The Christ Of Paul Part 3

The Apostle in this case was John the Presbyter, if any one, and the disciple Polycarp the martyr, who had, in fact, never seen any of the Apostles. It is to be noted that no authority is given by Irenaeus for these stories, though they are introduced as some things which somebody had said. Such is history.

The value of tradition from the authority of Irenaeus may be judged of by the following statement he makes, evidently intended to strengthen the a.s.sertion he made about the presence of St. John in Asia Minor. In all cases where he wants it to appear that the Apostle was there, he connects the princ.i.p.al subject with other statements in a way as if the main fact was incidentally mentioned. "Now Jesus was, as it were, beginning to be thirty years old when he came to receive baptism, and according to those men he preached only one year, reckoning from his baptism. On completing his thirtieth year he suffered, being still a young man, and who had by no means attained to advanced age. Now, that the first stage of early life embraces thirty years, and that extends onwards to the fortieth year, every one will admit; but from the fortieth and fiftieth year a man begins to decline towards old age, which our Lord possessed, while he still fulfilled the office of teacher, even as the gospel and all the elders testify." "Those who were conversant in Asia with John, the disciple of the Lord (affirming) that John gave to them that information. And he remained among them up to the time of Trajan. Some of them, moreover, saw not only John, but the other Apostles, and heard the same account from them, and bear testimony as to the validity of the statement. Which, then, should we rather believe?--whether such as these, or Ptolemaeus, who never saw the Apostles, and who never in his dreams attained to the slightest trace of an Apostle?" (Book ii. chap. 22, sec. 5.)

It seems that Irenaeus had got into a dispute with Ptolemaeus, and attempts to silence him, as he does all opponents, by the authority of the disciples, and especially of John, who is the only one he names.

John, too, was in Asia at the time. It is not said where the other Apostles were. Ptolemaeus claimed, as appears in the first part of the same section, "that Christ preached for one year only, and then suffered in the twelfth month." The argument with Ptolemaeus was, that Christ was too young, and preached too short a time, to be regarded as a teacher of much authority; and in this way, as Irenaeus says, "destroying his whole work, and robbing him of that age which is both necessary and more honorable than any other; that more advanced age, I mean, during which also, as a teacher, he excelled all others." The objection is put down in a summary way, claiming that the time of Christ's preaching extended over a period of _ten years_. This is what the Apostles stated, _and what John said while he was in Asia, and who remained there to the time of the death of Trajan_.

Ecclesiastical history claims three years only as the period of Christ's ministry, but it can be proven that the truth lies on the side of Ptolemaeus. Did John, while he was in Asia, and the other Apostles, no matter where, give rise to such absurd and false traditions? If John was in Ephesus at the time Paul went to Rome, in the year A. D. 65, and remained to the time of Trajan, as stated by Irenaeus, he was in Asia thirty-five years. During this time his history must have been so interwoven with the affairs of the church, holding the rank of an Apostle, that nothing could be more easy than to prove his presence in the country. There is no difficulty in following the footsteps of Paul for each year after he set out to preach the gospel, whether in Europe or Asia; and so with any real character who has been conspicuous for his talents, or from the position he held in his day. But neither Irenaeus nor Eusebius have been able to furnish the world with the least evidence of a substantial character of the presence of John in Asia, although they have undertaken it, and exhausted their ingenuity in trying to do so. If no better proof can be given of the presence of John in Asia, after a residence of thirty-five years, than a grave, which may as well be claimed to be that of Hannibal as that of John, the world will be satisfied he never was there. Eusebius has displayed his characteristic ingenuity, and shown his usual disregard for truth in an effort to prove that the grave of John was in Ephesus, and that it was identified as late as the latter part of the second or beginning of the third century.

He travels out of his way to do it--manifests from the way he does it that he is engaged in a fraud, and, between the fear of detection and anxiety for success, he makes poor work of it. He causes Polycrates, who was Bishop of Ephesus, to write a letter to Victor, Bishop of Rome, with the apparent purpose of informing him that some mighty luminaries had fallen asleep in Asia, but, in fact, to give an opportunity to make mention of the grave of John as being there in Ephesus. Who these luminaries were who had fallen asleep, he does not name; but dismisses this part of the subject and proceeds to say: "Moreover, John, that rested on the bosom of our Lord, he also rests at Ephesus." Some other matters are introduced into the letter, which related to the burial of Philip and his two daughters at Hierapolis; but this was only intended to conceal the real purpose and design of the writer.

