Interesting word....Pater. Peter, Pator, Patre, Padre, Patora,Preter was the name given to many ancient heathen Gods. The term always meaning "inter"preters" of sacred knowledge. Interesting indeed!! Could this simple play on words give us a clue as to the origin of the heresy of Preterism, which according to Irenaeus came from the Father [Pater, Peter, Preter] of all heresies, Father Simon Magus himself. Listen to this from Irenaeus on this matter and see if you can discern from him what other heresies are coming from the pens and mouths of Father Simon Magus's disciples.
"But if any one, 'doting about questions', do imagine that what the apostles have declared about God should be allegorized, let him consider my previous statements, in which I set forth one God as the Founder and Maker of all things and laid bare the allegations . . . both the Mosaic Law and the grace of the new covenant, as being fitted for the time [at which they were given], were bestowed by one and the same God for the benefit of the human race.[Verse 11]
"For all those who are of a perverse mind, having been set against the Mosaic legislation, judging it to be dissimilar and contrary to the doctrine of the Gospel, have not applied themselves to investigate the causes of the differences of each covenant. Since, therefore, they have been deserted by the paternal love, and puffed up by Satan, being brought over to the doctrine of Simon Magus, they have apostatized in their opinions of Him who is God, and imagined that they have themselves discovered more than the apostles, by finding out another god; an [maintained] that the apostles preached the Gospel still somewhat under the influence of Jewish opinions, but that they themselves are purer [in doctrine], and more intelligent than the apostles. Wherefore also, Marcion and his followers have betaken themselves to mutilating the Scriptures, not acknowledging some books at all, and curtailing the Gospel according to Luke, and the Epistles of Paul, they assert that these alone are authentic, which they themselves have shortened." [Irenaeus: Against Heresies: Book III: Chapter 12: Verses 11,12]
How many things discerned from Irenaeus's writings here are taught in the churches of Christendom today. We can start with 1]Preterism, then 2] the Allegorization of the Scriptures, then 3] Replacement Theology, then 4] an irrational disdain for and mischaracterization of Dispensational Theology, then 5] that what the prophets of the Jewish side of the Book wrote are not for today, then 6] the use of those versions of the Bible that are based upon the corrupted manuscripts that came from the hands of the disciples of Father Simon the Magician.
This is a wake up call, not just to Catholics but to all those who "call themselves Christians" and are "called Christians". Where, oh where, do those things that everyone spends so much of their time torturing Bible passages to make them try to say really come from?
Irenaeus identifies these 6 above and more as originating, not from the apostles or the Scriptures, but from the disciples of Simon the Magician, the founder of that magisterial counterfeit Roman religion that still sits there today. Think about it. Think long and hard about it.
The late Father John Hardon did a wonderful job on this.
From...
http://www.therealpresence.org/archives/Church_Dogma/Church_Dogma_024.htm St. Peter in Rome
St. Peter’s stay in Rome and his martyrdom in that city are closely tied in with the origins of the papacy. They serve as a link to unite the original communities in Asia Minor where “the disciples were first called Christians,” with the Roman Catholic Church whose sovereign pontiffs claim direct succession from the Prince of the Apostles. When the Vatican Council declared that “Blessed Peter even to this time governs and exercises judgment in his successor, the bishops of the holy Roman See, which he established and consecrated with his blood,” it was only repeating an ancient tradition that goes back to the first century of the Christian era. [9] Those who question the historical fact are afraid of its doctrinal implications. And although the opposition is weakening in the light of recent excavations which confirm the written tradition, the issue is still controverted by certain critics of the Roman Primacy.
First Epistle of St. Peter. The earliest text which indicates the presence of Peter in Rome occurs at the end of his first epistle, written in the latter part of 63 or the beginning of 64 A.D. He concludes with the salutation, “The Church which is at Babylon, chosen together with you, greets you; and so does my son Mark.” [10] All the evidence available identifies Babylon as Rome. Babylon was already in ruins, and there was no suggestion for five centuries that Peter had ever been there, whereas the tradition connecting him with Rome is one of the strongest in the Church. From the Apocalypse, the Jewish writings and the Sibylline books of the first century, we know that this name was a cryptic designation for the city of Rome. This is confirmed by Papias, a disciple of John the Evangelist, writing about the year 130 A.D., as found in the fourth century historian Eusebius of Caesarea. Speaking of Papias and Clement of Alexandria (died 215 A.D.), Eusebius reports “they say that Peter makes mention of Mark in his first epistle, which, they say, he wrote also in Rome, as he indicated when he calls the city figuratively Babylon.” [11]
Clement of Rome to the Corinthians. Before the end of the first century we have another authentic witness to Peter’s stay and martyrdom in Rome from the pen of his successor in the papacy, Clement I, writing to the Corinthians about the year 96 A.D. This most famous document of Christian antiquity outside the Scriptures was occasioned by the envy and jealousy among the faithful in Corinth which threatened to destroy the Church in that city. In order to compose the strife, Clement wrote an urgent letter to the contestants and pointed out the tragic results that can follow from an envious spirit. “Through envy and malice,” he said, “the greatest and most righteous pillars of the Church were persecuted and contended even unto death. Let us set before our eyes the good Apostles. There was Peter, who by reason of malicious envy endured not one nor two but many trials, and so, having been martyred, he passed to his appointed place of glory. Amid envy and strife, Paul pointed out the way to the prize of patient endurance.” Then he continued, “Unto these men of holy lives was gathered a vast multitude of the elect, who through many indignities and tortures endured the envy and set a noble example in the midst of us. Through envy women were persecuted as Danaides and Dirces, suffering cruel and unholy insults; they steadfastly finished the course of faith and received a noble price.” [12] Clement therefore represents Peter and Paul and the rest as one group (sunethroisthe), who together gave to the Romans and in their midst (en hemin), a noble example of courage.
