As regards the three "chief" apostles named in one of the Pauline epistles, there is a reasonable presumption that they were either leading propagandists of the Jesuist cult as it existed at the time of the writing, or so reputed by later tradition; but the assumption that they had been associates and disciples of the founder must be abandoned with the rest of the gospel tradition. They were necessarily woven into the gospel narrative by the later compilers; but the Epistle to the Galatians lies under the general suspicion of having been interpolated, if not wholly forged; and its very naming of the Judaic apostles is as much a ground for question as a datum for construction. It is probable, further, that the title "brethren of the Lord" was originally a group-name, and that the literal construction of it was a misconception by the later readers or interpolators of the epistles and the gospels. Nothing in the gospels or the Acts can make intelligible the appearance of certain actual brothers of the gospel Jesus at the head of a Jesuist cult. The name of Peter, finally, became a nucleus for many myths; and the two epistles which bear his name have so little relation to the personality set forth in the gospels that both have been widely discredited as forgeries; the second having indeed been so reputed in the days of Eusebius. The Simon-Petros (Cephas) of the gospels, however, is in himself a mere literary creation. Represented there as basely denying his captured Master, he figures in the Acts as the supernatural slayer of Ananias and Sapphira for a much slighter sin. The gospel story must be one of the products of the anti-Judaic animus of later Gentile Jesuists, for even the Ananias story is late. All that holds good is the fact that a tradition grew round the names in question, both of which hint of mythology--Petros ("the Rock") being the name of an Egyptian God and of the popular Eastern deity Mithra; and Simon the name of a no less popular Semitic God. In his final aspect as leader of the twelve, basis of the Church, and keeper of the heavenly keys, Peter combines the attributes of Mithra and of Janus, both official deities of the Roman military class, as well as of the Egyptian Petra--who is door-keeper of heaven, earth, and the underworld.