But the view of this passage in Peter’s history, which was long adopted
universally by those who took the pains to ask about this “other place,”
mentioned by Luke, and the view which involves the most important
relations to other far greater questions, is, that ROME was the chief
apostle’s refuge from the Agrippine persecution, and that in the
imperial city he now laid the deep foundations of the church universal.
On this point some of the greatest champions of papistry have expended
vast labor, to establish a circumstance so convenient for the support
of the dogma of the divinely appointed supremacy of the Romish church,
since the belief of this early visit of Peter would afford a very
convenient basis for the very early apostolical foundation of the Roman
see. But though this notion of his refuge has received the support of
a vast number of great names from the very early periods of Christian
literature, and though for a long period this view was considered
indubitable, from the sanction of ancient authorities, there is not
one of the various conjectures offered which is so easily overthrown
on examination, from the manner in which it is connected with other
notions most palpably false and baseless. The old papistical notion
was, that Peter at this time visited Rome, founded the church there,
and presided over it, as bishop, _twenty-five_ years, but occasionally
visiting the east. As respects the minute details of this journey to
Rome, the papist historians are by no means agreed, few of them having
put any value upon the particulars of such an itinerary, until those
periods when such fables were sought after by common readers with
more avidity. But there is at least one hard-conscienced narrator, who
undertakes to go over all the steps of the apostle on the road to the
eternal city, and from his narrative are brought these circumstances.
The companions assigned him by this romance, on his journey, were the
evangelist Mark, Appollinaris, afterwards, as the story goes, appointed
by him bishop of Ravenna, in Italy; Martial, afterwards a missionary in
Gaul, and Rufus, bishop of Capua, in Italy. Pancratius, of Tauromenius,
and Marcian, of Syracuse, in Sicily, had been sent on by Peter to
that island, while he was yet staying at Antioch, but on his voyage he
landed there and made them his companions also. His great route is said
to have led him to Troy, on the northern part of the Asian coast of
the Aegean sea, whence they seem to have made him cross to the eastern
port of Corinth. At this great city of Greece, they bring him into
the company of Paul and Silas, who were sent thither, to be sure, on
a mission, but evidently at a different time, a circumstance which,
among many others, helps to show the bungling manner in which the
story is made up. From Corinth they carry him next to Syracuse, as
just mentioned. Thence to Neapolis, (Naples,) in Campania, where, as
the monkish legend says, this chief of the apostles celebrated with
his companions a mass, for the safe progress of his voyage to Italy.
Having now reached Italy, he is made the subject of a new fable for
the benefit of every city along the coast, and is accordingly said to
have touched at Liburnum, (_Livorno_, Leghorn,) being driven thither
by stress of weather, and thence to Pisa, near by, where he offered
up another mass for his preservation, as is still maintained in local
fables; but the general Romish legend does not so favor these places,
but brings the apostle, without any more marine delay or difficulty,
directly over land from Naples to Rome; and on this route again, one
lie suggesting another, a local superstition commemorates the veritable
circumstances, that he made this land-journey from Naples to Rome, on
foot; and on the way stopped at the house of a Galilean countryman of
his own, named Mark, in a town called Atina, of which the said Mark was
afterwards made bishop.
Respecting these minute accounts of Peter’s stopping-places
on this apocryphal journey, Baronius says, “Nobilia in iis
remanserunt antiquitatis vestigia, sed traditiones potius
quam scriptura firmata.” “There are in those places some noble
remains of this ancient history, but rather traditions than well
assured written accounts.” The part of the route from Antioch to
Sicily he takes on the authority of the imaginative Metaphrastes;
but the rest is made up from different local superstitions of
a very modern date, not one of which can be traced farther back
than the time when every fable of this sort had a high pecuniary
value to the inventors, in bringing crowds of money-giving
pilgrims to the spot which had been hallowed by the footsteps of
the chief apostle. Even the devout Baronius, however, is obliged
to confess at the end of this story, “Sed de rebus tam antiquis
et incertis, quid potissimum affirmare debeamus, non satis
constat.”――“But as to matters so ancient and uncertain, it
is not sufficiently well established what opinion we may most
safely pronounce.”
As to the early part of the route, speaking of the account
given by Metaphrastes of Peter’s having on his way through
Troy ordained Cornelius, the centurion, bishop of that place,
Baronius objects to the truth of this statement, the assertion
that Cornelius had been previously ordained bishop of Caesarea,
where he was converted. A very valuable refutation of one fable
by another as utterly unfounded.
Respecting the _causes_ of this great journey of the apostle to the
capital of the world, the opinions even of papist writers are as
various as they are about the route honored by his passage. Some
suppose his motive to have been merely a desire for a refuge from the
persecution of Agrippa;――a most unlikely resort, however, for nothing
could be more easy than his detection in passing over such a route,
especially by sea, where every vessel could be so easily searched
at the command of Agrippa, whose influence extended far beyond his
own territory, supported as he was, by the unbounded possession of
the imperial Caesar’s favor, which would also make the seizure of
the fugitive within the great city itself, a very easy thing. Others,
however, do not consider this journey as connected in any way with his
flight from Agrippa, (for many suppose it to have been made after the
death of that king,) and find the motive for such an effort in the vast
importance of the field opened for his labors in the great capital of
the world, where were so many strong holds of error to be assaulted,
and from which an influence so wide and effectual might be exerted
through numerous channels of communication to all parts of the world.
