Apostle Peter

Simon, called Peter (Greek Petros, “rock”; Aramaic Kepha/Cephas), was a first-century Jewish fisherman from Bethsaida in Galilee and the brother of the apostle Andrew. The New Testament portrays him as a leading disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. According to the Gospels he was called from work on the Sea of Galilee, lived for a time at Capernaum—where Jesus is said to have healed his mother-in-law, which is the principal evidence that Peter was married—and belonged to an inner group with James and John. Jesus gave him the name Peter. Matthew’s Gospel records the saying that he is the rock on which the church would be built and that he would receive the keys of the kingdom; later Christian tradition, especially in the West, treated this as the basis of Petrine primacy. The Gospels also depict him as impulsive and fallible: he walks on the water and then falters, confesses Jesus as Messiah, and denies him during the Passion before a reported restoration after the resurrection.

In the Acts of the Apostles Peter appears as a principal leader of the Jerusalem community in the decades after Jesus’ death: he preaches at Pentecost, is associated with healings and with the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, and takes part in the opening of the mission to Gentiles, notably in the episode of the centurion Cornelius and in the Jerusalem meeting described in Acts 15. Paul’s letter to the Galatians names Cephas as a “pillar” of the Jerusalem church, records a meeting with him in Jerusalem, and describes a confrontation at Antioch over table fellowship with Gentile believers. Two New Testament letters are attributed to Peter. Most modern scholars regard 2 Peter as pseudepigraphal and many also question the direct authorship of 1 Peter, but both documents attest his standing in early Christian memory. He is not described in the New Testament as holding a later monastic or religious-order identity; his role is that of apostle and community leader.

Writers from the late first and second centuries associate Peter with Rome and with martyrdom there. First Clement, Ignatius of Antioch, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus of Lyons, and Tertullian are among the early witnesses to a Roman ministry and death; Eusebius of Caesarea and later tradition place the martyrdom under Nero, in the mid-60s of the first century, commonly by crucifixion, with a later, widely repeated detail that he was crucified head downward at his own request. The precise year is not independently fixed in contemporary records. The same ancient tradition links him with the church of Antioch as an early leader or founder; later patriarchal lists of that see, in both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian successions, count him as the first bishop, which is why he is remembered as patriarch of Antioch as well as first bishop of Rome. Catholic usage identifies him as the first pope. His wife’s name is not given in the New Testament; later names attached to her are not historically secure. Clement of Alexandria mentions that Peter had children, but the claim is isolated and a legendary daughter Petronilla is not regarded as historical, so parenthood remains uncertain.

From an early date his burial was associated with the Vatican hill. The Roman presbyter Gaius, cited by Eusebius, referred to a tropaion of Peter on the Vatican. Constantine’s basilica and the present St. Peter’s Basilica were built over that shrine. Excavations in the twentieth century uncovered a first-century necropolis and a second-century memorial under the high altar; the identification with Peter is traditional and archaeologically plausible but not proven by an inscribed contemporary tomb. His principal feast, shared with Paul, is 29 June in both Western and Eastern calendars; other commemorations include the Chair of Peter and St. Peter in Chains. He is invoked as patron of the papacy and of Rome, of fishermen and of many trades connected with nets, ships, stone, locks, and baking, and against fever and ailments of the feet. Formal papal canonization and beatification processes did not exist in antiquity; his cult is by continuous ecclesial acclamation from the early church.