48 Fun Facts About Saint Peter

What was Saint Peter's birth name?

Simon bar Jonah means Simon, son of Jonah, and it is how Jesus addresses him in Matthew. 'Peter' began as a nickname from Jesus and ended up replacing the name he was born with.

John's Gospel names which town on the Sea of Galilee as the home town of Peter?

Bethsaida was also home to the apostle Philip, says John. It got no thanks for producing them: Jesus later cursed the town for shrugging off his miracles, 'Woe to you, Bethsaida!'

What was Peter's trade before he followed Jesus?

Fishing on the Sea of Galilee was his living until Jesus called him with a pun on the job: 'I will make you fishers of men.' He left his nets on the spot and followed.

The name Cephas, which Jesus gave to Peter, comes from an Aramaic word meaning what?

Rock or stone: kepha in Aramaic, turned into Greek as Petros, which gives us Peter. The pun drives the famous line 'you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church'.

Soon after praising Peter's confession of faith, Jesus rebuked him by calling him what?

Satan: 'Get behind me, Satan!' Peter had just been blessed for calling Jesus the Christ, then took him aside to insist he must never suffer and die, and was told he was a stumbling block.

Which brother of Peter, a disciple of John the Baptist, brought him to Jesus in John's gospel?

Andrew went straight to fetch his brother with the words 'We have found the Messiah'. Because he followed Jesus before anyone else in that Gospel, the Eastern churches call him the 'first-called'.

What happens when Peter leaves the boat to walk to Jesus on the water?

He panics and starts to sink when he notices the wind, and Jesus catches him: 'You of little faith, why did you doubt?' Only Matthew tells it; Mark and John leave Peter in the boat.

Near which city, in Matthew and Mark, did Peter declare that Jesus was the Christ?

Caesarea Philippi was a pagan town at the foot of Mount Hermon, built round a grotto sacred to the god Pan. It was there, of all places, that Jesus asked who the disciples thought he was.

What did Jesus promise to give Peter in the 'rock' dialogue?

The keys of the kingdom of heaven, with power to 'bind and loose'. Crossed keys, one gold and one silver, became the badge of the popes and still sit on the Vatican flag.

According to John's gospel, whose ear did Peter cut off at Jesus's arrest?

Malchus, servant of the high priest, is named only by John, who is also the only one to say the swordsman was Peter. Luke adds that Jesus touched the ear and healed it on the spot.

Peter first refused to let Jesus wash his feet, then swung round and asked him to wash what?

His hands and head too. Peter had protested 'You will never wash my feet', and gave way only when Jesus said that otherwise he could have no part with him.

With which two apostles did Peter form the inner three at the Transfiguration?

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, were also the two Jesus took with Peter to see Jairus's daughter raised and to keep watch in Gethsemane. There the chosen three fell asleep.

Jesus foretold that Peter would deny him how many times before the cock crowed?

Three, and Peter swore he would die first. When the cock crowed after his third denial he remembered the words, went outside and wept bitterly.

According to one gospel, what betrayed Peter as a follower of Jesus at the third denial?

His Galilean accent: 'your speech makes you known', say the bystanders in Matthew. Peter answered with curses and an oath that he did not know the man, and at that moment the cock crowed.

By the lakeside after the resurrection, Jesus keeps asking Peter which question?

'Do you love me?', asked once for each denial beside the fire. Each yes earns the charge to feed the flock, and John notes that Peter was hurt to be asked yet again.

How many fish were caught in the post-resurrection catch described in John's gospel?

153 large ones, John says, and the net did not tear. Readers have puzzled over so exact a figure ever since; Augustine pointed out that it is every number from 1 to 17 added together.

At Pentecost, how did Peter answer the bystanders who said the apostles were drunk?

It was nine in the morning, 'only the third hour of the day', so nobody could be drunk yet. He then preached the first Christian sermon, and Acts says about three thousand were baptised that day.

