writers,  appears  to  confirm  tliis.  He  writes  obscurely,  but
has  been  generally  understood  as  intimating  that  the  light
of  Christianity  had  shone  upon  his  countrymen  before  their
signal  defeat  under  Boadicea.^

A  conversion  so  early  affords  ample  room  for  supposing
that  one  of  the  apostles  really  was  Britain^s  evangelist.
As  to  which  of  them  it  was  authors  are  not  agreed.
Among  them  have  been  named,  James,  the  son  of  Zebedee,
and  brother  of  John,  Simon  Zelotes,  Simon  Peter,  and
St.  Paul.  The  first  two  cases  are  not  supported  by  suffi-
cient authority  to  render  them  worthy  of  more  than  a
passing  notice.^  Nor,  until  recently,  was  it  otherwise  with
St.  Peter.  But  among  the  venerable  manuscripts  brought
from  Egypt  by  Archdeacon  Tattam,  and  now  lodged  in
the  British  Museum,  is  a  little  Syriac  piece,  transcribed
about  the  year  500,  which  states,  that  Rome,  the  whole  of
Italy,  Spain,  Britain,  Gaul,  and  the  other  countries  round
about,  received  the  hand  of  priesthood  from  Simon  Cepha,  who
came  from  Antioch,  and  was  ruler  and  governor  of  the  church
which  he  built  there.  A  Latin  version  of  this  passage,  made
from  another  manuscript  of  the  tract,  and  published  by
Cardinal  Mai,  in  the  Script.  Vett.  Nov.  Collect,  vol.  x.,  erro-
neously places  Bithynia  where  the  original  requires  Bri-
tannia, and  the  learned  editor  assigns  the  work  to  the
thirteenth  century.  Both  these  mistakes  have  been  cor-
rected by  him  since  the  truth  has  been  known  from
England.^  Still  it  is  not  useless  to  take  notice  of  them,
because  they  may  meet  eyes  which  the  retractations  escape.
