Morning dawned at last upon the towers and temple-columns of the Holy City. On the gold-sheeted roofs and snowy-pillared colonnades of the house of God, the sunlight poured with a splendor hardly more glorious than the insupportable brilliancy that was sent back from their dazzling surfaces, streaming like a new morning upon the objects around, whose nearer sides would otherwise have been left in shade by the eastern rays. Castle Antonia shared in this general illumination, and at the first blaze of sunrise, the order of Roman service announced the moment for relieving guard. The bustle of the movement of the new sentries towards their stands, must at last have reached the ears of Peter’s forsaken companions. Their first waking thoughts would of course be on their responsible charge, and they now became for the first time aware of the important deficiency. In vain did their heavy eyes, at first winking with sleepiness, but now wide open with amazement, search the dim vacancy for their eloped bed-fellow. The most inquisitive glance fell only on the blank space between them, scarcely blanker than the forlorn visages of the poor keepers, who saw in this disappearance the seal of their certain death, for having let the prisoner escape. But they had not much time to consider their misfortune, or condole upon it; for the change of sentries now brought to the door the quaternion whose turn on duty came next. With a miserable grace did the unhappy occupants of the cell show themselves at the open door, with the empty chains and fetters dangling at their sides, from which their late companion had so curiously slipped. Most uncomfortable must have been the aspect of things to the two sentinels who had been keeping their steady watch outside of the door, and who shared equally with the inside keepers, in the undesirable responsibilities of this accident. There stood their comrades with the useless chains displayed in their original attachments; but,amazing!what in the world had they done with the prisoner? The ludicrous distress and commotion resulting from thisunpleasant revelation, was evidently well appreciated even by the sacred historian, whose brief but pithy expression is not without a latent comic force. “There was no small stir among the soldiers to know what was become of Peter.” A general search into all the holes and corners of the dungeon, of course, ensued; and the castle was no doubt ransacked from top to bottom for the runaway, whose escape from its massive gates seemed still impossible. But not even his cloak and sandals, which he had laid beside him at the last change of guards,——not a shred, not a thread had been left to hint at the mode of his abstraction. Yet this was so bad a story for the ears of the royal Agrippa, that it would not do to give up the search while any chance whatever remained. But all rummaging was perfectly fruitless; and with sorrowful hearts, they now went with their report to the vindictive king, to acknowledge that most unpardonable crime in Roman soldiers,——to have slept on their posts, so that a prisoner of state had escaped on the eve of execution.Baronius, (Church Annuals,44, § 8,) speaking of Peter’s escape from his chains, favors us with a solemn statement of the important and interesting circumstance, deriving the proofs from Metaphrastes, (that prince of papistical liars, and grand source of Romish apostolical fables,) that these very chains of Peter are still preserved at Rome, among other venerable relics of equal authenticity; having been faithfully preserved, and at last found after the lapse of four hundred years. The veritable history of this miraculous preservation, as given by the inventive Metaphrastes, is, that the said chains happened to fall into the hands of one of Agrippa’s servants who was a believer in Christ, and so were handed down for four centuries, and at last brought to light. It is lamentable that the list of the various persons through whose hands they passed, is not given, though second in importance only to the authentic record of the papal succession. This impudent and paltry falsehood will serve as a fair specimen of a vast quantity of such stuff, which litters up the pages of even the sober ecclesiastical histories of many papistical writers. The only wonderful thing to me about this story is, that Cave has not given it a place in his Lives of the Apostles, which are made up with so great a portion of similar trash.Baronius, in connection with this passage, suggests the castle of Antonia as the most probable place of Peter’s confinement. “Juxta templum fortasse in ea munitissima turri quae dicebatur Antonia.” (Baronius, Church Annuals,C. 44,§ 5.) A conjecture which certainly adds some weight to my own supposition to that effect; although I did not discover the coincidence in time to mention it in my note on page194.Meanwhile, with the early day, up rose the royal Agrippa from his purple couch, to seize the first moment after the close of the passover for the consummation of the doom of the wretched Galilean, who, by the royal decree, must now yield the life already too many days spared, out of delicate scruple about the inviolate purity of that holy week. Up rose also the saintly princes of the Judaic law, coming forth in their solemn trains and broad phylacteries, to grace this most religious occasion with their reverend presence, out of respectful gratitude to their great sovran for hisconsiderate disposition to accord the sanction of his absolute secular power to their religious sentence. Expectation stood on tiptoe for the comfortable spectacle of the streaming life-blood of this stubborn leader of the Nazarene heresy, and nothing was wanting to the completion of the ceremony, but the criminal himself. That “desideratum, so much to be desired,” was, however, not so easily supplied; for the entrance of the delinquent sentinels now presented thenon-est-inventusreturn to the solemn summons for the body of their prisoner. Confusion thrice confounded now fell on the faces that were just shining with anticipated triumph over their hated foe, while secret, scornful joy illuminated the countenances of the oppressed friends of Jesus. But on the devoted minions of the baffled king, did his disappointed vengeance fall most cruelly; in his paroxysm of vexation, and for an event wholly beyond their control they now suffered an undeserved death; making so