Chapter XIV: Part 14

_Agrippa’s death._――My combination of the two different accounts
given by Luke and Josephus of this event, I believe accords
with the best authorities; nor am I disposed, as Michaelis is,
to reject Josephus’s statement as irreconcilable with that in
the Acts, though deficient in some particulars, which are given
in the latter, and though not rightly apprehending fully the
motives and immediate occasions of many things which he mentions.
In the same way, too, several minor circumstances are omitted in
Luke, which can be brought in from Josephus so as to give a much
more vivid idea of the whole event, than can be learned from the
Acts alone. (See Michaelis’s introduction to the New Testament,
――on Luke. Also Wolf and Kuinoel.)

PETER’S PLACE OF REFUGE.

Luke, in mentioning the departure of Peter from Jerusalem after his escape from prison by night, merely says, “And going out, he went to _another place_.” The vague, uncertain manner in which this circumstance is mentioned, seems to imply that the writer really knew nothing about this “other place.” It was not a point essential to the integrity of the narrative, though interesting to all the readers of the history, since the most trifling particulars about the chief apostle might well be supposed desirable to be known. But though if it had been known, it would have been well worth recording, it was too trifling a matter to deserve any investigation, if it had not been mentioned to Luke by those from whom he received the accounts which he gives of Peter; and since he is uniformly particular in mentioning even these smaller details, when they fall in the way of his narrative, it is but fair to conclude that in this instance he would have satisfied the natural and reasonable curiosity of his readers, if he had had the means of doing so. There could have been no motive when he wrote, for concealing the fact, and he could have expressed the whole truth in as few words as he has given to show his own ignorance of the point. From the nature of the apostle’s motives in departing from Jerusalem, it must have been at that time desirable to have his place of refuge known to as few as possible; and the fact, at that time unknown, would, after the motive for concealment had disappeared, be of too little interest to be very carefully inquired after by those to whom it was not obvious. In this way it happened, that this circumstance was never revealed to Luke, who not being among the disciples at Jerusalem, would not be in the way of readily hearing of it, and in writing the story would not think it worth inquiring for. But one thing seems morally certain; if Peter had taken refuge in any important place or well known city, it must have been far more likely to have been afterwards a fact sufficiently notorious to have come within the knowledge of his historian; but as the most likely place for a secret retirement would have been some obscure region, this would increase the chances of its remaining subsequently unknown. This consideration is of some importance in settling a few negative facts in relation to various conjectures which have at different times been offered on the place of Peter’s refuge.

Among these, the most idle and unfounded is, that on leaving Jerusalem he went to Caesarea. What could have suggested this queer fancy to its author, it is hard to say; but it certainly implies the most senseless folly in Peter, when seeking a hiding place from the persecution of king Herod Agrippa, to go directly to the capital of his dominions, where he might be expected to reside for the greater part of the time, and whither he actually did go, immediately after his disappointment about this very apostle. It was jumping out of the frying-pan into the fire, to go thus away from among numerous friends who might have found a barely possible safety for him in Jerusalem, and to seek a refuge in Caesarea where there were but very few friends of the apostles, and where he would be in constant danger of discovery from the numerous minions of the king, who thronged all parts of that royal city, and from the great number of Greeks, Romans and Syrians, making up the majority of the population, who hated the very sight of a Jew, and would have taken vast pleasure in gratifying their spite, and at the same time gaining high favor with the king by hunting out and giving up to wrath an obscure heretic of that hated race. It would not have been at all accordant with the serpent-wisdom enjoined on the apostle, to have run his head thus into the lion’s mouth, by seeking a quiet and safe dwelling-place beneath the very nose of his powerful persecutor.

Another conjecture vastly less absurd, but still not highly probable, is, that Antioch was the “other place” to which Peter went from Jerusalem; but an objection of great force against this, is that already alluded to above, in reference to the ineligibility of a great city as a place of concealment; and in this instance is superadded the difficulty of his immediately making this long journey over the whole extent of Agrippa’s dominions, northward, at such a time, when the king’s officers would be every where put on the alert for him, more particularly in the direction of his old home in Galilee, which would be in the nearest way to Antioch. His most politic movement, therefore, would be to take some shorter course out of Palestine. Moreover, in this case, there is a particular reason why Luke would have mentioned the name of Antioch if that had been the place. What the proof of this reason is, can be best shown in his life; but the bare statement of the fact may be sufficient for the present,――that he was himself a citizen of that place, and could not have been ignorant or negligent of the circumstance of this visit, if it had occurred.

