Part 3

We admit then, that towards the year 50 of our era, some Syrian Jews, already Christians, entered the capital of the empire, and communicated the faith which rendered them happy to their companions. At this time no one suspected that the founder of a second empire was in Rome,--a second Romulus, lodging at the port in a bed of straw. A little band was formed. These ancestors of the Roman prelates were poor, dirty, common people, without distinction, without manners, clothed with fetid garments, having the bad breath of men who are badly fed. Their dwellings had that odor of misery which is exhaled from persons grossly clothed and nourished, and huddled together in narrow rooms. We know the names of two Jews who were the most prominent in these movements. They were Aquila, a Jew, originally from Pontus, who was like St. Paul an upholsterer, and Priscilla his wife,--a pious couple. Banished from Rome they took refuge at Corinth, where they soon became the intimate friends of St. Paul, and zealous workers with him. Thus Aquila and Priscilla are the most ancient known members of the Church of Rome. There is scarcely a souvenir of them there. Tradition, always unjust, because it is always ruled by political motives, has expelled these two obscure workmen from the Christian Pantheon in order to attribute the honor of the foundation of the Church of Rome to a name more in keeping with its proud pretensions. We do not see the original point of the origin of Occidental Christianity in the theatrical Basilica consecrated to St. Peter: it is at that ancient _Ghetto_, the _Porta Portese_. It is in tracing these poor vagabond Jews, who bore with them the religion of the world,--these suffering men, dreaming in their misery of the kingdom of God,--that we shall find it again. We do not dispute with Rome its essential title. Rome was probably the first point in the Western World, and even in Europe, where Christianity was established.

But, instead of these lofty basilicas, in place of these insulting devices,--_Christus vincit_, _Christus regnat_, _Christus imperat_,--it would be better to raise a poor chapel to these good Jews who first pronounced on the quay of Rome the name of Jesus.

A capital trait, which it is important to note in any case, is, that the Church of Rome was not, like the churches of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece, a foundation of the school of Paul. It was fundamentally Judæan-Christian, re-attaching itself directly to the Church of Jerusalem. Paul here will never be on his own ground: he will find in this great church many weaknesses which he will treat with indulgence, but which will wound his exalted idealism. Attached to circumcision and outward observances, Ebionite through its taste for abstinences, and by its doctrine concerning the person and death of Jesus more Jewish than Christian, leaning strongly towards Millenarianism, the Roman Church showed, since its first days, the essential traits which will distinguish it through its long history. Own daughter of Jerusalem, the Roman Church will always have an ascetic, sacerdotal character, opposed to the Protestant tendencies of Paul. Peter will be its veritable head; then, the political and hierarchical spirit of old Rome penetrating it, it will indeed become the new Jerusalem, the city of the Pontificate, of the hieratic and solemn religion, of the material sacraments which justify of themselves, the city of the ascetics of the manner of Jacques Ohliam with his callous knees and his plate of gold upon his brow. It will be the authoritative church. If we can believe it, the only mark of the apostolic mission will be to show a letter signed by the apostles, to produce a certificate of orthodoxy. The good and the evil which the Church of Jerusalem did in giving birth to Christianity, the Church of Rome will do for the Universal Church. It is in vain that Paul will address to it his beautiful epistle to explain the mystery of the cross of Jesus and of salvation by faith alone. The Church of Rome will scarcely comprehend it; but Luther four and a half centuries later will comprehend it, and will open a new era in a secular series of the alternate triumphs of Peter and Paul.

II.

An important event in the history of the world took place in the year 61. Paul was led a prisoner to Rome in order to follow up the appeal which he had made to the tribunal of the emperor. A sort of profound instinct had always made Paul desire this journey. His arrival at Rome was almost as marked an event in his life as his conversion. He believed that he had attained the summit of his apostolic life; and doubtless he recalled the dream in which, after one of his days of struggle, Christ had appeared to him, and said, "Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome."