Others have sought a reason of more definite and limited character,
and with vast pains have invented and compiled a fable of most absurdly
amusing character, to make an object for Peter’s labors in the distant
capital. The story which has the greatest number of supporters, is
one connected with Simon Magus, mentioned in the sacred record, in
the account of the labors of Philip in Samaria, and the visit of
Peter and John to that place. The fable begins with the assertion that
this magician had returned to his former tricks after his insincere
conformity to the Christian faith, and had devoted himself with new
energy to the easy work of popular deception, adding to his former evil
motives, that of deadly spite against the faith to which he appeared
so friendly, at the time when the sacred narrative speaks of him last.
In order to find a field sufficiently ample for his enlarged plans,
he went to Rome, and there, in the reign of Claudius Caesar, attained
a vast renown by his magical tricks, so that he was even esteemed a
god, and was even so pronounced by a solemn decree of the Roman senate,
confirmed by Claudius himself, who was perfectly carried away with
the delusion, which seems thus to have involved the highest and the
lowest alike. The fable proceeds to introduce Peter on the scene, by
the circumstance of his being called by a divine vision to go to Rome
and war against this great impostor, thus advancing in his impious
supremacy, who had already in Samaria been made to acknowledge the
miraculous efficacy of the apostolic word. Peter thus brought to Rome
by the hand of God, publicly preached abroad the doctrine of salvation,
and meeting the arch-magician himself, with the same divine weapons
whose efficacy he had before experienced, overcame him utterly,
and drove him in confusion and disgrace from the city. Nor were the
blessings that resulted to Rome from this visit of Peter, of a merely
spiritual kind. So specially favored with the divine presence and
blessing were all places where this great apostle happened to be, that
even their temporal interests shared in the advantages of the divine
influence that every where followed him. To this cause, therefore, are
gravely referred by papistical commentators, the remarkable success
which, according to heathen historians, attended the Roman arms in
different parts of the world during the second year of Claudius, to
which date this fabulous visit is unanimously referred by all who
pretend to believe in its occurrence.
_Importance of the field of labor._――This is the view taken by
Leo, (in sermon 1, in nat. apost. quoted by Baronius, Annales 44,
§ 26.) “When the twelve apostles, after receiving from the Holy
Spirit the power of speaking _all_ languages,” (an assertion, by
the way, no where found in the sacred record,) “had undertaken
the labor of imbuing the world with the gospel, dividing its
several portions among themselves; the most blessed Peter, the
chief of the apostolic order was appointed to the capital of
the Roman empire, so that the light of truth which was revealed
for the salvation of all nations, might from the very head,
diffuse itself with the more power through the whole body of
the world. For, what country had not some citizens in this city?
Or what nation anywhere, could be ignorant of anything which
Rome had been taught? Here were philosophical dogmas to be put
down――vanities of worldly wisdom to be weakened――idol-worship to
be overthrown,”――&c. “To this city therefore, thou, most blessed
apostle Peter! didst not fear to come, and (sharing thy glory
with the apostle Paul, there occupied with the arrangement
of other churches,) didst enter that forest of raging beasts,
and didst pass upon that ocean of boisterous depths, with more
firmness than when thou walkedst on the sea. Nor didst thou fear
Rome, the mistress of the world, though thou didst once, in the
house of Caiaphas, dread the servant maid of the priest. Not
because the power of Claudius, or the cruelty of Nero, were less
dreadful than the judgment of Pilate, or the rage of the Jews;
but because the power of love now overcame the occasion of fear,
since thy regard for the salvation of souls would not suffer
thee to yield to terror. * * * The miraculous signs, gifts
of grace, and trials of virtue, which had already been so
multiplied to thee, now increased thy boldness. Already hadst
thou taught those nations of the circumcision who believed.
Already hadst thou filled Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia
and Bithynia with the gospel; and now, without a doubt of the
advance of the work, or of the certainty of thy own fate, thou
didst plant the trophy of the cross of Christ upon the towers of
Rome.” Arnobius is also quoted by Baronius to similar effect.
_Simon Magus._――This fable has received a wonderfully wide
circulation, and long maintained a place among the credible
accounts of early Christian history, probably from the
circumstance of its taking its origin from so early a source.
Justin Martyr, who flourished from the year 140 and afterwards,
in his apology for the Christian religion, addressed to the
emperor Antoninus Pius, says, “Simon, a Samaritan, born in a
village named _Gitthon_, in the time of Claudius Caesar, was
received as a god in your imperial city of Rome, and honored
with a statue, like other gods, on account of his magical powers
there exhibited by the aid of demons; and this statue was set
up in the river Tiber, between two bridges, and had this Latin
inscription, SIMONI DEO SANCTO. Him too, all the Samaritans
worship, and a few of other nations, acknowledging him as the
highest god, (πρωτον θεον.) They also worship a certain Helena,
who at that time followed him about,” &c. &c. &c. with more
dirty trash besides, than I can find room for. And in another
passage of the same work, he alludes to the same circumstances.
