The fact alone that Peter remained to the last an “apostle of the circumcision,” speaks for itself. _Whosoever else might have built the Church of Rome it was not Peter._ If such were the case, the successors of this apostle would have to submit themselves to circumcision, if it were but for the sake of consistency, and to show that the claims of the popes are not utterly groundless, Dr. Inman asserts that report says that “in our Christian times popes have to be privately perfect,”[182] but we do not know whether it is carried to the extent of the Levitical Jewish law. The first fifteen Christian bishops of Jerusalem, commencing with James and including Judas, were all circumcised Jews.[183] In the _Sepher Toldos Jeshu_,[184] a Hebrew manuscript of great antiquity, the version about Peter is different. Simon Peter, it says, was one of their own brethren, though he had somewhat departed from the laws, and the Jewish hatred and persecution of the apostle seems to have existed but in the fecund imagination of the fathers. The author speaks of him with great respect and fairness, calling him “a faithful servant of the living God,” who passed his life in austerity and meditation, “living in Babylon at the summit of a tower,” composing hymns, and preaching charity. He adds that Peter always recommended to the Christians not to molest the Jews, but as soon as he was dead, behold another preacher went to Rome and pretended that Simon Peter had altered the teachings of his master. He invented a burning hell and threatened every one with it; promised miracles, but worked none. How much there is in the above of fiction and how much of truth, it is for others to decide; but it certainly bears more the evidence of sincerity and fact on its face, than the fables concocted by the fathers to answer their end. We may the more readily credit this friendship between Peter and his late co-religionists as we find in _Theodoret_ the following assertion: “The Nazarenes are Jews, honoring the ANOINTED (Jesus) as a _just man_ and using the _Evangel_ according to Peter.”[185] Peter was a Nazarene, according to the _Talmud_. He belonged to the sect of the later Nazarenes, which dissented from the followers of John the Baptist, and became a rival sect; and which--as tradition goes--was instituted by Jesus himself.