RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Peter the Apostle Peter Comestor
among the most interesting and important of his literary remains, containing much relating to the political, ecclesiastical, and social affairs of the period; though whether they are as completely the results of personal observation as they purport to be has been questioned. He had a double, a Peter of Blois who was chancellor of Chartres.
(S. M. DEUTSCHf.)
Bibliography: The Opera were edited by J. Merlin, Paris, 1519; more completely by P.de Goussainville, Paris, 1667; J. Busaeus, Mainz, 1600; J. A. Giles, in PEA, 4 vols., Oxford, 1846—47; and in MPG, ccvii. There is an ample sketch in DNB, xiv. 46-52 (contains a critical list of the works, genuine, doubtful, and false, and a list of scattering notices of value to the student of sources). Consult further: L. E. Dupin, Nouvelle bibliolheque des auteurs ecclesiastiques, ix. 167-175, 35 vols., Paris, 1689-1711; Hist. litteraire de la France, xv. 341-413; T. Wright, Biographia Britannica literaria, Anglo-Norman Period, pp. 366-379, London, 1846; and Ceillier, Auteurs sacria, xiv. 764-784.
PETER OF BRUYS: Leader of a radical opposition to the ecclesiasticism of the Church in the twelfth century [1 104-25]. Knowledge of him comes mainly from his opponent, Peter the Venerable of Cluny (Adversus Petrobrusianos hcereticos, MPL, clxxxix. 719-850) and from a short notice in Abelard's Introductio ad theologiam (MPL, clxxviii. 1056). The former writing had as a purpose the controverting of the most dangerous heretics of the times and the strengthening of the faithful, and the knowledge it gives is incidental to this aim. Of the early life of Peter of Bruys nothing is imparted; only that for twenty years he disseminated his doctrines, and that through burning the cross he enraged the people and was burned at St. Gilles. It seems that, after the death of Peter, his doctrines were changed, but not bettered, and diffused by Henry of Lausanne (q.v.). The doctrines of Peter and the Petrobrusians appear to have been about as follows: his chief authority he found in the Gospels taken literally, and next in the epistles; his position on the Old Testament is doubtful; baptism he regarded as for adults, since it presupposed faith — impossible in infants; he therefore rebaptized those who had received this ordinance in infancy; he rejected transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, and the Lord's Supper — Christ had given once his flesh and blood to his disciples, and repetition was impossible; he rejected the ceremonies and forms of worship, even church buildings; he discarded singing as worship, and especially the veneration of the cross because it was a means of crucifying Christ afresh. There is no decided clue to the source from which Peter derived these doctrines, suspicion points, however, to the Cathari (see New Mani-
CHEANS, II.). (S. M. DEUTSCHf.)
For knowledge of the specific teachings of Peter of Bruys dependence has to be placed upon Peter the Venerable. These are antipedobaptism, believers' baptism, denial of the sanctity of church buildings in the interest of spiritual religion, an iconoclastic attitude toward crosses, rejection of the Roman Catholic mass as idolatrous, with possible neglect of the Lord's Supper because of its idolatrous associations (" That the Church has not the body of Christ in the sacrament of the altar, and that what is done by the priests in this matter
is utterly vain and destitute of any true effect; since Christ gave his body not for those who were to be Christians in all times, but only for all his disciples who were present "), rejection of prayers for the dead and, on account of purgatorial sufferings, rejection of ecclesiastical chantings, a predilection for the Gospels and especially the words of Christ without rejection of the epistles and the Old Testament. Dollinger's effort to identify the Petrobrusians and Henricians with the Cathari was shown by the present writer (Papers of the American Society of Church History, iv. 183-189, New York, 1892) to be futile. Neither Peter the Venerable nor Bernard of Clairvaux charges them with dualistic teaching or with Manichean abstinence from animal food; Cathari rejected marriage, while Peter and Henry are charged with compelling monks and others who were living unchastely to marry and with taking up collections for dowries. The Petrobrusians and Henricians seem to have been absorbed by the more wide-spread and better organized Waldenses to whom they may have imparted the more radically Evangelical spirit of the later as compared with the earliest representatives of the party. A. H. Newman.
Bibliography: C. U. Hahn, Geschichte der Ketzer im Mittelalter, i. 408 sqq., Stuttgart, 1845; J. H. Blunt, Dictionary of Sects, Heresies, , pp. 422-423, Philadelphia, 1874;
J. J. I. von Dollinger, Beitrage zur Sektengeschichte des Mittelalters, i. 75 sqq., Munich, 1890; Neander, Christian Church, iv. 595-598, 602, 604.
PETER OF CELLE (PETRUS CELLENSIS): Abbot of St. Remy at Reims and bishop of Chartres; d. at Chartres in 1183. He was born of a noble family in Champagne, became abbot of La Celle at Troyes in 1150, hence his surname; abbot of St. Remy in 1162; and in 1181 bishop of Chartres. He is interesting as a representative of the practical type of monasticism introduced with Bernard's reforms. His voluminous correspondence with monks, dignitaries, popes, and princes has a distinct historical value, showing him to be an earnest representative of the ascetic high-churchly ideals which prevailed at that time; as, for instance, in his support of Alexander III. and Thomas a Becket. The new dogma of the Immaculate Conception he declined on the ground, besides the authority of Bernard, that the Roman Catholic Church had not yet spoken. He was not the first to use transubstantiatio, as has been claimed; the word was not new but only as yet unusual. (R. Schmid.)
Bibliography: The letters and sermons are most easily consulted in MPL, ccii., while some of the letters are found in the collections of those of Alexander III. and Thomas of Canterbury. Consult: The dissertation of Gillet, De Petro Cellensi, Paris, 1881; Histoire littiraire de la France, xiv. 236 sqq.; H. Reuter, Geschichte Alexanders III., 3 vols., Leipsic, 1860-64; KL, ix. 1897-98; Ceillier, Auteurs sacris xiv. 680 sqq.
PETER OF CHELCIC. See Bohemian Brethren, I., § 1.
PETER COMESTOR: Biblical scholar of the twelfth century; d. at Paris in 1179 or 1198. He is known first as deacon of the Church of St. Peter in Troyes; became chancellor at the cathedral in Paris in 1164; and until 1169 was professor of theology there. Afterward he resigned all his offices
Peter Damian