ciple of Jesus on the night when
Jesus was tried and condemned. He bitterly repented, and on the third
day after the Crucifixion he, again in the company of John, hastened to
the sepulchre and found it empty. He was permitted several times to
see the risen Lord, who cancelled his threefold denial by graciously
drawing from him a threefold confession of his love, and commanded him
to feed His lambs and His sheep. Our Lord also predicted his martyrdom
(John xx. and xxi.; Luke xxiv. 33, 34; 1 Cor. xv. 5).

In Acts St. Peter appears as the leader of the Church. At the election
of Matthias in place of Judas, at the descent of the Holy Ghost at
Pentecost, at the admission of the Gentiles in the person of Cornelius
and his family to the privileges of the new covenant, at the
emancipation of the Gentile Christians from the Jewish ceremonial law
at the Council of Jerusalem, St. Peter is foremost (Acts i. 15-26; ii.
1-42; x.; xv. 6-11). Soon after the Council St. Peter was at Antioch,
and weakly "dissembled" by disguising his belief in the truth that the
Gentile Christians were on the same spiritual level as the Jewish
Christians. He was rebuked by St. Paul (Gal. ii. 11-14).

He does not seem to have laboured in Rome until near the end of his
life. The Roman tradition that he was bishop of that city for
twenty-five years is almost certainly a legend, based on the fact that
twenty-five years elapsed between the year when the apostles were
believed to have temporarily left Jerusalem (twelve years after the
Crucifixion) and the date of his martyrdom. There is, however, no
ground for disputing the fact that {237} he died at Rome during the
Neronian persecution. There are several reasons for thinking that he
survived St. Paul for a short period, though St. Augustine asserts that
he was martyred before St. Paul. He was crucified near the middle of
the circus of Nero, on a spot afterwards marked by a "chapel of the
crucifixion." He was buried nigh at hand. His tomb, probably in the
form of a _cella_ or open apse, is mentioned by Caius of Rome about
A.D. 200. A huge basilica was built over it by the Emperor
Constantine, and remained until it was replaced in the 16th century by
the present St. Peter's. In spite of his unique position, St. Peter in
1 Pet. v. 1 speaks of himself as a "presbyter," as St. John does in 2
John 1 and 3 John 1 (compare also 1 Tim. iv. 14, where St. Paul reckons
himself as a member of the "presbyter