A reader writes:
I don’t know if you respond to questions concerning the Scriptures but if you do, I wonder if you can help with this question.
My question concerns Paul’s Epistle to the Romans.
Paul wrote:
“…..I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are in Rome.”
Now, if the Archbishop of Washington wrote a letter to the faithful in the Archdiocese of New York, eyebrows might be raised at the seeming audacity of the Archbishop to write to the faithful in an Archdiocese outside his jurisdiction. Yet this is what Paul appears to do. He writes to the brethren in Rome. Yet, at that time, Peter was in Rome so why did he not write to Peter rather than directly to the brethren?
Moreover, given Peter’s primacy, does it not appear to be a bit odd that Paul writes to the brethren almost as if Peter did not exist?
In so far as there were bishops in Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica, etc when Paul wrote his epistles to the brethren in these places, these bishops would have been appointed by Paul. But Paul most certainly did not appoint the Bishop of Rome. Yet his writes to the Romans in the same way he writes to the Corinthians, etc.
And why would the brethren in Rome be in need of such a letter when Peter was already there?
I suppose my basic response would be, "Who says Peter was there when Paul wrote the Romans?" It seems to me he could have been anywhere. Just as Paul founded Churches and moved on so Peter may have founded the Church at Rome and then gone on and been anywhere in the Empire when Paul wrote. The apostles tended to get around. As far as I know, the only thing solid we have from the Tradition is that Peter founded the Church at Rome and that both Peter and Paul were martyred there. I know of nothing in the Tradition which demands we believe Peter remained in Rome from the time he founded the Church until his death and can think of lots of reasons for presuming Peter was on the move like the other apostles till he returned to Rome to meet his destiny. The archeology that supports the fact that the tomb of Peter below the basilica of St. Peter is rather impressive. It is backed by the memoirs of apostolic Fathers who also remember Peter and Paul dying at Rome. Against this, the argument that Paul doesn't mention Peter in his letter is essentially an argument from silence—and a silence that can be accounted for in other ways than by supposing that the witness of the entire early Church and the bones of a crucified man (in a tomb bearing the inscription “Peter is within”) are somehow an elaborate fraud.
By the way, Peter’s first epistle is addressed to, among other people, the Galatians, Paul’s flock. And Paul, who hails from the Church at Antioch (where Peter was for a time), pastors the Church in Ephesus (Acts 19), where John would later reside and teach. There doesn’t seem to have been a lot of struggle for turf dominance among the apostles. So I see no particular reason why Paul would have felt a need to steer clear of Rome, particularly if Peter was not there at the time he wrote to them. Give that Paul's apostolic mission begins when Peter's Church, the Church at Antioch, lays hands on him and sends him out, it's very conceivable that Paul saw his work and Peter's as profoundly related. Bottom line: the argument that Peter was never in Rome based on the letter to the Romans is, I think, a very weak argument from silence.
Hope that helps! Thanks for writing!
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Susan Quinn: Your own study of your religion could benefit from going to newadvent’s Catholic Encyclopedia pages. Start with the article “Apocrypha”, then to “III Apocrypha of Christian origin”, then to “Apocryphal Gospels.”
You’ll learn- from a Catholic source- that many such documents were written to satisfy lay people’s desire for more information than the Bible offered on certain subjects. No lack of writers willing to create lives for Mary’s parents e.g. By the Middle Ages even the clergy had forgotten the origins of the documents and were treating them as scripture. An example is the present-day Feast of the Presentation of Mary which grew out of the Protoevangelium of James, so-called. Reading on that topic will show you the quality of many Catholic “traditions”. (The article has at least two sets of names for the parents, from “traditions”.) The existence of the Feast is proof to me that in the RCC tradition outweighs scripture. And this is just one of many such celebrations for doubtful or nonexistent “saints” or “miraculous shrines” or articles of clothing.
The standard for what I believe is the words of Jesus himself- your God, remember- at John 17:17. He said that while praying to his Father, “the only true God”. John 17:3
what did paul say was responsible for the walls coming down and rehahab being spared. i put let everyone become one. i hope that i am right.
