Restoration
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PETER IN CHAPTER
V
The
Second Century— Irenaeus, Dionysius, And Clement Of
In tracing the history of the Church
and its writers, one can hardly move from the first century and the Apostolic
era into the earliest records of the second century without comment. It was no less an historian than Gibbon who
was forced to write, “The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical
history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first
age of the Church.” [Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the For fifty years after It
is for this reason that some have termed the period from 70 to 170 A.D., “The
Lost Century,” for we indeed know very little about this period except, as Hurlbut noted, that many changes took place which greatly
modified the Apostolic Church of the first century. We will see these changes reflected in the
literature of those who wrote after the curtain once again ascended revealing
the church and the beliefs of that later period. Irenaeus Among
the earliest of the second century writers who mentions Peter and Writing Against Heresies, he
states: Since,
however, it would be very tedious in such a volume as this, to reckon up the Here we see the beginning of
attempts to establish the authority and importance of the Roman church by the
claim that it was “founded and organized at But let us observe again, that we
still have no mention of Peter’s death at Dionysius of At
this same time (circa 170), we have recorded by Eusebius (and only preserved
by him) the testimony of Dionysius of Corinth in these words: You have thus by such an admonition
bound together the planting of Peter and of Paul at So to Irenaeus’
claim that Peter founded the Roman church, Dionysius adds that he likewise
“planted” and “taught” the Corinthians!
How is it that Luke entirely overlooks that noteworthy fact in the
Book of The Acts of the Apostles? And what are we to make of Paul’s
claim to the Corinthians, “I have planted, Apollos
watered; but God gave the increase” (I Cor. 3:6)? Are we to conclude that Paul de And here we learn for the first time
that Peter and Paul were martyred at the same time after
teaching together in And if these appear as the
preposterous claims they are, then why should we feel obliged to accept that
Peter and Paul “suffered martyrdom at the same time”? These are not the words of men
speaking the truth according to the inspired word of God, but men of the same
mind who wrote the spurious and apocryphal Gospels and Acts of Peter and Paul
and the many other apocryphal legends about Peter and Simon Magus that began
to be circulated widely after about 150 A.D. Readers familiar with the Clementine
literature, and the apocryphal Gospels, and Acts, will recall that there we
find the elaborate and fanciful fables of Peter and Simon Magus at Rome
complete with lengthy, detailed conversations between the two arch-rivals,
building up to the inevitable climax and display of miracle-working power in
which the Magician loses his life.
Paul is often present in the scenarios, but always upstaged by
Peter. Even Nero is assigned
impressive lines and is seen as a seeker of truth. (See especially The Acts of the Holy
Apostles Peter and Paul.) Such literature flourished in the
latter half of the second century, and was later noted and disclaimed by
Eusebius. [ibid., (Vol. I, pp. 133-134), 3,
3, 2.] One wonders what
were the motives of those who devised such spurious legends. Were they intent on inventing such fables
to find Peter in Another question concerns the degree
to which such legends influenced later writers. Peter and Paul before Nero at Clement of
From fragments of Adumbrations or
Comments by Clement of Alexandria on the General Epistles, we have
preserved through a Latin translation by Cassiodorus
a brief record of Peter at Commenting on I Peter 5:13,
Clement writes: “Marcus, my son, saluteth
you.” Mark, the follower of Peter,
while Peter publicly preached the Gospel at Rome before some of Caesar’s equites, and adduced many testimonies to Christ, in order
that thereby they might be able to commit to memory what was spoken, of what
was spoken by Peter, wrote entirely what is called the Gospel according to
Mark. [Clement of Unlike the statements of Irenaeus and Dionysius, Clement of Alexandria makes no
unusual claims, only suggesting that at some time Peter preached publicly at The
Development of Tradition It
seems very fitting to conclude this chapter with advice and counsel from no
less a scholar than Oscar Cullmann on the subject
of these later texts, namely those after the middle of the second century: On the other hand, the chief value
for historical study of these late texts, which now in increasing number
assert that Peter was in Rome and became a martyr there, concerns only the
history of dogma; they attest the development of the tradition. In theory the possibility cannot be
excluded that perhaps here and there the basis of the tradition is a good
earlier source which we no longer possess.
Yet even if this is so, we must be fundamentally skeptical toward
these later texts, when we see how in this very period the development
of Christian legend flourishes and how it seeks to fill out the gaps in
the New Testament narrative. Where,
in addition, contradictions between these texts and the early sources appear,
their trustworthiness must be challenged from the start. With this reserve, however, it is
interesting to get acquainted with at least the earliest of these witnesses,
those of the second and third centuries. [Oscar Cullmann,
Peter — Disciple, Apostle, Martyr, trans. Floyd V. Filson
(London: SCM Press Ltd., 1953), p.
115.] It is this development of tradition
and Christian legend at the expense of Biblical truth and historical accuracy, that
this author seeks to call special attention to in this thesis. We cannot now reconstruct with certainty
the events of the first century removed as we are from them by nearly two
millenniums, but we can be, as he suggests, “fundamentally skeptical” in our
approach, especially when we see contradictions of revealed truths and
conflicting versions of the same story. Further, we must bear in mind that
authors then as now did not write without motives. Fabulous tales of the Apostles were not
written as children’s bedtime stories, nor simply
with a warm, nostalgic glow of earlier, cherished events. They were written, we can be sure, with the
intent of advancing a line of thought or doctrine, of establishing authority
and historicity, of persuading and convincing the readers of their writing to
their conclusions. Truly, “their trustworthiness must be challenged from the
start” if we are not to follow the development of so-called Christian
tradition into error. |
