That would be over 50 per day for 50 years...He must have baptizing with both hands at the same time, and occasionally a foot thrown in...
I think that can be filed under 'mythology'...
Does the devil inspire the desire for baptism?
For people to get baptized because someone supposedly saw a ghost??? Or a statue with bleeding eyes??? Or a smear on a mirror, or a burnt piece of toast??? Or a person who claims they can turn a wafer into Jesus Christ??? Absolutely...People are gullible...
“That would be over 50 per day for 50 years...He must have baptizing with both hands at the same time, and occasionally a foot thrown in...I think that can be filed under ‘mythology’...”
I don’t know how many people Peter of Ghent baptized, but I know there are parishes in Africa that have 5,000 baptisms - these are documented, registered, baptisms - a year.
If Peter of Ghent was responsible for several parishes, or densely populated area, he might very well have baptized tens of thousands of people every year for however many years.
“Peter of Ghent ranks as one of the greatest figures in the early missionary effort in Mexico. He arrived in 1523 only two years after the fall of the Aztec empire. Very quickly he set about Christianizing the Indians. Many consider him the father of Mexican education since he established one of the first schools in the New World at Texcoco. He later helped to found the famous Colegio de Tlatelolco in Mexico City for the education and training of the sons of the Indian chiefs.” http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/etexts/nahuatl/
I just looked him up and Peter arrived in 1523 and lived until 1572. Forty-nine years among the Mexicans would afford plenty of opportunities:
“Peter of Ghent, writing from Mexico in 1529, states that another priest and himself had baptized in the province of Mexico more than 200,000 persons; and often eight, and sometimes even ten or fourteen, thousand in a day. Ternaur. Voyages, etc.” (Despatches ... Addressed to the Emperor Charles V. Written During the ...By Hernán Cortés, page 2)
If he did baptize (with the priest) baptize 200,000 people in six years, I could see where he would have been able to baptize 1,000,000 in 49 years.
“It is told of the second bishop and first archbishop, Father Alonso de Montufar, of the Order of St. Dominic, that he said one day, ‘I am not the Archbishop of Mexico, but brother Peter of Ghent is.’ This servant of God was much tempted by the Evil One to leave his fruitful ministry and return to his native country, which was Flanders. By the help of God he freed himself from this importunate temptation.”—Alonso Fernandez, Historia Ecksidstua, lib. t, cap. 13.