Archbishop Mark continues to explore the Great Characters of the Bible. In this episode we turn to the mysterious figure, Peter, who is always listed first in the early church.
Episode 5 – Peter – is available here:
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- Episode 5: Peter - Transcript
Episode 5: Peter - Transcript
Author: Archdiocese of BrisbaneWelcome back to this fifth of our podcasts, exploring these extraordinary characters that fill the pages of the Scripture. And in this particular podcast, we turn from the Old Testament to the New Testament. But keeping in mind that for the Christian, there’s only one Bible. And we don’t want to overstate the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, as if East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet. That’s just not true.
In many ways, the New Testament is a how to read the Old Testament. Because in the wake of the encounter with the risen Christ, the early Christians, all of whom were Jewish and knew the Scriptures, therefore went back and read their Scriptures from Genesis 1:1. And everything looked a bit different when seen through the lens of this encounter with the risen Christ.
So, there was a whole mass of reinterpretation, a re-reading of what we call the Old Testament. And that then became eventually the New Testament, as we now have it. The first figure in the New Testament, to which we turn is Peter, as we know him. Now, there’s a great deal we do know about Peter, but at the same time his figure is tinged with a bit of mystery because there are many things that we don’t know.
We’d love to know, but the Bible never really satisfies our curiosity. It gives us absolutely what faith requires, what is necessary to believe. But doesn’t just satisfy our curiosity. The Bible’s not into that. So, there are certain things that we don’t know about Peter, and we have seen this already, and we will see it again with other characters in the Bible.
We’re just not told certain things that we would like to know. For instance, what did what did Jesus look like? We’re told nothing about his physical appearance. But similarly with Peter, we’re told nothing about his appearance. There is a tradition from the very early days of Christian iconography, a particular way of representing Peter as rather round in face and close cropped curly hair and a beard.
Now, I suspect that that does recall how Peter looked. It’s the same as Saint Paul. If you look at the very early icons of Saint Paul, there’s a standard depiction of him same with Peter. And that must, I think, look back to the way they actually were remembered to have looked. Who knows? Now, Peter is always listed first when the names of the 12 are given.
So, no one disputes that Peter had a unique kind of authority in the early church. The institutional profile of the authorities much, much harder to know. But it all went back to that encounter at Caesarea Philippi. The famous moment where Jesus says to Peter, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church.
Famous and fateful text read quite differently by different churches and different communities of Christian people through time. So always listed first possessed of a very distinctive kind of profile and authority in the early church. But what exactly it was, harder to tell. Peter is a nickname in Aramaic, Cephas, which simply means rock. And this then gets translated into Petros in Greek or Petrus in Latin, which means exactly the same thing, rock.
But in fact, his given name was Shimon. Very well-known Jewish name at that time, as it is in our own day, Simon. He’s called Simon or Shimon Bar Yonah. ‘Bar’ is son in Aramaic, the language of the time, the language of the Persian Empire. So, Yonah must have been the name of his father. But that’s all we know the name we know nothing else about the father, not only of Simon, but also Andrew, his brother. Now, I’m intrigued whenever I think of Andrew, because Shimon is a very, very Semitic name, Jewish name. But Andrew, in fact, is a Greek name that goes back to the Greek word for man, Aner.
So how is it that two brothers, both of whom are well known in the pages of the New Testament. One has a very Jewish name and the other has a very Greek name. It’s a bit mysterious, but it probably points to the fact that Galilee, where they come from because they were the sons of the lake, as it were. That part of the world was very, very much exposed to all kinds of cultural influences, which is one of the reasons why the religious purists in Jerusalem always regarded Galileans as a bit sus, a bit suspicious. Because they were corrupted by all these other pagan influences.
And even perhaps in the case of Andrew, a pagan name. However, Simon Shimon has an impeccably Jewish name, Shimon Bar Yonah. Bar Jonah (Yonah) just by the way, I add as an aside, was the name given to the bar in the crypt of St Peter’s Basilica during the Second Vatican Council. If the fathers got bored or tired, they could go down into the crypt where there was a bar set up, and it was called Bar Jonah, nice touch in St Peter’s Basilica.
