DESTINATION
DESTINATION
As it stands, the letter is addressed to the church4 at Rome (1:7, 15). This is supported by the geographical note in which Paul writes of going to Spain and proceeds, “I hope to visit you while passing through” (15:24). Some scholars have been so impressed by the fact that the words “in Rome” (1:7, 15) are absent from a few manuscripts that they have concluded that the Roman church was not the epistle’s original destination. They hold that it was meant as a circular letter, perhaps sent to Rome as one of its addressees. However, the evidence is not strong and there is no reasonable doubt about the text.5
But the question is not as simple as this, for there are many who deny that we should take the letter as it stands. Quite a few hold that chapter 16 was not originally part of this letter but was meant for the church at Ephesus (see below, pp. 41ff.). Usually this is understood to mean that all or part of a letter to Ephesus has somehow been attached to a letter to Rome. A different line is taken by T. W. Manson. From the fact that P46 (our oldest copy of Romans) has the doxology at the end of chapter 15 he argues that Paul wrote a 15-chapter edition. Manson thinks that the apostle sent a copy to Ephesus with the addition of chapter 16 and sent another copy, without the addition, to Rome.6 On this view we have the letter to Ephesus. I shall discuss this view more fully later. Here it is enough to say that the personal references in chapters 1 and 15 make it difficult to accept any circular-letter hypothesis. It would not have been insuperably difficult to remove them or, if this copy was meant for Ephesus, to replace them with matter more appropriate to that city. And we should not overlook the fact that even on Manson’s view the bulk of the letter was intended for the Roman church just as much as for that in Ephesus.
We have no precise information about how and when and by whom the church was established at Rome. Acts 2:10 informs us that visitors from Rome were among those in Jerusalem who heard the Christians preach on the day of Pentecost. There is nothing improbable in the suggestion that some of them responded to Peter’s sermon and became Christians, though we must immediately add that we have no knowledge of this. There is a tradition that Peter and Paul founded the church. But this epistle shows that the church was flourishing in Rome long before Paul visited that city. If Peter was the founder in the same sense as Paul, this can mean only that he was interested in the church, that he may have visited it at some time, and that it accepted his teaching. It cannot mean that he was responsible for its first converts. This is in any case unlikely, for Peter’s primary responsibility was to the Jews, just as Paul’s was to the Gentiles (Gal. 2:7–8). It is most improbable that Peter settled in Rome as bishop of the church as some traditions hold, for he seems to have exercised a wandering ministry (1 Cor. 9:5). There is no record of his ever settling down anywhere. As for Paul, it is impossible to hold that he had much to do with the church in Rome in its early years. When he wrote this epistle he had never been to Rome (1:10–13), and he makes it clear that there was already a significant group of believers there (1:6, 7, 8; 15:14).
There is then no reliable tradition about the founding of this church, and we are left to speculation. The probability is that traders and other travellers first brought Christianity to Rome. As they witnessed to their faith they brought others to believe, and in this way a church was born. It seems likely that the first converts were won from among the Jews, and they may even have been organized as a synagogue (or synagogues).7 This is speculation, but it is supported by a note in the Roman historian Suetonius. This man tells us that the Emperor Claudius expelled the Jews8 from Rome because they “constantly made disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus (impulsore Chresto).”9 Most scholars take “Chrestus” as equivalent to “Christus” (the two words had similar pronunciations), that is, Christ. If this understanding of it is correct, it would seem that the fairly large group of Jews in Rome10 had mixed feelings about Christianity. Some followed Christ. But others objected so violently that there were riots. Orosius’s dating of this in A.D. 49 is generally accepted, so the passage points to an early establishment of the church in the capital city. An early establishment is indicated also by the fact that Paul says that he had for a long time wanted to visit them (1:13).
But if the first converts were Jews, this was a condition that did not last. By the time Romans was written a large Gentile element was clearly in the number (1:5–6, 13; 11:13–32; cf. 9:3ff.; 10:1–2; 15:15–16). The church can scarcely have been completely Gentile, as the many references to views held by Jews (Christian and otherwise) throughout the epistle show. Paul speaks of Abraham as “our” forefather (4:1) and writes to people who know law (7:1) and have “died” to the law (7:4; these passages may include others than Jews but they certainly include Jews). The charge of nullifying the law (3:31) looks like a Jewish charge, as do objections to Paul’s view of freedom from the law (6:1–7:6). Justification by faith, not law, is said to be an argument against a Jewish position. It would not have been impossible for Paul to have written these words to Gentile Christians (cf. 1 Cor. 10:1), but at least they are congruous with Jewish recipients.11 But when Paul writes “Accept one another” and goes on to speak of Christ as having “become a servant of the Jews on behalf of God’s truth, to confirm the promises made to the patriarchs so that the Gentiles may glorify God for his mercy” (15:7–9), it is plain that he is writing to members of both groups. We should also bear in mind what W. G. Kümmel calls “the equal responsibility of Jews and Greeks before God”,12 which finds expression in a number of places (e.g., 1:16; 2:9ff., 25ff.; 3:29; 10:12). Such expressions are pointless unless representatives of both groups are to read the letter. It is not clear which group predominated,13 though the general tone of the letter and the fact that Paul clearly believed that the Roman church had come within his sphere of responsibility as apostle to the Gentiles may be held to point to some preponderance of Gentiles.