Apostle Peter

Simon, later called Peter (Greek Petros, “rock,” rendering the Aramaic Kepha or Cephas), was a Galilean fisherman and one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel of John identifies Bethsaida, a town on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, as the city of Andrew and Peter; the Synoptic Gospels place his household in nearby Capernaum, where Jesus is said to have healed Peter’s mother-in-law, the principal New Testament indication that Peter was married. He was the brother of the apostle Andrew. The canonical Gospels present him as the most prominent of the disciples: he stands first in the apostolic lists, confesses Jesus as Messiah at Caesarea Philippi, is present at the Transfiguration, and belongs to the inner group in Gethsemane. They also record his threefold denial during the Passion and a subsequent restoration in which the risen Christ charges him to tend and feed the flock. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, refers to Cephas as a witness of the resurrection and notes that Peter was accompanied by a believing wife.

In the Acts of the Apostles Peter appears as a leading figure of the Jerusalem community in the years after Jesus’ death: he is depicted preaching at Pentecost, taking part in healings and disciplinary decisions, and playing a decisive role in the admission of Gentile converts, especially in the episode of the centurion Cornelius. Paul’s letter to the Galatians calls Cephas a “pillar” of the Jerusalem church and recounts a dispute with him at Antioch over table fellowship with Gentiles. New Testament and early patristic evidence associate Peter with missionary work beyond Jerusalem, including a period at Antioch. The First Epistle of Peter is addressed from “Babylon,” which second-century Christian writers generally took as a designation for Rome. Clement of Alexandria, writing in the late second century, states that Peter had children and that his wife was led to martyrdom, Peter encouraging her to remember the Lord; the wife’s name is not preserved in early reliable sources, and later identifications (including the association of Saint Petronilla as a daughter) are legendary.

Writers of the late first and second centuries—including Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, Dionysius of Corinth, Irenaeus, Gaius, and Tertullian—attest that Peter went to Rome and died there as a martyr. By the third century the tradition that he was crucified was widespread; Origen, as cited by Eusebius of Caesarea, reported that he was crucified head downward at his own request. The death is placed in the reign of Nero and in connection with the persecution that followed the fire of Rome in 64, but no contemporary document fixes the precise year, and later notices vary between the mid and later 60s. A grave venerated as Peter’s on the Vatican hill is attested from the second century (the tropaion mentioned by Gaius). Twentieth-century excavations beneath the present Saint Peter’s Basilica uncovered a mid-second-century memorial and a tomb that the Roman church identifies with the apostle; the site remains his traditional place of burial and the focal point of his cult.

Catholic tradition regards Peter as the first Bishop of Rome and therefore the first pope, appealing to the Matthean commission (“you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church”) and to the early Roman church’s claim of Petrine and Pauline foundation. The church of Antioch likewise claims him as its first bishop; Eusebius, Origen, Jerome, and later Eastern diptychs list him as founder and first occupant of that see, which became a patriarchal throne, so that he is counted as the first patriarch of Antioch as well as the first bishop of Rome. He was not the subject of a later formal process of beatification or canonization; veneration is of apostolic antiquity. His principal feast, shared with the apostle Paul, is kept on 29 June; other commemorations include the Chair of Saint Peter (22 February). He is invoked as patron of fishermen and of crafts and trades connected with the sea, nets, ships, and bridges, of the papacy and of the city of Rome, of the Universal Church, and of a wide range of other professions, ailments, and places.