Bethsaida was their hometown. And we know that they were a fishing family. In other words, we’re talking about a family business. Now, people sometimes think that all the early Christians were the poorest of the poor, and they sometimes talk about poor fishermen. It’s hard to imagine that Peter and Andrew were poor fishermen. They had a family business, they owned their own boat, their own nets.
So, by the standards of their own time, they were middle class businessmen. So, they weren’t the rural poor at all. It seems too that Peter was at one stage married. And again, that would have been the completely standard expectation of the time for a Jewish man. A religious duty almost was to marry. Judaism has almost, never did have any kind of real tradition of celibate life.
So, Peter would have been like any Jewish man of the time or even now. Would have been married because we hear of his mother-in-law. Jesus actually heals the mother-in-law who’s sick in bed with a fever and gets up and waits on them because they need their lunch. Now, so he had a mother-in-law, which presumably means he had a wife and the mother-in-law lived in Kfar Naḥum (Capernaum).
And Peter certainly gravitates from Bethsaida to Kfar Naḥum, which becomes the kind of mission base in the story of the Galilean ministry. Kfar Naḥum the way I pronounce it, people say all kinds of things, Capernaum, and take my advice, say what you like. It’s simply, ‘Kfar’ is town ‘Nahum’ as in the Prophet is a name.
So, it’s the town of Nahum, Nahum’s Village. So, Kfar Naḥum, or whatever you prefer to say. Now married certainly, but by the time he hits the road with Jesus, it’s almost certain that he’s no longer married. In other words, it’s very likely that he was a widower. Women died in childbirth, they died for all kinds of reasons.
So did men, of course. But women were particularly vulnerable, so who knows. Who Peter’s wife may have been or how she died and when, we have no idea. That’s one of those human interest things we’d love to know. But in fact, we know nothing. Andrew it is, we’re told in John’s gospel. Who brings Peter to Jesus.
Now, by this time, Andrew and Peter seem to have gravitated that circle of disciples around John the Baptist. Now, if that’s true, and it’s hard to be certain, but if it is true, then it means that these two brothers from Galilee were looking for something. They were religious searchers. So, they’re looking for something, asking big and deep questions.
So, in John’s gospel, we’re told Andrew, who has met Jesus and decided that Jesus is the Messiah, goes to his brother and says, come and I’ll introduce you to the one who is the anointed of God, the Messiah. And Jesus then meets Peter and gives him the nickname.
Now Jesus seems to have specialised in nicknames. I thought it was an Australian specialty. But it seems to have a much more ancient lineage. Because if you look around at the close circle of the disciples there’s not only Cephas, you know, the sons of thunder and there are their examples. So, nicknaming seems to have been part of Jesus’ style. So, Shimon becomes Cephas and then as I have said, Peter. We also have in Luke chapter 5, the very mysterious story of the final call, not the initial meeting that we seem to have in John’s gospel, but following on from that later on, by this time, Peter and Andrew have returned to Galilee and to the family business. They are fishing by the lake. And the story is a famous story, you know it well. Jesus has purloined Peter’s boat. And almost as a kind of reward, he says to Peter, I know you’ve been fishing all night, and you’ve caught nothing, and you’re the professional fisherman and you know the lake and I don’t.
However, throw those nicely cleaned nets overboard again, and you will have the great catch. Now, Peter, as the professional fisherman, must have been thinking, this is crazy, I know the lake, he doesn’t, he’s a rabbi, I’m a fisherman. But just to keep you happy because you’ve healed the mother-in-law and I’ve begun to see the truth of who you are. So, at your word, I’ll throw these newly cleaned nets overboard I’ll have to clean them all over again. So over go the nets into the lake. And the rest is history. Because there is the great catch. Despite Peter’s expectation and to his astonishment. And having seen that, he recognises again, the truth of Jesus, that somehow the power and the holiness of God is moving through Jesus in a most extraordinary way.
