In a secondary sense the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, but Scripture takes care to emphasize who has the pre-eminence. " Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the Chief Corner Stone " (Eph. 2:2020And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; (Ephesians 2:20)). But remark that it is not only Peter, who is the foundation here, but ALL the apostles and prophets. They lay the foundation in their labors for Christ whether orally or by the inspired writings, but the foundation on which they build is the only foundation, the Lord Jesus Christ.
That Peter makes no claim to be the foundation on which Christ builds His Church is clearly seen. He writes of the Lord Jesus: "To whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ ... Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded" (1 Peter 2:4-64To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, 5Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. 6Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. (1 Peter 2:4‑6)). Please note that Peter came to the living stone, and here he tells believers, that they also are living stones, and are built up a spiritual house, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone.
We have always thought that the Romish Church was very unfortunate in its choice of Peter. First he was the one Apostle who is recorded as denying his Lord with oaths and cursing, saying, " I know not the man " Then in the very same Chapter in which our Lord said to Peter that on this rock He would build His Church, we have the record of our Lord saying to him, " Get thee behind me, Satan, thou art an offense unto Me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men " (Matt. 16:2323But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (Matthew 16:23)).
We remember a striking incident of an open-air preacher, well known to the writer, a converted Roman Catholic, being heckled by a Roman Catholic hearer. The heckler asked with a great air of triumph, as if he would completely floor the speaker, " What did our Lord say to St. Peter?" meaning that the Church was founded on Peter. Swiftly and crushingly came the answer, " Our Lord said to St. Peter, Get thee behind Me, Satan '," leaving the heckler a sadder if not a wiser man.
Then again, Peter was the only apostle of whom we have the record that he had a wife. This is unfortunate seeing that wives are denied to his supposed successors, as the Pope claims to be. Neither can the Epistle to the Galatians be pleasant reading to Roman Catholics, for in it we find the record of the Apostle Paul withstanding Peter to the face because of his cowardice and dissembling
Peter, too, is described as the Apostle of the Circumcision, showing that his mission was to labor among the Jews, just as Paul's commission was to labor among the Gentiles. We might well ask, Why should an Apostle, holding a much higher office than that of a bishop, descend to be a mere bishop; why one, with a world-wide commission—for the Jews were well scattered—should tie himself up to a single city for a quarter of a century?
We would like to make one or two further remarks about the statement we have quoted above from The Catholic Faith.
Let it be carefully noted, the power of binding and loosing on earth was not confined to Peter ALONE. We learn from Luke 24:3333And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, (Luke 24:33) that on the first resurrection morning, when our Lord entered the room, the doors being shut for fear of the Jews, he found " the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them ", showing clearly there were more than the apostles present. Of that company we read: " He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained " (John 20:22, 2322And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: 23Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. (John 20:22‑23)). Further we have our Lord's own words, addressed not to Peter nor to the eleven, but to the WHOLE Church in its local responsibility: " Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven " (Matt. 18:1818Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matthew 18:18)). No wonder Rome is afraid of its adherents reading the Scriptures, seeing how far removed from its teaching are the dogmas of the papacy.
Was The Apostle Peter Ever In Rome?
If there were any historical evidence that Peter ever was in Rome, as we have clear evidence that Paul was in Rome, and martyred there, it certainly would have been forthcoming. The following from the pen of a Roman Catholic author is feeble in the extreme. We read: " As it cannot be supposed that St. Peter had no See during the last twenty-five years of his life: if St. Peter was not Bishop of Rome during that period, they ought to tell us of what other place he was Bishop, and where he died, and how and when his mortal remains have been transferred to Rome. But of these things they tell us nothing " (Catholic Belief, p. 305). What a strange inference, if it deserves such a name, that Peter must have been a Bishop somewhere, and as this somewhere is not stated, then he must have been Bishop of Rome. This reasoning is in a circle and lands the writer nowhere. A more weak, vapid, feeble attempt to establish an assertion on nothing, we have never seen.
