s think that I am assuming as proved what they still consider
subject for discussion, I beg to refer them to some of the standard
works published on this subject by writers who are above the suspicion
of partiality. Such are Doellinger's "First Age of Christianity"
(translated by Henry Nutcombe Oxenham, second edition, London, Allen,
1867); Bishop Lightfoot's "Apostolic Fathers," part ii., London,
Macmillan, 1885, one of the most beautiful and conclusive works on
early Christian history and literature; and de Rossi's "Bullettino di
archeologia cristiana," for 1877. Bishop Lightfoot justly remarks that
when Ignatius--the second apostolic father, a contemporary of
Trajan--writes to the Romans "I do not command you, like Peter and
Paul," the words are full of meaning, if we suppose him to be alluding
to the personal relations of the two apostles with the Roman Church.
In fact, the reason for his use of this language is the recognition of
the visit to Rome of S. Peter as well as S. Paul, which is
persistently maintained in early tradition; and thus it is a parallel
to the joint mention of the two apostles in "Clement of Rome" (p.
357). Doellinger adds: "That S. Peter worked in Rome is a fact so
abundantly proved and so deeply imbedded in the earliest Christian
history, that whoever treats it as a legend ought in consistency to
treat the whole of the earliest church history as legendary, or at
least, quite uncertain. His presence in Corinth is obviously connected
with his journey to Rome, and no one will accept the one and deny the
other (see Cor. i. 12; iii. 22; xi. 22, 23; Clement's Ep. 47, etc.)
Clement again reminds the Corinthians of the 'martyrdom of Peter and
Paul ... among us,' meaning Rome. The very mention implies that S.
Peter's martyrdom was a well-known fact, and it is inconceivable that
his execution should have been known and not the place where it
occurred, or that the place could have been forgotten, and a wrong one
substituted some years later. And when Ignatius writes to the
Romans--'I do not command you like Peter and Paul; they were
apostles'--it is clear, without any explanation, that he desires to
remind them of the two men who, as founders and teachers, had been the
glory of the Church."

The Ebionite document, called "The Preaching of Peter," produced about
the time of Ignatius, or very soon after, and used by Heracleon in
Hadrian's time, is manifestly founded on the undisputed fact of S.
Peter havi