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the action of almost the whole body of the important intellects of the church, or pointed out to them abroad the circle of operation; and while he formed, organized, founded, and governed the church at Rome, and from it lending form and aid, he made his attacks on the East and the West, nothing is perceived of Peter, not a word is breathed of his abode at Rome, or of his activity there. The stale conversion of the name of Babylon into Rome (1 Pet. 5: 13), is the only argument by which they venture to prove Peter's abode at Rome, his episcopate and his popedom from the Holy Scriptures. It would not pay for the trouble to waste a word on it.

§ 20. Recapitulation.

A part, indeed the most important part, of our task is accomplished. For as the most important and the principal authorities respecting Peter's life and labors are the holy books of the New Testament; by proving that these not only contain no proof for, but many proofs against the abode of Peter in Rome and his bishopric there, we have without doubt performed the most important portion of our task. The witnesses which are brought from tradition, from the fathers especially, are only of a secondary rank, and are of value only so far as they do not contradict the Scriptures.

If now we review the course of investigation over which we have passed, we find that the following points are shown: Paul's conversion cannot be placed before A. d. 38. Three years after it, therefore, A. D. 40 or 41, he visited Peter at Jerusalem, who soon journeyed to see the churches in Palestine, A. D. 42. Paul now went to Tarsus. In this time the gospel had penetrated to Antioch; thither the apostles sent Barnabas to constitute a church there. He (Barnabas) now brought Paul from Tarsus, and they both remained a year in Antioch, A. D. 44. Afterwards they went to Jerusalem to carry alms, and during their stay there, Peter was put in prison by Herod, in the fourth year of Claudius, a. d. 45.

With this the opinion that Peter founded the church. of Antioch and was bishop there from A. D. 38 to 44,

is overthrown; and with it the view that Peter came to Rome in the second year of Claudius, i. e. in a. D. 42, as Eusebius, and after him all the defenders of Peter's Romish episcopate advance, is shown to be without foundation. Thence, we have shown that it absolutely contradicts Peter's peculiar calling to preach the gospel to the Jews, when, directly after A. D. 45, he is made to travel to the West, where were only a few Jews, and to Rome; that such a supposition is not supported by a single trace of historical testimony, and is nothing but an arbitrary fiction, to sustain which requires still other fictions. For as Peter was present at the Council at Jerusalem (Acts xv), which Baronius places in A. D. 48, Natalis in A. D. 51, and others, with whom we agree, in A. D. 53, and soon after met with Paul at Antioch, so to explain this, we must have recourse again to a wholly arbitrary supposition sustained by no proof, that Peter left Rome and wandered back to Jerusalem, in consequence of the edict of Claudius which drove the Jews out of Rome.

We have further seen, from Paul's Epistle to the Romans, that Peter at the time when this Epistle was written, in a. D. 57 or 58, was not in Rome; from Acts xxviii., from the Epistles to the Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians, Hebrews, and Philemon we have seen that Peter also was not to be found in Rome in a. D. 61-63; and the second Epistle to Timothy instructs us that Peter likewise was not in the capital of the world in A. D. 65 or 66. Finally, we have proved from the above-mentioned authorities that not the slightest share can be shown for Peter in the founding of the church at Rome, and, much more, that this was exclusively owing to Paul and his disciples.

The mode and manner of conducting this proof has been twofold, positive and negative. In the former we proved, that Peter was elsewhere at the time in which he is placed at Rome; in the latter, that the silence of the authorities render that residence of Peter at Rome wholly inadmissible. This kind of proof we will here now yet more accurately

examine.

§ 21. The Negative proof.

The whole force of the negative proof has been wholly denied; let us therefore examine with what justice it is so. The negative proof rests on the principle, that if an important fact is passed over in silence by the whole body of contemporaneous authors, in circumstances in which they could and must mention it, the same cannot be admitted to have actually occurred. If besides now, positive proof is added to this, then the negative is thereby raised up fully into evidence. We will illustrate the subject by an example.

For many centuries it has been taken as a fact and especially has been maintained by Rome, that the apostle James, the brother of John, preached the gospel in Spain, and that his corpse lies buried at Compostela. For centuries Europe made pilgrimages there, thousands of miracles are pretended to have taken place at this grave of St. James, and there was a time when to doubt about this grave and the miracles, would have been punished by the holy inquisition as a heresy, a crime worthy of death. And yet St. James never was in Spain. For this James, the brother of John, was already put to death in A. D. 45 by Herod (Acts 12: 1, 2), and until then he, like the other apostles, had not left Jerusalem.

