Catholics believe Peter was in Rome because the evidence from Scripture, Apostolic Tradition, history and archaeology is overwhelming. Opponents of the papacy have denied Peter was in Rome because the Bible does not explicitly record his activity there. Yet Peter himself indicates his presence in Rome in Scripture in the concluding words of his First Letter, saying, “She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings; and so does my son Mark” (5:13). “Babylon” was commonly used by the Christians in the first century as a code name for Rome (cf. Rev. 14:8; 16:19). The Muratorian Fragment (ca. 170 A.D.) explains that Peter’s martyrdom was omitted from the Acts of the Apostles because Luke chose only to record events which he had witnessed personally. Luke’s omission of Peter’s activity in Rome, therefore, likely means only that he and Peter happened not to be in the city at the same time.
While Peter is not mentioned in the epistles from Paul’s Roman imprisonment either, there is an allusion to him in Paul’s Letter to the Romans, composed a few years earlier. Here Paul reveals that he has been hesitant to come to Rome to preach “where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another man’s foundation” (15:20). According to the historical evidence, this “other man,” who preached the Gospel in Rome before Paul, must be Peter. Since Jesus commanded the Apostles to “make disciples of all nations” (Mt. 28:19), it is reasonable to expect that at least one of the Twelve would have gone to Rome, the place where all nations met. Peter, moreover, sowed the seeds of Roman Christianity during his Pentecost sermon, given that the crowd that day contained visitors from Rome (cf. Acts 2:10). These first converts would eventually blossom into the Church of Rome, though they would require the Apostle’s guidance in order to be formed into a unified community.
The ancient historical evidence for Peter’s presence in Rome is plentiful and unanimous. Writing from there just a few decades after the fact in about 96 A.D., Pope Clement, who had known Peter and Paul, referred to their heroic martyrdoms (Clement's Letter to the Corinthians 5:1-7). Not long afterward in about the year 107, Ignatius of Antioch wrote to the faithful in Rome, saying, “Not as Peter and Paul did, do I command you. They were Apostles, and I am a convict” (Romans 4:3). In about 185, Irenaeus of Lyons wrote of "the greatest and most ancient Church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul" (Against Heresies 3:3:2). And in about 230, Hippolytus of Rome wrote, “Peter preached the Gospel in Pontus, and Galatia, and Cappadocia, and Betania, and Italy, and Asia, and was afterwards crucified by Nero in Rome with his head downwards, as he had himself desired to suffer in that manner” (On the Twelve Apostles 1).
The traditional belief surrounding Peter’s death and burial on Vatican hill in Rome was confirmed archaeologically in 1968 when his bones were rediscovered in a first-century grave directly beneath the main altar of the Basilica of Saint Peter. The Apostle’s bones were found remarkably intact except that the feet were missing, suggesting the soldiers may have severed the feet to remove the corpse from the cross, corroborating the ancient tradition that Peter was crucified upside down (see John E. Walsh, The Bones of St. Peter [Garden City, New York, 1982], pp. 164-165).
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