CHAPTER VIII.

HISTORY OF PETER.

AFTER the ascension of our Lord, A. D. 33, Peter, with the rest of the apostles, continued for some years at Jerusalem. In A. D. 41, he went from Joppa, a border town of the tribe of Dan, on the coast of the Mediterranean, forty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem, to Cesarea, thirty miles further north, to preach the Gospel to Cornelius and his friends.

Cesarea was sixty-two miles north-west of Jerusalem. It was the residence of the Roman governors, and, for a time, one of the most flourishing and populous cities of Syria.

From Cesarea Peter returned to Jerusalem. Here he was imprisoned by Herod Agrippa, and delivered by an angel, in A. D. 44. We previously hear of him at Lydda, a town on the way from Jerusalem to Cesarea, about nine miles from Joppa. Paul speaks of having found Peter at Jerusalem, Gal. 1:18.

Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days." 2:9. -"And when James, Peter and John, who were evidently pillars (of the church), perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcision." This is supposed to have been in A. D. 38. Saul's conversion having been in 35, three years brings us to 38. Add to this fourteen years, Gal. 2: 1, and it will bring us to a. D. 52.

This 52 is the time of the celebrated council at Jerusalem, on the subject of circumcision and the Jewish rites, described in Acts 15: 1-35.

After this Peter is mentioned as being at Antioch, when Paul reproved him for dissimulation in respect to the Jewish usages.

- Gal. 2:11. This must have been subsequent to the visit of the commissioners from the council at Jerusalem in A. D. 52 or 53,- Acts 15: 27, 35, — and antecedent to Paul's second missionary tour.

The book of Acts takes leave of Peter, Acts 15: 6-11. Paul finds James there on his last visit to that city, in A. D. 60, but Peter is not named. Acts 21 18.. "The following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the presbyters were present." Two years earlier, A. D. 58, Paul writes his epistle from Corinth to the Romans, in which he sends salutations to twentysix individuals, and two families; but sends none to Peter. - See chap. 15, compared with 1 Cor. 1:14; 2 Tim. 4: 20.

The whole tenor and spirit of this epistle show, clearly, that Peter could not have been bishop of Rome at this time, and that he could not have been the founder of the church at that place. Still later, in A. D. 62, when Paul comes to Rome as a pristhe brethren from that city went out to meet him as far as the forum of Appius, but no mention is made of Peter. — Acts 28:15.

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Three days after this, in a meeting which Paul had called together, his Jewish brethren desire to hear him, to obtain authentic information concerning the sect to which he belonged. -Acts 28: 22. They could not have required information concerning this sect, if Peter had resided there and been the head of the Christian world, or even bishop of the church of Rome. So that, up to 62 A. D., Peter could not have been at Rome.

We hear from this apostle twice after this by his own epistles; in his first epistle, dated at Babylon, 1 Pet. 5: 13, “The church at Babylon, coëlect with you, saluteth you, also Mark my

son." This epistle is addressed to the dispersed Christian Jews, of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia (Ionia) and Bithynia.

At this time the province and city of Babylon belonged to the powerful kingdom of the Parthians, which comprised the Persian empire. This kingdom was separated from the Roman empire by the river Euphrates.

The city of Babylon contained a large Gentile population, and a large number of Jews. -Josephus' Antiquities, xv. c. 2, sec. 2, xv. 3, 1, xviii. 9, 1, Philo Op. 11, pp. 578, 587.

It was, therefore, a suitable place of residence for the great apostle of the circumcision, near the time of the destruction of Jerusalem..- Gal. 2: 8.

The churches in Asia Minor having been under the more particular supervision of Paul, the first epistle of Peter could not have been written till after Paul's death.

There is a distinct evidence that its composition was after that event, in the references to severe persecutions; the first severe and general persecution being that under Nero, A. d. 64—68, in which Paul was executed.-1 Pet. 1:6, 7; 3:13-16; 4:12 -19; 5: 10.

Paul's martyrdom having been in a. D. 66, we infer that first Peter may have been written the same year, or the year following, 67.

The second epistle of Peter seems to have been written soon after the first, perhaps the next year, A. D. 68. It is directed to Christians generally, and seems to be a kind of farewell letter to the church of God, in anticipation of his approaching departure. 2 Pet. 1: 12-15; 3: 1. In this he alludes to Paul as already dead. 2 Pet. 3: 15, 16. "Even as our beloved brother Paul used to write in all his epistles, speaking of these things."

