LAST DAYS OF THE APOSTLES
St. Peter’s First Visit to Rome—Wide Scope of His Work—Rome
Destined to Become the Seat of Ecclesiastical Government—St.
Peter’s Early Converts—Persecution of the Jews—Life in the
Catacombs—Simon Magus and St. Peter—Peter’s Return to Rome—Nero’s
Slaughter of Christians—Peter’s Vision—“Lord, Whither Goest
Thou?”—Preparation for Martyrdom—Last Epistle—St. Peter’s
Successor—Imprisonment of St. Peter and St. Paul—Scenes of Final
Tragedy—Crucifixion of Peter—Paul Beheaded—Devotion of Their
Followers.
The perusal of the histories of Rome, both ancient and modern, inspires
the reader with amazement, when he realises that, despite countless
invasions, destructions, and changes, certain apparently obscure
landmarks of events which took place in the city during the first
century after Christ, still exist, uneffaced and unforgotten. Yet so
it is, particularly in regard to those connected with the sojourn of
St. Peter in Rome. The devout pilgrim may visit them to-day with as
little doubt as to their identity as did his ancestor in the Faith
nearly two thousand years ago. The Apostle’s first visit to Rome took
place, according to St. Jerome, Eusebius, and the old Roman Calendar
of Bucherius, in the year 45 of our era. Among illiterate sectarians
it was still attempted, when I was young, to uphold the theory,
invented by the so-called Reformers, that he had never been in Rome
at all. Our separated brethren have since grown more enlightened and
do not like to be reminded of that contention, annihilated again and
again even by their own historians, notably by Baratier, a Protestant
divine who published his “Chronological Inquiry” relating to the
Bishops of Rome, from Peter to Victor, at Utrecht, in 1740, and by
the learned Protestant Bishop Pearson, who had preceded him in the
task of demonstrating incontrovertibly that St. Peter had held that
See for many years. On the dispersion of the Apostles after the
first persecution in Jerusalem, St. Peter had reserved the perilous
enterprise of the conquest of “Babylon” (as the seat of empire was
at that time called by the Christians) for himself, but there was
other and nearer work for him to accomplish first, and it was only
some twelve years later that he found it possible to carry out his
intention.
In the meantime he had travelled and preached unceasingly in Asia
Minor, where during those years he organised and held the Bishopric
of Antioch, the third greatest city of the Empire. From thence he
instituted the See of Alexandria, of which he constituted St. Mark
the Bishop, at the same time decreeing that Alexandria should be
the second church of the world, taking precedence of Antioch, which
thenceforth ranked as the third.[3] There had evidently never been
any doubt in his mind that Rome was to be the first, the seat of
ecclesiastical government, long prepared for that destiny by the
decrees of Providence, carried out, as sealed orders, by her conquering
armies abroad, and by the perfection of her far-reaching yet completely
centralised system of organisation at home. We all know that the actual
computation of the Christian era is a slightly faulty one, owing to the
great laxity and confusion prevailing in the chronology of the Empire
at the time of the birth of Christ. But, this much is certain—that some
twelve years after the ascension of our Lord, St. Peter came to preach
the Faith in Rome. St. Leo the Great (440 A.D.), in his splendid sermon
on this subject, describes how the capital of the Empire, “ignorant
of the Divine Author of her destinies, had made herself the slave of
the errors of all the races, at the very moment when she held them
under her laws. She thought she possessed a great religion because
she had accepted every falsehood, but the more closely she was held in
durance by Satan the more marvellously was she delivered by Christ.”
Then, after narrating the partition of the evangelisation of the world
among the Apostles, he exclaims: “And dost thou not fear, Peter, to
come alone into this city? Paul, the companion of thy glory, is still
occupied in founding other Churches; and thou, thou dost plunge into
this forest peopled with wild beasts, thou treadest this ocean, whose
depths growl with tempests, with more courage than on the day when thou
didst walk on the waters towards thy Lord! And thou fearest not Rome,
the mistress of the world, thou who, in the house of Caiaphas didst
tremble at the voice of a serving maid? Was the tribunal of Pilate, or
the cruelty of the Jews, more to be feared than the power of a Claudius
or the ferocity of a Nero? No, but the strength of thy love triumphed
over fear, and thou didst not count them terrible whom thou hadst been
commanded to love.”