tragical a catastrophe to a story otherwise decidedly comical, that the reader can only comfort himself with the belief that they were a set of insolent reprobates who had insulted the distresses of their frequent victims, and would have rejoiced in the bloody execution of the apostle.King Herod Agrippa, after this miserable failure in his attempt to “please the Jews,” does not seem to have made a very long stay in Jerusalem. Before his departure, however, to secure his own solid glory and his kingdom’s safety, as well as the favor of his subjects, he not only continued the repairs of the temple, but instituted such improvements in the fortifications of the city, as, if ever completed, would have made it utterly impregnable even to a Roman force; so that the emperor’s jealousy soon compelled him to abandon this work; and soon after he left Jerusalem, and went down to Caesarea Augusta, on the sea-coast, long the seat of government of Palestine, and a more agreeable place for the operations of a Gentile court and administration, (for such Agrippa’s must have been from his Roman residence,) than the punctilious religious capital of Judea. But he was not allowed to remain much longer on the earth, to hinder the progress of the truth, by acts of tyranny in subservience to the base purposes of winning the favor of his more powerful subjects. The hand of God was laid destroyingly on him, in the midst of what seemed the full fruition of that popular adulation for which he had lived,——in which he now died. Arrayed in a splendid and massy robe of polished silver, he seated himself on the throne erected by hisgrandfather Herod, in the great Herodian theater at Caesarea, early in the morning of the day which was appointed for the celebration of the great festal games, in honor of his royal patron, Claudius Caesar. On this occasion, to crown his kingly triumph, the embassadors of the great commercial Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, appeared before him to receive his condescending answer to their submissive requests for the re-establishment of a friendly intercourse between his dominions and theirs,——the agricultural products of the former being quite essential to the thriving trade of the latter. Agrippa’s reply was now publicly given to them, in which he graciously granted all their requests, in such a tone of eloquent benignity, that the admiring assembly expressed their approbation in shouts of praise, and at last some bold adulators catching the idea from the rays of dazzling light which flashed from the polished surfaces of his metallic robe, and threw a sort of glory over and around him, cried out, in impious exclamation, “It is the voice of a God, and not of a man.” So little taste had the foolish king, that he did not check this pitiful outbreak of silly blasphemy; but sat swallowing it all, in the most unmoved self-satisfaction. But in the midst of this profane glory, he was called to an account for which it ill prepared him. In the expressive though figurative language of Luke,——“immediately the messenger of the Lord struck him, because he gave not the glory to God.” The Jewish historian, too, in a similar manner assigns the reason. “The king did not rebuke the flatterers, nor refuse their impious adulation. Shortly after he was seized with a pain in the belly, dreadfully violent from the beginning. Turning to his friends he said, ‘Behold! I, your god, am now appointed to end my life,——the decree of fate having at once falsified the voices that but just now were uttering lies about me; and I, who have been called immortal by you, am now carried off dying.’ While he uttered these words he was tortured by the increasing violence of his pain, and was accordingly carried back to his palace. After five days of intense anguish, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh of his reign; having reigned four years under Caius Caesar, and three under Claudius.” Thus ended the days of the conscience-stricken tyrant, while the glorious gospel cause which he had so vainly thought to check and overthrow, now, in the words of Luke, “grew and was multiplied;” the spiteful Jews having lost the right arm of their persecuting authority, in the death of their king, and all Palestine now passingagain under the direct Roman rule, whose tolerant principles became once more the great protection of the followers of Jesus.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 toanother 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 afact 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 shortercourse 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 refugefor 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 instituteda 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 hisAnnales 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, thatRomewas 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, thereis 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-fiveyears, 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 veritablecircumstances, 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 thecausesof 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, mentionedin 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, Annales44,§26.) “When the twelve apostles, after receiving from the Holy Spirit the power of speakingalllanguages,” (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 thewhole 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 namedGitthon, 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 GregoryXIII., 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 oncestood 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 calledSemones. ASemowas 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, namedSangusorSancus, 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 erectedSemoni Sanco Deo, was the same asSimoni 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 hisown 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“moonedAshtaroth,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 betweensancoandsancto, nor betweenSemoniandSimoni. 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 suchmartyrs, 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,musthave 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 theSemones, 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’sSymbolik und Mythologie der alter Voelker,II.Theil. pp. 964–965.)
