To this list of witnesses we might add the testimony of the fathers and ecclesiastical writers who have flourished in different ages of the church, but we now propose to briefly survey the opinions of some of the most noted Protestant commentators.
The First Epistle of S. Peter is said by the apostle to have been written from Babylon, but whether it be Babylon in Chaldea, Babylon in [pg 060] Egypt, Jerusalem, or Rome, has given rise to much speculation.[16] Our Lord foretold the manner of St. Peter's death,[17] and an event of such importance would naturally have awakened more than ordinary interest. Seven cities claimed the honor of Homer's birth,[18] but no other place than Rome ever assumed to itself the glory of the apostle's martyrdom. Controversies arose concerning the time of celebrating Easter, the baptism of heretics, and questions of a like nature, yet none disputed the place in which S. Peter was martyred. It is highly improbable that S. Peter ever visited either Babylon in Egypt or Babylon in Chaldea. Certainly no fact of history nor even possibility of conjecture furnishes the least warrantable presumption of either opinion. The great burden of proof points toward Rome. Like Babylon, pagan Rome was idolatrous. Like Babylon, it persecuted the church of God. Like Babylon, the glory of its pagan temple and fane had departed. In many manuscripts this epistle is dated from Rome.
Calvin, who little regarded the authority of the fathers, when, in the presumption of his self-opinionated orthodoxy, he said: “All the ancients were driven into error,”[19] yet from evidence the most patent he believed that S. Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome. His language is: “Propter scriptorum consensum non pugno quin illic mortuus fuerit.”[20]
“On the meaning of the word Babylon,” says Grotius, one of the most celebrated of the Calvinistic school, “ancient and modern interpreters disagree. The ancients understand it of Rome, and that Peter was there no true Christian ever doubted; the moderns understand it of Babylon in Chaldea. I adhere to the ancients.”[21]
Rosenmüller, of whom an able American critic has said, “He is almost everywhere a local investigator,”[22] has left his testimony in the same language as Grotius: “Veteres Romam interpretantur.”
Dr. Campbell very reluctantly yielded, by the force of evidence, to the same opinion when he wrote: “I am inclined to think that S. Peter's martyrdom must have been at Rome, both because it is agreeable to the unanimous voice of antiquity, and because the sufferings of so great an apostle could not fail to be of such notoriety in the church as to preclude the possibility of an imposition in regard to the place.”[23]
“From a careful examination of the evidence adduced,” says the learned Horne, “for the literal meaning of the word Babylon, and of the evidence for its figurative or mystical application to Rome, we think that the latter was intended.”[24]
We commend to “Father Gavazzi,” and to the Rev. Doctors Sunderland and Newman of Washington, who are ever ready to throw down [pg 061] the gauntlet when an argument is made to prove that S. Peter was at Rome, the language of the logical and laborious Macknight, who clearly expresses our own view, and whose diligence, learning, and moderation were so fully appreciated by Bishop Tomline: “It is not for our honor nor for our interest, either as Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events ascertained by early and well-attested tradition. If any make an ill use of such facts, we are not accountable for it. We are not, from a dread of such abuses, to overthrow the credit of all history, the consequences of which would be fatal.”[25]