A vindication of the Animadversions on Fiat lux

So that according ⟨p. 170⟩unto this Supposition, St Peter intending to acquaint them unto whom he wrote, where he was, when he wrote unto them, and to present them with the respects of the Church in that place, had by an enigmatical expression rather amused than informed them. Besides, he had before this, agreed with and solemnly engaged himself unto Paul to take care of the Circumcision; unto whom after he had preached a while in Palestine, it is more than probable that he betook himself unto Babylon in Assyria, the principal seat of their residence in their first and most populous dispersion, from whence he wrote unto all their Colonies scattered abroad in the neighbouring Nations. So that although I will not, because of the consent of many of the Ancients, deny that Peter went to Rome and preached there, yet I am fully satisfied that this foundation of the Story told by them, is a perfect mistake, consisting in an unwarrantable causeless wresting of a plain expression unto a mystical sense and meaning. 3. Your Witnesses agree not at all in their Story; neither as to the time of his going to Rome, nor as to the occasion of it, nor as to the season of his abode there. Many of them assign unto him 25 years for his residence there, which is evidently false and easily disproved. This computation is ascribed to Eusebius in Chron. Lib. 1. but it is evidently an addition of Hieroms, in whose days the Tradition was increased; for there is no such thing in the Original Greek Copy of Eusebius, nor doth it agree with what he had elsewhere written concerning him. And it is very well worth while, to consider how On•phrius Panvinus, a very learned Antiquary of your own party, makes up these 25 years of Peter's Episcopacy at Rome, Annotat. in Plot. in Vit. B. Petr. Ex novem primis annis, saith he, post ⟨p. 171⟩Christi mortem usque ad initium secundi and Imperii Claudii, Petrum Judea nunquam excessisse, ex Actis Apostelorum & Pauli Epistola ad Galatas, apertissimè constat. Si igitur, ut inter omnes Authores convenit, co tempore Romam venit, illud certe necessarium vide•ur eum ante ad urbem adventum Antiochiae septem annis non sedisse; sed hanc ejus Antiochenam cathedram alio tempore fuisse. Quam rem ex vetustissimorum authorum testimonio sic constitui.