But when Peter is Bishop of Rome, they probably didn't do all that stuff. It was probably, "Okay, here's the head of the Apostles. I guess he's the leader of the congregation, I mean, anybody else want to lead while Kephas is here?" (Silence.) "Well, okay, now where were we? Oh yeah, can anybody put Kephas up for the night or for the next few weeks?"
It's looking back that we see that what he was doing there (stipulating that he was there and all) was bishopping, and to a certain extent proto-poping. So the evidence isn't going to be all crisp and cut and dried and filed in triplicate with a tape backup. It's anachronistic to expect it to be so, and conclusions drawn from the absence of such evidence will probably be unreliable.
And while he was apostle and person in charge, I wonder how many people would have been going, "Gee, how are we going to record this. IS he Bishop or are is being a bishop kind of included in being an Apostle?" It's hard to imagine that record keeping and nomenclature was high on their to-do list when Claudius was breathing threats and slaughter ... So, yeah Peter is bishopping and poping in Rome, but they hardle have the words for it and so it's easy to slip into saying Linus was the "first" bishop, because "Everybody knows" that before him that function was taken care of by Kephas.
We can't conclude much from the absence of evidence that probably would be absent or equivocal in any event.
**We can't conclude much from the absence of evidence that probably would be absent or equivocal in any event.**
Thought provoking annalysis. I bet a lot of people had not thought out that there probably were not that many papal trappings in those days. I especially like your line about who can have him sleep over for the night or possibly several weeks. Very plausible it may have happend just that way.