Victor was Bishop of Rome in the beginning of the third century, after John, if we admit he was in Asia, had been dead one hundred years. In writing to Victor about persons who had lately died, and without saying who they were, why should Polycrates make mention of the grave of John as located in Ephesus, which, if true, would have been as well known to all Asia as the tomb of Washington is known to the enlightened world to be at Mount Vernon?

That intelligent men of the second and third centuries denied and disproved the presence of John in Asia, is rendered certain by the struggles and desperate efforts of their adversaries to establish the affirmative. The indications are, that the philosophers proved that the person whom the Christians claimed to be the Apostle John was some other John; in all probability, John the Presbyter. Upon this point the proof seems to have been so conclusive that the Christians were driven to the necessity of proving that there were two Johns--one besides the presbyter. Eusebius takes this task upon himself. We quote from the above letter of Polycrates to Victor: "For in Asia also mighty luminaries have fallen asleep, which will rise again at the last day at the appearance of the Lord, when he shall come with glory from heaven, and shall gather again all the saints. Philip, one of the twelve Apostles, sleeps in Hierapolis, and his two aged virgin daughters.

Another of his daughters, who lived in the Holy Spirit, rests at Ephesus. Moreover, John, that rested on the bosom of the Lord, who was a priest that bore the sacerdotal plate, and martyr, and teacher, he also rests at Ephesus." (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. ch. 31.) Owing either to a bad translation, or design on the part of the writer, two distinct characters are so run together in the same sentence, that we would suppose them to be one person if we did not know that the person who leaned on the bosom of the Lord could not be the one who bore the sacerdotal plate, and was a martyr.

It would seem from this effort to make it appear that there were two Johns buried at Ephesus, that the philosophers proved that the John who bore the sacerdotal plate was the one the Christians were attempting to impose on the world as the real John, and that the proof was such that they had to yield the point, and claim that there were two graves--one the martyr's, and the other the Apostle's. Eusebius felt conscious that it was not safe to rest his case here, and we find him reaching out in every direction for further proof, satisfied with anything that will give color to the fact he labors to establish.

In another place he states: "Where it is also proper to observe the name of John is twice mentioned. The former of which he (Papias) mentions with Peter and James and Matthew, and the other apostles; evidently meaning the evangelist. But in a separate point of his discourse he ranks the other John with the rest not included in the number of apostles, placing Aristion before him. He distinguishes him plainly by the name of Presbyter. So that it is here proved that the statement of those is true who a.s.sert there were _two_ of _the same_ name in Asia, that there were also two tombs in Ephesus, and that both are called John's even to this day; _which it is particularly necessary to observe_" (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. chap, x.x.xix.) As much as to say to the objecting philosophers, If you have proved that one John in Asia was the Presbyter John, we prove by Papias that there were two, and that one of them was the Apostle. If this is so, it is only by inference. But it spoils the argument when it is shown that when Papias speaks of the two Johns, he does not say they were in Asia, or where they were. He speaks at the same time of all the Apostles, or nearly so, by name, but does not mention them, or any of them, in connection with any place. To subserve a particular purpose, Irenaeus had a.s.serted that John had been in Ephesus, where he remained a long time, without the least authority to sustain him. It was a bare, naked a.s.sertion without proof.

In the third and fourth centuries, during the time of Eusebius, this a.s.sertion had grown to great importance, by reason that, on the fact that it was so, was founded the Apostolic succession of nearly all the churches in Europe, and most of Asia. To maintain the presence of John in Asia was as important as it was to prove that Peter had been in Rome.

Understanding the importance of this fact, the philosophers directed their attacks upon it, showing that the man the Christians called the Apostle was somebody else. It devolved upon Eusebius, the most learned man of his day, to defend the position. The task exceeded his ability, but not his inclination to deceive. If we except Irenaeus, no writer has so studiously put himself to work to impose falsehoods on the world as Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea. His genius was employed in various ways, and especially in perverting chronology. Speaking of a cla.s.s of men who gave themselves up to such employments, the author of the "Intellectual Development of Europe," page 147, says: "Among those who have been guilty of this literary offence, the name of the celebrated Eusebius, the Bishop of Caesarea in the time of Constantine, should be designated, since in his chronography and Synchronal tables he purposely 'perverted chronology for the sake of making synchronisms.' (_Bunsen_.) It is true, as Niebuhr a.s.serts, 'He is a very dishonest writer.' To a great extent, the superseding of the Egyptian annals was brought about by his influence. It was forgotten, however, that of all things chronology is the least suited to be an object of inspiration, and that, though men may be wholly indifferent to truth for its own sake, and consider it not improper to wrest it unscrupulously to what they may suppose a just purpose, yet that it will vindicate itself at last" His character for truth stood no better among writers of the fifth century, for Socrates fairly charges that in his life of Constantine he had more regard for his own advancement than he had for the truth of history. (Book i.

