Peter Comes to Rome

The evil power that hates what is good and plots against human salvation set up Simon at that time as the father and author of such evils, as if to make him a great opponent of our Savior’s great and inspired apostles. Yet the divine grace from beyond the heavens, working with its servants, quickly quenched the evil one’s flame as it was being kindled, by their appearing and their presence, and through them it humbled and pulled down “every height raised up against the knowledge of God.” [a] So no organized band of Simon, or of anyone else who sprang up at that time, held its ground in those very apostolic times. For the splendor of the truth overcame and overpowered everything, and so did the divine Word himself, who had lately shone on humankind from God, and was flourishing on earth and living among his own apostles. [b]

At once the sorcerer we have mentioned, his mind’s eyes struck as if by a divine and marvelous flash of light, when he had first been caught out by the apostle Peter in Judea for the evil he had done, set out on a very long journey overseas and went off in flight from the East to the West, thinking that only in this way could he live as he pleased. [c] When he reached the city of Rome, the power that lay in wait there gave him great help, and in a short time his undertaking succeeded so well that the people there honored him as a god by setting up a statue. But this did not go on for long. Close on his heels, in the same reign of Claudius, the all-good and most kindly Providence of the universe led Peter by the hand to Rome, as against so great a destroyer of life: Peter, the strong and great one among the apostles, who because of his virtue was the spokesman for all the rest. Like a noble general of God, armed with divine weapons, he brought the precious merchandise of the light of the mind from the East to those in the West, proclaiming the light itself and the word that saves souls, the message of the kingdom of heaven. [d]