Peter was not a young man at his call to the apostleship. He was probably entitled in part by age to his preeminence among the twelve apostles during our Lord's public ministry. His wife's mother was among the subjects of Christ's miraculous cures. Matt. 8: 14, 15.

Supposing Peter to have been only thirty-one at his call to the apostleship, A. D. 31, at the date of his second epistle, A. D. 68, he would have been sixty-eight; but he was probably older. Such is the New Testament history of the apostleship and life of Peter.

The field of his labors comprehended Jerusalem, Syria, perhaps

Asia Minor, Babylon and the East; and the more immediate objects of his attention were the Jews, of whom great numbers resided at Babylon.

Tradition teaches that Peter visited Rome twice; the first time in the second year of Claudius, A. D. 42, after having previously founded the Episcopate of Antioch. This tradition dates. from Eusebius, A. D. 340. It is confirmed and established by Jerome, A. D. 420, who adds that it was Peter's object, in visiting Rome, to combat Simon the magician, and that he was bishop of Rome twenty-five years, till the last year of Nero, A. D. 68, from A. D. 43 to 68. Leo, 461, fixed the duration of Peter's episcopacy at Antioch at seven years, from A. D. 36-43.

Lactantius, A. D. 325, tells us that Peter did not arrive at Rome till under the reign of Nero; and Origen, A. D. 253, that he only came there to die.

The error of Eusebius is traced through Clemens Alexandrinus, A. D. 220, to a misunderstanding of Justin Martyr, A. D. 168, interpreting the inscription of a statue of the Roman deity Semo, of Simon the magician. See Acts 8: 4, 10, 11, 18-24. This mistake led to a fabulous history of the supposed combat of Peter with Simon, and the supposition of his residence at Rome.

The church of Antioch was founded by Paul and Barnabas, — Acts 11: 19-26, -A. D. 39. Mark's supposed residence at Rome depends upon the supposition that Peter resided there, and hast no other foundation. Mark was Peter's companion at Babylon. -1 Pet. 5: 13.

The most probable supposition in respect to the composition of Mark's Gospel is, that it was written at Babylon after the death of the apostle Paul, and designed for general circulation in the Roman empire.

The earliest tradition of Peter's martyrdom is that of Clement, third bishop of Rome, who, in his first epistle to the Corinthians, exhorts them to look for courage and perseverance to the exam

ples of the apostles; and then describes Peter and Paul as having suffered martyrdom for the sake of the Gospel, but does not say where they suffered. Neither does he ever speak of Peter

as having been at Rome.

Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, A. D. 176, in a letter preserved by Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. II. 25, tells us that Peter and Paul together instructed the Corinthians, and, having at the same time left Corinth for Italy, they together instructed the Romans, and suffered martyrdom in the same manner. The genuineness of this is much doubted. It is certainly false.

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The tradition that Paul travelled extensively after his first imprisonment, Eusebius, Eccl. Hist. 11. 22, seems to rest on no more valid foundation than 2 Tim. 4: 17, and Rom. 15: 24.

Paul arrived at Rome in the spring, A. D. 62. The burning of Rome by Nero commenced July 19, A. D. 64. Immediately after this, the persecution broke out. So illustrious a leader as Paul would not be expected to escape.

A statement of the Roman presbyter Gaius, A. D. 215, has been interpreted as giving support to the testimony of Dionysius in favor of the martyrdom of Peter at Rome. His language is, "But I can show the trophies of the apostles. Whether you turn to the Vatican or to the Via Ostia, you meet with the trophies of those who are the founders of the church." Jerome interprets this as referring to the graves of the apostles Peter and Paul. Eusebius does the same. But this is putting on the language of Gaius more than it expresses.

But Irenæus, bishop of Lyons, A. D. 218, affirms the martyrdom of Peter at Rome; and after him it is positively affirmed by Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, Eusebius, Jerome and others. Tertullian says that he died by the same death as the Saviour. Origen was the first to say that he was crucified with his head downwards; and Rufinus adds a reason, that he might not suffer the same death as his Saviour.

The tradition of Peter's death at Rome is a natural accompa