We have, however, enough Bible testimony to prove that it is extremely unlikely that Peter was ever in Rome. We read: " The Romanists affirm that Peter was Bishop of Rome during the twenty-five years that preceded his martyrdom. His residence in the capital began, according to them, in A.D. 43. He was martyred in A.D. 68. But on Paul's first visit to Jerusalem in A.D. 51, he found Peter there, when, according to the Romanist theory, he should have been in Rome. It appears also, from the 1st and 2nd chapters of Galatians, that from Paul's conversion till his second visit to Jerusalem, that is seventeen years, Peter had been ministering to the Jews, and as shown in the text, he was not at Rome at the time of Paul's imprisonment and martyrdom " (The Papacy. Dr. Wylie, p. 233).
The Apostle Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans about the year A.D. 6o. According to the Romanists, Peter was then Bishop of Rome. Is it not passing strange that in the epistle to the saints at Rome, while Paul sends his salutations to no less than twenty-six of the saints by name in addition to the Church that met in the house of Priscilla and Aquila, the members of the households of Aristobulus, and of Narcissus, besides other companies noted in Rom. 16:14,1514Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, Hermes, and the brethren which are with them. 15Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are with them. (Romans 16:14‑15), yet he sends no greetings to Peter, who must have been the most prominent of all the saints at Rome, if he were then Bishop of Rome?
The late Sir Robert Anderson with the keen mind of a trained lawyer, well qualified to weigh up evidence, wrote: " What ground is there for believing that the Apostle Peter was ever the Bishop of Rome? The only ground is that the Roman Church asserts it. EVIDENCE there is absolutely none" (The Bible or the Church? (p. 33).
Bearing on the subject in hand, the following extract from the author of Catholic Belief will show how far credulity can go: " On the day that Simon Magus was to delight the Romans by an ascent in the air, and they were in most anxious expectation to see such a prodigy, St. Peter and St. Paul went to the spot where this was to take place, full of confidence in God that He would confound the impostor and undeceive the people. And so it was: as Simon Magus, before an immense crowd of people, was carried by the wicked spirits on high in what appeared to be a carriage drawn by fiery horses, St. Peter made a fervent prayer to God that He would abase that man, and behold, in an instant, the fiery horses and chariot vanished away, and Simon Magus fell headlong to the ground and died. This defeat of Simon Magus, by St. Peter, was the cause of a great many conversions. But Nero, exasperated at seeing himself and the Romans set at naught, ordered St. Peter and St. Paul to be cast into the Mamertime Prison, on the Capitol. There they were kept in strict confinement for nine months. From that prison St. Paul wrote his second letter to St. Timothy, requesting him to come to Rome, to be witness of his martyrdom, which was at hand " (Catholic Belief, p. 31').
Would it be likely that Paul would have written to Timothy, and not have mentioned that Peter was a fellow prisoner? How could he have written, "Only Luke is with me" (2 Tim. 4: if Peter had been in Rome at that time? Paul did express a wish that Timothy should show diligence to come to him, but not a single syllable is there that he wished him to witness his martyrdom. This is a sample of making history when there is none. It bears its own refutation on the face of it.
There is an attempt made to prove that Peter was Bishop of Rome by quoting the Scripture: " The church that is at Babylon elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son " (1 Peter 5:1313The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son. (1 Peter 5:13)).
They assert that Babylon was a cryptic allusion to Rome, indeed, in the Douay Bible they go as far as to put a note against this verse, " Figurative Rome ". But this is a very unfortunate claim, for Babylon, as standing symbolically for Rome, is described in the following strong denunciatory language, as we shall see later: " Upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS, AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH " (Rev. 17:55And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. (Revelation 17:5)).
As a matter of historical fact, there was a Roman colony in Egypt, named Babylon, not far from Cairo, where today impressive remains can be seen, proving that
in the early centuries there had been a large and prosperous Christian community, and it is believed by some that this is the place the Apostle wrote from.