Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/misc/answers/answers.010

Text File | 1990-07-10 | 16KB | 263 lines

                       Was Peter in Rome?


     Like other Protestants, fundamentalists say Peter was never
appointed by Christ as the earthly head of the Church for the
simple reason that the Church has no earthly head and was never
meant to have one.  Christ is the Church's only foundation, in
every sense of that term.
     The papacy, they say, is an institution which arose out of
third-century politics, both secular and ecclesiastical; it has
no connection, other than mythological, with the New Testament.
It was not established by Christ, even though supposed
"successors" to Peter (and their apologists) claim it was.  At
best the papacy is a ruse; at worst, a work of the devil.  In any
case, it is an institution designed to give the Catholic Church
an authority it simply doesn't have.
     Besides, their argument continues, Peter was never in Rome
and so could not have been the first pope, and that puts the lie
to talk about his "successors"; the unbroken chain is broken in
its first link.  How can Catholics talk about the divine origin
of the papacy when their claim about Peter's whereabouts is
wrong?
     Let's look at this last charge, reserving for another tract
a look at Peter's position among the Apostles and in the early
Church.
     At first glance, it might seem the question, whether Peter
went to Rome and died there, is inconsequential.  And in a way it
is.  After all, his being in Rome would not itself prove the
existence of the papacy; 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 there.
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 had no connection to Rome.
     So, if the Apostle got there only much later, that might
have something to say about who his legitimate successors would
be (and it does, since the man elected bishop of Rome is
automatically the new pope on the notion that Peter was the first
bishop of Rome and the pope is merely Peter's successor), but it
would say nothing about the status of the papal office.  It would
not establish that the papacy was instituted by Christ in the
first place.
     No, somehow the question, while interesting historically,
doesn't seem to be crucial to the real issue, whether the papacy
was founded by Christ.  Still, most anti-Catholic organizations
take up the matter and even go to considerable trouble to "prove"
Peter could not have been in Rome.  Why?  Because they think they
can get mileage out of it.
     Here's a point on which we can put the lie to Catholic
claims, they say.  Catholics trace the papacy to Peter, and they
say he was martyred in Rome after heading the Church there.  If
we could show he never went to Rome, that would undermine--
psychologically if not logically--their assertion that Peter was
the first pope.  If people conclude the Catholic Church is wrong
on this historical point, they'll conclude it's wrong on the
larger one, the supposed existence of the papacy.  Such is the
reasoning, the real reasoning, of leading anti-Catholics.
     The case is stated perhaps most succinctly, even if not so
bluntly, by Loraine Boettner in his best-known book, Roman
Catholicism (p. 117): "The remarkable thing, however, about
Peter's alleged bishopric in Rome is that the New Testament has
not one word to say about it.  The word Rome occurs only nine
times in the Bible [actually, ten times in the Old Testament and
ten times in the New], and never is Peter mentioned in connection
with it.  There is no allusion to Rome in either of his epistles.

