The reason why the papists boast more of St Peter than of St Paul is this: St
Paul had the sword, St Peter the keys, and they esteem more of the keys, to
open the coffers, to filch and steal, and to fill their thievish purse, than of
the sword. That Caiaphas, Pilate, and St Peter came to Rome, and appeared
before the emperor, is mere fable; the histories touching that point do not
accord. Christ died in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, who governed five years
after his death. All histories unanimously agree, that St Peter and St Paul
died under the emperor Nero, whose last year was the five and twentieth year
after the death of Christ. But St Peter was eighteen years at Jerusalem after
Christ's death, as the Epistle to the Galatians witnesses; and after that, he
was seven years at Antioch. Then, as they fable, he ruled afterwards five and
twenty years at Rome.
No pope among them all
yet ruled five and twenty years; and, according to this reckoning, St Peter was
not crucified under Nero. St Luke writes, that St Paul was two whole years at
liberty in Rome, and went abroad; he mentions nothing at all of St Peter. It is
a thing not to be believed that St Peter ever was at Rome.
