After this first sitting it was proposed that Simon and Peter should make a flying-match, and try which could raise himself highest in the air. Simon tried first; Peter made the sign of the cross and down came Simon and broke his legs. This story was imitated from that which we find in the "_Sepher toldos Jeschut_," where it is said that Jesus Himself flew, and that Judas, who would have done the same, fell headlong. Nero, vexed that Peter had broken his favorite, Simon's, legs, had him crucified with his head downwards. Hence the notion of St. Peter's residence at Rome, the manner of his execution and his sepulchre. The same Abdias established the belief that St. Thomas went and preached Christianity in India to King Gondafer, and that he went thither as an architect. The number of books of this sort, written in the early ages of Christianity, is prodigious. St. Jerome, and even St. Augustine, tell us that the letters of Seneca and St. Paul are quite authentic. In the first of these letters Seneca hopes his brother Paul is well: "_Bene te valere, frater, cupio_." Paul does not write quite so good Latin as Seneca: "I received your letters yesterday," says he, "with joy."--"_Litteras tuas hilaris accepi_".--"And I would have answered them immediately had I had the presence of the young man whom I would have sent with them."--"_Si præsentiam juvenis habuissem_." Unfortunately these letters, in which one would look for instruction, are nothing more than compliments. All these falsehoods, forged by ill-informed and mistakenly-zealous Christians, were in no degree prejudicial to the truth of Christianity; they obstructed not its progress; on the contrary, they show us that the Christian society was daily increasing and that each member was desirous of hastening its growth. The Acts of the Apostles do not tell us that the apostles agreed on a symbol. Indeed, if they had put together the symbol (the creed, as we now call it), St. Luke could not in his history have omitted this essential basis of the Christian religion. The substance of the creed is scattered through the gospels; but the articles were not collected until long after. In short, our creed is, indisputably, the belief of the apostles; but it was not written by them. Rufinus, a priest of Aquileia, is the first who mentions it; and a homily attributed to St. Augustine is the first record of the supposed way in which this creed was made; Peter saying, when they were assembled, "I believe in God the Father Almighty"--Andrew, "and in Jesus Christ"--James, "who was conceived by the Holy Ghost"; and so of the rest. This formula was called in Greek _symbolos_; and in Latin _collatio_. Only it must be observed that the Greek version has it: "I believe in God the Father, maker of heaven and earth." In the Latin, _maker_, _former_, is rendered by "_creatorem_". But afterwards, in translating the symbol of the First Council of Nice, it was rendered by "_factorem_".