Morning dawned at last upon the towers and temple-columns of the Holy City. On the gold-sheeted roofs and snowy-pillared colonnades of the house of God, the sunlight poured with a splendor hardly more glorious than the insupportable brilliancy that was sent back from their dazzling surfaces, streaming like a new morning upon the objects around, whose nearer sides would otherwise have been left in shade by the eastern rays. Castle Antonia shared in this general illumination, and at the first blaze of sunrise, the order of Roman service announced the moment for relieving guard. The bustle of the movement of the new sentries towards their stands, must at last have reached the ears of Peter’s forsaken companions. Their first waking thoughts would of course be on their responsible charge, and they now became for the first time aware of the important deficiency. In vain did their heavy eyes, at first winking with sleepiness, but now wide open with amazement, search the dim vacancy for their eloped bed-fellow. The most inquisitive glance fell only on the blank space between them, scarcely blanker than the forlorn visages of the poor keepers, who saw in this disappearance the seal of their certain death, for having let the prisoner escape. But they had not much time to consider their misfortune, or condole upon it; for the change of sentries now brought to the door the quaternion whose turn on duty came next. With a miserable grace did the unhappy occupants of the cell show themselves at the open door, with the empty chains and fetters dangling at their sides, from which their late companion had so curiously slipped. Most uncomfortable must have been the aspect of things to the two sentinels who had been keeping their steady watch outside of the door, and who shared equally with the inside keepers, in the undesirable responsibilities of this accident. There stood their comrades with the useless chains displayed in their original attachments; but,amazing!what in the world had they done with the prisoner? The ludicrous distress and commotion resulting from thisunpleasant revelation, was evidently well appreciated even by the sacred historian, whose brief but pithy expression is not without a latent comic force. “There was no small stir among the soldiers to know what was become of Peter.” A general search into all the holes and corners of the dungeon, of course, ensued; and the castle was no doubt ransacked from top to bottom for the runaway, whose escape from its massive gates seemed still impossible. But not even his cloak and sandals, which he had laid beside him at the last change of guards,——not a shred, not a thread had been left to hint at the mode of his abstraction. Yet this was so bad a story for the ears of the royal Agrippa, that it would not do to give up the search while any chance whatever remained. But all rummaging was perfectly fruitless; and with sorrowful hearts, they now went with their report to the vindictive king, to acknowledge that most unpardonable crime in Roman soldiers,——to have slept on their posts, so that a prisoner of state had escaped on the eve of execution.
Morning dawned at last upon the towers and temple-columns of the Holy City. On the gold-sheeted roofs and snowy-pillared colonnades of the house of God, the sunlight poured with a splendor hardly more glorious than the insupportable brilliancy that was sent back from their dazzling surfaces, streaming like a new morning upon the objects around, whose nearer sides would otherwise have been left in shade by the eastern rays. Castle Antonia shared in this general illumination, and at the first blaze of sunrise, the order of Roman service announced the moment for relieving guard. The bustle of the movement of the new sentries towards their stands, must at last have reached the ears of Peter’s forsaken companions. Their first waking thoughts would of course be on their responsible charge, and they now became for the first time aware of the important deficiency. In vain did their heavy eyes, at first winking with sleepiness, but now wide open with amazement, search the dim vacancy for their eloped bed-fellow. The most inquisitive glance fell only on the blank space between them, scarcely blanker than the forlorn visages of the poor keepers, who saw in this disappearance the seal of their certain death, for having let the prisoner escape. But they had not much time to consider their misfortune, or condole upon it; for the change of sentries now brought to the door the quaternion whose turn on duty came next. With a miserable grace did the unhappy occupants of the cell show themselves at the open door, with the empty chains and fetters dangling at their sides, from which their late companion had so curiously slipped. Most uncomfortable must have been the aspect of things to the two sentinels who had been keeping their steady watch outside of the door, and who shared equally with the inside keepers, in the undesirable responsibilities of this accident. There stood their comrades with the useless chains displayed in their original attachments; but,amazing!what in the world had they done with the prisoner? The ludicrous distress and commotion resulting from thisunpleasant revelation, was evidently well appreciated even by the sacred historian, whose brief but pithy expression is not without a latent comic force. “There was no small stir among the soldiers to know what was become of Peter.” A general search into all the holes and corners of the dungeon, of course, ensued; and the castle was no doubt ransacked from top to bottom for the runaway, whose escape from its massive gates seemed still impossible. But not even his cloak and sandals, which he had laid beside him at the last change of guards,——not a shred, not a thread had been left to hint at the mode of his abstraction. Yet this was so bad a story for the ears of the royal Agrippa, that it would not do to give up the search while any chance whatever remained. But all rummaging was perfectly fruitless; and with sorrowful hearts, they now went with their report to the vindictive king, to acknowledge that most unpardonable crime in Roman soldiers,——to have slept on their posts, so that a prisoner of state had escaped on the eve of execution.
