Who was Bishop of Rome before Peter?

[garysibio]

We know the church had made it to Rome while Peter was still at Antioch. Therefore there must have been a bishop there before Peter. I understand that there being another bishop of Rome prior to Peter would not mean that he was the pope, although that term was not used then.

 

[Todd_Easton]

There is indeed reason to think that there were lay Christians in Rome from the earliest days. (Acts 2:10) However, the existence of a community of lay Christians does not necessarily imply that they had a presbyter or bishop before the arrival of Peter and Paul. (Titus 1:5)

 

[garysibio]

There is indeed reason to think that there were lay Christians in Rome from the earliest days. (Acts 2:10) However, the existence of a community of lay Christians does not necessarily imply that they had a presbyter or bishop before the arrival of Peter and Paul. (Titus 1:5)

Given that Paul always laid hands on someone to make him a bishop whenever he left a city, why should we assume that there was no bishop in Rome prior to Peter’s arrival.

 

[Todd_Easton]

Given that Paul always laid hands on someone to make him a bishop whenever he left a city, why should we assume that there was no bishop in Rome prior to Peter’s arrival.

It may well have been the usual practice of the Apostles to ordain a bishop whenever they left a city but there is no reason to think that any other Apostle had visited Rome before Peter and Paul. Consequently, there is no reason to think that a bishop had been appointed to head the Christian community in Rome prior to their arrival.

 

[garysibio]

It may well have been the usual practice of the Apostles to ordain a bishop whenever they left a city but there is no reason to think that any other Apostle had visited Rome before Peter and Paul. Consequently, there is no reason to think that a bishop had been appointed to head the Christian community in Rome prior to their arrival.

Let’s say you’re correct and no apostles visited Rome before Peter and Paul which might very well be the case. It seems to me that Paul got there before Peter. He doesn’t mention Peter being there in his letter and Peter seems to have gotten there relatively shortly before his martyrdom. Two questions:

1. Why didn’t Paul establish a bishop when he was there?
2. Why didn’t the apostles send a bishop there? The alternative is that the apostles thought that it was not necessary to have a bishop in the capital and most populous city in the Roman Empire.

 

[surritter]

Why did Rome need a bishop before Peter/Paul? Maybe it didn’t – the city would have been under the jurisdiction of the nearest Apostle, who may have still been in Jerusalem.

The Church didn’t have established, structured dioceses in the beginning, but I would think that in 33 AD the entire world was under the “see” of Jerusalem.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

The theory is sometimes proposed that Peter went to Rome, founded the Church there, and then returned to the Levant for a time before going to Rome again. Evidently there is room for such an interpretation in Acts, and it would square with the tradition of considering Peter and Paul the founders of the Church at Rome, considering that Paul certainly never made it there until later.

In either case, it’s possible that during Peter’s absence the Church there was governed by a council of elders, or otherwise by some non-episcopal authority. Or, alternatively, there might have been bishops there who did not have Papal authority, since the infant Church was still developing and Petrine authority had not yet been tied to Rome.

Something intriguing to me is the fact that while some ancient sources give the account that later became conventional, that Peter was succeeded by Linus, then Anacletus, then Clement, Eusebius (if I recall correctly) said that in his time the Latins’ own account said that Peter named Clement as his successor before his death, and was succeeded by him immediately. Also, 1 Clement is sometimes dated from after the death of Nero but before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, in which case it would have been written during the period to which the pontificate of Linus is usually assigned. It seems possible, therefore, that Linus and Anacletus were never true Popes. If that is the case, where did some Christians get the idea that they were? Perhaps they were leaders, even bishops, of the Church in Rome during the period after its founding and before Peter’s later arrival (return?) there. Particularly if Peter did originally found the Church there, this would make understandable why some lists of the bishops of Rome would list them after Peter but before Clement, while others, apparently including those in Rome itself, would go right from Peter to Clement.