It has been suggested by others that the expression, “to another place,” does not imply a departure from Jerusalem, but is perfectly reconcilable with the supposition that Peter remained concealed in some safe and unknown part of the city. This view would very unobjectionably accord with the vagueness of the passage,――since if merely another part of Jerusalem was meant, no name could be expected to describe it. But it would certainly seem like a presumptuous rashness in Peter, to risk in so idle a manner the freedom which he owed to a miraculous interposition; for the circumstance of such an interposition could not be intended to justify him in dispensing with a single precaution which would be proper and necessary after an escape in any other mode. Such is not the course of divine dealings, whether miraculous or ordinary; and in a religious as well as an economical view, the force and truth of Poor Richard’s saying is undoubted,――“God helps them who help themselves;” nor is his helping them any reason why they should cease to help themselves. Peter’s natural impulse, as well as a considerate prudence, then, would lead him to immediate exertions to keep the freedom so wonderfully obtained, and such an impulse and such a consideration would at once teach him that the city was no place for him, at a time when the most desperately diligent search might be expected. For as soon as his escape was discovered, Luke says, that the king “sought most earnestly for him,” and in a search thus characterized, inspired too by the most furious rage at the disappointment, hardly a hole or corner of Jerusalem could have been left unransacked; so that this preservation of the apostle from pursuers so determined, would have required a continual series of miracles, fully as wonderful as that which effected his deliverance from castle Antonia. His most proper and reasonable course would then have been directly eastward from Jerusalem,――a route which would give him the shortest exit from the territories of Herod Agrippa, leading him directly into Arabia, a region that was, in another great instance hereafter mentioned, a place of comfortable and undisturbed refuge for a person similarly circumstanced. A journey of fifty or sixty miles through an unfrequented and lonely country, would put him entirely beyond pursuit; and the character of the route would make it exceedingly difficult to trace his flight, as the nature of the country would facilitate his concealment, while its proximity to Jerusalem would make his return after the removal of the danger by the death of Agrippa, as easy as his flight thither in the first place.

_At Jerusalem._――This notion I find nowhere but in Lardner, who
approves it, quoting Lenfant. [Lardner, History of the Apostles
and Evangelists, Life of Peter.]

Another series of papistical fables carries him on his supposed tour on the coast, beyond Caesarea, and, uniting two theories, makes him visit Antioch also; and finally extends his pilgrimage into the central and northern parts of Asia Minor. This fabulous legend, though different in its character from the preceding accounts, because it impudently attempts to pass off a bald invention as an authentic history, while those are only offered honestly as probable conjectures, yet may be worthy of a place here, because it is necessary in giving a complete view of all the stories which have been received, to present dishonest inventions as well as justifiable speculations. The clearest fabulous account given of his journey thither, is, that parting from Jerusalem as above-mentioned, he directed his way westwards toward the sea-coast of Palestine, first to Caesarea Stratonis, (or Augusta,) where he constituted one of the presbyters who attended him from Jerusalem, bishop of the church founded there by him on his visit;――that leaving Caesarea he went northwards along the coast into Phoenicia, arriving at the city of Sidon;――that there he performed many cures and also appointed a bishop; next to Berytus, (now Beyroot,) in Syria, and there also appointed a bishop. Going on through Syria, along the coast of the Mediterranean, they bring him next, in his curiously detailed track, to Biblys, then to the Phoenician Tripoli, to Orthosia, to Antandros, to the island of Aradus, near the coast, to Balaenas, to Panta, to Laodicea, and at last to Antioch,――planting churches in all these hard-named towns on the way, and sowing bishops, as before, by handfulls, as well as performing vast quantities of miracles. The story of Peter’s journey goes on to say, that after leaving Antioch he went into Cappadocia, and stayed some time in Tyana, a city of that province. Proceeding westward thence, he came to Ancyra, in Galatia, where he raised a dead person, baptized believers, and instituted a church, over which he ordained a bishop. Thence northward, into Pontus, where he visited the cities of Sinope and Amasea, on the coast of the Euxine sea. Then turning eastward into Paphlagonia, stopped at Gangra and Claudiopolis; next into Bithynia, to the cities of Nicomedia and Nicaea; and thence returned directly to Antioch, whence he shortly afterwards went to Jerusalem.

This ingenious piece of apostolic romance is due to the same
veracious Metaphrastes, above quoted. I have derived it from
him through Caesar Baronius, who gives it in his Annales
Ecclesiastici. (44, § 10, 11.) The great annalist approves and
adopts it, however, only as far as it describes the journey
of Peter to Antioch; and there he leaves the narrative of
Metaphrastes, and instead of taking Peter on his long tour
through Asia Minor and back to Jerusalem, as just described,
carries him off upon a far different route, achieving the great
journey westward, which accords with the view taken by the
vast majority of the old ecclesiastical writers, and which is
next given here. Metaphrastes also maintains this view, indeed,
but supposes and invents all the events just narrated, as
intermediate occurrences, between Peter’s escape and his great
journey, and begins the account of this latter, after his return
from his Asian circuit.

To connect all this long pilgrimage with the story given in the
sacred record, the sage Baronius makes the ingenious suggestion,
that this was the occult reason why Agrippa was wroth with those
of Tyre and Sidon; namely, that Peter had gone through their
country when a fugitive from the royal vengeance, and had been
favorably received by the Tyrians and Sidonians, who should
have seized him as a runaway from justice, and sent him back to
Agrippa. This acute guess, he thinks, will show a reason also
for the otherwise unaccountable fact, that Luke should mention
this quarrel between Agrippa and those cities, in connection
with the events of Peter’s escape and Agrippa’s death. For the
great cardinal does not seem to appreciate the circumstance
of its close relation to the latter event, in presenting
the occasion of the reconciliation between the king and the
offending cities, on which the king made his speech to the
people, and received the impious tribute of praise, which
was followed by his death;――the whole constituting a relation
sufficiently close between the two events, to justify the
connection in Luke.

THE FIRST VISIT TO ROME.

