Apostle St Peter

Saint Peter, known in the New Testament as Simon (or Simeon) son of Jonah or John, was a Galilean Jewish fisherman from Bethsaida who became the most prominent of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus of Nazareth and, in later Christian tradition, the first bishop of Rome. The Gospel of John identifies Bethsaida as the city of Andrew and Peter; the Synoptic Gospels place his household at Capernaum on the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus is said to have healed Peter’s mother-in-law, a notice that also establishes that Peter was married. Called from his nets together with his brother Andrew, he received from Jesus the name Peter (Greek Petros; Aramaic Kepha, meaning rock). The Gospels present him as spokesman of the Twelve, a witness of the Transfiguration and of Gethsemane, and the disciple who confessed Jesus as Messiah and Son of God. They also record his threefold denial during the passion and a corresponding threefold restoration after the resurrection.

In the Acts of the Apostles Peter appears as a leading figure in the Jerusalem community in the years after Pentecost: he preaches publicly, is associated with healings and with the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira, and plays a decisive role in the opening of the mission to Gentiles, notably in the baptism of the Roman centurion Cornelius and in the deliberations often called the Council of Jerusalem. Independent first-century testimony in the letters of Paul confirms Peter’s authority. Paul refers to him as Cephas, lists him among those to whom the risen Christ appeared, describes a confrontation at Antioch over table fellowship, and notes that Cephas, like other apostles, was accompanied by a believing wife. Two epistles in the New Testament canon are attributed to Peter; ancient churches received 1 Peter widely, while the Petrine authorship of 2 Peter has been questioned since antiquity and remains disputed among modern scholars.

Early extra-biblical Christian writers locate Peter’s later ministry and death in Rome. The First Letter of Clement, commonly dated to the end of the first century, speaks of Peter’s martyrdom. Second-century and later authors, including Ignatius of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyons, Dionysius of Corinth, Gaius of Rome, Tertullian, and Eusebius of Caesarea, attest a Roman sojourn, leadership in the Roman church, and death under Nero. The precise year is not recorded in contemporary sources; ecclesiastical tradition has long placed the martyrdom in the mid-60s of the first century, often in connection with Nero’s persecution of Christians after the fire of Rome, with crucifixion (later specified as head downward) as the manner of death. The same body of tradition, found in Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, and the later Roman episcopal lists, also makes Peter the first bishop of Antioch before his work in Rome. Clement of Alexandria reports that Peter had children and that his wife suffered martyrdom.

From at least the second century a tropaion, or memorial, was venerated on the Vatican hill as marking Peter’s grave, a claim recorded by Gaius of Rome and presupposed by Constantine’s fourth-century basilica on the site. Twentieth-century excavations beneath the present St. Peter’s Basilica uncovered a second-century shrine and a burial that papal and archaeological statements have identified with the apostle. Peter’s chief liturgical commemoration, shared with Saint Paul, falls on 29 June; the Chair of Saint Peter is kept on 22 February. He is honored as patron of the papacy and of the city of Rome, of fishermen, netmakers, shipwrights, sailors, locksmiths, and many other trades and places. Catholic doctrine regards him as the first pope; Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches venerate him as chief of the apostles and as founder of the sees of Antioch and Rome.