HistoricalChristian.Faith

Simon Peter

Simon Peter stands first in every list of the Twelve, and the traditions about him are the fullest and the best-attested of any apostle. This page is not a life of Peter so much as a history of what the church remembered about him — his origin and family, his name, his mission, and above all his death — set out earliest source first, so that the spare notices of the New Testament, the early Roman witnesses, the great compiler Eusebius, and the late legend can each be weighed on its own date. This is a biographical tradition-timeline: its “witnesses” are the datable sources that report on Peter, and the contested questions — did he really lead and die at Rome? was he crucified head-downward? — are weighed on their own argument pages below rather than settled by assertion. For the shared ladder of sources and how far to trust each rung, see the apostles hub.

Related doctrines: The apostles — see also the apostles (overview) · Andrew · James, son of Zebedee · John, son of Zebedee · Philip · Bartholomew · Thomas · Matthew · James, son of Alphaeus · Thaddaeus / Jude · Simon the Zealot · Judas Iscariot · Matthias · Paul

Timeline

The New Testament (c. 30–90)

The New Testament gives Peter a fuller portrait than any other apostle. He is Simon, son of Jonah, a fisherman of Bethsaida and Capernaum and the brother of Andrew; at their first meeting Jesus renames him — “thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone” (Greek Petros) — and later builds a saying on the name: “thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church.”1 He is married — the Gospels heal his wife's mother, and Paul notes that “Cephas” travelled with a believing wife.2 He heads the Twelve, preaches at Pentecost, and leads the Jerusalem church through Acts 1–12, until Paul “withstood him to the face” at Antioch over table-fellowship with Gentiles. Of his end the New Testament says only that Jesus foretold it — “when thou shalt be old … another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not” — while his own first letter is sent from “Babylon,” read since antiquity as a cipher for Rome.3

Clement of Rome (c. 96)

Clement of Rome, writing to Corinth within a generation of Peter's death, gives the earliest notice of his martyrdom. Peter and Paul are “the greatest and most righteous pillars” of the church who were “persecuted and put to death”: Peter “endured not one or two, but numerous labours, and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him.” Clement names neither the manner nor the place — but he writes from Rome, treating both deaths as recent and famous.4

Ignatius of Antioch (c. 107)

On his own way to martyrdom, Ignatius writes ahead to the Roman church, “I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you” — a passing appeal that assumes both apostles had once taught with authority at Rome. It is an early, incidental confirmation of the Roman tradition.5

The Acts of Peter (c. 190)

The apocryphal Acts of Peter — a second-century romance — supplies the two most famous scenes of Peter's death: the Quo vadis, in which the fleeing apostle meets Christ on the road (“Lord, whither art Thou going?” — “I am going to Rome to be crucified”) and turns back; and his crucifixion head-downward, at his own request, “for I am not worthy to be crucified like my Lord.” This is hagiographical legend of little biographical worth, but it is an early and valuable witness to how Peter was already being venerated, and it is the wellspring of the inverted-cross tradition.6

Tertullian (c. 200)

Tertullian of Carthage points converts to Rome, “how happy is its church … where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's!” — the earliest explicit statement that Peter died by crucifixion. He does not, however, specify that the cross was inverted.7

Gaius of Rome (c. 200)

Gaius, a Roman churchman under Pope Zephyrinus, answers a rival by pointing to the apostles' graves: “I can show the trophies (tropaia) of the apostles. For if you will go to the Vatican or to the Ostian way, you will find the trophies of those who laid the foundations of this church.” Preserved by Eusebius, this is the earliest reference to a monument marking Peter's tomb on the Vatican hill — the “Trophy of Gaius” that twentieth-century excavation would recover beneath St Peter's Basilica.8

Origen (c. 230)

Origen, quoted by Eusebius, is the first writer to record the specific manner: Peter preached to the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia, and “at last, having come to Rome, he was crucified head-downwards; for he had requested that he might suffer in this way.” With this the detail long carried by the romance Acts enters a named theologian.9

Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 325)

Eusebius gathers the scattered notices into the first connected account. Peter came to Rome under Claudius to confront Simon Magus; Mark, “a follower of Peter,” set down his preaching as a Gospel; and under Nero “Paul was beheaded in Rome itself, and … Peter likewise was crucified” — a report Eusebius says is confirmed by the apostles' names in the Roman cemeteries, by Gaius's trophies, and by Dionysius of Corinth, who wrote that Peter and Paul “taught together in like manner in Italy, and suffered martyrdom at the same time.”10

