the World Nay it was re-established by the Apostles in the infancy of Christianity and observed by the Primitive Christians for several Ages as we have elsewhere observed 5. THE other Precept was concerning Circumcision given to Abraham at the time of God's entring into Covenant with him God said unto Abraham Thou shalt keep my Covenant c. This is my Covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy Seed after thee every Man-child among you shall be circumcised and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your fore-skin and it shall be a token of the Covenant betwixt me and you God had now made a Covenant with Abraham to take his Posterity for his peculiar People and that out of them should arise the promised Messiah and as all federal compacts have some solemn and external rites of ratification so God was pleased to add Circumcision as the sign and seal of this Covenant partly as it had a peculiar fitness in it to denote the promised Seed partly that it might be a discriminating badge of Abraham's Children that part whom God had especially chosen out of the rest of Mankind from all other People On Abraham's part it was a sufficient argument of his hearty compliance with the terms of this Covenant that he would so chearfully submit to so unpleasing and difficult a sign as was imposed upon him For Circumcision could not but be both painful and dangerous in one of his Years as it was afterwards to be to all new-born Infants whence Zipporah complained of Moses commanding her to circumcise her Son that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an husband of blouds a cruel and inhumane Husband And this the Jews tell us was the reason why circumcision was omitted during their Forty Years Journey in the Wilderness it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by reason of the trouble and inconvenience of the way God mercifully dispensing with the want of it lest it should hinder their travelling the soreness and weakness of the circumcised Person not comporting with hard and continual Journeys It was to be administred the eight day not sooner the tenderness of the Infant not well till then complying with it besides that the Mother of a Male-child was reckoned legally impure till the seventh Day not later probably because the longer it was deferred the more unwilling would Parents be to put their Children to pain of which they would every Day become more sensible not to say the satisfaction it would be to them to see their Children solemnly entred into Covenant Circumcision was afterwards incorporated into the Body of the Jewish Law and entertained with a mighty Veneration as their great and standing Priviledge relied on as the main Basis and Foundation of their confidence and hopes of acceptance with Heaven and accounted in a manner equivalent to all the other Rites of the Mosaick Law 6. BUT besides these two we find other positive Precepts which though not so clearly expressed are yet sufficiently intimated to us Thus there seems to have been a Law that none of the Holy Line none of the Posterity of Seth should marry with Infidels or those corrupt and idolatrous Nations which God had rejected as appears in that it 's charged as a great part of the sin of the old World that the Sons of God matched with the Daughters of Men as also from the great care which Abraham took that his Son Isaac should not take a Wife of the Daughters of the Canaanites among whom he dwelt There was also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jus Leviratus whereby the next Brother to him who died without Issue was obliged to marry the Widow of the deceased and to raise up seed unto his Brother the contempt whereof cost Onan his Life together with many more particular Laws which the story of those Times might suggest to us But what is of most use and importance to us is to observe what Laws God gave for the administration of his Worship which will be best known by considering what worship generally prevailed in those early Times wherein we shall especially remark the nature of their publick Worship the Places where the Times when and the Persons by whom it was administred 7. IT cannot be doubted but that the Holy Patriarchs of those days were careful to instruct their Children and all that were under their charge their Families being then very vast and numerous in the Duties of Religion to explain and improve the natural Laws written upon their minds and acquaint them with those Divine Traditions and positive Revelations which they themselves had received from God this being part of that great character which God gave of Abraham I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment To this they joyned Prayer and Invocation than which no duty is more natural and necessary more natural because it fitly expresses that great reverence and veneration which we have for the Divine Majesty and that propensity that is in Mankind to make known their wants none more necessary because our whole dependance being upon the continuance and constant returns of the Divine power and goodness 't is most reasonable that we should make our Daily addresses to him in whom we live move and have our being Nor were they wanting in returns of praise and solemn celebrations of the goodness of Heaven both by entertaining high and venerable thoughts of God and by actions suitable to those honourable sentiments which they had of him In these acts of worship they were careful to use gestures of the greatest reverence and submission which commonly was prostration Abraham bowed himself