council of the apostles and brethren to meet together at Jerusalem, which was done accordingly, and the case throughly scanned and canvassed. At last Peter stood up, and acquainted the synod, that God having made choice of him, among all the apostles, to be the first that preached the gospel to the Gentiles; God, who was best able to judge of the hearts of men, had borne witness to them, that they were accepted of him, by giving them his Holy Spirit as well as he had done to the Jews; having put no difference between the one and the other. That therefore it

was a tempting and a provoking God, to put a yoke upon the necks of the disciples, which neither they themselves nor their fathers were able to bear: there being ground enough to believe, that the Gentiles as well as the Jews should be saved by the grace of the gospel. After some other of the apostles had declared their judgments in the case, it was unanimously decreed, that except the temporary observance of some few particular things, equally convenient both for Jew and Gentile, no other burthen should be imposed upon them. And so the decrees of the council being drawn up into a synodical epistle, were sent abroad to the several churches, for allaying the heats and controversies that had been raised about this matter.

VII. Peter, a while after the celebration of this council, left Jerusalem, and came down to Antioch," where, using the liberty which the gospel had given him, he familiarly ate and conversed with the Gentile converts, accounting them, now that the "partition-wall was broken down," no longer strangers and foreigners, "but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God:" this he had been taught by the vision of the sheet let down from heaven; this had been lately decreed, and he himself had promoted and subscribed it in the synod at Jerusalem; this he had before practised towards Cornelius and his family, and justified the action to the satisfaction of his accusers; and this he had here freely and innocently done at Antioch, till some of the Jewish brethren coming thither, for fear of offending and displeasing them, he withdrew his converse with the Gentiles, as if it had been unlawful for him to hold communion with uncircumcised persons, when yet he knew, and was fully satisfied, that our Lord had wholly removed all difference, and broken down the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile. In which affair, as he himself acted against the light of his own

r Gal. ii. 11.

mind and judgment, condemning what he had approved, and destroying what he had before built up, so hereby he confirmed the Jewish zealots in their inveterate error, cast infinite scruples into the minds of the Gentiles, filling their consciences with fears and dissatisfactions, reviving the old feuds and prejudices between Jew and Gentile; by which means many others were ensnared; yea, the whole number of Jewish converts followed his example, separating themselves from the company of the Gentile Christians. Yea, so far did it spread, that Barnabas himself was carried away with the stream and torrent of this unwarrantable practice. St. Paul, who was at this time come to Antioch, unto whom Peter gave the "right hand of fellowship," acknowledging his apostleship of the circumcision, observing these evil and unevangelical actings, resolutely withstood Peter to the face, and publicly reproved him as a person worthy to be blamed for his gross prevarication in this matter; severely expostulating and reasoning with him, that he who was himself a Jew, and thereby under a more immediate obligation to the Mosaic law, should cast off that yoke himself, and yet endeavour to impose it upon the Gentiles, who were not in the least under any obligation to it: a smart, but an impartial charge; and indeed so remarkable was this carriage of St. Paul towards our apostle, that though it set things right for the present, yet it made some noise abroad in the world. Yea, Porphyry himself, that acute and subtle enemy of Christianity, makes use of it as an argument against them both: charging the one with error and falsehood, and the other with rudeness and incivility; and that the whole was but a compact of forgery and deceit, while the princes of the church did thus fall out among themselves. And so sensible were some of this in the first ages Christianity, that rather than such a dishonour and disgrace, as they accounted it, should be reflected upon Peter, they tell us of two several Cephases, one the apostle, the other one of the seventy disciples; and that it was the last of these that was guilty of this prevarication, and whom St. Paul so vigorously resisted and reproved at Antioch. But for this plausible and well-meant evasion the champions of the Romish church conn them no great thanks at this day. Nay, St. Jerome long since

S

t

fully confuted it in his notes upon this place.

of

SECTION IX.

OF ST. PETER'S ACTS, FROM THE END OF THE SACRED STORY TILL

HIS MARTYRDOM.

Peter's story prosecuted out of ecclesiastical writers. His planting of a church and an episcopal see at Antioch, when said to be. His first journey to Rome, and the happiness it brought to the Roman empire. His preaching in other places, and return to Rome. His encounter with Simon Magus. The impostures of the magician. His familiarity with the emperors, and the great honours said to be done to him. His statue and inscription at Rome. Peter's victory over him by raising one from the dead. Simon attempting to fly, is by Peter's prayers hindered, falls down, and dies. Nero's displeasure against Peter, whence. His being cast into prison. His flight thence, and being brought back by Christ appearing to him. Crucified with his head downwards, and why. The place of his martyrdom and burial. The original and greatness of St. Peter's church in Rome. His episcopal chair pretended to be still kept there.

