The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

From Lyons (Gaul) (Irenæus) in the second half of the second century.

From Alexandria (Egypt) (Clement of Alexandria) in the second half of the second century.

From Carthage (North Africa) (Tertullian) in the close of the second century.

These and other literary notices, more or less definitely, all ascribe the laying of the foundation stories of the Church of Rome to the preaching and teaching of the Apostles Peter and Paul. All without exception in their notices of this foundation work place the name of Peter first. It is hardly conceivable that these very early writers would have done this had Peter only made his appearance in Rome for the first time in A.D. 63 or 64, after Paul’s residence in the capital for some two years, when he was awaiting the trial which resulted in his acquittal.

Then again, the repeated mention of the two great apostles as the Founders of the Roman Church would have been singularly inaccurate if neither of them had visited the capital before A.D. 60–1, the date of Paul’s arrival, and A.D. 63–4, the date of S. Peter’s coming, supposing we assume the later date for S. Peter’s coming and preaching.

When we examine the literary notices in question we find in several of them a more circumstantial account of Peter’s work than Paul’s; for instance:

Papias and Irenæus give us special details of S. Mark’s position as the interpreter of S. Peter, and tell us particularly how the friend and disciple of S. Peter took down his master’s words, which he subsequently moulded into what is known as the second Gospel.

Tertullian relates that S. Peter baptized in the Tiber, and mentions, too, how this apostle ordained Clement.

Eusebius, the great Church historian to whom we owe so much of our knowledge of early Church history, writing in the early years of Constantine’s reign, in the first quarter of the fourth century, goes still more into detail, and gives us approximately the date of S. Peter’s first coming, which he states to have been in the reign of Claudius, who was Emperor from A.D. 41 to A.D. 54 (Eusebius, H. E. II. xiv.). The same historian also repeats the account above referred to of Mark’s work as Peter’s companion and scribe in Rome (H. E. II. xv.), adding that the “Church in Babylon” referred to by S. Peter (1 Ep. v. 13) signified the Church of Rome.

Jerome, writing in the latter years of the same century (the fourth), is very definite on the question of the early arrival of S. Peter at Rome—“Romam mittitur,” says the great scholar, “ubi evangelium prædicans XXV annis ejusdem urbis episcopus perseverat.” Now, reckoning back the twenty-five years of S. Peter’s supervision of the Roman Church would bring S. Peter’s first presence in Rome to A.D. 42–3; for Jerome tells us how “Post Petrum primus Romanam ecclesiam tenuit Linus,” and the early catalogues of the Roman Bishops—the Eusebian (Armenian version), the catalogue of Jerome, and the catalogue called the Liberian—give the date of Linus’ accession respectively as A.D. 66, A.D. 68, A.D. 67.