But the view of this passage in Peter’s history, which was long adopted universally by those who took the pains to ask about this “other place,” mentioned by Luke, and the view which involves the most important relations to other far greater questions, is, that ROME was the chief apostle’s refuge from the Agrippine persecution, and that in the imperial city he now laid the deep foundations of the church universal. On this point some of the greatest champions of papistry have expended vast labor, to establish a circumstance so convenient for the support of the dogma of the divinely appointed supremacy of the Romish church, since the belief of this early visit of Peter would afford a very convenient basis for the very early apostolical foundation of the Roman see. But though this notion of his refuge has received the support of a vast number of great names from the very early periods of Christian literature, and though for a long period this view was considered indubitable, from the sanction of ancient authorities, there is not one of the various conjectures offered which is so easily overthrown on examination, from the manner in which it is connected with other notions most palpably false and baseless. The old papistical notion was, that Peter at this time visited Rome, founded the church there, and presided over it, as bishop, _twenty-five_ years, but occasionally visiting the east. As respects the minute details of this journey to Rome, the papist historians are by no means agreed, few of them having put any value upon the particulars of such an itinerary, until those periods when such fables were sought after by common readers with more avidity. But there is at least one hard-conscienced narrator, who undertakes to go over all the steps of the apostle on the road to the eternal city, and from his narrative are brought these circumstances. The companions assigned him by this romance, on his journey, were the evangelist Mark, Appollinaris, afterwards, as the story goes, appointed by him bishop of Ravenna, in Italy; Martial, afterwards a missionary in Gaul, and Rufus, bishop of Capua, in Italy. Pancratius, of Tauromenius, and Marcian, of Syracuse, in Sicily, had been sent on by Peter to that island, while he was yet staying at Antioch, but on his voyage he landed there and made them his companions also. His great route is said to have led him to Troy, on the northern part of the Asian coast of the Aegean sea, whence they seem to have made him cross to the eastern port of Corinth. At this great city of Greece, they bring him into the company of Paul and Silas, who were sent thither, to be sure, on a mission, but evidently at a different time, a circumstance which, among many others, helps to show the bungling manner in which the story is made up. From Corinth they carry him next to Syracuse, as just mentioned. Thence to Neapolis, (Naples,) in Campania, where, as the monkish legend says, this chief of the apostles celebrated with his companions a mass, for the safe progress of his voyage to Italy. Having now reached Italy, he is made the subject of a new fable for the benefit of every city along the coast, and is accordingly said to have touched at Liburnum, (_Livorno_, Leghorn,) being driven thither by stress of weather, and thence to Pisa, near by, where he offered up another mass for his preservation, as is still maintained in local fables; but the general Romish legend does not so favor these places, but brings the apostle, without any more marine delay or difficulty, directly over land from Naples to Rome; and on this route again, one lie suggesting another, a local superstition commemorates the veritable circumstances, that he made this land-journey from Naples to Rome, on foot; and on the way stopped at the house of a Galilean countryman of his own, named Mark, in a town called Atina, of which the said Mark was afterwards made bishop.

Respecting these minute accounts of Peter’s stopping-places
on this apocryphal journey, Baronius says, “Nobilia in iis
remanserunt antiquitatis vestigia, sed traditiones potius
quam scriptura firmata.” “There are in those places some noble
remains of this ancient history, but rather traditions than well
assured written accounts.” The part of the route from Antioch to
Sicily he takes on the authority of the imaginative Metaphrastes;
but the rest is made up from different local superstitions of
a very modern date, not one of which can be traced farther back
than the time when every fable of this sort had a high pecuniary
value to the inventors, in bringing crowds of money-giving
pilgrims to the spot which had been hallowed by the footsteps of
the chief apostle. Even the devout Baronius, however, is obliged
to confess at the end of this story, “Sed de rebus tam antiquis
et incertis, quid potissimum affirmare debeamus, non satis
constat.”――“But as to matters so ancient and uncertain, it
is not sufficiently well established what opinion we may most
safely pronounce.”

As to the early part of the route, speaking of the account
given by Metaphrastes of Peter’s having on his way through
Troy ordained Cornelius, the centurion, bishop of that place,
Baronius objects to the truth of this statement, the assertion
that Cornelius had been previously ordained bishop of Caesarea,
where he was converted. A very valuable refutation of one fable
by another as utterly unfounded.

Respecting the _causes_ of this great journey of the apostle to the capital of the world, the opinions even of papist writers are as various as they are about the route honored by his passage. Some suppose his motive to have been merely a desire for a refuge from the persecution of Agrippa;――a most unlikely resort, however, for nothing could be more easy than his detection in passing over such a route, especially by sea, where every vessel could be so easily searched at the command of Agrippa, whose influence extended far beyond his own territory, supported as he was, by the unbounded possession of the imperial Caesar’s favor, which would also make the seizure of the fugitive within the great city itself, a very easy thing. Others, however, do not consider this journey as connected in any way with his flight from Agrippa, (for many suppose it to have been made after the death of that king,) and find the motive for such an effort in the vast importance of the field opened for his labors in the great capital of the world, where were so many strong holds of error to be assaulted, and from which an influence so wide and effectual might be exerted through numerous channels of communication to all parts of the world. Others have sought a reason of more definite and limited character, and with vast pains have invented and compiled a fable of most absurdly amusing character, to make an object for Peter’s labors in the distant capital. The story which has the greatest number of supporters, is one connected with Simon Magus, mentioned in the sacred record, in the account of the labors of Philip in Samaria, and the visit of Peter and John to that place. The fable begins with the assertion that this magician had returned to his former tricks after his insincere conformity to the Christian faith, and had devoted himself with new energy to the easy work of popular deception, adding to his former evil motives, that of deadly spite against the faith to which he appeared so friendly, at the time when the sacred narrative speaks of him last. In order to find a field sufficiently ample for his enlarged plans, he went to Rome, and there, in the reign of Claudius Caesar, attained a vast renown by his magical tricks, so that he was even esteemed a god, and was even so pronounced by a solemn decree of the Roman senate, confirmed by Claudius himself, who was perfectly carried away with the delusion, which seems thus to have involved the highest and the lowest alike. The fable proceeds to introduce Peter on the scene, by the circumstance of his being called by a divine vision to go to Rome and war against this great impostor, thus advancing in his impious supremacy, who had already in Samaria been made to acknowledge the miraculous efficacy of the apostolic word. Peter thus brought to Rome by the hand of God, publicly preached abroad the doctrine of salvation, and meeting the arch-magician himself, with the same divine weapons whose efficacy he had before experienced, overcame him utterly, and drove him in confusion and disgrace from the city. Nor were the blessings that resulted to Rome from this visit of Peter, of a merely spiritual kind. So specially favored with the divine presence and blessing were all places where this great apostle happened to be, that even their temporal interests shared in the advantages of the divine influence that every where followed him. To this cause, therefore, are gravely referred by papistical commentators, the remarkable success which, according to heathen historians, attended the Roman arms in different parts of the world during the second year of Claudius, to which date this fabulous visit is unanimously referred by all who pretend to believe in its occurrence.

_Importance of the field of labor._――This is the view taken by
Leo, (in sermon 1, in nat. apost. quoted by Baronius, Annales 44,
§ 26.) “When the twelve apostles, after receiving from the Holy
Spirit the power of speaking _all_ languages,” (an assertion, by
the way, no where found in the sacred record,) “had undertaken
the labor of imbuing the world with the gospel, dividing its
several portions among themselves; the most blessed Peter, the
chief of the apostolic order was appointed to the capital of
the Roman empire, so that the light of truth which was revealed
for the salvation of all nations, might from the very head,
diffuse itself with the more power through the whole body of
the world. For, what country had not some citizens in this city?
Or what nation anywhere, could be ignorant of anything which
Rome had been taught? Here were philosophical dogmas to be put
down――vanities of worldly wisdom to be weakened――idol-worship to
be overthrown,”――&c. “To this city therefore, thou, most blessed
apostle Peter! didst not fear to come, and (sharing thy glory
with the apostle Paul, there occupied with the arrangement
of other churches,) didst enter that forest of raging beasts,
and didst pass upon that ocean of boisterous depths, with more
firmness than when thou walkedst on the sea. Nor didst thou fear
Rome, the mistress of the world, though thou didst once, in the
house of Caiaphas, dread the servant maid of the priest. Not
because the power of Claudius, or the cruelty of Nero, were less
dreadful than the judgment of Pilate, or the rage of the Jews;
but because the power of love now overcame the occasion of fear,
since thy regard for the salvation of souls would not suffer
thee to yield to terror. * * * The miraculous signs, gifts
of grace, and trials of virtue, which had already been so
multiplied to thee, now increased thy boldness. Already hadst
thou taught those nations of the circumcision who believed.
Already hadst thou filled Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia
and Bithynia with the gospel; and now, without a doubt of the
advance of the work, or of the certainty of thy own fate, thou
didst plant the trophy of the cross of Christ upon the towers of
Rome.” Arnobius is also quoted by Baronius to similar effect.

_Simon Magus._――This fable has received a wonderfully wide
circulation, and long maintained a place among the credible
accounts of early Christian history, probably from the
circumstance of its taking its origin from so early a source.
Justin Martyr, who flourished from the year 140 and afterwards,
in his apology for the Christian religion, addressed to the
emperor Antoninus Pius, says, “Simon, a Samaritan, born in a
village named _Gitthon_, in the time of Claudius Caesar, was
received as a god in your imperial city of Rome, and honored
with a statue, like other gods, on account of his magical powers
there exhibited by the aid of demons; and this statue was set
up in the river Tiber, between two bridges, and had this Latin
inscription, SIMONI DEO SANCTO. Him too, all the Samaritans
worship, and a few of other nations, acknowledging him as the
highest god, (πρωτον θεον.) They also worship a certain Helena,
who at that time followed him about,” &c. &c. &c. with more
dirty trash besides, than I can find room for. And in another
passage of the same work, he alludes to the same circumstances.
“In your city, the mistress of the world, in the time of
Claudius Caesar, Simon Magus struck the Roman senate and people
with such admiration of himself, that he was ranked among the
gods, and was honored with a statue.” _Irenaeus_, who flourished
about the year 180, also gives this story with hardly any
variation from Justin. Tertullian, about A. D. 200, repeats the
same, with the addition of the circumstance, that not satisfied
with the honors paid to himself, he caused the people to debase
themselves still further, by paying divine honors to a woman
called (by Tertullian) Larentina, who was exalted by them to
a rank with the goddesses of the ancient mythology, though the
good father gives her but a bad name. Eusebius, also, about A. D.
320, refers to the testimonies of Justin and Irenaeus, and adds
some strange particulars about a sect, existing in his time,
the members of which were said to acknowledge this Simon as the
author of their faith, whom they worshiped along with this woman
Helena, falling prostrate before the pictures of both of them,
with incense and sacrifices and libations to them, with other
rites, unutterably and unwritably bad. (See Eusebius, Church
History, II. 13.)

In the three former writers, Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian,
this absurd story stands by itself, and has no connection with
the life of Peter; but Eusebius goes on to commemorate the
circumstance, previously unrecorded, that Peter went to Rome for
the express purpose of putting down this blasphemous wretch, as
specified above, in the text of my narrative, from this author.
(Eusebius, Church History, II. 14.)

Now all this fine series of accounts, though seeming to bear
such an overwhelming weight of testimony in favor of the truth
and reality of Simon Magus’s visit to Rome, is proved to be
originally based on an absolute falsehood; and the nature of
this falsehood is thus exposed. In the year 1574, during the
pontificate of Pope Gregory XIII., there was an excavation made
for some indifferent purpose in Rome, on the very island in
the Tiber, so particularly described by Justin, as lying in the
center of the river between two bridges, each of which rested an
abutment on it, and ran from it to the opposite shores. In the
progress of this excavation, the workmen, as is very common in
that vast city of buried ruins, turned up, among other remains
of antiquity, the remnant of a statue with its pedestal, which
had evidently once stood erect upon the spot. Upon the pedestal
was an inscription most distinctly legible, in these words:
SEMONI SANGO DEO FIDIO SACRUM――SEX POMPEIUS S. P. F. COL.
MUSSIANUS――QUINQUENNALIS DECUR. BIDENTALIS――DONUM DEDIT. (This
was in four lines, each line ending where the blank spaces are
marked in the copy.) In order to understand this sentence, it
must be known, that the Romans, among the innumerable objects
of worship in their complicated religion, had a peculiar set of
deities which they called SEMONES. A SEMO was a kind of inferior
god, of an earthly character and office, so low as to unfit
him for a place among the great gods of heaven, Jupiter, Juno,
Apollo, &c., and was accordingly confined in his residence
entirely to the earth; where the Semones received high honors
and devout worship, and were commemorated in many places, both
in city and country, by statues, before which the passer might
pay his worship, if devoutly disposed. These statues were often
of a votive character, erected by wealthy or distinguished
persons for fancied aid, received from some one of these Semones,
in some particular season of distress, or for general prosperity.
This was evidently the object of the statue in question. Priapus,
Hipporea, Vertumnus, and such minor gods were included under
the general title of Semones; and among them was also ranked a
Sabine divinity, named SANGUS or SANCUS, who is, by some writers,
considered as corresponding in character to the Hercules of
the Greeks. Sangus or Sancus is often alluded to in the Roman
classics. Propertius (book 4) has a verse referring to him as
a Sabine deity. “Sic Sancum Tatiae composuere Cures.” Ovid
also, “Quaerebam Nonas Sanco fidio ne referrem.” As to this
providentially recovered remnant of antiquity, therefore, there
can be no doubt that it was a votive monument, erected by Sextus
Pompey to Sangus the Semo, for some reason not very clearly
expressed.

Baronius tells also that he had seen a stone similarly inscribed.
“SANGO SANCTO SEMON.――DEO FIDIO SACRUM――DECURIO SACERDOTUM
BIDENTALIUM――RECIPERATIS VECTIGALIBUS.” That is, “Sacred to
Sangus, the holy Semo, the god Fidius,――a decury (company
of ten) of the priests of the Bidental sacrifices have raised
this in gratitude for their recovered incomes.” Dionysius
Halicarnassaeus is also quoted by Baronius as referring to the
worship of the Semo, Sangus; and from him and various other
ancient writers, it appears that vows and sacrifices were
offered to this Sangus, for a safe journey and happy return from
a distance.