HITHERTO, in drawing up the life of this great apostle, we have had an infallible guide to conduct and lead us: but the sacred story breaking off here, forces us to look abroad, and to pick up what memoir the ancients have left us in this matter: which we shall for the main digest according to the order wherein Baronius and other ecclesiastical writers have disposed the series of St. Peter's life; reserving what is justly questionable, to a more particular examination afterward. And that we may present the account more entire and perfect, we must step back a little in point of time, that so we may go forward with greater advantage. We are to know, therefore, that during the time of peace and calmness which the church enjoyed after Saul's persecution, when St. Peter went down to visit the churches, he is said to have gone to Antioch, where great numbers of Jews inhabited, and there to have planted the Christian faith. That he founded a church here, Eusebius expressly tells us;" and by others it is said, that he himself was the first bishop of this see. Sure I am that St. Chrysostom reckons it one of the greatest honours of that city that St. Peter stayed so long there, and that the bishops of it succeeded him in that see. The care and precedency of the church he had between six and seven years. Not that he stayed there all that time, but that having ordered and

X

u Chron. ad Ann. Chr. 43.

y Encom. S. Ignat. Mart. p. 503. tom. i.

Hieron. Comment. in ii. ad Galat.

disposed things to the best advantage, he returned to other affairs and exigencies of the church: confirming the new plantations, bringing in Cornelius and his family, and in him the firstfruits of the Gentiles' conversion to the faith of Christ: after which he returned unto Jerusalem, where he was imprisoned by Herod, and miraculously delivered by an angel sent from

heaven.

II. What became of Peter after his deliverance out of prison is not certainly known: probably he might preach in some parts a little farther distant from Judea, as we are told he did at Byzantium, and in the countries thereabout; (though, I confess, the evidence to me is not convincing.) After this, he resolved upon a journey to Rome; where most agree he arrived about the second year of the emperor Claudius. Orosius tells us," that coming to Rome, he brought prosperity along with him to that city for besides several other extraordinary advantages which at that time happened to it, this was not the least observable, that Camillus Scribonianus, governor of Dalmatia, soliciting the army to rebel against the emperor, the eagles, their military standard, remained so fast in the ground, that no power nor strength was able to pluck them up: with which unusual accident the minds of the soldiers were surprised and startled, and turning their swords against the author of the sedition, continued firm and loyal in their obedience: whereby a dangerous rebellion was prevented, likely enough otherwise to have broken out. This he ascribes to St. Peter's coming to Rome, and the first plantation of the Christian faith in that city heaven beginning more particularly to smile upon that place at his first coming thither. It is not to be doubted, but that at his first arrival, he disposed himself amongst the Jews, his countrymen, who, ever since the time of Augustus, had dwelt in the region beyond Tiber. But when afterwards he began to preach to the Gentiles, he was forced to change his lodging, and was taken in by one Pudens, a senator, lately converted to the faith. Here he closely plied his main office and employment to establish Christianity in that place. Here, we are told," he met with Philo the Jew, lately come on his second embassy unto Rome, in the behalf of his

z Bar. ad Ann. Chr. 44. num. 12. Vid. Epist. Agap. ad Petr. Hieros. in v. Synod. sub Men. Conc. a Hist. 1. vii. c. 6.

b Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. ii. c. 17. Hieron. de script. Eccl. in Phil.

countrymen at Alexandria, and to have contracted an intimate friendship and acquaintance with him. And now it was, says Baronius, that Peter being mindful of the churches which he had founded in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Asia the Less, wrote his first epistle to them, which he probably infers hence, that St. Mark being yet with him at the time of the date of this epistle, it must be written at least some time this year, for that now it was that St. Mark was sent to preach and propagate the faith in Egypt. Next to the planting religion at Rome, he took care to propagate it in the western parts. And to that end, (if we may believe one of those that pretend to be his successors,d) he sent abroad disciples into several provinces, that so their sound might go into all the earth, and their words into the ends of the world."

f

III. It happened that after St. Peter had been several years at Rome, Claudius, the emperor, taking advantage of some seditions and tumults raised by the Jews, by a public edict banished them out of Rome. In the number of whom, St. Peter (they say) departed thence, and returned back to Jerusalem, where he was present at that great apostolical synod, of which before. After this we are left under great uncertainties how he disposed of himself for many years. Confident we may be, that he was not idle, but spent his time sometimes in preaching in the eastern parts, sometimes in other parts of the world, as in Africa, Sicily, Italy, and other places. And here it may not be amiss to insert a claim in behalf of our own country: Eusebius telling us (as Metaphrastes reports it) that Peter was not only in these western parts, but particularly that he was a long time in Britain, where he converted many nations to the faith. But we had better be without the honour of St. Peter's company, than build the story upon so sandy a foundation: Metaphrastes's authority being of so little value in this case, that it is slighted by the more learned and moderate writers of the church of Rome. But wherever it was that St. Peter employed his time, towards the latter part of Nero's reign he returned to Rome; where he found the minds of the people strangely bewitched and hardened against the embracing of the Christian religion by the subtleties and

c Ad Ann. 45. num. 16.

e Vid. Oros. 1. vii. c. 6.

d Innoc. Ep. i. ad Dec. Eug.

f Vid. Innoc. Epist. ubi supra.

g De Petr. et Paul. ad diem 29 Jun. num. 23. Vid. etiam n. 10. ibid.