“In your city, the mistress of the world, in the time of
Claudius Caesar, Simon Magus struck the Roman senate and people
with such admiration of himself, that he was ranked among the
gods, and was honored with a statue.” _Irenaeus_, who flourished
about the year 180, also gives this story with hardly any
variation from Justin. Tertullian, about A. D. 200, repeats the
same, with the addition of the circumstance, that not satisfied
with the honors paid to himself, he caused the people to debase
themselves still further, by paying divine honors to a woman
called (by Tertullian) Larentina, who was exalted by them to
a rank with the goddesses of the ancient mythology, though the
good father gives her but a bad name. Eusebius, also, about A. D.
320, refers to the testimonies of Justin and Irenaeus, and adds
some strange particulars about a sect, existing in his time,
the members of which were said to acknowledge this Simon as the
author of their faith, whom they worshiped along with this woman
Helena, falling prostrate before the pictures of both of them,
with incense and sacrifices and libations to them, with other
rites, unutterably and unwritably bad. (See Eusebius, Church
History, II. 13.)
In the three former writers, Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian,
this absurd story stands by itself, and has no connection with
the life of Peter; but Eusebius goes on to commemorate the
circumstance, previously unrecorded, that Peter went to Rome for
the express purpose of putting down this blasphemous wretch, as
specified above, in the text of my narrative, from this author.
(Eusebius, Church History, II. 14.)
Now all this fine series of accounts, though seeming to bear
such an overwhelming weight of testimony in favor of the truth
and reality of Simon Magus’s visit to Rome, is proved to be
originally based on an absolute falsehood; and the nature of
this falsehood is thus exposed. In the year 1574, during the
pontificate of Pope Gregory XIII., there was an excavation made
for some indifferent purpose in Rome, on the very island in
the Tiber, so particularly described by Justin, as lying in the
center of the river between two bridges, each of which rested an
abutment on it, and ran from it to the opposite shores. In the
progress of this excavation, the workmen, as is very common in
that vast city of buried ruins, turned up, among other remains
of antiquity, the remnant of a statue with its pedestal, which
had evidently once stood erect upon the spot. Upon the pedestal
was an inscription most distinctly legible, in these words:
SEMONI SANGO DEO FIDIO SACRUM――SEX POMPEIUS S. P. F. COL.
MUSSIANUS――QUINQUENNALIS DECUR. BIDENTALIS――DONUM DEDIT. (This
was in four lines, each line ending where the blank spaces are
marked in the copy.) In order to understand this sentence, it
must be known, that the Romans, among the innumerable objects
of worship in their complicated religion, had a peculiar set of
deities which they called SEMONES. A SEMO was a kind of inferior
god, of an earthly character and office, so low as to unfit
him for a place among the great gods of heaven, Jupiter, Juno,
Apollo, &c., and was accordingly confined in his residence
entirely to the earth; where the Semones received high honors
and devout worship, and were commemorated in many places, both
in city and country, by statues, before which the passer might
pay his worship, if devoutly disposed. These statues were often
of a votive character, erected by wealthy or distinguished
persons for fancied aid, received from some one of these Semones,
in some particular season of distress, or for general prosperity.
This was evidently the object of the statue in question. Priapus,
Hipporea, Vertumnus, and such minor gods were included under
the general title of Semones; and among them was also ranked a
Sabine divinity, named SANGUS or SANCUS, who is, by some writers,
considered as corresponding in character to the Hercules of
the Greeks. Sangus or Sancus is often alluded to in the Roman
classics. Propertius (book 4) has a verse referring to him as
a Sabine deity. “Sic Sancum Tatiae composuere Cures.” Ovid
also, “Quaerebam Nonas Sanco fidio ne referrem.” As to this
providentially recovered remnant of antiquity, therefore, there
can be no doubt that it was a votive monument, erected by Sextus
Pompey to Sangus the Semo, for some reason not very clearly
expressed.
Baronius tells also that he had seen a stone similarly inscribed.
“SANGO SANCTO SEMON.――DEO FIDIO SACRUM――DECURIO SACERDOTUM
BIDENTALIUM――RECIPERATIS VECTIGALIBUS.” That is, “Sacred to
Sangus, the holy Semo, the god Fidius,――a decury (company
of ten) of the priests of the Bidental sacrifices have raised
this in gratitude for their recovered incomes.” Dionysius
Halicarnassaeus is also quoted by Baronius as referring to the
worship of the Semo, Sangus; and from him and various other
ancient writers, it appears that vows and sacrifices were
offered to this Sangus, for a safe journey and happy return from
a distance.
