Babylon--The Chaldean Babylon on the Euphrates. See Introduction, ON THE PLACE OF WRITING this Epistle, in proof that
Rome is not meant as Papists assert; compare LIGHTFOOT
sermon. How unlikely that in a
friendly salutation the enigmatical title of Rome given in
prophecy (John,
Re 17:5), should be used! Babylon was the center from which the Asiatic
dispersion whom Peter addresses was derived. PHILO [
The Embassy to Gaius, 36] and JOSEPHUS [
Antiquities, 15.2.2; 23.12] inform us that Babylon contained a great many Jews in the apostolic age (whereas those at Rome were comparatively few, about eight thousand [JOSEPHUS,
Antiquities, 17.11]); so it would naturally be visited by the apostle of the circumcision. It was the headquarters of those whom he had so successfully addressed on Pentecost,
Ac 2:9, Jewish "Parthians . . . dwellers in Mesopotamia" (the Parthians were then masters of Mesopotamian Babylon); these he ministered to
in person. His other hearers, the Jewish "dwellers in Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia," he now ministers to by letter. The earliest distinct authority for Peter's martyrdom
at Rome is DIONYSIUS, bishop of Corinth, in the latter half of the second century. The desirableness of representing Peter and Paul, the two leading apostles, as together founding the Church of the metropolis, seems to have originated the tradition. CLEMENT OF ROME [
First Epistle to the Corinthians, 4.5], often quoted for, is really against it. He mentions Paul and Peter together, but makes it as a
distinguishing circumstance of Paul, that he preached both in the East and West, implying that Peter never was in the West. In
2Pe 1:14, he says, "I must
shortly put off this tabernacle," implying his martyrdom was near, yet he makes no allusion to Rome, or any intention of his visiting it.