The title, Prince of the Apostles, signifies that St. Peter was the chief and head of the Apostolic college, and enjoyed a pre-eminence of honor and authority over the other Apostles. This preeminence of St. Peter is everywhere manifest in the New Testament. He was not the first called, for St. Andrew was before him, yet he is always placed first in the catalogue of Apostles, and is expressly called the "First" by St. Matthew. He generally appears as the leader and spokesman of the other Apostles, and is always mentioned as the first of the three Apostles who enjoyed the peculiar confidence of Jesus Christ, were witnesses of His transfiguration and agony, and in other ways were preferred before the rest, the other two being James and John. He was the first of the apostles who saw the Lord after His resurrection, and the angel at the sepulchre sent him a special message by name, "Go, tell the disciples, __and Peter__." He was the first who pronounced in the Council of the Apostles his judgment that they must elect another Apostle in the place of Judas--the first who preached Christ to the Jews, and the first who admitted the Gentiles to baptism. He pronounced sentence in the Council of Jerusalem. {198} While the other Apostles confined themselves within a particular circle, he visited the Church everywhere--"__pertransivit universos__." He approved the writings of St. Paul, and the same St. Paul went expressly to Jerusalem, as he says, "to see Peter," commanded by "a revelation"; that he might submit his gospel to the judgment of the Prince of the Apostles, of St. James the Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the other Apostles there, in order to obtain the approbation of St. Peter and his fellow-bishops--"lest perhaps," as he writes to the Galatians, "I should run, or had run in vain." Perhaps the most striking proof that St. Peter had a real oversight over the other Apostles, as the pastor of pastors, is found in the fact that Jesus Christ, immediately before His passion, committed the other Apostles to his care, and offered up a special prayer for him, to obtain the grace necessary for this high trust. He said to all the Apostles, speaking to St. Peter by name as their representative, "Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have __you__ [in the plural number, designating the eleven], that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for __thee__ [in the singular number], that __thy__ faith fail not: and thou being once converted, confirm thy brethren"--"__Aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos__." A remarkable passage! Our Lord, at this awful moment, disclosed a portion of His divine knowledge, and gave His Apostles a glimpse into futurity. {199} He showed them Satan, exerting his utmost to destroy them as the guardians of the faith, and the custodians of all the hopes of the human race. He intimates very plainly that but for Him they would be inevitably swept away. But He had prayed for them, and,