Last missionary jour- ney .... 63-64
Arrest, imprisonment, and execution at Rome . . .(65-67?)
280
DATES
DATES
making day. But, as the very name of it indi- cates, Pentecost was a relative date in the year, being computed from a day of manifestly more importance than itself. Accordingly, in the de- termination of the year for the Pentecost of Ac 2 it is necessary to revert to the computation which fixed the date of the Crucifixion (see above, !.)• Pentecost is thus dated in May A.D. 30.
2. The martyrdom of Stephen.— The date of this event is fixed with approximate certainty by its relation to the conversion of St. Paul. It was the persecution following the death of Stephen which enlisted Saul in tlie effort to exterminate the nascent Christian community and thus led him on the way to Damascus and his conversion. Stephen's martyrdom could not therefore have preceded the conversion by a very long interval, and must have taken place between 32 and 34.
3. The execution of James the son of Zebedee, together with the imprisonment and deliverance of St. Peter, is so closely associated with the death of Herod that both these events may be safely placed in the same year (44).*
i. The rise of Antioch into prominence as a centre of Christian aggressiveness must be placed at some time before the year 46, though, from the nature of the case, the exact time cannot be fixed. From Ac 2-^ (cf. Tacit. Ann. xv. 44) it is clear that some time before the year of the famine there was a large number of believers to attract atten- tion and to be recognized as a type of religionists different from the Jews. Immediately after the year of the famine the church at Antioch became the fountain-head of missionary activity.
5. The Conference at Jerusalem is placed, through its relation to the missionary journeys of St. Paul, in the year 50.
6. The death of James the brother of Jesus. — From the time of the Conference at Jerusalem, St. James was recognized as one of the foremost men in the Christian community at Jerusalem (Ac 15^*, Gal 2^). In consequence of his relation to the mother church, he bears the title of bishop of that church. According to Josephus, he was put to death during the interregnum between the pro- curatorships of Festus and Albinus (A7it, XX. ix. 1). This was in the year 62.
7. The death of St. Peter.— For the date of St. Peter's death we are obliged to appeal to extra- historical (purely traditional) information. The difficulties of estimating the value of such informa- tion are due (1) to the absence of sufficient data regarding the original witnesses on whose authority such information secured circulation, and (2) to the facility with which even good historians in antiquity accepted unverified statements where events of importance were concerned. The desire for some definite data often overcame whatever intuitive sense of accuracy may at other times have ruled the outlook of these historians. Thus tradition, i.e. the unverifiable belief of an age not capable of direct contact with the facts, may be credited frequently with a high degree of pro- bability, more frequently with less probability ; in most instances it is incapable of giving more than the mere possibility of what it attests. In the case of the death of St. Peter several consider- ations consi)ire to render the tradition highh^ probable. The Apostle was in Rome at a time of persecution. This appears from the contents of
• In a recently published fragment of Papias (de Boor, TCT V. 2, p. 170) it ia said that ' John and James his brother were killed by the Jews.' This, together with the bracketiii},' of the names of the two brothers in the Martyrolo^'v on the same dav, has led some to infer that the death of Johnthe son of Zebedee took place in 4J. The question, however, is involved in the vexed problem of the identity of the author of the Fourth Gospel, and must be left open for further investigation and discussion. See art. James amd John (sons of ZebedeeX
1 Peter, irrespective of the genuineness of the writing. Even if it be assumed, as seems probable to many scholars, that it was composed about A.D. 80, it would issue from a period near enough the date of the reputed death of St. Peter to afford a reflexion of a living current belief regarding his experiences. The allusion to ' Babylon ' in the Epistle has from the days of Papias (Euseb. H£ ii. 15) to the present time (with slight exce^jtions) been taken to refer to Rome. From this city the Apostle, accoi-ding to Papias, sent the letter to his fellow-Christians dispersed and scattered by the persecution of which he was made a victim. But, even granting that the martyrdom of the Apostle occurred in the Neronian persecution, the question of the exact year remains uncertain. Harnack believes that it took place in 64 (Gesch. dcr altchristl. Lit. bis Euseb., pt. i. 'Chron.,' 249 ff.). Erbes {TU, new series, iv. [1900]) fixes it in 63. Of the older historians, William Cave (Lives of the Apostles, 1677, ' St. Peter,' xi. 7) also believed in the date 64. In the Chronicon of Eusebius, how- ever, the 13tli or 14th year of Nero (67-68) is given as the date, and the same conclusion is accepted by Jerome. The tradition of the Roman Catholic Church has uniform Ij^ adhered to the period 42-67 as ' the twenty-five year episcopate ' of the Apostle in Rome. Upon the whole, this later date seems best supported. See IV. 5 and art. Peter.