the•same chapter (i, 7, 15), and this is confirmed alike by unanimous tradition and by many things in the letter itself, as, for example, that Paul writes in i, 10-13 and xv, 23, 24, 28, in a fashion which would fit with no other city we can name, especially as we know from Acts xix, 21, that he did have the fixed purpose of visiting that city. While the omission of the name Rome in a few authorities, none of which is of any special value, raises a somewhat per plexing problem for textual criticism, the re suit is such as in no way to shake the confi dence of scholars in the Roman address of the Epistle.
The Roman Church.— The origin of the Christian Church at Rome cannot now be traced. It is probable that many influences and elements combined to make it. Some Jews from Rome were in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost (Acts ii, 10) and they may in some cases have returned to Rome, carrying their newfound faith; when persecution scattered the Jerusalem Christians (Acts viii, 1), some may have wandered as far as Rome; as the facilities for communication throughout the empire were better than they were again anywhere in the world till during the last century, and as the capital of the empire was a great magnet which drew from all over the world, men and women who had elsewhere been converted to Chris tianity may have drifted to Rome in consid erable numbers during the quarter of a cen tury which intervened between the resurrection of Jesus and the writings of Romans. Thus even though the traditions of an Apostolic origin for that Church cannot be credited, it is easy to see that from the very nature of the case there must have been many Christians in the city when Paul wrote. Many would naturally
be of Jewish descent, so that there is nothing improbable in the interpretation which many give to the words of Stietonins narrating the expulsion of the Jews.by Claudius, to the effect that the. disturbances were not due to the gen era' Messianic hope, but to conflicts based on a difference of opinion as to whether Jesus was the expected Messiah. It is also known that there were many proselytes and others, who were associated with the Jews, being attracted by the lofty spiritual worship of their monothe istic faith and the strict purity of its moral precepts. It has been held by some that the church at Rome was mainly made up of Jewish Christians at that time but the prevalent opin ion seems to be fully justified, especially by what we find in the letter itself as well as by the probabilities of the case, that the dominant element in the church was Gentile, as was doubtless already true almost everywhere out side of Palestine.
Date and Place.— From the epistle itself (xv, 25) we learn that it was written just be fore Paul's visit to Jerusalem to carry up the great collection which he had gathered from all the churches which he had founded. From Acts xx, 3, we learn that Paul spent in Corinth the three months before setting out on this journey, and everything fits with the view that this Epistle was written during the period of comparative leisure and calm which this visit may well have afforded him. There are also greetings at the close of the letter (xvi, 23), which are best understood as from Corinthian Christians, and Cenchrese, from which place Phoebe, the bearer of the letter, was to set out, was close by Corinth. While most of Paul's letters can be dated with satisfactory certainty so far as the relations to other events in his life work are concerned, there still remains much uncertainty as to the calendar years to which these events should be assigned. The date usually given to the stay in Corinth and the writing of Romans is the winter of 57-58, but some chronologists date the events accom panying its composition several years earlier.