@Susan Quinn: [Seriously?], I am not “dude” nor ‘just making stuff up’ as you charge. Further, I don’t need your advice since I know fully what the teaching is. The problem is a disconnect between clergy and church-going Catholics. Perhaps if clergy used homily time to actually teach what you wrote pew Catholics would actually understand better. No wonder the USCCB is in so much disarray. Too much time has been devoted to matters not edifying nor furthering the cause of Christ.
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I suggest you conduct ten random interviews into what pew Catholics actually “think and believe” after Mass (assuming you can catch them) before making a bee line to their cars to make parking space for the next wave of Mass attendees—you will be shocked at what people truly understand. Amazingly, one life-long and always practicing Catholic-educated man (Catholic grammar school, high school and college) told me the Pope “knows the final day and the hour.” If he actually knew the Gospel (and if clergy actually taught the Gospel), this man would never have such an understanding.
CASTING CROWNS SAID: “For most every Catholic I speak to, God’s word takes 2nd place to Catholic tradition”
Wow. I don’t know what Catholics you are speaking to, but Jesus is God’s Word, and even a MODICUM of study shows that He reveals Himself through the written Scripture AND “tradition” - meaning what the Apostles ACTUALLY DID, SAID, AND PASSED ON WHEN THERE WAS NO BIBLE. Since the Church put the Bible together, you’re gonna have a REAL problem if you think the ONLY “word of God” was the King James version! As for the rest of your comment - that “tradition” includes Padre Pio, private revelations, etc. - it is the teaching of the Catholic Church (you could look it up) that NO ONE IS OBLIGED TO BELIEVE IN PRIVATE REVELATIONS. They are NOT part of the body of “tradition.”
AGAIN - JESUS IS THE WORD OF GOD WHO REVEALS HIMSELF THROUGH SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION -AS IT SAYS IN SCRIPTURE ITSELF.
Seriously, dude, you need to do a little studying on what Catholics actually believe before just making stuff up.
The Holy Spirit might have inspired Paul to write to the Romans at a time when he might have sensed that Peter might be in prison , that the believers needed support ; the intent of receiving their support for the mission to Spain also makes sense .
Agree with the post about how Peter would not have had difficulty with the needed skills in langauge for his mission .
Reason Catholics emphasise Tradition ( and Scripture ) is , the words of John on how the whole wolrd could not contain what The Lord has done , yet The Eucharist does conatin that ..and all else , Fatima , PadrePio all help to focus on the glory of that Mystery ; no need to be envious ; it takes faith which can be imparted through hearing - not of many words but what is needed !
@Doug: [“Mark and his reader start with scripture and go off immediately into tradition because it outweighs scripture for Catholics.”]
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Doug, that DOES always appear to be the case so I must agree with you. I’ve never had a problem with RCC tradition, but most Catholics I speak to have elevated tradition *above* God’s word because “tradition” is so overly emphasized. I can only surmise seminary training is so concentrated in tradition. Pew RC’s understand tradition far more than the NT. In fact, most homilies at Mass rarely teach on any of the 3 readings but moreover center on a do-over “feel good” message priests have given before or homily time is used by the head of the parish Finance Committe to speak regarding more fundraising to meet the parish assessment for the Bishop’s Annual Diocesan Appeal (ADA) which is currently happening now during the Lenten season. Irrespective of just plain, awful homilies which no one remembers by the time the Bread and Wine are walked up with the collection, the 7 or 8 minute homily really doesn’t matter. It’s the Eucharist which is the ONLY thing that counts.
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For most every Catholic I speak to, God’s word takes 2nd place to Catholic tradition and that includes such fascination with the alledged secrets of Fatima, Padre Pio levitating and all the rest. These distractions are a deception to distance people away from God’s word and into a false sense of the “fullness of the faith.”
Two quotes well illustrate the Eternal Problem of the Catholic view of the “church” in the Eternal City:
“audacity of the Archbishop to write to the faithful in an Archdiocese outside his jurisdiction” and “the only thing solid we have from the Tradition is that Peter founded the Church at Rome and that both Peter and Paul were martyred there.”
