This is a quote from Allforhim’s Biblicist: “Rome’s boastful claim not only has great Scriptural problems but historical as well. Since there is no historical proof that Peter was even in Rome, much less functioned there as its “Bishop” for 25 years before his death. Tradition puts his death there, but that too is based only on tradition, having no historical documents that actually contain eyewitness testimony. And we do know that the church at Rome began with a board of elders governing it, not a single, authoritative Bishop (Pope/Patriarch). A type of Church government which was a much later development in both the East and the West.”
He is wrong about this. Actually all ancient writers are in agreement and no ancient writer claimed Peter ended his life anywhere other than in Rome.
In his Letter to the Romans (A.D. 110), Ignatius of Antioch remarked that he could not command the Roman Christians the way Peter and Paul once did, such a comment making sense only if Peter had been a leader, if not the leader, of the church in Rome.
Irenaeus, in Against Heresies (A.D. 190), said that Matthew wrote his Gospel “while Peter and Paul were evangelizing in Rome and laying the foundation of the Church.” A few lines later he notes that Linus was named as Peter’s successor, that is, the second pope, and that next in line were Anacletus (also known as Cletus), and then Clement of Rome.
Clement of Alexandria wrote at the turn of the third century. A fragment of his work Sketches is preserved in Eusebius of Caesarea’s Ecclesiastical History, the first history of the Church. Clement wrote, “When Peter preached the word publicly at Rome, and declared the gospel by the Spirit, many who were present requested that Mark, who had been for a long time his follower and who remembered his sayings, should write down what had been proclaimed.”
Biblical testimony: In the greeting at the end of the first epistle: “The Church here in Babylon, united with you by God’s election, sends you her greeting, and so does my son, Mark” (1 Pet. 5:13). Babylon is a code-word for Rome. Eusebius Pamphilius, in The Chronicle, composed about A.D. 303, noted that “It is said that Peter’s first epistle, in which he makes mention of Mark, was composed at Rome itself; and that he himself indicates this, referring to the city figuratively as Babylon.” There is good reason for saying that ‘Babylon’ means ‘Rome,’ and the good reason is persecution. Peter did not want to advertise his presence in the capital.
Here are two websites regarding archeological evidence. One is about the book, “The Bones of St Peter,” by John Evangelist Walsh. The other is THE TOMB OF ST. PETER
by Margherita Guarducci (an Italian archeologist).
amazon.com/Bones-St-Peter-Account-Apostles/dp/0385150393/sr=8-1/qid=1170291053/ref=sr_1_1/102-4026844-9035309?ie=UTF8&s=books
stpetersbasilica.org/Necropolis/MG/TheTombofStPeter-1.htm