Gaius the Presbyter on the Tombs of the Apostles. An outstanding witness to Peter’s living and dying in Rome is the presbyter Gaius, a contemporary of Pope Zephyrinus, towards the end of the second century. Gauis was opposing the Montanist heretic Proclus, who appealed to the fact that the church of Hierapolis in Asia Minor possesses the graves of the Apostle Philip and his daughters. In reply, Gaius retorted, “But I can point out the trophies of the Apostles. For if you go to the Vatican Hill or to the Ostian Way, you will find the trophies of those who have founded this church.” Eusebius, who quotes Gaius, further explains that Peter’s crucifixion and Paul’s beheading in Rome are “confirmed by the fact that the names of Peter and Paul are preserved in the cemeteries there to this day.” Consequently he interprets Gaius as identifying “the places where the bodies of the aforesaid Apostles are laid.” [13] The trophies (trophaia) to which Gaius refers are taken by Eusebius to mean nothing less than the tombs of Peter and Paul. St. Ireneus, Bishop of Lyons around 180 A.D., is equally explicit when describing the authorship of the Gospels. “Matthew issued a Gospel among the Hebrews in their tongue,” he wrote, “while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and establishing the Church. After their death, Mark, the disciple and interpreter of Peter, transmitted to us in writing the things that Peter had preached.” [14]
Confirmatory evidence to the unanimous literary tradition was discovered in 1915 on the Appian Way in the catacombs under the Basilica of St. Sebastian, formerly called the Basilica of the Apostles. Numerous inscriptions have been cut into the walls of the catacomb by the Christian faithful, invoking the intercession of Sts. Peter and Paul and recalling the sacred rite of Refrigerium of Libation in honor of the Apostles. 191 inscriptions (graffiti) have been discovered, 33 of them in Greek and the rest in low Latin. Typical petitions read, “Peter and Paul, keep us in mind….Peter and Paul, pray for a great sinner….Peter and Paul save Vincent….I, Tomius Coelius, offered a libation to Peter and Paul.” [15] The funerary character of the etchings is clear from the frequent occurrence of the words refrigerium and votum, both of which at the is period imply definite connection with a rite offered especially at the actual tomb, and act of petition on behalf of the offerer as well as of honor for the dead. Supporting archeological data indicates that the bodies of the two Apostles were temporarily removed from the Vatican (for Peter) and the Via Ostia (for Paul) to this out of the way cemetery on the Appian Way, most probably in 258 A.D., the year of the general desecration of Christian burial places during the persecution of Valerian. They remained there until the early fourth century when peace was given to the Church by the Emperor Constantine, who had the bodies restored to their original tombs and built two great basilicas on the hallowed sites.
Tomb of St. Peter at the Vatican. The testimony in favor of Peter’s sojourn and martyrdom in Rome is so conclusive that practically no one denies it. “All the early sources,” says a Protestant scholar, “about the year 100 become clear and easily understandable, agree with their historic context, and with each other, if we accept what they clearly suggest to us, namely, that Peter stayed in Rome and died a martyr there. Any other hypothesis on Peter’s death heaps difficulty on difficulty, and cannot be supported by a single document.” [16] A further question, however, is whether the present St. Peter’s Basilica can be scientifically established as the burial place of the first Apostle. Excavations at the Vatican begun in 1939 and continued to the present day give full credence to the traditional belief that under the columns of Bernini and the Confessio Petri lies the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles.
Besides the definitive report published by the Vatican, at least a dozen volumes have come out on the subject in the last decade. [17] On examining the evidence we find that it falls into two classes, literary and archeological, which are mutually dependent. The literary evidence covers three items in particular: that by the year 200 there was a shrine on the Vatican Hill which people venerated as the burial place of St. Peter; that eleven of the first fourteen successors of the first pope were buried “next to the body of the Blessed Peter in the Vatican”; and that around 335 A.D. the Emperor Constantine built a gigantic church on the Vatican in honor of the Prince of the Apostles. [18] The recent excavations under the Basilica of St. Peter have unearthed a large cemetery, both pagan and Christian, together with a monumental shrine that was certainly dedicated to the first Apostle. A brief catalog of these findings will help to estimate their value on a purely scientific basis.
The first discovery was an unusually thick wall of considerable size, whose purpose was to make level the sloping hillside and furnish a substructure for the Basilica of Constantine. Why choose this particular spot on the side of a hill, which is the worst possible site for a large building, and go to the trouble of leveling it off with tons of earth, unless it was believed to be the very place where St. Peter was entombed?