You will not forget the wide divisions which separated the disciples of Jesus during the first century from the foundation of Christianity,--divisions so broad, that all the differences which to-day separate the orthodox, the heretics, and the schismatics of the whole world, are nothing beside the dissensions of Peter and Paul. The Church of Jerusalem, obstinately attached to Judaism, refused all intercourse with the uncircumcised, however pious they might be. Paul, on the contrary, thought that to maintain the ancient law was an injury to Jesus, since thus it might be supposed, that, outside the merits of Jesus, such or such a work could serve for the justification of the faithful. However strange it may appear, it is certain that the Judæan-Christians of Jerusalem, with James at their head, organized some active contra-missions in order to combat the effect of the missions of Paul, and that the emissaries of these ardent conservatives followed in some sort the lead of the apostle of the Gentiles. Peter belonged to the party at Jerusalem, but showed in his conduct that sort of timid moderation which seems to have been the foundation of his character. Did Peter also come to Rome? Formerly, gentlemen, this question was one of the most exciting which could be agitated. Formerly the history of religion was written, not to recount it, but in order to prove it: religious history was an annex of theology. During the grand revolt, so full of courage and of ardent conviction, which, during the sixteenth century, placed one-half of Europe in opposition to Rome, the negation of the sojourn of Peter at Rome became a sort of dogma. The Bishop of Rome is the successor of St. Peter, said the Catholics, and as such the head of Christendom. How could that reasoning be more strongly refuted than by maintaining that Peter never placed his foot in Rome?

As for us, we are permitted to regard this question with the most perfect disinterestedness. We do not believe, in any sense, that Jesus intended to give any head whatever to his church; and above all, it is doubtful whether the idea of such a church as developed later had existed in the mind of the founder of Christianity. The word _ecclesia_ occurs only in the Gospel of St. Matthew. The idea of the _episcopos_, as it existed in the second century, had no place in the mind of Jesus. He himself was the living _episcopos_ during his brief Galilean appearance: from that time it is the Spirit who inspires each one until he may return. In any case, if it had been possible that Jesus should have had any idea whatever of the _ecclesia_ and _episcopos_, it is absolutely beyond doubt, that Jesus never thought of giving the future _episcopos_ of the city of Rome to be the head of his church,--that impious city, the centre of all the impurities of the earth, of whose existence he perhaps knew scarcely any thing, and of which he should have entertained the gloomy opinions which all the Jews professed. If there is any thing in the world which was not instituted by Jesus, it is the Papacy, that is to say, the idea that the Church is a monarchy. We are, then, perfectly at liberty to discuss the question of Peter's coming to Rome. This question is absolutely without consequence for us; and from our solution the only result will be to say whether Leo XIII. is or is not the head of the Christian conscience. Whether Peter was or was not in Rome, it has for us no political nor moral bearing. It is a curious question of history: it is useless to pursue it further.

First, let us say, that the Catholics have laid themselves open to the peremptory objections of their adversaries by their unfortunate reckoning of the coming of Peter to Rome in the year 42,--a reckoning borrowed from Eusebius and St. Jerome, which extends the duration of the pontificate of Peter to twenty-three or twenty-four years. There is nothing more inadmissible. In order to leave no doubt in regard to this, it is sufficient to consider that the persecution of Peter at Jerusalem by Herod Agrippa occurred in the year 44. It would be superfluous to oppose longer a thesis which can have no one reasonable defence. It is possible, in fact, to go much further, and to affirm that Peter had not yet come to Rome when Paul was taken there, that is to say, in the year 61. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, written about the year 58, is a very considerable argument here. One can scarcely imagine St. Paul writing to the faithful, of whom St. Peter was the head, without making the least mention of the latter. The last chapter of the Acts of the Apostles is still more demonstrative. This chapter, especially from the seventeenth to the twenty-ninth verse, cannot be explained, if Peter was at Rome when Paul arrived there. Let us, then, consider it absolutely certain that Peter did not come to Rome before Paul, that is to say, before or about the year 61.