Would that some faithful companion had written down for us some details
of that first arrival of St. Peter in Rome! Did he come by sea to
Ostia, or to Parthenopeia, like St. Paul? That seems the more likely
conclusion, as, given fair winds, it was the route usually taken from
the parts of Palestine or Asia Minor. But what must have been his
feelings when, from far off, he first beheld the gorgeous, insolent
city, towering in gold and marble on its seven hills, swarming with
its two million inhabitants, of whose very language he was ignorant!
Did some of the few brethren then come out to meet him, as they did
St. Paul, later? If he entered by the Ostian Way, he must have passed
quite near to the spot which was to witness their double martyrdom
twenty-five years afterwards. All we know is that his intrepid soul was
not affrighted at the wealth and splendour of the hostile city which he
meant to win back to his Master before his own labours should cease.
From that day, although he had to leave it again and again to attend
to the churches elsewhere, Rome was his home, his especial fold, the
centre of Christendom, and the Holy City of generations to come, since
Jerusalem had forfeited that title forever.
It was not to the owners of Rome, but to the thousands of poor Jews
who had been brought there as captives, that St. Peter first came to
preach. Already they were the despised hewers of wood and drawers of
water for their enemies, and had managed, very early in their sojourn,
to rouse the ire of their Roman masters. At first the Christian
converts in Rome were entirely drawn from their ranks, and the Romans
called them all “Jews,” and occasionally banished them, as I have said
elsewhere, from the city, to that spot, near the Porta Capena, which
afterwards became the headquarters of the Church through centuries
of persecution. Here, at least, they could do as they liked, and no
one seems to have taken exception to their commencing that series of
widely spreading underground labyrinths known now as the Catacombs,
and usually regarded, quite mistakenly, as having been intended solely
for purposes of sepulture. That was provided for as one of its great
objects, certainly; but there were Churches where crowds could kneel
together in worship round the tomb of some illustrious martyr; and
there were halls and chambers as well, where, as after history showed,
whole communities could live for weeks or months when it was not safe
for Christians to show their faces above ground.
St. Peter had it from his Master’s lips that he should follow Him
in the manner of His death, but the day fixed by the Lord for that
“birthday” (as the Christians called martyrdom) was hidden from him
till almost the end. He was away from Rome when he heard that his once
defeated adversary, the wizard-impostor, Simon Magus, was revelling
there in the favour of Nero, and regarded by all as almost, if not
actually, a god. The calling of the necromancer appealed strongly
to Pagan sympathies at that time, and Nero was only too delighted to
possess himself of the services of the famous magician. He showered
gifts upon him, brought him to live in his own palace, and caused,
or permitted a statue of him to be erected, of which the inscription
attested his supposed divinity. So Simon Magus was the chief favourite,
and was exercising whatever he had of unholy power, to make himself
necessary to the Emperor and feared by the people. Although the
fiercest of persecutions was raging, St. Peter at once came back to
Rome to confront and confound the diabolical impostor, even as he had
done in Samaria, years before, when he (from whom all traffic in holy
things was named) offered the Apostles money if they would impart to
him the power conferred on them by the Holy Ghost.
Nero, after reigning for five years with unusual mildness for those
times, had, with the murder of his mother, Agrippina, inaugurated a
carnival of slaughter, and the Christians were suffering terribly. St.
Peter hastened to sustain their courage and also their faith, fearing,
as we are told, that the weaker brethren might be led astray by the
skill of the magician, who, like all his kind, could sometimes command
the powers of darkness and was able to supplement them by trickery when
they failed him.
St. Peter feared for the flock over whom he had ruled in person for
some twenty-five years, so, as St. Jerome and other great authorities
tell us, he made all the speed he could, and arrived in Rome to find
the persecution at its height. It was at this time that she who had
been Peter’s wife in his youth, but whom, ever since the hour when
he was called by the Lord, he had regarded as a sister, and who had
followed to minister to him in his wanderings, was led forth with
other Christians to martyrdom. St. Clement of Alexandria describes the
scene, and tells us that, as they passed before St. Peter, who had been
blessing them and praying for them, his last farewell to this faithful
woman was summed up in three words, “Oh, _remember the Lord_!”