Near the wall and immediately below the present high altar of St. Peter’s was found a sizeable monument with a shallow niche about ten feet square, which is traditionally associated with funerary shrines. Built into a red wall of its own, the monument can be dated to 160 A.D., from the stamp of Marcus Aurelius on some of the bricks in the pavement. Under the monument and directly below the niche were found reburied bones which the excavators identified as human. A preliminary examination showed them to be those of a person of advanced age and powerful physique. Significantly, the red wall at this very spot, and only here, does not go so deep into the ground, as though to avoid disturbing, to be astride, a grave. Buried in a recess in front of the monument were found innumerable coins, probably votive offerings, including six that were minted before the shrine was constructed and seventy-seven ranging from 80 to 300 A.D. Scores of Chi-Rho monograms on the walls and one invocation of St. Peter right next to the monument confirm that fact that this was a place of Christian worship and prayer.
Neighboring on the monument is a series of graves of varying antiquity, from the first and second centuries, including one that bears the stamp of Vespasian who died in 79 A.D. Their location suggests they were deliberately aligned with the monument in subordinate relation to a central tomb which lay underneath. Moreover since they are all inhumations, they should be considered Christian and not pagan, because at this early date the pagans generally cremated their dead. A reasonable conclusion, therefore is that already in the first century Christians had themselves buried around the grave of the first Apostle. Whether any of these include the eleven popes said to have been interred “next to the body of St. Peter” is still an open question.
The significance of the Vatican excavations is more than academic. It is bound up, according to Pope Pius XII, with the development of the Church as a historical fact. “Although the monumental proof of Peter’s residence and death in Rome is not essential to the Catholic faith, we had widely-known excavations carried out under the Basilica. Their result—the discovery of Peter’s tomb under the cupola, just beneath the present Papal altar—is admitted by the great majority of critics.” [19] Even the most skeptical, whose theological bias is all to the contrary, are willing to admit that “the excavations speak in favor of the report that the execution of Peter took place in the Vatican district.” [20]
Simon the Magician, the founder of that magisterial counterfeit Roman religion that still sits there today.The Book of Acts was a history of the Early Church and it is significant that much of Chapter Eight is devoted to the early heresy of Simon Magus. Most all the epistles mention the religion of Simon Magus, exposing errors committed by Simon and his brand of Christianity. This heresy had spread throughout the entire Church by the second century and in various schools of Gnosticism.
The Apostle John was the one who seems to have taken the battle to this false Christianity the most. John wrote his Gospel very late and knew that the teachings of our Saviour were being corrupted by this false doctrine. Notice how John stresses the importance of keeping the commandments as he well knew their doctrine included a "Libertine" approach to things spiritual.
John mentions "Samaria", the home of Simon, more than any other Gospel and not just in a geographical sense. There was something sinister about Samaria....and Samaritans. You'll find these efforts to overthrow the truth throughout his epistles and in Revelation he even tells us the names of this evil system. As the Book of Acts was history, the Book of Revelation is prophecy showing this false system's history down through the ages.
We are told in plain language that it will be the "Samaritans" that will bring us this false system. [Revelation 3:9] This "Synagogue of Satan" who claim to be Jews....and are not!" We also see these same folks spoken of in [Revelation 2:9] a synagogue of Satan....ones who call themselves Jews and are not. The Samaritans were the only people in the history of the world who did this....call themselves Jews when it was to their advantage. Remember in [II Kings 17:24] Babylonians were brought to Samaria by the King of Assyria to live where the Northern Kingdom of Israelites had dwelt. They brought their Babylonian religious system with them and continued these practices into the first century.
Simon was a Samaritan and Simon practiced the Mystery Religion of Babylon. Notice in [John 4:9-12] when Jesus is speaking to the Samaritan women....She lies about her ancestry calling Jacob, "Our Father". In Josephus, speaking of the Samaritans [Antiquities Book IX, Chapter 14, Paragraph 3] he says, "And when they see Jews in prosperity, they PRETEND they are changed and allied to them, and call them kinsmen as though they were derived from Joseph.....and had by that means an original alliance with them. But when they see them falling into a low condition they say they are no way related to them and that the Jews have no right to expect any kindness or marks of kindred from them, but they declare that they are sojourners that come from other countries."
This is one of the reasons our Saviour told the Apostles not to go into any cities of the Samaritans [Matthew 10:5-6] nor Gentiles....but only to the House of Israel.
The Samaritans knew about the prophecies foretelling a Messiah from the House of Judah(Jews) and this is why they pretended to be Jews....when it was to their advantage. Simon had convinced most of the folks in Rome that he, indeed was this Messiah. The emperor Claudius erected a Statue to Simon Magus which under Roman Law was illegal to do unless one was declared a God!
Yes, Simon (Pator) Magus was indeed a Roman God, instituted a false brand of Christianity to the Romans, was known by his reputation to the Apostle Paul, brought his Babylonian Mystery religion to the Gentiles....masquerading as a Christian....and it is still being done.