Antichrist Author:Ernest Renan Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER H. PETER AT ROME. — A. D. 61. Paul's imprisonment and entrance into Rome, — a triumph in the view of the disciples, — with the opportunity given by... more » his residence in the capital of the world, left no peace to the Judaising party. To them Paul was a sort of stimulant, an active rival, whom they were ever complaining of, yet eager to imitate. Peter, in particular, always divided between admiration of his bold associate and the tasks imposed on him by his personal followers, spent his life — which also had its own many trials, as Clement of Rome tells us1 — in copying Paul's career, in following him at a distance, in holding after him the strong positions which might insure success to their common work. About A. D. 54, probably by Paul's example, he established himself at Antioch. The report of Paul's arrival in Rome, which reached Syria and Judaea in the course of the year 61, might well suggest to him also the thought of a journey to the West. He seems to have come with quite an apostolic company. First, his interpreter, John Mark, whom he called his son, was his usual companion.2 The ApostleJohn, as I have more than once observed, seems also to have commonly been with him;1 and we have reason to think that Barnabas may have shared the journey: he was probably the writer of Hebrews, who evidently had been in Rome.2 Finally, it is quite possible that Simon Magus went on his own account to the capital of the world, drawn by the attraction it had for all chiefs of sects, — as the Gnostics of the second century,— charlatans, magicians, and wonder-workers.3 To the Jews the journey to Italy was easy and common. Thehistorian Josephus1 was at Rome, in A.d. 62 or 63, to obtain the liberation of certain Jewish priests — very holy persons, who would eat nothing "unclean," and ...« less