2. Place of writing
2. Place of writing
In 1 Peter 5:13, Peter says, ‘She who is at Babylon … sends you greetings, and so does my son Mark.’ Here Peter can hardly be referring to the ancient city of Babylon in Mesopotamia, the capital of the Babylonian empire, for by the first century it was a small and obscure place. There is no evidence of a visit there by Peter or by Peter and Mark. Nor is there evidence even of a Christian church there at this time. Diodorus of Sicily (writing 56–36 BC) says:
As for the palaces and the other buildings, time has either entirely effaced them or left them in ruins; and in fact of Babylon itself but a small part is inhabited at this time, and most of the area within its walls is given over to agriculture’.
Similarly, Strabo (died AD 19) writes:
The greater part of Babylon is so deserted that one would not hesitate to say … The Great City is a great desert’.
But the name ‘Babylon’ is used elsewhere in the New Testament as a reference to Rome (see Rev. 16:19, 17:5; 18:2; and note 17:9 as an identification of the ‘seven hills of’ Rome). Just as in the Old Testament Babylon was the centre of worldly power and opposition to God’s people, so in the time of the New Testament Rome was the earthly centre of a worldwide system of government and life which was set in opposition to the gospel. By referring to Rome as ‘Babylon’, Peter was carrying through the imagery of the church as the new people of God or the new Israel, which he uses throughout this letter (see commentary at 2:10).
Moreover, there is historical evidence that Peter was at Rome at the end of his life. In AD 203, Tertullian wrote:
Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority of apostles themselves. How happy is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood! where Peter endures a passion like his Lord’s! where Paul wins his crown in a death like John’s!
This testimony is supplemented by that of Eusebius, writing in AD 325. Speaking of Peter and Paul, he writes:
And that they both were martyred at the same time Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth [c. AD 170], affirms in this passage of his correspondence with the Romans: ‘By so great an admonition you bound together the foundations of the Romans and Corinthians by Peter and Paul, for both of them taught together in our Corinth and were our founders, and together also taught in Italy in the same place and were martyred at the same time’.
Eusebius continues his history with more details about Peter and Paul:
Peter seems to have preached to the Jews of the Dispersion in Pontus and Galatia and Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia, and at the end he came to Rome and was crucified head downwards, for so he had demanded to suffer. What need be said of Paul, who fulfilled the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyria and afterward was martyred in Rome under Nero? This is stated exactly by Origen [died c. AD 254] in the third volume of his commentary on Genesis.
Finally, Eusebius explicitly states that Peter wrote his first letter in Rome:
The bishop of Hierapolis, named Papias [c. AD 60–130] … says that Peter mentions Mark in his first Epistle, and that he composed this in Rome itself, which they say that he himself indicates, referring to the city metaphorically as Babylon, in the words, ‘the elect one in Babylon greets you, and Marcus my son’.
These testimonies taken together indicate that Peter and Paul both died in the persecution under the emperor Nero. This persecution lasted from the time just after the great fire in Rome in AD 64 (which was widely thought to have been started by Nero, but for which he blamed the Christians and viciously persecuted them), until Nero’s death (by suicide) on June 9th, AD 68. Thus, we may conclude that the name ‘Babylon’ in the letter and the external historical evidence that Peter was in Rome with Paul near the end of his life combine to indicate that 1 Peter was written from Rome.