"The Date of Peter's Going to Rome"

"The Date of Peter's Going to Rome" Wenham, pp. 146-172

This chapter was of great interest to me. I had always wondered where the tradition came from that Peter was in Rome, as there seems to be no mention of it in the Scripture. Wenham lays the ideas out in very clear terms.

p. 146 "For many centuries the church of Rome held that Peter in fact arrived there after his escape from prison in 42 (when it is said that he 'went to another place', Acts 12:17) and that he was in some sense the overseer of that church for twenty-five years."

This idea, paired with Mark's being informed by Peter's preaching to write his gospel, gives us insight into the possible dating of the gospel. p. 147 "The substantial truth of the patristic tradition about Mark could be maintained without necessitating a date somewhere after the mid-60s, and a date as early as the mid-40s becomes possible."

So how are we going to argue for Peter's presence in Rome, when (largely Protestant) recent scholarship tends to deny it?

p. 149 "There was a large and world-famous church in Rome in 57 with which Paul had been in contact for some years. . . When Paul arrived in Italy in 60 he found brethren at the great port of Puteoli with whom he stayed for seven days." Judging from the many greetings to the churches (plural) in Rome found in Paul's epistle to the Romans, written from Corinth in 57, this was a well-established church. This can explain the fact that Priscilla and Aquila, whom Paul meets in Acts 18, coming from Italy. There had been an expulsion of Jews from Rome under Claudius, possibly because of dissension among Jews over the question of Christ. This occurred about the year 50.

p. 154 "According to a well-grounded tradition the foundation of the church in Rome was laid by Peter in the second year of Claudius." It is possible that Paul is hinting at this by his intention only to stop briefly in Rome to visit. p. 155 "It was his policy not to preach the gospel where Christ had already been named, lest he 'build on another man's foundation' (Rom. 1520-24). While the idea of the powerful church at Rome does not require a powerful founder, (p. 155) "it gains force if (as missionary experience in general confirms) the church of Rome did not arise merely through the chance movements of Christian converts, but was in large measure the result of one man's vision and work."

Early tradition, though there are some discrepancies, seems to point toward Peter serving as a leader of the church in Rome either from Claudius' second year to Nero's last year (42-67) or else from the ascension of the Lord to the year 55. Wenham discusses this on p. 157. He then cites Edmundson's analysis of Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, and Irenaeus. The conclusion that Irenaeus makes as quoted by Edmundson is cited on p. 159 of Wenham. "The Blessed Apostles, having founded and established the Church, entrusted the office of the episcopate to Linus. Paul speaks of this Linus in his epistles to Timothy, Anencletus succeeded him, and after Anencletus, in the third place from the Apostles, Clement received the episcopate." It seems no mistake, then, that early Roman tradition places the church in Rome on the foundation of Peter and Paul, not Paul or Peter individually.

p. 165 "This tradition fits without difficulty into the account of Peter in Acts. Direct evidence for Peter's movements after the death of Stephen is scanty: we find him at Samaria (Acts 8:14), and moving about among all the growing churches of Judea, Galilee and Samaria (9:31ff); we find him nitiating the first Gentile misson at Caesarea (10:1-11:18). During Agrippa's reign (41-44) he escaped from Jerusalem and fled Agrippa's territory (12:1-17). e was in Jerusalem again for the visit of Paul and Barnabas in 46 (Gal. 2:1-10) and for the Apostolic Council of 49 (Acts 15:1-21). He visited Antioch (Gal. 2:11) and had associations with the churches in Asia Minor (1 Pet. 1:1). In 54 Paul can speak of Peter 'leading around a wife', presumably moving from place to place in missionary work (1 Cor. 9:5). This shows that Peter was not a resident ἐπίσκοπος in Rome for twenty-five years. But before its appropriation by the developing Christian church ἐπίσκοπος was no a technical ecclesiastical term and it would have been a suitable description, for instance, of Paul as a non-residential overseer of the churches which he had founded."

So as we look at the evidence, the idea of Peter being mostly based in Rome from about 42 until his death in 67 makes a great deal of sense.

p. 171 "Rome's claim to Petrine foundation was unchallenged throughout the church."

pp. 171-172 "The argument is cumulative. Paul seems to have regarded this large and world-famous church as having a founder. An immensely strong tradition, accepted by the most learned men in the early church, says that its foundation was laid by Pter in the second year of the reign of Claudius. This is indirectly and independently confirmed by the traditions concerning the apostles' twelve-year stay in Jerusalem and concerning Peter's confrontation with Simon Magus in Rome. The movements of Peter and Mark as seen in the rest of the New Testament readily fit in. The tradition was unchallenged throughout the church."