his family, and justified the action to the satisfaction of his accusers; and this he had here freely and innocently done at Antioch, till some of the Jewish brethren coming thither, for fear of offending and displeasing them, he withdrew his converse with the Gentiles, as if it had been unlawful for him to hold communion with uncircumcised persons; when yet he knew, and was fully satisfied, that our Lord had wholly removed all difference, and broken down the wall of separation between Jew and Gentile. In which affair, as he himself acted against the light of his own mind and judgment, condemning what he had approved, and destroying what he had before built up; so hereby he confirmed the Jewish zealots in their inveterate error, cast infinite scruples into the minds of the Gentiles, filling their consciences with fears and dissatisfactions, reviving the old feuds and prejudices between Jew and Gentile; by which means many others were ensnared; yea, the whole number of Jewish converts followed his example, separating themselves from the company of the Gentile Christians. Yea, so far did it spread, that Barnabas himself was carried away with the stream and torrent of this unwarrantable practice. St. Paul, who was at this time come to Antioch, unto whom Peter gave 'the right hand of fellowship,' acknowledging his apostleship of the circumcision, observing these evil and unevangelical actings, resolutely withstood Peter to the face, and publicly reproved him, as a person worthy to be blamed for his gross prevarication in this matter; severely expostulating and reasoning with him, that he who was himself a Jew, and thereby under a more immediate obligation to the Mosaic law, should cast off that yoke himself, and yet endeavour to impose it upon the Gentiles, who were not in the least under any obligation to it. A smart, but an impartial charge: and indeed so remarkable was this carriage of St. Paul towards our apostle, that though it set things right for the present, yet it made some noise abroad in the word. Yes, Porphyry himself,' that acute and subtile enemy of Christianity, makes use of it as an argument against them both; charging the one with error and falsehood, and the other with rudeness and incivility; and that the whole was but a compact of forgery and deceit, while the princes of the church did thus fall out among themselves. And so sensible were some of this, in the first ages of Christianity, that rather than such a dishonour and disgrace, as they accounted it, should be reflected upon Peter, they tell us of two several Cephas's, one the apostle, the other one of the seventy disciples; and that it was the last of these that was guilty of this prevarication, and whom St. Paul so vigorously resisted and reproved at Antioch. But for this plausible and well-meant evasion the champions of the Romish church con them no great thanks at this day. Nay, St. Jerome long since fully confuted it in his notes upon this place.2 1 Apud Hieron. Prom. in Ep. ad Gal. p. 159. 2 Hieron. Com, in Gal. ii. p. 168. 136 SECTION IX. Of St. Peter's Acts, from the end of the Sacred Story till his Martyrdom. HITHERTO, in drawing up the life of this great apostle, we have had an infallible guide to conduct and lead us; but the sacred story breaking off here, forces us to look abroad, and to pick up what memoirs the ancients have left us in this matter; which we shall for the main digest according to the order wherein Baronius, and other ecclesiastic writers have disposed the series of St. Peter's life; reserving what is justly questionable, to a more particular examination afterward. And that we may present the account more entire and perfect, we must step back a little in point of time, that so we may go forward with greater advantage. We are to know, therefore, that during the time of peace and calmness which the church enjoyed after Saul's persecution, when St. Peter went down to visit the churches, he is said to have gone to Antioch, where great numbers of Jews inhabited, and there to have planted the Christian faith. That he founded a church here Eusebius expressly tells us;' and by others it is said, that he himself was the first bishop of this see. Sure I am that St. Chrysostom 3 reckons it one of the greatest honours of that city, that St. Peter staid so long there, and 2 1 Chron. ad An. Chr. 43. 2 Hieron. Comment. in 2 ad Galat. p. 168, tom. ix. that the bishops of it succeeded him in that see. The care and presidency of this church he had between six and seven years. Not that he staid there all that time, but that having ordered and disposed things to the best advantage, he returned to other affairs and exigencies of the church; confirming the new plantation, bringing in Cornelius and his family, and in him the first-fruits of the Gentiles' conversion to the faith of Christ. After which he returned unto Jerusalem, where he was imprisoned by Herod, and miraculously delivered by an angel sent from heaven. 2. What became of Peter after his deliverance out of prison is not certainly known; probably he might preach in some parts a little further distant from Judæa, as we are told he did at Byzantium,' and in the countries thereabout (though, I confess, the evidence to me is not convincing.) After this, he resolved upon a journey to Rome; where most agree he arrived about the second year of the emperor Claudius. Orosius tells us, that coming to Rome, he brought prosperity along with him to that city; for besides several other extraordinary advantages which at that time happened to it, this was not the least observable, that Camillus Scribonianus, governor of Dalmatia, soliciting the army to rebel against the emperor, the eagles, their military standard, remained so fast in the ground that no power nor strength was able to pluck them up. With which unusual accident the minds of the soldiers were surprised and startled; and turning their swords against the author of the sedi 1 Baron. ad Ann. Chr. 44, numb. 12, vid. Epist. Agap. ad Pet. Hieros. in V. Synod. sub Men. Conc. tom. iv. p. 24. 2 Hist. lib. vii. c. 6, fol. 296, et seq. tion, continued firm and loyal in their obedience. Whereby a dangerous rebellion was prevented, likely enough otherwise to have broken out. This he ascribes to St. Peter's coming to Rome, and the first plantation of the Christian faith in that city; heaven beginning more particularly to smile upon that place at his first coming thither. It is not to be doubted, but that at his first arrival he disposed himself amongst the Jews his countrymen, who ever since the time of Augustus had dwelt in the region beyond Tiber. But when afterwards he began to preach to the Gentiles, he was forced to change his lodging, and was taken in by one Pudens, a senator, lately converted to the faith. Here he closely plied his main office and employment, to establish Christianity in that place. Here we are told he met with Philo the Jew,' lately come on his second embassy unto Rome, in the behalf of his countrymen at Alexandria, and to have contracted an intimate friendship and acquaintance with him. And now it was, says Baronius, 2 that Peter being mindful of the churches which he had founded in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, and Asia the less, wrote his first epistle to them: which he probably infers hence, that St. Mark being yet with him at the time of the date of this epistle, it must be written at least some time this year; for that now it was that St. Mark was sent to preach and propagate the faith in Egypt. Next to the planting religion at Rome, he took care to propagate it in the western parts. And to that end, if we may believe one of those that 2 Euseb. Hist. Eccl. lib. ii. c. 17, p. 53. Hieron. de Script. Eccl. in Phil. p. 270. 2 Ad Ann. 45, num. 16. |