05 - Peter in Rome

There were many Jewish legends that had to do with the founding of Rome. One said that when King Solomon took Pharaoh’s daughter as his wife, the angel Gabriel came down from heaven, lifted a mass of ooze from the bottom of the sea, and set it down where Rome was to be founded. Another said that when Jereboam set up the two calves, the twin founders of Rome, Romulus and Remus, were born, in order to dissuade the Jews from going to Jerusalem. The Jews looked on Rome as the rod the Lord had appointed to punish Israel for its sins.

But Rome was also connected in the Jewish mind with salvation as well. This city of sin, this new Babylon, was considered to be not just a fiery furnace of trial, but was also the gate of redemption, for according to another legend, Messiah sat at the gate of Rome, among beggars, waiting for the sound of the trumpet of liberation. On that day Moses would come out of the desert, and Messiah would come to meet him from Rome.

Rome and Jerusalem. Each was built on the ruin of the other. Out of the heart of destruction would blossom the fruit of salvation.

This was why Peter eventually went to Rome, to wait in the lion’s den for Messiah.

Like Paul, Peter had also traveled through far-off cities and provinces. He left Antioch sometime after Paul, and took John Mark with him. They climbed the Galatia hills to Cappadocia, then went across the mountain country to Pontus of Bithynia, where Paul had not gone. They founded congregations in Asia Minor, reached the seashore and sailed to Rome. There, in the Jewish quarter in the Trans-Tiber, they discovered a congregation of Christians and settled there in one of the houses around the courtyard of the synagogue named in honor of the just emperor Augustus.


Ships unloaded cargoes of vegetables, wood and grain each day on the farther bank of the Tiber where hundreds of Jews had their booths and shops, selling clothing, fish, and spices. A horde of children played around every shop, getting underfoot while their parents dragged bundles and crates of merchandise from the ships to the booths. There was constant noise as merchants competed and quarreled, swearing by the Temple in Jerusalem that their goods were the best and the cheapest. It was a city within a city, Jerusalem in the heart of Edom.

But when the Sabbath came this stretch of the bank was silent, the shops closed, the booths empty. Wisps of straw and vegetable leaves lay scattered about. Every window in every Jewish home was adorned with garlands of flowers and leaves in honor of the Sabbath. The air was fragrant with the odor of cooked fish and of the spiced foods that were an endless source of amusement for the Gentiles. For that matter, everything Jewish was a matter for satire and burlesque among the mimes and actors of the circuses, but the Jewish Sabbath above all. The pamphleteers made a great point of the imbecilic Jewish habit of losing one day in seven, which was given up to utter idleness. The Jews, moreover, were incomprehensible in their treatment of children. Infanticide was quite unknown among them, and every child, every single one, was brought up.

The Jews paid little attention to this endless mockery. “Let the Gentiles laugh to their hearts content,” they said.

On the Sabbath morning the Jews assembled in the synagogues, prayed, listened to the reading of the Torah, and drank up the words of their prophets thirstily.

The Christian congregation in Rome was now so large that they had a separate place of worship within each synagogue. After they performed the services and repeated the prayers with all their fellow Jews, omitting no detail, they gathered for the special service of their own. They had their common meals, held meetings of their own, and collected money for the widows and orphans. Officially they belonged to the Jewish community, and they made no attempt to separate themselves. They simply had their own additional customs.

Pious Gentiles were invited to their gatherings on condition that they accept baptism. When the group became large enough, it acquired an acknowledged position in the Jewish congregation.

Now Simon didn’t come to Rome to mend and reinterpret the faith. His God was perfect and complete. Who was he that he should seek to penetrate into the mystery of God? He was an unlearned fisherman, and not the scholarly “brother Paul”, who was so hard to understand. His God was the God of faith, to whom man in his loneliness clings with all hope. It was this simplicity that brought many poor laborers to hear his sermons, and there was a new spark of growth when the simple fisherman came with his warm speech, his winning manner, and his charming parables.

“We serve and adore but one God, the Creator of all the worlds, and we observe his laws, the first of which is, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and might.’ Man is created in the image of God. Therefore we must glorify God by sharing our bread with the hungry and our clothes with the naked. We must visit the sick, extend hospitality to the stranger, and ransom him that is in captivity. As God has called you to be holy, so shall you be holy.”

And to the Gentiles he said, “Be as obedient children, and not as before in your lusts. For you know that you were not redeemed with corruptible gold and silver, but with the dear blood of Messiah, who is as a lamb without blemish. You are born anew, not through corruptible seed, but through the word of God, which lives and is everlasting. For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man is as the flower of the field. The grass withers, and the flower fades, but the word of God abides forever. Therefore put off from yourselves all evil and falsehood, all flattery and envy and evil speech. Desire the pure milk of the Word, like new-born children, in order that you may grow.”

After preaching and praying, Peter would visit one of the Jewish homes, where the Sabbath meal was spread on the table, and sit with the family and eat in the joy of God. They also thanked God for this special privilege of the holy Sabbath, on which they dedicated their bodies and souls to Him.

Thus Peter lived his simple life among the Jews of Rome. He seldom left the Jewish quarter, preferring to sit in his house praying, repeating psalms, or recounting again and again the deeds of the righteous Messiah to his helper, Mark, who carefully wrote it all down. Or else Peter would sit in his chair and receive all who came to him, Jew and Gentile, speaking to them in all kindness and gentleness.


