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St. Peter

He answered for the Twelve that Jesus was the Christ, baptized the centurion Cornelius and so opened the Church to Gentiles, and spoke the deciding word at the Council of Jerusalem.

Feast June 29Galilee and Rome

Canonized

No year of birth survives, and no year of death is settled, so neither is recorded here. The Catholic Encyclopedia lays out the candidates — 67 or 68 from Eusebius, 55 from the Chronograph of 354, and 63, 64, 65 and 66 from various later historians — and then refuses to choose between them: 'The date of Peter's death is thus not yet decided; the period between July, 64 (outbreak of the Neronian persecution), and the beginning of 68 ... must be left open for the date of his death.' His feast day is not his death day, and that is worth saying plainly, because it looks like one. The same article: 'The day of his martyrdom is also unknown; 29 June, the accepted day of his feast since the fourth century, cannot be proved to be the day of his death.' It explains where the day does come from — in 258 the remains of Peter and Paul were moved for safety to the catacombs on the Via Appia, and 29 June is the anniversary of that move.

Simon was a fisherman on the Lake of Genesareth, working out of Capharnaum with his own boat and a share in a business with the family of Zebedee. He was married, and his mother-in-law lived in the house where he stayed. His brother Andrew brought him to Jesus, who looked at him and said he would be called Cephas — the Aramaic word for rock, which is the only new name Jesus is recorded giving anyone.

He was the one who answered for the rest. Asked who they said he was, Peter said: you are the Christ. He was also the one who took Jesus aside to argue with him about the cross, and was told to get behind him. On the night of the arrest he swore three times that he did not know the man, and then went out and wept.

After the Resurrection he led. Herod Agrippa, having just executed James the son of Zebedee, put Peter in prison meaning to kill him too once the Passover was over, and Peter got out of it. At Caesarea he baptized the Roman centurion Cornelius and his household, the first Christians who were not Jews, and defended in Jerusalem having eaten in their house. At the council there he spoke the deciding word against imposing the Jewish law on Gentile converts.

He did not hold that line everywhere. At Antioch he had been eating freely with the Gentile Christians, and when a group arrived from Jerusalem he stopped — afraid of scandalizing them and of losing his standing with the Jewish Christians — and Barnabas followed him. Paul reproached him publicly for it. Scripture keeps the rebuke, and this record keeps it too.

He was put to death at Rome in Nero's persecution, crucified — head downwards, Origen says, because he had asked to suffer that way — and buried at the foot of the Vatican hill.

What they carried

The failures are the record: three denials, and a public rebuke at Antioch that Scripture kept. Benedict XVI makes the weeping the turn — 'after this weeping he is finally ready for his mission' — and hears him answer the risen Christ with a smaller word for love than the one he was asked.

State of life

apostle · fisherman · married man · martyr

Themes

courage under pressure · doubt · forgiveness · friendship · preaching · imprisonment · martyrdom

Benedict XVI on Peter, the rock (General Audience, 7 June 2006)

