ROME AND BABYLON.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR:'] SIR,—In your review in the Spectator of March 3rd of Father Barnes's book, " St. Peter in Rome," you say that the Babylon mentioned in the First Epistle of St. Peter was un- questionably the Eternal City. It may have been. But there is another theory which also deserves consideration.
If Rome was regarded in Apostolic times as the mystical Babylon, there was also a place—not a city, but a settlement —known actually as Babylon, or BabRua; a name which has survived to the present day. I refer, of course, to the site of the Coptic churches, a mile or two out of Cairo. This place is said to have been called " Babylon " by certain Babylonish captives, who were placed there many centuries before our era by one of the Pharaohs. In Japan there is a village called Corea, from the fact that it was originally a Corean settlement. In like manner the Babylonians called their Egyptian home Babylon—Little Babylon, perhaps, as we should say—in affectionate remembrance of their native city. Old Jewry does not mean Jerusalem ; it means a quarter inhabited by Jews. And the Babylon of Cairo was simply the Babylonian Ghetto. Further, the Coptic churches at the Cairene Bahian claim to have been founded by St. Mark ; and St. Mark, as we know, was intimately associated with St. Peter. I submit, therefore, that all these facts throw a very suggestive light upon St. Peter's words : " The church
that is in Babylon saluteth you ; as doth also Marcus my son." That Mark was officially connected with that church may very fairly be deduced.—I am, Sir, &c., FREDERIC H. BALFOUR.
Villa Belvedere, Via Dante da Castiglione 1, Florence.
Previous page
