That  Ghetto  was  the  cradle  of  the  Christian
Church.  How  the  Church  happened  to  be  born
there  is  not  easy  to  explain.  Every  year  from  the
Koman  Ghetto  not  a  few  pious  Jews  directed  their
steps  towards  Jerusalem  to  offer  their  sacrifices
in  the  Temple.  Some  of  those  Jews  were  to  be
seen  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  among  the  crowd  to
whom  St.  Peter  preached.  Is  it  not  natural  to
think  that  some  Jew,  converted  on  that  great  day,
brought  to  Eome  the  first  seeds  of  the  Gospel? 2
Again  we  know  that  the  foundation  of  the  church
of  Antioch  was  due  to  a  handful  of  laymen  driven
away  from  Jerusalem  by  the  storm  of  persecution ;
we  also  know  that  those  faithful  men  sowed  the
good  seed  all  over  Syria ;  and  as  from  Syria,  from
Asia  Minor,  and  from  Greece  people  used  to  flock
to  Eome  continually  and  in  great  numbers,  should
we  be  far  wrong  if  we  conjectured  that  it  was
through  this  channel  that  the  first  news  of  the
Gospel  reached  the  Eternal  City?

Be  this  as  it  may,  there  remains  the  fact :  that
the  Christian  church  of  Eome  came  to  light  in  the
Jewish  cradle  of  the  Ghetto.    There  the  first  Chris-

2  This  is  the  view  of  Baur,  Reuss,  Thiersch,  Mangold,  A.  Saba-
tier,  Renan,  Holtzinann,  and  others.