ch. 1.) A whole volume is devoted to display the virtues and exalt the character of a man who had murdered his son Crispus--his nephew Licinius--suffocated his wife Fausta in a steam bath, and who, to revenge a pasquinade, was with difficulty restrained from the ma.s.sacre of the entire population of Rome.

In another part of this volume we will have occasion to detect and expose the genius of this Father, in his attempt to create a chronology so as to give semblance to a list of men who never existed, but who were required to fill an important gap in the life of the church. No fitter instrument could be found to help consummate the fraud conceived by Irenaeus to impose a spurious John on the world than Eusebius of Caesarea.

CHAPTER VIII.

The Gnostics.--Irenaeus makes war on them.--His mode of warfare.--The Apostolic succession and the object.--No church in Rome to the time of Adrian.--Peter never in Rome-- nor Paul in Britain, Gaul, or Spain.--Forgeries of Irenaeus.

Before we approach the princ.i.p.al subject treated of in this section, it will be proper to say something of a sect or society which in its day took a leading part in the affairs of the world, but which has long since disappeared from history, and whose former existence is now only known to the careful reader. We refer to the Gnostics, who for the most part flourished in the second century. They were divided among themselves into more than fifty different sects. "The princ.i.p.al among them were known under the names of Basilidians, Valentinians, and Marcionites. They abounded in Egypt, Asia, Rome, and were found in considerable numbers in the provinces of the West. Each of these sects could boast of its Bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs, and instead of the four Gospels adopted by the church, they produced a mult.i.tude of histories, in which the actions and discourses of Christ and his apostles were _adapted_ to their respective tenets."-- (Decline and Fall, chap. xv. vol. I. p. 257.) They supported their opinions by various fict.i.tious and apocryphal writings of Adam, Abraham, Zoroaster, Christ, and the Apostles. They were for the most part composed of Gentiles who denied the divine authority of the Old Testament, and rejected the Mosaic account of the creation, of the origin and fall of man, and claimed that a G.o.d was unworthy of adoration, who for a trivial offence of Adam and Eve p.r.o.nounced sentence of condemnation on all their descendants. They adored Christ as an _aeon_, or divine emanation, who appeared on the earth to reclaim man from the paths of error and point out to him the ways of truth; but with these opinions they mingled many sublime and obscure tenets derived from oriental philosophy. This divine _aeon_ or emanation they considered was the Son of G.o.d, but was inferior to the Father, and they rejected his humanity on the principle that everything corporeal is essentially and intrinsically evil. They agreed with the Christians in their abhorrence of polytheism and idolatry, and both regarded the former as a composition of human fraud and error, and demons as the authors and patrons of the latter.

As we have stated, the Gnostics for the most part sprang up in the second century and disappeared in the fourth and fifth, suppressed by a law of the Emperor Constantine. "The Emperor enacted a law by which they were forbidden to a.s.semble in their own houses of prayer, in private houses, or in, public places, but were compelled to enter the Catholic church.... Hence the greater number of these sectarians were led by fear of consequences to join themselves to the church. Those who adhered to their original sentiments did not at their death leave any disciples to propagate their heresies, for, owing to the restrictions to which they were subjected, they were prevented from preaching their doctrines."-- (Sozomen, Ecc. Hist., book ii ch. 32.)

