easy and reasonable computation, can take up no less than three years at least. VI. That which caused Baronius to split upon so many rocks, was not so much want of seeing them, which a man of his parts and industry could not but in a great measure see, as the unhappy necessity of defending those unsound principles which he had undertaken to maintain. For being to make good Peter's five and twenty years presidency over the church of Rome, he was forced to confound times, and dislocate stories, that he might bring all his ends together. What foundation this story of Peter's being five and twenty years bishop of Rome has in antiquity, I find not, unless it sprang from hence, that Eusebius places Peter's coming to Rome in the second year of Claudius, and his martyrdom in the fourteenth of Nero, between which there is the just space of five and twenty years. Whence those that came after concluded, that he sat bishop there all that time. It cannot be denied, but that in St. Jerome's translation it is expressly said, that he continued five and twenty years bishop of that city; but then it is as evident, that this was his own addition, who probably set things down as the report went in his time, no such thing being to be found in the Greek copy of Eusebius." Nor, indeed, does he ever there or elsewhere positively affirm St. Peter to have been bishop of Rome, but only that he preached the gospel there; and expressly affirms,° that he and St. Paul being dead, Linus was the first bishop of Rome. To which I may add, that when the ancients speak of the bishops of Rome, and the first originals of that church, they equally attribute the founding and the episcopacy and government of it to Peter and Paul, making the one as much concerned in it as the other. Thus Epiphanius, reckoning up the bishops of that see, places Peter and Paul in the front, as the first bishops of Rome: év 'Póμŋ γὰρ γεγόνασι πρῶτοι Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος, οἱ ἀπόστολοι αὐτοὶ κаÌ Èπĺσкожοι, “Peter and Paul, apostles, became the first bishops of Rome, then Linus," &c. And again, a little after, ý tôv év Ρώμῃ ἐπισκόπων διαδοχὴ ταύτην ἔχει τὴν ἀκολουθίαν, “ the succession of the bishops of Rome was in this manner, Peter and Paul, Linus, Cletus," &c. And Hegesippus, speaking of their n Xpov. Kav. ad num. 1050. p. 204. o Hist. Eccl. 1. iii. c. 2. q De excid. Jud. 1. iii. c. 2. coming to Rome, equally says of them, that they were doctores Christianorum, sublimes operibus, clari magisterio, “the instructors of the Christians, admirable for miracles, and renowned for their authority." However, granting not only that he was there, but that he was bishop, and that for five and twenty years together, yet what would this make for the unlimited sovereignty and universality of that church, unless a better evidence than "feed my sheep" could be produced for its uncontrollable supremacy and dominion over the whole Christian world? VII. The sum is this: granting, what none that has any reverence for antiquity will deny, that St. Peter was at Rome, he probably came thither some few years before his death, joined with and assisted St. Paul in preaching of the gospel, and then both sealed the testimony of it with their blood. The date of his death is differently assigned by the ancients. Eusebius places it anno 69,' in the fourteenth of Nero; Epiphanius in the twelfth. That which seems to me most probable is, that it was in the tenth, or the year 65, which I thus compute: Nero's burning of Rome is placed by Tacitus,' under the consulship of C. Lecanius and M. Licinius, about the month of July, that is, Ann. Chr. 64. This act procured him the infinite hatred and clamours of the people, which having in vain endeavoured several ways to remove and pacify, he at last resolved upon this project, to derive the odium upon the Christians; whom, therefore, both to appease the gods and please the people, he condemned as guilty of the fact, and caused to be executed with all manner of acute and exquisite tortures. This persecution we may suppose began about the end of that, or the beginning of the following year. And under this persecution, I doubt not, it was, that St. Peter suffered, and changed earth for heaven. AN APPENDIX TO THE PRECEDING SECTION, CONTAINING A VINDICATION OF ST. PETER'S BEING AT ROME. St. Peter's being at Rome unjustly questioned. The thing itself sufficiently attested by the authority of the ancients. The express testimonies of Papias, Irenæus, Dionysius of Corinth, Clemens Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Caius, and Origen, produced to that purpose. The exceptions made to these testimonies shewed to be weak and trifling by a r Chron. p. 162. s Hæres. xxvii. s. 6. Annal. 1. xv. c. 38, 41. particular examination of each of them. A good cause needs not be supported by indirect methods. The church of Rome not much advantaged by allowing this story. The needless questioning a story so well attested makes way for shaking the faith of all ancient history. FINDING the truth of what is supposed and granted in the foregoing section, to wit, St. Peter's going to, and suffering at Rome, not only doubted of heretofore in the beginning of the Reformation, while the paths of antiquity were less frequent and beaten out, but now again lately in this broad day-light of ecclesiastical knowledge not only called in question, but exploded as most vain and fabulous, and that especially by a foreign professor" of name and note; it may not be amiss, having the opportunity of this impression, to make some few remarks for the better clearing of this matter. X II. And first, I observe that this matter of fact is attested by witnesses of the most remote antiquity, persons of great eminency and authority, and who lived near enough to those times to know the truth and certainty of those things which they reported. And perhaps there is scarce any one piece of ancient church-history, for which there is more clear, full, and constant evidence, than there is for this. Not to insist on that passage of Ignatius, in his epistle to the