at Rome, with an apostle or any bishop at its head. He sends numerous salutations from individuals whom he names, and from little companies of Christians in their houses,――but no salutations from Peter, or from any bishop, or other officer of the church there. The Catholics tell us, Peter might happen to be absent during this period. What! absent two whole years! and his assistant bishop also? Very negligent shepherds! But where was the church all this time,――the enlightened Christian community, and the elders and deacons, who governed and instructed it, from Sabbath to Sabbath? Were all these, too, gone a journey? No: it is manifest Paul was now the only regular preacher of the gospel at Rome: and he was breaking up fallow ground, that had never before been cultivated, and sown, and made to bear fruit. [This closes the learned argument on the testimonies of the Fathers, extracted from Dr. Murdock’s manuscripts.] Lardner also gives a sort of abstract of the passages in the fathers, which refer to this subject, but not near so full, nor so just to the original passages, as that of Dr. Murdock, although he refers to a few authors not alluded to here, whose testimony, however, amounts to little or nothing. Lardner’s disposition to believe all these long-established Roman fables, seems very great, and, on these points, his critical accuracy appears to fail in maintaining its general character. However, in the simple passage from Clemens Romanus, referred to above, he is very full, not only translating the whole passage relating to Peter and Paul, but entering into a very elaborate discussion of the views taken of it; but after all he fails so utterly in rearing an historical argument on this slender basis, that I cannot feel called on to do anything more than barely refer the critical reader to the passage in his life of Peter, (VII.) Bower has given numerous quotations, too, from these sources, but nothing not contained in the abstract above, of which a great merit is, that it gives all the passages _in full_, in a faithful and highly expressive translation. (See Bower’s Lives of the Popes. “Peter.”) THE COUNCIL OF THE APOSTLES AT JERUSALEM.