But in respect to the passage which refers to Peter, the burden of proof may fairly
be said to lie on those who maintain the old opinion. Here the word is shown to
have, in the New Testament, no such application to death as it has since acquired;
and the question is whether Clemens Romanus, a man himself of the apostolic age,
who lived and perhaps wrote, before the canon was completed, had already learned
to give a new meaning to a verb, before so simple and unlimited in its applications.
No person can pretend to trace this meaning to within a century of the Clementine
age, nor does Suicer refer to any one who knew of such use before Cl. Alexandr. (See
his Thes.; [Greek: Martyr].) Clement himself uses it in the same epistle (§ xvii.) in its unquestionable
primary sense, speaking of Abraham as having received an honorable
testimony,—([Greek: emartyrêthê];) for who will say that Abraham was martyred, in the modern
sense? The fact too that Clement nowhere else gives the least glimmer of a hint
that Peter died any where but in his bed, fixes the position here taken, beyond all possibility
of attack, except by its being shown that he uses this verb somewhere else,
with the sense of death unquestionably attached to it.
There is no other early writer who can be said to speak of the manner of Peter's death, before Dionysius of Corinth, who says that "Peter and Paul having taught in Italy together, bore their testimony" (by death, if you please,) "about the same time." An argument might here also be sustained on the word [Greek: emartyrêsan], (emarturesan,) but the evidence of Dionysius, mixed as it is with a demonstrated fable, is not worth a verbal criticism. The same may be said of Tertullian and the rest of the later Fathers, as given in the note on pages 228-233.
An examination of the word [Greek: Martyr], in Suicer's Thesaurus Ecclesiasticus, will show the critical, that even in later times, this word did not necessarily imply "one who bore his testimony to the truth at the sacrifice of life." Even Chrysostom, in whose time the peculiar limitation of the term might be supposed to be very well established, uses the word in such applications as to show that its original force was not wholly lost. By Athanasius too, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego are styled martyrs. Gregory Nazianzen also speaks of "living martyrs." ([Greek: zôntes martyres.]) Theophylact calls the apostle John a martyr, though he declares him to have passed through the hands of his persecutors unhurt, and to have died by the course of nature. Clemens Alexandrinus has similar uses of the term; and the Apostolical Constitutions, of doubtful date, but much later than the first century, also give it in such applications. Suicer distinctly specifies several classes of persons, not martyrs in the modern sense, to whom the Greek word is nevertheless applied in the writings of even the later Fathers; as "those who testified the truth of the gospel of Christ, at the peril of life merely, without the loss of it,"—"those who obeyed the requirements of the gospel, by restraining passion," &c. In some of these instances however, it is palpable that the application of the word to such persons is secondary, and made in rather a poetical way, with a reference to the more common meaning of loss of life for the sake of Christ, since there is always implied a testimony at the risk or loss of something; still the power of these instances to render doubtful the meaning of the term, is unquestionable. (See Suicer's Thes. Ecc. [Greek: Martyr] III. 2, 5, 6.)
Perhaps it is hardly worth while to dismiss these fables altogether, without first alluding to the rather ancient one, first given by Clemens Alexandrinus. (Stromat. 7. p. 736.) and copied verbatim by Eusebius, (H. E. III. 30.) Both the reverend Fathers however, introduce the story as a tradition, a mere on dit, prefacing it with the expressive phrase, "They say," &c. ([Greek: Phasi].) "The blessed Peter seeing his wife led to death, was pleased with the honor of her being thus called by God to return home, and thus addressed her in words of exhortation and consolation, calling her by name,—"O woman! remember the Lord." The story comes up from the hands of tradition rather too late however, to be entitled to any credit whatever, being recorded by Clemens Alexandrinus, full 200 years after Christ. It was probably invented in the times when it was thought worth while to cherish the spirit of voluntary martyrdom, among even the female sex; for which purpose instances were sought out or invented respecting those of the apostolic days. That Peter had a wife is perfectly true; and it is also probable that she accompanied him about on his travels, as would appear from a passage in Paul's writings; (1 Cor. ix. 5;) but beyond this, nothing is known of her life or death. Similar fables might be endlessly multiplied from papistical sources; more especially from the Clementine novels, and the apostolical romances of Abdias Babylonius; but the object of the present work is true history, and it would require a whole volume like this to give all the details of Christian mythology.
