or any of the apostles.”2 Luke tells us that “visitors from Rome” were present on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:10). Some of them were probably converted as a result of Peter’s powerful speech. They would have returned to their home city and begun preaching Jesus as the Messiah. We know that enough Jews had emigrated to Rome by the first century B.C. to make up a significant portion of the population.3 The Jewish community was not apparently unified, with many synagogues independent of one another.
Page 8