Was the Roman Catholic Church founded by the Apostle Peter?

“The tradition that the church in Rome was founded by Peter (or Peter and Paul together) cannot be right. It is in this very letter that Paul enunciates the principle that he will “not build on another person’s foundation” (15:20). This makes it impossible to think that he would have written this letter, or planned the kind of visit he described in 1:8-15, to a church that was founded by Peter. Nor is it likely that Peter could have been at Rome early enough to have founded the church there. Since the tradition we possess associate no other apostle with the church at Rome, the assessment of the fourth-century father Ambrosiaster is probably correct: “the Romans have embraced the faith of Christ, albeit according to the Jewish rite, without seeing any sign of mighty works or any of the apostles.” (PL 17, col.46). The most likely scenario is that Roman Jews, who were converted on the day of the Pentecost in Jerusalem (see Acts 2:10), brought their faith in Jesus as the Messiah back with them to their home synagogues. In this way, the Christian movement in Rome was initiated.

Ambrosiaster is probably also right, then, when he identifies the synagogue as the starting point for Christianity in Rome. Enough Jews have emigrated to Rome by the end of the first-century B.C. to make up a significant portion of the population. They were not bound together in any single organizational structure. Their many synagogues apparently were independent of one another. An important event in the history of the Jews in Rome is mentioned by the Roman historian Suetonius. In his Life of Claudius, he says that Claudius “expelled the Jews from Rome because they were consistently rioting at the instigation of Chrestus” (25.2). Most scholars agree that “Chrestus” is a corruption of the Greek Christos and that the reference is probably to disputes within the Jewish community over the claims of Jesus to be the Christos, the Messiah.”

“Nevertheless, since the Roman authorities would not have distinguished between Jews and the Jewish Christians, this expulsion, however temporary, must have had a significant impact on the development of the church at Rome. Specifically, the Gentile element in the churches undoubtedly present before the expulsion, would have come into greater prominence as the result of the absence for all (or virtually all) the Jewish Christians. Theologically this would also have meant an acceleration in the movement of the Christian community away from its Jewish origins. The decentralized nature of the Jewish community from which the Christian community sprang would also make it likely that the Christians in Rome were grouped into several house churches. Confirmation that this was the case comes from Rom.16, where Paul seems to greet several different house churches. It is also possible, though more speculative, that these different house churches divided theologically.”

(Douglas J Moo, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The Epistle to the Romans, pp.4-5)


"There appears at the present time to be increasing consensus among Catholic and non-Catholic exegetes regarding the Petrine office in the New Testament….The further question whether there was any notion of an enduring office beyond Peter’s lifetime, if posed in purely historical terms, should probably be answered in the negative. That is, if we ask whether the historical Jesus, in commissioning Peter, expected him to have successors, or whether the author of the Gospel of Matthew, writing after Peter’s death, was aware that Peter and his commission survived in the leaders of the Roman community who succeeded him, the answer in both cases is probably 'no.'…If we ask in addition whether the primitive Church was aware, after Peter’s death, that his authority had passed to the next bishop of Rome, or in other words that the head of the community at Rome was now the successor of Peter, the Church’s rock and hence the subject of the promise in Matthew 16:18-19, the question, put in those terms, must certainly be given a negative answer."

(Klaus Schatz, Papal Primacy, pp. 1-2)


"That neither Peter nor Paul actually founded the church in Rome, in the sense of establishing the first community of Christians in the city, is now generally accepted. Exactly when the first Christian appeared there is uncertain. It is clear, though, that there were a considerable number by AD 49, when the emperor Claudius (AD 41-54), expelled from Rome those Jews, generally assumed to refer to Christians, who were creating disturbances 'under the influence of Chrestus'.

(Roger Collins, Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy, p.7)