towards the ground and when God sent the Israelites the happy news of their deliverance out of Egypt they bowed their Heads and worshipped A posture which hath ever been the usual mode of adoration in those Eastern Countries unto this day But the greatest instance of the Publick Worship of those times was Sacrifices a very early piece of Devotion in all probability taking its rise from Adam's fall They were either Eucharistical expressions of thankfulness for blessings received or expiatory offered for the remission of sin Whether these Sacrifices were first taken up at Mens arbitrary pleasure or positively instituted and commanded by God might admit of a very large enquiry But to me the case seems plainly this That as to Eucharistical Sacrifices such as first-fruits and the like oblations Mens own reason might suggest and perswade them that it was fit to present them as the most natural significations of a thankful mind And thus far there might be Sacrifices in the state of Innocence for Man being created under such excellent circumstances as he was in Paradise could not but know that he owed to God all possible gratitude and subjection obedience he owed him as his Supreme Lord and Master gratitude as his great
earnestly exhorting her and calling her by her Name bad her to be mindful of our Lord. Such says he was the Wedlock of that blessed couple and the perfect disposition and agreement in those things that were dearest to them By her he is said to have had a Daughter called Petronilla Metaphrastes adds a Son how truly I know not This only is certain that Clemens of Alexandria reckons Peter for one of the Apostles that was Married and had Children And surely he who was so good a man and so good an Apostle was as good in the relation both of an Husband and a Father SECT XI An Enquiry into S. Peter's going to Rome Peter ' 's being at Rome granted in general The account of it given by Baronius and the Writers of that Church rejected and disproved No foundation for it in the History of the Apostolick Acts. No mention of it in S. Paul ' s Epistle to the Romans No news of his being there at S. Paul ' s coming to Rome nor intimation of any such thing in the several Epistles which S. Paul wrote from thence S. Peter ' s first being at Rome inconsistent with the time of the Apostolical Synod at Jerusalem And with an Ancient Tradition that the Apostles were commanded to stay Twelve years in Judaea after Christ ' s death A passage out of Clemens Alexandrinus noted and corrected to that purpose Difference among the Writers of the Romish Church in their Accounts Peter 's being XXV years Bishop of Rome no solid foundation for it in Antiquity The Planting and Governing that Church equally attributed to Peter and Paul S. Peter when probably came to Rome Different dates of his Martyrdom assigned by the Ancients A probable account given of it 1. THOUGH it be not my purpose to swim against the Stream and Current of Antiquity in denying S. Peter to have been at Rome an Assertion easilier perplexed and entangled than confuted and disproved yet may we grant the main without doing any great service to that Church there being evidence enough to every impartial and considering man to spoil that smooth and plausible Scheme of Times which Baronius and the Writers of that Church have drawn with so much care and diligence And in order to this we shall first enquire whether that Account which Bellarmine and Baronius give us of Peter's being at Rome be tolerably reconcileable with the History of the Apostles Acts recorded by S. Luke which will be best done by briefly presenting S. Peter's Acts in their just Series and order of Time and then seeing what countenance and foundation their Account can receive from hence 2. AFTER our Lord's Ascension we find Peter for the first year at least staying with the rest of the Apostles at Jerusalem In the next year he was sent together with S. John by the command of the Apostles to Samaria to preach the Gospel to that City and the parts about it About three years after S. Paul meets him at Jerusalem with whom he staid some time In the two following years he visited the late planted Churches preached at Lydda and Joppa where having tarried many days he thence removed to Caesarea where he preached to and baptized Cornelius and his Family Whence after some time he returned to Jerusalem where he probably staid till cast into prison by Herod and delivered by the Angel After which we hear no more of him till three or four years after we find him in the Council at Jerusalem After which he had the contest with S. Paul at Antioch And thence forward the Sacred Story is altogether silent in this matter So that in all this time we find not the least footstep of any intimation that he went to Rome This Baronius well foresaw and therefore once and again inserts this caution that S. Luke did not design to record all the Apostles Acts and that he has omitted many things which were done by Peter Which surely no man ever intended to deny But then that he should omit a matter of such vast moment and importance to the whole Christian World that not one syllable should be said of a Church planted by Peter at Rome a Church that was to be Paramount the seat of all Spiritual Power and Infallibility and to which all other Churches were to vail and do homage nay that he should not so much as mention that ever he was there and yet all this said to be done within the time he designed to write of is by no means reasonable to suppose Especially considering that S. Luke records many of his journeys