REPLY TO LETTER ON ST PETER IN ROME

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31726, 9 July 1968, Page 14

REPLY TO LETTER ON ST PETER IN ROME

Neither historical records nor Scripture gave a precise date for the arrival in Rome of the Apostle Peter, the Rev. M. O’Malley, secretary to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Christchurch, said yesterday. He was replying to a letter to the editor of “The Press,” from a correspondent C, who wrote:—“According to your picture caption. Pope Paul has decided that fragments of bones found during excavations below St Peter’s Basilica, Rome, have been proved to be part of the remains of the Apostle Peter. I would like some member of the clergy to tell me when Peter ever was In Rome.” The Protestant theologian, Oscar Cullman, claimed without reservation in his work "Petrus: Junger, Apostel, Martyrer” that 1 Peter 5, 13, referred to Peter’s presence in Rome, Father O’Malley said.

"Some exegetes agree that before the year 58, the date commonly assigned to Peter’s Epistle to the Romans, he had already been in Rome,” he said. The Epistle of St Clement to the Corinthians, which dated from 96 A.D., commemorated the martyrdom of Peter and Paul and placed it

in Rome. About 10 years later St Ignatius of Antioch associated in Rome the names of Peter and Paul. St Irenaeus in bis “Advensus Haereses” and statements in Tertullian made further reference to Peter’s presence in Rome, he said. “Eusebius places his death in the reign of Nero (54-68) and was probably in the persecution of 64, not, as Eusebius himself asserts, in 68,” said Father O’Malley. The Roman historian Tacittus would support this in his “Annals,” in which he recalled the events of the burning of Rome (July 19, 64 A.D.) and the persecution launched by Nero against the Christians to place on them the blame for the fire he himself arranged, he said. “This is some of the evidence I would submit for Peter's presence in Rome. For me the literary sources do not conflict with the ancient tradition that Peter came to Rome and suffered martyrdom there under Nero,” Father O’Malley said.