Baronius, (Church Annuals,44, § 8,) speaking of Peter’s escape from his chains, favors us with a solemn statement of the important and interesting circumstance, deriving the proofs from Metaphrastes, (that prince of papistical liars, and grand source of Romish apostolical fables,) that these very chains of Peter are still preserved at Rome, among other venerable relics of equal authenticity; having been faithfully preserved, and at last found after the lapse of four hundred years. The veritable history of this miraculous preservation, as given by the inventive Metaphrastes, is, that the said chains happened to fall into the hands of one of Agrippa’s servants who was a believer in Christ, and so were handed down for four centuries, and at last brought to light. It is lamentable that the list of the various persons through whose hands they passed, is not given, though second in importance only to the authentic record of the papal succession. This impudent and paltry falsehood will serve as a fair specimen of a vast quantity of such stuff, which litters up the pages of even the sober ecclesiastical histories of many papistical writers. The only wonderful thing to me about this story is, that Cave has not given it a place in his Lives of the Apostles, which are made up with so great a portion of similar trash.
Baronius, in connection with this passage, suggests the castle of Antonia as the most probable place of Peter’s confinement. “Juxta templum fortasse in ea munitissima turri quae dicebatur Antonia.” (Baronius, Church Annuals,C. 44,§ 5.) A conjecture which certainly adds some weight to my own supposition to that effect; although I did not discover the coincidence in time to mention it in my note on page194.
Meanwhile, with the early day, up rose the royal Agrippa from his purple couch, to seize the first moment after the close of the passover for the consummation of the doom of the wretched Galilean, who, by the royal decree, must now yield the life already too many days spared, out of delicate scruple about the inviolate purity of that holy week. Up rose also the saintly princes of the Judaic law, coming forth in their solemn trains and broad phylacteries, to grace this most religious occasion with their reverend presence, out of respectful gratitude to their great sovran for hisconsiderate disposition to accord the sanction of his absolute secular power to their religious sentence. Expectation stood on tiptoe for the comfortable spectacle of the streaming life-blood of this stubborn leader of the Nazarene heresy, and nothing was wanting to the completion of the ceremony, but the criminal himself. That “desideratum, so much to be desired,” was, however, not so easily supplied; for the entrance of the delinquent sentinels now presented thenon-est-inventusreturn to the solemn summons for the body of their prisoner. Confusion thrice confounded now fell on the faces that were just shining with anticipated triumph over their hated foe, while secret, scornful joy illuminated the countenances of the oppressed friends of Jesus. But on the devoted minions of the baffled king, did his disappointed vengeance fall most cruelly; in his paroxysm of vexation, and for an event wholly beyond their control they now suffered an undeserved death; making so tragical a catastrophe to a story otherwise decidedly comical, that the reader can only comfort himself with the belief that they were a set of insolent reprobates who had insulted the distresses of their frequent victims, and would have rejoiced in the bloody execution of the apostle.King Herod Agrippa, after this miserable failure in his attempt to “please the Jews,” does not seem to have made a very long stay in Jerusalem. Before his departure, however, to secure his own solid glory and his kingdom’s safety, as well as the favor of his subjects, he not only continued the repairs of the temple, but instituted such improvements in the fortifications of the city, as, if ever completed, would have made it utterly impregnable even to a Roman force; so that the emperor’s jealousy soon compelled him to abandon this work; and soon after he left Jerusalem, and went down to Caesarea Augusta, on the sea-coast, long the seat of government of Palestine, and a more agreeable place for the operations of a Gentile court and administration, (for such Agrippa’s must have been from his Roman residence,) than the punctilious religious capital of Judea. But he was not allowed to remain much longer on the earth, to hinder the progress of the truth, by acts of tyranny in subservience to the base purposes of winning the favor of his more powerful subjects. The hand of God was laid destroyingly on him, in the midst of what seemed the full fruition of that popular adulation for