and travels and his preaching at several places of far less consequence and concernment Nor let this be thought the worse of because a negative Argument since it carries so much rational evidence along with it that any man who is not plainly byassed by Interest will be satisfied with it 3. BUT let us proceed a little further to enquire whether we can meet any probable footsteps afterwards About the year Fifty three towards the end of Claudius his Reign S. Paul is thought to have writ his Epistle to the Church at Rome wherein he spends the greatest part of one Chapter in saluting particular persons that were there amongst whom it might reasonably have been expected that S. Peter should have had the first place And supposing with Baronius that Peter at this time might be absent from the City preaching the Gospel in some parts in the West yet we are not sure that S. Paul knew of this and if he did it is strange that in so large an Epistle wherein he had occasion enough there should be neither direct nor indirect mention of him or of any Church there founded by him Nay S. Paul himself intimates what an earnest desire he had to come thither that he might impart unto them some spiritual gifts to the end they might be established in the Faith for which there could have been no such apparent cause had Peter been there so lately and so long before him Well S. Paul himself not many years after is sent to Rome Ann. Chr. LVI or as Eusebius LVII though Baronius makes it two years after about the second year of Nero when he comes thither does he go to sojourn with Peter as 't is likely he would had he been there No but dwelt by himself in his own hired house No sooner was he come but he called the chief of the Jews together acquainted them with the cause and end of his coming explains the doctrine of Christianity which when they rejected he tells them That henceforth the Salvation of God was sent unto the Gentiles who would hear it to whom he would now address himself Which seems to intimate that however some few of the Gentiles might have been brought over yet that no such harvest had been made before his coming as might reasonably have been expected from S. Peter's having been so many years amongst them Within
Nephew Lot a just man but vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked for dwelling in the midst of an impure and debauched generation In seeing and hearing he vexed his righteous Soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds This endeared him to Heaven who took a particular care of him and sent an Angel on purpose to conduct him and his family out of Sodom before he let loose that fatal vengeance that overturned it 18. Abraham being dead Isaac stood up in his stead the son of his Parents old age and the fruit of an extraordinary promise Being delivered from being a sacrifice he frequented say the Jews the School of Sem wherein he was educated in the knowledge of Divine things till his marriage with Rebeccah But however that was he was a good man we read of his going out to meditate or pray in the field at even-tide and elsewhere we find him publickly sacrificing and calling upon God In all his distresses God still appeared to him animated him against his fears and encouraged him to go on in the steps of his Father renewing the same promises to him which he had made to Abraham Nay so visible and remarkable was the interest which he had in Heaven that Abimelech King of the Philistines and his Courtiers thought it their wisest course to confederate with him for this very reason because they saw certainly that the Lord was with him and that he was the blessed of the Lord. Religion is the truest interest and the wisest portion 't is the surest protection and the safest refuge When a man's ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Isaac dying in the CLXXX year of his life the Patriarchate devolved upon his son Jacob by vertue of the primogeniture which he had purchased of his brother Esau and which had been confirmed to him by the grant and blessing of his Father though subtilly procured by the artifice and policy of his Mother who also told him that God Almighty would bless and multiply him and his seed after him and that the blessing of Abraham should come upon them He intirely devoted himself to the fear and service of God kept up his Worship and vindicated it from the incroachments of Idolatry he erected Altars at every turn and zealously purged his house from those Teraphim or Idols which Rachel had brought along with her out of Laban's house either to prevent her Father's enquiring at them which way Jacob had made his escape or to take away from him the instruments of his Idolatry or possibly that she might have wherewith to propitiate and pacifie her Father in case he should pursue and overtake them as Josephus thinks though surely then she would have produced them when she saw her Father so zealous to retrieve them He had frequent Visions and Divine condescensions God appearing to him and ratifying the Covenant that he had made with Abraham and changing his name from Jacob to Israel as a memorial of the mighty prevalency which he had with Heaven In his later time he removed his family into Egypt where God had prepared his way by the preferment of his son Joseph to be Vice-Roy and Lord of that vast and fertile Country advanced to that place of state and grandeur by many strange and unsearchable methods of the Divine Providence By his two Wives the Daughters of his Uncle Laban and his two Handmaids he had twelve Sons who afterwards became