This appellation �Apostles� is not a common title and indicates that these two were more than ordinary Christians. They could have been in Jerusalem in 33 A.D. and might have been in the group of 120 obedient Disciples who were gathered in the upper room on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2:4. This seems to be the only way one can single them out and call them apostles. We know Christ chose twelve, then seventy and so this lot of about 120 faithful followers could just as well be called Apostles for they were waiting for the Promise of the Father in company with the 11 and 70. Roman Jews at Jerusalem were called sojourners. Acts 2:10. They had proselytes and we have the right to believe that they took the gospel back to their own people. These apostles could have established a church in Rome for some of them met St. Paul at the Three Taverns when he arrived in Italy.

When the reign of the Emperor Claudius was past, 54 A.D. we read that those Christian Jews who had been expelled from Rome filtered back into the city. They wanted to continue in fellowship with the church in which they had once labored.

Thirteen years had allowed the infant church at Rome to revert to the old pagan ways. They had no use for the Jewish background which was vitally necessary in order for the converts to understand the prophesies concerning Jesus in God�s plan of redemption. These Christians in the first Church at Rome had lost the essence of the Gospel but retained Christ�s name. They called themselves The Christian Church.

The ancient Dead Sea Scrolls spoke of the sons of light and the sons of darkness.

There were two such groups in Rome in the years 41-54 A.D. The Christians who were drawn back into the old Pagan worship had lost the true light of the world. They were the sons of darkness.

St. Paul speaks of them in this chapter of Romans 16:17, 18. St. Peter also writes of them in II Peter, Chapter 2. In the City of Rome after the year 54 A.D. the Christians had to by-pass the first Christian Church and so Priscilla and Aquilla and Andronicus and Junia started all over again and established a second church in Rome. Phoebe was sent to the second Church at Rome which was truly the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We have only to look at the progress of the first established church of Rome in later years to see them acting like pagans whom they emulated. Lies, murders, forgeries, supremacy claims, etc, etc.

They looked so much like a pagan temple with their images and adornments of the sun god that the Emperors favored them but persecuted the pure evangelical churches of the empire. This is why the first church at Rome became so large. With the approval of the emperors they arose rapidly. We can see that it was this branch of the church only that could have overthrown the Roman Empire. They used the pagan tactics. It took "fire to drive out fire" as the old adage says.