[32] _Victoribus victi leges dederunt._ On the Tiber, the Tigris, and the Nile, this saying was strikingly verified. Yet Judaism is an essentially conservative, not an aggressive, religion. It was unadapted for such wide-spread conquests as those of Christianity, or even of Mohammedism. The ancient mould of thought, having served its purpose, was broken. Judaism may be said to have died in giving birth to Christianity. [33] _Hist._, v, 5. [34] In 1853 a Jewish Catacomb was discovered at Venosa, in Southern Italy, containing one gallery seven feet high and four hundred feet long. In 1854 another was discovered at Oria, with many Hebrew symbols and inscriptions. There were many Jews in Apulia and Calabria. [35] In eo quippe haud ulla, ut in reliquis, Christianæ religionis indicia et signa apparebant--Bosio, _Rom. Sott._, 142. [36] _Cimitero degli Antichi Ebrei Scoperto recentemente in Vigna Randanini, illustrato da Raffaele Garrucci._ 8vo. Roma, 1862. [37] See Fig. 18. [38] Nunc sacri fontis nimus, et delubra locantur Judæis.--_Sat.,_ iii, 13. [39] It is incredible that the Apostle Peter had any share in planting the Roman Church. If he had, Paul would not, as he does, utterly ignore his labours. “_Only Luke_ is with me,” writes St. Paul, just before his death; yet he and Peter are feigned to have suffered on the same day. The story of St. Peter’s twenty-five years’ episcopate at Rome is too absurd to require disproof. The very minuteness of detail in the legends of St. Peter is their own refutation. In vain are we shown the chair in which tradition asserts that he sat, the font at which he baptized, the cell in which he was confined, the fountain which sprang up in its floor, the pillar to which he was bound, the chains which he wore, the impression made by his head in the wall and by his knees in the stony pavement, the scene of his crucifixion, the very hole in which the foot of the cross was placed, and the tomb in which his body is said to lie; they all fail to carry conviction to any mind in which superstition has not destroyed the critical faculty. The mighty fane which rises sublimely in the heart of Rome in honour of the Galilean fisherman, like the religious system of which it is the visible exponent, is founded on a shadowy tradition, opposed alike to the testimony of Scripture, the evidence of history, and the deductions of reason. The question whether Peter _ever_ was in Rome has recently been publicly discussed under the very shadow of the Vatican. Verily, _Tempora mutantur_. [40] Nos quoque ut Judaicæ religionis propinquos, sub umbraculum insignissimæ religionis certé licitæ.--_Ad Nat._, i, 11.