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Natalis proves Paul now men

Peter, it is well known, must have named Linus his first successor; Linus was a disciple of Peter. this according to his very strained method. tions Linus; from him he greets Timothy; of Peter, he is wholly silent! Is it possible that any man can suppose Peter was, at this time, at Rome? In case he were, would not this silence, which holds Peter, Mark and all others of Peter's disciples, not worthy of mention, be a most striking proof that a division, enmity, yea an open breach, existed between Paul and his disciples and Peter and his disciples?.

But here the old objection also is urged, that Peter at this time must be supposed again to be on an apostolical excursion. And this supposition is so ingenious and näive, that we shall not venture to say anything against it.'

§ 18. Peter's Epistles.

We have thus far seen, that the whole Acts of the Apostles, the collective Epistles of Paul, of which one was written to the church at Rome, and five from Rome, contain not a vestige of evidence that Peter came to Rome, and there for twenty-five years was bishop and governed as pope; we have found many facts accredited by those sacred writings, from which the contrary of all these opinions is evidently enough deduced. We now turn to St. Peter himself; perhaps proofs are to be found with him of his Romish bishopric.

The Romish Court and their adherents Baronius, Bellarmin, Natalis Alexander, and hundreds of others, cannot think of St. Peter at all, but as a pope, i. e. as having charge of the whole church, everywhere regulating, prescribing, commanding, and that as a leader of an army with a great train he must make his appearance in the externals of a pope of the present day. And yet nothing of all these things has been shown. Peter, on this supposition, must have been

1 Especially, as according to tradition which is so great an authority with those writers, it must have been at the very time that Peter was about to suffer martyrdom with Paul at Rome. - TR.

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twenty-five years bishop and pope of Rome, and have carried the gospel to Sicily, Italy, Spain, Britain, Gaul, yea to Africa. And yet we have only two pastoral letters from him to the churches of Asia Minor founded by him. How is this? Could he wholly forget the Western churches; not have thought of them at all? Could he not once have prepared for them the comfort and encouragement of a single letter, with which Paul so often made glad all the churches and provinces to which he had preached the gospel? And even to the church of Rome, which it is said he left in A. D. 51, from which he was separated for so many years, namely until A. D. 65 or 66; could he have so wholly withdrawn himself from them that he should not once have visited them with a single letter of comfort and exhortation? If Peter really was bishop and pope of Rome, this conduct appears to us absolutely unworthy of him. Of this, his position and government as bishop at Rome, we now perceive nothing at all.

The two single Epistles which Peter sent out, are not two encyclical epistles to all Christendom, but, as we have already said, simple pastoral letters to the churches of Jewish Christians founded by him in Asia Minor. In both of them there is not a word to be met which proclaims the visible head of the whole church; in both, no trace is to be found of an abode in Rome. But now it is said that the Babylon of which he speaks 1: 5, 13 was Rome, which at that time had often been called by this name in the church, particularly in the Apocalypse; and some fathers of the church are quoted also, who by that Babylon in Peter understand Rome (Jerome, in Catal. in Marco); indeed, Natalis Alexander, together with Baronius, knows likewise the reason why Peter changes the name; he says, to wit p. 168, col. ii: "Because indeed Peter had escaped from the prison at Jerusalem, as he would not that his place of abode should be known to all; and wished likewise to consult the safety of the Christians at Rome, in order that, if this letter perhaps came into the hands of the heathen,' they might not know that there were

He sent the Epistle not by a post, but by Silvanus.

many Christians at Rome, and be excited to persecute them, especially since Claudius was very favorable to Agrippa the persecutor of Peter." Any further remark as to this statement is superfluous.

When John, in a book like the Apocalypse, names Rome by a foreign name, this cannot be objected to; it is quite natural; but in an Epistle, it would be strange, if not ridiculous. And now what necessity is there to suppose that Peter wrote his Epistle, not in Babylon but at Rome? None indeed. As the apostle of the circumcision, Peter was especially pointed to the Jews, as Paul was to the Gentiles. If Paul went through half the world to convert the Gentiles and fulfil his calling, why should not Peter have done this? Why should he not have travelled to the Euphrates and Tigris, where hundreds of thousands of Jews dwelt? why not to Egypt, where their number was not less; countries which bordered on Palestine and Syria? And in both of these regions there was a Babylon. Old Babylon yet stood, though already sunken; it was first destroyed by Gallus; Seleucia, on the Tigris, in Peter's time, was commonly called Babylon, instead of which city the Seleucidæ had long ago erected it; Stolberg also concedes this. The Egyptian Babylon was an important city, where a legion was encamped. What hinders us from supposing that Peter wrote his Epistle from this Babylon? Why must it be precisely Rome?

