Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/818

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PETER

thedoathof John" (sci7. (lie Baptist). In "Scorpiaee", XV, ho also speaks of I'llcr's (■rucifixion. "The bud- ding faith Noro first iiiadc Ijloody in Rome. There Pctor was girded by aiiciiher, since he was bound to the cross". As an ilhistralioii that it was immaterial with what water baptism is administered, he states in his book ("On Baptism", ch. v) that there is "no difference between that with which John baptized in the Jordan and that with which Peter baptized in the Tiber"; and against Marcion he appeals to the testi- mony of the Roman Christians, "to whom Peter and Paul have bequeathed the Gospel sealed with their blood" (Adv. Marc., IV, v).

The Roman, Caius, who lived in Rome, in the time of Pope Zephyrinus (198-217), wrote in his "Dialogue with Proclus" (in Eusebius, "Hist.Eccl.", II, xxviii), directed again.st the Montanists: "But I can show the trnijhies of the Apostles. If you care to go to the Vatican or to the road to Ostia, thou shalt find the trophies of those who have founded this Church". By the trophies {rpi-n-aia) Eusebius understands the graves of the Apostles, but his view is opposed by modern investigators, who believe that the place of execution is meant. For our purpose it is immaterial which opinion is correct, as the testimony retains its full value in either case. At any rate the place of execution and burial of both were close together; St. Peter, who was executed on the Vatican, received also his burial there. Eusebius also refers to "the inscrip- tion of the names of Peter and Paul, which have been preserved to the present day on the burial-places there" (i. e. at Rome). There thus existed in Rome an ancient epigraphic memorial commemorating the death of the Apostles. The obscure notice in the Muratorian Fragment ("Lucas optime theofile con- prindit quia sub prtesentia eius singula gerebantur sicuti et semote passionem petri evidenter declarat", ed. Preuschen, Tubingen, 1910, p. 29) also presupposes an ancient definite tradition concerning Peter's death in Rome. The apocryphal Acts of St. Peter and the Actsof Sts. Peter and Paul likewise belong to the series of testimonies of the death of the two Apostles in Rome (Lipsius, "Acta Apostolorum apocrypha", I, Leipzig, 1891, pp. 1 sqq., 78 sqq., 118 sqq., cf. Idem, "Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostelle- genden", II, i, Brunswick, 1887, pp. 84 sqq.).

In opposition to this distinct and unanimous testi- mony of early Christendom, some few Protestant his- torians have attempted in recent times to set aside the residence and death of Peter at Rome as legendary. These attempts have resulted in complete failure. It was asserted that the tradition concerning Peter's residence in Rome first originated in Ebionite circles, and formed part of the Legend of Simon the Magician, in which Paul is opposed by Peter as a false Apostle under Simon; just as this fight was transplanted to Rome, so also sprang up at an early date the legend of Peter's activity in that capital (thus in Baur, "Paulus", 2nd ed., 245 sqq., followed by Hase and especially Lipsius, " Die quellen der romischen Petrus- sage", Kiel, 1872). But this hypothesis is proved fundamentally untenable by the whole character and purely local importance of Ebionitism, and is directly refuted by the above genuine and entirely independent testimonies, which are at least as ancient. It has moreover been now entirely abandoned by serious Protestant historians (cf., e. g., Hamack's remarks in "Gcsch. der altchristl. Literatur", II, i, 244, n. 2). A more recent attempt was made by Erbes (Zeitschr. fiir Kirchengesch., 1901, pp. 1 sqq., 161 sqq.) to demonstrate t hat St. Peter was martyred at Jerusalem. He appeals to the apocryphal Acts of St. Peter, in which two Romans, Albinus and Agrippa, are men- tioned as persecutors of the Apostles. These he iden- tifies with the Albinus, Procurator of Judaa, and suc- cessor of Festus, and Agrippa II, Prince of Galilee, and thence concludes that Peter was condemned to

di'ath and sacrificed by tliis procurator at Jerusalem. Tlic uiili-iiahjcncss of this hypothesis be('oines im- mi'diali'ly ajjparciit from the mere fact that our earli- est definite testimony concerning Peter's death in Rome far antedates the apocryphal Acts; besides, never throughout the whole range of Christian anti- quity has any city other than Home been designated the place of martyrdom of Sts. Peter and Paul.

Although the fact of St. Pdcr's activity and death in Rome is so clearly established, we possess no i)recise information regarding the details of his Roman so- journ. The narratives contained in the apocryphal literature of the second century concerning the sup- posed strife between Peter and Simon Magus belong to the domain of legend. From the already mentioned statements regarding the origin of the Gospel of St. Mark, we may conclude that Peter laboured for a long period in Rome. This conclusion is confirmed by the unanimous voice of tradition which, as early as the second half of the second century, designates the Prince of the Apostles the founder of the Roman Church. It is widely held that Peter paid a first visit to Rome after he had been miraculously liberated from the prison in Jerusalem; that, by "another place", Luke meant Rome, but omitted the name for special reasons. It is not impossible that Peter made a missionary journey to Rome about this time (after 42 A. D.), but such a journey cannot be established with certainty. At any rate, we cannot appeal in support of this theory to the chronological notices in Eusebius and Jerome, since, although these notices extend back to the chronicles of the third century, they are not old traditions, but the result of calcula- tions on the basis of episcopal lists. Into the Roman list of bishops dating from the second century, there was introduced in the third century (as we learn from Eusebius and the "Chronograph of 354") the notice of a twenty-five years' pontificate for St. Peter, but we are unable to trace its origin. This entry conse- quently affords no groimd for the hypothesis of a first visit by St. Peter to Rome after his liberation from prison (about 42). We can therefore admit only the possibility of such an early visit to the capital.

The task of determining the year of St. Peter's death is attended with similar difficulties. In the fourth century, and even in the chronicles of the third, we find two different entries. In the "Chronicle" of Eusebius the thirteenth or fourteenth year of Nero is given as that of the death of Peter and Paul (67-68); this date, accepted by Jerome, is that generally held. The year 67 is also supported by the statement, also accepted by Eusebius and Jerome, that Peter came to Rome under the Emperor Claudius (according to Jerome, in 42), and by the above-mentioned tradition of the twenty-five years' episcopate of Peter (cf. Bartohni, "Sopra I'anno 67 se fosse quello del martirio dei gloriosi Apo.stoli ", Rome, 1868). A difTerent state- ment is furnished by the "Chronograph of 354" (ed. Duchesne, "Liber Pontificalis", I, 1 sqq.). This refers St. Peter's arrival in Rome to the year 30, and his death and that of St. Paul to 55.

Duchesne has shown that the dates in the "Chrono- graph" were inserted in a list of the popes which con- tains only their names and the duration of their pontificates, and then, on the chronological supposition that the year of Christ's death was 29, the year 30 was inserted as the beginning of Peter's pontificate, and his death referred to 55, on the basis of the twenty-five years' pontificate (op. cit., introd., vi sqq.). This date has however been recently defended by Kellner ("Jesus von Nazareth u. seine Apostel im Rahmen der Zeitgeschichte", Ratisbon, 1908; 'ITra- dition geschichtl. Bearbeitung u. Legende in der Chronologic des apostol. Zeitalters", Bonn, 1909). Other historians have accepted the year 65 (e. g., Bianchini, in his edition of the "Liber Pontificalis" in P. L., CXXVII, 435 sqq.) or 66 (e. g. Foggini,