gtm:
The Acts of the Apostles end with St. Paul in Rome to appeal Caesar, presumably St. Peter was also in Rome as its first bishop. St. Paul also wrote a letter to the Romans. In neither book does the author record St. Paul meeting or paying respects to St. Peter in Rome (as he did in Jerusalem), or even acknowledging that St. Peter is in Rome. Some say that this is “proof” that St. Peter was never in Rome. Any thoughts?
Start from the beginning: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The lack of reference is proof of exactly nothing. The book of Acts never mentions the province of Gaul, either, but we are pretty sure that
that still existed at the time.
However, I fear that you may be thinking that Peter wore a purple robe and hung out in a cathedral. If so, just remember that Christianity was a minor, underground movement at the time, and that, as far as we know, the description of Peter as the “Bishop” of Rome was only applied later. It seems to be a fairly good assumption that, were he there, he would have been the leader of the local Christians.
“Romans” was probably written in about AD 57, and Paul was probably imprisoned in Rome in AD 59-61 and 67-8. It is possible that Peter was at Rome at other times, that Paul was not in contact with Peter while Paul was in prison, or that Paul knew that Peter was handling his own communications and did not need Paul to give greetings for him.
Eusebius thought that Peter was in Rome from AD 42 until his death in 67, but Eusebius was writing two and a half centuries later. However, Clement of Rome (who was the second, fourth or fifth bishop of Rome, depending on who wrote the list) asserted in his
Letter to the Corinthians, perhaps in AD 70, that Paul and Peter died in the same place. Clement himself, if not an eye-witness, may well have known some eye-witnesses of the event(s). He is also supposed to have been ordained by Peter, although the earliest reference to that is from about AD 200 (Tertullian,
Demurrer against the Heretics).
In purely historical terms, then,
we don’t know. This, however, is not a major problem, because we don’t really know very much at all about history: we just take our best guess. The best guess, based on reports from around the time, is that Peter was executed in Rome by Nero, in which case he was probably imprisoned there prior to his execution. If he had any contact with the local church at all, he is likely to have been made defacto leader simply on the basis of having been one of the Twelve. Paul was allowed contact with the outside world, and so it is reasonable to suggest that Peter would have been, also.