All the love and longing of Peter’s heart, all the tender memories
of the Redeemer’s blessed presence in their own house, were in the
cry. She passed on, and won her crown first, but the Apostle had
but a little while to wait for his. Simon Magus, crazed with pride,
had promised to give the Emperor the most magnificent proof of his
supernatural powers—he should behold him fly to heaven! Nero was
delighted. A high and richly decorated scaffolding was erected, from
which the Mage was to take his flight; a throne was raised opposite
to it, whence his patron could watch his triumph; and the whole city
crowded to the spot to witness and applaud.
Not far off in the crowd some poorly clad “Jews” surrounded an old
man called Peter, who knelt and prayed—prayed fervently that God would
confound the wicked and not permit His servants to be deluded by the
snares of the Evil One.
The great moment came. After pompous orations and loud acclaims, Simon
Magus leapt from the scaffolding—and fell, a mangled heap, at the
feet of Nero, whose face and garments were sprinkled with his blood.
He lingered for two or three days and then expired miserably. The
superstitious Emperor believed that magic had been pitted against magic
to compass his own humiliation and his favourite’s downfall. Who was
the offender? Then some courtier pointed out the grey-haired man with
the tear furrows in his cheeks, now returning thanks to God, and from
that time the doom of the Apostle was sealed.
Not at once did the tyrant’s servants succeed in laying hands on St.
Peter. The Christians, ready enough themselves to face martyrdom and
rejoin the victors who had gone before, could not reconcile themselves
to the loss of the beloved Shepherd of their souls, and urged him, with
wild entreaties, to flee to safety. He was still needed, they said;
it could not be God’s will that the Church should be left desolate of
his sustaining presence in such evil times. Sorely against his will he
consented to leave the city, but, as he chose the Appian Way for his
flight, it is clear that he only contemplated remaining hidden for a
time in the subterranean retreats of the Pagus Triopius; had he meant
to reach the coast, he would have taken the road to Ostia, emerging
from the opposite and lower end of the town. In the very first years
of his Pontificate in Rome, an edict of Claudius had banished the
“Jews” from the city and it is believed that St. Peter accompanied them
in their exile to this spot, and he would naturally turn to it in an
emergency.
But, a little beyond the first milestone, the Apostle’s steps were
arrested by a vision which must have filled him with joy and yet wrung
his heart with memories of pain.[4] One came towards him through the
dusk, bearing a cross. The never-to-be-forgotten eyes once more looked
into his. We can almost hear now the wild cry of the Apostle—“Lord,
whither goest Thou?”
“To Rome to be crucified anew,” was the answer.
The vision faded away, and, with a heart breaking with joy and love,
the Apostle retraced his steps and told the faithful of the Lord’s
will, now so clearly revealed. “The Prince of Pastors” had spoken.
The hour for which His great vicar had waited so long was at hand—the
martyrdom for which he thirsted, already prepared. The weeping brethren
went out to see the place where Christ had met their Spiritual Father,
and found there the impress of the Saviour’s blessed foot upon the
stone. Later a church[5] was erected at the spot, but at that time all
that was possible was to cover the sacred footprint and mark the site
for veneration. (This stone was afterwards removed to the Church of
St. Sebastian, but a copy of it is still kept at Domine Quo Vadis.)
Every trace of the history of the Faith was so inexpressibly dear to
those loving hearts! One disciple, who must have followed St. Peter at
a distance on that memorable night, found in the path a little bandage
which had detached itself from his foot (were his feet sore and cut
from the many weary steps that the saving of souls had cost him?)
and this was reverently treasured, and a Basilica called “In Titulus
Fasciolæ,” and now known as the Church of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, was
erected in after years to mark the spot and guard the humble souvenir.
All this happened apparently in the month of September or October.
