Peter was NOT the first pope of the Roman Catholic Church. The Claim and the Conclusion Explained
The claim that Peter was the first bishop of Rome and the first pope is central to Roman Catholic tradition, but it falls apart under scrutiny. Here’s a detailed breakdown of the strongest arguments that prove Peter was NOT the first bishop of Rome:
The Bible Never Mentions Peter Leading Rome
• Paul’s Letter to the Romans (56 CE): • Paul writes to the Christians in Rome and greets 27 individuals by name in Romans 16, but he never mentions Peter. • If Peter were the bishop of Rome at the time, Paul’s silence would be unthinkable. • Paul’s Two Years in Rome (60–62 CE): • According to Acts 28, Paul spent two years in Rome under house arrest, teaching and writing letters. • Peter is never mentioned as being in Rome during this period, even though Paul interacted extensively with the Roman church. • The New Testament provides no evidence that Peter ever served as a leader in Rome.
The Timeline Doesn’t Fit
• 30–44 CE: Peter leads the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem (Acts 2–12). • 44–50 CE: Peter is in Antioch and other regions (Galatians 2:11). • 50 CE: At the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), Peter is still in Jerusalem, focusing on Jewish believers and Gentile inclusion. If Peter were leading the Roman church, he would have been in Rome by this time. • 64–67 CE: Peter was allegedly brought to Rome during Nero’s persecution to be executed. If true, this means Peter only came to Rome to be martyred—not to lead the church as a bishop.
The timeline overwhelmingly places Peter in Jerusalem and Antioch, not Rome, during his ministry.
3. There Was No Bishop in Rome When Romans Was Written
• Paul’s letter to the Romans (~56 CE) makes it clear that the Roman church didn’t have a single centralized leader.
• Instead, it was made up of house churches (Romans 16:5, 16:14–15), led by various individuals like Prisca, Aquila, and others.
• The role of a single “bishop” in Rome developed later, as the church became more organized in the 2nd century.
4. Peter’s Mission Was to the Jews, Not the Gentiles
• Galatians 2:7-9 explicitly states that Peter’s mission was to the Jews, while Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles.
• The Roman church was predominantly Gentile, making it unlikely that Peter would have been its leader.
• If Peter had led the Roman church, it would have maintained Jewish practices such as:
• Sabbath worship instead of Sunday worship.
• Kosher dietary laws (Acts 15:20 suggests Peter would have required Gentiles to follow some Torah rules).
• The Roman church abandoned these Jewish customs, clearly following Paul’s theology—not Peter’s.
5. Linus Was the First Bishop of Rome
• Early Christian historians like Irenaeus (Against Heresies, 3.3.3) and Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, 3.2) list Linus as the first bishop of Rome.
• Linus is said to have been appointed after Peter’s death, around 67 CE.
• Peter’s alleged connection to Rome is based solely on tradition about his martyrdom there, not on evidence of leadership.
6. The Papacy Didn’t Exist in Peter’s Time
• In the 1st century, the church was led by apostles and local elders, not by a single “pope.”
• The idea of a supreme bishop (pope) emerged centuries later, as the Roman church sought to assert dominance over other Christian communities.
• The claim that Peter was the first pope is a retroactive invention to justify the Roman church’s authority.
7. Rome Used Peter’s Martyrdom to Steal Authority
• Rome became the center of church power because it was the capital of the empire, not because Peter led it.
• By claiming Peter as their first bishop, the Roman church created a symbolic connection to assert dominance over other churches.
• This claim is purely political and has no biblical or historical support.
This is The Case Against Peter as Bishop of Rome and the Apostolic succession of its Bishops and Popes.
There’s no scriptural or historical evidence that Peter was the first bishop of Rome.
Instead:
• The Bible shows Peter spent most of his ministry in Jerusalem and Antioch.
• The Roman church reflects Paul’s teachings, not Peter’s.
• Linus, not Peter, was the first recognized bishop of Rome.
The idea of Peter as the first pope is a later invention, designed to legitimize the Roman church’s authority. Disproving this claim undermines the foundation of Roman Catholicism’s leadership.
The above does a good job at summarizing points that have been made by a variety of NT scholars, only substituting NOT for “there is little evidence for”. For example, NT scholar Dr Bart Ehrman writes
In some circles, Peter is best known as the first bishop of Rome, the first pope. In the period I’m interested in for this book, however, there is little evidence to support this view. On the contrary, several authors indicate that Peter was not the first leader of the church there and certainly not its first bishop. There are some traditions, however, that connect him with the Roman church long after it had been established.
… our earliest evidence for the existence of a church in Rome at all is one of Paul’s letters, the letter to the Romans (written in the 50s CE). This letter presupposes a congregation made up predominantly, or exclusively, of Gentiles (Rom. 1:13). It does not appear, then, to have been a church established by Peter, missionary to the Jews. Moreover, at the end of the letter, Paul greets a large number of the members of the congregation by name. It is striking that he never mentions Peter, here or anywhere else in the letter. Interpreters are virtually unified, on these grounds, in thinking that when Paul wrote this letter in the mid 50s CE, Peter had not yet arrived in Rome.
A later tradition found in the writings of the late-second-century church father Irenaeus, however, indicates that the church in Rome was “founded and organized by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul” (Against Heresies 3, 3, 2). As I have just argued, this cannot have been the case – since in Paul’s own letter to the Roman church, he indicates that he had never yet been there (Rom. 1:13) … The reality is that we do not know who started the church in Rome. It may well have been started simply by anonymous persons: since so many people traveled to and from Rome, it is not at all implausible that early converts to the faith (say, a decade or more before Paul wrote his letter to the Roman Christians in the 50s CE) returned to the capital and made other converts, and that the movement grew from there.
https://ehrmanblog.org/peter-first-bishop-pope-in-rome/