From a consideration of all the circumstances of this remarkable
discovery, and from the palpable evidence afforded by the
inherent absurdity of the story told by Justin Martyr and his
copyists, the conclusion is justifiable and irresistible, that
Justin himself, being a native of Syria, and having read the
story of Simon Magus in the Acts, where it is recorded that he
was profoundly reverenced by the Samaritans, and was silenced
and rebuked by Peter when he visited that place,――with all
this story fresh in his mind, (for he was but a new convert
to Christianity,) came to Rome, and going through that city,
an ignorant foreigner, without any knowledge of the religion,
or superstitions, or deities, and with but an indifferent
acquaintance with their language, came along this bridge over
the Tiber to the island, where had been erected this votive
statue to Semo Sangus; and looking at the inscription in the way
that might be expected of one to whom the language and religion
were strange, he was struck at once with the name Semon, as so
much resembling the well-known eastern name Simon, and began
speculating at once, about what person of that name could ever
have come from the east to Rome, and there received the honors
of a god. Justin’s want of familiarity with the language of the
Romans, would prevent his obtaining any satisfactory information
on the subject from the passers-by; and if he attempted to
question them about it, he would be very apt to interpret their
imperfect communications in such a way as suited the notion
he had taken up. If he asked his Christian brethren about the
matter, their very low character for general intelligence,
the circumstance that those with whom he was most familiar,
must have been of eastern origin, and as ignorant as he of the
minute peculiarities of the Roman religion, and their common
disposition to wilfully pervert the truth, and invent fables
for the sake of a good story connected with their own faith,
(of which we have evidences vastly numerous, and sadly powerful
in the multitude of such legends that have come down from the
Christians of those times,) would all conspire to help the
invention and completion of the foolish and unfounded notion,
that this statue here erected _Semoni Sanco Deo_, was the same
as _Simoni Deo Sancto_, that is, “_to the holy god Simon_;”
and as it was always necessary to the introduction of a new
god among those at Rome, that the Senate should pass a solemn
act and decree to that effect, which should be confirmed by
the approbation of the emperor, it would at once occur to his
own imaginative mind, or to the inventions of his fabricating
informers, that Simon must of course have received such a decree
from the senate and Caesar. This necessarily also implied vast
renown, and extensive favor with all the Romans, which he must
have acquired, to be sure, by his magical tricks, aided by
the demoniac powers; and so all the foolish particulars of the
story would be made out as fast as wanted. The paltry fable
also appended to this by all the Fathers who give the former
story, to the effect, that some woman closely connected with
him, was worshiped along with him, variously named Helena,
Selena and Larentina, has no doubt a similarly baseless origin;
but is harder to trace to its beginnings, because it was not
connected with an assertion, capable of direct ocular, as well
as historical, refutation, as that about Simon’s statue most
fortunately was. The second name, _Selena_, given by Irenaeus,
is exactly the Greek word for the moon, which was often
worshiped under its appropriate name; and this tale may have
been caught up from some connection between such a ceremony and
the worship of some of the Semones,――all the elegant details
of her life and character being invented to suit the fancies
of the reverend fathers. The story, that she had followed Simon
to Rome from the Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, suggests to
my mind at this moment, that there may have been a connection
between this and some old story of the importation of a piece of
idolatry from that region, so famed for the worship of the
“_mooned_ Ashtaroth,
Heaven’s queen and mother both.”
But this trash is not worth the time and paper I am spending
upon it, since the main part of the story, concerning Simon
Magus as having ever been seen or heard of in Rome, by senate,
prince or people, in the days of Claudius, is shown, beyond
all reasonable question, to be utterly false, and based on
a stupid blunder of Justin Martyr, who did not know Latin
enough to tell the difference between _sanco_ and _sancto_, nor
between _Semoni_ and _Simoni_. And after all, this is but a fair
specimen of Justin Martyr’s usual blundering way, of which his
few pages present other instances for the inquiring reader to
stumble over and bewilder himself upon. Take, for example, the
gross confusion of names and dates which he makes in a passage
which accidentally meets my eye, on a page near that from which
the above extract is taken. In attempting to give an account
of the way in which the Hebrew Bible was first translated into
Greek, he says that Ptolemy, king of Egypt, sent to Herod, king
of the Jews, for a copy of the Bible. But when or where does
any history, sacred or profane, give any account whatever of any
Ptolemy, king of Egypt, who was cotemporary with either of the
Herods? The last of the Ptolemies was killed, while a boy, in
the Egyptian war with Julius Caesar, before Herod had himself
attained to manhood, or had the most distant thought of the
throne of Palestine. The Ptolemy who is said to have procured
the Greek translation of the Bible, however, lived about three
hundred years before the first Herod. It is lamentable to think
that such is the character of the earliest Christian father who
has left works of any magnitude. Who can wonder that Apologies
for the Christian religion, full of such gross blunders, should
have failed to secure the belief, or move the attention of
either of the Antonines, to whom they were addressed,――the
Philosophic, or the Pious? And by a writer who pretended to
tell the wisest of the Caesars, that in his imperial city, had
been worshiped, from the days of Claudius, a miserable Samaritan
impostor, who, an outcast from his own outcast land, had in Rome,
by a solemn senatorial and imperial decree, been exalted to the
highest god-ship, and that the evidence of this fact was found
in a statue which that emperor well knew to be dedicated to
the most ancient deities of Etruscan origin, worshiped there
ever since the days of Numa Pompilius, but which this Syrian
Christian had blunderingly supposed to commemorate a man who
had never been heard of out of Samaria, except among Christians.
And as for such _martyrs_, if there is any truth whatever in the
story that his foolish head was cut off by the second Antonine,
the only pity is, it was not done a little sooner, so as to have
kept the Christian world from the long belief of all this folly
about an invention so idle, and saved me the trouble of exposing
it.