In which port did Peter have his rooftop vision that unclean animals could be eaten?

Joppa, today's Jaffa, is where Peter, praying on a tanner's roof, saw a sheet of forbidden animals lowered from the sky. He was still puzzling over it when messengers from the centurion Cornelius reached the gate.

According to Acts 12, which ruler imprisoned Peter in Jerusalem before an angel freed him?

Herod Agrippa, grandson of Herod the Great, had just put one apostle to the sword and meant Peter to be next. The escape cost the guards their lives, and Acts has Agrippa himself die soon after, eaten by worms.

Which apostle wrote that he opposed Peter 'to his face' at Antioch?

Paul tells it in Galatians: Peter had been eating with Gentile converts, then drew back when visitors arrived from Jerusalem. Paul called it hypocrisy in front of everyone, noting that even Barnabas had been carried along.

Who eclipsed Peter as leader of the Jerusalem church?

James the Just, called the Lord's brother, has the last word at the Council of Jerusalem in Acts: 'my judgment is', he says, after Peter has made his case. Galatians even lists him ahead of Peter among the church's pillars.

Which man did Peter rebuke for offering the apostles money in exchange for the power of the Holy Spirit?

Simon Magus gave his name to simony, the buying of church office. Legend adds a rematch in Rome, where he flew above the Forum by magic until Peter's prayers brought him crashing down.

Peter's first letter sends greetings from a church in which city, a name most scholars read as code for Rome?

Babylon was the empire that had sacked Jerusalem and its Temple centuries earlier. When Rome did the same in AD 70, Jews and Christians gave it the older enemy's name, and the Book of Revelation uses the same code.

Under which emperor is Peter traditionally said to have been martyred in Rome?

Nero blamed Rome's Christians for the great fire of AD 64 and, Tacitus says, had them torn by dogs, crucified or burned as lamps in his gardens. Tradition puts Peter's death in that purge.

How, according to Origen and Jerome, was Peter crucified?

Head downwards, and at his own request: Jerome says Peter declared himself unworthy to be crucified in the same way as his Lord. An upside-down cross has been St Peter's emblem ever since.

At the Temple gate, Peter told a lame beggar he had none of what, then healed him instead?

Silver or gold: 'but what I have, that I give you', said Peter, and told the man, lame from birth, to get up and walk. He went in leaping, a crowd gathered, and by evening Peter was under arrest.

In the Quo vadis legend, where does Jesus tell the fleeing Peter he is going?

To Rome, to be crucified again, says the risen Jesus, meeting Peter on the road out of the city. Shamed, Peter turns round and walks back to his own execution, in a tale from the apocryphal Acts of Peter.

On which road outside Rome does the Quo vadis encounter traditionally take place?

The Appian Way still has a small church, Domine Quo Vadis, on the traditional spot. Inside is a marble slab with two footprints said to have been left by Jesus, a copy of one kept in a basilica down the road.

Whom does Irenaeus name as the man the apostles made bishop of Rome after Peter?

Linus appears once in the New Testament, in a list of greetings at the end of the second letter to Timothy. Irenaeus says this is the same man, which makes that passing name the second pope.

Which emperor began the first basilica over Peter's grave in the early 4th century?

Constantine the Great's builders buried a Roman cemetery that was still in use and levelled a hillside to set the altar over the grave. Visitors can still walk those streets of tombs beneath St. Peter's.

In 1968 the pope announced that which relics of Peter had been convincingly identified?

His bones had been lifted from a wall niche under the basilica without the archaeologists knowing, and sat in a box in a cupboard until a scholar traced them. No pope has gone further than that careful 'convincing'.

Which pope was the first to present part of Peter's relics publicly?

Francis had the bronze case of nine fragments beside the altar at a Mass in St. Peter's Square in November 2013. In 2019 he gave that same case to the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, who called the gift brave and bold.

The joint feast of Peter and Paul on 29 June honours what the two apostles share?