So too in reference to Peter at Rome. His abode in Rome is not mentioned either in the Acts or in the apostolical Epistles; though in case Peter really was at Rome, there. was not only naturally reason for such a mention in the circumstances, but it was absolutely necessary. We will illustrate this further: Whatever design we may ascribe to the Acts of the Apostles by Luke, the presence of Peter at Rome, in case it really took place, in case the highest rule of the

1 The original Toletan Breviary celebrates this event in a hymn:

Magni deinde filii tonitrui,

Adepti fulgent, prece matris incliti

Utrique vita culminis insignia;

Regens Joannes dextera solum Asiam,
Et laeva frater positus, Hispaniam.
53

VOL. XV. No. 59.

church of Rome was actually borne by Peter,-Luke could not and ought not to leave him unmentioned; and indeed for this reason, because it was a fact.of immeasurable importance, more important than all else made known of Peter; more important than his travels to Samaria and Antioch, or than his visitation of the churches in Palestine. For by the journey to Rome, in case it occurred, the constitution of the church was definitively settled for all time. The mention of it was the more necessary, it forced itself upon him so much the more, as, at the time when Luke wrote (namely, not before A. D. 64), Peter must already have been bishop of Rome for twenty-two years.

And how often had Luke a perfectly natural occasion to mention Peter's journey to Rome and his being bishop there! First, Acts viii., where he relates the meeting of the apostle with Simon Magus at Samaria, whom he must afterwards have fought, vanquished, and annihilated at Rome. Then chap. xii., where Peter, escaping from Herod, left Jerusalem. Luke had before mentioned the journeys to Samaria, Joppa, Cæsarea, why should he not there have remarked -as Baronius, Natalis, etc., assert that Peter took a journey to Rome? Or had not Luke known anything where Peter betook himself? Or did he who wrote twenty years after this event, fear that Peter's residence would be discovered? Then chap. xv., where Luke describes the council at Jerusalem: there he mentions how Paul, Barnabas, and others came from Antioch; how suitable it would have been to notice here, in a few words, that Peter also had just now come from Rome, the capital of the world, in time to preside over the council. As Luke had so minutely described so many journeys of Philip, Peter, Paul, Barnabas, Mark, etc., would he have left out exactly the most important journey of all? Finally, chap. xxviii., where Paul with Luke and Aristarchus reached Rome. There he immediately makes the Jews to come to Paul, and he preaches to them; of Peter, not a word. How natural, how fitting it would have been here to mention Peter: how they found him at the head of the church at Rome; how they were lovingly received by him,

and united themselves with him to preach the word of the Lord.

And now for Paul! The occasions when he could and must have mentioned Peter's presence in Rome, his overseership of the church, were numberless, were so natural, so crowded upon him, if Peter was in fact at Rome, acted as bishop of the church there, and was clothed with the office of a vicegerent of Christ on earth, that this total silence of Paul, this complete ignoring of Peter and his disciples, his episcopal office, his preaching the gospel, as we have proved it from the authorities, necessarily leads to the conclusion, that Paul either was full of envy and jealousy toward Peter, or that an irreconcilable obstinate quarrel existed between the two and their disciples.

We see how weighty, how crushing, this negative argument is, from the silence of the Holy Scriptures. Baronius, Natalis, and others have felt it, and on this account sought to weaken the force of this argument. Natalis says: "The negative proofs from Luke's silence have hardly any weight;1 for otherwise the important mysteries of our faith would totter. For Matthew has nothing about the circumcision; Mark mentions nothing of the presentation in the temple; Luke, nothing of the new star which led the Magi to Bethlehem." (Natalis, Tom. III., Dissert. xiii., p. 174, col. 2.) That is all true; but the circumcision, which is not to be found in Matthew, is in Luke; he relates also the presentation in the temple, which is wanting in Mark; and Matthew gives an account of the star of the Magi, of which the rest are silent. Thus we find it abundantly. Many facts of the life of Jesus, which one Evangelist has not, the other narrates. But an important fact of Jesus' life which no one of them has, will never elsewhere find credit; and many writings of the earliest.times, pretended to be made by the apos tles, have been rejected as apocryphal merely on this account, because they contain matters and things which stand either in direct contradiction to the acknowledged genuine

The prudent man omits all reference to Paul's silence, which is yet more eloquent.

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