Mark and his reader start with scripture and go off immediately into tradition because it outweighs scripture for Catholics. Examples:
a) Scripture nowhere uses “Archbishop”, but the term is very useful if one is inventing an ‘imperial church’. “Bishop” is a descendant of the Gk ‘overseer’, and “priest” is a [very distant] descendant of Gk ‘elder’. Neither needs to be capitalized in an English Bible to get across the meaning.
b) “presuming Peter was on the move like the other apostles” is correct, but it is not a ‘presumption’. ALL the apostles were on the move in obedience to the command Mt 28:19,20- ‘Go, preach everywhere.’ The idea of a fixed “see” for any of them is another invention that helped the RCC establish itself as it is today. Not scriptural.
c) A subthread discusses the supposed illiteracy of Peter, ‘a [mere] fisherman’. We know that Peter could write the Greek of the day because he says so: “This is my second letter to you, beloved; I WRITE such letters as a reminder”. Unless of course he used an amanuensis, but he doesn’t mention one. (Paul mentions one, more than once.)
d) Peter says, “I write” and “The church here in Babylon”; Catholic tradition says, ‘I am illiterate’, and ‘The church here in Rome’. So, he’s not just illiterate but flunks geography- on two of the best-known cities of the era. Evidence for Babylon? Peter was sent to the Jews as Paul was sent to the Gentiles. Babylon then was a significant city with a large population of Jews. They were descended from those who chose to remain in Babylon after the restoration of Jerusalem by Cyrus. All attested by scripture. Even today the Jews use a Babyolnian Talmud as well as a Jerusalem Talmud in their modern [unscriptural] worship.
Jerome: I believe all that the Holy Catholic Church believe, teaches, and proclaims is revealed by God. If that is not good enough for you then I’m afraid that your lonely quest for truly true, purely pure Catholics will have to become a great deal lonelier still since 99.9% of the Church will not be good enough for you if that is not good enough for you. Funny thing. That conception of Christian fellowship is actually calledd “Congregationalism” and is Protestant. Enjoy your new friends—if they are up to snuff for your rigorous standards.
Now could we keep this discussion on topic? Thank you.
It was one thing to learn to read and write an ideographic language like Egyptian, but languages written with alphabets are not that difficult to learn if you know the spoken language they transcribe. It is not unusual for people to come to literacy when they are already adults. Surely Peter had plenty of motivation to be able to read the Hebrew Bible, and to learn to speak Greek so he could converse with people across the Roman Empire, including many Jews who lived outside Judea and spoke Greek themselves. For those who believe in the miraculous power of God that is depicted in the Gospels and Acts, the fact that Peter and the other apostles could speak other languages on the day of Pentecost invites us to believe that he would also have divine support in learning to speak and even read and write other languages in service of his mission of preaching the gospel to all the peoples of his day, Jew and Gentile. Unless a credible ancient document is found that specifically affirms that Peter, late in life, was illiterate in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, the assertion that he could not speak, read or write those languages is pure speculation.
I am depressed that Mark Shea is allowed to write for NCR. I thought NCR was the conservative Catholic periodical. My readings of MS’s Facebook postings show him to be a typical liberal catholic. Its too bad there are no truly conservative catholic periodicals in the mainstream media.
Romans 1-7 explains how the gospel of Jesus Christ saves the sinner. Paul could only write Romans after coming to a knowledge of his (man’s) true condition —that of being eternally lost apart from Christ. A man would have to “be there” (lost) in order to express himself as eloquently as Paul does in Romans.
“[T]here is not a single piece of reliable literary evidence (and no archaeological evidence either) that Peter ever was in Rome.”
That alone makes it look like the book is badly out of date. The tomb of Peter is well-attested, nowadays, though the tomb itself was only discovered quite recently.
What I’m about to say is a theory I learned before I became a Catholic, so I may be way off base here.
