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TOPIC: Luther, Martin - Table Talks (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 25. Of The Apostles and Disciples of Christ
Other Subjects in this Topic:
OF THE APOSTLES AND DISCIPLES OF CHRIST
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DLXII.
The reason why the papists boast more of St Peter than of St Paul is this:
St Paul had the sword, St Peter the keys, and they esteem more of the keys,
to open the coffers, to filch and steal, and to fill their thievish purse,
than of the sword. That Caiaphas, Pilate, and St Peter came to Rome, and
appeared before the emperor, is mere fable; the histories touching that
point do not accord. Christ died in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, who
governed five years after his death. All histories unanimously agree, that
St Peter and St Paul died under the emperor Nero, whose last year was the
five and twentieth year after the death of Christ. But St Peter was eighteen
years at Jerusalem after Christ's death, as the Epistle to the Galatians
witnesses; and after that, he was seven years at Antioch. Then, as they
fable, he ruled afterwards five and twenty years at Rome.
No pope among them all yet ruled five and twenty years; and, according
to this reckoning, St Peter was not crucified under Nero. St Luke writes,
that St Paul was two whole years at liberty in Rome, and went abroad; he
mentions nothing at all of St Peter. It is a thing not to be believed that
St Peter ever was at Rome.
DLXIV.
Saint John the Evangelist wrote, at first, touching the true nature of
faith - that our salvation depends only upon Christ the Son of God and Mary,
who purchased it with his bitter passion and death, and through the Word is
received into the heart by faith, out of his mere mercy and grace. At last
he was constrained to write in his epistle also of works, by reason of the
wickedness of those that, void of all shame, abused the Gospel through
indulging the flesh.