Thus pa.s.sed from history the Gnostics, "the most polite, the most learned and most wealthy of the Christian name." (Decline and Fall, chap. xv. vol. I. p. 256.) Such was the character of the men who, brought into collision with the orthodox Christians in the second century, became involved in the most violent and bitter struggles in which men were ever engaged. It was to defeat and destroy these men that Irenaeus devoted the labor of a lifetime, that on their ruin he might erect the Catholic church. The undertaking was Herculean, but the means employed were well chosen, vigorously and tenaciously pursued, and its success is one of the most remarkable and exceptional cases in history of the triumph of cunning, falsehood, and fraud. The grand idea was, that Christ, the Son of G.o.d, was the founder of the church on earth, and that, at his death, the power to establish others after him he conferred on the Apostles, and upon no one else. As they might confer this power on others as they had received it from Christ, so these last could in turn do the same to those who followed them, and in this way continue the church through all time. This is what Irenaeus calls the "Apostolic succession." A church which could not prove its connection with Christ through this Apostolic chain was no church at all, and it amounted to impiety and vile heresy for such a pretended church to undertake to explain or understand his gospel. Such a church has no relation to Christ, but with demons and evil spirits.

Irenaeus found it much less difficult to show that there was no such succession in the Gnostic churches than he did in proving that it existed in his own. To do this, as we will show in another place, he was forced to introduce on to the stage the names of at least nine persons who, he claimed, had been Bishops of Rome, most of whom were mere myths and never had an existence, and those who had were never in Rome at all.

Christ, at his death, he further maintains, not only conferred on the Apostles the sole right to establish churches, but also imparted to them some divine knowledge or gifts which they on their death intrusted to the church as a special deposit for the benefit of all who yielded obedience to her authority. These precious gifts left with the church Irenaeus compares to money or riches deposited in a bank by a rich man.

But we will let him speak for himself: "Since, therefore, we have such proof, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others, which is easy to obtain from the church; since the Apostles, like a rich man depositing his _money in a bank_, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth; so that every man, whosoever, _can draw_ from her the water of eternal life. For she is the entrance to life, and all others are thieves and robbers." (Book iii. chap. 4, sec. I.) Having established the princ.i.p.al proposition by his mere a.s.sertion (which is his way of making history of all kinds), Irenaeus next proceeds to show that the Gnostics could not trace any connection with a church founded by the Apostles. "For prior to Valentinia.n.u.s (he says), those who follow Valentinia.n.u.s had no existence: nor did those from Marcion exist before Marcion; nor, in short, had any of those malignant-minded people, whom I have above enumerated, any being previous to the initiators and inventors of their perversity." (Book iii. chap. 4, sec. 3.)

The ancient Father has, so far, established two of his main propositions: first, that a church must derive its origin through the Apostles, or some one of them, to be genuine; and second, that there was no such connection in the churches of the Gnostics; and it only remains to show that the church claiming to be orthodox had. He declines to point out the order of succession in all the churches, but consents to do it in the case of Rome, which, he says, according to tradition, derived from the Apostles, was founded and organized at Rome by the two glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul. (Book iii. chap. 3, sec. 2.) The church at Rome, founded by such great lights as Peter and Paul, Irenaeus continues, should be regarded of the highest authority in the church, for, he says, "it is a matter of necessity that every church should agree with _this_ church, on account of its pre-eminent authority, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those faithful men who exist everywhere."

(Sec. 2.)

As Peter was selected to be head of the church, and Rome the capital of the Christian world, the scheme to establish a church on the ground of an Apostolic succession must fail, unless it can appear that Peter had not only been there at some time, but that he was also the founder of a church at the holy city. A letter said to have been written by Clement, the third Bishop of Rome, is selected as the medium by which it is made to appear that Peter had been in Rome; and Irenaeus took upon himself to show what he was engaged in while there. At the proper place we will show that this Clement is a fiction, brought on the stage as a link in the Apostolic chain forged by the great criminal of the second century.

Now follows a forgery so apparent on its face, that it does not require the skill of an expert to detect it.

"But not to dwell upon ancient examples, let us come to those who, in these last days, have wrestled manfully for the faith; let us take the n.o.ble examples of our own age. Through envy, the faithful and most righteous pillars of the church have been persecuted even to the most dreadful deaths. Let us place before your eyes the good Apostles. Peter, by unjust envy, underwent not one or two, but many labors: and thus having borne testimony unto death, he went into the place of glory, which was due to him. Through envy, Paul obtained the reward of patience. Seven times he was in bonds; he was scourged; was stoned.

He preached both in the East and in the West, leaving behind him the glorious report of his faith. And thus having taught the whole world of righteousness, and reached the fullest extremity of the West, he suffered martyrdom by the command of the governors, and departed out of this world, and went to the holy place, having become a most exemplary pattern of patience." (_Epistle I. of Clement to Corinthians_, sec. 5.) By the side of this extract we will lay a pa.s.sage of Irenaeus. Speaking of the writers of the Gospels, he says: "Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews, in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the church."

(Book iii. chap. 1.) Now, we a.s.sert with confidence, that the hand which penned the first pa.s.sage wrote them both. It is not said in so many words, in Clement's letter, that Peter was in Rome, but it is to be inferred, as in the case of John at Eph-esus. Irenaeus seldom states anything which is positively untrue in direct language, but makes falsehood inferential. The pa.s.sage we have quoted does not contain a single truth, except as it relates to Paul. Paul and Peter were never engaged together in laying the foundation of a church. They quarrelled in Damascus and could never agree. The doctrine of circ.u.mcision formed an impa.s.sable wall between them, and, as we will show, was never given up by Peter. Besides, it is not true that Peter had anything to do in laying the foundation of the church at Rome.

Christians, during the reign of Claudius in Rome, were too few in number and too poor to form a church, especially such an one as would require the office of a Bishop. Renan, in speaking of the church in the time of Claudius, says it was composed of a "little group--every one smelt of garlic. These ancestors of Roman prelates were poor proletaries, dirty, alike clownish, clothed in filthy gabardines, having the bad breath of people who live badly. Their retreats breathed that odor of wretchedness exhaled by persons meanly clothed and fed, and collected in a small room." (_Life of Paul_, 96.)

We have no reason to believe that at any time during the life of Peter was the church of Rome, if there was any church there at all, composed of different materials or greater in numbers than at the time referred to. What was there for a Bishop to do in such a crowd, or what was there to keep him from starvation? Christians engaged in riots growing out of the hostility between them and the Jews, were driven from Rome by an edict of the Emperor Claudius, and did not return during his reign, which ceased in A.D. 54, when that of Nero commenced. In A.D. 58 they had not rallied, and at that time Rome was without a church. It was the practice in all cases with Paul to address Christians through the churches, where churches were established; but his Epistle, in A.D. 58, to the Romans, is addressed not to a church, but "_to all that be in Rome_" In his three years' imprisonment in that city, commencing in the spring of A.D. 61, he makes no mention of a church, nor does he during the second, which lasted from the summer or fall of A.D. 65 to the spring of A.D. 66. There is no proof that the historian can discover, worthy of his notice, that there was a church in Rome of any kind, even down to the time of Adrian, A.D. 117, and even later. We are overrun with traditions on this subject, the creations of the second century, to which the attention of the reader will be called when we treat of the twelve traditional Bishops named by Irenaeus. Adrian, in the seventeenth year of his reign, knew so little about a Christian church, that he supposed the office of a Bishop belonged to the worship of the G.o.d Serapis. In a letter written by him from Alexandria, A.D. 134, to his brother-in-law Servia.n.u.s, he says: "The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are devoted to the G.o.d Serapis, who, I find, call themselves Bishop of Christ."

We will dismiss this part of the subject for the present, with the promise to return to it in a subsequent chapter, when it will be demonstrated that there was no Christian church in Rome until after the reign of Antoninus Pius.*

* See Appendix C

Were Peter and Paul together in Rome at all? Paul went there in the spring of A.D. 61, for the first time, and remained until the spring or summer of A.D. 63. During this time he wrote four epistles, as follows:--to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon, and, if we except the first, he closes them by naming the persons who are with him. He says nothing about Peter, nor does he mention his name, so far as we know, during the three years he was confined in Rome. That Paul should omit to mention Peter, one of the Apostles, in some of his letters, is the very best proof that he was not in Rome at all. After his release in the spring of A.D. 63, after making a visit to the churches in Europe and Asia, he returned to Rome again in the fall of A.D. 65. He had with him a few friends who stood by him to the last.

They were Luke, Mark, Pudens, Linus, and Claudia. There could not have been many other Christians in Rome at the time besides those named, because Paul, after naming the above who sent salutations to Timothy, adds, "and all the other brethren," which implies that there were not many of them. Paul does not mention Peter, because he was not there.

Timothy, no doubt, was with Paul in the winter of A.D. 65 and A.D. 66, and was put to death in the spring of the latter year, with his friend and fellow-laborer. We never hear of him again. In the spring of A.D.

66, the labors and sorrows of the great Apostle of the Gentiles ceased.