One time a rich matron came to see Peter to hear about the faith. This made him quite uncomfortable, as did many things about the giant city that he regarded as the source of all abomination. He had little faith in Roman matrons, for their belief in their gods had always been a self-indulgent thing, and they were always willing to hear of any new Oriental god, not just Messiah.

Simon considered Rome to be a drunken harlot, a painted Babylon, full of witchcraft, whoredoms and idolatry. But he was convinced that it was from this place that Messiah would come a second time, “suddenly, and as a thief in the night,” and he would ascend the throne to judge the mighty of the world.

So while the great power of Rome, her palaces and temples, her slaves and legionaries, her nobles and rulers, filled Peter with dread, he knew that Messiah would sweep away this blot with a fiery broom. He often preached about “the great judgment day,” and prophesied of the dark end of the imperial city. He had visions of a rain of fire coming down from glowing clouds.

“In that day the heavens will dissolve and the foundations will melt, for we shall yet have the promise of a new heaven and a new earth, where we will live in righteousness.”

This was Peter’s message to the people of Rome, and it brought fear and trembling to many. Jew and Gentile learned that the messenger from Jerusalem was foretelling the end of the world, the destruction from which only the believers, they who had taken baptism in the name of Messiah, would be saved.

As this message of doom spread throughout the city, there were many who came to seek salvation. So the congregation grew from day to day, among Jews and Gentiles, and everywhere among the poor, the slaves and the oppressed, they spoke of the doom that was approaching.

* * * * *

Simon knew that Paul was in Rome in chains, a prisoner in his own home, and that he was spreading the gospel to the Gentiles on the other side of the Tiber. He couldn’t understand the special doctrine that Paul preached, nor did he wish to. Who was he to scrutinize the intentions of God? God was to be feared, not scrutinized. And though he knew that Messiah had to suffer as part of his mission of the redemption of mankind, Peter preferred to remember him as his beloved rabbi, the just man, the chosen one. But he also knew that the spreading of the gospel through Caesar’s household was not a bad thing.

Peter found himself more and more longing to be in the presence of his rabbi. He hungered to be with him in heaven, to see his white, shimmering robe, and to hear his sweet voice. But he also remembered the prediction that he would have to drink the same bitter cup Messiah had. But Simon was a weak man, and he trembled just thinking about the torment. He wanted that day to be far off, if it ever came at all. Sometimes, though, the longing to see Jesus made him almost think he was willing to go through the fiery circle.


One day a man from Jerusalem came to visit. His name was Jesus Justus, and he was of the Greek Jews. He brought dreadful news.

“After many years of waiting and scheming, old Annas’ youngest son, whose name is also Annas, paid a huge bribe and became the High Priest. He immediately cut the Pharisees out of the Day of Atonement service completely. He started a new form of service that’s entirely Sadducee. Well, you can imagine the bitterness that caused in the rabbis and scholars. They’re more bitter than ever.

“But it gets worse. Festus left for Rome and the new Procurator wasn’t there yet, so the High Priest was the only ruler in the land. He took advantage of that to seize James in the Temple courts, and have him stoned to death. There was no investigation or trial.

“When the rabbis and Pharisees heard about the stoning, they got a delegation together and made John son of Zachai their head. They went to King Agrippa and told him they were going to bring a charge against Annas, even before Caesar. King Agrippa deposed the High Priest immediately. He was only High Priest for three months, but on the very day he was deposed the leaders of the Pharisees broke into his chamber and tore the lobe of his ear, so that he’d have a defect and be unfit for the priestly office.”

Peter said nothing, so Justus continued, “James died as a saint, for the sanctification of the Name. The holy congregation of Jerusalem is orphaned.”

Simon’s first reaction at the dreadful news was a bit of envy that James had been gathered to Messiah and he was like one left outside when a friend enters the house. But this feeling was quickly replaced by dread. James was the one person he leaned on, someone who was to him what Joshua was to Moses. In matters of doctrine, in all that had to do with the law, James had been his right hand. Who would he lean on now?

But once the horror of the news broke through to his heart, he knew he really needed someone to cry with. Suddenly he felt his heart being drawn to the great apostle to the Gentiles, who’d started so many congregations, and who, even in chains, was still spreading the gospel. All at once the division that kept them apart didn’t seem so important. What did this or that interpretation of the faith signify by comparison with the work that needed to be done? Simon thought of the quarrel he’d had with Paul in Antioch, and realized he couldn’t even remember what it had all been about.

He called John Mark.

“Please take me to the chained apostle to the Gentiles, to Paul.”

Simon, John and Justus passed over the bridge into the center of the city and made their way to the Aventine hill, near the Porta Capena, and having found the house, climbed the narrow stairs to Paul’s lodgings.

The apostle to the Jews and the apostle to the Gentiles fell on each other’s necks, and for a long time they said nothing.

Paul listened to the recital of the fearful incident in Jerusalem, and when Justus finished, Paul looked at Peter and said, “I guess this makes you the leader of the Jewish congregation. I’ll help in any way I can.”

“Ah, brother Paul,” answered Peter, “whom the lord has appointed to bring the gospel to the Gentiles, you are the one in chains. Please, let me leave John Mark to help you in your work as a seal of our brotherhood.”