But did he not come there after Paul? This has never been positively proved; this late journey of Peter's to Rome was not only probable, but there are strong arguments in its favor. Besides the testimony of the Fathers of the second and third centuries, there are three reasons which do not appear to me unworthy:--

1st, It is indisputably certain that Peter suffered a martyr's death. The testimony of the fourth evangelist, of Clement Romanus, of the fragment which is called the "_Canon de Muratori_," of Denis of Corinth, of Caius, of Tertullian, leave no doubt in this respect. Let the fourth Gospel be apocryphal, allow that chapter xxi. has been added in later times, it makes no difference. It is clear, that, in the verses in which Jesus announces to Peter that he shall die by the same suffering as his own, we have the expression of an opinion established in the Church about 120 or 130, to which allusions are made as to a fact known to all. Now, it is not possible to imagine that Peter died a martyr outside of Rome. It was only at Rome, in fact, that the persecution of Nero was violent. At Jerusalem, at Antioch, the martyrdom of Peter would have been much less probable.

2d, The second reason is found in the Epistle attributed to St. Peter (v. 13): "The church that is at Babylon ... saluteth you." Babylon, in this passage, evidently indicates Rome. If the Epistle is authentic, the passage is decisive: if it is apocryphal, the conclusion to be drawn from the text is not weakened. The author, in short, whoever he may be, wishes it to be regarded as the work of Peter. He was consequently forced, in order to give an appearance of truth to his fraud, to arrange the circumstances which he related, according to what he knew, or believed was known in his time, of the life of Peter. If, in such a spirit, he dated the letter at Rome, it shows, that, in his day, it was the general opinion that Peter had resided at Rome. But, in any case, the First Epistle of Peter is a very ancient work, and had very early a high authority.

3d, The theory which is founded upon the Ebionite Acts of St. Peter is also worthy of much consideration. This theory represents St. Peter as following Simon the Magician everywhere (according to St. Paul), in order to dispute his false doctrines. M. Lipsius has shown an admirable critical sagacity in his analysis of this legend. He has shown that the base of all the different versions of it which have come to us was written about the year 130. It seems improbable that an Ebionite author of such early date could have given so much importance to Peter's journey to Rome, if this journey had not taken place in reality. The theory of the Ebionite legend must contain some truth at the bottom, in spite of the fables which are mingled with it. It is quite admissible that St. Peter might have come to Rome, as he went to Antioch, following St. Paul, and in part to neutralize his influence. The missions of St. Paul, and the facility which the Jews had acquired in their voyages had made long expeditions quite the custom. The apostle Philip is even represented by an ancient and persistent tradition as having settled himself in Hierapolis, in Asia Minor.

I regard, then, as probable, the tradition of the sojourn of Peter at Rome; but I believe that this sojourn was short, and that Peter suffered martyrdom soon after his arrival in the Eternal City.

III.

You know the mystery which hovers above the history of primitive Christianity, which we might desire to know more in detail. The death of the apostles Peter and Paul remains enveloped in a veil which will never be penetrated. That which appears the most probable is, that they both disappeared in the great massacre of Christians commanded by Nero.

On the 19th of July, in the year 64, a violent fire burst out at Rome. It originated in that portion of the great Circus near to the Palatine and C[oe]lian Hills. In this quarter there were many little shops, filled with inflammable matter, in which the flames spread with prodigious rapidity. Thence it made the turn of the Palatine, ravaged the Velabra, the Forum, the Carinæ, ascended the hills, greatly injured the Palatine, descended again to the valleys, devouring compact quarters, and piercing tortuous streets, continuing six days and seven nights. An enormous pile of houses which were torn down near the foot of the Esquiline, arrested its progress for a time; then it again broke out, and endured three days more. A considerable number of people perished. Of the fourteen portions which composed the city, three were entirely destroyed; of seven, only blackened walls remained. Rome was an extremely compact city, and the population very dense. This disaster was frightful, and the like of it had never before been seen.

