ng labored at Rome. It is inconceivable that the author of
the Ebionite document should have put forward a groundless fable,
about the theatre of S. Peter's operations, at a time when many who
had seen him must have been still alive. Eusebius, who had the
writings of Papias (and Hegesippos) before him, maintains with
Clement, that S. Peter wrote his Epistle at Rome (Euseb. ii. 15).
Papias, a disciple of S. John, speaking of this epistle declares that
"Babylon" means expressly the capital of the empire. Hegesippos, a
Christian Jew of Palestine, who came to Rome in the first half of the
second century, makes Linus the first bishop after the apostles, in
accordance with Irenaeus, who says: "After Peter and Paul had founded
the Roman church and set it in order, they gave over the episcopate to
Linus." If we consider that Hegesippos came to Rome to investigate,
among other things, the succession of local bishops for the short
period of eighty-three years, that he certainly spoke with persons
whose fathers could remember the presence of the apostles, we cannot
help accepting his evidence as conclusive.

The main objection brought forward by the opponents is that, after the
incident at Antioch, we have no positive knowledge of the actions and
travels of S. Peter. Still, there is nothing to contradict the
assumption of his journey to Rome, and his confession and execution
there. The fact was so generally known that nobody took the trouble to
write a precise statement of it, because nobody dreamed that it could
be denied. How is it possible to imagine that the primitive Church did
not know the place of the death of its two leading apostles? In
default of written testimony let us consult monumental evidence.

There is no event of the imperial age and of imperial Rome which is
attested by so many noble structures, all of which point to the same
conclusion,--the presence and execution of the apostles in the capital
of the empire. When Constantine raised the monumental basilicas over
their tombs on the Via Cornelia and the Via Ostiensis; when Eudoxia
built the church ad Vincula; when Damasus put a memorial tablet in the
Platonia ad Catacumbas; when the houses of Pudens and Aquila and
Prisca were turned into oratories; when the name of Nymphae Sancti
Petri was given to the springs in the catacombs of the Via Nomentana;
when the twenty-ninth day of June was accepted as the anniversary of
S. Peter's execution; when Christians and paga