From a consideration of all the circumstances of this remarkable
discovery, and from the palpable evidence afforded by the
inherent absurdity of the story told by Justin Martyr and his
copyists, the conclusion is justifiable and irresistible, that
Justin himself, being a native of Syria, and having read the
story of Simon Magus in the Acts, where it is recorded that he
was profoundly reverenced by the Samaritans, and was silenced
and rebuked by Peter when he visited that place,――with all
this story fresh in his mind, (for he was but a new convert
to Christianity,) came to Rome, and going through that city,
an ignorant foreigner, without any knowledge of the religion,
or superstitions, or deities, and with but an indifferent
acquaintance with their language, came along this bridge over
the Tiber to the island, where had been erected this votive
statue to Semo Sangus; and looking at the inscription in the way
that might be expected of one to whom the language and religion
were strange, he was struck at once with the name Semon, as so
much resembling the well-known eastern name Simon, and began
speculating at once, about what person of that name could ever
have come from the east to Rome, and there received the honors
of a god. Justin’s want of familiarity with the language of the
Romans, would prevent his obtaining any satisfactory information
on the subject from the passers-by; and if he attempted to
question them about it, he would be very apt to interpret their
imperfect communications in such a way as suited the notion
he had taken up. If he asked his Christian brethren about the
matter, their very low character for general intelligence,
the circumstance that those with whom he was most familiar,
must have been of eastern origin, and as ignorant as he of the
minute peculiarities of the Roman religion, and their common
disposition to wilfully pervert the truth, and invent fables
for the sake of a good story connected with their own faith,
(of which we have evidences vastly numerous, and sadly powerful
in the multitude of such legends that have come down from the
Christians of those times,) would all conspire to help the
invention and completion of the foolish and unfounded notion,
that this statue here erected _Semoni Sanco Deo_, was the same
as _Simoni Deo Sancto_, that is, “_to the holy god Simon_;”
and as it was always necessary to the introduction of a new
god among those at Rome, that the Senate should pass a solemn
act and decree to that effect, which should be confirmed by
the approbation of the emperor, it would at once occur to his
own imaginative mind, or to the inventions of his fabricating
informers, that Simon must of course have received such a decree
from the senate and Caesar. This necessarily also implied vast
renown, and extensive favor with all the Romans, which he must
have acquired, to be sure, by his magical tricks, aided by
the demoniac powers; and so all the foolish particulars of the
story would be made out as fast as wanted. The paltry fable
also appended to this by all the Fathers who give the former
story, to the effect, that some woman closely connected with
him, was worshiped along with him, variously named Helena,
Selena and Larentina, has no doubt a similarly baseless origin;
but is harder to trace to its beginnings, because it was not
connected with an assertion, capable of direct ocular, as well
as historical, refutation, as that about Simon’s statue most
fortunately was. The second name, _Selena_, given by Irenaeus,
is exactly the Greek word for the moon, which was often
worshiped under its appropriate name; and this tale may have
been caught up from some connection between such a ceremony and
the worship of some of the Semones,――all the elegant details
of her life and character being invented to suit the fancies
of the reverend fathers. The story, that she had followed Simon
to Rome from the Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, suggests to
my mind at this moment, that there may have been a connection
between this and some old story of the importation of a piece of
idolatry from that region, so famed for the worship of the

“_mooned_ Ashtaroth,
Heaven’s queen and mother both.”

But this trash is not worth the time and paper I am spending
upon it, since the main part of the story, concerning Simon
Magus as having ever been seen or heard of in Rome, by senate,
prince or people, in the days of Claudius, is shown, beyond
all reasonable question, to be utterly false, and based on
a stupid blunder of Justin Martyr, who did not know Latin
enough to tell the difference between _sanco_ and _sancto_, nor
between _Semoni_ and _Simoni_. And after all, this is but a fair
specimen of Justin Martyr’s usual blundering way, of which his
few pages present other instances for the inquiring reader to
stumble over and bewilder himself upon. Take, for example, the
gross confusion of names and dates which he makes in a passage
which accidentally meets my eye, on a page near that from which
the above extract is taken. In attempting to give an account
of the way in which the Hebrew Bible was first translated into
Greek, he says that Ptolemy, king of Egypt, sent to Herod, king
of the Jews, for a copy of the Bible. But when or where does
any history, sacred or profane, give any account whatever of any
Ptolemy, king of Egypt, who was cotemporary with either of the
Herods? The last of the Ptolemies was killed, while a boy, in
the Egyptian war with Julius Caesar, before Herod had himself
attained to manhood, or had the most distant thought of the
throne of Palestine. The Ptolemy who is said to have procured
the Greek translation of the Bible, however, lived about three
hundred years before the first Herod. It is lamentable to think
that such is the character of the earliest Christian father who
has left works of any magnitude. Who can wonder that Apologies
for the Christian religion, full of such gross blunders, should
have failed to secure the belief, or move the attention of
either of the Antonines, to whom they were addressed,――the
Philosophic, or the Pious? And by a writer who pretended to
tell the wisest of the Caesars, that in his imperial city, had
been worshiped, from the days of Claudius, a miserable Samaritan
impostor, who, an outcast from his own outcast land, had in Rome,
by a solemn senatorial and imperial decree, been exalted to the
highest god-ship, and that the evidence of this fact was found
in a statue which that emperor well knew to be dedicated to
the most ancient deities of Etruscan origin, worshiped there
ever since the days of Numa Pompilius, but which this Syrian
Christian had blunderingly supposed to commemorate a man who
had never been heard of out of Samaria, except among Christians.
And as for such _martyrs_, if there is any truth whatever in the
story that his foolish head was cut off by the second Antonine,
the only pity is, it was not done a little sooner, so as to have
kept the Christian world from the long belief of all this folly
about an invention so idle, and saved me the trouble of exposing
it.

The fullest account ever given of this fable and all its
progress, is found in the Annales Ecclesiastici of Caesar
Baronius, (A. C. 44. § 51‒59.) who, after furnishing the most
ample references to sacred and profane authorities, which
palpably demonstrate the falsity of the story, returns with all
the solemn bigotry of a papist, to the solemn conviction that
the fathers and the saints who tell the story, _must_ have had
some very good reason for believing it.

