COLLECTION AND DISTRIBUTION OF RELICS. 405 of St. John the Baptist at Sebaste, so many miracles were daily performed, that multitudes of people constantly resorted thither; on which account the Apostate Julian is said to have commanded the heathen to scatter the sacred relics over the fields, in order to shame and to spite the Christians. As the miracles did not cease, it was determined that the bones should be re-collected for the purpose of being burned. A number of Christians, mingling with those employed in gathering them, contrived to preserve a number of the bones from the flames; and these relics, having been sent to Athanasius at Alexandria, were for the most part deposited there, whilst of the remainder a distribution was made amongst the various Churches, to the great advantage of the faithful, on account of their ineradicable power of working miracles. It may perhaps be permitted to hesitate to receive as authentic the accounts of wonders wrought posthumously by the disjecta membra of one of whom it is expressly said whilst living, that "John did no miracles" (John x. 41). The salient points of the Baptist's career and mission are thus presented in a hymn for his Day in the "People's Hymnal:" Hail, O thou of women born, Highest station claiming, By the holy Angel called "John" on day of naming. Hallowed from thy mother's womb, Herald-beacon lighted To enlighten them that sit In Death's shade benighted. Hail thou, to the wilderness From the world retreating, Free from taint of carnal sin, Water was thy potion; Thus the world thou puttest off, Hail, thou shepherd sent before Hail, alone of human kind Hail, bright rose-bud, blushing red Lily sweet of chastity In life's sunset hour; May thy voice yet cry aloud With its warning sentence, When GOD's kingdom is at hand, St. Peter's Rag. JUNE 29. IN the ancient Church St. Peter and St. Paul were honoured with a joint commemoration on the twenty-ninth of June, a day on which it was believed they each achieved the crown of martyrdom, although by different methods of execution, and in different parts of the city of Rome. Against this tradition an idle polemical objection-which runs counter to the general voice of antiquity-has sometimes been taken, on the ground that it cannot be proved that St. Peter was ever at Rome at all; as if such an objection were valid against the pretensions of the Popes, who assume to be his successors in the chair of a universal episcopate. The objectors against the precedence and authority of the see of Rome would, perhaps, better serve their purpose if they were to set up a rival claim on behalf of the Church of Jerusalem, which, as the "Mother of all the Churches," and as locally situated in the head-quarters of Judaismof which Christianity was a spiritualized development— might naturally, and by inheritance, appropriate any authority or sanctity that could attach to one see over another from considerations of time and place. There seems little to be gained by disputing the sometime residence of St. Peter at Rome, except the suspicion of a want of candour on the part of objectors to claims which could be better met on other and larger grounds. It is stated by Hospinian that the joint festival" was instituted in the place of the feast of Hercules and the Muses, which was celebrated at Rome on the twenty-ninth of June." * Be this as it may, the commemoration of the two Apostles was of early observance in the Church. If the genuineness of a controverted Homily of St. Chrysostom could be established, it would follow that the festival was known in the East as early as the middle of the fourth century; whilst its observance in the West, in the latter part of the same century and the beginning of the fifth, is certified by the undisputed Homilies of Maximus Taurinensis,† St. Ambrose,‡ Leo the Great,§ and St. Augustine.|| It was about the year 500 that the festival attained its greatest splendour of celebration; at which time Festus, a Roman senator, was sent on a mission to the Emperor Anastasius at Constantinople. The piety of Festus was grieved on discovering the comparatively slight amount of honour which was done to the memory of two such mighty champions for the faith; and he addressed himself by way of petition to the Empress Ariadne, with the intent to ensure her influence for an anniversary of greater pomp and circumstance. The request coincided with the disposition of the Empress; and from the period of the visit of Festus to Constantinople the feast of the two great Apostles was celebrated with a solemnity it had never previously enjoyed. In the course of years it was felt to be something less than seemly that two so illustrious pro*De Origine Festorum Christianorum. Sermones lxvi.-lxix; In Natali Sanctorum Petri et Pauli. Sermones liii. and liv; In Natali Sanctorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli; and De Neglecta solemnitate Beatorum Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. § Sermo; In Natali Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. Sermones ccxcv-ccxcix; In Natali Apostolorum Petri et Pauli. CHARACTER OF THE APOSTLE. 409 pagators of the faith should be partners in a single commemoration; and Gregory the Great (590-604), reserving the twenty-ninth of June for the commemoration of St. Peter alone, appointed the day after for the festival of St. Paul;* the feast of whose Conversion is observed in the English Church on the twenty-fifth of January. It is known that the place of St. Peter's nativity was the city of Bethsaida, on the Sea of Galilee, but the time of that event has not been ascertained; and it has been debated whether the seniority should be adjudged to him or to his brother Andrew, who first brought him to the Saviour, and whose fellow-disciple in the school of John the Baptist he had probably been. The original name of Peter was Simon or Simeon; and upon his vocation to the Apostolate he received in addition the title of Cephas, which in the Aramaic dialect spoken in Palestine in the days of our Lord is the equivalent of the Greek Πέτρος, the Peter of our vernacular. Peter was one of our Lord's most intimate companions, and admitted by Him to the peculiar evidences of His Divine glory, as well as to His agony and humiliation for the fulfilment of the prophecies. Peter was so forward in zeal and attachment that he is constantly seen in the forefront of the Twelve; and his promptness of speech, whether to avow or to question, or, after the Ascension of Christ, to preach and to organize, gained for him among the Fathers the sobriquet of the "Mouthpiece of the Apostles." The Evangelists abundantly establish the character of St. Peter for unequivocal piety, and ardent affection for his Master, and jealousy for His honour. His mind, however, was rather quick than accurate in its perceptions, and his feelings were rather hasty in their impulse than determined and tenacious in their exercise. Always ready to give utter *Hugo Menard's Notæ et Observationes in S. Gregorii Magni Librum Sacramentorum. |