Within a year, at most, the mourning Christians, led by Clement,
Peter’s successor, put up the marble tablet—found in 1911—a small
tablet of greenish marble, on which these words were inscribed:
“Here the Blessed Peter absolved us, the elect, from the sins
confessed.”
But what a chapter of history had been written between! St. Peter
returned to the city and disposed all things for his death. His
first care was to write his second Epistle General, his last will and
testament, and his farewell to the faithful. “In a little while,” he
says, speaking of his mortal body, “this my tent will be folded away,
as was signified to me by the Lord Himself,” thus evidently referring
to the vision on the Appian Way. Only the words of our Divine Lord
surpass in majesty and tenderness that last Epistle of St. Peter.
Heaven was very near as he wrote it, the celestial melodies were
already in his ears, the recent apparition of his Master had filled his
heart with love and longing almost too great to be borne, but that love
translates itself into the most tender parental care for the children
he was leaving behind. With what tears and devotion must the letter
have been received in the different Churches that had known his care,
when it came to them accompanied by the news of his death!
More important even than his farewell to his children was the matter of
appointing his successor, the second of the long line of which our own
beloved Pius X is the present representative. Although Linus had been
for ten years St. Peter’s fervent auxiliary Bishop, his right hand in
the government of the Church, whose vast growth had made it necessary
in turn to appoint Cletus as auxiliary to Linus, the Apostle passed
over them and chose Clement to immediately succeed him as the Vicar
of Christ.[6] Clement with his noble name, his great gifts, and his
eminent holiness, was the man needed in Rome at that moment, and, as
Tertullian and St. Epiphanius attest, was at this time consecrated by
St. Peter and then solemnly installed by him as head of the Universal
Church.
Then came the beginning of the end, but the first stage was a long
and weary one. St. Paul, it appears, besides his reported share in
the downfall of Simon Magus, had drawn upon himself the furious wrath
of Nero by converting two of his favourites in the palace itself,
one a concubine, the other a chamberlain in close attendance on his
person. His doom was pronounced at the same time as that of St. Peter,
though the manner of their end was not at once decided upon. St. Paul
was removed from the house in the Via Lata (now the Church of Santa
Maria in Via Lata) and, with St. Peter, was thrown into the Mamertine
Prison, and kept there for eight months. The very name of this dungeon
still brings back to me a chill of fear when I hear it pronounced,
for to me it was the most terrible spot in all Rome. Deep under the
eminence which is crowned by the Capitol is a chamber cut in the
rock, unlighted, unaired, and lined with the huge uncemented blocks
which date from Rome’s prehistoric times; a prison dreadful enough by
itself, but there is worse below. A square aperture in the floor, just
large enough for a man’s body to pass through, gives access to another
dungeon excavated beneath it, a pit of blackness, where Jugurtha and
many other poor wretches, condemned to die by violence or starvation,
moaned their lives away, before it was honoured by the presence of the
Apostles. They were let down into it by a rope, and the men who were
lowering St. Peter carried out their task with such brutal roughness
that they knocked his dear head violently against the wall, in his
descent. The wall must have been less hard than their hearts, for it
took the impression, and the mark has been kissed for close on two
thousand years by the lips of ardent pilgrims. I remember touching it,
when, as a child, I saw it first, and receiving the most extraordinary
thrill of a living reality of some kind. There is now a staircase by
which to descend to the lower prison, but in my early days there was
only a rough ladder leading into what, in spite of the guardian’s
taper, showed as a black abyss. The place is thirty feet long and
twenty-two wide, with a height of sixteen feet, and was often crowded
with captives. We do not know how many it contained when the Apostles
(probably not on the same day) were brought there; stagnant water
covered the floor, and fetid odours made the air a poison, but where
St. Peter’s feet first touched the pavement a spring of clear water
bubbled up, and was running gaily when I visited the spot. We know that
St. Peter and St. Paul converted and baptised forty-seven persons in
this den, besides the two captains of their guards, St. Processus and
St. Marcellianus, so that the little spring served for the most noble
ends.