Paul's journey to the city is recorded in great detail (Acts 27
and 28).  There is in fact no New Testament evidence, nor any
historical proof of any kind, that Peter ever was in Rome.  All
rests on legend."
     Well, what about it?  Admittedly the scriptural evidence for
Peter being in Rome is weak.  Nowhere does the Bible
unequivocally say he was there; on the other hand, it doesn't say
he wasn't.  Just as the New Testament never says, "Peter then
went to Rome," it never says "Peter did not go to Rome."  In
fact, very little is said about where he, or any of the Apostles
other than Paul, did go in the years after the Ascension.  For
the most part, we have to rely on books other than the New
Testament for information about what happened to the Apostles,
Peter included, in later years.
     But Boettner is wrong when he claims "there is no allusion
to Rome in either of [Peter's] epistles."  There is, in the
greeting at the end of the first epistle: "The Church here in
Babylon, united with you by God's election, sends you her
greeting, and so does my son, Mark" (1 Pet. 5:13).  Babylon is a
code-word for Rome.  It is used that way six times in the last
book of the Bible and in extra-biblical works like the Sibylline
Oracles (5, 159f), the Apocalypse of Baruch (ii, 1), and 4 Esdras
(3:1).  Eusebius Pamphilius, in The Chronicle, composed about
A.D. 303, noted that "It is said that Peter's first epistle, in
which he makes mention of Mark, was composed at Rome itself; and
that he himself indicates this, referring to the city
figuratively as Babylon."
     Consider now the other New Testament citations:  "A second
angel followed, who cried out, Babylon, great Babylon is fallen;
she who made all the nations drunk with the maddening wine of her
fornication" (Apoc. 14:8).  "The great city broke in three
pieces, while the cities of the heathens came down in ruins.  And
God did not forget to minister a draught of his wine, his
avenging anger, to Babylon, the great city" (Apoc. 16:19).
"There was a title written over his forehead, The mystic Babylon,
great mother-city of all harlots, and all that is abominable on
earth" (Apoc. 17:5).  "And he cried aloud, Babylon, great Babylon
is fallen" (Apoc. 18:2).  "Standing at a distance, for fear of
sharing her punishment, they will cry out, Alas, Babylon the
great, alas, Babylon the strong, in one brief hour judgment has
come upon you" (Apoc. 18:10).  "So, with one crash of ruin, will
Babylon fall, the great city" (Apoc. 18:21).
     These references can't be to the one-time capital of the
Babylonian empire.  That Babylon had been reduced to an
inconsequential status by the march of years, military defeat,
and political subjugation; it was no longer a "great city."  It
played no important part in the recent history of the ancient
world.  The only truly "great city" in New Testament times was
Rome.
     "But there is no good reason for saying that 'Babylon' means
'Rome,' insists Boettner.  Ah, but there is, and the good reason
is persecution.  Peter was known to the authorities as a leader
of the Church, and the Church, under Roman law, was organized
atheism.  (The worship of any gods other than the Roman was
considered atheism.)  Peter would do himself, not to mention
those with him, no service by advertising his presence in the
capital--after all, mail service from Rome was then even worse
than it is today, and letters were routinely read by Roman
officials.  Peter was a wanted man, as were all Christian
leaders.  Why encourage a manhunt?
     In any event, let us be generous and admit that it is easy
for an opponent of Catholicism to think, in good faith, that
Peter was never in Rome, at least if he bases his conclusion on
the Bible alone.  But restricting his inquiry to the Bible is
something he should not do; external evidence has to be
considered, too.
     William A. Jurgens, in his three-volume set The Faith of the
Early Fathers, a masterly compendium that cites at length
everything from the Didache to John Damascene, includes thirty
references to this question, divided, in the index, about evenly
between the statements that "Peter came to Rome and died there"
and that "Peter established his See at Rome and made the Bishop
of Rome his successor in the primacy."  A few examples must
suffice, but they and other early references demonstrate there
can be no question that the universal--and very early-- position
(one hesitates to use the word "tradition," since some people
read it as "legend") was that Peter certainly did end up in the
capital of the Empire.
     Dionysius of Corinth, writing his Letter to Soter, the
twelfth pope, about A.D. 170, said, "You have also, by your very
admonition, brought together the planting that was made by Peter
and Paul at Rome."  It was commonly accepted, from the very
first, that both Peter and Paul were martyred at Rome, probably
in the Neronian persecution.
     Tertullian, in The Demurrer Against the Heretics (A.D. 200),
noted "how happy is that Church ... where Peter endured a passion
like that of the Lord, where Paul was crowned in a death like
John's" [referring to John the Baptist, both he and Paul being
beheaded].  Fundamentalists admit Paul died in Rome, so the
implication from Tertullian is that Peter also must have been
there.
     In the same book Tertullian wrote that "this is the way in
which the apostolic Churches transmit their lists: like the
Church of the Smyrnaeans, which records that Polycarp was placed
there by John; like the Church of the Romans, where Clement was