And he says to Jesus then, leave me, Lord, because I’m a sinful man. In other words, I’ve seen in you the holiness of God and the All Holy God moving through you can have nothing to do with me, a sinful man. Now Jesus doesn’t walk away and say, Peter, you’re right, I’m off. You’re a sinner and I’m not, I’m leaving.
He says, does the exact opposite to what Peter requests. He says, come, follow me. So, I’m not sending you away, I’m saying come and follow me. So, this is in one fell swoop, a kind of redefining of the holiness of God. The holiness of God, which is a love that embraces the sinner and calls the sinner to follow.
This is an overturning of what were common understandings of the separation of the sinner and God. Peter then with Andrew leaves everything, leaves the family business, we’re told he leaves the boat, leaves his father says bye, bye. Leaves the family business and the world that he knew and in which he was successful. To follow Jesus on the road.
And once he does that, Peter becomes one of the core group. The 12 are a mysterious group. Very hard to know much about many of the 12. But one of the things we do know is that there seems to have been a core group chosen by Jesus because Jesus chooses the 12, but he seems to choose this core group of Peter, James and John, the sons of Zebedee.
In other words, the two brothers who are also called lakeside at the time that Peter and Andrew were called. So, the two sons of Zebedee, James and John and Peter become the core group chosen by Jesus. Interestingly, Andrew isn’t. Andrew having played such a decisive role in bringing Peter to Jesus, tends to recede to the shadows a bit in the story as it unfolds in the New Testament.
But, Peter, it is who really does come to centre stage. Now, as this leading figure in the band of wandering disciples traveling the roads of Palestine with Jesus. Peter, very frequently in the Gospels, is the one to speak up for the group. When Jesus says in the famous moment in Caesarea Philippi who do people say that I am?
There’s a bit of a stunned silence, they didn’t expect that question. And it’s Peter then who says, you are the Christ. In other words, you’re the Messiah. We’ve come to see that. You’re the one anointed and sent by God. So, he’s speaking for the whole group. Now, that’s a considerable profession of faith. But it becomes immediately clear that Peter has a lot more to learn about the kind of Messiah Jesus is. Because Jesus doesn’t, in fact, conform to any of the conventional understandings of the Messiah.
On the contrary, a Messiah who ends up on the cross would have seemed an absurdity. Still does to many people. So, Peter speaks the right words, you are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Which is always the profession of Peter down through the ages, and it’s the profession, the first thing that the Pope of Rome, the successor of Peter, takes up once he’s elected. You are the Christ, the son of the living God, speaking for the whole community of disciples.
So, he is the spokesperson, quick to speak. There’s a sense you get of Peter’s personality in the Gospels. And again, we have to be careful of imposing our notions of personality and individuality upon ancient texts and ancient cultural contexts. They didn’t have the same sense of the individual and the personality as we do. But you do get a bit of a sense of Peter in the Gospels as one who is impetuous, quick to act, quick to speak.
So that’s just the way he seems to have been. Now, having made this profession of faith, which wasn’t him just blurting out, it is a genuine profession of faith, you are the Christ. He receives that commission from Jesus. You are Peter and upon this rock, I will build my church. Is it upon Peter himself or upon the faith he has professed? These are the questions that have been asked down through the centuries, and we won’t be answering them here.
But he has a lot more to learn as we see, particularly in a moment like at The Last Supper, where Jesus decides extraordinarily to perform the foot washing, which was the service rendered by the lowest of the slaves. It was the most demeaning of tasks.
And here is the Lord and master. You know, the Messiah, he says, I’m going to wash your feet. Now, what does Peter say? You’re not going to wash my feet. I’m not going to see you demeaned in that particular way. So, this, again, is where we see Peter has a lot more to learn about what it means to be the Messiah and what it means to be a disciple of the Messiah.
