Was Peter Ever in Rome?

BIBLICAL EVIDENCE

Some non-Catholics attempt to reject the authority of Peter as the first bishop of Rome and his successors (popes) by claiming that he was never actually in Rome; however, trying to assert that the Bible does not say that Peter went to Rome and therefore Peter didn't actually go there, is a logical fallacy. As the saying goes, "absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence". Arguments from silence can work both ways; for example, while one might try to say that the Bible does not say Peter went to Rome, I would say that the Bible doesn't say that Peter didn't go to Rome, either!

Anyway, recall that being a Christian under Roman rule was bad for your health. 33 of the first 34 popes were martyred, and many Christians died as a result of persecutions under Nero, Diocletian, other Roman emperors, as well as those Jews who did not accept Christ. Perhaps this is the very reason why the writers of the books of the Bible did not explicitly reveal Peter's whereabouts, so that he would not be captured and killed because he was recognized as the leader of the church. The early Christians would not actually mention Rome by name, but they did use the term "Babylon" to describe Rome, due to its pagan wickedness and idolatry reminiscent of the ancient city Babylon. For example, Peter writes:

"The chosen one at Babylon sends you greeting, as does Mark, my son. Greet one another with a loving kiss. Peace to all of you who are in Christ." (1 Peter 5:13-14)

No one believes that they were actually in the city of Babylon, especially since Rome's "code-name" is Babylon elsewhere in Scripture; for example, in Rev 14:8, 17:5, 18;2). I quote from a Protestant text:

In 5:13 the writer sends greetings from 'she who is in Babylon, chosen together with you'. This seems like a reference to the local church in Babylon, but it is unlikely that Peter would have gone to the former capital of Nebuchadnezzar's empire....By Peter's time it was a sparsely inhabited ruin (fulfilling Isaiah 14:23). In Rev 16:19 and 17:5 ' Babylon' is used as a cryptic name for Rome, and Col 4:10 and Phm 24 (most likely written in Rome) show that Mark was there with Paul. In 2 Tim 4:11 Mark is in Asia Minor, and Paul sends for him to come, most probably to Rome." (New Bible Commentary, 21st Century Edition 1994)

The prophecy in Isaiah was that God would destroy Babylon: "'For I will rise up against them,' saith the Lord of hosts, 'and cut off from Babylon the name and remnant and son and nephew.' saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction', saith the Lord of hosts." (Is 14:22-23). The New Bible Commentary goes on to say: "The fact that neither Peter nor Paul mentions the other in the list of those sending greetings from Rome merely suggests that they were not together at the time of writing their letters. All this points to the theory that Peter was writing from Rome, which is supported by the evidence of Tertullian (praescrip haeret, 36) and Eusebius (Eccl History, 2.25.8; 2.15.2 and 3.1.2-3).(Intervarsity Press, 1994 p. 1370)

Speaking of Mark, Dwight Longenecker writes, "Mark joined Paul again in Rome around the year 66 during Paul's second imprisonment, because Paul asks Timothy to bring Mark with him (2 Tim 4:11). It's probable that when he wasn't traveling with Paul, Mark was helping Peter on his own missionary journeys. We ar told so by Eusebius, quoting Clement of Alexandria (190) who says that Mark 'accompanied Peter on all of his journeys'. So we can take these details from Scripture and confidently place Peter in Rome in the mid-60s in the middle of the harsh persecution of the Church by the Emperor Nero...Papias, writing in the year 140 and referring to a more ancient witness, says, 'Mark, who had been the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately everything that he remembered...He attended Peter, who adapted his teachings to the needs of his hearers'...Papias doesn't mention where the Gospel was written, but other ancient writers do. The Anti-Marcionite Prologue (c. 150) says the Gospel was written 'in the region of Italy'. Irenaeus (177-200) and Clement of Alexandria (c. 190) say that it was written in Rome. The same authors say that the Gospel was linked with Peter. Eusebius (260-340) quotes Clement of Alexandria: 'After Peter had announced the Word of God in Rome and preached the gospel in the spirit of God, the multitude of hearers requested Mark , who had long accompanied Peter on all his journeys, to write down what the apostle had preached to them.'...There are other details in the Bible that link Mark's Gospel with Rome. The Gospel explains Jewish customs and Aramaic language references, presumably for its largely Gentile audience. In addition, there is an intriguing detail in the epistle to the Romans, which cross-references to Mark and my link the Gospel to the Roman Church. In Mark 15:21 we are told that Simon of Cyrene - the man who helped carry Christ's cross - is the father of Rufus and Alexander. In Romans 16:13 Paul gives greetings to a member of the Roman Church named Rufus. Mark 15:21 refers to Rufus in a way that sounds like his audience would have known the man. Could it be that in recording Peter's memories for the Roman Church Mark included the detail about Simon of Cyrene because Simon's own son Rufus was among the Roman congregation?" (This Rock Magazine, May 1999, p. 35)

Scripture tells us that Peter was in Jerusalem for a time, because Paul went to visit him there (Gal 1:18) and this is where the first council was held (Acts 15). We know that Peter was in Antioch for some time, too (Gal 2:11). Most significantly, we know that Peter passed through ALL regions during his travels:

"Peter visited one place after another and eventually came to the saints living down in Lydda..."(Acts 9:32)

The Greek rendering of the sentence in Acts 9:32 includes the phrase pantôn katelthein. The word pantôn in Greek means "all, or the whole". The word katelthein in Greek means "to go down to a place or return from a place". Therefore, the sentence translated literally, means Peter was going down to ALL PLACES. The point here is that "all places" would have most certainly included Rome (since St. Paul wrote at least one letter to the Christians there); therefore, Peter DID to to Rome.

HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

It was common knowledge among the early Christians that Peter was in Rome. His presence there is referred to by all sorts of writers of the time and after; for example, Clement I, writing from Rome, speaks of Peter's martyrdom:

"Through envy and jealousy, the greatest and most righteous pillars[of the Church] have been persecuted and put to death. Let us set before our eyes the illustrious apostles. Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labours and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him." (First Epistle of Clement, 5)

Ignatius, in writing a letter to the people in Rome, said "I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you." (Epistle to the Romans, 4) In other words, the Romans were under the leadership of Peter and Paul in Rome. There are many other direct references to Peter in Rome:

'You have thus by such an admonition bound together the plantings of Peter and Paul at Rome and Corinth." (Dionysius of Corinth, Epistle to Pope Soter, fragment in Eusebius' Church History, II:25)

Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 3:1:1)

"Peter...at last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head-downwards; for he had requested that he might suffer this way." (Origen, Third Commentary on Genesis)

"As Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had followed him for a long time and remembered his sayings, should write them out." (Clement of Alexandria, fragment in Eusebius' Church History, VI:14,6)

"Which was mere to the interest of the Church at Rome, that it should at its commencement be presided over by some high-born and pompous senator, or by the fisherman Peter, who had none of this world's advantages to attract men to him?" (Gregory of Nyssa, To the Church at Nicodemia, Epistle 13)

"You cannot deny that you are aware that in the city of Rome the episcopal chair was given first to Peter; the chair in which Peter sat, the same who was head - that is why he is also called Cephas - of all the apostles; the one chair in which unity is maintained by all." (The Schism of the Donatists, 2:2

"Peter, the first chosen of the apostles, having been apprehended often and thrown into prison and treated with ignominy, at last was crucified in Rome" (Penance, canon 9)

"This man [Simon Magus], after he had been cast out by the Apostles, came to Rome...Peter and Paul, a noble pair, chief rulers of the Church, arrived and set the error right...For Peter was there, who carrieth the keys of heaven..." (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 6:14-15)

The evidence is overwhelming is support of Peter being in Rome. From a fragment in Eusebius' Church History, Caius said, "It is, therefore, recorded that Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and that Peter likewise was crucified under Nero. This account of Peter and Paul is substantiated by the fact that their names are preserved in the cemeteries of that place even to the present day. It is confirmed likewise by Caius, a member of the Church, who arose under Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome. He, in a published disputation with Proclus, the leader of the Phrygian heresy, speaks as follows concerning the places where the sacred corpses of the aforesaid apostles are laid: 'But I can show the trophies of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church.' "

ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

In 1982, John Walsh published his book The Bones of St. Peter, in which he provides overwhelming evidence of a man buried beneath the high altar in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome where the original place was (ever wonder why it's called St. Peter's Basilica?) including a wooden box in which the bones from the graffiti wall were preserved, a chunk of plaster from the red wall containing Peter's name, skeletal remains identified as St. Peter's, and more.

In his book Saints and Sinners, Cambridge historian Eamonn Duffy writes, "There is no reason to doubt the ancient tradition that both Peter and Paul were put to death in Rome during the Neronian persecutions of the mid-60s A.D. The universal acceptance of this belief among early Christian writers, and the failure of any other church to lodge competing claims to the possession of the apostles' witness or relics, is strong evidence here, especially when taken together with the existence of a second-century cult of both saints in Rome and their trophies - shrines at their graves or cenotaphs over the site of their martyrdoms. These monuments were mentioned by a Roman cleric around the year 200, and their existence was dramatically confirmed by archaeology in this century. Building work in the crypt of St. Peter's in 1939 uncovered an ancient pagan cemetery on the slpe of the Vatican Hill on top of which Constantine had built the original Christian basilica in the fourth century. As excavation proceeded, it became clear that Constantine's workmen had gone to enormous trouble to orientate the entire basilica toward a particular site within the pagan cemetery over which, long before the Constantinian era, had been placed a small niche shrine or trophy dateable to 165. This shrine, though damaged, was still in place, and fragments of bone were discovered within it...The mere existence of the shrine is overwhelming evidence of a very early Roman belief that Peter had died in or near the Vatican Circus in Rome."

DOES IT MATTER?

