Pageant of the Popes
9781465577559
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
IT WAS seven weeks and four days since Christ had been nailed to the Cross. Fifty-three full days since the awful sentence that was so to change the course of mankind. A Procurator might brood in Herod's palace but his soldiery must patrol with watchful eye, for crowds of pilgrims were swarming upon Jerusalem eager to celebrate the Pentecostal rites, so ancient and significant to their race. On such a day, as the centurions well knew, the fires of nationalism could easily flare but as it happened there was no such trouble. Except by a few the tragedy of Calvary was either unknown or dimmed in the memory and a festive mood occupied the twisted streets. Rich harvest there must have been for the merchants and bazaars; and the clang of Roman arms, surely a minor note in all that Eastern tumult, continued to exact the usual respect although in the afternoon there was an incident which could not have escaped the attention of the patrol commanders. Around one narrow corner the flow of the mob had halted and the gay jostle and babble had faded as a man flanked by a small group of zealous-eyed companions began to speak. From his simple dress, the gnarl of his hands, the weathering of his face, one would judge him to be a laborer. He certainly was no known Doctor or richly fringed Pharisee yet he spoke, and with a strange authority, of God. And so eloquent was his faith, so convincing was his testimony that his haphazardly congregated audience, numbering between two and three thousand, did not jeer or scoff but listened with respect. It was the first sermon of Peter, the beginning of the Church on earth as an organized society, administered by men. A momentous event, this gathering on the crowded street, the commencement of a long story that has never yet sighted the horizon of finality, a story stained with blood and tears and woven with glory and shame, with triumph and disaster, but never obscured with the blanket of absolute defeat. Although supernaturally inspired the new company was but of mortals and as such it was of course necessary to have authority vested in one person. Chosen was one well proven to have lived his full share of human weakness and folly. No unusual man, more righteous than his fellows, no pale blooded scholar, surfeited with learning, no ascetic celibate, ponderous with rectitude, had been the brawny fisherman when, in obedience to the divine command, he had stowed his nets and made fast the halyards of his small craft for a last time. Simon, born in the village of Bethsaida, had been his name; but the One whom he obeyed changed it to Kipha, meaning in the Aramaic language, Rock, from which is derived Peter. "Thou art Peter (Kipha) and upon this rock (Kipha) I will build my church" were words that gave to the unlettered fisherman a precedence never to be questioned by his fellow Apostles and to him, after the departure of their Master, naturally fell the duty and dangerous honor of delivering the first public proclamation of the Christian Church.