The other copyists of Justin hardly deserve any notice; but it
is interesting and instructive to observe how, in the progress
of fabulous invention, one lie is pinned on to the tail of
another, to form a glorious chain of historical sequences, for
some distant ecclesiastical annalist to hang his servile faith
upon. Eusebius, for instance, enlarges the stories of Justin
and Irenaeus, by an addition of his own,――that in his day there
existed a sect which acknowledged this same Simon as God, and
worshiped him and Helena or Selena, with some mysteriously
wicked rites. Now all that his story amounts to, is, that in his
time there was a sect called by a name resembling that of Simon,
how nearly like it, no one knows; but that by his own account
their worship was of a secret character, so that he could, of
course, know nothing certainly. But this is enough for him to
add, as a solemn confirmation of a story now known to have been
founded in falsehood. From this beginning, Eusebius goes on
to say that Peter went to Rome in the second year of Claudius,
to war against this Simon Magus, who never went there; so that
we know how much this whole tale is worth by looking into the
circumstance which constitutes its essential foundation. The
idea of Peter’s visit to Rome at that time, is no where given
before Eusebius, except in some part of the Clementina, a long
series of most unmitigated falsehoods, forged in the name of
Clemens Romanus, without any certain date, but commonly supposed
to have been made up of the continued contributions of several
impudent liars, during different portions of the second, third
and fourth centuries.

Creuzer also, in his deep and extensive researches into the
religions of antiquity, in giving a “view of some of the older
Italian nations,” speaks of “Sancus Semo.” He quotes Augustin
(De civitate Dei. XVIII. 19,) as authority for the opinion that
he was an ancient king, deified. He also alludes to the passage
in Ovid, (quoted above by Baronius,) where he is connected with
Hercules, and alluded to under three titles, as Semo, Sancus and
Fidius. (Ovid, Fasti, VI. 213, et seq.) But the learned Creuzer
does not seem to have any correct notion of the character of
the _Semones_, as a distinct order of inferior deities;――a fact
perfectly certain as given above, for which abundant authority
is found in Varro, (de Mystag.) as quoted by Fulgentius and
Baronius. From Creuzer I also notice, in an accidental immediate
connection with Semo Sancus, the fact that the worship of the
moon (Luna) was also of Sabine origin; and being introduced
along with that of Sancus, by Numa, may have had some relation
to that Semo, and may have concurred in originating the notion
of the fathers about the woman Selena or Helena, as worshiped
along with Simon. He also just barely alludes to the fact that
Justin and Irenaeus have confounded this Semo Sancus with Simon
Magus. (See Creuzer’s Symbolik und Mythologie der alter Voelker,
II. Theil. pp. 964‒965.)

