adheres to St. Luke's narrative in the Acts, and thus contradicts himself.
Chrysostom, who, as having been himself a presbyter at Antioch, might seem an undeniable authority, affirms, nevertheless, that the apostle Peter held a long episcopate there.[1] The critics have determined that this long episcopate was seven years; but the testimony of the Acts being irrecusable, the thing is altogether impossible. To meet the difficulty, Nicephorus has diminished the number of years to two; but if this brings the matter nearer to a resemblance to the actual chronology, it nullifies the assertion of Chrysostom, which indeed has been done by himself, inasmuch as he states, in another place,[2] that the apostles did not leave Judea before the famine predicted by Agabus, that is to say, in a. d. 45.
If the ancient witnesses for this opinion be thus at fault, we may not wonder at the unsuccessful efforts of modern hierarchists to establish it. They are mutually at variance with respect to the dates of the fact itself. Baronius[3] makes St. Peter to have been bishop of Antioch from a. d. 39 to 46; but Onuphrius,[4] in his Annotations on Platina, makes the seven years of his episcopate to extend from a. d. 48 to 56. Each affirms, that from Antioch the apostle went to Rome, and spent his remaining days in the government of that church; but each contradicts the other as to the date of his episcopacy, and each makes his own statement self-confutative. Baronius says, that Peter was bishop of Rome for twenty-five years, or from a. d. 46 to 71; but in another part of his Annals he states, that the death of the apostle
