PETARD 



Petard (Fr. peter, to make an 

 explosion). Military engine, now 

 obsolete. It consisted of .a small 

 metal or wooden case, shaped like a 

 half - cone, and filled with gun- 

 powder. It was used to make a 

 breach in a wall, or to blow in a 

 gate when attacking a fortress. 

 The usual procedure was to fasten 

 it against a door or wall or any 

 other obstacle, and then to fire it 

 with a fuse. The man in charge of 

 a petard was called a petardier. Its 

 modern equivalent is the mortar 

 (q.i:). Shakespeare, in Hamlet, 

 act iii, scene 4, coined the phrase, 

 " Hoist with his own petar." 



Petchenegs ou PATZIXAKS. No- 

 madic Turkish people. Advancing 

 from the Ural about 840, they 

 drove the Magyars before them 

 into Hungary, 895. In the 10th 

 century they ruled from the Volga 



6084 



Saint Peter the Apostle, from a 



plaque by Luca della Robbia in the 



church of S. Croce, Florence 



to the Danube, became Mahome- 

 dans, broke the power of the Cha- 

 zars, and harassed the Russians. 

 Driven from S. Russia by the Ku- 

 manians about 1047, they main- 

 tained their power in what is now 

 Rumania until about 1100. 



Petchenga. Seaport of Finland. 

 An ice-free port on the Arctic- 

 Ocean, it was ceded by Norway to 

 Russia in 1826, but passed under 

 Finnish control in 1864. It was 

 acquired by Finland from Soviet 

 Russia under the Dorpat peace 

 treaty, 1920. See Finland ; N.V. 



Petchora. River of N.E. Rus- 

 sia. It rises in the W. of the Urals, 

 flows in a generally N.W. direction 

 through forests and along the 

 steppes, and discharges itself into 

 the Bay of Petchora in the 

 Arctic Ocean. Its length is about 

 1,000m. 



Peter. Masculine Christian name. 

 It comes from a Greek word mean- 

 ing stone, and became popular 

 throughout Christendom because 

 it was that of one of the leading 



apostles of Jesus Christ. The 

 French form is Pierre, and the 

 Italian Pietro. The Spanish form 

 is Pedro, and under that form the 



Petard. Example of use of the 



ancient military engine, from a 



print of c. 1579 



Spanish and Brazilian sovereigns 

 appear in this work. 



Peter. One of the twelve 

 apostles. A son of Jonas, ap- 

 parently a native of Capernaum, 

 he was in partnership with his 

 brother Andrew as a fisher on the 

 lake of Galilee when called to be 

 an apostle. Previously, perhaps, a 

 disciple of John the Baptist, and 

 originally called Simon, he re- 

 ceived the name of Cephas or Peter 

 from Christ, who, in reference to 

 the meaning of the name, declared 

 that on this rock He would build 

 His Church. With James and John, 

 Peter became one of the inner 

 circle of the apostles. 



Of impetuous character, eager 

 and generous in disposition, he 

 was a born leader of men. After 

 the Resurrection, Christ appeared 

 to him and gave to him the charge, 

 Feed My sheep. He preached the 

 first sermon after the great Pente- 

 cost, and was the first to admit a 

 Gentile to the Christian Church. 

 He left Antioch, where he had been 

 working, after his dissension with 

 S. Paul, and is believed to have 

 preached throughout Asia Minor, 

 to have gone to Rome, and to have 

 met death by crucifixion, perhaps 



Peter the Great. Tsar of Russia 



After J. M. Xatlier 



PETER I 



under Nero, A.D. 68. See Brown, 

 Ford Madox ; Christianity ; Jeru- 

 salem ; Papacy. 



Peter, EPISTLES OF. Two books 

 in the New Testament, written by 

 S. Peter. Several works have 

 survived which were ascribed to 

 the apostle, but were not in reality 

 his. Examples of these are the 

 apocryphal Gospel of Peter, the 

 Preaching of Peter, and the Apoc- 

 alypse of Peter. The question 

 naturally arises, therefore, whether 

 the Epistles of Peter have been 

 rightly ascribed to him. They 

 claim in the first verse to be 

 written by the apostle. This claim 

 for the First Epistle is supported 

 by adequate external evidence. 

 The Epistle is quoted by Polycarp 

 and seems to have been known to 

 Barnabas, Clement of Rome, and 

 Papias. Its authenticity is accept- 

 ed by Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen, 

 and Eusebius. 



As for internal evidence, it has 

 been objected that many of the 

 ideas are Paul's rather than Peter's ; 

 . that one would expect from Peter 

 more personal reminiscences of the 

 life of Jesus ; and that the persecu- 

 tion referred to in iv, 14-16 

 indicates a date later than Peter's 

 death. The first and second objec- 

 tions are not vital. As regards the 

 third, there were no doubt perse- 

 cutions before the official imperial 

 persecution of A.D. 64. 



The Petrine authorship, there- 

 fore, may well be accepted, and we 

 may conclude that the Epistle was 

 written from Rome before A.D. 64. 

 The external evidence for the 

 Second Epistle is very weak. It is 

 not included in the Muratorian 

 Canon, or even in the old Latin 

 and Syriac versions. It does not 

 seem to have been used by the 

 earliest Christian Fathers ; its 

 authorship is doubted by Origen, 

 and it is placed by Eusebius among 

 the disputed books. Probably the 

 Second Epistle was written by a 

 disciple of Peter in his master's 

 name. See Bible ; New Testament. 



Peter I, THE GREAT (1672- 

 1725). Tsar of Russia. Son of the 

 Tsar Alexis, he was born May 30, 

 1672, and succeeded to the tsar- 

 dom jointly with his elder brother, 

 Feodor, in 1682. Young Peter was 

 trained by the Swiss, Lefort, and 

 the Scot, Patrick Gordon. 



In 1689 he effected a coup d'etat, 

 overturning the regency of his sister 

 Sophia, though without officially 

 deposing his brother. Peter, a 

 born barbarian but at the same 

 time a genius, was imbued "with 

 the three conceptions of organizing 

 his vast dominion after W. models, 

 of impregnating it with W. culture, 

 and of extending its borders to the 

 Baltic Sea on the N. and the Black 