  • THE ANTIOCH RETREAT IS IN THE SUMMARY, NOT ONLY DOWN HERE, AND THAT IS A DECISION. A card that hands the reader Cornelius and hides the backing-away flatters him, and the rebuke is in Scripture — Galatians 2:11-14 — so there is nothing to protect him from. The Catholic Encyclopedia gives the sequence: 'St. Peter came thither and mingled freely with the non-Jewish Christians of the community, frequenting their houses and sharing their meals. But when the Christianized Jews arrived in Jerusalem, Peter, fearing lest these rigid observers of the Jewish ceremonial law should be scandalized thereat, and his influence with the Jewish Christians be imperiled, avoided thenceforth eating with the uncircumcised.' It adds that 'even Barnabas, St. Paul's companion, now avoided eating with the Christianized pagans', and that Paul 'addressed a public reproach to St. Peter'. Benedict XVI, General Audience of 1 October 2008 — fetched for the Paul record and held on disk under that slug, cited from here at the same path — is harder still on the wording, and it is his: Paul 'even accused Peter and the others of hypocrisy', and the behavior 'was a real threat to the unity and freedom of the Church'. He also gives the reading that keeps it from being a simple verdict: 'the former did not want to lose the Jews who had adhered to the Gospel, and the latter did not want to diminish the saving value of Christ's death for all believers', and 'The incident at Antioch thus proved to be as much of a lesson for Peter as it was for Paul.' The encyclopedia does not know when it happened — 'the date of this occurrence, whether before or after the Council of the Apostles, cannot be determined' — so the summary places it after the council without dating it, following the article's own 'it probably took place after the council'. Benedict XVI alludes to it a third time, in the audience of 7 June 2006, in a single line that is easy to miss: 'His behaviour was considered so decisive that it prompted remarks as well as criticism (cf. Acts 11: 1-18; Gal 2: 11-14).'
  • THE HEAD-DOWNWARDS CRUCIFIXION IS ATTRIBUTED, NOT ASSERTED, AND THE RECORD SAYS WHOSE IT IS. The Catholic Encyclopedia: 'Concerning the manner of Peter's death, we possess a tradition — attested to by Tertullian at the end of the second century and by Origen (in Eusebius, Church History II.1) — that he suffered crucifixion. Origen says: "Peter was crucified at Rome with his head downwards, as he himself had desired to suffer".' THE CRUCIFIXION AND THE POSTURE ARE NOT ON THE SAME FOOTING and the sentence itself separates them: two second-century witnesses for the crucifixion, and Origen alone, quoted, for the head downwards and for the desire behind it. So the summary carries the crucifixion flatly and the struggles field carries the posture with Origen's name attached. Tertullian's line, quoted in the same article, says only 'There Peter was girded by another, since he was bound to the cross'. NO HELD PAPAL DOCUMENT MENTIONS THE POSTURE, AND ONLY ONE MENTIONS THE CRUCIFIXION AT ALL. SCOPE OF THE CHECK: the four Benedict XVI audiences held under this record were searched for 'crucif' and 'head downward'; ZERO OCCURRENCES IN ANY OF THE FOUR — they treat his death only as 'martyrdom' and do not say by what means. The single papal mention anywhere in the documents fetched for this batch is in a catechesis about somebody else, the Paul audience of 4 February 2009, which quotes Eusebius: 'Peter likewise was crucified during Nero's reign'. Nothing about how.
  • ONE SENTENCE OF BENEDICT XVI'S WAS DELIBERATELY LEFT OUT, AND IT IS THE ONE MOST OFTEN REPEATED ABOUT PETER'S CIRCUMSTANCES. General Audience of 17 May 2006, on the fishing business run with the family of Zebedee: 'Thus, he MUST HAVE BEEN reasonably well-off and was motivated by a sincere interest in religion'. That is the pope reasoning from the boat to the bank balance, and the modal verb is his own admission of it. The record carries what the sentence rests on — the boat, the partnership with Zebedee's family, the house at Capharnaum, all of which the Catholic Encyclopedia states independently from the Gospels — and does not carry the conclusion drawn from them. This corpus does not hold inferences as facts, whoever is doing the inferring; the same test was applied to Bonaventure's father's trade and to Joseph's death.
  • ARITHMETIC CHECK ON THE ENCYCLOPEDIA ARTICLE, RUN UNDER THE STANDING RULE, AND IT CAME BACK CLEAN. After three of the six articles read on 2026-08-11 turned out to be miscounting themselves, a clean result is worth stating rather than assuming. Every chain of figures in this article closes: Peter to Rome under Claudius 'according to Jerome, in 42' plus 'the twenty-five years' episcopate' gives the 67 the article says it gives; the Chronograph of 354's arrival in 30 plus the same twenty-five years gives the 55 the article says it gives, and its 30 is explained by 'the chronological supposition that the year of Christ's death was 29'; 'the thirteenth or fourteenth year of Nero' is glossed '(67-68)', which is right for an accession in 54; the public ministry at 'about A.D. 26-28' sits