founders of the Twelve Tribes of the Jewish Nation to whom upon his deathbed he bequeathed his blessings consigning their several portions and the particular fates of every Tribe among whom that of Judah is most remarkable to whom it was foretold that the Messiah should arise out of that Tribe that the Regal Power and Political Soveraignty should be annexed to it and remain in it till the Messiah came at whose coming the Scepter should depart and the Law-giver from between his knees And thus all their own Paraphrasts both Onkelos Jonathan and he of Jerusalem do expound it that there should not want Kings or Rulers of the house of Judah nor Scribes to teach the Law of that race 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 until the time that Messiah the King shall come whose the Kingdom is And so it accordingly came to pass for at the time of Christ's Birth Herod who was a stranger had usurped the Throne debased the authority of their great Sanhedrim murdered their Senators devested them of all Judiciary power and kept them so low that they had not power left to put a man to death And unto him shall the gathering of the people be A prophecy exactly accomplished when in the first Ages of Christianity the Nations of the World flocked to the standard of Christ at the publication of the Gospel Jacob died CXLVII years old and was buried in Canaan in the Sepulchre of his Fathers After whose decease his posterity for some hundreds of years were afflicted under the Egyptian yoke Till God remembring the Covenant he had made with their Fathers powerfully rescued them from the Iron Furnace and conducted them through the wilderness into the Land of Promise where he framed and ordered their Commonwealth appointed Laws for the government of their Church and setled them under a more fixed and certain dispensation 19. HITHERTO we have surveyed the state of the Church in the constant succession of the Patriarchal Line But if we step a little further into the History of those times we shall find that there were some extraordinary persons without the Pale of that holy Tribe renowned for the worship of God and the profession of Religion among whom two are most considerable Melchisedeck and Job Melchisedeck was King of Salem in the land of Canaan and Priest of the most high God The short account which the Scripture gives of him hath left room for various fancies and conjectures The opinion that has most generally obtained is that Melchisedeck was Sem one of the sons of Noah who was of a great Age and lived above LXX years after Abraham's coming into Canaan and might therefore well enough meet him in his triumphant return from his conquest over the Kings of the Plain But notwithstanding the universal authority which this opinion assumes to it self it appears not to me with any tolerable probability partly because Canaan where Melchisedeck lived was none of those Countries which were allotted to Sem and to his posterity and unlikely it is that he should be Prince in a foreign Country partly because those things which the Scripture reports concerning Melchisedeck do no ways agree to Sem as that he was without Father and Mother without genealogie c. whenas Moses does most exactly describe and record Sem and his Family both as to his Ancestors and as to his posterity That therefore which seems most probable in the case is that he was one of the Reguli or petty Kings
the time of writing or the care that is used in doing it Who sees not the vast difference of Jeremie's writing in his Prophecy and in his Book of Lamentations between S. John's in his Gospel his Epistles and Apocalypse How oft does S. Paul alter his style in several of his Epistles in some more lofty and elegant in others more rough and harsh Besides hundreds of instances that might be given both in Ecclesiastical and Foreign Writers too obvious to need insisting on in this place The learned Grotius will have this Epistle to have been written by Symeon S. James his immediate Successor in the Bishoprick of Jerusalem and that the word Peter was inserted into the Title by another hand But as a Judicious person of our own observes these were but his Posthume Annotations published by others and no doubt never intended as the deliberate result of that great man's Judgment especially since he himself tacitly acknowledges that all Copies extant at this day read the Title and Inscription as it is in our Books And indeed there is a concurrence of circumstances to prove S. Peter to be the Author of it It bears his name in the Front and Title yea somewhat more expresly than the former which has only one this both his Names There 's a passage in it that cannot well relate to any but him When he tells us that he was present with Christ in the holy Mount When he received from God the Father honour and glory Where he heard the voice which came from Heaven from the excellent glory This is my Beloved Son in whom I am well pleased This evidently refers to Christs Transfiguration where none were present but Peter and the two Sons of Zebedee neither of which were ever thought of to be the Author of this Epistle Besides that there is an admirable consent and agreement in many passages between these two Epistles as it were easie to show in particular instances Add to this that S. Jude speaking of the Scoffers who should come in the last time walking after their own ungodly lusts cites this as that which had been before spoken by the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ wherein he plainly quotes the words of this Second Epistle of Peter