Places and Acts of St. Peter in Rome

by father Giorgio Picu - posted on 07/12/2024

 

St. Peter was an apostle of Jesus Christ and the first pope of Rome, where he lived for about 25 years until his death by crucifixion. He lived and preached in different areas of the city, and these places often correspond to sacred sites to be discovered during a visit to Rome. Let's find out together which ones.

 

The preaching

There are numerous written accounts of St. Peter's preaching in Rome. Papias bishop of Gerapolis, quoted by Eusebius of Caesarea, testifies that Peter preached in Rome early in the reign of Claudius (42), and that his listeners asked Mark to put in writing the teachings they had heard verbally. Eusebius adds that the episode is recounted by Clement in Book VI of the Hypotyposes. St. Irenaeus also records that Matthew had written his gospel while Peter and Paul were evangelizing Rome.

Ancient traditions have him as a guest in the house of Senator Pudentius (on which today stands the church of Santa Pudenziana his daughter, where the table on which the apostle is said to have celebrated the Eucharist is preserved) and in the house, on the Aventine, of Aquila and Priscilla (on whose remains the church of Santa Prisca was built). The present basilica of St. Sebastian was also venerated from very ancient times as Domus Petri, and an inscription by Pope Damasus inside the church would attest that Peter and Paul lived there. Likewise, the basilica of Santa Maria in Via Lata would rise right where there was a house where Peter, Paul and Luke, who wrote the Acts of the Apostles here, lived. Then there is a mention of the locality ad nymphas sancti Petri, on the Via Nomentana, near the Ostrian cemetery, where according to tradition the apostle baptized the faithful.

 

Jesus and St. Peter - Mamertine Prison, Rome

 

In Rome also came to an end, according to ancient traditions, the confrontation between Peter and the magician Simon of Samaria that Eusebius of Caesarea and Justin also mention. According to their testimony the latter had come to Rome at the time of Claudius and Peter had followed him precisely to refute his theories. Eusebius also points out that Simon was known for his immoral life, famous for the prodigies of his magic, which won him the fame of the people who even built in his honor a statue on which was inscribed “Semoni Deo Sancto.” A stone with the grooves of two knees is still preserved in the church of St. Frances Romana, according to tradition, the one on which Peter knelt, begging the Master to stop the spells of his adversary, who in fact had to leave Rome and died shortly after: many of his followers, recognizing the superiority of the God announced by Peter, converted.

According to the Homilies of St. Clement, Peter had more than once public discussions with the magician Simon, who taught spiritualist doctrines mixed with Greek mythology and performed amazing wonders by which he won the attention of the crowd. In Caesarea, after the Council of Jerusalem, in one of these confrontations the magician, hindered by the apostle's preaching, preferred to flee to Tyre. Peter followed him, so as to confirm in the faith the Christians deceived by the false prophet, and reached Tyre, Sidon and present-day Beirut, where he healed several sick people and established bishops to head communities. The next stop was Tripoli. After spending three months there, the apostle moved to Antioch in about the year 52.

 

Arrest and martyrdom

The Acts of Peter recount how, following his confrontation with Simon Magus, the apostle had managed to win many proselytes who decided to convert to Christianity and be baptized. Among the catechumens were several women, most notably Santippe, wife of the nobleman Albinus, and the four concubines of the prefect Agrippa. They had preferred to abandon their lovers and follow Christian teaching through sexual abstinence. Agrippa and the other husbands, determined to bring their wives back into their thalami, hatched a conspiracy against Peter who, warned by Santippe, preferred to flee rather than be killed. During his escape, while on the Appian Way, Jesus came to meet him, carrying his cross. When the apostle asked the teacher, “Domine, quo vadis?” (Lord, where are you going?), the latter replied, “I am going to Rome to be crucified one more time.” Certain that his hour was now marked, Peter preferred to return to Rome to be crucified there in the Master's place. Along the Appian Way, near the Catacombs of St. Callistus, today stands the small church of “Domine quo vadis,” which commemorates the event. For a tour of the Catacombs of St. Callistus click here.

