§ 16.1. =The Roman Episcopate of Peter.=--The tradition that Peter, after having for some years held the office of bishop at Antioch, became first Bishop of Rome, holding the office for twenty-five years (A.D. 42-67), and suffered martyrdom at the same time with Paul, had its origin in the series of heretical apocryphal writings, out of which sprang, both the romance of the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions (§ 28, 3), and the Ebionite Acts of Peter; but it attained its complete form only at the end of the fourth century, after it had been transplanted into the soil of the church tradition through the _Acta Petri et Pauli_ (§ 32, 6). What chiefly secured currency and development to this tradition was the endeavour, ever growing in strength in Rome, to vindicate on behalf of the Roman Episcopate as the legitimate successor and heir to all the prerogatives alleged to have been conferred on Peter in Matt. xvi. 18, a title to primacy over all the churches (§ 34, 8; 46, 3 ff.). But that Peter had not really been in Rome as a preacher of the gospel previous to the year A.D. 61, when Paul came to Rome as a prisoner, is evident from the absence of any reference to the fact in the Epistle to the Romans, written in A.D. 58, as well as in the concluding chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. According to the Acts, Peter in A.D. 44 lay in prison at Jerusalem, and according to Gal. ii., he was still there in A.D. 51. Besides, according to the unanimous verdict of tradition, as expressed by Irenæus, Eusebius, Rufinus, and the Apostolic Constitutions, not Peter, but Linus, was the first Bishop of Rome, and it is only in regard to the order of his successors, Anacletus and Clement, that any real uncertainty or discrepancy occurs. This, indeed, by no means prevents us from admitting an appearance of Peter at Rome resulting in his martyrdom. But the testimonies in favour thereof are not of such a kind as to render its historical reality unquestionable. That Babylon is mentioned in 1 Pet. v. 13 as the place where this Epistle was composed, can scarcely be used as a serious argument, since the supposition that Babylon is a symbolical designation of Rome as the centre of anti-Christian heathenism, though quite conceivable and widely current in the early church, is not by any means demonstrable. Toward the end of the first century, Clement of Rome relates the martyrdom of Peter as well as of Paul, but he does not even say that it took place at Rome. On the other hand, clear and unmistakable statements are found in Dionysius of Corinth, about A.D. 170, then in Caius of Rome, in Irenæus and Tertullian, to the effect that Peter and Paul exercised their ministry together and suffered martyrdom together at Rome. These statements, however, are interwoven with obviously false and fabulous dates to such a degree that their credibility is rendered extremely doubtful.