affirming That there should come in the last days scoffers walking after their own lusts And that this does agree to Peter will further appear by this that he tells us of these Scoffers that should come in the last days that is before the destruction of Jerusalem as that phrase is often used in the New Testament that they should say Where is the promise of his coming Which clearly respects their making light of those threatnings of our Lord whereby he had foretold that he would shortly come in Judgment for the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Nation This he now puts them in mind of as what probably he had before told them of Vivâ voce when he was amongst them For so we find he did elsewhere Lactantiusassuring us That amongst many strange and wonderful things which Peter and Paul preached at Rome and left upon Record this was one That within a short time God would send a Prince who should destroy the Jews and lay their Cities level with the ground straitly besiege them destroy them with Famine so that they should feed upon one another That their Wives and Daughters should be ravished and their Childrens brains dasht out before their faces that all things should be laid waste by Fire and Sword and themselves perpetually banished from their own Country and this for their insolent and merciless usage of the innocent and dear Son of God All which as he observes came to pass soon after their death when Vespasian came upon the Jews and extinguished both their Name and Nation And what Peter here foretold at Rome we need not question but he had done before to those Jews to whom he wrote this Epistle Wherein he especially antidotes them against those corrupt and poisonous principles wherewith many and especially the followers of Simon Magus began to infect the Church of Christ. And this but a little time before his death as appears from that passage in it where he tells them That he knew he must shortly put off his earthly Tabernacle 7. BESIDES these Divine Epistles there were other supposititious writings which in the first Ages were fathered upon S. Peter Such was the Book called his Acts mentioned by Origen Eusebius and others but rejected by them Such was his Gospel which probably at first was nothing else but the Gospel written by S. Mark dictated to him as is generally thought by S. Peter and therefore as S. Hierom tells us said to be his Though in the next Age there appeared a Book under that Title mentioned by Serapion Bishop of Antioch and by him at first suffered to be read in the Church but afterwards upon a more careful perusal of it he rejected it as Apocryphal as it was by others after him Another was the Book stiled His Preaching mentioned and quoted both by Clemens Alexandrinus and by Origen but not acknowledged by them to be Genuine Nay expresly said to have been forged by Hereticks by an ancient Author contemporary with S. Cyprian The next was his Apocalypse or Revelation rejected as Sozomen tells us by the Ancients as Spurious but yet read in some Churches in Palestine in his time The last was the Book called His Judgment which probably was the same with that called Hermes or Pastor a Book of good use and esteem in the first times of Christianity and which as Eusebius tells us was not only frequently cited by the Ancients but also publickly read in Churches 8. WE shall conclude this Section by considering Peter with respect to his several Relations That he was married is unquestionable the Sacred History mentioning his Wifes Mother his Wife might we believe Metaphrastes being the Daughter of Aristobulus Brother to Barnabas the Apostle And though S. Hierom would perswade us that he left her behind him together with his Nets when he forsook all to follow Christ yet we know that Father too well to be over-confident upon his word in a case of Marriage or Single life wherein he is not over-scrupulous sometimes to strain a point to make his opinion more fair and plausible The best is we have an infallible Authority which plainly intimates the contrary the testimony of S. Paul who tells us of Cephas that he led about a Wife a Sister along with him who for the most part mutually cohabited and lived together for ought that can be proved to the contrary Clemens Alexandrinus gives us this account though he tells us not the time or place That Peter seeing his Wife going towards Martyrdom exceedingly rejoyced that she was called to so great an honour and that she was now returning home encouraging and
and respect of the People towards him His Death an inlet to the destruction of the Jewish Nation His Epistle when written What the design and purpose of it The Proto-evangelium ascribed to him 1. BEFORE we can enter upon the Life of this Apostle some difficulty must be cleared relating to his Person Doubted it has been by some whether this was the same with that S. James that was Bishop of Jerusalem three of this Name being presented to us S. James the Great this S. James the Less both Apostles and a third sirnamed the Just distinct say they from the former and Bishop of Jerusalem But this however pretending to some little countenance from antiquity is a very great mistake and built upon a sandy bottom For besides that the Scripture mentions no more than two of this Name and both Apostles nothing can be plainer than that that S. James the Apostle whom S. Paul calls our Lord's Brother and reckons with Peter and John one of the Pillars of the Church was the same that presided among the Apostles no doubt by vertue of his place it being his Episcopal Chair and determined