The fullest account ever given of this fable and all its
progress, is found in the Annales Ecclesiastici of Caesar
Baronius, (A. C. 44. § 51‒59.) who, after furnishing the most
ample references to sacred and profane authorities, which
palpably demonstrate the falsity of the story, returns with all
the solemn bigotry of a papist, to the solemn conviction that
the fathers and the saints who tell the story, _must_ have had
some very good reason for believing it.
The other copyists of Justin hardly deserve any notice; but it
is interesting and instructive to observe how, in the progress
of fabulous invention, one lie is pinned on to the tail of
another, to form a glorious chain of historical sequences, for
some distant ecclesiastical annalist to hang his servile faith
upon. Eusebius, for instance, enlarges the stories of Justin
and Irenaeus, by an addition of his own,――that in his day there
existed a sect which acknowledged this same Simon as God, and
worshiped him and Helena or Selena, with some mysteriously
wicked rites. Now all that his story amounts to, is, that in his
time there was a sect called by a name resembling that of Simon,
how nearly like it, no one knows; but that by his own account
their worship was of a secret character, so that he could, of
course, know nothing certainly. But this is enough for him to
add, as a solemn confirmation of a story now known to have been
founded in falsehood. From this beginning, Eusebius goes on
to say that Peter went to Rome in the second year of Claudius,
to war against this Simon Magus, who never went there; so that
we know how much this whole tale is worth by looking into the
circumstance which constitutes its essential foundation. The
idea of Peter’s visit to Rome at that time, is no where given
before Eusebius, except in some part of the Clementina, a long
series of most unmitigated falsehoods, forged in the name of
Clemens Romanus, without any certain date, but commonly supposed
to have been made up of the continued contributions of several
impudent liars, during different portions of the second, third
and fourth centuries.
Creuzer also, in his deep and extensive researches into the
religions of antiquity, in giving a “view of some of the older
Italian nations,” speaks of “Sancus Semo.” He quotes Augustin
(De civitate Dei. XVIII. 19,) as authority for the opinion that
he was an ancient king, deified. He also alludes to the passage
in Ovid, (quoted above by Baronius,) where he is connected with
Hercules, and alluded to under three titles, as Semo, Sancus and
Fidius. (Ovid, Fasti, VI. 213, et seq.) But the learned Creuzer
does not seem to have any correct notion of the character of
the _Semones_, as a distinct order of inferior deities;――a fact
perfectly certain as given above, for which abundant authority
is found in Varro, (de Mystag.) as quoted by Fulgentius and
Baronius. From Creuzer I also notice, in an accidental immediate
connection with Semo Sancus, the fact that the worship of the
moon (Luna) was also of Sabine origin; and being introduced
along with that of Sancus, by Numa, may have had some relation
to that Semo, and may have concurred in originating the notion
of the fathers about the woman Selena or Helena, as worshiped
along with Simon. He also just barely alludes to the fact that
Justin and Irenaeus have confounded this Semo Sancus with Simon
Magus. (See Creuzer’s Symbolik und Mythologie der alter Voelker,
II. Theil. pp. 964‒965.)
The next conclusion authorized by those who support this fable is,
that Peter, after achieving this great work of vanquishing the impostor
Simon, proceeded to preach the gospel generally; yet not at first to
the hereditary citizens of imperial Rome, nor to any of the Gentiles,
but to his own countrymen the Jews, great numbers of whom then made
their permanent abode in the great city. These foreigners, at that time,
were limited in Rome to a peculiar section of the suburbs, and hardly
dwelt within the walls of the city itself;――an allotment corresponding
with similar limitations existing in some of the modern cities of
Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, and even in London, though there,
only in accordance with long usage, and with actual convenience, but
not with any existing law. The quarter of Rome in which the Jews dwelt
in the days of Claudius, was west of the central section of the city,
beyond the Tiber; and to this suburban portion, the story supposes
the residence and labors of Peter to have been at first confined. But
after a time, the fame of this mighty preacher of a new faith spread
beyond, from this despised foreign portion of the environs, across the
Tiber, over the seven hills themselves, and even into the halls of the
patrician lords of Rome. Such an extension of fame, indeed, seems quite
necessary to make these two parts of this likely story hang together at
all; for it is hard to see how a stranger, from a distant eastern land,
could thus appear suddenly among them, and overturn, with a defeat so
total and signal, the pretensions of one who had lately been exalted
by the opinions of an adoring people to the character of a god, and
had even received the solemn national sanction of this exaltation by
a formal decree of the senate of Rome, confirmed by the absolute voice
of the Caesar himself; and after such a victory, over such a person,
be left long unnoticed in an obscure suburb. In accordance, therefore,
with this reasonable notion, it is recorded in the continuation of
the story, that when Peter, preaching at Rome, grew famous among the
Gentiles, he was no longer allowed to occupy himself wholly among the
Jews, but was thereafter taken by Pudens, a senator who believed in
Christ, into his own house, on the Viminal Mount, one of the seven
hills, but near the Jewish suburb. In the neighborhood of this house,
as the legend relates, was afterwards erected a monument, called “the
Shepherd’s,”――a name which serves to identify this important locality
to the modern Romans to this day. Being thus established in these
lordly patrician quarters, the poor Galilean fisherman might well
have thought himself blessed, in such a pleasant change from the
uncomfortable lodgings with which the royal Agrippa had lately
accommodated him, and from which he had made so willing an exit.
