Simon Peter

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**Simon Peter** also known as **Saint Peter**, **Simeon**, **Simon**, **Peter**, **Cephas**, or **Peter the Apostle**, was the " first " of the Apostles of Jesus, whom he placed at the head of his Church. he suffered martyrdom in Rome under the Roman Emperor Nero. Saint Peter was also the First Bishop of Antioch and the the First Bishop of Rome, also know as the Pope.

Born in Betsaida, a small town in Galilee, he was called a fisherman in Capernaum by his Father named Jonah. Brother of the future Saint Andrew, he was married and, according to the apocryphal acts of Peter, he also had a daughter called Petronilla. He became one of Jesus' Apostle after he called him to the Lake of Galilee and after witnessing the miraculous fishing. Becoming one of the twelve, he was part of a small circle of three individuals (together with him also John and James) who attended the Raising of Jairus' daughter, to the Transfigurationand to the agony of Jesus in the olive grove. Peter tried to defend the Malchus from being arrested, only succeeding in hurting one of the attackers, Malchus. Unique, together with the so-called "beloved disciple", to follow Jesus at the home of the High priest Caiaphas, he too was forced to flee after having denied his Master three times, as Jesus had already predicted.

After the crucifixion and the subsequent Resurrection of Jesus, Peter was appointed by the same Master of the Twelve Apostles and therefore promoter of that movement that would later become the first Christian Church. Tireless preacher, he was the first to baptize a pagan, the centurion Cornelius. He disagreed with Paul of Tarsus concerning some questions concerning Jews and pagans, resolved in any case during the first council of Jerusalem. According to tradition, he continued his preaching to Rome where he died between 64 and 67, during the anti-Christian persecutions ordered by Nero.

He is revered as a saint in the Catholic Church because of his actions of Sharing the Gospel. The texts of the New Testament state that Peter had a primacy among the rank of the Apostles. The point of discord between the various Christian denominations is whether and how this primacy should also apply to the next Church :

## Historical sources

Historical sources on the life and work of Peter can be divided into Four categories:

* The New Testament texts, in particular the four Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Written in Greek in the first century, they contain the only direct references to the life of Peter. The Christian tradition also accepted two letters attributed to him in the biblical canon, which , however, besides the problem of authenticity (the former are divided, the latter is commonly considered pseudo- descriptive), do not provide precise biographical indications.
* the Apostolic Fathers, who knew most of the Apostles and, therefore, are contemporary sources, thouse Sources are Ignatius of Antioch's Letter to the Romans, Fragments from Papias's exposition of the oracles of the Lord, and the Epistle to the Corinthians by St Clement of Rome
* Many apocryphal texts attributed or referred to him: Gospel of Peter, Preaching of Peter (lost), Acts of Peter, Acts of Peter, Acts of Peter and Andrew, Acts of Peter and the Twelve, Acts of Peter and Paul, Letter of Peter Peter to Philip, Letter from Peter to James Minor, Apocalypse of Peter (Greek), Apocalypse of Peter (Coptic). For late dating and for legendary content, however, like the other apocryphal ones, they are not considered real historical sources, but it is possible that they have collected some historically founded details.
* Some references contained in the writings of some Church Fathers who where not contemporary to the Apostles, like Origen, Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius

From the archaeological point of view, the earliest testimony that refers to Peter is the fragmentary Greek "Peter (is) here" (πετρος ενι) found on the so-called "red wall" near the ancient tomb of Peter under the currentBasilica of Saint Peter  in Rome, dating to about 160 .

## Name

His own name was Simon ( Hebrew שמעון, Shimon, from the Hebrew root shama, "hear"), with the probable meaning "God heard" the parent's prayer ( Gen. 29:33 ). According to Ilan was the most common name among Palestinian Jews.

According to Matthew 16:18 and John 1:42 he received from Jesus the nickname of Cephas (Κηφᾶς, Kefàs ), "which means Peter" (πετρος, petros ). Even Saint Paul called Kefas  , as well as Peter . This etymology is based on the comparison with the Hebrew word כּף, kèf , "rock, rock".

A different hypothesis instead connects the nickname, brought (albeit with a different Greek transliteration) also by the high priest Caiaphas (Καϊάφας, Kaiàfas in the NT, קַיָּפָא, Qaiafa in the Hebrew sources), the Aramaic term קיפא ( qifàh ) , "clot, sediment", noting that the name occurs in Hebrew and extra-Jewish sources (nabateus) with the initial q (qaf), not with the כ ( kaf ). However, this origin is not in contrast with the etymology proposed by the NT, referring, however, to the idea of ​​a hard and solid core.

## Personal characteristics

### Origins

Simon Peter according to the Gospel of John was a native, as was his brother Andrew and the Apostle Philip, of Betsaida, a city located about 3 kilometers north of the Lake Tiberias, an ancient village later rebuilt by Philip the Tetrarch who founded his capital here and gave it the name of Giulia in honor of the Emperor's daughter Augustus.

After the marriage he moved though, according to the Synoptic Gospels, a Capernaum, a town that later became the center of the preaching of Jesus, who often went there as a friend . The excavations, carried out starting from 1905, brought to light the remains of the synagogue and an octagonal church on whose foundations a house was discovered in 1968, identified with that of Peter thanks to the presence of some graffiti, dedicated to Christ and the Apostle, datable to the 2nd century AD

### Family ties

Peter was the son of Jonah or John and brother of Andrew who also became an Apostle, chosen and called with his brother on the lake of Galilee.

its know, according to the Gospels, that one day Jesus cured the Apostle's mother-in-law in Capernaum "from fever".. The existence of this mother-in-law led to the conclusion that Peter was married but its know nothing about his wife or children. It is interesting, however, to recall that the apostle Saint Paul alludes to a " *believing woman of Cephas*" who was undoubtedly his wife. The author of the letter usually identifies the collaborators with the title of "sisters" ( adelphe ) and not "sisters women", as it would be better to translate "woman believer" (deriving from the Greek words adelphen gunaika ). Clement of Alexandria says that Peter's wife followed her husband in his preaching and died a martyr before him , but it is likely that the author wanted to use this tradition by showing an Apostle as a model of perfect husband, in the Christian sense of the term.