correctly before a death in 29; Herod Agrippa's persecution is given as 'A.D. 42-44' in two separate places and agrees with itself; the Council of the Apostles at 'about A.D. 50-51' follows it; and 258 is used consistently for both the Valerian persecution and the translation of the relics. ONE LOOSE EDGE, RECORDED BECAUSE THE POINT OF THE CHECK IS TO REPORT WHAT IT FINDS: the window is written as running to 'the beginning of 68', while the parenthesis given as the reason for that bound is 'on 9 July Nero fled from Rome and committed suicide' — a July event offered as the ground for an early-in-the-year bound. That is phrasing rather than a failed sum, no figure in this record turns on it, and date_note quotes the sentence instead of paraphrasing the window. The 9 July date itself is not corroborated anywhere else in the article and is not repeated here.
  • NO PATRONAGE IS RECORDED, AND THE SEARCH BEHIND THAT IS EXACT. SCOPE OF THE CHECK: every document held for this record was searched for “patron”, “patronage” and “protector”, and the Italian editions for “patrono”, “patronato” and “protettore”, when this was checked on 31 August 2026. NOTHING HELD DECLARES OR ATTRIBUTES A PATRONAGE TO PETER. The word occurs once in the whole set and it is about somebody else: the Italian edition of the audience of 7 June 2006 urges a group to follow “l’esempio e l’intercessione del vostro patrono Sant’Anselmo da Baggio”, in the closing greetings, which are per-language and appear in no English edition. A reader arriving expecting fishermen, or the keys, or Rome, will find nothing here, and the reason is that no document held declares anything. Same rule that leaves Bakhita, Goretti, Kateri, Padre Pio, Teresa of Avila and Bonaventure empty.
  • convert IS NULL, AND THE REASON IS CATEGORICAL RATHER THAN EVIDENTIAL, AS IT IS FOR JOHN THE BAPTIST AND JOSEPH. The field asks whether a person was received into the Church or raised in the faith. Peter was neither: he was a practicing Jew who was called, and the Church began around him. Benedict XVI does use the word of him — the audience of 24 May 2006 speaks of 'the weeping of conversion' after the denial — but that is a change of heart in a man already following Christ, which the field explicitly does not count. CONTRAST PAUL DELIBERATELY: his record carries convert as true, on an event the documents describe at length and which Benedict XVI insists must be called a conversion in a deeper sense than the ordinary one. Called and converted are not the same thing here, and the two records are meant to be read against each other.
  • Catholic Encyclopedia (Herbermann, 1907-1913), Johann Peter Kirsch, 'St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles', vol. 11 — source of the original name Simon, 'son of Jona (Johannes)', born at Bethsaida 'a town on Lake Genesareth'; of Andrew as his brother; of the settlement at Capharnaum 'where he was living with his mother-in-law in his own house' at the beginning of the public ministry 'about A.D. 26-28'; of 'Simon was thus married'; of the fishing, 'the profitable occupation of fisherman in Lake Genesareth, possessing his own boat'; of the first meeting and 'Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is interpreted Peter'; of the baptism of Cornelius at Caesarea as 'the first non-Jewish Christians' and the challenge on his return to Jerusalem; of the imprisonment by Herod Agrippa I and the escape; of the Antioch incident treated above; of the Council of the Apostles, where 'Peter spoke the deciding word'; of the death at Rome as 'an indisputably established historical fact'; of the place of execution, 'the Neronian Gardens on the Vatican', and the burial 'at the foot of the Vatican Hills'; and of the whole chronology and feast-day discussion. NOTE: predates the 1969 reform and is not a source for the feast day. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11744a.htm
  • Benedict XVI, four General Audiences held for this record: 22 February 2006 on the Chair of St Peter, and 17 May, 24 May and 7 June 2006, the three consecutive catecheses that open his series on the Apostles. Source of the count that after Jesus 'Peter is the figure best known and most frequently cited in the New Testament writings'; of the Galilean accent; of 'It was not Jesus' practice to change his disciples' names ... He never gave any of his disciples a new name', and that the new name 'was not only a name; it was a "mandate"'; of the character sketch, 'determined and impulsive ... At the same time he is also ingenuous and fearful, yet he is honest, to the point of the most sincere repentance'; of the denial and what followed — 'Peter, who promised absolute fidelity, knew the bitterness and humiliation of denial: the arrogant man learns the costly lesson of humility'; of the three questions on the shore of Tiberias and the shift between agapao and fileo, 'Jesus has put himself on the level of Peter, rather than Peter on Jesus' level'; and, in the Chair catechesis, of the sequence of seats — the Upper Room, then Antioch, 'the third metropolis of the Roman Empire after Rome and Alexandria', then Rome, 'where he ended his race at the service of the Gospel with martyrdom'. https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2006/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20060607.html