Let us now, further, consider the particular circumstances of this Epistle: 1 Pet. 5: 12 it is said, "By Silvanus a faithful brother, as I suppose, I have written briefly." Therefore Silvanus had the care of delivering the letter to its address Silvanus here does not appear as an intimate acquaintance of Peter, as his scholar, else he would not have said, "a faithful brother as I suppose." This does not allow us to sup

1 This they might know by the sight of their own eyes; they needed not Peter's letter for it.

2 He had been dead for some time, before l'eter could come to Rome. But if Peter had such a design, then he ought to have named no name, but have let the salutation be given orally by Silvanus.

pose any intimate personal knowledge. Silvanus was therefore only accidentally with Peter, probably on business. Why not? He belonged to the Jews of Asia Minor, in whose conversion Paul had so great a share, from whom he had formed a church. Who, now, is this Silvanus? The two Epistles to the Thessalonians are superscribed: "Paul and Silvanus and Timothy." There is no other Silvanus in the Holy Scriptures. Since, as the superscription above shows, he stood in the closest fellowship with Paul, as he was as intimately united with him as was Timothy, and held the same position to him, so it is certain, as is admitted by the ablest interpreters, that this Silvanus was no other than Silas, Paul's constant companion and fellow-laborer (Acts 15: 22. 16: 19. 17: 4, 14. 18: 5, etc.). As we find him no more afterwards among Paul's attendants, so it appears that he betook himself to the East, and devoted himself to the care of the Jewish Christians there, of whom he was one.

When now neither in the Epistle to the Romans, nor in those to the Ephesians and Philippians, nor especially in those to the Colossians and to Titus, which are all of them dated from Rome, is there any mention of Silas, though Paul names all his scholars and companions who were with him at Rome, or who came and went; since a deliberate omission of his name cannot be supposed, because next to Timothy he was the most distinguished of Paul's disciples, it follows that Silas was not in Rome; that he therefore could have taken no Epistle of Peter's with him from there to the churches of Asia Minor; that accordingly as he actually took it with him, Peter when he wrote it and gave it to Silvanus, could not then be in Rome.

Just so is it with respect to Mark, whom Peter mentions as his own son and companion; of his presence in Rome also, there is no mention anywhere. To assume this, is the more foolish, as they who maintain that Peter was at Rome, maintain also that he had sent Mark from Antioch to Alexandria, where he became bishop. And there is yet another and additional reason. Peter addresses his Epistle to the strangers scattered abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia,

Asia, and Bithynia. This succession allows us to conclude, with tolerable certainty, that the province of Pontus was nearer to the writer than Asia Minor. If Peter wrote from Rome, it would be natural to send the Epistle first to the Christians in Asia and Bithynia; for these were situated nearest to him, and through these lay the way to the other. Therefore Peter did not write this Epistle from Rome. But if we suppose Seleucia on the Tigris was the Babylon from which Peter wrote, the letter sent to these churches of Asia Minor must first come to the church of Pontus; it then went from Seleucia on the great commercial road of Armenia, the only one which there was here, through Cara, Singara, Nisibis, Amida, Arsamosata to Trapezus in Pontus. From Rome it could not come first to Pontus.

§ 19. The founding of the church of Rome without Peter.

From the Holy Scriptures not the least share, by Peter, in the founding and establishing of the church of Rome can be proved; all there is due to Paul. But gradually some began to associate Peter with Paul, and to name both as founders of the church of Rome and then as its bishops. In the course of time Peter was placed before Paul, the latter apostle only called a helper, and finally wholly left out, and at last it is marked out as a heresy to suppose that the church of Rome was built more upon Paul than on Peter.

It has already been observed above, that Peter as the apostle of the circumcision, especially and first of all was pointed to the Jews, i. e. to the East; and that his career must preeminently be assigned here. The pretence that Peter was directly called by the Lord, to bring the heathen into the faith of the gospel, has no weight. That this was no special commission to Peter, but to all the apostles and disciples, is evident from the opinion then prevailing among all Jewish Christians, and clearly admitted by Peter (Acts x.), that the gospel was destined only for the Jews, not for the

See the Second Chapter of the First Book of my Treatise on the Primacy of the Bishops of Rome.

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