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in nomine Dei tui vel uno anno ab interfectione generis humani cessare."

St. Peter appeared to Silvester in a dream and advised him to close his door to the underworld with chains, according to the model in Revelation, chap, xx:

(1) "And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand.

(2) "And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.

(3) "And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him."

The anonymous author of a writing, "De Promissionibus,"[75] of the beginning of the fifth century, mentions a very similar legend:

"Apud urbem Romam specus quidam fuit in quo draco miræ magnitudinis mechanica arte formatus, gladium ore gestans,[76] oculis rutilantibus gemmis[77] metuendus ac terribilis apparebat. Hinc annuæ devotæ virgines floribus exornatæ, eo modo in sacrificio dabantur, quatenus inscias munera deferentes gradum scalæ, quo certe ille arte diaboli draco pendebat, contingentes impetus venientis gladii perimeret, ut sanguinem funderet innocentem. Et hunc quidam monachus, bene ob meritum cognitus Stiliconi tunc patricio, eo modo subvertit; baculo, manu, singulos gradus palpandos inspiciens, statim ut illum tangens fraudem