I was taught that Paul’s letter to the Romans has a fundamentally different character than his other letters. Far from being pastoral or corrective, it seems to be more along the lines of a systematic theology.
The purpose of the letter seems to be made clear in the end of Chapter 15.
“I myself feel confident about you, my brothers and sisters, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct one another. Nevertheless on some points I have written to you rather boldly by way of reminder, because of the grace given me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles in the priestly service of the gospel of God, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit…
“Thus I make it my ambition to proclaim the good news, not where Christ has already been named, so that I do not build on someone else’s foundation, but as it is written,‘Those who have never been told of him shall see, and those who have never heard of him shall understand.’
“This is the reason that I have so often been hindered from coming to you. But now, with no further place for me in these regions, I desire, as I have for many years, to come to you [WHEN I GO TO SPAIN]. For I do hope to see you on my journey and to be sent on by you, once I have enjoyed your company for a little while.”
It was conveyed to me that this letter was to seek assistance for his mission to Spain. Would it be possible that he was clearly laying out His teaching and theology so that they might assist him with his next missionary journey?
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2010/2010-03-25.html
“[T]here is not a single piece of reliable literary evidence (and no archaeological evidence either) that Peter ever was in Rome.”
—Pieter W. van der Horst, reviewing Otto Zwierlein’s “Petrus in Rom.”
Unfortunately, the book isn’t available in English yet. The review’s solid, though. Provocative arguments on the authenticity of the Ignatian epistles and 1 Clement. Something to contend with.
Paul knew how to read and write - so he did and supposedly wrote most of the writings of the apostles. Peter did not certianly know how to write. But most of the people then did not know how to read so writing was fruitless.
Paul was a radical jew (killing christians not conforming to the commandment “thou shall not kill”.) Paul also when converted was a radical christian and his writings are where the Amish get their covering of their head always.
Read Faith of Our Fathers by Jurgens to get later writings of the successors to the Apostles which is much more explantory to what they taught and how they lived.
Many find it difficult to remember - or even don’t know - that Paul knew how to read and write and Peter, being a fisherman certainly did not. Paul wrote most of the bible - as we know it. Much of the writings were not saved and those that were saved were lost due to Pagans ransacking the shelters where the apostles and successors to the apostles stayed -which Paul was.
It’s like having someone interpret the greek and armenian writings - in their words.
Reading the Faith of Our Fathers by Jurgens books are much more explanatory and should be sought to read rather than the “bible”.
Remember too Paul was a radical jew (killing christians!) and was converted but then was a radical christian. His words are why Amish wear headgear always. But he was one of the jews that Christ admonished for being all show and not from the heart. The head covering was still that trait but since he knew how to write, he did most of it. BUT we still have to remember that most people back then, did not know how to read what wsa written.
Tradition is what we should rely on: the oral teachings of all the apostles who went out a preached as Jesus told them to do.
I kind of like the idea of Archbishops writing letters to the faithful in other archdioceses, especially if the local bishop is more concerned about kissing up to Culture-of-death pols rather than boldly proclaiming the Gospel. The resulting hissy fits would be fun to watch.
“Be of good cheer!” (John 16:33)
www.merrycatholic.com
As T.B. mentioned, there is good evidence that suggests St. Peter was in Rome at this time. I recommend Dr. Taylor Marshall’s new book, The Eternal City: Rome and the Origins of Catholic Christianity for this subject. He includes lots of evidence.
He also makes it clear there is some unnanmed person who founded the Church of Rome, who he does fell some deference to in this matter. Some have suggested that the location of Peter was a matter of secrecy, for fear he would be a target of Roman authorities.
“It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. 21 Rather, as it is written:
“Those who were not told about him will see,
and those who have not heard will understand.”[g]
22 This is why I have often been hindered from coming to you.”
I agree, Mark, except that it seems not so much an argument from silence as it seems an argument from bias.
Peter was the first Bishop of Antioch before he was the first Bishop of Rome. To this day the Maronite Patriarchs take the name Peter when they become Patriarch in honor of this fact.
I expect he could have been helping converts across the Orontes river while Paul was writing the letter.
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