All this is little more than speculation though. One of the safest things we can say about the Ante-Nicene Church is that we know very little about it.

 

[Todd_Easton]

St. Irenaeus, writing about A.D. 190, says that the Church of Rome was founded and organized and built up by the apostles Peter and Paul and that they committed the episcopate into the hands of Linus. (Against Heresies 3:3:2-3)

Eusebius, writing about A.D. 315, says that Peter came to Rome when Claudius (r. 41-54) was emperor and says that Paul came to Rome later when Nero (r. 54-68) was emperor. (History of the Church 2:14; 2:22) He also tells us that Linus was the first after Peter to be appointed bishop of Rome. (Ibid. 3:4)

 

[curlycool89]

1. Why didn’t Paul establish a bishop when he was there?
2. Why didn’t the apostles send a bishop there? The alternative is that the apostles thought that it was not necessary to have a bishop in the capital and most populous city in the Roman Empire.

Not every city had a bishop, at least there’s no indication that there was.

The second question could get a few answers. Since Rome was he imperial capital, it could have been the case that the Apostles felt that an Apostle should be the bishop there (and therefore, Paul would not simply ordain anyone).

Also, since Rome was effectively the capital of the entire known world, it could have been decided beforehand that the See was Peter’s alone as leader of the Apostles, and it was his to take up when he felt the need to.

 

[Aelred_Minor]

St. Irenaeus, writing about A.D. 190, says that the Church of Rome was founded and organized and built up by the apostles Peter and Paul and that they committed the episcopate into the hands of Linus. (Against Heresies 3:3:2-3)

Eusebius, writing about A.D. 315, says that Peter came to Rome when Claudius (r. 41-54) was emperor and says that Paul came to Rome later when Nero (r. 54-68) was emperor. (History of the Church 2:14; 2:22) He also tells us that Linus was the first after Peter to be appointed bishop of Rome. (Ibid. 3:4)

Hmmm. Perhaps it was not Eusebius I was thinking of. The idea I proposed was from a paper I read that quoted someone in the early Church, I thought Eusebius, regarding Clement. Although it’s obvious how the two statements, as much as has been stated so far, could be reconciled with the other theory. I’ll see if I can find the paper in question or another source.

Edit: It may also have been that Eusebius recorded but personally rejected the account of the “Latins.” Many possibilities. I apologize for not having primary sources on hand.

Second Edit: In case I don’t come back with better sources, here’s what the almighty Wikipedia has to say on the subject:

Few details are known about Clement’s life. According to Tertullian, Clement was consecrated by Saint Peter,[2] and he is known to have been a leading member of the church in Rome in the late 1st century. Early church lists place him as the second or third[1][3] bishop of Rome after Saint Peter. The Liber Pontificalis[4] presents a list that makes Pope Linus the second in the line of bishops of Rome, with Peter as first; but at the same time it states that Peter ordained two bishops, Linus and Pope Cletus, for the priestly service of the community, devoting himself instead to prayer and preaching, and that it was to Clement that he entrusted the Church as a whole, appointing him as his successor. Tertullian too makes Clement the immediate successor of Peter.[5] And while in one of his works Jerome gives Clement as “the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter” (not in the sense of fourth successor of Peter, but fourth in a series that included Peter), he adds that “most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle”.[6] Clement is put after Linus and Cletus/Anacletus in the earliest (c. 180) account, that of Irenaeus,[7] who is followed by Eusebius of Caesarea.[8]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_I

 

[garysibio]

Not every city had a bishop, at least there’s no indication that there was.

The second question could get a few answers. Since Rome was he imperial capital, it could have been the case that the Apostles felt that an Apostle should be the bishop there (and therefore, Paul would not simply ordain anyone).

Also, since Rome was effectively the capital of the entire known world, it could have been decided beforehand that the See was Peter’s alone as leader of the Apostles, and it was his to take up when he felt the need to.

