Zwierlein's thesis has two objectives: (i) the production of a critical edition of the Martyrdom of Peter and of Paul, and (ii) the demonstration that this text is the final product of a Rom-Mythos (described at pp. 169–83) that is in all its phases historically unreliable. Zwierlein's critical edition (pp. 404–49) is based upon the newly discovered eleventh-century manuscript, Ochridensis bibl. mun. 44 (pp. vi, 347), photographic plates of which he reproduces (Plates 3–4).

As a critical text, Zwierlein's work is outstanding. But his dismissal of early historical evidence that Peter was in Rome is based on tendentious conclusions from a too restricted and dated discussion, mainly in Germany, of key documents.

In 1 Peter v.13, ‘Babylon’ is plausibly interpreted as a cypher for Rome (following Revelation xviii.2, 10, 21), but Zwierlein regards it, following Heussi, as a ‘substitute expression (Wechselwort) for the Diaspora’ (p. 8). But ‘Diaspora’ is a quite different analogy from ‘Babylonian captivity’: they are not the same.

Ignatius, in Romans 4.3, compares his coming martyrdom unfavourably with that of Peter and Paul, instructors of the Roman Church whom he extolls in exalted terms (Incipit). Whether any dogmatic claim regarding Christian Rome's primacy is thus founded on their presence there, the text itself is evidence of both Peter and Paul martyred at Rome. Zwierlein, in order to rule out this as evidence, has to invoke the thesis that the Ignatian letters are forgeries, and are to be dated after the letter of Dionysius of Corinth began the creation of the Rom-Mythos as apostolic authority against Gnosticism (pp. 31–3, 134, 237).

Zwierlein's evidence for dating the ‘fiktive Briefcorpus’ is that it is part of Irenaeus’ programme founded on the fiction of apostolic succession and the monarchical episcopate (pp. 140–69, 216–22). But he labours under the assumption that the work of Hübner, Lechner and Joly, appearing ten years or more before this work, has settled the question of the Ignatian corpus (pp. 184–8). That work was always flawed by its fundamental and confused assumption that Irenaeus’ view of an episcopal succession list was an aspect of Ignatius’ alleged monarchical view of the bishop.

Edwards, Holmes, Lindemann and Lotz, for example, have rejected this fundamental assumption. My own work, (for example, Ignatius of Antioch and the Second Sophistic Tübingen 2006), has shown that Ignatius of Antioch had neither a concept of apostolic succession nor any notion of the bishop as a monarch: he was rather an ‘image bearer’ (‘Θεοφόρος’), ‘leading a procession representing God (or the Father)’ (‘προκαθημένος εἰς τύπον θεοῦ [πατρός])’, along with other image bearers (or wearers) namely the deacons as Christ, and the presbyters as the ‘image of the apostolic council’ (‘εἰς τύπον συνεδρίου τῶν ἀποστόλων’). The bishop and other ministers conduct a liturgical drama analogous to a mystery cult leader (θιασάρχης) engaged in a ‘drama of replay’ (Brent, Ignatius of Antioch, 26, 29–30, 43–86). Irenaeus had no comprehension of such a view: indeed though he knows Ignatius (Romans 7.2) he will not name him (Adversus haereseos 5.28.4). Zwierlein's adopted misconception of Ignatius has thus no fit in his Rom-Mythos: his thesis collapses with the adoption of that of Lecher and of Hübner on which he mistakenly relies.

Ignatius’ self-presentation was however comprehensible to the satirist Lucian in his description of Peregrinus Proteus and Alexander or the true prophet, but in a way that Zwierlein has missed (pp. 195–201). Ignatius’ diaconal ‘divine ambassadors’ (‘θεοπρεσβύται’) or ‘divine couriers’ (‘θεοδρόμοι’) are indeed the focus of Lucian's satirical recasting of them as ‘messengers of [a gloomy martyr's] death (νεκραγγέλοι)’ or as ‘messengers of the underworld’ (‘νερτοδρόμοι’) (pp. 198–200). But these and the other parallels are not sufficient to establish the specific literary dependence that his thesis requires: Lucian must be drawing on a fiktive Briefcorpus that chronologically must be dated before Lucian's work but around his time, namely ad 150–80 (pp. 195–201) when Zwierlein contentiously claims the Ignatian ideology of a Christian martyr was formed (pp. 201–15). But the parallels drawn between Ignatius and Lucian are not sufficiently precise to establish literary dependence: rather they suggest that Lucian and his contemporaries had been past actual witnesses to Ignatius’ martyr procession and to the choreographed activity of a θιασάρχης rather than a bishop (Brent, Ignatius of Antioch, 183–207).

Zwierlein argues that Clement, Corinthians must be dated around ad 120–5 in Hadrian's reign on the basis of (i) the Phoenix image and the second sophistic rhetoric of Dio Chrysostom (pp. 318–31) and (ii) allusions to books of the New Testament with, he thinks, a secure, second-century date (pp. 238–316). What Clement says about Peter and Paul is not a historical testimony to their martyrdom in Rome, but based upon the narrative of Acts from which Clement's references are somehow derived, namely Peter ‘bearing witness’, and going ‘to the appointed place [εἰς τὸν ὀφειλόμενον τόπον] of his glory’ (5.4), and Paul reaching ‘the limits of the West’ and departing ‘from the world … to the holy place’ (‘εἰς τὸν ἅγιον τόπον’) (5.7). Zwierlein must then deny a reasonable inference from this passage that τόπος refers to an actual place of burial such as is claimed for the cemetery on the Vatican hillside, on the Ostian Way, or the Memoria on the Via Appia, or even elsewhere in Rome. (The complex archaeological discussion he dismisses within a few pages with reference mainly to Dinkler and Klauser [pp. 4–7].) But even if these sites are ‘monuments’ (‘τρόπαια’) and not actual tombs, Clement's reference to such unspecified sites in Rome would imply the conviction that these two Apostles had been there long before the production of the Rom-Mythos. Acts refers to an apostolic college of Twelve but ‘the good apostles’ known to Clement (5.3) are these two and it is reasonable to infer that he did so because they were connected to the Roman Church in whose name he wrote. Furthermore, when referring to ‘the Apostles’ initiating a succession of a group of approved men, he arguably meant Peter and Paul (44). Thus Rome would have claimed from about 120 a presbyteral succession from Peter and Paul well before post-150, and the alleged creation of the Rom-Mythos.

Zwierlein's bibliography is unfortunately confined to selected German scholars, whose obsession with denying the authenticity of the Ignatian corpus reflects, unintentionally, the historic Lutheran dislike both of bishops and the papacy. But Wissenschaft is not about confessional dogma. We need, I suggest, a historico-critical position that services no historic confessional position.