Protestant scholars Witness.
Editors of the
Evangelical NEW BIBLE COMMENTARY 21st Century Edition (1994). Please tell us where was Peter writing his First Epistle?
NBC: "In 5:13 the writer sends greetings from 'she who is in Babylon, chosen together with you'. This seems like a reference to the local church in Babylon, but it is unlikely that Peter would have gone to the former capital of Nebuchadnezzar's empire.
"By Peter's time it was a sparsely inhabited ruin (fulfilling Isaiah 14:23). In Rev 16:19 and 17:5 'Babylon' is used as a cryptic name for Rome, and Col 4:10 and Phm 24 (most likely written in Rome) show that Mark was there with Paul. In 2 Tim 4:11 Mark is in Asia Minor, and Paul sends for him to come to Rome."
"The fact that neither Peter nor Paul mentions the other in the list of those sending greetings from Rome merely suggests that they were not together at the time of writing their letters. All this points to the theory that Peter was writing from Rome, which is supported by the evidence of Tertullian (praescrip haeret, 36) and Eusebius (Eccl History, 2.25.8; 2.15.2 and 3.1.2-3)."
NEW BIBLE COMMENTARY (Intervarsity Press, 1994), p. 1370 edited by Donald Guthrie with D.A. Carson, R.T. France, J.A. Motyer, and G.J. Wenham
Protestant Church Historical scholar Adolph Harnack.
HARNACK: "...to deny the Roman stay of Peter is an error which today is clear to every scholar who is not blind. The martyr death of Peter at Rome was once contested by reason of Protestant prejudice."
Adolph Harnack cited in THE SEARCH FOR THE TWELVE APOSTLES by William Stuart McBirnie (Tyndale House, 1988), p. 63
The biggest anti-Catholic critic of all time, who wrote the 500-page volume THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH Protestant, George Salmon,
SALMON: "Some Protestant controversialists have asserted that Peter was NEVER at Rome...I think the historic probability is that he was; though, as I say, at a late period of the history, and not long before his death....[but some] Protestant champions had undertaken the impossible task of proving the negative, that Peter was NEVER at Rome. They might as well have undertaken to prove out of the Bible that St. Bartholomew never preached in Pekin."
"For myself, I am willing, in the absence of any opposing tradition, to accept the current account that Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome. We know with certainty from John xxi that Peter suffered martyrdom somewhere. If Rome, which early laid claim to have witnessed that martyrdom, were not the scene of it, where then did it take place? Any city would be glad to claim such a connexion with the name of the Apostle, and NONE but Rome made the claim."
"If this evidence for Peter's Roman martyrdom be not deemed sufficient, there are few things in the history of the early Church which it will be possible to demonstrate."
THE INFALLIBILITY OF THE CHURCH : A Refutation by George Salmon, D.D. (Baker, 1959, orig 1888), p. 348,349
Testament Protestant scholar F.F. Bruce.
BRUCE: "That Peter as well as Paul was put to death at Rome under Nero is the UNANIMOUS testimony of Christian tradition so far as it touches this subject."
"That Peter and Paul were the most eminent of many Christians who suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero is CERTAIN; that they were claimed as co-founders of the Roman church and that this, together with their martyrdom there, conferred great religious (as distinct from political) prestige on that church, is likewise CERTAIN...."
NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY (Doubleday and Co, 1971) by F.F. Bruce, p. 403,410
Church historian Jaroslav Pelikan.
PELIKAN: "The martyrdom of both Peter and Paul in Rome....belongs to [Christian] tradition. It has often been questioned by Protestant critics, some of whom have even contended that Peter was NEVER in Rome. But the archaeological researches of the Protestant historian Hans Lietzmann, supplemented by the library study of the Protestant exegete Oscar Cullmann, have made it extremely difficult to deny the tradition of Peter's death in Rome under the emperor Nero.
"The account of Paul's martyrdom in Rome, which is supported by much of the same evidence, has not called forth similar skepticism."
THE RIDDLE OF ROMAN CATHOLICISM (Abingdon Press, 1959) by Jaroslav Pelikan, p. 36-37
From the recent anti-Catholic book by James R. White --
"The early tradition of the Church associates Peter with Rome throughout. Anyone going solely on the basis of the reports of the Fathers must conclude Peter was in Rome, at the very least at his death." (James White, The Roman Catholic Controversy, page 246)
I commend James White for at least including this factual statement, but that it must be relegated to a note near the end of the book says something about the persistent prejudice many anti-Catholic authors and publishers of books attacking the Catholic Church (in the past and present) have regarding St. Peter's presence in the Church at Rome.
PORVAZNIK
I wrote "Roam" for "Rome!"
