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2

7. Besides these divine epistles, there were other supposititious writings which, in the first ages, were fathered upon St. Peter. Such was the book called his Acts, mentioned by Origen, Eusebius, and others; but rejected by them. Such was his Gospel, which probably at first was nothing else but the gospel written by St. Mark, dictated to him (as is generally thought) by St. Peter; and therefore, as St. Jerome tells us,' said to be his. Though in the next age there appeared a book under that title, mentioned by Serapion, bishop of Antioch, and by him at first suffered to be read in the church; but afterwards, upon a more careful perusal of it, he rejected it as apocryphal, as it was by others after him. Another was the book styled his Preaching, mentioned and quoted by Clemens Alexandrinus, and by Origen, but not acknowledged by them to be genuine; nay, expressly said to have been forged by heretics, by an ancient author contemporary with St. Cyprian.' The next was his Apocalypse, or Revelation; rejected, as Sozomen tells us, by the ancients as spurious, but yet read in some churches in Palestine in his time. The last was the book called his Judgment, which probably was the same with that called Hermes, or Pastor, a book of good use and esteem in the first

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1 Orig. tom. xx. in Joan.

2 Euseb. lib. iii. c. 3, p. 72.

3 In Petro, ut supra.

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4 Apud Euseb. lib. vi. c. 12, p. 213.

5 Strom. lib. vi. p. 635, et in Excerpt. Græc. ex Hypotyp.

P. 809.

6 Orig. tom. xiii. in Joan.

7 De Hæret. non Rebapt. apud Cypr. p. 142.

8 Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. c. 19, p. 735.

9 Vid. Ruffin. Exposit. Symbol. inter Oper. Hier. tom. iv. p. 133.

times of Christianity, and which, as Eusebius tells us,' was not only frequently cited by the ancients, but also publicly read in churches.

8. We shall conclude this section by considering Peter with respect to his several relations: that he was married is unquestionable, the sacred history mentioning his wife's mother: his wife (might we believe Metaphrastes 2) being the daughter of Aristobulus, brother to Barnabas the apostle. And though St. Jerome3 would persuade us that he left her behind him, together with his nets, when he forsook all to follow Christ; yet we know that father too well to be over-confident upon his word in a case of marriage or single life, wherein he is not over-scrupulous sometimes to strain a point, to make his opinion more fair and plausible. The best is, we have an infallible authority which plainly intimates the contrary, the testimony of St. Paul, who tells us of Cephas, that he led about a wife, a sister,' along with him; who for the most part mutually cohabited and lived together, for aught that can be proved to the contrary. Clemens Alexandrinus gives us this account, though he tells us not the time or place; that Peter, seeing his wife going towards martyrdom, exceedingly rejoiced that she was called to so great an honour, and that she was now returning home; encouraging and earnestly exhorting her, and calling her by her name, bade her be mindful of our Lord. Such, says he, was the wedlock of that blessed couple, and the perfect

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1 Hist. Eccl. lib. iii. c. 3, p. 72.

2 Comment. de S. Petr. apub Sur. ad diem 29 Jun. n. 2. 3 Ep. ad Julian. tom i. p. 207. 1. Cor. ix. 5. Vid. Clem. Recognit. lib. vii. fol. 76, p. 2.

4 Strom. lib. vi. p. 736.

disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them. By her he is said to have had a daughter,' called Petronilla, (Metaphrastes2 adds a son,) how truly I know not. This only is certain, that Clemens3 of Alexandria, reckons Peter for one of the apostles that was married and had children. And surely he who was so good a man, and so good an apostle, was as good in the relation both of an husband and a father.

SECTION XI.

An Inquiry into St. Peter's going to Rome.

It is not my purpose to swim against the stream and current of antiquity, in denying St. Peter to have been at Rome; an assertion easilier perplexed and entangled than confuted and disproved: we may grant the main, without doing any great service to that church; there being evidence enough to every impartial and considering man, to spoil that smooth and plausible scheme of times, which Baronius and the writers of that church have drawn with so much care and diligence. And in order to this we shall first inquire, whether that account which Bellarmine and Baronius give us of Peter's being at Rome, be tolerably reconcileable with the history of the apostles' acts, recorded by St. Luke;

2 Ubi supra.

1 Baron. ad Ann. 60. n. 32. Metaphrastes was one of the principal Greek writers of the age in which he lived, but his Lives of the Saints are too filled with fable to possess any authority with ecclesiastical historians. -ED. 3 Strom. lib. iii. p. 448.

VOL. I.

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which will be best done by briefly presenting St. Peter's acts in their just series and order of time, and then see what countenance and foundation their account can receive from hence.1

2. After our Lord's ascension, we find Peter, for the first year at least, staying with the rest of the apostles at Jerusalem. In the next year he was sent, together with St. John, by the command of the apostles, to Samaria, to preach the gospel to that city, and the parts about it. About three years after, St. Paul meets him at Jerusalem, with whom he staid some time. In the two following years he visited the late planted churches, preached at Lydda and Joppa, where having tarried many days,' he thence removed to Cæsarea, where he preached to, and baptized Cornelius and his family. Whence, after some time, he returned to Jerusalem, where he probably staid, till cast into prison by Herod, and delivered by the angel. After which we hear no more of him, till three or four years after we find him in the council at Jerusalem. After which he had the contest with St. Paul at Antioch. And thenceforward the sacred story is altogether silent in this matter. So that in all this

1 The united learning, candour, and honesty of our author are here conspicuously displayed: few passages in history are more strongly confirmed than that which relates the apostle's residence at Rome. In the summary of the opposite arguments, given by Basnage, Liv. vii. c. 3, (Histoire de l'Eglise,) this must be apparent to every candid inquirer; and in all subjects of this kind, it should always be observed as a principle, that no circumstance in history can by any possibility be rendered doubtful by the disputed inferences drawn therefrom. However erroneous the use made of facts, never let the facts on that account be disallowed. The Roman Catholic writers, however, have endangered the apparent truth of history, by forcing what is supported on sufficient evidence into assertions to which the historical evidence does not extend.-ED.

time we find not the least footstep of any intimation that he went to Rome. This Baronius' well foresaw; and therefore once and again inserts this caution, that St. Luke did not design to record all the apostle's acts, and that he has omitted many things which were done by Peter: which surely no man ever intended to deny. But then, that he should omit a matter of such vast moment and importance to the whole Christian world; that not one syllable should be said of a church planted by Peter at Rome; a church that was to be paramount, the seat of all spiritual power and infallibility, and to which all other churches were to veil and do homage; nay, that he should not so much as mention that ever he was there, and yet all this said to be done within the time he designed to write of, is by no means reasonable to suppose. Especially considering that St. Luke records many of his journeys and travels, and his preaching at several places, of far less consequence and concernment. Nor let this be thought the worse of, because a negative argument, since it carries so much rational evidence along with it, that any man who is not plainly biassed by interest will be satisfied with it.

3. But let us proceed a little further to inquire, whether we can meet any probable footsteps afterwards. About the year 53, towards the end of Claudius's reign, St. Paul is thought to have writ his epistle to the church of Rome, wherein he spends the greatest part of one chapter in saluting particular persons that were there; amongst whom it might reasonably have been expected, that St. Peter should have had the first place. And sup

1 Ad. Ann. 39, num. 12, ad Ann. 34, num. 285.