According to The Moody Handbook of Theology, the official beginning of the Roman Catholic church occurred in 590 CE, with Pope Gregory I. This time marked the consolidated of lands controlled by the authority of the pope, and thus the church’s power, into what would later be known as “the Papal States”.

“The Catholic Church considers its bishops to be the successors to Jesus’s apostles and the Church’s leader, the Bishop of Rome (also known as the Pope), to be the sole successor to Saint Peter who they believe ministered in Rome in the first century AD after his appointment by Jesus as head of the Church.”

It’s important to understand that in the written accounts of Peter; there is no allusion to Rome in either of his epistles. Paul’s journey to the city of Rome IS however recorded in great detail (Acts 27 and 28). There is in fact no New Testament evidence, nor any historical proof of any kind, that Peter was ever in Rome.

The Biblical Archeology Society states this:

“The Bible says nothing about Peter ever traveling to Rome. When the gospels end, Peter is in Jerusalem. It’s the same in the Book of Acts. The apostle Paul, in his letters, also talks about meeting Peter in the eastern Mediterranean. After Jesus’ death, Paul says that Jesus’ brother, James, and Peter are the co-leaders of the “church,” or assembly, of Jesus-followers in Jerusalem. In short, there is no early textual evidence for Peter in Rome, so for some people, it’s very hard to believe that he ever traveled there. Not only is it a very long way, according to the New Testament, Peter was a fisherman who was not very educated and who spoke only Aramaic; he was not the type of person that might travel widely across the Roman Empire to a large city where Latin and Greek were the dominant languages.”

The very first thing that I personally would like to point out is; JESUS is the Head of the Church, the ONLY head of the Church and Peter was NEVER appointed as it’s head. Let me show you a few verses that prove this.

Eph 1:22  And hath put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be the HEAD over all the church, 
Eph 1:23  Which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. (This is speaking of Jesus, not Peter)

Eph 5:23  For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the HEAD of the church: and He is the saviour of the body. 

Col 1:18  And He is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. 
Col 1:19  For it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell; 

The first Church after the ascension of Jesus Christ to be mentioned in Scripture is the Church in Jerusalem overseen by James the brother of Jesus, Acts 8:1, Acts 11:22 and Acts 15:4.

Peter was the apostle to the circumcised or in Greek the peritomē “they of the circumcision” among the 12 tribes of Israel and Paul was the apostle to the uncircumcised, the ethnos; Gentiles, all nations/peoples that are not of the circumcision outside of the 12 tribes.

Act 22:21  And he said unto me, Depart: for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.

Act 23:11  And the night following the Lord stood by him, and said, Be of good cheer, Paul: for as thou hast testified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome. 

Gal 2:7  But contrariwise, when they saw that the gospel to those uncircumcised was committed unto me, as the gospel to the circumcised was unto Peter; 
Gal 2:8  (For he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles:) 

Gal 2:9  And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me (Paul), they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision. 

Gal 2:11  But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. 
Gal 2:12  For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. 

It’s important to recognize that in verses 11 and 12 above; Peter is fearful of the men sent from James, who are of the circumcision among the Church in Jerusalem.

Paul being the newest among those called to be apostles, held the authority to withstand Peter and accuse him of hypocrisy before the brethren in Antioch, and then retell of this rebuking of Peter to the Christians in Galatia; which proves Peter did not hold the position of being Paul’s head among the Church.

Paul also named Saul was born in Tarsus, Cilicia in Turkey, which was part of the Roman Empire, under Roman rule and all free males born to Roman citizens within the Roman Empire were given Roman citizenship. All males born outside of the Roman Empire were required to pay a large sum to obtain citizenship because it was a privileged political and legal status afforded to free individuals in Rome with respect to laws, property, and governance. So, that means Paul’s parents from the tribe of Benjamin were free Israelite Romans that practiced Judaism.

Act 22:27  Then the chief captain came, and said unto him, Tell me, art thou a Roman? He said, Yea. 
Act 22:28  And the chief captain answered, With a great sum obtained I this freedom. And Paul said, But I was free born. 
Act 22:29  Then straightway they departed from him which should have examined him: and the chief captain also was afraid, after he knew that he was a Roman, and because he had bound him. 

Peter was the son of Jonah from the tribe of Judah from the region of Judaea.

Act 8:1 ~And at that time there was a great persecution against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judaea and Samaria, except for the apostles. 

Peter along with James, stayed in Jerusalem throughout the entire NT and there is no record of either of them traveling abroad.

Let’s examine the passage of scripture that the Roman Catholic Church uses to proclaim Peter as it’s first pope.

Mat 16:14  And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 
Mat 16:15  He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 
Mat 16:16  And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
Mat 16:17  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 
Mat 16:18  And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 
Mat 16:19  And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

Let’s look at verse 18 in the original Greek. It says “thou art Peter” (Petros) G4074=a stone or piece of a rock, noun masculine, “and upon this rock (Petra) G4073= a large rock, mass of rock, cliff or ledge, noun feminine.

Clearly two different words are used here in this sentence; one describes Peter as a piece of the rock, a masculine noun and one that describes the revelation that Jesus was the Christ the Son of the living God, that was revealed to Peter by the Father in Heaven, and uses a feminine noun. THIS is the ROCK that Christ built His Church upon, the revelation and confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. This is something that Jesus said flesh and blood did not reveal to Peter, but His Father which is in Heaven.

I’d like to point out that just 3 verses after this confession of Peter, Jesus says THIS to him.

Mat 16:22  Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee. 
Mat 16:23  But He turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an *offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men. (that word offence is skandalon in Greek G4625 and means: a trap or snare.)

I’d like to also point out that just two chapters after this, in Matthew chapter 18 we see Jesus clearly addressing all of His disciples, and He tells them that whatever they bind or loose on heaven or earth would be done for them as well. This proves it was not something spoken to Peter exclusively.

Mat 18:18  Verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. 

We have already established that biblically, Paul was the apostle to the uncircumcised, the Gentiles, and Peter to those of the circumcision. Rome was a territory of the Gentiles, comprised mainly of people of Greek and Italian descent. Paul held Roman citizenship, hence why the Lord sent him to Rome to preach, Peter spoke Aramaic and did not hold a citizenship of Rome. A prophet sent from God must be among the blood/brethren of those they are speaking to, as these scriptures tell us.

Deuteronomy 18:18-19
I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him

Acts 3:22-23
For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you

You might want to ask yourself why the Catholic Church would recognize a son of Judah from the 12 tribes of Israel as their first pope, and then every other pope from Peter on down the line is a Roman citizen, not of Jewish descent? Only one other pope was of supposed Jewish decent and that was their 5th pope, St Evaristus, 30 AD. The Catholic Church claims that St. Linus was the 2nd pope after Peter, a man born in 10 AD, in Volterrae, Italia, of the Roman Empire. He was the first Roman Pope. After St Evaristus there was the first Greek Pope, St Anacletus (Cletus). 25 AD. The Holy Roman Empire became Catholic in 380 AD, one year prior to the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Catholicism became the official religion of the Roman Empire when Emperor Theodosius I issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, which recognized the catholic orthodoxy of Nicene Christians as the Roman Empire’s state religion. On 27 February of the previous year, Theodosius I established, with the Edict of Thessalonica, the beliefs of the First Council of Nicaea as the official state religion, reserving for its followers the title of Catholic and declaring that those who did not follow the religion taught by Pope Damasus I of Rome 305 AD of Portuguese descent and Pope Peter of Alexandria, of Egyptian descent, were to be called heretics. Here is that edict~

“It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict.“

— Edict of Thessalonica

Pope Damasus I of Rome was the first pope to be the Catholic’s official head of the church, and titled the first true pope, after the Emperor Gratian abdicated the title of “Pontifex Maximus”. Pope Damasus I commissioned the production of the Vulgate Bible in Latin by Jerome. By the time Christianity became the state religion of the empire at the end of the 4th century, scholars in the West had largely abandoned Greek in favor of Latin. Even the Church in Rome, where Greek continued to be used in the liturgy longer than in the provinces, over time abandoned Greek. Jerome’s Vulgate had begun to replace all the older Latin translations of the Bible. Jerome had been commissioned by Damasus I in 382 to revise the Vetus Latina text of the four Gospels from the very best Greek texts.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are dated from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, and are primarily in Hebrew, with some writings in Aramaic and Greek. The just over two hundred biblical Dead Sea Scrolls are the oldest copies of the books of the Bible in existence. Some of the earliest biblical scrolls were probably written in the third century B.C. which allows scholars unique insight into the ancient copying of these books. The majority of biblical scrolls seem to come from the first centuries B.C. and A.D. Before the discovery of the scrolls, the earliest copies of most of the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament came from the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D., with only a handful of fragments from a few centuries earlier. The oldest complete copy of the entire Hebrew Bible/Old Testament is the famous Leningrad Codex (written in A.D. 1008/09), on which the standard modern critical edition is based. Thus, the Dead Sea Scrolls are about one thousand or more years older than the copies that had previously been known.

I shared this bit of information to show that changing the language of the written accounts from their original Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek to Latin, the universal language of the Romans, was Rome’s first crucial step in gatekeeping what they would consider “authorized canon”.

The Holy Roman Empire did not end, but rather continued in power through the creation of the Holy Roman Catholic Church in 590 CE.

In this article I have laid out biblically and historically that the Catholic Church did NOT start after the ascension of Christ in 33 AD.

I have shown that there is no mention biblically of Peter ever going to Rome.

I have proven biblically that Peter does not qualify as being a prophet among the people of Rome, but was rather given the station of being an apostle to those among the circumcision and not the Gentiles of Rome.

I have provided proof that Peter was NOT the PETRA (feminine noun) that Christ built His Church upon, but rather the revelation and confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.

I have pointed out that Jesus gave all of His disciples the keys of binding and loosing in heaven and upon the earth, not just Peter.

I have shown with biblical evidence that JESUS and JESUS alone is the ONLY head of His Church, and that Paul being the newest recognized apostle was able to rebuke and correct Peter before the brethren at the Church in Antioch.

Lastly, I have shown how through the gatekeeping of written accounts that were originally recorded in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek into Latin by the Holy Roman Empire to give authority to the Roman Catholic Church over all written accounts, is what basis they used for their authorization.

I will close the article with this: All accounts from people that GO BEYOND what is WRITTEN in the Scriptures, lead us back to Rome and it’s hijacking of all that was sacred to the people of Israel.

Siege of Jerusalem, (70 CE), Roman military blockade of Jerusalem during the First Jewish Revolt. The fall of the city marked the effective conclusion of a four-year campaign against the Jewish insurgency in Judaea. The Romans destroyed much of the city, including the Second Temple.

I sincerely pray that you would do your own research to substantiate the things shared in this article; and once you do; you would share what you’ve learned with others in the faith.

Be Free and Set Free in Jesus name and God Bless you.