When the fire broke out, Nero was at Antium. He returned to the city about the time when it approached his "transitory" house. It was not possible to arrest the flames. The imperial houses of the Palatine, the "transitory" house itself with its dependencies, and the whole surrounding quarter, were destroyed. Nero did not seem much to regret the loss of his house. The sublime horror of the spectacle transported him. Later it was said that he had watched the fire from a tower, where, in a theatrical costume, with a lyre in his hand, he chanted the ruin of Ilion to the rhythm of an ancient elegy.

This was a legend, the fruit of a period of successive exaggerations; but one point upon which the universal opinion was decisive from the first was, that Nero had commanded this fire, or at least had revived it when it seemed about to die out.

These suspicions were confirmed by the fact, that, after the fire, Nero, under pretext of removing the ruins at his own cost, in order to leave the place free to the proprietors, undertook to clear away the _débris_; and the people were not allowed to approach. This seemed worse when it was seen that he drew from the ruins what belonged to the country, when the new palace, that "golden house" which had been the plaything of his delirious imagination, was seen rising upon the site of the ancient provisory residence, enlarged by the spaces which the fire had cleared.

It was believed that he had desired to prepare the place for his new palace, to justify the reconstruction which he had long contemplated, to procure money by appropriating the wreck of the fire, in short, to satisfy his mad vanity, which led him to desire to rebuild the whole of Rome, so that it might date from him, and be called Neropolis.

All the honest men of the city were outraged. The most precious antiquities of Rome, the houses of the ancient leaders, decorated with triumphal spoils, the most holy objects, the trophies, the ancient _ex-votos_, the most revered temples, all the belongings of the old worship of the Romans, had disappeared. It was as if they mourned the souvenirs and the traditions of the whole country. They celebrated expiatory services; they consulted the books of the Sibyl: the ladies especially observed various _piacula_. But the secret consciousness of a crime and infamy still remained.

Then an infernal idea took possession of the mind of Nero. He cast about to see if he could find anywhere some miserable wretches, still more detested by the Roman plebeians than himself, upon whom he could rest the odium of the incendiarism. He thought of the Christians. The horror which they testified towards the temples and the most venerated edifices of the Romans made the idea plausible, that they should have been the authors of this fire, the result of which was the destruction of these sanctuaries. Their air of sadness in regarding the monuments appeared like an injury to the nation. Rome was a very religious city, and whoever protested against the national worship was at once remarked. It should be remembered that certain rigorous Jews went so far as to refuse to touch money which bore an effigy: they even saw a great crime in bearing or looking at an image, unless engaged in the occupation of carving. Others refused to pass beneath a city gate surmounted by a statue. All this excited the ridicule and ill-will of the people. Perhaps the idea that the Christians were incendiaries gained force from their manner of talking about the final conflagration, their sinister prophecies, their love of reiterating that the world would soon be ended, and ended by fire. It is even admissible that some of the faithful might have committed imprudences, and that there were pretexts for accusing them of having wished, by anticipating the celestial flames, to justify their oracles, at any price. Four and a half years later the Apocalypse was to present a chant upon the burning of Rome, for which the event of 64 probably furnished more than one feature. The destruction of Rome by fire had been a Christian and Jewish dream; and it was not merely a dream: the pious sectaries were pleased to see in spirit the saints and angels applauding from the heights of heaven what they regarded as a just expiation.

A certain number of persons suspected of belonging to the new sect were arrested, and thrown into prison, which was of itself a punishment. The first arrests were followed by many others. The people were surprised at the multitude of converts who had accepted these gloomy doctrines: it was only spoken of with alarm. All sensible men considered the accusation of having caused the fire as extremely weak. "Their true crime," said they, "is hatred of the human race." Although persuaded that the burning was the crime of Nero, many serious Romans saw in this work of the police a mode of delivering the city from a dreadful nuisance. Tacitus, in spite of his pity, was of this opinion. And Suetonius counted the sufferings which Nero heaped upon the partisans of the new and mischievous superstitions as among his laudable measures.