Whether Peter was physically in Rome is actually irrelevant. As Karl Keating says, "his [Peter's] being in Rome would not itself prove the existence of the papacy. In fact, it would be a false inference to say he must have been the first pope since he was in Rome and later popes ruled from Rome. With that logic, Paul would have been the first pope, too, since he was an apostle and went to Rome. On the other hand, if Peter never made it to the capital, he still could have been the first pope, since one of his successors could have been the first holder of that office to settle in Rome. After all, if the papacy exists, it was established by Christ during his lifetime, long before Peter is said to have reached Rome. There must have been a period of some years in which the papacy did not yet have its connection to Rome."

Non-Catholics make another argument from silence when they say, "If it had been of any importance, the Holy Spirit would have had it documented it in the New Testament." Is this really true? Let's apply this logic to the Bible itself - where does the Bible self-authenticate itself? Surely if the Bible is so important, "the Holy Spirit would have had it documented"; however, absolutely nowhere does the Bible tell us which books actually belong in it in the first place! Thus, the argument that it should have been "documented" defeats itself when applied to the very Bible it attempts to use.

EXTRA-BIBLICAL SOURCES

As has already been demonstrated, there is a virtual mountain of extrabiblical evidence proving Peter's presence in Rome, but rather than deal with these indisputable facts honestly, there are those who reject them for no other reason than that they completely destroy their arguments. What is so objectionable about the extrabiblical writings anyway? They're not divinely-inspired, but they still reflect the current thoughts of the day. Furthermore, there is also proof that the early Christians accepted the authority of the Bishop of Rome, so Peter's physical presence there doesn't matter; for example, Irenaeus writes:

"Since, however, it would be very tedious, in such a volume as this, to reckon up the successions of all the Churches, we do put to confusion all those who, in whatever manner, whether by an evil self-pleasing, by vainglory, or by blindness and perverse opinion, assemble in unauthorized meetings; [we do this, I say,] by indicating that tradition derived from the apostles, of the very great, the very ancient, and universally known Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul; as also [by pointing out] the faith preached to men, which comes down to our time by means of the successions of the bishops. For it is a matter of NECESSITY that every Church should agree with this Church, on account of its PRE-EMINENT AUTHORITY, that is, the faithful everywhere, inasmuch as the apostolical tradition has been preserved continuously by those [faithful men] who exist everywhere." (Against Heresies, 3:3:2)

CONCLUSION

So, we have established that there is, in fact, biblical, historical, and archeological evidence that Peter was in Rome. Attempts to weaken the Catholic position by questioning whether Peter was in Rome are destroyed by other Protestants who are intellectually honest enough to admit the truth; for example, well-respected historian Jaraslov Pelikan:

"The martyrdom of both Peter and Paul in Rome....belongs to [Christian] tradition. It has often been questioned by Protestant critics, some of whom have even contended that Peter was NEVER in Rome. But the archaeological researches of the Protestant historian Hans Lietzmann, supplemented by the library study of the Protestant exegete Oscar Cullmann, have made it extremely difficult to deny the tradition of Peter's death in Rome under the emperor Nero.

"The account of Paul's martyrdom in Rome, which is supported by much of the same evidence, has not called forth similar skepticism." (The Riddle of Roman Catholicism, Abingdon Press, 1959 p. 36-37)

Protestant scholar Daniel O'Connor writes:

"The almost complete silence of the New Testament, and in particular the silence of Paul's Epistle to the Romans and the Book of Acts, is NOT decisive evidence for or against the theory of a Roman residence of Peter. On the other hand, 1 Peter 5:13 IS plausibly interpreted as testifying to a Roman residence of the apostle."

"...it does seem highly probable that Peter did visit Rome. As has been stated previously, the tradition is too old and too unchallenged in antiquity to be challenged with any force in the present."

"...if the suggestions and implications which are drawn from certain of these early notices are studied with those of the later sources, there results a most persistent tradition which sets the martyrdom of Peter in Rome within the reign of Nero (most probably between A.D. 64 and 67)."

"In summary, it appears more plausible than not that: (1) Peter did reside in Rome at some time during his lifetime, most probably near the end of his life. (2) He was martyred there as a member of the Christian religion. (3) He was remembered in the traditions of the Church and in the erection of a simple monument near the place where he died. (4) His body was never recovered for burial by the Christian group which later...came to believe that what originally had marked the general area of his death also indicated the precise placement of his grave." (Peter in Rome, The Literary, Liturgical, and Archaeological Evidence - Columbia University Press, 1969; p. 207-209)

Protestant Adolph Harnack writes: "...to deny the Roman stay of Peter is an error which today is clear to every scholar who is not blind. The martyr death of Peter at Rome was once contested by reason of Protestant prejudice." (The Search for the Twelve Apostles by William Stuart McBirnie Tyndale House, 1988 p. 63)

And, finally, Lutheran scholar Oscar Cullmann:

"It is sufficient to let us include the martyrdom of Peter in Rome in our final historical picture of the early Church, as a FACT which is relatively though not absolutely assured. We accept it, however, with the self-evident caution that we have to use concerning many other facts of antiquity that are universally accepted as historical. Were we to demand for all facts of ancient history a greater degree of probability, we should have to strike from our history books a large proportion of their contents." (Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr, 1962, p. 114)