Simon Peter

Simon, a fisherman from Bethsaida who lived at Capernaum, was among Jesus’s first disciples. Jesus gave him the name Cephas, Aramaic for ‘rock’, rendered Petros in Greek. The Gospels make him the spokesman of the Twelve, the one who confesses Jesus as Messiah and who denies him on the night of the arrest. Paul names him as a witness of the risen Jesus and met him in Jerusalem.

Acts shows him leading the Jerusalem community and opening the mission to gentiles. 1 Clement and Ignatius imply that he died a martyr’s death, and later tradition places his crucifixion in Rome under Nero. Papias reports that Mark wrote down Peter’s preaching. Two New Testament letters and several later works, including the Gospel of Peter, bear his name; most scholars regard them as written by others.