He had fought the good fight--he had finished his work--he had _kept the faith_; and now, by his death, bore testimony to the doctrines he preached. He was among the last of Nero's victims. Nothing that belongs to history is surer than that Peter and Paul never were in Rome together, laying the foundation of a church, or anything else.

Having proved that one-half of what is stated by Irenaeus in the pa.s.sage which we have quoted is false, according to the usual rule for testing the truth of any statement, we might claim that the remaining half is also untrue. But we ask no such advantage in disproving any of the statements made by this father.

_When_ was Peter in Rome? No writer in the first or second century pretends to give the time when he was in Rome, or when he died.

Irenaeus gives the names of twelve Bishops who succeeded each other, commencing with Linus, but does not give a single date, so that we can tell when or how long any one of them held the office. This want of dates, where it was easy to give them--if what was stated was true--was urged with so much force against what Irenaeus said, that Eusebius, in the fourth century, undertook to fix the time when these traditional Bishops succeeded to, and how long each held the office. He fails to say when Peter first became Bishop, or when he ceased to be the head of the church, but commences giving dates from the time of Linus, his successor. Without intending, he has furnished the data to determine when Peter died, if his dates are correct, which is _not even probable_.

He says: "After Vespasian had reigned about ten years, he was succeeded by his son t.i.tus; in the second year of whose reign, Linus, Bishop of the church of Rome, who held the office about twelve years, transferred it to Anacletus." (Eusebius, Ecc. Hist., book iii. ch. 13.) As Linus succeeded Peter, the latter must have died just before his successor took the office. t.i.tus became emperor June 24th, A. D. 79, and as Linus died two years after this, after holding the office twelve years, he became Bishop in A. D. 69; which must have been the year of Peter's death. Nero died in June A. D. 68, and at his death the persecution against Christians ceased altogether. It is not claimed that Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian, or t.i.tus ever inflicted persecution of any kind on Christians during the time they held the government of the empire. Eusebius, in attempting to fix a date when the second Bishop took office, answers the objections made to the vagueness of Irenaeus, but robs Peter of the laurels of a martyr.

But it is claimed that Linus was installed Bishop before the death of Peter, and Irenaeus pretends to give the time. He says: "The blessed Apostles then having founded and built up the church, committed unto the hands of Linus the office of the Episcopate." (Book iii. ch. 2, sec.

3.) The blessed Apostles are Peter and Paul. Now we have just shown that these Apostles were never in Rome together, and that there was no church to be committed to the charge of Linus or anybody else. As it is an important part of the story that Peter died a martyr at Rome, this could only happen to him between A. D. 64 and A. D. 68, for the persecution under Nero commenced during the former year, and ended with his death in A. D. 68. We have the most conclusive proof that Peter was not in Rome in A. D. 64, when the persecutions under Nero commenced, nor afterwards.

He was in Babylon--whether Babylon in a.s.syria, Babylon in Mesopotamia or Egypt--he was in Babylon more than two thousand miles away. Peter was born about the time of Christ, and was sixty-four years of age when the persecutions under Nero began. He was married, and when he wrote his first Epistle he was in Babylon and had his family with him, for he mentions the name of Marcus, and calls him his son. "The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus, my son." (1 Peter v. 13.)

The date of this epistle is fixed by Dr. Lard-ner and other critics at A. D. 64. Did Peter, at the age of sixty-four, when he heard that Nero was feeding the wild beasts of the Amphitheatre with the flesh and bones of Christians, "lured by the smell of blood," start for Rome? If Peter was in Babylon in A. D. 64, an "Apostolic succession," so far as it depends on him, must fail, and Rome must surrender the authority by which she has held the religious world in subjection for the last seventeen centuries.

But this she will never do, as long as her audacity and cunning are left to hatch schemes to escape from the dilemma. Inspired by despair, she now claims that Peter means Rome when he says Babylon, and that the Marcus spoken of was not the son of Peter, but the nephew of Barnabas and companion of Paul! Just as well claim anything else, and say Babylon means Alexandria, and that Marcus was the stepson of Nero. Here two impressions are made: one that the letter was written at Babylon, and the other that Peter was attended by his son. Are both false? What did Peter, or anybody else, expect to gain by giving false impressions? By an agreement between Peter and Paul, made early and observed strictly, the labors of the former were limited to the circ.u.mcised, and he found them in large numbers in cities watered by the Euphrates. There and in Judea, among the Jewish people, was the scene of Peter's labors, and there he died. He had no business in Rome. As there was no church in Rome in A. D. 64, it is impossible, if Peter was there at the time, for him to make the salutation he does in his address to his countrymen. He could say, "the church that is at Babylon," but not "the church that is at Rome," for there was none.*

* See Appendix B.

