its first bishop,――both suffering martyrdom at Rome on the same day; Peter being crucified and Paul decapitated. There is no representation of Peter’s being any more bishop of Rome than Paul was;――and Irenaeus in particular, expressly makes Linus the first bishop, and to be ordained by the two apostles. We now come to Eusebius, who wrote about A. D. 325. He quotes most of the fathers above cited, but departs widely from them, in regard to the time, and the occasion, of Peter’s going to Rome. He says it was in the reign of Claudius;――and for the purpose of opposing Simon Magus, (as the Clementine novels represented the matter.) Yet he does not make Peter to be bishop of Rome. The subsequent writers of the fourth and following centuries, agree with Eusebius as to the time and the occasion of Peter’s going to Rome; and most of them make Peter to be the first bishop of Rome. According to them, Peter remained in Judea only about four years after the ascension; then he was bishop of Antioch seven years, and in the second year of Claudius, A. D. 43, removed his chair to Rome, where he was bishop for twenty-five years, or until his death, A. D. 68. And this is the account generally given by the papists, quite down to the present times. OBJECTIONS TO THE TRADITIONARY HISTORY OF PETER. 1. So far as the later fathers contradict those of the three first centuries, they ought to be rejected; because, they could not have so good means of information. Oral tradition must, in three centuries, have become worthless, compared with what it was in the second and third centuries;――and written testimony, which could be relied on, they had none, except that of the early fathers. Besides, we have seen how these later fathers were led astray. They believed the fable of Simon Magus’s legerdemain at Rome, and his deification there. They read the Clementine fictions, and supposed them to be novels founded on facts. In their eulogies of Peter, they were fond of relating marvelous and affecting stories about him, and therefore too readily admitted fabulous traditions. And lastly, the bishops of Rome and their numerous adherents had a direct and an immense interest depending on this traditional history;――for by it alone, they made out their succession to the chair of Peter, and the legitimacy of their ghostly power.