Rome isn’t Podunk, Iowa. If any city deserved a bishop, it was Rome.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Why did Rome need a bishop before Peter/Paul? Maybe it didn’t – the city would have been under the jurisdiction of the nearest Apostle, who may have still been in Jerusalem.

The Church didn’t have established, structured dioceses in the beginning, but I would think that in 33 AD the entire world was under the “see” of Jerusalem.

Exactly why couldn’t there have been a presybter or a bishop in Rome before Peter arrived there?

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Clement, of whom the apostle Paul writing to the Philippians says “With Clement and others of my fellow-workers whose names are written in the book of life,” the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter, if indeed the second was Linus and the third Anacletus, although most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle. (Jerome, On Illustrius Men, Chapter 15)

newadvent.org/fathers/2708.htm

 

[tafan]

Given that Paul always laid hands on someone to make him a bishop whenever he left a city, why should we assume that there was no bishop in Rome prior to Peter’s arrival.

It seems indisputable that the Christian community was established in Rome before Paul ever arrived there. Paul says so in his letter to the Romans.

We know the church had made it to Rome while Peter was still at Antioch. Therefore there must have been a bishop there before Peter. I understand that there being another bishop of Rome prior to Peter would not mean that he was the pope, although that term was not used then.

Do we know this? The excellent book St Peter the Apolstle, by William Walsh, makes a very good case that Peter arrived in Rome first before Paul, and he started the Church in Rome.

 

[Mintaka]

Antioch, and a lot of the other cities first colonized by the apostles, were a lot more wide open than Rome. Rome was where imperial politics happened. Rome had extremely good secret police forces that were supposed to get rid of traitors.

The emperors, from Augustus on, were all promoting their emperorship as something divinely mandated by the gods of all nations, with the emperor as a god (or at least, his guardian spirit or “genius”) and descended from the Olympian gods (Julius Caesar claimed descent from Venus). Also, there was that whole messy Jewish messianic revolt thing.

From the Roman point of view, Christians advocated the rule of the world by an immortal god emperor, who would overthrow all other earthly kings and especially the Romans (as seen in the Book of Daniel). Having a few Christians living in the Jewish community, or among the general population, was one thing. Having a Christian bishop there… well, that was entirely another.

Any bishop who went to Rome to lead the Christian community there, was begging to be arrested, convicted, and executed for treason. So until the entire Church was really geared up for everything that had to be done there, it would have been stupid to throw one of the apostles with bishop powers to the lions.

The traditional story (told by St. Justin Martyr and other sources) is that Peter went to Rome because Simon Magus (the simony guy from Acts) was running around misrepresenting Church doctrine and working false miracles, pretending to be Christ or a god. Peter had to go there to fight heresy and save souls. After publicly defeating Simon Magus in a big way, Peter found a lot of ex-Magus followers demanding to become Christians, so from then on, he was too busy with the Church in Rome to ever move back to Antioch on a permanent basis.

And honestly, I don’t see any reason not to believe that. It was a very big step, and it meant travelling far to the west, out of the Semitic and Greek world of the early Christians’ comfort zone. You also needed a lot more personnel to administer Rome – tons of deacons just for single neighborhoods – and there was a lot more poor people to take care of. It was a huge venture for the Church; and in human terms, it all blew up on them in Nero’s persecution, when huge numbers of the new Christian community were imprisoned and then killed. There’s no good reason that Peter would have gone to Rome, unless he was under orders from God (or emergency necessity of fighting heresy) to bite off more than he could chew.

 

[Evan]

Is there a reason anyone would care if there was a bishop in Rome before Peter or Paul?

In any case, the pope is the successor of Peter.

…who happened to be bishop of Rome at the time of his death.

Should Rome someday be destroy by a meteor impact, the successor of Peter will no longer be in Rome. HOWEVER, he will still hold the keys to the kingdom and be the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

 

[tafan]

Is there a reason anyone would care if there was a bishop in Rome before Peter or Paul?