Their deaths as martyrs are what the feast honours, though nobody knows the true day. The date may instead recall the year 258, when the remains of both men were moved to a catacomb for safety during a persecution.

What happened to Ananias and Sapphira after they lied to Peter about the price of their land?

They fell down dead, first Ananias and then, three hours later, his wife. The couple had kept back part of the sale money while passing it off as the whole, and Peter said they had lied not to men but to God.

The gold signet ring long given to each new pope traditionally showed Peter doing what?

Casting nets from a boat is what gives it its name, the Ring of the Fisherman. It was once the seal on a pope's letters, so it was smashed with a hammer at his death to stop anyone forging them.

Who designed the gilt bronze casing that encloses the relic known as the Chair of Saint Peter?

Gian Lorenzo Bernini made the throne a giant reliquary, held aloft by four bronze Doctors of the Church. With the wooden seat shut inside, nobody saw the relic itself for two centuries, until it was brought out in 1867.

Ivory panels on the wooden Chair of Saint Peter show scenes of which pagan hero?

Hercules and his labours decorate a seat that began as a royal throne: Charles the Bald, king of the Franks, gave it to the pope in 875. That was some eight centuries after Peter's death.

Which artist took charge of St. Peter's in his seventies and designed the dome that crowns it?

Michelangelo never saw it finished: only the drum stood when he died in 1564, and Giacomo della Porta completed the dome a generation later.

Bronze for the great canopy over Peter's tomb was said to be stripped from which ancient Roman building?

The Pantheon lost its porch beams to Pope Urban VIII, a Barberini, and Romans joked that what the barbarians had not done, the Barberini did. His accounts suggest most of the metal in fact became cannon.

What have centuries of pilgrims' kisses worn smooth on the bronze statue of Peter in his basilica?

Its right foot has had the toes rubbed almost flat. Nobody is sure who made the statue, with guesses running from a fifth-century caster to the 13th-century sculptor Arnolfo di Cambio.

Which gospel is traditionally thought to preserve Peter's preaching, written down by his assistant?

Mark became 'the interpreter of Peter', wrote the second-century bishop Papias, and set down what he recalled accurately, though not in order. Peter's first letter calls him 'my son'.

Clement of Alexandria says Peter called out which words as his wife was led away to execution?

'Remember the Lord', he called, using her name and rejoicing that she was being called home, as Clement tells it around the year 200. The Gospels mention Peter's mother-in-law but never his wife.

Which woman did Peter raise from the dead in Acts, as widows wept over the clothes she had made?

Tabitha, also called Dorcas, had spent her days sewing for the poor. Peter sent the mourners out, knelt and prayed, then told her to get up, and she opened her eyes and sat up.

In which lakeside town did Jesus heal Peter's mother-in-law of a fever?

Capernaum still shows a house claimed as Peter's: a first-century room that was plastered, venerated early and later buried beneath an eight-sided church. The Gospels set the cure in his own home.

Where did Jesus tell Peter he would find the coin to pay their temple tax?

In a fish's mouth: Peter was to cast a hook and open the first catch, where one coin would cover the tax for them both. Matthew ends the story there, never saying whether he went and did it.

When Peter knocked at a friend's gate after escaping prison, what did the servant girl Rhoda do?

Left him standing outside: she knew his voice and was so overjoyed that she ran to tell the others without opening up. They said she was out of her mind, while Peter went on knocking.

In Acts, people laid the sick in the streets hoping that what of Peter's would fall on them?

His shadow, at the least, was what they hoped for as he walked by. Acts says the sick were carried out on cots and mats, and more crowds came in from the towns around Jerusalem.

Twelver Shia Muslims liken Peter's role behind Jesus to which figure's role behind Muhammad?

Ali was, for Shia Muslims, the heir Muhammad named, as Peter was for Jesus. Twelver tradition adds a family tie: the mother of the hidden twelfth imam is said to descend from Peter himself.