But the legend does the faithful and devoted apostle the justice, to
represent him as by no means moved by these luxurious circumstances, to
the least forgetfulness of the high commission which was to be followed
through all sorts of self-denial,――no less that which drew him from
the soft and soul-relaxing enjoyments of a patrician palace, than
that which led him to renounce the simple, hard-earned profits of a
fisherman, on the changeful sea of Gennesaret, or to calmly meet the
threats, the stripes, the chains, and the condemned cell, with which
the enmity of the Jewish magistrates had steadily striven to quench
his fiery and energetic spirit. He is described as steadily laboring
in the cause of the gospel among the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and
with such success during the whole of the first year of his stay, that
in the beginning of the following year he is said by papist writers to
have solemnly and formally founded THE CHURCH OF ROME. This important
fictitious event is dated with the most exact particularity, on
the fifteenth of February, in the forty-third year of Christ, and
the third year of the reign of the emperor Claudius. The empty,
unmeaning pomposity of this announcement is a sufficient evidence of
its fictitious character. According to the story itself, here Peter
had been preaching nearly a whole year at Rome; and if preaching,
having a regular congregation, of course, and performing the usual
accompaniments of preaching, as baptism, &c. Now there is not in the
whole apostolic history the least account, nor the shadow of a hint, of
any such ceremony as the founding of a church, distinct from the mere
gathering of an assembly of believing listeners, who acknowledged their
faith in Jesus by profession and by the sacraments. The organization
of this religious assembly might indeed be made more perfect at one
time than at another; as for instance, a new church, which during an
apostle’s stay with it and preaching to it, had been abundantly well
governed by the simple guidance of his wise, fatherly care, would,
on his departure, need some more regular, permanent provision for its
government, lest among those who were all religious co-equals, there
should arise disputes which would require a regularly constituted
authority to allay them. The apostle might, therefore, in such advanced
requirements of the church, ordain elders, and so on; but such an
appendix could not, with the slightest regard to common sense or the
rules of honest interpretation of language, be said to constitute the
founding of a church. The very phrase of ordaining elders in a church,
palpably implies and requires the previous distinct, complete existence
of the church. In fact the entity of a church implies nothing more
than a regular assembly of believers, with an authorized ministry;
and if Peter had been preaching several months to the Jews of the
trans-Tiberine suburb, or to the Romans of the Viminal mount, there
must have been in one or both of those places, a _church_, to all
intents, purposes, definitions and etymologies of a church. So that for
him, almost a year after, to proceed to _found_ a church in Rome, was
the most idle work of supererogation in the world. And all the pompous
statements of papist writers about any such formality, and all the
quotations that might be brought out of the fathers in its support,
from Clement downwards, could not relieve the assertion of one particle
of its palpable, self-evident absurdity. But the fable proceeds in
the account of this important movement, dating the apostolic reign
of Peter from this very occasion, as above fixed, and running over
various imaginary acts of his, during the tedious seven years for which
the story ties him down to this one spot. Among many other unfounded
matters, is specified the assertion, that from this city during the
first year of his episcopate, he wrote his first epistle, which he
addressed to the believers in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and
Bithynia,――the countries which are enumerated as visited by him in
his fictitious tour. This opinion is grounded on the circumstance of
its being dated from Babylon, which several later fathers understood
as a term spiritually applied to Rome; but in the proper place this
notion will be fully discussed, and the true origin of the epistle
more satisfactorily given. Another important event in the history of
the scriptures,――the writing of the gospel of Mark,――is also commonly
connected with this part of Peter’s life, by the papist historians; but
this event, with an account of the nature of this supposed connection,
and the discussion of all points in this subject, can be better shown
in the life of that evangelist; and to that it is therefore deferred.
These matters and several others as little in place, seem to be
introduced into this part of Peter’s life, mainly for the sake of
giving him something particular to do, during his somewhat tedious
stay in Rome, where they make him remain seven years after his first
journey thither; and give him here the character, office and title of
_bishop_,――a piece of nomenclature perfectly unscriptural and absurd,
because no apostle, in the New Testament, is ever called a bishop;
but on the contrary, the office was evidently created to provide a
substitute for an apostle,――a person who might perform the pastoral
duties to the church, in the absence of its apostolic founder,
_overseeing_ and managing all its affairs in his stead, to report to
him at his visitations, or in reply to his epistolary charges. To call
an apostle a bishop, therefore, implies the absurdity of calling a
superior officer by the title of his inferior,――as to call a captain,
lieutenant, or a general-in-chief, colonel, or even as to call a
bishop, deacon. During the life-time of the apostles, “_bishop_” was
only a secondary title, and it was not till the death of all those
commissioned by Christ, that this became the supreme officer in all
churches. But the papists not appreciating any difficulty of this kind,
go on crowning one absurdity with another, which claims, however, the
additional merit of being amusing in its folly. This is the minute
particularization of the shape, stuff, accoutrements and so on, of the
chair in which bishop Peter sat at Rome in his episcopal character.
This identical wooden chair in which his apostolical body was seated
when he was exerting the functions of his bishopric, is still,
according to the same high papal authorities which maintain the fact of
his ever having been bishop, preserved in the Basilica of the Vatican,
at Rome, and is even now, on certain high occasions, brought out from
its holy storehouse to bless with its presence the eyes of the adoring
people. This chair is kept covered with a linen veil, among the various
similar treasures of the Vatican, and has been eminent for the vast
numbers of great miracles wrought by its presence. As a preliminary
step, however, to a real faith in the efficacy of this old piece of
furniture, it is necessary that those who hear the stories should
believe that Peter was ever at Rome, to sit in this or any other chair
there. It is observed, however, in connection with this lumbering
article, in the papist histories, that on taking possession of this
chair, as bishop of Rome, Peter resigned the bishopric of Antioch,
committing that see to the charge of Euodius, it having been the
original diocese of this chief apostle,――a story about as true, as that
any apostle was ever _bishop_ any where. The apostles were missionaries,
for the most part, preaching the word of God from place to place,
appointing bishops to govern and manage the churches in their absence,
and after their final departure, as their successors and substitutes;
but no apostle is, on any occasion whatever, called a bishop in any
part of the New Testament, or by any _early_ writer. The most important
objection, however, to all this absurd account of Peter, as bishop of
Rome, is the fact uniformly attested by those early fathers, who allude
to his having ever visited that city, that having founded the church
there, he appointed Linus the FIRST BISHOP,――a statement in exact
accordance with the view here given of the office of a bishop, and of
the mode in which the apostles constituted that office in the churches
founded and visited by them.
_The date of the foundation._――All this is announced with the
most elaborate solemnity, in all the older papist writers,
because on this point of the foundation of the Roman church by
Peter, they were long in the habit of basing the whole right
and title of the bishop of Rome, as Peter’s successor, to the
supremacy of the church universal. The great authorities, quoted
by them in support of this exact account of the whole affair,
with all its dates, even to the month and day, are the bulls
of some of the popes, enforcing the celebration of that day
throughout all the churches under the Romish see, and the forms
of prayer in which this occasion is commemorated even to this
day. Moreover, a particular form is quoted from some of the
old rituals of the church, not now in use, in which the ancient
mode of celebrating this event, in prayer and thanksgiving,
is verbally given. “Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui ineffabili
sacramento, apostolo tuo Petro principatum Romae urbis tribuisti,
unde se evangelica veritas per tota mundi regna diffunderet:
praesta quaesumus, ut quod in orbem terrarum ejus praedicatione
manavit, universitas Christiana devotione sequatur.”――“Almighty,
eternal God, who by an ineffable consecration, didst give to thy
apostle Peter the dominion of the city of Rome, that thence the
gospel truth might diffuse itself throughout all the kingdoms
of the world: grant, we pray, that what has flowed into the
whole circuit of the earth by his preaching, all Christendom
may devoutly follow.”――A prayer so melodiously expressed, and
in such beautiful Latin, that it is a great pity it should
have been a mere trick, to spread and perpetuate a downright,
baseless lie, which had no other object than the extension of
the gloomy, soul-darkening tyranny of the papal sway. Other
forms of prayer, for private occasions, are also mentioned by
Baronius, as commemorating the foundation of the church of Rome
by Peter; and all these, as well as the former, being fixed
for the fifteenth of February, as above quoted. Those records
of fables, also, the old Roman martyrologies, are cited for
evidence. The later Latin fathers add their testimony, and even
the devout Augustin (sermons 15, 16, de sanct, &c.) is quoted
in support of it. Baronius gives all these evidences, (Annales,
45, § 1,) and goes on to earn the cardinal’s hat, which finally
rewarded his zealous efforts, by maintaining the unity and
universality of this apostolic foundation, and the absolute
supremacy consequently appertaining to the succession of Peter
in the Roman see.
_Peter’s chair._――This fable (page 225) is from Baronius, who
wrote about 1580; but alas! modern accidental discoveries make
dreadful havoc with papistical antiquities, and have done as
much to correct the mistake in this matter, as in Justin’s
blunder about Simon Magus. I had transcribed Baronius’s story
into the text as above without knowing of the fact, till a
glance at the investigations of the sagacious Bower gave me the
information which I here extract from him.
“They had, as they thought, till the year 1662, a pregnant proof,
not only of St. Peter’s erecting their chair, but of his sitting
in it himself; for till that year, the very chair, on which
they believed, or would make others believe, he had sat, was
shown and exposed to public adoration on the 18th of January,
the festival of the said chair. But while it was cleaning, in
order to be set up in some conspicuous place of the Vatican,
the twelve labors of Hercules unluckily appeared engraved on it.
‘Our worship, however,’ says Giacomo Bartolini, who was present
at this discovery, and relates it, ‘was not misplaced, since
it was not to the wood we paid it, but to the prince of the
apostles, St. Peter.’ An author of no mean character, unwilling
to give up the holy chair, even after this discovery, as having
a place and a peculiar solemnity among the other saints, has
attempted to explain the labors of Hercules in a mystical
sense, as emblems representing the future exploits of the popes.
(Luchesini catedra restituita a S. Pietro.) But the ridiculous
and distorted conceits of that writer are not worthy our notice,
though by Clement X. they were judged not unworthy of a reward.”
(Bower’s Lives of the Popes, Vol. I. p. 7, 4to. ed. 1749.)
The next noticeable thing that Peter is made to do at Rome, is the
sending out of his disciples from Rome to act as missionaries and
bishops in the various wide divisions of the Roman empire, westward
from the capital, which were yet wholly unoccupied by the preachers
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. In his supposed character of keeper of
the great flock of Christ, having now fully established the Roman see,
he turned his eyes to those distant regions, and considering their
religious wants and utter spiritual destitution, sent into them several
disciples whom he is supposed to have qualified for such labors by his
own minute personal instructions. Thus, as rays from the sun, and as
streams from the fountain, did the Christian faith go forth through
these from the see of Peter, and spread far and wide throughout the
world. So say the imaginative papist historians, whose fancy not
resting satisfied with merely naming the regions to which these new
missionaries were now sent, goes on with a catalogue of the persons,
and of the places where they became finally established in their
bishoprics. But it would be honoring such fables too much, to record
the long string of names which are in the papist annals, given to
designate the missionaries thus sent out, and the particular places to
which they were sent. It is enough to notice that the sum of the whole
story is, that preachers of the gospel were thus sent not only into the
western regions alluded to, but into many cities of Italy and Sicily.
In Gaul, Spain and Germany, many are said to have been certainly
established; and to extend the fable as far as possible, it is even
hinted that Britain received the gospel through the preaching of some
of these missionaries of Peter; but this distant circumstance is stated
rather as a conjecture, while the rest are minutely and seriously given,
in all the grave details of persons and places.
In various works of this character, Peter is said by the propagators
of this fable to have passed seven years at Rome, during all which
time he is not supposed to have gone beyond the bounds of the city.
The occasion of his departure at the end of this long period, as stated
by the fabulous records from which the whole story is drawn, was the
great edict of Claudius Caesar, banishing all Jews from Rome, among
whom Peter must of course have been included. This imperial sentence of
general banishment, is not only alluded to in the Acts of the Apostles,
but is particularly specified in the Roman and Jewish historians of
those times; from which its exact date is ascertained to have been
the _ninth_ year of the reign of Claudius, from which, as Peter is
supposed to have gone to Rome in the _second_ year of that reign,
the intervening time must have been, as above stated, _seven_ years.
The particulars of this general banishment, its motives and results,
will be better given in that part of this work where important points
in authentic true history are connected with the event. Under these
circumstances, however, the great first bishop of Rome is supposed to
have left this now consecrated capital of Christendom, and traveled
off eastward, along with the general throng of Jewish fugitives. Some
of the papist commentators on this story are nevertheless, so much
scandalized at the thought of Peter’s running away in this seemingly
undignified manner, (though this is in fact the part of the story
which is most consistent with the real truth, since no apostle was ever
taught to consider it beneath his dignity to get out of danger,) that
they therefore strive to make it appear that he still stayed in Rome,
in spite of the imperial edict, and boldly preached the gospel, without
reference to danger, until, soon after, it became necessary for him to
go to the east on important business. The majority, however, are agreed
that he did remove from Rome along with the rest of the Jews, though
while he remained there, he is supposed to have kept up the apostolic
dignity by preaching at all risks. His journey eastward is made out in
rather a circuitous manner, probably for no better reason than to make
their stories as long as possible; and therefore it is enough to say,
that he is carried by the continuation of the fable, from Rome first
into Africa, where he erected a church at Carthage, over which he
ordained Crescens, one of his Roman disciples, as bishop. Proceeding
next along the northern coast of the continent, he is brought
to Alexandria, where, of course, he founds a church, leaving the
evangelist Mark in it, as bishop; and passing up the Nile to Thebes,
constitutes Rufus there, in the same capacity. Thence the fabulous
chroniclers carry him at once to Jerusalem; and here ends this tedious
string of details, the story being now resumed from the clear and
honest record of the sacred historian, to the great refreshment of the
writer as well as the reader, after dealing so long in what is utterly
unalloyed falsehood.
_Peter, bishop of Rome._――The great question of his having ever
visited this city, has two separate and distinct parts, resting
on totally different grounds, since they refer to two widely
distant periods of time; but that part which refers to his
early visit, being connected with this portion of the history,
I proceed in this place to the full examination of _all_ the
evidences, which have ever been brought in support of both
divisions of this great subject in papal dogmatic history, from
the supposed records of this event in the writings of the early
Christian Fathers. On this head, instead of myself entering into
a course of investigations among these writers, which my very
slight acquaintance with their works would make exceedingly
laborious to me, and probably very incomplete after all, I
here avail myself of the learned and industrious research of my
friend, the Rev. Dr. Murdock, widely and honorably known as the
Translator and Annotator of Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History.
Through his kindness, I am allowed the free use of a long
series of instructive lectures, formerly delivered by him
as a professor of Ecclesiastical History, which having been
subsequently modified to suit a popular audience, will bring the
whole of this learned matter, with the fullest details of the
argument, in a form perfectly intelligible and acceptable to my
readers.