which he had lived,——in which he now died. Arrayed in a splendid and massy robe of polished silver, he seated himself on the throne erected by hisgrandfather Herod, in the great Herodian theater at Caesarea, early in the morning of the day which was appointed for the celebration of the great festal games, in honor of his royal patron, Claudius Caesar. On this occasion, to crown his kingly triumph, the embassadors of the great commercial Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, appeared before him to receive his condescending answer to their submissive requests for the re-establishment of a friendly intercourse between his dominions and theirs,——the agricultural products of the former being quite essential to the thriving trade of the latter. Agrippa’s reply was now publicly given to them, in which he graciously granted all their requests, in such a tone of eloquent benignity, that the admiring assembly expressed their approbation in shouts of praise, and at last some bold adulators catching the idea from the rays of dazzling light which flashed from the polished surfaces of his metallic robe, and threw a sort of glory over and around him, cried out, in impious exclamation, “It is the voice of a God, and not of a man.” So little taste had the foolish king, that he did not check this pitiful outbreak of silly blasphemy; but sat swallowing it all, in the most unmoved self-satisfaction. But in the midst of this profane glory, he was called to an account for which it ill prepared him. In the expressive though figurative language of Luke,——“immediately the messenger of the Lord struck him, because he gave not the glory to God.” The Jewish historian, too, in a similar manner assigns the reason. “The king did not rebuke the flatterers, nor refuse their impious adulation. Shortly after he was seized with a pain in the belly, dreadfully violent from the beginning. Turning to his friends he said, ‘Behold! I, your god, am now appointed to end my life,——the decree of fate having at once falsified the voices that but just now were uttering lies about me; and I, who have been called immortal by you, am now carried off dying.’ While he uttered these words he was tortured by the increasing violence of his pain, and was accordingly carried back to his palace. After five days of intense anguish, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh of his reign; having reigned four years under Caius Caesar, and three under Claudius.” Thus ended the days of the conscience-stricken tyrant, while the glorious gospel cause which he had so vainly thought to check and overthrow, now, in the words of Luke, “grew and was multiplied;” the spiteful Jews having lost the right arm of their persecuting authority, in the death of their king, and all Palestine now passingagain under the direct Roman rule, whose tolerant principles became once more the great protection of the followers of Jesus.
Meanwhile, with the early day, up rose the royal Agrippa from his purple couch, to seize the first moment after the close of the passover for the consummation of the doom of the wretched Galilean, who, by the royal decree, must now yield the life already too many days spared, out of delicate scruple about the inviolate purity of that holy week. Up rose also the saintly princes of the Judaic law, coming forth in their solemn trains and broad phylacteries, to grace this most religious occasion with their reverend presence, out of respectful gratitude to their great sovran for hisconsiderate disposition to accord the sanction of his absolute secular power to their religious sentence. Expectation stood on tiptoe for the comfortable spectacle of the streaming life-blood of this stubborn leader of the Nazarene heresy, and nothing was wanting to the completion of the ceremony, but the criminal himself. That “desideratum, so much to be desired,” was, however, not so easily supplied; for the entrance of the delinquent sentinels now presented thenon-est-inventusreturn to the solemn summons for the body of their prisoner. Confusion thrice confounded now fell on the faces that were just shining with anticipated triumph over their hated foe, while secret, scornful joy illuminated the countenances of the oppressed friends of Jesus. But on the devoted minions of the baffled king, did his disappointed vengeance fall most cruelly; in his paroxysm of vexation, and for an event wholly beyond their control they now suffered an undeserved death; making so tragical a catastrophe to a story otherwise decidedly comical, that the reader can only comfort himself with the belief that they were a set of insolent reprobates who had insulted the distresses of their frequent victims, and would have rejoiced in the bloody execution of the apostle.
