n, Ein. ii. p. 21).
5. St. Peter in connexion with Rome. —The chief points at issue are, whether St. Peter visited Rome; if he did, how long he worked there; whether he suffered martyrdom there; and if so, at what date. It will most con- venient to arrange the evidence under the several Churches.
(1) Rome.—(a) Clement (c. A.D. 96) v. vi. In the previous chapters Clement has spoken of the evils which have sprung from ‘jealousy and envy.’ He has taker examples from Scripture in chronological order, ending with David. ‘Let us,’ he continues, ‘eome to the athletes who lived but lately (rods ἔγγιστα γενομένους, t.e. as compared with the OT heroes), the noble examples of our own generation. Because of envy the great and eeu pillars (of the Church) were persecuted and contended unto death. Let us set before our er the good apostles —Peter, who endured many labours and, havin borne his witness (μαρτυρήσας), went to the appoin place of glory ; Paul (whe suffered much and jour- neyed far and), hav-ng borne his witness before the rulers, departed thus from the world and went 4o the holy place. ... To thesemen... there was
thered a great company of the elect, who, being the victims of jealousy, by reason of many outrages and tortures Sane a noble example among us.’ The main points are these : (i.) The most reasonable explanation of the fact that the examples of the ἘΠΕ apostles are passed over and Peter and Paul alone mentioned, is that Clement points to those two apostles whose examples of heroism were best known to the Church in whose name he writes (cf. Ignatius, below). (ii.) That St. Paul suffered at Rome is universally allowed. The language is carefully chosen to emphasize the likeness between the experiences of the two apostles. (iii.) If the passage, when naturally interpreted, discloses the
lace of St. Peter’s martyrdom, what of the time? We have seen that in the preceding context Clement followed the order of time. Itis unlikely that he would desert that order in regard to events within his own knowledge and that of his readers. Since, then, ‘the great company of the VOL. 111.—49
z Andrew. We may infer, therefore, that the by
elect’ who suffered were plainly Nero’s victims, it seems to follow that the two apostles perished either before or during the Neronian persecu- tion. The former alternative may be put aside as unsupported by any evidence. Further, a close association of the apostles and ‘the great com- pany’ seems ma τὸ in the phrase τούτοις... συνη- θροίσθη. Indeed, & strict interpretation of these words appears to justify us in going astep further. They mean ‘to these” rather than ‘with these’ ‘there was gathered,’* and thus seem to imply that the apostles were among those ‘who were seized first ’ (Tac. Ann. xv. 44), the first-fruits of a too abundant harvest. Thus the obvious interpre- tation of Clement’s words is that St. Peter and St. Paul were martyred in the Neronian persecution ; while the language is not explicit enough to have created the tradition. (ὁ) Caius, a Roman pres- byter, a contemporary of Zephyrinus and Hippoly- tus. Eus. H/ τι. xxv. quotes the following a from the treatise of Caius against Proclus the Montanist: ἐγὼ δὲ τὰ τρόπαια τῶν ἀποστόλων ἔχω δεῖξαι" ἐὰν γὰρ θελήσῃς ἀπελθεῖν ἐπὶ τὸν Βατικανὸν ἢ ἐπὶ τὴν ὁδὸν τὴν Ὥστίαν, εὑρήσεις τὰ τρόπαια τῶν ταύτην ἱδρυσαμένων τὴν ἐκκλησίαν. The words of Caius are an explicit statement (1) that both the apostles worked for some time at Rome; (2) that they died a martyr’s death at Rome. But the question remains—Did τὰ τρόπαια mark the place of execution (so Lipsius) or of burial (so Zahn)? There are strong reasons for choosing the latter alternative. The ἐγὼ δέ of Caius suggests that he at Rome claims to eclipse what Proclus appealed to in Asia Minor, i.e. the tombs of Philip and his daughters at Hierapolis (Eus. HE 1. xxxi. 4). This clearly was the meaning which Eusebius himself put upon the words (cf. 11. xxxi. 1). Thus we can draw another inference from Caius’ words, viz. that at the beginning of the 3rd cent. the Roman Church thought that it possessed the bodies of the two apostles. No certain answer can given to the further question—Of what did these τρόπαια consist? The word may imply the erection on the spot of a building of some kind, a memoria such as the Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne pp. 55, 125) says that Anencletus built. Or it may point to some natural or other object which identified the spot, such as the catholic Acts ἡ see of (see below, p. 772). (ὁ) Hippolytus, In the Refutatio (vi. 20) this writer s of the conflict between Simon Magus and ‘the apostles’ at Rome, and in particular of Peter’s opposition to him. It appears, however, that Hippolytus used the apocryphal Acts (Bonwetsch, Studien zu den Komm. Hippolyts p. 27), and we cannot be sure, therefore, that his statement is independent evi- dence. Yet the end of Simon as described by hira differs from his end according to the extant Acts. (d) The Muratorian Canon. The fragment speaks of the ‘ ion of Peter’ in close connexion with St. Paul’s journey to Spain. As these two events are mentioned together in the Acts of Peter, it is orobable that the wearer probably Hippolytus) has these Acts in his mind (James, Apoer. A necdots ii. p. xf.), and we are not entitled to infer more than that he does not question the truthfulness of the Acts in these matters. (¢) The notice in the Depositio Martyrum (see below, p. 772) as to the translation of the apostles’ bodies in 258 confirms the evidence of Caius.