Romans, which seems yet to look this way; it is expressly asserted by Papias, bishop of Hierapolis in Phrygia, who (as Irenæus tells us') was scholar to St. John, and fellow-pupil with St. Polycarp; and though we should with Eusebius suppose, that it was not St. John the apostle, whose scholar he was, but another, surnamed the Elder, that lived at Ephesus, yet will this set him very little lower in point of time. Now Papias says, not only that St. Peter was at Rome, and preached the Christian faith there, but that he wrote thence his first epistle, and by his authority confirmed the gospel, which St. Mark, his disciple and follower, at the request of the Romans, had drawn up. And that we may see that he did not carelessly take up these things as common hearsays, it was his a u Fred. Spanhem. Diss. de temere credita Petri in urb. Romam profectione. Lugd. Bat. edit. 1679. vid. etiam Brutum Fulmen, or observations on the Bull against Q. Eliz. p. 88. etc. Lond. 1681. * Οὐχ ὡς Πέτρος καὶ Παῦλος διατάσσομαι ὑμῖν· ἐκεῖνοι ̓Απόστολοι, ἐγὼ κατάκριτος. Ep. ad Rom. p. 23. Advers. Hæres. 1. v. c. 33. p. 498. a Ap. Euseb. ibid. 1. ii. c. 15. z Hist. Eccl. 1. iii. c. 39. custom, wherever he met with any that had conversed with the apostles, to pick up what memoirs he could meet with concerning them, and particularly to inquire what Andrew, what Peter, what Philip, what Thomas, or James, or the rest of the disciples of our Lord, had either said or done: which sufficiently shews what care he took to derive the most accurate notices of these matters. b : d III. Next Papias comes Irenæus, a man, as St. Jerome styles him, of the apostolic times, and was, he tells us, Papias's own scholar however, it is certain from his own account that he was disciple to St. Polycarp, a man famous for his learning, prudence, gravity, and piety, throughout the whole Christian world. About the year 179, he was made bishop of the metropolitan church of Lyons in France, a little before which he had been despatched upon a message to Rome, and had conversed with the great men there. Now his testimony in this case is uncontrollable; for he says, that Peter and Paul preached the gospel at Rome, and founded a church there; and elsewhere, that the great and most ancient church of Rome was founded and constituted by the two glorious apostles Peter and Paul; and that these blessed apostles, having founded this church, delivered the episcopal care of it over unto Linus. Contemporary with Irenæus, or rather a little before him, was Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, a man of singular eminency and authority in those times, who in an epistle which he wrote to the church of Rome, compares the plantation of Christianity, which Peter and Paul had made, both at Rome and Corinth; and says farther, that after they had sown the seeds of the evangelical doctrine at Corinth, they went together into Italy, where they taught the faith, and suffered martyrdom. f g IV. Toward the latter end of the second century flourished Clemens of Alexandria, presbyter of that church, and regent of the catechetic school there; who, in his book of Institutions, gives the very same testimony which we quoted from Papias before; they being both brought in by Eusebius as joint-evidence in this matter. Tertullian, who lived much about the same time at Carthage that Clemens did at Alexandria, and had been, as is b Epist. ad Theodor. p. 196. d Adv. Hæres. 1. iii. c. 1. f Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. ii. c. 25. Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. v. e. 20. e Ibid. c. 3. Loc. supra citato. probable, more than once at Rome, affirms most expressly more than once and again," that the church of Rome was happy in having its doctrine sealed with apostolic blood, and that Peter was crucified in that place; or, as he expresses it, passioni Dominicæ adæquatus: that Peter baptized in Tiber, as John the Baptist had done in Jordan, and elsewhere; that when Nero first dyed the yet tender faith at Rome with the blood of its professors, then it was that Peter was girt by another, and bound to the cross. k m V. Next to Tertullian succeeds Caius, an ecclesiastical person, as Eusebius calls him, flourishing anno 214, in the time of pope Zephyrin; who in a book which he wrote against Proclus, one of the heads of the Cataphrygian sect, speaking concerning the places where the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul were buried, has these words,' "I am able to shew the very tombs of the apostles; for whether you go into the Vatican, or into the Via Ostiensis, you will meet with the sepulchres of those that founded that church," meaning the church of Rome. The last witness whom I shall produce in this case is Origen, a man justly reverenced for his great learning and piety, and who took a journey to Rome while pope Zephyrin yet lived, on purpose, as himself tells us, to behold that church, so venerable for its antiquity; and therefore cannot but be supposed to have been very inquisitive to satisfy himself in all, especially the ecclesiastical antiquities of that place. Now he expressly says of Peter," that after he had preached to the dispersed Jews of the Eastern parts, he came at last to Rome, where, according to his own request, he was crucified with his head downwards. Lower than Origen I need not descend, it being granted by those who oppose this story,° that in the time of Origen, the report of St. Peter's going to, and suffering martyrdom at Rome, was commonly received in the Christian church. And now I would fain know, what one passage of those ancient times can be proved either by more, or by more considerable evidence than this is: and indeed, considering how small a portion of the writings of those first ages of the church has been transmitted to us, there h De præscript. Hæret. c. 36. k Scorpiac. c. ult. m Ibid. 1. vi. c. 14. i De Baptism. c. 4. Ap. Euseb. Hist. Eccl. 1. ii. c. 25. n Vol. iii. Exposit. in Gen. ap. Euseb. 1. iii. c. 1. Spanh. Diss. de temere credita Petri in Urb. Romam profectione, c. 3. n. 34, 35. |