Each Gentile convert weighted the balance on his side. Outside of Syria, the [Judæan]-Christians were swallowed up by the wave of new converts. The churches of Paul prospered: they had good judgment, solidity of mind, and some pecuniary resources which the others had not. The Ebionite churches, on the contrary, grew poorer each day. The money of the churches of Paul was spent in the support of some glorious poor men, who were unable to earn any thing, but who possessed the traditional life of the primitive spirit. The elevated piety and severe manners of these last were admired by the Christian communities of Pagan origin, who imitated and assimilated themselves to these customs. It soon happened that no distinction was manifest: the sweet and conciliatory spirit of St. Luke and Clement Romanus prevailed. The compact of peace was sealed. It was agreed that Peter had converted the first-fruits of the Gentiles, that he had first absolved them from the yoke of the law. It was admitted that Peter and Paul had been the two heads, the founders of the Church of Rome; Peter and Paul became the halves of an inseparable couple,—two luminaries, like the sun and moon. What one taught, the other taught also. They had always been in accord: they had opposed the same enemies, had been victims of Simon the Magician. At Rome they lived like brothers; the Church of Rome was their common work. The supremacy of this church was established for ages.
Thus, from the reconciliation of these parties, the settlement of these primitive struggles, there came forth a grand unity,—the Catholic Church, the Church of Peter and of Paul, a stranger to the rivalries which had marked the first century.
It was, above all, the death of the two apostles which pre-occupied the parties, and gave an opportunity for the most diverse combinations. The tissue of tradition grew in this respect, by an instinctive travail, almost as imperious as that which had presided at the construction of the legend of Jesus. The end of the life of Peter and of Paul was commanded à priori. It was maintained that Christ had predicted the martyrdom of Peter, as he had announced the death of the sons of Zebedee. The need was felt of associating in death the two persons who had been reconciled by force. It was hoped, and perhaps this was not far from right, that they died together, or at least as the consequence of the same event. The places which were believed to have been sanctified by this bloody drama were early fixed upon, and consecrated by memoriæ. In each case, whatever the people desired came in the end to be true. Tradition makes history, retrospectively, as it ought to have been, and as it never is. Not long ago the portraits of Victor Emmanuel and Pius IX. hung side by side in every frequented place in Italy; and the people desired that these two men, who represented principles whose reconciliation was generally considered necessary to Italy, should be in reality completely united. If, in our time, such views impose themselves on history, it will one day appear, in documents reputed to be serious, that Victor Emmanuel and Pius IX. (probably Garibaldi will be added) met each other secretly, understood and loved each other. During the middle ages, at different times, similar attempts were made to appease the hatreds of the Dominicans and Franciscans; to prove that the founders of these two orders were two brothers living together in the most affectionate intercourse; that at first their rules were the same; and that St. Dominic girded himself with the cord of St. Francis.
Concerning Peter and Paul, the increase of the legend was rich and rapid. Rome and all its environs, above all the way to Ostia, were full of souvenirs which were pretended to be connected with the last days of the two apostles. A crowd of touching circumstances; the flight of Peter; the vision of Jesus bearing his cross, iterum crucifigi; the final adieu of Peter and Paul; the meeting of Peter with his wife; Paul at the Salvian waters; Plautilla sending the handkerchief which bound her hair to bandage the eyes of Paul,—all this presented a beautiful ensemble, to which was only wanting an ingenuous and skilful writer. It was too late; the vein of the first Christian literature was spent; the serenity of the narrator of the Acts was lost; his voice was raised no more in story or in romance. It is impossible to choose between a crowd of equally apocryphal writings: in vain one seeks to shield these recitals with the most venerable names (pseudo-Linus, pseudo-Marcellus); the Roman legend of Peter and Paul remains always in a sporadic state. It was more often recounted by the pious guides than seriously read. It was a local affair: no text concerning it has been consecrated and made authoritative for reading in the churches.
Many among you, ladies and gentlemen, will go to Rome, or will return there. Ah, well! if you preserve any good remembrance of these conferences, go, in memory of me, to the Salvian waters, alle tre fontane, to St. Paul-without-the-Walls. It is one of the most beautiful parts of the Roman Campagna,—deserted, damp, green, and sad. There, in a deep depression in the soil, crowned by those grand horizontal lines, disturbed by no living detail,—there are some clear and cold springs. The fever and mouldiness of the tomb are inhaled there. Some Trappists are there established, conscientiously practising their religious suicide. When you are there, sit down a moment, not too long (one quickly catches the fever there), and, while the Trappists give you to drink the water which gushes from the three bounds which the head of Paul made, think of him who came here to talk of these legends with you, and to whom you have listened with so much courtesy and kind attention.
FOURTH CONFERENCE,