Mark the son of Peter, and Mark the nephew of Barnabas, are two different persons, whom the genius of Irenaeus seeks to confound. The epistle to Philemon was written in the latter part of A. D. 63, which shows that Paul, Timothy, and Mark were then in Rome. They left in the following spring. During the winter of A. D. 63, Paul wrote the Colossians that they might expect Mark to visit them, and it would seem that he had made arrangements with them of some kind in regard to him, when he arrived among them. "Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas (_touching whom ye received commandments_: if he come unto you, receive him.") Col.

iv. 10.

Unless Mark changed his mind afterwards, he went from Rome to Colosse in Phrygia. The next reliable information we have of Paul after the spring of A. D. 63, except at Nicopolis in A. D. 64, he is back in Rome in the fall of A. D. 65, and in prison; and the first knowledge we have of Mark, he is in some part of Asia Minor. Timothy and Mark were together, and Paul writes to the former from his prison, to come to Rome and to bring the latter with him, and to get there before the winter sets in; which request was complied with. To suppose that Mark had been to Rome in the mean time would be most unreasonable, and against all the probabilities in the case. There was nothing to take him there until Paul called him back. If Peter was in Rome when he wrote his first epistle, in A. D. 64, Mark the nephew of Barnabas was not with him. If Mark saw Peter at all in A. D. 64, it was not in Rome. Nor did he see him that year in Babylon in Egypt, or Babylon in Mesopotamia or Chaldea.

The latter Babylon was long known for its vices and wickedness, and was called a sink of iniquity; and as Rome had become corrupt and steeped in crime of all kinds, it is claimed that Peter uses the word Babylon in a typical sense when he was writing from Rome! If this is so, he did not write from Babylon in Egypt or Mesopotamia, as some have contended, for they were each small and inconsiderable places of no importance, and there could be no object in using either as a type to represent the corruptions of Rome. If Mark saw Peter in Babylon, it was in Chaldea.

Measured by degrees of longitude, Rome and this Babylon are more than two thousand miles apart. Why would Mark make a visit to Peter involving a journey of four thousand miles, br half that distance? He never did.

He could not. He went among the Colossians under some arrangement made by Paul, and no doubt remained with them until he was wanted at Rome.

When Peter calls Mark his son, he means just what he says. Mark the companion of Paul, and Mark the son of Peter, are two different men.

What should take Peter to Rome or keep him there when burning and torturing Christians was one of the amus.e.m.e.nts of Nero? Had Peter's character for courage so much improved that he went there when all the Christians had gone, to defy Nero, and invite his destruction? There is something in the character of Peter that makes it improbable, if not impossible, that he should be in Rome in a time of danger. He was a man of strong impulses, but a const.i.tutional coward. He followed Christ to the scene of the crucifixion, "but he followed him afar off." (Matt.

xxvi. 58.) He had pride, and a proper sense of manliness, and when he was betrayed through a want of courage into the commission of a mean act, he had spirit and sense enough to be ashamed of it. He denied Christ, but it cost him bitter tears of repentance. Either his cowardice or his jealousy stood in the way of his coming to the aid of Paul, whenever Paul was in danger of his life. When the Jews were about to tear him to pieces in Jerusalem, and he had to be rescued by the Roman soldiers, Peter was nowhere about, and we do not even hear of him, In his trials before the Roman Governors, when he had no one to stand by him but a few faithful companions, the presence of Peter, at such a time, would have done much to aid and console the great champion of a common cause. But in all these places there was danger, and where danger was was no place for Peter.

He lacked moral, as he did physical courage. At Damascus he did not hesitate to sit at the same table with the uncirc.u.mcised, when there was no one present to object; but when those came from Jerusalem who could not tolerate the liberal ideas of Paul on circ.u.mcision, he cowardly sneaked away. Paul took fire at the appearance of so much meanness, and boldly reproved him. Is this the kind of man who would enter the lion's den, and brave the wrath of Nero at a time when the tyrant was flooding the streets of Rome with the blood of Christians?