in the Synod at Jerusalem Nor do either Clemens Alexandrinus or Eusebius out of him mention any more than two S. James put to death by Herod and S. James the Just Bishop of Jerusalem whom they expresly affirm to be the same with him whom S. Paul calls the Brother of our Lord. Once indeed Eusebius makes our S. James one of the Seventy though elsewhere quoting a place of Clemens of Alexandria he numbers him with the Chief of the Apostles and expresly distinguishes him from the Seventy Disciples Nay S. Hierom though when representing the Opinion of others he stiles him the Thirteenth Apostle yet elsewhere when speaking his own sence sufficiently proves that there were but two James the Son of Zebedee and the other the Son of Alphaeus the one sirnamed the Greater the other the Less Besides that the main support of the other Opinion is built upon the authority of Clemens his Recognitions a Book in doubtful cases of no esteem and value 2. THIS doubt being removed we proceed to the History of his Life He was the Son as we may probably conjecture of Joseph afterwards Husband to the Blessed Virgin and his first Wife whom S. Hierom from Tradition stiles Escha Hippolytus Bishop of Porto calls Salome and further adds that she was the Daughter of Aggi Brother to Zacharias Father to John the Baptist. Hence reputed our Lord's Brother in the same sence that he was reputed the Son of Joseph Indeed we find several spoken of in the History of the Gospel who were Christ's Brethren but in what sence was controverted of old S. Hierom Chrysostom and some others will have them so called because the Sons of Mary Cousin-german or according to the custome of the Hebrew Language Sister to the Virgin Mary But Eusebius Epiphanius and the far greater part of the Ancients from whom especially in matters of fact we are not rashly to depart make them the Children of Joseph by a former Wife And this seems most genuine and natural the Evangelists seeming very express and accurate in the account which they give of them Is not this the Carpenter's Son Is not his Mother called Mary and his Brethren James and Joses and Simon and Jude and his Sisters whose Names says the foresaid Hippolytus were Esther and Thamar are they not all with us whence then hath this man these things By which it is plain that the Jews understood these Persons not to be Christ's Kinsmen only but his Brothers the same Carpenter's Sons having the same relation to him that Christ himself had though indeed they had more Christ being but his reputed they his natural Sons Upon this account the Blessed Virgin is sometimes called the Mother of James and Joses for so amongst the Women that attended at our Lord's Crucifixion we find three eminently taken notice of Mary Magdalen Mary the Mother of James and Joses and the Mother of Zebedees Children Where by Mary the Mother of James and Joses no other can be meant than the Virgin Mary it not being reasonable to suppose that the Evangelists should omit the Blessed Virgin who was certainly there and therefore S. John reckoning up the same Persons expresly stiles her the Mother of Jesus And though it is true she was but S. James his Mother-in-law yet the Evangelists might chuse so to stile her because commonly so called after Joseph's death and probably as Gregory of Nyssa thinks known by that Name all along chusing that Title that the Son of God whom as a Virgin she had brought forth might be better concealed and less exposed to the malice of the envious Jews nor is it any more wonder that she should be esteemed and called the Mother of James than that Joseph should be stiled and accounted the Father of Jesus To which add that Josephus eminently skilful in matters of Genealogy and descent expresly says that our S. James was the Brother of Jesus Christ. One thing there is that may seem to lye against it that he is called the Son of Alphaeus But this may probably mean no more than either that Joseph was so called by another Name it being frequent yea almost constant among the Jews for the same Person to have two Names Quis unquam prohibuerit duobus vel tribus nominibus hominem unum vocari as S. Augustin speaks in a parallel case or as a learned Man conjectures it may relate to his being a Disciple of some particular Sect or Synagogue among the Jews called Alphaeans from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting a Family or Society of devout and learned Men of some-what more eminency than the rest there being as he tells us many such at this time among the Jews and in this probably S. James had entred himself the great reputation of his Piety and strictness his Wisdom Parts and Learning rendring the conjecture above the censure of being trifling and contemptible 3. OF the place of his Birth the Sacred story makes no mention The Jewes in their Talmud for doubtless they intend the same Person stile him more than once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man of the Town of Sechania though where that was I am not able to conjecture What was his particular way and course of life before his being called to the Discipleship and Apostolate we find no intimations of in the History of the Gospel nor any distinct account concerning him during our Saviour's life After the Resurrection he was honoured with a particular Appearance of our Lord to him which though silently passed over by the Evangelists is recorded by S. Paul next to the manifesting himself to the Five Hundred Brethren at once he was seen of James which is by all understood of our Apostle S. Hierom out of the Hebrew Gospel