And when Jesus says to Peter, look, if you don’t let me wash your feet Peter, you and I can have nothing to do with each other. And Peter, to his credit, then says, well, if that’s the case, wash my hands and my head and everything. So again, he comes to see what it means to be the Messiah and to follow the Messiah.
You see too that the impetuosity of Peter when in the Garden of Gethsemane, it’s he who grabs a sword and we’re told chops off the ear of the high priest servant Malchus, we even though the name of the servant, we’re told. So again, that sense of impetuosity and Jesus has to say to Peter again, Now look, put your sword back in its scabbard.
Again, we see Peter even at that late stage, has an awful lot more to learn, as we shall see. Because having put the sword back in the scabbard, Jesus is bustled off to face trial and eventually execution. And what does Peter do? The first of the disciples, the leader of the apostolic group. He deserts Jesus like almost all the others, runs away.
Why? Because they were the next cab off the rank. They were facing the chop themselves. However, the story is more complex and the psyche of Peter is more complex at this time. He has a kind of second thought and follows Jesus into the courtyard where Jesus is about to face trial. And again, the maid, we are told, recognises him, and the accent would have given him away, a Galilean.
You were with this guy, weren’t you? No, I wasn’t, how dare you even suggest it. And Jesus, having said to Peter, you will betray me three times. Peter’s like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, how could you possibly even suggest that. Three times says, I don’t know him, I don’t know him, I don’t know him. And then we are told in that unforgettable moment, Jesus turns and looks at Peter. Peter looks at Jesus, recognises his own betrayal. And we are told, went outside and wept bitterly.
Now, at that point, he’s like Judas, also a betrayer of Jesus. So, they both betray Jesus. The crucial difference, however, is that Judas despairs, and we are told in the Gospel that he goes outside and hangs himself. Peter doesn’t do that, though there must have been a touch of despair in those tears.
But Peter, repents. And this again is a crucial sign of his learning of who Jesus is and what it means to be his disciple. Because they see Jesus crucified, they see him laid in the tomb. And at that stage the whole thing seems to have fallen apart in the most atrocious way. Because, again, crucifixion was an atrocious way to die.
So, in that moment. The next extraordinary turn in Peter’s story is that Mary Magdalene comes and says the tomb is empty. Well, they saw the corpse put in the tomb. They saw the stone rolled against the entrance. So, what’s she talking about, the tomb being empty. So, we are told that Peter and John, again, two of the core group run to the tomb to try and check on what Mary, the crazy stuff, Mary Magdalene has been talking.
John being younger than Peter gets there first. Peter gets there a bit late and a bit out of breath, I presume. But Peter looks and he sees the empty tomb, but he doesn’t come to faith. That’s one of the reasons why in John’s gospel we’re told that the other disciple came. He went into the tomb and he believed. We’re told he believed because Peter, you know, the leader at this point didn’t come to faith, not yet.
So, a bit of a slow learner in some ways. The leader of the apostolic group. But then he does see Jesus. And it’s that moment that leads him to faith. We’re told, in the unforgettable story at the end of John’s gospel that they’ve been out fishing. Well, under the kind of pressure of grief and bewilderment that they’ve faced. I guess the most natural thing in the world was to go back to what was familiar.
Go back to fishing, back to the lake. Just try and soothe the spirits by getting out onto the water and catching a few fish. And then, and then, and then early in the morning. They’re coming into shore and there’s a figure on the beach. And it’s John, in fact, in the boat, who says, it is the Lord. He came to faith first.
That’s the Lord on the beach. And Peter, then we’re told strips off, he had almost nothing on anyway. And then he swims to the shore. They weren’t far from the shore. And there is Jesus cooking breakfast, barbecuing fish. And it’s in that kind of encounter with the risen Christ. That Peter finally comes to understand who Jesus really is and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus.
He comes to faith in that sense. Not only do they have breakfast, but it’s in that moment on the beach in the morning light. That Jesus puts to Peter, very personally and directly, three times the question. Do you love me? Do you love me? Do you love me? Three times Peter betrayed Jesus. Now he’s asked three questions and in reply to them, he makes three professions of faith.
