The First Ruler of the Church of Rome

2. Peter appears to have preached539 in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia540 to the Jews of the dispersion. And at last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head-downwards;541 for he had requested that he might suffer in this way. What do we need to say concerning Paul, who preached the Gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum,542 and afterwards suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero?543 These facts are related by Origen in the third volume of his Commentary on Genesis.544

CHAPTER II The First Ruler of the Church of Rome.

1. After the martyrdom of Paul and of Peter, Linus545 was the first to obtain the episcopate of the church at

535 The traditions respecting Andrew are very uncertain and contradictory, though, as remarked above (note 1), the original form, represented here, assigned as his field the region in the neighborhood of the Black Sea. His traditional activity in Scythia has made him the patron saint of Russia. He is also called the patron saint of Greece, where he is reported to have been crucified; but his activity there rests upon a late tradition. His body is said to have been carried to Constantinople in 357 (cf. Philostorgius, Hist. Eccles. III. 2), and during the Crusades transferred to Amalpæ in Italy, in whose cathedral the remains are still shown. Andrew is in addition the patron saint of Scotland; but the tradition of his activity there dates back only to the eighth century (cf. Skene’s Celtic Scotland, II. 221 sq.). Numerous other regions are claimed, by various traditions, to have been the scene of his labors. 536 Proconsular Asia included only a narrow strip of Asia Minor, lying upon the coast of the Mediterranean and comprising Mysia, Lydia, and Caria. 537 The universal testimony of antiquity assigns John’s later life to Ephesus: e.g. Irenæus, Adv. Hær. III. 1. 1 and 3. 4, etc.; Clement of Alex., Quis Dives Salvetur, c. 42 (quoted by Eusebius, chap. 23, below); Polycrates in his Epistle to Victor (quoted by Eusebius in chap. 31, below, and in Bk. V. chap. 24); and many others. The testimony of Irenæus is especially weighty, for the series: Irenæus, the pupil of Polycarp, the pupil of John, forms a complete chain such as we have in no other case. Such testimony, when its force is broken by no adverse tradition, ought to be sufficient to establish John’s residence in Ephesus beyond the shadow of a doubt, but it has been denied by many of the critics who reject the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel (e.g. Keim, Holtzmann, the author of Supernat. Religion, and others), though the denial is much less positive now than it was a few years ago. The chief arguments urged against the residence of John in Ephesus are two, both a silentio: first, Clement in his first Epistle to the Corinthians speaks of the apostles in such a way as to seem to imply that they were all dead; secondly, in the Ignatian Epistles, Paul is mentioned, but not John, which is certainly very remarkable, as one is addressed to Ephesus itself. In reply it may be said that such an interpretation of Clement’s words is not necessary, and that the omission of John in the epistles of Ignatius becomes perfectly natural if the Epistles are thrown into the time of Hadrian or into the latter part of Trajan’s reign, as they ought to be (cf. chap. 36, note 4). In the face of the strong testimony for John’s Ephesian residence these two objections must be overruled. The traditional view is defended by all conservative critics as well as by the majority even of those who deny the Johannine authorship of the fourth Gospel (cf. especially Hilgenfeld in his Einleitung, and Weizsäcker in his Apostaliches Zeitalter). The silence of Paul’s epistles and of the Acts proves that John cannot have gone to Ephesus until after Paul had permanently left there, and this we should naturally expect to be the case. Upon the time of John’s banishment to Patmos, see Bk. III. chap. 18, note 1. Tradition reports that he lived until the reign of Trajan (98–117). Cf. Irenæus, II. 22. 5 and III. 3. 4. 538 Origen in this extract seems to be uncertain how long John remained in Ephesus and when he died. 539 The language of Origen (κεκηρυχέναι žοικεν, instead of λόγος žχει or παρ€δοσις περιέχει) seems to imply that he is recording not a tradition, but a conclusion drawn from the first Epistle of Peter, which was known to him, and in which these places are mentioned. Such a tradition did, however, exist quite early. Cf. e.g. the Syriac Doctrina Apostolorum (ed. Cureton) and the Gnostic Acts of Peter and Andrew. The former assigns to Peter, Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia, in addition to Galatia and Pontus, and cannot therefore, rest solely upon the first Epistle of Peter, which does not mention the first three places. All the places assigned to Peter are portions of the field of Paul, who in all the traditions of this class is completely crowded out and his field given to other apostles, showing the Jewish origin of the traditions. Upon Peter’s activity in Rome and his death there, see Bk. II. chap. 25, note 7. 540 Five provinces of Asia Minor, mentioned in 1 Pet. i. 1. 541 Origen is the first to record that Peter was crucified with his head downward, but the tradition afterward became quite common. It is of course not impossible, but the absence of any reference to it by earlier Fathers (even by Tertullian, who mentions the crucifixion), and its decidedly legendary character, render it exceedingly doubtful. 542 Cf. Rom. xv. 19. Illyricum was a Roman province lying along the eastern coast of the Adriatic. 543 See above, Bk. II. chap. 25, note 5. 544 This fragment of Origen has been preserved by no one else. It is impossible to tell where the quotation begins—whether with the words “Thomas according to tradition received Parthia,” as I have given it, or with the words “Peter appears to have preached,” etc., as Bright gives it. 545 The actual order of the first three so-called bishops of Rome is a greatly disputed matter. The oldest tradition is that given by Irenæus (Adv. Hær. III. 3. 3) and followed here by Eusebius, according to which the order was Linus, Anencletus, Clement. Hippolytus

gives a different order, in which he is followed by many Fathers; and in addition to these two chief arrangements all possible combinations of the three names, and all sorts of theories to account for the difficulties and to reconcile the discrepancies in the earlier lists, have been proposed. In the second chapter of the so-called Epistle of Clement to James (a part of the Pseudo-Clementine Literature prefixed to the Homilies) it is said that Clement was ordained by Peter, and Salmon thinks that this caused Hippolytus to change the order, putting Clement first. Gieseler (Eccles. Hist., Eng. Trans., I. p. 107, note 10) explains the disagreements in the various traditions by supposing that the three were presbyters together at Rome, and that later, in the endeavor to make out a complete list of bishops, they were each successively elevated by tradition to the episcopal chair. It is at least certain that Rome at that early date had no monarchical bishop, and therefore the question as to the order of these first three so-called bishops is not a question as to a fact, but simply as to which is the oldest of various unfounded traditions. The Roman Church gives the following order: Linus, Clement, Cletus, Anacletus, following Hippolytus in making Cletus and Anacletus out of the single Anencletus of the original tradition. The apocryphal martyrdoms of Peter and Paul are falsely ascribed to Linus (see Tischendorf, Acta Apost. Apocr. p. xix. sq.). Eusebius (chap. 13, below) says that Linus was bishop for twelve years. In his Chron. (Armen.) he says fourteen years, while Jerome says eleven. These dates are about as reliable as the episcopal succession itself. We have no trustworthy information as to the personal character and history of Linus. Upon the subjects discussed in this note see especially Salmon’s articles, Clemens Romanus, and Linus, in the Dict. of Christ. Biog. 546 2 Tim. iv. 21. The same identification is made by Irenæus, Adv. Hær. III. 3. 3, and by Pseudo-Ignatius in the Epistle to the Trallians (longer version), chap. 7.a