The damp cold of the dungeon is so deathly that the Apostles’ lives
must have been preserved as by a miracle through those terrible eight
months. They had bidden farewell to the light in the golden days of
autumn; they came forth to meet its blinding radiance in the dazzle of
June. Quickly the news spread among the Christians, ever eager to hear
how it fared with their revered Pastors; and already, when these had
but just emerged from their dungeon, loaded with chains and under a
heavy guard, the intrepid crowd had formed in procession to accompany
them to their triumph. Their sentences were already pronounced. St.
Peter, the poor Jew, was to be scourged and crucified; St. Paul’s Roman
citizenship forbade these humiliations; he was to be beheaded.
It is a long way from the Capitol to the Ostian gate and the Vatican,
and the Apostles’ limbs, cramped from long confinement, must have
moved slowly and wearily over the Via Sacra, now, for the first time,
deserving of its name; the heat at that time of year is overpowering,
and the blaze of midday beat down upon their heads. At a certain point,
about three-quarters of a mile from the present gate of St. Paul, the
cortège halted and divided itself into two, and here the Fathers of all
Christianity bade one another farewell—for the few hours which must
pass before they should be reunited “in the Lord.” The little chapel
which marks the spot bears this inscription:[7]
“In this place SS. Peter and Paul separated on their way
to Martyrdom, and Paul said to Peter, ‘Peace be with thee,
Foundation of the Church, Shepherd of the flock of Christ,’ and
Peter said to Paul, ‘Go in peace, Preacher of good tidings and
Guide of the salvation of the just.’”
The soldiers who had charge of St. Paul led him away to the westward,
to a spot whither, as St. Clement gives us to understand, the Emperor
Nero deigned to come to enjoy the sight of his sufferings. St. Peter’s
escort had been commanded to bring him to the Vatican hill, the old
place for Christian executions, easy for the people to find, because
of a very ancient terebinth tree which had stood there for hundreds
of years and was a popular landmark. The murderers, when they were
authorised ones, as in this case, always sought to give the greatest
publicity to such executions, hoping (very much against hope, one
would think) that the victims’ courage would give way and fear induce
apostasy at the last moment; or, failing that, that the sight of their
torments would deter others from embracing Christianity.
So St. Peter, praying and rejoicing, was first scourged after the
cruel Roman manner, and then both bound and nailed to his cross, head
downward by his own request, since he said he was not worthy to die
like his Lord. The blood that flowed from his wounds was gathered on
linen cloths by the weeping Christians, who stood around him for the
long hours he hung there.
The ancient antiphon which used to be sung on the Feast, thus describes
the martyrdom of St. Peter:
“As they were leading Peter the Apostle to the cross, he, filled
with a great joy, said: ‘I am not worthy to die on the cross like
my Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, while I was formed
of the clay of the earth; therefore, my cross must show my head
to the ground.’”
So they reversed the cross, and nailed his feet at the top and his
hands at the base. While Peter was on the cross there came a great
multitude, cursing Cæsar, and there was great lamentation before the
cross.
Peter, from the cross, exhorted the people, saying: “Weep not, but
rejoice with me, because I go to-day to prepare a place for you.”
And having thus spoken he said: “Good Shepherd, I thank Thee that the
sheep Thou didst confide to me take part in heart with my sufferings; I
beseech Thee that they may also take part with me in Thy grace for all
eternity.”
‘Tis said that he repeated over and over in his heart that humble
protestation, “Lord, Thou knowest that I love Thee!” And when at last
his praying and blessing ceased, and the beloved face turned grey and
stiff, they took him down, washed the stains away from those furrows
that the tears of repentance for his denial had been scoring in his
cheeks for nigh on forty years, closed the eyes that had looked on the
Lord and had been such wells of sorrow and contrition, and buried his
blessed body close by, in the stricken soil that the Romans had learnt
to shun.
And “by the power of this other cross, raised in Rome, Babylon became
that day the Holy City, while Zion must forever rest under malediction
for having crucified her Saviour. Rome may reject the Man-God as she
will, she may shed His blood in that of His martyrs, but no crime of
hers can avail against the tremendous fact accomplished in this hour;
the cross of Peter has transferred to her all the rights in the Cross
of Jesus,—it is she who is now Jerusalem.”