The next conclusion authorized by those who support this fable is, that Peter, after achieving this great work of vanquishing the impostor Simon, proceeded to preach the gospel generally; yet not at first to the hereditary citizens of imperial Rome, nor to any of the Gentiles, but to his own countrymen the Jews, great numbers of whom then made their permanent abode in the great city. These foreigners, at that time, were limited in Rome to a peculiar section of the suburbs, and hardly dwelt within the walls of the city itself;――an allotment corresponding with similar limitations existing in some of the modern cities of Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, and even in London, though there, only in accordance with long usage, and with actual convenience, but not with any existing law. The quarter of Rome in which the Jews dwelt in the days of Claudius, was west of the central section of the city, beyond the Tiber; and to this suburban portion, the story supposes the residence and labors of Peter to have been at first confined. But after a time, the fame of this mighty preacher of a new faith spread beyond, from this despised foreign portion of the environs, across the Tiber, over the seven hills themselves, and even into the halls of the patrician lords of Rome. Such an extension of fame, indeed, seems quite necessary to make these two parts of this likely story hang together at all; for it is hard to see how a stranger, from a distant eastern land, could thus appear suddenly among them, and overturn, with a defeat so total and signal, the pretensions of one who had lately been exalted by the opinions of an adoring people to the character of a god, and had even received the solemn national sanction of this exaltation by a formal decree of the senate of Rome, confirmed by the absolute voice of the Caesar himself; and after such a victory, over such a person, be left long unnoticed in an obscure suburb. In accordance, therefore, with this reasonable notion, it is recorded in the continuation of the story, that when Peter, preaching at Rome, grew famous among the Gentiles, he was no longer allowed to occupy himself wholly among the Jews, but was thereafter taken by Pudens, a senator who believed in Christ, into his own house, on the Viminal Mount, one of the seven hills, but near the Jewish suburb. In the neighborhood of this house, as the legend relates, was afterwards erected a monument, called “the Shepherd’s,”――a name which serves to identify this important locality to the modern Romans to this day. Being thus established in these lordly patrician quarters, the poor Galilean fisherman might well have thought himself blessed, in such a pleasant change from the uncomfortable lodgings with which the royal Agrippa had lately accommodated him, and from which he had made so willing an exit. But the legend does the faithful and devoted apostle the justice, to represent him as by no means moved by these luxurious circumstances, to the least forgetfulness of the high commission which was to be followed through all sorts of self-denial,――no less that which drew him from the soft and soul-relaxing enjoyments of a patrician palace, than that which led him to renounce the simple, hard-earned profits of a fisherman, on the changeful sea of Gennesaret, or to calmly meet the threats, the stripes, the chains, and the condemned cell, with which the enmity of the Jewish magistrates had steadily striven to quench his fiery and energetic spirit. He is described as steadily laboring in the cause of the gospel among the Gentiles as well as the Jews, and with such success during the whole of the first year of his stay, that in the beginning of the following year he is said by papist writers to have solemnly and formally founded THE CHURCH OF ROME. This important fictitious event is dated with the most exact particularity, on the fifteenth of February, in the forty-third year of Christ, and the third year of the reign of the emperor Claudius. The empty, unmeaning pomposity of this announcement is a sufficient evidence of its fictitious character. According to the story itself, here Peter had been preaching nearly a whole year at Rome; and if preaching, having a regular congregation, of course, and performing the usual accompaniments of preaching, as baptism, &c. Now there is not in the whole apostolic history the least account, nor the shadow of a hint, of any such ceremony as the founding of a church, distinct from the mere gathering of an assembly of believing listeners, who acknowledged their faith in Jesus by profession and by the sacraments. The organization of this religious assembly might indeed be made more perfect at one time than at another; as for instance, a new church, which during an apostle’s stay with it and preaching to it, had been abundantly well governed by the simple guidance of his wise, fatherly care, would, on his departure, need some more regular, permanent provision for its government, lest among those who were all religious co-equals, there should arise disputes which would require a regularly constituted authority to allay them. The apostle might, therefore, in such advanced requirements of the church, ordain elders, and so on; but such an appendix could not, with the slightest regard to common sense or the rules of honest interpretation of language, be said to constitute the founding of a church. The very phrase of ordaining elders in a church, palpably implies and requires the previous distinct, complete existence of the church. In fact the entity of a church implies nothing more than a regular assembly of believers, with an authorized ministry; and if Peter had been preaching several months to the Jews of the trans-Tiberine suburb, or to the Romans of the Viminal mount, there must have been in one or both of those places, a _church_, to all intents, purposes, definitions and etymologies of a church. So that for him, almost a year after, to proceed to _found_ a church in Rome, was the most idle work of supererogation in the world. And all the pompous statements of papist writers about any such formality, and all the quotations that might be brought out of the fathers in its support, from Clement downwards, could not relieve the assertion of one particle of its palpable, self-evident absurdity. But the fable proceeds in the account of this important movement, dating the apostolic reign of Peter from this very occasion, as above fixed, and running over various imaginary acts of his, during the tedious seven years for which the story ties him down to this one spot. Among many other unfounded matters, is specified the assertion, that from this city during the first year of his episcopate, he wrote his first epistle, which he addressed to the believers in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,――the countries which are enumerated as visited by him in his fictitious tour. This opinion is grounded on the circumstance of its being dated from Babylon, which several later fathers understood as a term spiritually applied to Rome; but in the proper place this notion will be fully discussed, and the true origin of the epistle more satisfactorily given. Another important event in the history of the scriptures,――the writing of the gospel of Mark,――is also commonly connected with this part of Peter’s life, by the papist historians; but this event, with an account of the nature of this supposed connection, and the discussion of all points in this subject, can be better shown in the life of that evangelist; and to that it is therefore deferred. These matters and several others as little in place, seem to be introduced into this part of Peter’s life, mainly for the sake of giving him something particular to do, during his somewhat tedious stay in Rome, where they make him remain seven years after his first journey thither; and give him here the character, office and title of _bishop_,――a piece of nomenclature perfectly unscriptural and absurd, because no apostle, in the New Testament, is ever called a bishop; but on the contrary, the office was evidently created to provide a substitute for an apostle,――a person who might perform the pastoral duties to the church, in the absence of its apostolic founder, _overseeing_ and managing all its affairs in his stead, to report to him at his visitations, or in reply to his epistolary charges. To call an apostle a bishop, therefore, implies the absurdity of calling a superior officer by the title of his inferior,――as to call a captain, lieutenant, or a general-in-chief, colonel, or even as to call a bishop, deacon. During the life-time of the apostles, “_bishop_” was only a secondary title, and it was not till the death of all those commissioned by Christ, that this became the supreme officer in all churches. But the papists not appreciating any difficulty of this kind, go on crowning one absurdity with another, which claims, however, the additional merit of being amusing in its folly. This is the minute particularization of the shape, stuff, accoutrements and so on, of the chair in which bishop Peter sat at Rome in his episcopal character. This identical wooden chair in which his apostolical body was seated when he was exerting the functions of his bishopric, is still, according to the same high papal authorities which maintain the fact of his ever having been bishop, preserved in the Basilica of the Vatican, at Rome, and is even now, on certain high occasions, brought out from its holy storehouse to bless with its presence the eyes of the adoring people. This chair is kept covered with a linen veil, among the various similar treasures of the Vatican, and has been eminent for the vast numbers of great miracles wrought by its presence. As a preliminary step, however, to a real faith in the efficacy of this old piece of furniture, it is necessary that those who hear the stories should believe that Peter was ever at Rome, to sit in this or any other chair there. It is observed, however, in connection with this lumbering article, in the papist histories, that on taking possession of this chair, as bishop of Rome, Peter resigned the bishopric of Antioch, committing that see to the charge of Euodius, it having been the original diocese of this chief apostle,――a story about as true, as that any apostle was ever _bishop_ any where. The apostles were missionaries, for the most part, preaching the word of God from place to place, appointing bishops to govern and manage the churches in their absence, and after their final departure, as their successors and substitutes; but no apostle is, on any occasion whatever, called a bishop in any part of the New Testament, or by any _early_ writer. The most important objection, however, to all this absurd account of Peter, as bishop of Rome, is the fact uniformly attested by those early fathers, who allude to his having ever visited that city, that having founded the church there, he appointed Linus the FIRST BISHOP,――a statement in exact accordance with the view here given of the office of a bishop, and of the mode in which the apostles constituted that office in the churches founded and visited by them.