Catholics
whenever they are obliged to relate the particulars of a dispute in
which the champions of religion indulged such passions as seem much more
adapted to the senate or to the camp. [126]

[Footnote 120: Mosheim, p. 269, 574. Dupin, Antiquae Eccles. Disciplin.
p. 19, 20.]

[Footnote 121: Tertullian, in a distinct treatise, has pleaded against
the heretics the right of prescription, as it was held by the apostolic
churches.]

[Footnote 122: The journey of St. Peter to Rome is mentioned by most of
the ancients, (see Eusebius, ii. 25,) maintained by all the Catholics,
allowed by some Protestants, (see Pearson and Dodwell de Success.
Episcop. Roman,) but has been vigorously attacked by Spanheim,
(Miscellanes Sacra, iii. 3.) According to Father Hardouin, the monks of
the thirteenth century, who composed the Aeneid, represented St. Peter
under the allegorical character of the Trojan hero. * Note: It is quite
clear that, strictly speaking, the church of Rome was not founded by
either of these apostles. St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans proves
undeniably the flourishing state of the church before his visit to the
city; and many Roman Catholic writers have given up the impracticable
task of reconciling with chronology any visit of St. Peter to Rome
before the end of the reign of Claudius, or the beginning of that of
Nero.--M.]

[Footnote 123: It is in French only that the famous
allusion to St. Peter's name is exact. Tu es Pierre, et sur cette
pierre.--The same is imperfect in Greek, Latin, Italian, &c., and
totally unintelligible in our Tentonic languages. * Note: It is exact in
Syro-Chaldaic, the language in which it was spoken by Jesus Christ. (St.
Matt. xvi. 17.) Peter was called Cephas; and cepha signifies base,
foundation, rock--G.]

[Footnote 124: Irenaeus adv. Haereses, iii. 3. Tertullian de
Praescription. c. 36, and Cyprian, Epistol. 27, 55, 71, 75. Le
Clere (Hist. Eccles. p. 764) and Mosheim (p. 258, 578) labor in the
interpretation of these passages. But the loose and rhetorical style of
the fathers often appears favorable to the pretensions of Rome.]

[Footnote 125: See the sharp epistle from Firmilianus, bishop of
Caesarea, to Stephen, bishop of Rome, ap. Cyprian, Epistol. 75.]

[Footnote 126: Concerning this dispute of the rebaptism of heretics, see
the epistles of Cyprian, and the seventh book of Eusebius.]

The progress of the ecclesiastical authority gave birth to the memorable
distinction of t