It is necessary now, in the next place, to look at the evidence offered in opposition to the Petrine theory. For the sake of clearness, this evidence will be given under the four heads just employed:
1. Peter's primacy. The famous passage, "Thou art Peter," etc., correctly interpreted, does not warrant a belief in Peter's primacy. "Peter" may mean "rock" ("cephas"), but it here refers to Christ, not Peter, or to Peter's confession, just made,[82:3] or to Peter's faith, or to Peter merely as a type of all the Apostles.[82:4] Furthermore the commission to "bind" and to "loose"
and the promise connected with it were not intended exclusively for Peter but for all the Apostles[83:1]; Peter stood only for a type.[83:2] The change of Peter's name does not carry with it any special significance. Peter himself never mentioned his primacy in his speeches or writings,[83:3] and nowhere else in the New Testament is it distinctly stated or recognised by others. Whatever natural capacity for leadership Peter may have possessed, it cannot be proved that he received an official primacy. Such a position would have conflicted likewise with the supremacy of Jesus.
2. Peter's exercise of his primacy. The numerous instances where Peter took the lead, or acted, or spoke first,[83:4] or where his name heads lists of Apostles,[83:5] merely show that he was a man of impulsive, aggressive character, who would and did naturally take the lead in powers common to all the Apostles. At the council of Jerusalem Peter did not preside, as he would have done if he was the recognised "Prince of the Apostles," but only made the first speech.[83:6] Paul would not have rebuked Peter to his face about some very important points had Peter been the recognised head of the Church.[83:7] Peter was a coward, braggart, and traitor, and was reproved again and again by Jesus Himself,[83:8] who would not have chosen such a person to be the head of the Church. There is not a single
reference in the New Testament to show that Peter ever attempted to exercise a primacy over his companions. He called himself a fellow "elder."[84:1]
3. Peter's presence in Rome. There is not a syllable in the New Testament to warrant the conclusion that Peter was in Rome. Inference alone makes "Babylon"[84:2] the Eternal City. On the contrary, there are implications in the Scriptures that he was not in Rome. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans greeted all his friends, but said not a word about Peter. This would clearly indicate that Peter had not been in Rome before this Epistle was written, nor at the time it was written. Again in letters written from Rome, Paul is strangely silent about Peter's presence. The claim rests wholly upon tradition, therefore, and that is far from conclusive. There is a significant silence from the time of 2 Peter until that of Clement (96). Clement, to be sure, mentions Peter's martyrdom; but it is only by inference that the place is Rome. Not until well on in the second century did the legend about Peter's connection with Rome begin to circulate, and not until the third century did Tertullian assert positively that Peter was martyred in Rome under Nero. After that the assertion was generally accepted over the Church as a truth.[84:3]
4. Peter as the first Roman Pope. This, of course, is precluded by the want of adequate evidence of Peter's presence and labours in Rome.
The evidence adduced here ends with the sweeping denial of every claim of the Petrine theory.
Having now stated the two sides of the question here still remains the duty of making the historical summary from the sources available, namely, both the canonical and apocryphal books of the New Testament, and the traditional evidence in the Church Fathers. The New Testament, as the most important source of information, reveals Peter's birthplace,[85:1] occupation,[85:2] marriage,[85:3] call by Jesus,[85:4] and elevation to apostleship.[85:5] It shows the conspicuous leadership of Peter in the apostolic college—indeed, a primacy which Jesus Himself recognised,—yet leaves the character of that primacy and the power to transfer it to a successor open to question. The New Testament evidence does not give any clue to Peter's movements after Paul's notice of him in Galatians ii. except the reference in 1 Peter, which naturally, but not literally, interpreted might indicate that he was in Rome (Babylon). It likewise affords very scanty grounds, therefore, for believing that Peter first established the Church in Rome, or that he was the first Bishop of Rome, or that he conferred his power upon a successor.
Traditional evidence, on the contrary, is more favourable to Peter's presence in Rome. No one can possibly doubt that the Petrine theory was generally believed in western Christendom at least after the third century. Prior to the third century, there are many streams of testimony which converge in positive support of at least a portion of the Petrine theory: