Should you question the Truth of this Tradition at _Rome_, they would shew you the Prints of St. _Peter_’s Knees in the Stone, on which he kneeled on this Occasion, and another Stone still dyed with the Blood of the Magician[N1]. ----- Footnote N1: This Account seems to have been borrowed from _Suetonius_, who speaks of a Person that, in the public Sports, undertook to fly in the Presence of the Emperor _Nero_; but, on his first Attempt, fell to the Ground; by which Fall his Blood sprung out with such Violence, that it reached the Emperor’s Canopy [N1.1]. Footnote N1.1: Suet. l. 6. c. 12. ----- [Sidenote: _Fabulous Accounts of St._ Peter.] The _Romans_, as we are told, highly incensed against him for thus maiming, and bringing to Disgrace, one to whom they paid divine Honours, vowed his Destruction; whereupon the Apostle thought it adviseable to retire for a while from the City, and had already reached the Gate, when, to his great Surprize, he met our Saviour coming in, as he went out, who, upon St. _Peter_’s asking him where he was going, returned this Answer, _I am going to_ Rome _to be crucified anew_: which, as St. _Peter_ understood it, was upbraiding him with his Flight; whereupon he turned back, and was soon after seized by the provoked _Romans_, and, by an Order from the Emperor, crucified. These, and a thousand like Stories, however fabulous and romantic they may seem, we cannot, without great Incoherency, reject, if we admit St. _Peter_ to have been at _Rome_; since the Whole is equally vouched by the same Authority, and has been upon the same Authority equally believed by those, who are called in by the Advocates for the See of _Rome_, to witness St. _Peter_’s having preached the Gospel in that City. [Sidenote: _The greatest Men imposed upon by false Traditions._] These are _Arnobius_[10], _Cyril_ of _Jerusalem_[11], _Eusebius_[12], _Irenæus_[13], _Tertullian_[14], _Jerom_[15], and _Justin_ the Martyr[16]. These have all supposed St. _Peter_ to have been at _Rome_, and, together with St. _Paul_, to have planted Christianity in that great Metropolis of the World; but this they took upon Tradition, and consequently their Authority is of no greater Weight than Tradition itself, which had they duly examined, they would not perhaps have so readily pinned their Faith upon it. False and lying Traditions are of an early Date, and the greatest Men have, out of a pious Credulity, suffered themselves to be imposed upon by them. How many Traditions, after having reigned for Ages without Controul, were upon the Reformation, when Men took the Liberty to examine what they believed, rejected by the Church, ashamed to own them, and degraded into popular Errors! But that of St. _Peter_’s having been at _Rome_, and the first Bishop of that City, was a Tradition of too great Consequence not to be maintained at all Events, since upon that chiefly was founded the Claim