The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

WAS PETER AT ROME? 233Peter had the Jews throughout the world committed tohim as his especial charge.* He was the apostle of the circumcision,as Paul w\T,s of the Gentiles. This people beingmuch scattered, their oversight was very incompatible witha fixed episcopate. His regard to the grand division ofapostolic labour, to which we have just alluded,-}- wouldhave restrained him from intruding into the bounds of abrother apostle, unless to minister to the Jews ;and at thistime there were few of that people at Rome, a decree of theEmperor Claudius having, a little before, banished themfrom the metropolis of the Roman world ; and, as Barrowremarks, " He was too skilful a fisherman to cast his netthere, where there were no fish.""!If Peter ever did visit Rome, of which there exists notthe slightest evidence, his residence in that metropolis musthave been short indeed,— by far too short to admit of hisacting as bishop of the place.§ Paul passed several yearsat Rome :he wrote several of his epistles (the epistle tothe Galatians, that to the Ephesians, that to the Philippians,* Galatians, ii. 7, 8.t There was a formal arrangement among the apostles touching thismatter. Peter, along with James and John, gave his hand to Paul, andstruck a bargain with him that he (Paul) " should go unto the heathen,and they (James, Cephas, and John) unto the circumcision." If, then,Peter became Bishop of Rome, he violated this solemn paction.ii. 9.)t Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 599.(See Gal.§ The Romanists aflSrm that Peter was Bishop of Rome during thetwenty-five years that preceded his martyrdom. His residence in thecapital 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 Peterthere, when, according to the Romanist theory, he should have been atRome. It appears also, from the 1st and 2d chapters of Galatians, thatfrom Paul's conversion till bis second visit to Jerusalem, that is, seventeenyears, 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.If he was indeed Bishop of Rome, he must have been sadly guilty of nonresidence,—apractice strictly forbidden by the decrees of the primitiveCliurch.