Also, Eusebius' complaints only make it clear that Simon Magus was in Rome and had heretical followers. It does not prove that Simon Peter was NOT in Rome, and it does not prove that the See of Peter, as led by Linus, Clement, and others, were the followers of Simon Magus. Besides, you missed my point, namely that many modern historians would probably love to use your argument to undermine Christianity in general and the Catholic Church specifically, yet they don't.
I wondered why something as important as this was never mentioned in scripture until it dawned on me that he wasn't there....wasn't anywhere near there....at any time, and the whole idea was generated in an attempt to prove up Catholic doctrine. It's laughable now.....as most fairy tales are to me.
The laughable part, of course....is you folks telling us that Babylon is Rome.....and ignoring what scripture really tells us about Peter's whereabouts.
For some things there is no argument --- only facts that cannot be dismissed. Here is what even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits about Simon Magus under the section called Impostors:
"[W]e may recognize in the Simon Magus of whom we read in Acts viii 5-24, the first notorious impostor of Christian church history. He offered St. Peter money that he might have power to impart to others the gifts of the Holy Ghost, and the Acts do not tell us very much more about him than that he had previously practised sorcery and bewitched the people of Samaria. But Justin Martyr and other early writers inform us that he afterwards went to Rome, worked miracles there by the power of demons, and received Divine honours both in Rome and in his own country. Though much extravagant legend afterwards gathered round the name of this Simon, and in particular the story of a supposed contest in Rome between him and St. Peter, when Simon attempting to fly was brought to earth by the Apostle's word, breaking his leg in his fall, it seems nevertheless probable that there must be some foundation in fact for the account given by Justin and accepted by Eusebius. The historical Simon Magus no doubt founded some sort of religion as a counterfeit of Christianity in which he claimed to play a part analogous to that of Christ."
Isn't that the part the Pope plays: the Vicar of Christ. And didn't the Papacy, laying claim to a part analogous to that of Christ, take root at the time that the disciples of Simon Magus were pouring into the Church in Rome?