PETER IN ROME?
CHAPTER II
The Biblical Record
Before launching into a critical study of the
post-apostolic record, we need to examine first the Biblical account of the
movements of the Apostle Peter. We
need to ask: What would we conclude
about Peter at Rome if we had only the New Testament?
In attempting to reconstruct the later history of
the Apostle Peter, Hastings notes that:
Except the testimony of I
Peter, we have in the New Testament no clear evidence as to the Apostle’s
movements after St. Paul’s notice in Galatians 2. What evidence the New
Testament supplies as to later times is negative. [James Hastings, Encyclopedia
of Religion and Ethics, Vol. IX (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1917), p. 777.]
That is to say, it tells us
only where Peter was not (with one notable exception) — and where he was not,
from the New Testament account alone, was most certainly Rome.
Two Different Commissions
In the famous encounter of
Paul and Peter at Antioch found in Galatians 2, we find the last notice
of where Peter was, before his residence at “Babylon” mentioned in I Peter
5:13. The time would have been in the
early 50s A.D., around the time of the Jerusalem Conference of Acts 15. [W. L. Conybeare and J. S. Howson, The
Life and Epistles of St. Paul (Grand Rapids: Wm. R.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1959), pp. 177, 833.] We also find there an important guiding principle as to the
Apostolic endeavors of those two dynamic leaders of the early Church.
Paul delineates the
respective responsibilities of the two Apostles by writing “the gospel of the uncircumcision
was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter”
(Gal. 2:7). The student of the
life of Peter cannot help but be struck by the remarkable lack of understanding
of this God-given commission on the part of many writers. It is so often entirely overlooked and
ignored as if it had no relevance in determining Peter’s ministry or travels.
The Book of Acts
confirms that Paul did fulfill his commission to the Gentiles from Syrian
Antioch to Rome itself. The obvious
reason that we do not read anything about the Apostle Peter’s ministry after Acts
13, is that he, too, was fulfilling his ministry — to the circumcised
Israelites — outside the regions prescribed by Luke’s account — usually outside
the boundaries of the Roman Empire.
Thus from the scriptural
commission of Peter as revealed in Galatians 2, we should not expect to
find him laboring for, as some early historians had it, “25 years” of his later
ministry within the clear domain of the Apostle to the circumcision.
No Peter in Romans
Chronologically, the next
weight of evidence is nothing less than the entire Book of Romans
written in the mid-fifties A.D.
[Theodor Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1953),
Vol. 1, p. 434.] Taken in part, or as a
whole, it becomes incontrovertible evidence that Peter was not at Rome at the
time of its writing — and that he had not been there by the time Paul wrote.
Most significantly, while
over two dozen persons are either saluted or mentioned in passing, Peter is nowhere
named in the entire sixteen chapters of Romans, which cannot
be explained either by oversight or insult.
He simply was not there.
Moreover, the Church had not
yet been “established,” for Paul expresses the desire in Romans 1:17 to
do so by imparting to them “some spiritual gift.” It is inconceivable that
Peter could have been at Rome and the Church not have been “established” in any
sense of that word.
But the absolute proof that
Rome did not lie within Peter’s jurisdiction, and was not “Peter’s See,” lies
in Romans 15:20: “Yea, so have I
strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I
should build upon another man’s foundation.”
Clearly Peter had not founded the Roman Church — a fact we will see
totally forgotten and ignored by later ecclesiastical historians — or Paul
would have been attempting to “build on his foundation.”
Furthermore, we must consider
II Corinthians 10:13-15. If Paul
refused to “boast of things without our measure” or “to stretch ourselves
beyond our measure” (that is, jurisdiction or “line” of authority, see KJV
margin), or “of other men’s labours,” we can be very certain that Rome was
clearly within Paul’s, not Peter’s, area of responsibility and
authority, and that Peter had not labored there — at least not up to the time
Romans was written. And since the time
of its writing was in the mid-fifties A.D., this would at the very least rule
out any long stay of twenty or twenty- five years as was later claimed by some
notable historians including Eusebius.
And if Paul would have so
dutifully held to his line or authority, circumspectly avoiding intrusion into
another man’s labors, could we not be equally certain that Peter would have
held to the same rule? Therefore, if
God had, as we have already seen, given Paul the first opportunity to establish
the fledgling Roman congregation, and had put the capital of the Gentile world
squarely within the commission of the Apostle to the Gentiles, why should we
later expect to find Peter laboring there?
Was it not Paul who
said, “I must also see Rome” (Acts 19:21)? Was it not Paul who was told “Thou must bear witness also
at Rome” (Acts 23:11)? Where is
there the slightest clue in the Scriptures that he would share this
responsibility with Peter, the Apostle to the circumcision?
The Roman Imprisonments and Epistles
Indeed, Paul did go to Rome
after appealing to Caesar as recorded in Acts 28 and was there received,
not by his fellow Apostle, but by “the captain of the guard” (vs. 16). What follows is his first Roman imprisonment
in the early 60s A.D., certainly before Nero’s persecution beginning in
64. During this time Paul, the
“ambassador in bonds,” is inspired to write the Prison Epistles — Ephesians,
Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon, a total of four books, 15 chapters, 379
verses, but not one mention of the Apostle Peter, whom Catholic
tradition would have at the height of his labors at Rome at that time.
How much stock can we put in
the later writers who ignore facts such as these in concluding Rome was “the
See of Peter”?
Then for a brief time, Paul
is released, only to be arrested “as an evil doer” (II Tim. 4:9),
and returned to Rome for his second and final imprisonment in the middle or
late 60s. (It is not my purpose to
establish an exact chronology.) From II
Timothy we receive the last words of Paul on his condition, and our last
opportunity to find the Apostle Peter at his side, but instead we read, “Only
Luke is with me” (II Tim. 4:11).
Note carefully that this is not
just an “argument from silence,” which some would wrongly claim is
inconclusive in the case of Acts, Romans, and the Prison Epistles. This is a clear statement of denial that
Peter was with Paul, and certainly the same city would be considered “with”
him.
And what of the others? “No man stood with me, but all men
forsook me.” Are we to believe that
this includes Peter? Hardly. Even those who
would seek to show that Peter was at Rome on other occasions, are forced to
admit that he must have been absent during Paul’s final days in that city. And to those who would thus accommodate
their theories to fit the facts, we ask why would Peter have left his
fellow Apostle in his hour of need. And
what more important duty called him away at that critical hour?
Whatever it was must not have
taken very long, for as we shall see, the tradition that evolves in later years
has them dying together under Nero at Rome on the same day! How much can credulity be
stretched? Perhaps we can see the
importance of studying the inspired Biblical record before we critically
examine the uninspired testimony that followed.
Even though Hastings would
like to follow the later “streams of evidence,” he is forced to admit:
This concurrence of
apparently independent testimony becomes much more impressive when it is
remembered that the New Testament supplies nothing which could give rise to
a legend that St. Peter visited Rome. On
the contrary, the narrative of the Acts and the notices in St. Paul’s later
Epistles seem to make such a visit improbable. [Hastings, op. cit., p. 77.]
“Improbable,” indeed! That Peter would have: (1) neglected his own
commission to the circumcision to devote long years to the Roman Gentiles; (2) far overstepped his own line of authority
and in so doing usurped that of the Apostle Paul; (3) gone unmentioned in the entire last half of Acts and in all
of the Prison Epistles including II Timothy; and (4) forsaken his “beloved
brother Paul” (II Pet. 3:15) in his hour of trial at Rome, this writer
finds more than “improbable,” but spiritually and morally impossible for
an Apostle of God, and totally contrary to the internal evidence of the New
Testament!