In any case, the pope is the successor of Peter.

…who happened to be bishop of Rome at the time of his death.

Should Rome someday be destroy by a meteor impact, the successor of Peter will no longer be in Rome. HOWEVER, he will still hold the keys to the kingdom and be the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

Good points, but to answer your question

1. Because the history of the Church is important, and little details like this are, if nothing else, very interesting to some of us history buffs
2. It would seem that there is a large interest in various speculations about the early Church which tend discredit the Catholic Church and its claims. These come from all sides. For example, many time people will say that Paul started the Church in Rome. His 1st letter clearly implies this is not the case; yet it is propogated as a likihood. Why? Well, there is no doubt that protestants are more interested in the accomplishments of Paul as opposed to those of Peter. This is somewhat due to the fact that Paul’s work was documented by Luke and he was a much more prolific writer. But it seems also the case that there is a desire to downplay Peter’s role in the early Church as much as possible. So plausible alternatives need to be presented, expecially when those alternatives are more plausible.

Another example would be Paul’s rebuking of Peter, which he mentions in Galatians. Protestants of all sorts place this after the Council of Jeruselem. Even though early Church fathers placed it before that point in time. Why do they do this? Well, they want to downplay the obvious fact that Peter’s voice at the council is what ultimately mattered.

 

[Evan]

Good points, but to answer your question

1. Because the history of the Church is important, and little details like this are, if nothing else, very interesting to some of us history buffs
2. It would seem that there is a large interest in various speculations about the early Church which tend discredit the Catholic Church and its claims. These come from all sides. For example, many time people will say that Paul started the Church in Rome. His 1st letter clearly implies this is not the case; yet it is propogated as a likihood. Why? Well, there is no doubt that protestants are more interested in the accomplishments of Paul as opposed to those of Peter. This is somewhat due to the fact that Paul’s work was documented by Luke and he was a much more prolific writer. But it seems also the case that there is a desire to downplay Peter’s role in the early Church as much as possible. So plausible alternatives need to be presented, expecially when those alternatives are more plausible.

Another example would be Paul’s rebuking of Peter, which he mentions in Galatians. Protestants of all sorts place this after the Council of Jeruselem. Even though early Church fathers placed it before that point in time. Why do they do this? Well, they want to downplay the obvious fact that Peter’s voice at the council is what ultimately mattered.

You’re right. I was thinking only in my Catholic mode. I know some people in Catholicism seem to think of the Pope exclusively in the terms of 'bishop of Rome." So this question might have been asking “Who was the first pope, if Peter was not the first bishop of Rome?”

 

[Dollinger]

Well, they want to downplay the obvious fact that Peter’s voice at the council is what ultimately mattered.

That is not how the Fathers viewed it:

There was no arrogance in the Church. After Peter Paul speaks, and none silences him: James waits patiently, not starts up (for the next word). Great the orderliness (of the proceedings). No word speaks John here, no word the other Apostles, but held their peace, for James was invested with the chief rule, and think it no hardship. So clean was their soul from love of glory. “And after that they had held their peace, James answered,” etc. (v. 13.) Peter indeed spoke more strongly, but James here more mildly: for thus it behooves one in high authority, to leave what is unpleasant for others to say, while he himself appears in the milder part.~Saint John Chrysostom; Upon the Acts of the Apostles, 33d Homily newadvent.org/fathers/210133.htm

 

[Aelred_Minor]

Is there a reason anyone would care if there was a bishop in Rome before Peter or Paul?

In any case, the pope is the successor of Peter.

…who happened to be bishop of Rome at the time of his death.

Should Rome someday be destroy by a meteor impact, the successor of Peter will no longer be in Rome. HOWEVER, he will still hold the keys to the kingdom and be the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

I suspect that the Popes would remain the titular bishops of Rome, even if they lived on another continent or planet for millennia and Rome was an uninhabited ruin.