Simon, son of Jonah, was a fisherman from Bethsaida on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. He and his brother Andrew ran a small fishing operation with Zebedee and his sons James and John (Luke 5:10). He was married (1 Cor. 9:5), impetuous, outspoken, and deeply loyal — and it was to this man that Jesus gave the name Cephas (Aramaic) or Petros (Greek), both meaning "rock" (John 1:42).
In the Gospels
Peter is the most prominent of the Twelve. He walks on water (Matt. 14:29), confesses Jesus as "the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matt. 16:16), is rebuked as "Satan" for trying to prevent the passion (Matt. 16:23), witnesses the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:1), cuts off the ear of the high priest's servant (John 18:10), and denies Jesus three times in the courtyard (Matt. 26:69–75).
It is the last of these that most reveals his character. Peter was not a coward — he was the only disciple who followed Jesus into the high priest's courtyard. But he was a man of impulse, and in the moment of pressure his courage failed. The gospels do not hide this. They record that he wept bitterly.
After the Resurrection
Jesus restores Peter on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (John 21:15–19), asking three times, "Do you love me?" — one for each denial. On the day of Pentecost, it is Peter who stands up and preaches, and three thousand are baptized (Acts 2:14–41). He heals a lame man at the temple gate (Acts 3:1–10), confronts Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5:1–11), and receives the vision that leads to the conversion of Cornelius (Acts 10:1–48).
He was arrested multiple times by the Sanhedrin (Acts 4, 5, 12). According to Acts 12:17, after being miraculously released from prison, he "left for another place" — a hint that his ministry became itinerant from then on.
Death
The New Testament does not record Peter's death, but it hints at it. In John 21:18–19, the risen Jesus tells Peter: "When you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." John's gospel comments: "Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God."
The earliest explicit testimony comes from 1 Clement (c. AD 95), written from Rome, which says that Peter and Paul both suffered martyrdom and went "to the holy place." Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 110) refers to Peter and Paul by name as examples for the Romans. Irenaeus (c. AD 180) and Tertullian (c. AD 200) both report that Peter was crucified under Nero. The tradition that he was crucified upside down is first attested in the apocryphal Acts of Peter (c. AD 180–200) and may be a later embellishment of the core tradition of crucifixion.
Both Peter and Paul are traditionally said to have died in Rome during the Neronian persecution (AD 64) or shortly after. The dates most commonly proposed are AD 64–67.
Sources
- 1 Clement 5; Ignatius, Romans 4; Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3.1.1; Tertullian, De Praescriptione 36.
- Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.25; 3.1.
- Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the New Testament, 887–890.
- Markus Bockmuehl, Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory (Baker Academic, 2012).