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Now Luke further relates, immediately after, in verse 28, that Agabus at that time foretold a famine, which came to pass in the days of Claudius Cæsar." Hereupon, i. e. on account of the famine which followed, the Christians at Antioch sent alms to those of Jerusalem by the hands of Barnabas and Paul (ver. 29, 30). Baronius places this famine in the second year of Claudius, and so in a. D. 42, relying, as his authority, on Dion Cassius, Lib. ix. in Claudio. But since, now, the sojourn of Paul and Barnabas in Jerusalem (as is evident from Acts 11: 30 and 12: 1, 25) was precisely at the time when Peter was shut up in prison by Herod,1 Baronius himself must admit that Peter was at Jerusalem in A. D. 42, and therefore had not yet acted as bishop of Antioch.

We now advance further: After Luke had mentioned the return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch, Acts 11: 25, he goes on immediately, 13: 1: "Now there were in the church that was at Antioch, certain prophets, and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul, for the work whereunto I have called them." Directly after, verse 3, the journey of Paul and Barnabas among the Gentiles is mentioned.

Whether, with Baronius and Natalis Alexander, we place this event in A. D. 43, or at a later period, it is sufficiently evident that Peter was not in Antioch, else Luke must have named him among those teachers and prophets who, by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, sent away Paul and Barnabas; and the more so too, since he, as bishop, must have held the first place among them.

We see, therefore, that even in case Paul's conversion is placed in A. D. 34, yet no time can be gained for Peter's being bishop at Antioch, to say nothing of a six or seven

Luke, in Acts 11: 30, mentions Paul and Barnabas's arrival at Jerusalem, and in Acts 12: 1-19, relates Peter's imprisonment and deliverance, and then verse 25th, the return of Paul and Barnabas to Antioch.

years' office, and that this is a pure fiction. For, according to this reckoning, Paul's visit to Peter occurred in A. D. 37; Peter's circuit in Palestine, in A. D. 38; and, in the same year, the founding of the church of Antioch (Acts 11: 19), to which not Peter but Barnabas was sent, A. D. 39, who at first sojourned a while in Antioch without Paul for a companion (Acts 11: 22-24); then brought Saul from Tarsus, ver. 25, 26, a. d. 40; remained a year with him in Antioch, A. D. 41; and, according to the view of those authors, in A. D. 42 travelled with Paul to Jerusalem, verse 30, where they were present during Peter's imprisonment (Acts 12: 1 and 25). But if (as, by our reckoning above, we must do) we place Paul's conversion in A. D. 37 or 38, then that idea of Peter's bishopric is nothing but folly. For then Paul's first visit to Peter would take place in A. D. 41, and Peter's circuit in Palestine in a. D. 42, in which year those authors place his departure to Rome.1

As a specimen of the arbitrariness and superficial way in which the Ultramontanists, and even the most celebrated of them go to work when they are aiming to attain their object, we will examine more closely the method of proof adopted by Baronius and Natalis Alexander:

Baronius, to establish an apparent ground for Peter's bishopric at Antioch, maintains that, on the above-mentioned circuit, he came to Antioch, and there founded a church and placed himself as bishop at its head; although Luke, as we have shown above, limits that circuit expressly to Judea, Samaria, and Galilee, and ascribes the founding of the church at Antioch to the men of Cyprus and Cyrene, scattered abroad precisely at this time, and to Barnabas and Paul.

That the story of a bishopric of Peter at Antioch assuredly from A. D. 38 to 44 is absolutely untenable because it cannot be harmonized with the Acts of the Apostles, the very learned Jesuit Halloixius admits in the life of Ignatius, Vol. I. c. 2. "Si S. Petrus," he says, "ante haec tempora fuisset Antiochae, ibique ecclesiam fundasset, sedemque suam statuisset, S. Lucas capite XI. actorum facta proxime Petri mentione debuisset non tantum de viris illis Cypriis et Cyrenaeis loqui" (i. e. those who first preached the Gospel at Antioch), "sed multo magis de Petro, si quidem tamdiu ibi fuisset, ut jam tum haberetur Antiochenus episcopus. Itaque nondum eo venerat.

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Natalis Alexander makes out as badly, and even worse: First, by a truly ridiculous course of argument he attempts to prove that Paul's conversion took place in A. D. 34, and his visit to Peter in a. D. 37 ; then he maintains, without adducing the slightest proof or reason, that Peter left Jerusalem immediately after this visit and went to Antioch, though Luke states precisely the contrary (Acts 9: 31 etc., x., 11: 19, etc.). He indeed attempts a proof, but it cannot be so called. "Saint Leo," he says, "writes in his letter to Anatolius, that the name of Christians first arose in the Church of Antioch through the preaching of Peter. But this could not be true, unless Peter came there in the same year in which Paul reached there, when indeed the disciples were first called Christians at Antioch.'" Such nonsense is from the pen of the learned Natalis!

