Eusebius adds, after St. Clement, that the other apostles did not
contend with St. James for this dignity. They elected him immediately
after the Ascension. "Our Lord," says he, "after His resurrection, had
given to James, surnamed the Just, to John and to Peter the gift of
knowledge"--very remarkable words. Eusebius mentions James first, then
John, and Peter comes last. It seems but just that the brother and the
beloved disciple of Jesus should come before the man who had denied Him.
Nearly the whole Greek Church and all the reformers ask, Where is
Peter's primacy? The Catholics answer--If he is not placed first by the
fathers of the church, he is in the Acts of the Apostles. The Greeks and
the rest reply that he was not the first bishop; and the dispute will
endure as long as the churches.
St. James, this first bishop of Jerusalem, always continued to observe
the Mosaic law. He was a Rechabite; he walked barefoot, and never
shaved; went and prostrated himself in the Jewish temple twice a day,
and was surnamed by the Jews _Oblia_, signifying the just. They at
length applied to him to know who Jesus Christ was, and having answered
that Jesus was the son of man, who sat on the right hand of God, and
that He should come in the clouds, he was beaten to death. This was St.
James the Less.
St. James the Greater was his uncle, brother to St. John the Evangelist,
and son of Zebedee and Salome. It is asserted that Agrippa, king of the
Jews, had him beheaded at Jerusalem. St. John remained in Asia and
governed the church of Ephesus, where, it is said, he was buried. St.
Andrew, brother to St Peter, quitted the school of St. John for that of
Jesus Christ. It is not agreed whether he preached among the Tartars or
in Argos; but, to get rid of the difficulty, we are told that it was in
Epirus. No one knows where he suffered martyrdom, nor even whether he
suffered it at all. The _Acts_ of his martyrdom are more than suspected
by the learned. Painters have always represented him on a saltier-cross,
to which his name has been given. This custom has prevailed without its
origin being known.
St. Peter preached to the Jews dispersed in Pontus, Bithynia,
Cappadocia, at Antioch, and at Babylon. The Acts of the Apostles do not
speak of his journey to Rome, nor does St. Paul himself make any mention
of it in the letters which he wrote from that capital. St. Justin is the
first accredited author who speaks of this journey, about which the
learned are not agreed. St. Irenæus, after St. Justin, expressly says
that St. Peter and St. Paul came to Rome, and that they entrusted its
government to St. Linus. But here is another difficulty: if they made
St. Linus inspector of the rising Christian society at Rome, it must be
inferred that they themselves did not superintend it nor remain in that
city.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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