  • Universal Calendar, 29 June — 'Ss Peter and Paul, Apostles' [solemnity]. Liturgy Office, Bishops' Conference of England and Wales. https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/JunUC.shtml NOTE: this replaces a citation to that office's General-Roman-Calendar.pdf, which is a stale edition — it carries no John Paul II (2014), Paul VI (2019) or Faustina (2020) — and is a table the column-aware PDF reader takes apart. The HTML pages print date, celebration and rank directly.
  • 29 June is the joint solemnity of Peter and Paul. The Chair of St Peter on 22 February is a second celebration of the same saint; Benedict XVI's catechesis of that date in 2006 is held under this record and explains what the chair is. The encyclopedia notes that the feast was kept on other days elsewhere in antiquity — 28 or 27 December in the East, the second Friday after the Epiphany among the Nestorians — and that these were 'arbitrarily selected, no tradition concerning the date of the saints' death being forthcoming', which is the same point date_note makes about 29 June.
  • THE SEAM, REPAIRED 2026-08-17 — C7, AND THE ROW SAID 'NOT IN REFS — VERIFY'. It verifies, in this record's own encyclopedia article, and it carries a cause the summary was dropping. 'Herod Agrippa I began (A.D. 42-44) a new persecution of the Church in Jerusalem; AFTER THE EXECUTION OF JAMES, THE SON OF ZEBEDEE, this ruler had Peter cast into prison, INTENDING TO HAVE HIM ALSO EXECUTED AFTER THE JEWISH PASCH WAS OVER. Peter, however, was freed in a miraculous manner.' The summary had 'Herod Agrippa put him in prison and he got out of it', which is the one sentence of the paragraph that reads as an anecdote; the article has an execution just carried out, a second one scheduled, and a date it was waiting on. All three are now in the summary. The article's word is 'Pasch'; the summary says Passover, which is the same feast in the word a candidate will know. A SECOND ORPHAN IN THE SAME FIELD, NOT ON THE AUDIT'S LIST AND CLOSED IN THE SAME PASS: the inverted crucifixion. struggles said 'the tradition Origen records is that he asked to hang head downwards' and the summary said only 'crucified'. The article: 'Concerning the manner of Peter's death, we possess a TRADITION — attested to by Tertullian at the end of the second century and by Origen — that he suffered crucifixion. Origen says: "Peter was crucified at Rome WITH HIS HEAD DOWNWARDS, AS HE HIMSELF HAD DESIRED TO SUFFER".' Carried with Origen's name in the summary, because the article carries it as tradition rather than as record, and the record should not be firmer than its source.
  • WHY HE STOPPED EATING WITH THE GENTILES AT ANTIOCH — A CAUSATION GAP NOBODY HAD FLAGGED, AND THE MOTIVE WAS IN THIS RECORD'S OWN ARTICLE THE WHOLE TIME. The summary had him eating freely, stopping when the group arrived from Jerusalem, and being reproached — three facts and no reason, which leaves a fourteen-year-old with a man who simply caved. The encyclopedia gives the reason and gives it twice over: 'Peter, FEARING LEST THESE RIGID OBSERVERS OF THE JEWISH CEREMONIAL LAW SHOULD BE SCANDALIZED THEREAT, AND HIS INFLUENCE WITH THE JEWISH CHRISTIANS BE IMPERILED, avoided thenceforth eating with the uncircumcised.' It also states what was at stake on the other side — Paul reproached him 'because his conduct seemed to indicate a wish to compel the pagan converts to become Jews and accept circumcision and the Jewish law' — and it reads the whole episode as evidence of Peter's standing: 'The whole incident is another proof of the authoritative position of St. Peter in the early Church, since his example and conduct was regarded as decisive.' The summary now carries the fear and the standing. THE ARTICLE ALSO RECORDS WHAT IS NOT KNOWN, AND THE RECORD FOLLOWS IT: 'Concerning Peter's subsequent attitude on this question St. Paul gives us no explicit information.'
  • The fullest treatment the corpus holds of the quarrel at Antioch is filed under Paul's name: Benedict XVI's General Audience of 1 October 2008, a whole catechesis titled 'The "Council" of Jerusalem and the Incident in Antioch'. It states Peter's motive in the same terms as this record's own article, 'in order not to shock those who were continuing to observe the laws governing the cleanliness of food'; it names what each man was protecting — 'the former did not want to lose the Jews who had adhered to the Gospel, and the latter did not want to diminish the saving value of Christ's death for all believers'; and it closes the account in a way nothing under this record does: 'The incident at Antioch thus proved to be as much of a lesson for Peter as it was for Paul', because Paul, writing to Rome a few years later, took Peter's side of it — 'it is right not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother stumble' (Rm 14: 21). None of that is in the summary, for room; it is here so a reader knows the other half of this quarrel exists.