You know I love you. You know I love you. You know I love you. And in reply to that profession of faith, which is also a word of repentance, Jesus says, feed my sheep, tend my flock. So, he is commissioned beyond the trial. And that’s the critical fact in trying to understand not only who Peter is, but what Jesus makes of Peter. Because he’s definitely not a self-made man.
Now, in the Acts of the Apostles, we find Peter again very much so in the first half of the Acts of the Apostles. But the way in which he’s characterised in the Acts of the Apostles. This is once Jesus has ascended to heaven. But it’s Peter in the first half of the Acts of the Apostles and Paul in the second half of the Acts of the Apostles are both made to look very much like Jesus.
And that’s the whole point that Luke is making in Acts. That the Jesus, because of the power of the Holy Spirit that has come upon Peter, Paul and the entire community of disciples. Peter and Paul, become like Jesus in all kinds of ways. They don’t just talk about Jesus, they actually become like Jesus. This is a radical and important understanding of what the Holy Spirit makes of the disciples.
Now they’re gathered in the upper room. And Peter again it is who speaks publicly at the moment when they’re choosing a replacement for Judas. He’s also the one who speaks on the first Pentecost. He goes out into the streets of Jerusalem. Once the doors of fear are thrust open and the disciples under the power of the Holy Spirit go out into the streets of Jerusalem, whatever the cost may turn out to be.
And he is the one who speaks for the community of disciples. Peter it is who heals the crippled at the temple. And that’s where he begins to look like Jesus, this healing ministry. He’s then the one in Acts three who speaks in the temple. So again, the spokesperson for the community of the disciples. He it is who’s hauled before the Sanhedrin, the religious Council. He’s twice hauled before the Sanhedrin, twice, he’s set free, though, with a big finger wag and warning.
Eventually he’s imprisoned and he’s freed by heavenly intervention, we’re told the angel thrusts open the doors of the prison and out Peter comes. And the church was praying for Peter all the time. So not only the intervention of heaven to liberate Peter, but also the power of the prayer for Peter of the community of disciples.
He it is who then in Acts Chapter 10 has the vision of all these foods coming down out of heaven. In other words, the vision that undoes the whole separation of clean and unclean. That was so fundamental to the Judaism that Peter would have known. And then the opening to Cornelius the Centurion, who was a pagan. Peter is the one who makes the overtures and actually approaches Cornelius in the Acts of the Apostles.
So, these are all in the first half of Acts and Peter is a crucial figure, not just one who speaks, but one who acts. Paul, we’re told, then visits Jerusalem after his so-called conversion. And he visits Jerusalem to speak with Peter. Now, they would never have met. And in Paul’s own words, he comes to Jerusalem after his conversion to istoríasis is the word that Paul uses.
Now, what that word means, it relates to our word for history. But it really means a kind of exchange of information. So, what would Peter have been able to give to Paul by way of information? Well, he was with Jesus. Peter was, from the beginning. Paul had never met Jesus. So, Peter, tell me, what was it like?
Tell me all you can about those first days and your whole journey with Jesus into an understanding of who he is, and what it means to be his disciple? And Peter, on the other hand, would have wanted to hear from Paul, from the lion’s mouth, as it were, the story of his conversion. Tell me what happened, I’ve heard so many rumours, so much fake news.
Tell me, give me your version of what actually happened. So, this extraordinary moment where Peter and Paul meet in Jerusalem, Paul was only there for a couple of weeks, really. And they come to a tactical agreement. And it’s this. You, Paul, you go to the Gentiles, and I Peter, I’ll be responsible for the Jewish mission, which looked at that time to be much the more important of the two.
So, a kind of a tactical agreement. And also, part of that agreement was that Paul retire again, a strategic or a tactical withdrawal. Go back to Tarsus, you’re too controversial, things are too hot for you here at the moment. Go back to Tarsus just for a time, and then we’ll see what happens. So, Paul does go back to Tarsus, but as we shall see, when we meet Saint Paul, he returns to Antioch.
