When we speak of the Roman Catholic Church, we jump at the conclusion that it is the church of the Romans and that the people of Rome have had the most to do with its extension. This theory has nothing to recommend it but its extreme verbal simplicity. As a matter of fact, Rome has never been noted for its pious zeal. Such warmth as it has had has been imparted to it by the faithful who have been drawn from other lands; as, according to some theorists, the sun's heat is kept up by a continuous shower of meteors falling into it.
To-day, the Roman Church is more conscious of its strength in Massachusetts than it is near the Vatican. At the period when the Papacy was at its height, and kings and emperors trembled before it in England and in Germany, the Popes had a precarious hold on their own city. Rome was a religious capital rather than a religious centre. It did not originate new movements. Missionaries of the faith have not gone forth from it, as they went from Ireland. It is not in Rome that we find the places where the saints received their spiritual illuminations, and fought the good fight, and gathered their disciples. Rome was the place to which they came for judgment, as Paul did when he appealed to Cæsar. Here heretics were condemned, and here saints, long dead, were canonized. Neither the doctrines nor the institutions of the Catholic Church originated here. Rome was the mint, not the mine. That which received the Roman stamp passed current throughout the world.
In the political struggle for the New Italy, Rome had the same symbolic character. Mazzini was never so eloquent as when portraying the glories of the free Rome that was to be recognized, indeed, as the mother of us all. The Eternal City, he believed, was to be the regenerating influence, not only for Europe but for all the world. All the romantic enthusiasm of Garibaldi flamed forth at the sight of Rome. All other triumphs signified nothing till Rome was the acknowledged capital of Italy. Silently and steadily Cavour worked toward the same end. And at last Rome gathered to herself the glory of the heroes who were not her own children.
If we recognize the symbolic and representative character of Roman history, we can begin to understand the reason for the bewilderment which comes to the traveler who attempts to realize it in imagination. Roman history is not, like the tariff, a local issue. The most important events in that history did not occur here at all, though they were here commemorated. So it happens that every nation finds here its own, and reinforces its traditions. In the Middle Ages, the Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, found much to interest him. In Rome were to be found two brazen pillars of Solomon's Temple, and there was a crypt where Titus hid the holy vessels taken from Jerusalem. There was also a statue of Samson and another of Absalom.