The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans : with notes, comments, maps, and illustrations .. . of the city, connected withthe life of Paul, may be mentioned the gardens of Nero, on the Vati-can Hill, not far distant from the modern St. Peters, where theChristians suffered martyrdom by various ingenious schemes ofcruelty. Also the Catacombs, which were subterranean galleries,about ten feet high and six feet wide, extending for miles, andwhich were used by the persecuted Christians subsequently asplaces of refuge, worship, and bu rial. Such were some of the outward aspects of the city as it
The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans : with notes, comments, maps, and illustrations .. . of the city, connected withthe life of Paul, may be mentioned the gardens of Nero, on the Vati-can Hill, not far distant from the modern St. Peters, where theChristians suffered martyrdom by various ingenious schemes ofcruelty. Also the Catacombs, which were subterranean galleries,about ten feet high and six feet wide, extending for miles, andwhich were used by the persecuted Christians subsequently asplaces of refuge, worship, and bu rial. Such were some of the outward aspects of the city as it appearedto Paul. Its social organization he found to be a structure inwhich were put, side by side, the ostentatious luxury of inex-haustible wealth andthe painful squalor ofchronic pauperism; asystem of contrastingelements, of which thesplendor of its publicedifices and the mean-ness of its lower hauntswere but an accompa-nying and natural out-growth. Rich and poor,patrician and plebs,were alike given up touniversal vice, and thenumber was small in-deed that retained thesimplicity and purity. ROME LN THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS C^SAR. of a virtuous life. The life of her people wascorrupted by the pollutions of the stage, andhardened by the cnielties of the amphitheater;swarming with parasites, impostors, poisoners,and the vilest slaves; without any seriousreligion; without any public education; ter-rorized by insolent soldiers and pauperizedmobs, the worlds capital presented at this INTRODUCTION. 83 period a picture unparalleled for shame andmisery in the annals vi the world. From thetime when Iompey conquered Jerusalem, ,and made Palestine a Roman Province, the Jews,in gnidually increasing numbers, had found tlieirway to this city, until, in the time of Nero, theycounted as a large factor in the population oftiie city. This Jewish community, to the num-ber of 8,000, occupied a large district across theTiber, in the neighborhood of the wharves andshipping, a locationthat suited
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbible, bookyear1888
