Was St. Peter Ever in
Rome?
Objection: “How can today’s Pope, the Bishop of Rome, be the
modern-day successor to St. Peter when St. Peter himself never visited
Rome?”
The case is stated bluntly by the Presbyterian minister Loraine Boettner in
Roman Catholicism, the “Bible” of anti-Catholic Fundamentalism:
“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, 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” (p. 117).
Boettner’s invective does not end there. He goes on to say:
“Not one of the early church fathers gives any support to the belief
that Peter was a bishop in Rome until Jerome in the fifth century. Du
Pin, a Roman Catholic historian, acknowledges that the primacy of
Peter is not recorded by the early Christian writers, Justin Martyr
(139), Irenaeus (178), Clement of Alexandria (190), or others of the
most ancient fathers” (p. 122).
On the other hand, at the end of his first epistle St. Peter writes: “Your
sister church in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings;
and so does my son Mark” (1 Pet. 5:13). St. Peter used Babylon here as an
early Christian code word for Rome.
St. John also uses the term Babylon in the Book of Revelation six times in
the same way:
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