... “This tribute of death, Levi knew it not; this dower of blood,
Jehovah demanded it not of Aaron; men die not for a slave—and the
Synagogue was not the Spouse.”[8]
The Vatican crypt which received the body of St. Peter immediately
after his martyrdom, was excavated under a temple of Apollo, the deity
supposed to preside over public games, near the old circus of Nero.
By the year 89 or 90 A.D., when St. Peter’s fourth successor, St.
Anacletus, became Pontiff, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian,
one is led to suppose that this temple was more or less forsaken
as a place of pagan worship, since Anacletus was able to “build,”
as the phrase runs, a tiny oratory, just large enough for two or
three persons to kneel in, around the tomb of St. Peter. Here again,
apparent accident served the ultimate designs of Providence in regard
to this fore-hallowed site. The Christians desired greatly to deposit
the Apostle’s remains in the deep and secret excavations, already
crowded with the bodies of martyrs, near the fourth milestone on
the Appian Way, the vaults which had more than once afforded refuge
to the persecuted brethren and to the Apostle himself. But with the
persecution that was raging at the moment of his death, it would have
been impossible to transport the body without attracting notice, so
the nearest spot was chosen, regardless of the fact that it was in the
close neighbourhood of a number of pagan tombs. As we shall see later,
this humble resting-place was threatened with desecration in its turn,
and was emptied of its treasure for many years in favour of the more
distant cemetery.
The martyrdom of St. Peter attracted little notice except from the poor
Christians who gathered round his hard deathbed, to weep and pray and
receive his last blessing; that of St. Paul, the Roman citizen, was
a much more public and popular affair. The intrepid band of disciples
who followed him to the chosen spot on the Ostian Way, not far from the
other (but divided by the slopes of the Janiculum), risked death more
certainly in doing so, and some of them doubtless paid its penalty.
Before reaching the place of execution, St. Paul saw, weeping bitterly
by the roadside, the holy matron Plautilla, one of his converts, who
had hastened thither to bid him farewell and ask for his last blessing.
As our Lord, on the way to Calvary, paused to speak to the daughters of
Jerusalem, so St. Paul stayed his steps to console this faithful woman.
He asked her to give him her veil, that he might cover his eyes with
it when he was beheaded, and he promised that he would return it to her
after his death. Plautilla, feeling scarcely worthy of such an honour,
yet rejoiced to be able to serve him, eagerly placed her veil in his
hands, while his jailers mocked at the Apostle’s promise. But her faith
and love were rewarded, and she beheld the beloved Pastor again with
her bodily eyes, when, after his martyrdom, he appeared to her and
restored the veil, all stained with his blood.
At the spot called then “ad Acquas Salvias,” St. Paul was tied to a
pillar, and the executioner’s sword severed his head from his body. The
head, in falling, bounded away, touching the ground three times in all,
and, at each point where it touched, a spring of clear water instantly
burst forth and is still flowing. The first was warm as life-blood,
the second tepid, and the third, icy cold. A Frenchwoman has written
of this miracle as only a Frenchwoman could: “At the first touch, the
soul has but just escaped from the body—that glorious head is yet full
of life! At the second, the shadow of death is already cast over those
wonderful features; at the third, the eternal sleep has overtaken them,
and, though still radiant in beauty, they announce that the lips will
never open again in this world, and that the eagle glance is veiled
forever.”
The show is over, the Emperor is borne away by his slaves and
sycophants, sulky, perhaps, at not having seen more blood or greater
wonders. But the destruction of Simon Magus and the alienation of his
favourites is avenged. That is something to take back with him to the
night’s debauch on the Palatine. The vulgar crowd has followed him,
and as the quick Italian night comes down, and the mists roll along
the river, while the evening star hangs white in the low crimson of the
West, the mourners gather up the sacred body and the haloed head, and
hasten, as in St. Peter’s case, to bury the martyr close by, in a bit
of land owned by the noble matron Lucina, who, years later, built on it
a splendid tomb for his earthly resting-place.