King Herod Agrippa, after this miserable failure in his attempt to “please the Jews,” does not seem to have made a very long stay in Jerusalem. Before his departure, however, to secure his own solid glory and his kingdom’s safety, as well as the favor of his subjects, he not only continued the repairs of the temple, but instituted such improvements in the fortifications of the city, as, if ever completed, would have made it utterly impregnable even to a Roman force; so that the emperor’s jealousy soon compelled him to abandon this work; and soon after he left Jerusalem, and went down to Caesarea Augusta, on the sea-coast, long the seat of government of Palestine, and a more agreeable place for the operations of a Gentile court and administration, (for such Agrippa’s must have been from his Roman residence,) than the punctilious religious capital of Judea. But he was not allowed to remain much longer on the earth, to hinder the progress of the truth, by acts of tyranny in subservience to the base purposes of winning the favor of his more powerful subjects. The hand of God was laid destroyingly on him, in the midst of what seemed the full fruition of that popular adulation for which he had lived,——in which he now died. Arrayed in a splendid and massy robe of polished silver, he seated himself on the throne erected by hisgrandfather Herod, in the great Herodian theater at Caesarea, early in the morning of the day which was appointed for the celebration of the great festal games, in honor of his royal patron, Claudius Caesar. On this occasion, to crown his kingly triumph, the embassadors of the great commercial Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, appeared before him to receive his condescending answer to their submissive requests for the re-establishment of a friendly intercourse between his dominions and theirs,——the agricultural products of the former being quite essential to the thriving trade of the latter. Agrippa’s reply was now publicly given to them, in which he graciously granted all their requests, in such a tone of eloquent benignity, that the admiring assembly expressed their approbation in shouts of praise, and at last some bold adulators catching the idea from the rays of dazzling light which flashed from the polished surfaces of his metallic robe, and threw a sort of glory over and around him, cried out, in impious exclamation, “It is the voice of a God, and not of a man.” So little taste had the foolish king, that he did not check this pitiful outbreak of silly blasphemy; but sat swallowing it all, in the most unmoved self-satisfaction. But in the midst of this profane glory, he was called to an account for which it ill prepared him. In the expressive though figurative language of Luke,——“immediately the messenger of the Lord struck him, because he gave not the glory to God.” The Jewish historian, too, in a similar manner assigns the reason. “The king did not rebuke the flatterers, nor refuse their impious adulation. Shortly after he was seized with a pain in the belly, dreadfully violent from the beginning. Turning to his friends he said, ‘Behold! I, your god, am now appointed to end my life,——the decree of fate having at once falsified the voices that but just now were uttering lies about me; and I, who have been called immortal by you, am now carried off dying.’ While he uttered these words he was tortured by the increasing violence of his pain, and was accordingly carried back to his palace. After five days of intense anguish, he died, in the fifty-fourth year of his age, and in the seventh of his reign; having reigned four years under Caius Caesar, and three under Claudius.” Thus ended the days of the conscience-stricken tyrant, while the glorious gospel cause which he had so vainly thought to check and overthrow, now, in the words of Luke, “grew and was multiplied;” the spiteful Jews having lost the right arm of their persecuting authority, in the death of their king, and all Palestine now passingagain under the direct Roman rule, whose tolerant principles became once more the great protection of the followers of Jesus.
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 toanother 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 afact 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 shortercourse 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 refugefor 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.
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 toanother 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 afact 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 shortercourse 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 refugefor 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 instituteda 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.
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 instituteda 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 hisAnnales 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, thatRomewas 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, thereis 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-fiveyears, 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 veritablecircumstances, 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.
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, thatRomewas 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, thereis 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-fiveyears, 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 veritablecircumstances, 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 thecausesof 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, mentionedin 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.
Respecting thecausesof 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, mentionedin 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, Annales44,§26.) “When the twelve apostles, after receiving from the Holy Spirit the power of speakingalllanguages,” (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 thewhole 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 namedGitthon, 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 GregoryXIII., 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 oncestood 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 calledSemones. ASemowas 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, namedSangusorSancus, 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 erectedSemoni Sanco Deo, was the same asSimoni 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 hisown 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
“moonedAshtaroth,Heaven’s queen and mother both.”
“moonedAshtaroth,Heaven’s queen and mother both.”
“moonedAshtaroth,
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 betweensancoandsancto, nor betweenSemoniandSimoni. 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 suchmartyrs, 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,musthave 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 theSemones, 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’sSymbolik und Mythologie der alter Voelker,II.Theil. pp. 964–965.)