And that in itself is a fascinating story as to how he did. Because he could have just plummeted off into a black hole of history and gone back to Tarsus and never been heard of again. But he does return to Antioch. And there is where the gospel for the first time is preached to the Gentiles on any kind of large scale.
And this becomes the great question in primitive Christianity is the church. Is Christianity just another sect within Judaism or is it something born from the womb of the synagogue in a new and down at a table and eating with Gentiles, that was unthinkable for a Jew like Paul.
Peter comes to Antioch. Antioch was the third city of the empire by the way. So, it was a big, big city. Peter comes to Antioch bearing that unique authority that he has, and he, too, sits down at table with Gentiles. Then the conservative Jewish Christians from Jerusalem who are associated with the figure of James. They’re called the James party.
They come and they see Peter, of all people sitting down and eating with the Gentiles. They say, stop, we might be one church, but we’ve got to have two tables. Paul of course, you can imagine is jumping up and down and saying, you can’t do it like that. You’re undoing what God has done in Jesus. You’re erecting walls once again, whereas God’s knocking all the walls down.
So, one church means one table. That’s what God is doing. Peter however, it would seem for tactical or political reasons, says alright look, I’ll sit over here at the Jewish table just to keep the peace. Because otherwise this is going to blow up. Paul at this stage eyeballs Peter and says you’re betraying the gospel. You, Peter, you’re betraying the gospel.
So, at this stage there’s the brawl in Antioch. Peter and Paul go their separate ways. Paul starts up his own independent mission and we’ll look at that. In the podcast that deals with Saint Paul. And Peter then continues his mission.
At that stage, it would have seemed that Paul was the one who was going to plummet off into a black hole of history and never be heard of again. It didn’t happen like that for all kinds of reasons that we’ll explore. The next time we hear of Peter, however, is in Acts Chapter 15, the so-called Council of Jerusalem.
And here the burning question was what to do with the Gentiles? Do they have to become Jews in order to become Christians? So, they have to walk through the door of the synagogue to enter the church. And that may not seem a big question for us today, but it was the huge question in these early days. Peter is the one who speaks up yet again.
He’s the spokesperson. Who kind of delivers the judgment of the church, which is a compromise, a sensible pastoral compromise. That the Gentiles don’t have to become Jews, but they do have to respect certain practices of Jews. To do with dietary regulation and in order not to scandalise Jewish Christians. So again, it’s a pastoral prudential compromise that makes sense in the context.
Almost certainly in that Acts Chapter 15, there are two meetings that are conflated into one. And again, history at this time didn’t hesitate to do this kind of thing. There seems to be a first meeting and then they scatter. And the issue isn’t really resolved. So, there’s a second meeting. But by the time the second meeting happens, Peter and Paul have gone their separate ways. They’re no longer in Jerusalem.
So, the person who speaks authoritatively in the second of these two meetings is called Simeon. And people often think, oh, that’s just a typo for Simon. It doesn’t work like that in Semitic languages. Simeon is a very different name. And Simeon Niger is mentioned as one of the leaders of the church in Antioch. And I suspect it is that Simeon, who speaks at the second meeting because there was, the others had gone separate ways.
Let’s not get into the detail of that. But Peter is certainly an authoritative voice at that first meeting of the Council of Jerusalem. Eventually, and it’s a bit mysterious how this happens. He finds his way to Rome. And this is where Peter and Rome are so completely associated one with the other. It is said that he had been the bishop of Antioch and became, when he goes to Rome, became the bishop there.
That sounds to me a bit anachronistic that he exercised some kind of leadership, was undoubted. But to call a bishop or to say that Peter was the first pope in a contemporary understanding of what that means is a little bit anachronistic. So, again, the precise institutional profile of the leadership he exercised in both Antioch and Rome is a bit hard to work out in any detail.