Jerome (393)

Jerome condenses the whole Greek tradition into one compact Latin life. Peter, son of John, of Bethsaida, brother of Andrew and chief of the apostles, was bishop of Antioch, preached to the dispersion, then “pushed on to Rome in the second year of Claudius to overthrow Simon Magus, and held the sacerdotal chair there for twenty-five years until … the fourteenth year of Nero.” He was crucified “with his head towards the ground and his feet raised on high, asserting that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord,” and lies “buried at Rome in the Vatican near the triumphal way.”11

Arguments

Did Peter lead and die at Rome? (assessment: sound)

The Roman tradition of Peter's ministry and death — that Peter came to Rome and was martyred there under Nero — rests on an unbroken chain of early and independent witnesses (1 Clement, Ignatius, Dionysius of Corinth, Gaius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Origen) converging with the archaeology of the Vatican necropolis, and no rival city ever claimed his grave. The New Testament's silence about Peter at Rome is the standing objection, but the “Babylon” of 1 Peter and John 21's death-prophecy sit easily with it. Sound — near-consensus across the disciplines.12

Was Peter crucified head-downward? (assessment: plausible)

The inverted-cross tradition splits into two questions. The bare posture is plausible: inverted crucifixion was an ordinary Roman cruelty (Seneca, Josephus), and Origen (c. 230) names the detail while omitting the romance Acts' cosmic discourse, so he may report it independently — coherent and unrefuted, though the silence of Tertullian keeps it short of proven. What fails is the celebrated motive — that Peter asked to be inverted out of unworthiness: the earliest Acts frames the reversed cross cosmically, not as humility, and a granted request reads as hagiography. Plausible manner, legendary motive.13

Sources

  1. Peter's origin and name: brother of Andrew and of the town of Bethsaida (John 1:44); renamed at first meeting, “Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone” (John 1:42); the rock-saying, “thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18). ↩

  2. Peter married: his wife's mother is healed (Mark 1:30), and Paul asks, “Have we not power to lead about a sister, a wife, as well as other apostles … and Cephas?” (1 Corinthians 9:5). ↩

  3. Peter rebuked by Paul at Antioch, “I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11); Jesus foretells his death, “when thou shalt be old … another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not” (John 21:18–19); the letter from “Babylon” (1 Peter 5:13). His leadership: Pentecost and the Jerusalem church, Acts 1–12. ↩

  4. Clement of Rome, First Epistle to the Corinthians 5–6 (c. 96) — Peter and Paul as the “greatest and most righteous pillars,” and Peter who “when he had at length suffered martyrdom, departed to the place of glory due to him.” ↩

  5. Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Romans 4 (c. 107) — “I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you.” ↩

  6. The apocryphal Acts of Peter (Vercelli Acts / Martyrdom of Peter, c. 190), tr. M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924); the Quo vadis and head-downward crucifixion also survive in the later Greek Acts of Peter and Paul. Low biographical value; early witness to veneration — see the apostles hub. ↩

  7. Tertullian, Prescription against Heretics 36 (c. 200) — “where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's! where Paul wins his crown in a death like John's.” ↩

  8. Gaius of Rome (c. 200), preserved in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.25 — the “trophies” of the apostles on the Vatican and the Ostian way. On the twentieth-century excavation of the shrine, see Vatican Necropolis and the argument page on Peter at Rome. ↩

  9. Origen (c. 230), Commentary on Genesis book 3, quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.1 — Peter “crucified head-downwards; for he had requested that he might suffer in this way.” ↩

  10. Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History (c. 325): Peter to Rome under Claudius against Simon Magus and Mark his interpreter, 2.14–15; Peter crucified and Paul beheaded under Nero, with Gaius's trophies and Dionysius of Corinth, 2.25. ↩

  11. Jerome, On Illustrious Men 1 (393) — the compact life of Peter: bishop of Antioch, to Rome in the second year of Claudius, twenty-five years in the chair, crucified head-downward in the fourteenth year of Nero, “buried at Rome in the Vatican near the triumphal way.” ↩

  12. See the argument page, Did Peter lead and die at Rome? — assessment sound. ↩

  13. See the argument page, Was Peter crucified head-downward? — assessment plausible for the posture, weak for the request-motive. ↩