 

 Domine, quo vadis? - Annibale Carracci (1601-1602), London, National Gallery

 

Peter was therefore arrested as a result of the Neronian persecution and according to ancient traditions locked up, inside the Mamertine Prison (where later arose the church of “St. Peter in Prison”) where the two jailers, destined to become the saints Processo and Martinianus, seeing the miracles worked by the 'apostle, asked for baptism. Then Peter, making a sign of the cross toward the Tarpeian Rock, managed to make water flow from it and with it baptized the two jailers, who soon after opened the doors to them to invite them to escape, but were discovered and executed. For a tour of the Mamertine Prison click here.

Captured again by the emperor's soldiers he was crucified, according to the tradition handed down by Jerome, Tertullian, Eusebius and Origen, upside down at his own request between the year 64, the year of the burning of Rome and the beginning of Nero's anti-Christian persecution, and 67. The Roman Martyrology, the Synaxarias of the Eastern Churches, as well as the fifth-century Decretum Gelasianum state, “Not on a different day, as the heretics are blathering, but at the same time and on the same day Paul was with Peter crowned with a glorious death in the city of Rome under the emperor Nero,” thus setting the date at June 29, 67.

Eusebius of Caesarea mentions, for example, the testimony of Bishop Papias of Hierapolis and Clement of Alexandria that Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome at the request of the Christians of that city, who desired a written record of the teachings of Peter and his disciples; this report is confirmed by Irenaeus of Lyons. Based on these testimonies Eusebius stated that Peter addressed Rome by the figurative name of Babylon in his first letter (1 Pet. 5:13). One reason why Peter would not write the name of Rome in all his letters could be that after his miraculous deliverance recounted in the Acts of the Apostles and escape from Jerusalem, he was for the authorities a wanted fugitive; but there is no shortage of other explanations, such as the use of typically Jewish cryptograms for Rome, such as the ancient toponym “Babylon.” In Clement's first letter (c. 95-97), attributed to Clement of Rome, it is written, “Through envy and jealousy the worthiest and most important pillars [of the Church] suffered persecution and were challenged to death. Let us turn our gaze to the holy Apostles.... St. Peter, who, because of unjust envy, suffered not one or two, but numerous sufferings, and, after testifying by martyrdom, rose to the glory he had deserved.” (Clement of Rome, Letter to the Corinthians, v)
St. Jerome in De viris illustribus, relying on older sources, especially Eusebius of Caesarea, writes: “Simon Peter, son of John, from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, brother of Andrew the apostle, and himself leader of the apostles, after serving as bishop of the Church of Antioch and preaching to the Diaspora - the believers in the circumcision in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia-he moved to Rome in the second year of Claudius to oust Simon Magus, and held the priestly seat there for twenty-five years until the last, which was the fourteenth year of Nero. Because of him he received the crown of martyrdom by being nailed to the cross with his head to the ground and his feet raised above, claiming that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord. He wrote two letters that are called “Catholic,” the second of which, being different in style from the first, is considered by many not to be by his hand. The Gospel according to Mark, who was his disciple and interpreter, is also believed to be his. On the other hand, the books ascribed to him, of which the first is entitled Acts, a second Gospel, a third Discourse, a fourth Revelation, and a fifth Judgment, are rejected as apocryphal. Buried in Rome in the Vatican near the Street of Triumph, he is venerated by the whole world” (Sophronius Eusebius Jerome, De viris illustribus).

 

Holy Sepulchre of St. Peter at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican

 

On the presence of St. Peter's tomb on the Vatican hill it is enough to read the final results of the commission established by Pius XII and led by Prof. Margherita Guarducci. Also the official statement made by Paul VI in 1963: “Peter is Whom”. The late disputes or the other hypotheses such as Babylon or Jerusalem do not deserve to be considered as Protestant-inspired, which, from Luther onward, seeks, by all means, to challenge historical truth. For a visit to St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican and his tomb click here.

Sites to visit in Rome to retrace the life and Acts of St. Peter are then:
•    Mamertine Prison (book a visit)
•    Quo Vadis Church
•    Church of St. Nereus and Achilleus
•    Church of St. Pietro in Vincoli
•    Church of St. Peter in Montorio with the temple of Bramante
•    Basilica of St. Peter - in the basement archaeological site and Tomb (book a visit)

 

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