I think it’s certain, however, that he did get to Rome. That he exercised leadership there and laid the foundation of what will become the Petrine ministry. Which certainly in the Catholic Church has become a fundament of faith and of the church’s life and mission. But what’s equally certain is that because he was a leader or even the leader of the Roman church, which he didn’t found, by the way. The Roman church, although it’s associated with Peter and Paul, was not founded by either.
It seems to have been a church that was founded by Jews who went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. There they struck the first Pentecost, became Christian, returned to Rome from their pilgrimage as Jewish Christians, and became the founders of the Church of Rome. With all the fateful consequences of that. So, neither Peter nor Paul found the church in Rome. That they are leaders there, though, again is beyond dispute.
What is even less open to dispute is that both die in Rome, in the mid-sixties. The persecution associated with Nero in the wake of the fire, the great Fire of Rome. He was looking for scapegoats, he decides the Christians are a useful part of that scapegoating process. There had been persecution of Christians before that. I mean, Stephen in Jerusalem and so on. But it had been sporadic and it hadn’t been total and systematic as it became with Nero.
So, the Neronic persecutions in the mid-sixties were a bit different because you were liable to be executed just for being Christian, you didn’t have to commit a crime, the crime was being Christian. Bit like in Nazi Germany, just because you were a Jew, that was already a capital crime. So, Nero’s persecution had that difference of scale or scope about it. So, Peter would have been one of many who was swept away in the tide of blood that came under Nero in those years of the mid-sixties.
The tradition is, and some of these traditions are, they are more reliable, perhaps, than meets the eye. That he was crucified upside down in what was known as Nero’s Circus. Sometimes it’s called Caligula Circus, which was on the Vatican Hill. Now, the Vatican Hill was not part of the city of Imperial Rome. It was the other side of the river, and it was known for its bad wine and its cemeteries.
It was a burial ground because you couldn’t bury the dead within the limits of the city itself on the other side of the river. But you could, once you cross the Tiber and were outside the limits of the city. Crucified upside down, I mean, the Romans were extraordinarily imaginative when it came to modes of execution. So that’s not impossible at all.
Trying to work out how it might have been done is a bit more difficult because crucifixion the other way up, the way Jesus would have been executed, that was part of the execution process. It’s a bit harder to imagine upside down, but who knows? He was then taken. Once he was dead, he was taken and buried nearby in one of the burial grounds.
And it was when Constantine comes to the Imperium, he becomes the emperor. That he decides, having become Christian, kind of. That he will erect a Basilica over what had been what they called the trophy, the monument over Peter’s tomb. Because, again, the early Christians revered the place of his burial. So, Constantine, to do that had to level the Vatican Hill, a massive engineering feat. In order to create a flat space on which he could build this basilica over the tomb.
So, St Peter’s Basilica, in any of its forms, always was one massive tombstone over a grave. So, Constantine builds a basilica that eventually is replaced by Pope Julius II and others by what was called New St Peter’s, Old St Peter’s was demolished., extraordinarily. It was in trouble structurally, but such was the energy of Pope Julius II and the spirit of the Renaissance that they decided to demolish and rebuild.
And what we got over a period of 100 years and more was the current St Peter’s Basilica in all its grandeur. And it’s extraordinarily grand, of course. And the grandeur might seem very odd for the Galilean fisherman. I mean, he might have been a middle class businessman, but what Saint Peter might think or say if he walked into St Peter’s physically now, would be an interesting thing to know.
But really what the grandeur of St Peter’s is doing, I think. Is simply making visible the grandeur of Peter’s Easter witness. And his Easter witness, which had gone on right through his life from the moment he left the lake to follow Jesus. His Easter witness really was crowned, it came to its climax only in the martyrdom.
And that’s why Peter is forever associated with Rome. Because of the martyrdom, it was in death that finally he became so identified with Christ that if we look at this extraordinary figure of flesh and blood with the right kind of eye, you don’t see just flesh and blood. In fact, you see the image of the crucified and risen Christ.