text: Jews were expelled from Rome because of disturbances around AD 49 by the edict of Claudius. Fitzmyer claims that both Jews and Jewish Christians were expelled as a result of their infighting. Claudius died around the year AD 54, and his successor, Emperor Nero, allowed the Jews back into Rome, but then, after the Great Fire of Rome of 64, Christians were persecuted. Fitzmyer argues that with the return of the Jews to Rome in 54 new conflict arose between the Gentile Christians and the Jewish Christians who had formerly been expelled. He also argues that this may be what Paul is referring to when he talks about the "strong" and the "weak" in Romans 15; this theory was originally put forth by W. Marxsen in Introduction to the New Testament: An Approach to its problems (1968) but is critiqued and modified by Fitzmyer. Fitzmyer's main contention is that Paul seems to be purposefully vague. Paul could have been more specific if he wanted to address this problem specifically. Keck thinks Gentile Christians may have developed a dislike of or looked down on Jews (see also Antisemitism and Responsibility for the death of Jesus), because they theologically rationalized that Jews were no longer God's people.
  Style
  Scholars often have difficulty assessing whether Romans is a letter or an epistle, a relevant distinction in form-critical analysis: