It was late before Aunt Nancy felt the approach of sleep that night. She
turned restlessly from side to side, thinking over Bessie’s strange
behavior, and trying to find a solution for it. The appearance of a
mystery disturbed all calculations based upon her plain and outspoken
experience.
But the habits of years are not easily broken, and sleep, that for more
than six decades had been wont to settle over this woman’s head as
regularly as darkness settled on the earth, began now to dim her senses.
She was about losing consciousness, when the vague sense of pain and
perplexity which still clung to her mind strengthened and took a new form.
It was no longer a woman who laughed bitterly when she should have wept,
but a woman sobbing violently, she knew not why.
The sound continued, and before its dreary persistence Aunt Nancy’s
hovering sleep took flight. She started up and listened, not yet quite
recalled to recollection. It was indeed a woman’s voice sobbing
uncontrollably. For one moment, the listener’s blood chilled with a
superstitious fear; the next, she recollected that she was not alone in
the house. It was Bessie who mourned. “_Rachel weeping for her children,
because they were not_,” the old woman thought pityingly.
Poor Bessie had forgotten how thin the walls were in her old home, and,
when the door opened and a tall figure clad in white entered her room, she
uttered a cry of affright.
“You poor child! I couldn’t stand it to hear you cry so,” Aunt Nancy said,
going to her bedside and bending down to put a caressing arm around her.
“Don’t cry! Try to remember that you have not lost everything.”
“I’m sorry I disturbed you, Aunt Nancy,” Bessie said faintly, sinking back
on the pillow. “You had better leave me to have it out alone. I don’t
often get a chance to have a good cry, and you have no idea what a relief
it is.”
“I know all about it!” Aunt Nancy replied, and her voice, low and deep,
had a sound like a tolling bell. “I have seen ’em all go and leave me, one
after another, father and mother, brothers and sisters, husband and
children, till every earthly hope was covered over with dust, and it
seemed as though there was dust on the very bread I ate. Yes, I know what
it is better than you, for you have your husband and one child left yet,
and I have nothing on earth!”
“I have not!” Bessie cried out passionately, with the jealousy of one
whose grief is underestimated. “John and the boy are further away from me
than my dead children are!”
The barrier was down. She had betrayed herself, and must tell the whole,
though she might be sorry afterward for having spoken. Concealment and
self‐control were no longer possible.
It was a tale too often true, though not so often told. The husband,
engrossed in business, and missing no home care which the love and duty of
his wife could bestow, had forgotten, or did not care, or did not believe,
that any return was due from him save a pecuniary support, or that he
could be guilty of any sin of omission toward his wife, save the omission
to provide her with food and shelter.
Perhaps no woman ever saw the heart she had once possessed slipping away
from her, without making a mistake in her efforts to retain it.
Indifference is her surest means of success, but indifference the loving
heart can never affect. As well might flame hope to hide itself, living,
in ashes.
The reserve and gravity of wounded feeling, when at length the husband
noticed them, he named sulkiness, and the meanness of the causes to which
he ascribed that were felt as an insult. The few timid reproaches and
petitions the wife had brought herself to utter he listened to with
surprise and annoyance, or with ridicule. Why, what in the world did she
want?—to begin their courting days over again? In order to do that, they
must first be divorced. What had he done? Had he beaten, or scolded, or
starved her? Had he gone gallivanting about with other women? Nonsense! He
had his business to attend to. Of course he loved her, but she mustn’t
bother him.
What reply is possible to such arguments? How small seem all our sweetest
human needs when they are put into words, simply because words can never
express them! In such a controversy, hard natures have always the
advantage over sensitive ones, and seem to triumph by their very
inferiority.
Bessie was silent, and her husband thought that she was convinced, and
dismissed the subject from his mind. If he observed that she grew pale, he
supposed that city air did not agree with her. He missed no home comfort,
heard no complaint, and therefore took for granted that all was right. He
frequently absented himself from home on business, never asking his wife
to accompany him, women being in the way on such occasions, and she seemed
satisfied to see nothing beyond her own fireside. He brought home his
plans and studies at evening, and, when the children’s play and caresses
disturbed him, their mother took them away and amused them elsewhere.
When, later, her little ones asleep, as she sat by her husband silently
working, he found that the snip of her scissors and the rattle of her
spools fretted him, Bessie said not a word, but went off to bed, and wet
her pillow with bitter and unavailing tears, finding no comfort.
The thought of seeking comfort and help in her religion had not once
entered her mind. She was dead to its obligations. They had never been
impressed on her, and her heart had been engrossed by other interests. Her
children had been baptized, and she usually went to an early Mass on
Sunday, but never heard a sermon, and never read a religious book. She
prayed often, but it was the outcry of pain, the petition for an earthly
good, not the prayer for resignation and wisdom.
Of his wife’s real life John Maynard knew no more than he did of life at
the antipodes. His profession engrossed his heart. His happiness was to
work and study over polished metals, to fit cylinder, crank, and valve
with nicety into their places; and at last, when that exquisite but
irresistible power of steam, so delicate in its fineness, yet so terrible
in its strength, began to steal into his work, to see the creature of
brass and iron grow alive, and become more mighty than an army of giants,
how tenderly could he handle, how carefully arrange, how patiently study
out, the parts of his work! For the problem of that infinitely more
exquisite mechanism—his wife’s heart—he had no time.
The boy, as boys will, followed in the footsteps of his father. He
emulated the slighting of which the father was himself unconscious, and
treated his mother with that intolerable mixture of patronizing kindness
and impatient superiority so often witnessed in the presumptuous children
of our time.
When Bessie Maynard had poured out her complaint, with many an
illustration of which a woman could well understand the bitterness, Aunt
Nancy was silent a moment.
“It’s pretty hard, dear,” she said then, embarrassed what to say. “Some
men have that way of not caring anything about their wives, as soon as
they have got them; but I never thought John would act so. And you know,
Bessie, that, if it is hard, still he is your husband, and you can’t leave
him for that. Try to be patient, and don’t lose courage. I’m sure he loves
you, though he doesn’t show it; and he’ll come round by‐and‐by.”
The reply almost broke in on this trite advice: “I did not mean to leave
him. I came down here to think. I can’t think there. I wanted to see again
this place where I was a child, and where I was so happy. I thought that
perhaps some of the old feelings might come back. I have been afraid of
some things. Aunt Nancy, I was afraid I should grow to hate John!”
“Oh! no, Bessie,” the old woman exclaimed. “Never let yourself hate your
own husband! It would be a dreadful sin; and, besides, it wouldn’t mend
matters. It is better for a woman to love one who cares nothing for her
than not to love anybody. I don’t believe but John is fond of you still,
if he’d only stop to think of it.”
There was no reply.
“What else were you afraid of?” Aunt Nancy asked presently. “You said you
were afraid of some things?”
Bessie did not answer.
That other fear that, shunned at first, then glanced upon, then brooded
over silently till it had grown almost a probability, flashed out again on
her in all its original hatefulness when she found herself about to
explain it to a listener like this.
“If you don’t want to tell, I won’t ask you,” Aunt Nancy said, with almost
childlike timidity. “But, may be, since you have begun, you would feel
better not to keep anything back. You know, Bessie, I am on your side,
though I am John’s own aunt.”
The younger woman crept nearer into the arm that half held her, and said,
in a hurried whisper, “Every one is not so indifferent to me as John is!”
“I’m glad of it, child,” was the calm reply. “I don’t like to praise
people to their faces, but you always had a sweet, winning way. I am glad
that other people are good to you.” She waited again for the explanation,
not dreaming that it had been given.
Bessie Maynard drew a breath, like one who plunges into water. “There’s
some one who thinks me worth watching and sympathizing with, if John
doesn’t,” she said.
“You don’t mean a man!” exclaimed Aunt Nancy.
“Of course I do,” answered Bessie almost pettishly.
The words were scarcely out of her mouth, before she was flung back on to
the pillow by the arms that had held her so tenderly, and Aunt Nancy stood
erect by the bedside. “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Bessie Maynard?”
she cried out indignantly.
“No, I am not!” was the dogged answer. “I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
The flash of the old woman’s eyes could be seen in the dim light. “What!
you, a married woman, not ashamed to let a man who is not your husband
talk love to you!”
“He never spoke a word of love to me,” said Bessie, still sulky.
Aunt Nancy was utterly puzzled. “How do you know, then?” she asked.
Neither by nature nor education was this woman fitted to understand that
subtile manner by which impressions and assurances are conveyed without a
word having been spoken. A man would have been obliged to use plain
language indeed, if he would have had her, a wife, understand that he
loved her.
While Bessie described some of the delicate kindnesses of this dangerous
friend of hers, Aunt Nancy listened attentively, and presently resumed her
seat by the bed. She really could not see that the child had done, or
meant, or wished any real harm.
“But, still, you must look out for the fellow, dear,” she said. “He
wouldn’t hang round you so if he was what he ought to be. You never know
what these city gentlemen are.”
“He isn’t a bad man!” Bessie exclaimed. “I won’t have him called so. I’m
afraid; but, for all that, I respect him. I wish John were half as good.”
The story was ended; but with the feeling of relief which followed the
disburdening of her heart came also the uneasiness and half regret we
always experience when we have been led unawares to confide a secret to
one whom we have not deliberately chosen as a confidant. Conscious of this
new uneasiness, Bessie wished to close the conversation.
“Don’t let me keep you any longer,” she said. “Go to bed now, and forget
all the nonsense I have been talking. I am sorry I disturbed you.”
Aunt Nancy paid no attention to this request. She sat a few moments in
deep thought, then spoke abruptly: “Bessie, did you ever go to any of your
priests about this business?”
“To a priest!” repeated Bessie, astonished at such a question from a rigid
Puritan like her aunt, and doubtful in what spirit it was asked. “What
made you think of that?”
“I am not a Catholic,” the old woman said, “but you are. And I like to see
people live up to their religion, whatever it is. A religion that won’t
help you in a strait like this isn’t worth having.”
Bessie was silent, knowing not what to say. Her faith was sleeping. That
religion would help as really as the trials of earth can hurt she had not
thought. Like many others, she invoked the aid of the church on the great
events, the births, the marriages, and the deaths, but let the rest of
life fight its own battles.
“Now, you listen to me,” Aunt Nancy said earnestly. “I’m not very wise,
but I’m going to give you the best advice that you can get anywhere. Just
you write to old Father Conners, the priest that married you and John, and
tell him what a trouble you are in. I’ve seen him, and I believe he’s a
good Christian, if he is a priest, and a sensible man, too. He comes three
or four times a year up to a Mr. Blake’s, over on the railroad, and says
Mass in his house. There are a good many Catholics round there now. It’s
about time for him to come again. You write to him, and you won’t be sorry
for it. There’s nothing else for you to do. Will you write, Bessie? I want
you to promise.”
The promise was given hesitatingly, doubtingly, more to get rid of the
subject than from any conviction of its wisdom.
But a promise is a promise, and next morning Bessie wrote the letter, not
because she wished to, but because she must; and a very dry, cold letter
it was. She was a little helped to the writing of it by the pleasant
prospect of carrying it to mail. That would give her a long, solitary walk
and a whole afternoon quite to herself; for the post‐office was in a desk,
in a corner of the sitting‐room of a farm‐house four miles distant. This
house was at the end of postal and stage accommodations in that direction.
Three times a week a double‐seated open wagon was driven there from a
seaport town thirty miles to the southward, passing through several small
villages on its way. This stage had brought Bessie up, and was to return
the next morning.
She set out on her walk soon after their early dinner, and reached the
post‐office just at the high tide of that country afternoon leisure, when,
their noon dinner quite cleared away, the women of the house are
ordinarily free from everything that they would call labor. At this time
the housewife smooths her hair and ties on a clean apron. One hears the
snap of knitting‐needles through the silence, or the drowsy hum of the
spinning‐wheel, or the sound of the loom where the deep‐blue woollen web
grows, thread by thread, while the weaver tosses her shuttle to and fro.
Bessie had dreaded the gossip which she must expect to encounter; but, as
she approached, the sight of blue and pink sun‐bonnets out in the field,
where the women were raking, hay, relieved her fear. Not a soul was in the
house. The watch‐dog, recollecting her, gave no alarm, only walked gravely
by her side, and looked on while she slipped her letter into the bag left
to receive the mail. All the doors and windows stood open, and the
sunshine lay bright and clear on the white bare floors. Large, stupid
flies bumped their heads against the panes of glass, and a bumble‐bee flew
in at the front door, wandered noisily about the rooms, and out again by
the back door. The painted wooden chairs stood straightly against the
yellow‐washed walls, and a large rocking‐chair, with a chintz cushion,
occupied one corner. A braided cloth mat covered the hearth, and the
fireplace was filled with cedar boughs, through which glittered the brass
andirons. On the high mantel‐piece stood a pair of brass candlesticks, and
a tumbler filled with wild roses.
Bessie glanced hurriedly about, then stole out, trembling lest she should
be discovered and pounced upon by some loud‐voiced man or woman from whom
escape would be impossible. But no one appeared, and in a few minutes she
was out of sight of the house.
Loud would be their exclamations of wonder and regret when they should
discover that letter, knowing who must have brought it. How curiously
would they handle it over, and examine it, and try to peep into it while
they speculated and guessed concerning its contents!
“One comfort,” said Bessie to herself, as she glanced over her shoulder,
and saw the last sun‐bonnet disappear, “I sealed it so that not even a
particle of air could get in; and they can’t see a word without committing
felony.”
The June day was passing away in a soft glory. All the world was green,
all the sky was blue, and all the air was golden. But the green was so
various, from a verdant blackness, through many tints, to a vivid green
that was almost yellow, it seemed many‐colored as it was many‐shaped.
There was every shape and size, from the graceful plume of ferns to the
square‐topped oak with its sturdy, horizontal branches. Through it all
wound the narrow brown road, with a line of grass in the middle between
the wagon‐wheels where the horses feet spared it. The birds were singing
their evening song, and a brook at the roadside lisped faintly here and
there, then lay still and shone, then suddenly laughed outright.
On such an evening one does long to be happy; and, if happy, then one
feels that it is not enough. Bessie walked on slowly, taking long breaths
of the clear, perfumed air that had now an evening coolness. She would
fain have stayed out till night fell. The house was near, so she stepped
aside, sat down on a mossy rock, and looked at the sunset. The last, thin,
shining cloud there melted in the fervid light, grew faint, and
disappeared. Bessie’s eyes, so tearful that all this universe of green and
gold swam before them, were fixed on the sky, and she thought over, with a
clearer mind now, the last feverish, miserable years of her life.
It seemed to her that, if she had been less exclusively devoted to her
husband, and had interested herself in other people and in the events of
the day, she would have been wiser and happier. She had made herself as a
slave, and had received a slave’s portion. It would be better to stand on
a more equal footing, and, since works of supererogation, instead of
winning his gratitude and affection, only fostered his selfishness and
lowered her, to confine herself to the duties she was bound to perform.
“But it is my nature to love something with my whole strength, so that all
else seems small in comparison,” she said, sighing. “How can I help it?”
While she gazed fixedly at the sky, at first without seeing, she presently
became aware of a red‐gold crescent moon that had grown visible under her
eyes, curved like a bow when the arrow is just singing from the string,
like the new moon whereon Our Lady stands, a tower of ivory.
The tears in Bessie’s eyes made the shining curve tremble in the sky as
though a hand held it; and, as though it were a bent bow, an arrowy
thought flew from it, and struck quivering into her heart:
“Love God, and all will be well!”
She sat a minute longer, then rose and went quietly homeward. Aunt Nancy
would be anxious about her; and the desire for solitude was gone. She was
glad now that she had written to Father Conners, though the letter might
have shown a gentler spirit. It was a comfort to have done something that
was right, though it was not much.
One does not ordinarily become pious in a moment. We may recognize the
voice of God, and be startled at the clearness and suddenness of the
summons, but our sluggish faith has ever an excuse for a little more
folding of the hands to sleep. But though not obedient at once, Bessie
Maynard felt, rather than saw, that there was a refuge which made it no
longer possible for her to despair.
Within a few days she received an answer to her letter. The priest was
coming to that neighborhood by the last of the week, and would see her.
The letter was brief and to the point, and contained not one word of
sympathy or exhortation; but the tremulous characters, that told of age or
infirmity touched the heart of the reader. This old man gave her no soft
words, but he was hastening to her relief. For the first time, she
anxiously asked herself if it had not been possible for her to avoid all
her trouble, and if there was any element in her story which could
reasonably be expected to call forth anything but reproof for herself from
a man whose whole life had been one of charity and self‐denial. She wished
to see him indeed, but she awaited his coming with a feeling little short
of terror.
Bessie had not written to her husband. She could not bring herself to do
that, for she did not wish to write coldly to him, and she would not use
expressions of affection which had no echo in her heart. But she wrote to
her son a gentle and tender letter, of which he was neither old nor
sensitive enough to feel the pathos. Only one reproach found a place
there: “I thought you might like to hear from me, though you cared more
for your play than you did to say good‐by to me when I came here, and left
me to go to the depot alone.” She did not intimate, though she thought,
that the business which had called her husband away at the same time might
as easily have been postponed.
Father Conners came. His open buggy was driven to the door one morning,
and the boy who sat with him held the horse while the priest slowly
alighted. He was a large, powerful‐looking man, still vigorous, though
slightly bent and stiff with age. Snow‐white hair framed his expressive
face, in which sternness and benevolence were strangely mingled. His color
was fresh, perfect teeth gave a brilliancy to his infrequent smile, and
his pale‐blue eyes were almost too penetrating to be met with ease. He
walked with his head slightly bent down and his gaze fixed upon the ground
till he reached the door, then looked up to see Bessie standing on the
threshold.
She was a pretty creature still, in spite of troubled years, and her
manner and expression would have propitiated a sterner judge. Blushes
overspread her face, and she trembled; yet an impulse of joyful welcome
broke through and brightened her, as a sunbeam brightens the cloud.
The priest stopped short, with no ceremony of greeting, and regarded her a
moment, while she waited for him to speak.
The scrutiny satisfied him apparently.
“You did well to come back here,” he said then, and made a motion to
enter. She stood aside for him to pass, and followed him into the little
parlor which she had spent all the morning in preparing for him. An arm‐
chair had been improvised out of a barrel, some pillows, and a shawl, the
rude fireplace was filled with green, and there were dishes of flowers
about.
Her visitor did not appear to notice these simple efforts to do him honor.
Almost before seating himself, he began to speak of what had brought him
there.
“Now, my child, though I have time enough to say and hear all that is
necessary, though it should take a week, I have no time to waste. Tell me
the meaning of your letter?”
No time for gradual approach, for timid intimations, or delicate reserves
till, warming with the subject, she could show plainly all that was in her
heart. She must make the “epic plunge” without delay. Stimulated by the
necessity, Bessie called up her wits and her courage, and, without being
aware of it, told everything in a few words.
When she paused and expected him to question her, to her surprise he
seemed already to know the whole. And, to her still greater pleasure,
those points on which she had touched lightly, fearing that they might
seem trivial in his eyes, he spoke of with sympathy.
“It is those little attentions and kindnesses which sweeten human life, my
child, and help to sustain us under its heavier trials,” he said.
Bessie lifted her grateful, tearful eyes, and thanked him with a sad
smile.
“And now,” he continued, “I want you to go to confession.”
Her eyes dilated with astonishment. She was confused and distressed, and a
painful blush rose to her face.
“I have not confessed for years,” she stammered. “I am not prepared. When
I have time to think, I will go to confession in a church. It seems
strange to confess here.”
The priest was by nature and habits peremptory, and he knew that this was
the proper time to exercise that quality. “Any place is proper for
confession, if a better one is not to be had,” he said. “As to being
prepared, let us see. You tell me that you have been thinking this all
over this week, to see wherein you may have done wrong. There, then, is an
examen of your conscience as to your duties toward your husband and,
indirectly, toward God. You say that you have not practised your religion,
but mean to do so in future. There is attrition, at least, and a purpose
of amendment. You say that you know all you have committed of serious
wrong in these years, don’t you?”
“Yes,” was the answer.
“You know humanly, as far as you can know, without the illumination of the
Holy Spirit?” the priest corrected.
“Yes,” said Bessie again. “But I want to think it over, and make sure of
my sorrow and good resolutions.”
“In short, you wish to reform and convert yourself, then go to God,” said
Father Conners. “That is not the way. It is God who is to convert you. You
need not stay to try to conquer your feelings, and hesitate for fear you
may not be able to. Your reason is convinced. It is enough. Go to God, and
ask him to help you to do the rest. While you are thinking the subject
over in the woods here, you may die, or the devil may come and tempt you
in the shape of this friend of yours. I will give you half an hour. While
I have gone out to read my office under the trees, you kneel down here,
and first ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten you, and reveal all your sins.
Then say, and mean, that you are sorry, and plan how you may do better
with God’s help in the future.”
He had risen while speaking, and was going toward the door. Refusal was
impossible. Bessie carried her shawl‐covered arm‐chair out, and set it
under a thick old pine‐tree on the slippery brown pine‐needles, through
which tiny ants were running in every direction, very busy about some
buildings of their own, carrying sticks larger than themselves.
Father Conners seated himself, set his hat on the ground by his side,
spread a red silk handkerchief over his head, and took out his Breviary.
He had but little time to attend to the beauties of nature, but the
situation brought an expression of pleasure to his face. He gave one
glance up into the overshadowing branches that spread their fragrant
screen between him and the sun, then a kindlier glance to the young woman
who stood looking wistfully at him.
“Come here for your confession when you are ready, child,” he said, “and
don’t be afraid. See how peaceful the skies are. Is God less gentle? And
here! take my watch, and come back in twenty‐five minutes. You have lost
five minutes already.”
Bessie took the large silver watch on its black ribbon, and hastened to
shut herself in her room, and Father Conners became absorbed in his
office. So much absorbed was he, he did not observe that the silk
handkerchief slipped slowly from his head, and that a large spider let
itself down by a thread from the tree above, stopped within a few inches
of that silvery hair, which it contemplated curiously, then ran up its
silken ladder again as a young woman came out of the house, walked with
faltering steps across the sward, and sank on her knees by the priest’s
side.
An hour later, Father Conners climbed laboriously into his carriage, and
drove away, and Bessie leaned on the bars, and watched him as long as he
was in sight. She felt strong and peaceful. She counted over the promises
she had made him, and resolved anew that they should be kept.
She stood there so long that Aunt Nancy, after having kept her dinner
waiting out of all reason, came down to speak to her. She came with
anxiety and hesitation, not knowing whether her niece was better or worse
for this visit.
“You gave me good advice, Aunt Nancy,” Bessie said, turning at the sound
of her step.
The old lady was delighted. “So you’re all right?” she said.
“I have got into the right track, at least,” Bessie answered, as they
walked up toward the house. “I have been to confession.”
Aunt Nancy’s face clouded again on hearing this avowal. That was all the
priest’s visit had amounted to, then—that John’s wife had been induced to
go to confession! How could people be so superstitious, so subjected, to
their priests? She had hoped that Bessie might have received some good
sound advice and instruction.
This she thought, but said nothing.
How was she to know that in that one word confession was included advice,
instruction, good resolution, and sorrow for sin, as well as the mystical
rite which she abhorred?
To Be Continued.
S. Peter’s Roman Pontificate.
The history of mankind presents us innumerable facts that strike the
reader with astonishment, and tax his ingenuity to its utmost to explain.
The sudden fall of nations from the height of prosperity to misery and
subjection, the invasion of hordes of barbarians to substitute their
uncouthness and ferocity for the polish and civilization of centuries, the
apparent vocation of some one nation, at different epochs, to assume a
preponderance over all others in the government of the world, the
appearance of some one great mind that shone like a sun amid the galaxy of
intellect, revolutionizing his time, and then setting, without leaving any
one to continue his work; all these facts confuse the mind, and, when man
has lost the light that was sent into this world to guide him, seem to him
but the bitter irony of destiny. Not so, however, are they viewed by him
to whom revelation has imparted its illumining rays. He sees Providence
everywhere, and, knowing some wise end has been intended by the Creator
whose power conserves and directs the evolutions of the planets and the
vicissitudes of human life, he is encouraged to inquire into the end for
which such wonderful events have been brought about. ’Twas by this light
the great Bishop of Hippo saw the providential disposition of the changes
that took place in the world; looked on all history but as the preparation
and continuation of the master‐work of God—his church. ’Twas by this light
that, following in the footsteps of S. Augustine, Bossuet understood the
relations of such different facts, and showed their connection in his
_Universal History_. These men, and those who, like them, have studied the
history of the nations of the earth, had no difficulty in realizing the
relation of all these facts, and in looking on them as so many
confirmations of the truth of Christianity; but those who are without
faith stand aghast at the inexplicable phenomena they see before them, and
of all none so sets at naught their judgment and defies their explanation
as the greatest, the most persistent, the most important of all historical
facts—the existence of the Catholic Church. They see it everywhere;
modifying everything; setting at defiance all calculation; and when,
according to human judgment, it should cease to exist, coming forth from
the ordeal purer, stronger, more brilliant and powerful than before. Yet,
they are not willing to learn by experience, but look forward to a future
day when an expedient or a means will be discovered to destroy in its turn
this gigantic fabric that appears to scorn the ravages of time and the
fury of tempest, just as the Jews look forward to the Messiah who is to
deliver them from captivity among the nations. In their useless hope, they
leave nothing untried, and often scruple not at what in their private
capacity they might scorn—distortion of history and downright calumny. No
human institution could ever have withstood the array of powerful enemies
the church of Christ has had since she first went forth from Mount Sion.
No age has ever seen her without them; sometimes fierce persecutors,
sometimes insidious plotters, sometimes open impugners of her dogmas; at
other times dangerous foes, cloaking their hostility under the garb of
devotion that they might better strike deep into her bosom the poison with
which, in their foolish hate, they fancied they were to deprive her of
life. But the spouse of Christ has always cast them from her, and walked
majestically over the ruins they themselves had brought about, and this
she will ever do. And why? Because she does not lean on a broken reed nor
put her trust in an arm of flesh. She bears about her a charm that defies
all attack—the protection of the Most High—and presents to all the proof
of her holy character, those motives of credibility, that as they were
intended for all time, so now as on the day of Pentecost, accompany her
wherever she goes, invincibly proving to the mind of man her own divine
origin and her claim to his obedience. As she was one, in the union of all
her children in one faith and in one baptism; as she was holy in the lives
of those that obeyed her; as she was catholic and universal, embracing
peoples of _all_ climes and of _all_ ages; as she was apostolic in her
origin and in the succession of her ministry, so is she now, one, holy,
catholic, and apostolic in the succession of her priesthood and in the
infallibility of her head. As she was able to point to the wonders wrought
by the apostle in the name of her divine founder, so now can she point to
the miracles of her chosen servants: an Alphonsus de Liguori, a Paul of
the Cross, a Ven. Pallotta, a Maria Taigi, a Maria Moerl, and a host of
others, down to the martyred victims of communistic fury. She can show in
the XIXth century, as she did in the first, a host of martyrs; old men and
youths, matrons and tender virgins, who, when arraigned for their faith
before the Chinese mandarin, fulfilled the promise of Christ, and gave
inspired answers, as did the glorious children of the early church, and
sealed, too, with their blood the belief they held dearer than life.
We can understand, then, how the church can look fearlessly at the storms
that ever and anon burst upon her, because, built on the solidity of her
belief, she knows the waves can but break harmless at her feet. She has no
need of human means to secure her existence, for that has a promise of
perennial duration. The condition, too, of her being is one of struggle
and warfare, and, when it comes upon her, her only act is to oppose the
shield of faith and the sword of the word of God—her only arms the truth.
And as it is written that truth will prevail, so in every battle in which
she has been engaged she has come forth at last with victory inscribed on
her banner—victory through the truth.
We have said that the condition of her being is struggle and warfare.
This, therefore, is never wanting; as all the world knows, she is called
on to defend herself just now against the fiercest attacks she has perhaps
ever suffered—perhaps even beyond what she underwent in that fearful
persecution, in which her enemies directed against her every engine of
destruction, and in their mad rejoicing recorded the inscription,
_Christiano nomine deleto_. To‐day the openly declared foes of her faith
are seated in triumph in her stronghold, and strain every nerve to uproot
from the mind and heart of her children the faith of their fathers. Not
content with attacking the dogmas she teaches, they assail every fact
which in any way may favor her, no matter how clearly the history of past
ages may proclaim its truth. An instance of this we have had but recently,
but a few months ago, when an attempt was made to prove that the fact upon
which the whole jurisdiction of the church is grounded never occurred—that
S. Peter forsooth never came to Rome, and never founded the church there!
With what success the champions of this assertion advocated their cause is
known; and it may still further be judged of from the fact that a person
who came to the discussion, doubting of the fact of S. Peter’s having been
in Rome, left the hall after hearing the Catholic speakers, convinced that
such an historical personage as S. Peter had lived and been in Rome, and
he recorded his belief in one of the leading journals of Italy not
favorable to the Catholic cause.
It may be said to be a strange phenomenon that a fact of history so
notorious, and for which so great an amount of proof exists, which has at
its command every fount of human certitude, as that of the coming of S.
Peter to Rome, ever should have been called in question. But what will not
party spirit attempt? It is not the first time nor will it be the last
that partisans will seek to rid themselves of troublesome facts by
downright denial of them. This spirit, however, is a dangerous one, and
especially unbecoming the sincere student of history. We know what Bacon
has said about the _idola_, and it is incumbent on every one who is
searching after historic truth to lay aside prejudice or even the desire
that facts may favor him. He must look at them merely as they are, take
them on their proof, without, striving to lessen them or give them other
proportions than are inherent in them. If the scope of all research is to
find out the truth, it is our duty to seek it only, and not mar its beauty
by adding to or detracting from it. In the present case the remark is
highly applicable. Catholics have nothing to fear in examining the
historic proofs on which the coming of S. Peter to Rome rests; while those
who differ from them, in so far as they love truth, should be equally glad
to look well into the claims to truth which this same fact puts forward.
We propose to go briefly over the ground. We say briefly because it seems
almost presumptuous, since so many able pens have dedicated themselves to
this task, that we should undertake it anew. There seems to us, however, a
want to be supplied, on this subject, something succinct and not too
learned or too lengthy for the ordinary reader, engrossed in pursuits that
do not allow time for more extended studies. This must be our excuse as
well as our reason for the present undertaking.
In the discussion that took place in Rome on the 9th and 10th February,
1872, the chief speaker on the negative side ended his discourse by saying
that, no matter what weight of testimony could be brought to sustain S.
Peter’s coming to Rome, the silence of Scripture was for him an
unanswerable argument; the Scripture should have spoken of the fact had it
existed; it said nothing about it, therefore it had never existed. Were it
not that the subject is too serious for such quotations, we should say
with Gratiano, “We thank thee for teaching us that word!” This was the
feeling that came over us as we heard the expression from the lips of the
speaker, and now, after so much has been written, we have it still. It is
needless to say that such an expression betrays anxiety with regard to
positive argument, if not a suspicion of weakness in one’s own cause. We
shall endeavor to show that there was reason both for this suspicion and
this anxiety.
And, first, the opinion which is least probable concerning the death of S.
Peter satisfactorily accounts for the silence of the Acts and of the
Epistle to the Romans, the portions of Scripture on which our adversaries
lay most stress in this matter. According to this opinion, S. Peter was
martyred in Rome, _Nerone et Vetere Consulibus_, _i.e._, according to the
Bucherian Catalogue, in the second year of Nero, the year 54 of the
Christian era, this leaving S. Peter twenty‐five years of pontificate,
from the year 29 to the year 54. S. Linus succeeded him, and ruled the
church twelve years, dying after S. Paul, who was put to death before Nero
went into Greece. S. Peter was therefore, according to this chronology,
dead before S. Paul reached Rome. It is not strange, then, the Acts does
not speak of his being there. As for the Epistle to the Romans, if it was
written in the year 53, or two years before S. Paul came to Rome according
to Eusebius, the reasons we adduce further on will explain the silence
with regard to S. Peter. If, as the ordinary opinion has it, the Epistle
was written from Corinth, in the year 58, S. Peter being already four
years dead, the omission of his name is easily accounted for.
We say, secondly, that, in the belief that S. Peter and S. Paul died at
the same time in Rome, sufficient reason can be found for the silence both
of the Acts and of the Epistle to the Romans.
We beg particular attention to what we are going to say. Those portions of
Scripture do not prove by their silence that S. Peter _never_ came to
Rome, first, because the Acts and the Epistle to the Romans are not
adequate witnesses in the case; secondly, because neither the Acts nor the
Epistle to the Romans was called on by circumstances to allude to S.
Peter’s being in Rome.
And, first, the Acts and Epistle to the Romans are not adequate witnesses
that S. Peter _never_ came to Rome. We call attention to the fact that the
Epistle to the Romans was written two years before S. Paul came to Rome.
What therefore we are going to say under this first head regarding the
Acts applies with greater force to the Epistle to the Romans. We shall
then confine our remarks wholly to the Acts in this connection. We say,
then, that, in order that the Acts should be received as an adequate
witness, it should cover the whole period from the time S. Peter first
left Judæa to that of his death as fixed by received historical data, for
we cannot arbitrarily determine the period of his death. Now, it is well
known that history indicates the date of S. Peter’s death as that of S.
Paul’s. They are represented as dying on the same day and in the same
year, one by the sword, the other on the cross; such are the words of the
Roman Martyrology. This being so, we call attention to the fact that the
chief disputant on the negative side of the question fixed on the year 61,
from the _Fasti Consulares—atti consolari_, as that in which S. Paul came
to Rome, this being the year in which Portius Festus went to take
possession of his province.(146) The Acts tells us that after S. Paul came
to Rome he dwelt for two years in his own hired house. Here the narration
ceases, leaving Paul alive and in the year 63 of the Christian era. From
that time to his death, according to historical data, occurs a period,
according to different computations, of from two to four years. About this
period of time no mention is made in the Acts for the simple reason that
it is not embraced there; the narrative breaks off just as it begins. What
was to prevent S. Peter’s coming to Rome during this period of from two to
four years? If he had, the Acts could have said nothing about it, nor
could it if he had not. The conclusion is simple, the Acts, and, _a
fortiori_, the Epistle to the Romans, written prior to it, are no
competent or adequate witnesses to prove S. Peter _never_ came to Rome,
nor died there.
We come to the second head: neither the Acts nor the Epistle to the Romans
was called on to mention the fact of S. Peter’s being in Rome. With regard
to the Acts, any one who will carefully read it will see that S. Luke
narrates the acts of S. Paul. It was necessary to begin with some account
of the commencement of the church to show S. Paul’s connection with it.
This S. Luke does, speaking of the descent of the Holy Ghost, of the
instantaneous and marvellous results of the preaching of S. Peter, of his
admission of the Gentiles after the vision of the cloth containing all
manner of animals, and then passes on to speak of S. Paul, of his
persecution of the church, of the martyrdom of S. Stephen, of the
wonderful conversion of S. Paul. Here S. Paul is brought into contact with
S. Peter; but after the Council of Jerusalem, when S. Paul sets out to
evangelize the heathen, S. Peter is no more heard of, not even when S.
Paul returns to Jerusalem, as narrated in chapter xxi. Was he dead? Had
this been so ere S. Paul left Judæa, from his intimate contact with S.
Peter, it is probable S. Luke would have mentioned a fact so important as
the death of the first of the apostles. He was not dead. He and the other
apostles no longer appear in the narration of S. Luke, if we except S.
James, Bishop of Jerusalem, whom S. Paul saw (chapter xxi.), because S.
Luke did not propose to give a complete history of the church at that
time, or of the apostles, but only of S. Paul and his acts. The Acts are
contained in twenty‐eight chapters. In chapter vii., v. 57, Saul the
persecutor is spoken of for the first time; in the next four chapters he
is frequently mentioned. In the xv., S. Peter is mentioned for the last
time; and from this to the xxviii. S. Paul is the theme of the inspired
writer. In the 15th verse of chapter xxviii. the Christians go out to meet
Paul at Forum Appii, and in verse 16 he is in Rome a prisoner; verse 7
shows him to us calling together not the Christians, but the chief men of
the Jews, to explain that he has not appealed to Cæsar because he had
anything against his people. After these words, at verse 21, the Jews
reply to him, and he instructs or upbraids them as far as verse 29, which
represents the Jews going away incredulous. Verse 30 says: “He remained
two years in his own hired house, and received all who came unto him; 31,
Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching with all confidence, and
without prohibition, the things that are of the Lord Jesus Christ.” Here
the Acts ends. Does there seem to the reader any place in these two verses
for a mention of Peter? Ought the inspired writer to have added more to
his account? It seems to us not, for the end he had in view was gained. He
had been a companion of S. Paul, he had told those who knew it not what
had happened in their travels, and now S. Paul was in Rome, and dwelling
there, in the centre of the world, he did not deem it needful to say any
more, otherwise he would have told us some of the actions of S. Paul, for
wonders and conversions he certainly wrought in those two years. But as S.
Luke says nothing about these, nor about the flourishing Church of Rome to
which S. Paul two years before had addressed his Epistle from Corinth, it
is not strange he says nothing about S. Peter.
The silence of S. Paul in regard to S. Peter, in his Epistle to the
Romans, is not only of no avail to our adversaries, but the Epistle itself
contains matter for strong argument that S. Peter was permanently in Rome,
and in fact founded the church there.
First, with respect to the silence of S. Paul in regard to S. Peter. It is
a received canon of criticism that the silence of authors does not affect
the existence of a fact, when that fact is proven from documents of
weight; and this all the more when no valid reason can be put forward to
show the author or authors should have mentioned the fact in question.
Now, this is precisely the case with regard to S. Paul’s silence about S.
Peter. We have documentary and monumental evidence, as we shall see
hereafter, that S. Peter did come to Rome, while there was no practical
reason why S. Paul should mention S. Peter:—not for the sake of commending
him, for that was neither becoming, as S. Peter was head of the apostolic
college, nor necessary, as S. Peter’s works bore the stamp of divine
sanction; not for the purpose of asking permission to labor in Rome, as
the apostles were equal in the ministry, and united in a bond of perfect
harmony and mutual understanding, though with subjection to the centre of
unity, S. Peter, without, however, the distinctions of the various rights
and duties afterwards introduced by ecclesiastical custom; not for the
purpose of salutation, for he could not address S. Peter as head of the
church in a tone of authoritative teaching; and salutations, if, contrary
to what is generally held, Peter were in Rome at the time the letter was
written, could be made privately by the messenger who carried the letter,
and thus the duty of urbanity or charity, the only one that could require
express notice of S. Peter, may have been fulfilled. In fact, propriety
itself required this latter mode of salutation, lest it should be said
that S. Paul, instead of having directly addressed S. Peter, had saluted
him publicly through those to whom he wrote—the Christians of Rome, the
spiritual subjects of S. Peter. The silence, then, of S. Paul is of no
weight to prove S. Peter never was in Rome.
The argument of silence, therefore, falls to the ground.
We said the Epistle to the Romans contains matter to show S. Peter was in
Rome, and founded the church there.
Let us bear in mind who S. Peter was—the Apostle of the Gentiles. Why was
it he did not go at once to the centre of the Gentile world? Could any
more potent means have been adopted to spread Christianity? There centred
the civilization of the known world; there the Ethiopian met the Scythian,
the swarthy men from the banks of the Ganges were face to face with those
who first saw light by the waters of the Tagus, and the Numidian horseman
and the German warrior strolled through the Forum, admiring the temples of
the gods of Rome. Nowhere was there more certainty of success in spreading
abroad novelty of any kind than in this Babylon, receiving into its vast
enclosure men of all the nations over which it ruled, and sending them
forth again filled with wonder at what they saw, and eager to impart to
their less fortunate countrymen what they had learned in their sojourn in
the great city. Thither, however, S. Paul did not go, and why? Because
some one was there already—some one of power and authority; some one whose
labors had been crowned with success, and who had built up a church, the
faith of which at the time this epistle was written was known throughout
the whole world. S. Peter tells us himself he desired to go to the Romans
to impart to them something of spiritual grace to strengthen them, that
is, to be comforted in them “by that which is mutual—your faith and mine.”
The mode of expression of S. Paul in this place, vv. 11 and 12, is worthy
of notice. He says to the Romans he longs to see them to _strengthen
them_, and, as if he might be misunderstood, he adds immediately, “_that
is to say_, that I may be comforted together in you.” Evidently he speaks
here as one who is careful lest he seem to usurp the place of another, or
assume a right of teaching with authority which belonged to another. He
would not have the Romans think he considers that the one who rules them
is inferior to himself or stands in need of his support. In verse 18 he
says: “I do not wish you to be ignorant, brethren, that I have often
proposed to come unto you (and I have been prevented hitherto) that I may
have some fruit among you as among other peoples.” It is manifest here
that S. Paul’s duties with the Greeks kept him from going to Rome, and
this, as we said before, because, the Romans being already provided with
one who could teach them, there was not the pressing need of him that
would make him leave those who had none to preach to them.
What we have said with regard to the tone of the first chapter of the
Epistle is confirmed by the words of the apostle in chapter xv. 19‐26.
Here S. Paul says why he had not gone to Rome—because he was preaching to
those _who had no one to preach to them_. Had the Romans had no apostle
preaching to them, this would not have been a reason to put forward,
because the superiority of an apostle over any other preacher of the word
was such as to do away with the necessity of any comparison, and to make
all desirous in an eminent degree of seeing and hearing the chosen men the
sound of whose voice was to be heard throughout the whole world. S. Paul
then continues: “When I shall begin to take my journey into Spain, I hope
_that as I pass_, I shall see you, and be brought on my way thither by
you, if first, in part, I shall have enjoyed you.” From this it results,
first, that S. Paul had no intention of remaining in Rome; and, secondly,
that what he desired was to enjoy, in meeting the Romans, the consolation
of seeing their faith, and of sharing with them the spiritual gifts he
himself had received, which should serve to make them yet more steadfast
in their fidelity to the Gospel, precisely as, to use an example, the
preaching of the same doctrine they have heard from their own bishop, by a
bishop who is his guest, strengthens the faithful in their religious
belief.
The fact, then, stands that a flourishing church existed in Rome at the
time S. Paul wrote his Epistle, and this is still further shown by the
salutations in the last chapter. Who founded it? History is silent
regarding any one but S. Peter. As Alexandria claims S. Peter and S. Mark;
as Ephesus, S. John; as innumerable other cities and countries their
respective apostles, so does Rome claim S. Peter as its first evangelizer.
It would be absurd to say that all these other cities and nations could
retain the memory of him who first preached to them the word of God, and
Rome—the greatest of all, where so notorious a fact as the preaching of
Jesus Christ could not pass by unnoticed, especially when its effects were
so luminously conspicuous as S. Paul tells us they were—this Rome should
alone be ungratefully forgetful of her best benefactor. The thing is
absurd on the face of it. But history is silent about any other founder
except S. Peter; therefore we are justified in concluding that S. Peter,
and S. Peter alone, was the original founder of the Church of Rome, and
that Rome is right in holding her tradition that such was the fact.
This tradition of S. Peter’s having been in Rome, having founded the
church there, and having died there, gives strength to the conclusion
which Scripture has aided us to form. To any one who is at all conversant
with Rome, it must always have appeared a very remarkable fact that the
discoveries made by the zeal of her archæologists have, as a rule,
confirmed the traditions existing among the people both with regard to
localities and facts. It would seem as if Providence, in these days of
widespread scepticism, were unearthing the long‐hid monuments of the past
to put to confusion those who would fain treat the history of early ages
as a myth. The monuments stare them in the face, while their value is
understood by men of sound practical sense. This is the reason of the
reaction that is taking place against the sceptical style of writing
history which Niebühr and Dr. Arnold adopted, and made to a certain extent
fashionable. The words of a well‐informed writer, whose works have been
deservedly well received—Mr. Dyer—are an excellent reply to authors of
that stamp, based, as they are, on sound sense and the experience of
mankind—the safest guides we can possibly follow; for it is folly to think
that those who have gone before us blindly received everything that was
told them. Whatever may have happened with regard to individuals, such
certainly never was the case with regard to all. As well might we say
that, because some writers of to‐day speak in a spirit of scepticism, all
writers adopt the same style. Men in general never were sceptical, and
never will be; they will use their senses and their intellect, and judge
of things on their merits, and not according to the extravagant ideas of
any one, however brilliant he be. Mr. Dyer, though speaking of ancient
Roman history, makes remarks that are applicable in our case. He says, in
the Introduction to the _History of the City of Rome_, p. xvi.: “It would,
of course, be impossible to discuss in the compass of this Introduction
the general question of the credibility of early Roman history. We can
only state the reasons which have led us to doubt a few of the conclusions
of modern critics about some of the more prominent facts of that history,
and about the existence or the value of the sources on which it professes
to be founded. If it can be shown that the attempts to eliminate or to
depreciate some of these sources can hardly be regarded as successful, and
that the general spirit of modern criticism has been unreasonably
sceptical and unduly captious with respect to the principal Roman
historian, then the author will at least have established what, at all
events, may serve as an apology for the course he has pursued.” And at
page lxii.: “There is little motive to falsify the origin and dates of
public buildings; and, indeed, their falsification would be much more
difficult than that of events transmitted by oral tradition, or even
recorded in writing. In fact, we consider the remains of some of the
monuments of the Regal and Republican periods to be the best proofs of the
fundamental truth of early Roman history.” If this author could justly
speak in this manner of a period regarding which there is certainly not a
little obscurity, what are we to say when we are speaking of so well‐known
an epoch as that of the Roman Empire under Claudius and Nero, and of a
fact so luminous as that of the foundation of Christianity in the capital
of the world? The certainty of the traditions concerning this fact
undoubtedly acquires a strength proportionally greater, and this all the
more because we have the monuments around which these traditions centre,
and the existence of these monuments in the IId century is attested by the
Roman priest Caius writing against Proclus, apud Eusebium, _Hist. Eccl._,
c. xxv.: “I can,” he writes, “show you the trophies (tropæa) of the
apostles. For, whether you go to the Vatican or to the Ostian Way, the
trophies of those who founded the church will present themselves to your
view.” These monuments are the place of imprisonment of S. Peter, the
place of his crucifixion, that of the martyrdom of S. Paul, the place of
their burial, that in which their remains were deposited for a time, and
their final resting‐place, over which the grandest temple of the earth
rises in its majesty—a witness of the belief of all ages.
The tradition of S. Peter having founded the church in Rome receives
additional force from the fact that but a short period elapsed before
writers whose genuine works have come down to us recorded them, and thus
transmitted them to us. Not to speak of S. Clement of Rome, of S. Ignatius
of Antioch, of Papias, we take the words of S. Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons,
who was martyred in the year 202 of the Christian era. We omit speaking of
the other Fathers, not because we consider their testimony without great
value, for it is impossible, in our judgment, for any one who takes up
their works with an unprejudiced mind, and reads them in connection with
later and more precise writers on this subject, not to feel that they
refer to a matter so universally and thoroughly known as not to need any
further dwelling on than would a fact well known to a correspondent,
demand details from the person who writes him the letter. S. Irenæus, we
said, died in the year 202. He had been for a long time Bishop of Lyons,
whence he wrote to S. Victor, Pope, on the subject of the controversy
regarding the celebration of Easter, dissuading him from harsh measures
with respect to the Christians of the East. S. Victor was Pope from the
year 193 to 202, and succeeded Eleutherius, who became pope in the year
177. To this latter Irenæus was sent by the clergy of Lyons in the case of
the Montanist heresy, he having been received and ordained priest of the
diocese of Lyons by the Bishop Photinus, and it was during the pontificate
of the same pope that he wrote his celebrated work against heresies. He
was at this time not a young man, and we shall not be wide of the mark if
we put his birth some years before the middle of the second century, and
this all the more because he himself in the above‐mentioned book speaks of
his early studies as gone by. According to the best authorities, S. John
the Apostle was ninety years old when he was thrown into the caldron of
boiling oil, under Domitian, in Rome. He lived several years longer at
Patmos, and at Ephesus, where he died in the year 101, during the reign of
Trajan. We have thus a period of from thirty to forty years between the
death of S. John—the witness of what SS. Peter and Paul did, and who was
fully acquainted with all that had occurred at Rome—and Irenæus.
Independent of the means of information this proximity to the apostles
gave him, both because in his youth he must have known many who had in
their own youth seen and heard S. Peter, and because he had himself
visited Rome, the interval between him and S. John is filled up by the
link that unites them in an unbroken tradition, by the celebrated martyr
and Bishop of Smyrna, S. Polycarp, the disciple of S. John and the master
of S. Irenæus. We ask the reader to say, in all candor, whether this link
be not all that can be desired to secure belief in the testimony handed
down through it, from the apostles, especially with regard to such a thing
as the chief theatre of the life, labors, and death of the head of the
apostolic college. Anticipating a favorable answer, we proceed to give the
words of S. Irenæus—of undoubted authenticity. In his work, _Contra
Hæreses_, l. iii. c. i., he writes: “Matthew among the Hebrews composed
his Gospel in their tongue, while Peter and Paul were evangelizing at Rome
and founding the church. After their decease, Mark, the disciple and
interpreter of Peter, committed to writing what had been preached by
Peter.” In the same book, c. iii. § 3, S. Irenæus says: “But since it is
too long to enumerate in a volume of this kind the successions of all the
churches, pointing to the tradition of the greatest, most ancient and
universally known, founded and constituted at Rome, by the two most
glorious Apostles Peter and Paul, to that which it has from the apostles,
and to the faith announced to men, through the succession of bishops
coming down to our time, we put to confusion all who in any manner, by
their own self‐will, or through empty glory, or through blindness, or from
malice, gather otherwise than they should. For to this church, by reason
of its more powerful headship (principalitatem), it behooves every church
to come, that is, those who are faithful everywhere, in which (in qua) has
always been preserved by men of every region the tradition which is from
the apostles.” He goes on to say: “The holy apostles, founding and
building up the church, gave to Linus the episcopate of administration of
the church. Paul makes mention of this Linus in his letters to Timothy. To
him succeeded Anacletus; after him, in the third place from the apostles,
Clement (who also saw the apostles, and conferred with them) obtained the
episcopate, while he yet had the preaching of the apostles sounding in his
ears and tradition before his eyes; not he alone, for there were many then
living who had been taught by the apostles. Under this Clement, therefore,
a not trifling dissension having arisen among the brethren who were at
Corinth, the church which is at Rome wrote a very strong letter etc.... To
this Clement succeeded Evaristus, and to Evaristus Alexander, and
afterwards the sixth from the apostles was Sixtus, and after him
Telesphorus, who also gloriously suffered martyrdom; and then Hyginus,
next Pius, after whom Anicetus. When Soter had succeeded Anicetus, now
Eleutherius has the episcopate in the twelfth place from the apostles. By
this order and succession, that tradition which is from the apostles in
the church, and the heralding of the truth, have come down to us. And this
is a most full showing that one and the same is the life‐giving faith
which from the time of the apostles down to the present has been preserved
and delivered in truth. And Polycarp, not only taught by the apostles, and
conversing with many of those who saw our Lord, but also constituted by
the apostles bishop in Asia, in the church which is at Smyrna, _whom we
also saw in our early youth_, taught always the things he had learned from
the apostles, which also he delivered to the church, and which are alone
true. To these things all the churches, which are in Asia, and those who
up to to‐day have succeeded to Polycarp, bear witness.” And in his letter
to Florinus, S. Irenæus says more explicitly that he was a disciple of
Polycarp, that he had a most vivid recollection of his master, of his ways
and words, which he cherished more in his heart even than in his
memory.(147) Eusebius, in the _Chronicon_, says that Polycarp was martyred
in the year 169, the seventh of Lucius Verus.
Nothing clearer, more explicit, or of greater value than a tradition with
such links as S. John the Evangelist, S. Polycarp, and S. Irenæus could be
desired to establish beyond a doubt that S. Peter came to Rome and founded
the church there.
This fact having been shown to rest on a solid basis, we have now to say a
word with regard to the time at which S. Peter came to Rome. On this point
there is a difference of opinion; but this very difference of opinion as
regards the epoch is a new proof of the fact. The most probable opinion,
that which seems to have found most favor, fixes it at the year 42 of the
Christian era, the second year of Claudius. This is what S. Jerome,
following Eusebius, records. The learned Jesuit Zaccaria puts it at the
year 41, in the month of April, the 25th of which was kept as a holyday,
in the time of S. Leo the Great, in honor of S. Peter. This writer bears
witness to the very remarkable unanimity among the Fathers with respect to
the twenty‐five years’ duration of the pontificate of S. Peter in Rome,
which according to S. Jerome would fix the date of his death as the
fourteenth year of Nero, the 67th of the present era. The words of S.
Jerome are: “Simon Peter went to Rome to overthrow Simon Magus, and had
there his sacerdotal chair for twenty‐five years, up to the last year of
Nero, that is, the fourteenth; by whom also he was crowned with martyrdom
by being affixed to the cross.”(148) S. Jerome, we know, was well versed
in the history of the church, had dwelt for a long time at Rome, and may
consequently be presumed to have been excellently well informed with
regard to the general belief and tradition of the people of Rome. The
manner of the death of both apostles is mentioned by Tertullian, in his
book _De Præscriptionibus_, c. 126, where, after bidding those he
addresses have recourse to the apostolic churches, he says: “If you be
near to Italy, you have Rome, whence also we have authority. How happy is
this church, for which the apostles poured forth all their doctrine with
their blood, where Peter equals his Lord’s Passion, where Paul is crowned
with the end of John (the Baptist), where the Apostle John, after
suffering no harm from his immersion in the fiery oil, is banished to an
island.” Origen, too, says: “Peter is thought to have preached to the Jews
throughout Pontus, Galatia, Bythinia, Cappadocia, and Asia; who, when he
came to Rome, was finally affixed to the cross with his head down.”(149)
Before concluding what we have undertaken to say on the subject of S.
Peter’s coming to Rome, we wish to notice the objection against this fact,
and the duration of his pontificate, which must naturally appear to those
not well acquainted with antiquity one of not a little strength. How could
S. Peter hold the primacy at Rome, when the Acts represents him
continually as in Judæa, among those of his nation to whom he had, as S.
Paul says, a peculiar mission, the apostleship of circumcision? We reply,
first: that the apostleship of S. Peter to the Jews did not exclude his
labors with the Gentiles; in fact, we know from the Acts that S. Peter had
a vision which led him to work for the latter, and that vision was
immediately followed by the admission, by S. Peter himself, of the
centurion Cornelius. Moreover, it is well known that there were Jews
dispersed throughout the world, to whom S. Peter is said to have gone, as
we have shown—in Pontus and the other countries of Asia Minor; and also in
Rome they were numerous. Duty therefore, both to the Jew and Gentile,
could and did lead S. Peter to Rome.
We say, secondly: there is no difficulty in the fact of S. Peter having
been often in Judæa. The apostles, from their very charge, were obliged to
travel much; and the sound of their voice was heard in every land. As is
narrated of them, they divided the nations among them; and, burning with
the fire of zeal sent down upon them on the day of Pentecost, they went
about, everywhere kindling in others the flame that burned within
themselves. As for the difficulties or facilities of travel, especially in
the case of S. Peter, we cannot do better than to cite the words of the
learned Canon Fabiani in his _Discussion_ with those who impugned the
coming of S. Peter to Rome. In the authentic report of this discussion,
page 52, he says: “How many days were required for a journey from Cæsarea
to Rome? Little more than fifteen days.... Lately very learned men among
Protestants, and at the same time men thoroughly skilled in what regards
the seafaring art, Smith and Penrose, have calculated from the very voyage
of S. Paul, and from the narrations in the Acts, the time that vessels
took to come from Cæsarea to Rome. They went at the rate of seven knots an
hour, so that it took one hundred and seventy‐seven hours, or seven days
and a third, to came from Cæsarea to Pozzuoli; and Pliny himself assures
us that vessels came from Alexandria to Pozzuoli in nine days, from
Alexandria in Egypt in nine days, and from Alexandria to Messina in seven
days. Cæsarea and Jerusalem, you know, differ but little in distance to
Rome, from Alexandria in Egypt. The journey from Messina and Pozzuoli to
Rome was made in about two or three days, so that the whole time required
to go from Rome to Jerusalem was not more than half a month.” It is easy,
then, to understand how S. Peter could be often in Judæa, though he had
fixed his permanent residence in Rome.
To sum up what we have been saying, no argument can be had from the
silence of Scripture to prove S. Peter never came to Rome, because the
Acts and Epistle to the Romans do not cover the whole epoch of S. Peter’s
apostleship. Moreover, the silence of Scripture does not prove that S.
Peter did not rule the Church of Rome twenty‐five years, because, as we
have shown, there was no reason why either the Acts or the Epistle to the
Romans should speak of S. Peter’s going to Rome and being there. What we
have here asserted is all the more true because we have positive testimony
not only with regard to S. Peter’s coming to Rome, but also respecting the
date of his coming, the period of his ruling the church there, the time
and the manner of his death there, and because we have the monuments
recording the memory of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the trophies of the
apostles, as Caius calls them, _tropæa apostolorum_, which exist to this
day, surrounded by the marks of veneration and the pious traditions of the
people of Rome. Against all these proofs difficulties of history and
chronology are of no avail; for, in the first place, the very difficulties
and discussions only serve to confirm the fact, especially since these
difficulties and discussions have lasted for fifteen centuries without
bringing about the rejection of the main fact; in the next place, we know
there are many well‐established facts regarding which there exist
difficulties to clear up, and this nowhere more than in past history. When
we have proved by one solid, unanswerable argument a fact, we should not
trouble ourselves much regarding what may be brought against it. The
elucidation of knotty points may delight us and reward the labors of the
erudite; for common practical use the matter is settled; and any one who
rises up against it must not wonder if he be looked on as either not well
informed, or, to say the least, eccentric.
Sayings.
“Rejoice not in riches or other transient gifts, for thou shalt be
deprived of them like the actor, who, after finishing his part, lays aside
his costume,”—_S. Chrysostom._
“God has implanted in us conscience, and by this he acts in a manner more
loving than our natural father; for this latter, after he has warned his
son ten and a hundred times, expels him from his home; but God ceases not
to warn us by conscience even to the latest breath.”—_Ibid._
“To restrain anger assimilates man to his Creator.”—_Ibid._
“The man who forgives his enemy is like God.”—_S. Augustine._
“He is a true Christian who carries with him the whole belief of Christ,
who acts virtuously through the spirit of Christ, and who dies to sin
through the following of Christ.”—_S. Thomas._
“No one is lost without knowing it; and no one is deceived without wishing
to be deceived.”—_S. Thomas._
The Progressionists.
From The German Of Conrad Von Bolanden.