ordained by Peter."  This Clement, known as Clement of Rome,
later would be the fourth pope.  (Note that Tertullian didn't say
Peter consecrated Clement as pope, which would have been
impossible since a pope doesn't name his own successor; he merely
ordained Clement as priest.)  Clement wrote his Letter to the
Corinthians perhaps before A.D. 70, just a few years after Peter
and Paul were killed; in it he made reference to Peter ending his
life where Paul ended his.
     In his Letter to the Romans (A.D. 110), Ignatius of Antioch
remarked that he could not command the Roman Christians the way
Peter and Paul once did, such a comment making sense only if
Peter had been a leader, if not the leader, of the Church in
Rome.
     Irenaeus, in Against Heresies (A.D. 190), said that Matthew
wrote his Gospel "while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome
and laying the foundation of the Church."  He then says the two
departed Rome, perhaps to attend the Council of Jerusalem (A.D.
49).  A few lines later he notes that Linus was named as Peter's
successor--that is, the second pope--and that next in line were
Anacletus (also known as Cletus) and then Clement of Rome.
     Clement of Alexandria wrote at the turn of the third
century.  A fragment of his work Sketches is preserved in
Eusebius of Caesarea's Ecclesiastical History, the first history
of the Church.  Clement wrote, "When Peter preached the Word
publicly at Rome, and declared the Gospel by the Spirit, many who
were present requested that Mark, who had been for a long time
his follower and who remembered his sayings, should write down
what had been proclaimed."
     Peter of Alexandria was bishop of Alexandria and died around
A.D. 311.  A few years before his death he wrote a tract called
Penance.  In it he said, "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."
     Lactantius, in a treatise called The Death of the
Persecutors,  written around A.D. 318, noted that "When Nero was
already reigning Peter came to Rome, where, in virtue of the
performance of certain miracles which he worked by that power of
God which had been given to him, he converted many to
righteousness and established a firm and steadfast temple to
God."  Nero reigned from A.D. 54-68.
     Eusebius Pamphilius gave more precise dates than did
Lactantius.  In The Chronicle  he said that in A.D. 42 (he
actually said the "second year of the two hundredth and fifth
olympiad"), "the Apostle Peter, after he has established the
Church in Antioch, is sent to Rome, where he remains as bishop of
that city, preaching the Gospel for twenty-five years."
Pamphilius went on to say that "Nero is the first, in addition to
all his other crimes, to make a persecution against the
Christians, in which Peter and Paul died gloriously at Rome."
     These citations could be multiplied.  (Refer to Jurgens'
books for other sources and for fuller quotations from these.)
It should be enough to note that no ancient writer claimed Peter
ended his life elsewhere than in Rome.  True, many refer to the
fact that he was at one point in Antioch, but most go on to say
he went on from there to the capital.  Remember, these are the
works which form the basis of Christian historical writing in the
immediate post-New Testament centuries.  On the question of
Peter's whereabouts they are in agreement, and their cumulative
testimony should carry considerable weight.
     To sum up, Boettner does not know what he is talking about
when he claims there is no "historical proof of any kind" and
that "all rests on legend."  The truth is that all the historical
evidence is on the side of the Catholic position.  That may be
uncomfortable for an anti-Catholic to contemplate, but it's the
truth.
     Continuing, Boettner, like other fundamentalist apologists,
claims that "exhaustive research by archaeologists has been made
down through the centuries to find some inscription in the
Catacombs and other ruins of ancient places in Rome that would
indicate Peter at least visited Rome.  But the only things found
which gave any promise at all were some bones of uncertain
origin" (p. 118).
     Boettner saw Roman Catholicism through the presses in 1962.
His original book and the revisions to it since have failed to
mention the results of the excavations under the high altar of
St. Peter's Basilica, excavations that had been underway for
decades, but which were undertaken in earnest after World War II
and were concluded about a decade ago.
     Pope Paul VI was able to announce officially something that
had been discussed in archaeological literature and religious
publications for years, that the actual tomb of the first pope
had been identified conclusively, that his remains were
apparently present, and that in the vicinity of his tomb were
inscriptions identifying the place as Peter's burial site,
meaning early Christians knew that the Prince of the Apostles was
there.  The story of how all this was determined, with scientific
accuracy, is too long to recount here.  It is discussed in detail
in John Evangelist Walsh's The Bones of St. Peter.
     It is enough to say that the combination of historical and
scientific evidence is such that no one willing to look at the
facts with an open mind can doubt that Peter was in Rome.  To
deny that fact is to let prejudice override reason.

                                        --Karl Keating
                                          Catholic Answers
                                          P.O. Box 17181
                                          San Diego, CA 92117