HKB
serviceable and humble. All the world spoke Greek. The ancient Roman plebeians, attached to the old customs, lost ground each day, drowned as they were in this wave of strangers.
We admit then, that towards the year 50 of our era, some Syrian Jews, already Christians, entered the capital of the empire, and communicated the faith which rendered them happy to their companions. At this time no one suspected that the founder of a second empire was in Rome,--a second Romulus, lodging at the port in a bed of straw. A little band was formed. These ancestors of the Roman prelates were poor, dirty, common people, without distinction, without manners, clothed with fetid garments, having the bad breath of men who are badly fed. Their dwellings had that odor of misery which is exhaled from persons grossly clothed and nourished, and huddled together in narrow rooms. We know the names of two Jews who were the most prominent in these movements. They were Aquila, a Jew, originally from Pontus, who was like St. Paul an upholsterer, and Priscilla his wife,--a pious couple. Banished from Rome they took refuge at Corinth, where they soon became the intimate friends of St. Paul, and zealous workers with him. Thus Aquila and Priscilla are the most ancient known members of the Church of Rome. There is scarcely a souvenir of them there. Tradition, always unjust, because it is always ruled by political motives, has expelled these two obscure workmen from the Christian Pantheon in order to attribute the honor of the foundation of the Church of Rome to a name more in keeping with its proud pretensions. We do not see the original point of the origin of Occidental Christianity in the theatrical Basilica consecrated to St. Peter: it is at that ancient Ghetto, the Porta Portese. It is in tracing these poor vagabond Jews, who bore with them the religion of the world,--these suffering men, dreaming in their misery of the kingdom of God,--that we shall find it again. We do not dispute with Rome its essential title. Rome was probably the first point in the Western World, and even in Europe, where Christianity was established.
But, instead of these lofty basilicas, in place of these insulting devices,--Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat,--it would be better to raise a poor chapel to these good Jews who first pronounced on the quay of Rome the name of Jesus.