"The second journey of St. Paul to Jerusalem," he goes on, "which he made with Barnabas, during the famine prophesied by Agabus, at which time Peter also was put in prison, took place in the eleventh year after the crucifixion of Christ, i. e. in the second year of Claudius. Hence it is clear that between Paul's first and second journeys to Jerusalem, there are seven years, five full years and the first and seventh incomplete. These seven years Peter must have spent at Antioch."

It is remarkable that Natalis should not once have known what he might have learned from any Chronological Outlines, the fact that this second year of Claudius, who came to the empire in A. D. 41, after Caligula's death, is A. D. 42; and that, further, in this second year he has placed Peter's imprisonment, which belongs to the fourth year of Claudius. So there were nine years for Peter's bishopric at Antioch.

But Natalis does still worse, page 176, col. 2.: "St. Peter," he says, "founded the church of Antioch in the last year of Tiberius, A. D. 37, in the fourth after the death of

1 Dissert. XIII. T. III. edit. Ferrariae, fol. p.-172, col. 2, at the close.

2 Ibid., the last lines and beginning of p. 173.

8 After the second visit Peter may have directly left Jerusalem and gone to Rome, to wit, in A. D. 42.

Christ, as Eusebius and the Alexandrine Chronicle testify; but he appears to have established there only a church of the Jews, and not of the Gentiles. For the gospel was first preached to the Gentiles in that city some time after, by the disciples who shared in the persecution in which Stephen, the first martyr, was stoned (Acts xi.). But the report of this (namely, that many of the Gentiles had received the faith) came to the ears of the church of Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas to Antioch, and a great multitude were converted to the Lord. Barnabas went to Tarsus to seek for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch, and both remained a whole year with the church there. After this year had passed, they bore alms to Jerusalem at the time of the famine prophesied by Agabus. At this time, Herod cast St. Peter into prison."

We see what trash these otherwise worthy men wander after, when they give themselves up to their party prejudices. Therefore already, in a. D. 37, Peter must have founded a church at Antioch, one indeed of Jewish Christians, and this before those scattered abroad by the persecution of Paul (Acts xi.) had come to Antioch! Such fables must be hung upon the Acts of the Apostles, merely to satisfy the whims of the Ultramontanists.

And now what contradictions these are! This same Natalis who, on page 176 of his work, rates Calvin so dictatorially because he placed Paul's conversion in a. D. 36, and who, almost with violence, refers it back to A. D. 34, here places the persecution in which Stephen was put to death (and which was before the conversion of Paul) a year before the second journey of Paul to Jerusalem, during the famine predicted by Agabus and Peter's imprisonment, i. e. in the time of Claudius, i. e. after A. D. 41, or exactly in 44!

§ 5. Origin of the story of Peter's bishopric at Antioch-Old Witnesses

At a very early date, ambition had already crept into the Christian church. At the time when the dignity of metro

politan, primate, and patriarch were formed, everything was sought out which might lend them authority and impart to them honor. To this period especially belongs the tracing back of the origin of a church or office to a particular apostle. And here, in general, their endeavors were directed to the two most celebrated and well known, Peter and Paul. And as since the third century, in which the above-mentioned degrees of rank of the episcopate were formed, the Romish church, which was the first on account of the preeminence of the city, make Peter their founder and first bishop; so the two other churches which, as next in rank, vied with the Romish, viz. those of Antioch and Alexandria, likewise sought to prove Peter their founder, in which they might hope to succeed as, according to Galatians ii., he was once actually in Antioch. But it was not till in the fourth century that a pretension which made Peter founder and first bishop of Antioch in the face of Acts 11: 19, etc., could actually succeed; for, up to that time the feeling for historic criticism was so great that it could not be conquered.

Let us now look at the testimony on which the Ultramontanists sustain themselves; and here Natalis Alexander, evidently one of the most sound and learned, shall serve as the source of authority. Natalis, p. 177, quotes these

passages:

1. S. Ignatii, ep. 12, ad Antiochaenos: Mementote Evodii beatissimi patris vestri, qui primus post apostolos gubernacula ecclesiæ vestræ sortitus est- 66 Remember your most blessed father Euodius, to whom first after the apostles, was allotted the government of your church." This letter is an interpolated one. Natalis admits it. Besides, there is in this passage nothing of Peter: it says nothing else than that Euodius was the first bishop of Antioch.

2. Eusebius, L. iii. 16. Porro Evodius primus fuit Antiochiæ Episcopus, secundus Ignatius, qui illis temporibus multum hominum sermonibus celebratus fuit" Moreover Euodius was the first bishop of Antioch, Ignatius the second, who was greatly celebrated at that time in the discourses of men."

Here is nothing of Peter; indeed in naming Euo

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