The apocryphal Acts of Peter Copts also attribute a daughter to the apostle. The young woman was paralyzed and the crowd, moved by her suffering, decided to intercede with her father for her. Not only did he not cure her, but he also explained that she had been punished with that illness for having ignited, with her beauty, the desire of a young man, named Ptolemy, who had become blind due to desperation . The author of the Passio of the Saints Nereo and Achilleo (V-VI circa) identifies her with Petronilla, a martyr buried in the catacombs of Domitilla, due to an assonance with the name of the apostle, and included in his story, in addition to the aforementioned episode, a passage according to which the young woman, cured of her illness, asked to marry the noble Flacco, died placidly before accepting her proposal of marriage. The author does not report on which day she died but the tradition indicates May 31, a date passed then in the Roman Martyrology.

### Economic and cultural condition

The brothers Peter and Andrew are presented in the Gospels, since their first call, as fishermen and its find them several times with boats on the Lake of Galilee. We even know that according to the Gospel of Luke, James and John sons of Zebedee were partners of Simon and in fact they will be called to follow him immediately after friends.

Emblematic in this sense is the famous episode of miraculous fishing, in which is find Peter intent on cleaning up the nets after a hard night's work with no result. Even after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to Peter and other disciples while they were fishing near the Lake of Tiberias, which was a very fishy area.

From the Acts of the Apostles its come to know another important aspect of Peter's life: his cultural condition. Arrested with John and led in the presence of the Sanhedrin , the apostle answered their questioning wisely, leaving the two judges who believed him without education and populated with wonder. Peter is therefore defined as " agrammatos ", that is to say little expert on the Scriptures, without scholastic preparation or rhetorical argument , but also "idiotes", that is to say populate, man of the lower strata.

## References

1. ↑ John 21:15-19
2. ↑ Commentary on the Book of Genesis III Origen (184–253)
3. ↑  Matthew 4:18
4. ↑ Letter of Pope Clement I to the Corinthians (Chapter 5) written c. 80–98
5. ↑ Quintus Septimius Florens, Tertullian. "Prescription Against Heretics Chapter XXXVI". ccel.org. Retrieved 1 June 2015. "Since, moreover, you are close upon Italy, you have Rome, from which there comes even into our own hands the very authority (of apostles themselves). How happy is its church, on which apostles poured forth all their doctrine along with their blood; where Peter endures a passion like his Lord's; where Paul wins his crown in a death like John's[the Baptist]; where the Apostle John was first plunged, unhurt, into boiling oil, and thence remitted to his island-exile."
6. ↑ Peter of Alexandria. "Canonical Epistle on Penitence Canon 9". newadvent.org. Retrieved 3 June 2015.
7. ↑ John 1:44
8. ↑ Mark 14:29-31
9. ↑ Vedi Bibbia TOB, nota n a Mt16,18.
10. ↑ Necropolis (Scavi) The Red Wall
11. ↑  Tan Ilan (2002). Lexicon of Jewish Names in Late Antiquity, Part 1, Palestine 330 B.C.E.-200 C.E. Tubinga: Mohr Siebeck.
12. ↑ 1 Cor 1,12, 3,22, 9,5, 15,5 , Gal 1:18, 2,9-11,14 .
13. ↑ Gal 2,7-8.
14. ↑  see Jeremiah 4,29, Job 30,6 ).
15. ↑ Cf. Tan Ilan (2002: 408)
16. ↑ John 1:44
17. ↑ Josephus Flavius, Jewish Antiquities 18,28
18. ↑ Mark 1:21-29
19. ↑ Matthew 16:17, John 1:42
20. ↑ Matthew 4,18-22; Mark 1,16-20.
21. ↑ Matthew 8:14-16; Mark 1:29-31; Luke 4:38-39.
22. ↑ 1 Corinthians 9:4-5.
23. ↑ Michele Mazzeo , Pietro roccia della Chiesa , chap.1 pag.20.
24. ↑ Clement of Alexandria , Stromata 7,11,63-64.
25. ↑ Acts of Peter 1.5-30
26. ↑ Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 1,16-20; Luke 5:1-11; John 1:40-42.
27. ↑ Luke 5:10
28. ↑ Acts 4:13
29. ↑ The hypothetical chronological reconstructions about the life of Peter and the history of the Church of the first decades vary, even for a few years, according to the scholars.
30. ↑ Michele Mazzeo, Pietro roccia della Chiesa, pag.437.
31. ↑ The starting date of the ministry of Jesus remains uncertain, however, since the Gospel of Luke refers to "the 15th year of the government of Tiberius"  Luke 3:1 but we do not know whether he referred to the succession to Augustus (14 AD) or to his period of co-regency (12 AD).
32. ↑ Not all the biblical passages relating to the following of Peter are included because they would be too numerous being scattered throughout the Gospel.
33. ↑ Michele Mazzeo, Pietro roccia della Chiesa, pag.443.
34. ↑ Eusebio, Historia ecclesiastica 2,25,3-5; 1 Clemente 5,2-7.
35. ↑ Pope St Linus