The Sources and What Can Be Known

Peter is at once the best-attested and the most legend-encrusted of the apostles. This file inventories the sources by their evidential weight — the four Gospels and Acts; Mark as the record of Peter’s own preaching; the two disputed epistles; the early external notices of Clement, Ignatius, Papias, Irenaeus, Gaius, and Eusebius; and the apocryphal Petrine literature — and states, with Orthodox sobriety, what can responsibly be regarded as secure, what is probable, and what is legend pinned to its source.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)

The Primary Sources: The Gospels and Acts

The bedrock of what can be known about Peter is the four canonical Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Peter is named more often than any other disciple in the Gospels (some 150 times across the New Testament), and the four Gospels independently attest the core of his story: his call, his place at the head of the Twelve and within the inner circle of three, his confession, his impulsive words and acts, his denial, and (in John) his restoration. That the denial is recorded by all four Evangelists, in unsparing detail, of the chief apostle is itself a mark of the tradition’s honesty — the kind of material a community would not invent about its leading figure (the “criterion of embarrassment,” as the scholarship calls it; Bockmuehl 2012). Acts supplies the apostle of the first Christian decade: Pentecost, the Jerusalem church, the Gentile mission, and his disappearance from the narrative after Acts 15 as Paul becomes its focus.

Mark as Peter’s Preaching

A source of special interest is the Gospel of Mark, which the earliest tradition links directly to Peter. Papias of Hierapolis (early 2nd c.), quoted by Eusebius, reports on the authority of “the Elder” that “Mark, having become Peter’s interpreter (hermēneutēs), wrote down accurately, though not in order, all that he remembered of the things said and done by the Lord,” for “he had neither heard the Lord nor followed him, but later, as I said, [followed] Peter, who used to give his teachings as the occasion demanded” (Papias, in Eusebius, HE 3.39.15; trans. NPNF II/1). Irenaeus says the same: Mark, “the disciple and interpreter of Peter, did also hand down to us in writing what had been preached by Peter” (Against Heresies 3.1.1; ANF Vol. 1). If this tradition is sound — and it is early and widely attested, though debated in detail — then the Second Gospel preserves Peter’s own preaching, which would explain both its vividness and its candor about Peter’s failures (the denial in Mark 14 may be Peter’s own confession of his fall). The “Mark my son” of 1 Peter 5:13 fits the same connection (see First Peter).

The Disputed Epistles

The two epistles bearing Peter’s name are sources of a different order, and they stand on different footing. 1 Peter was acknowledged early and almost universally as apostolic; its polished Greek raises the question of an amanuensis (Silvanus, 1 Pet 5:12) or of Peter’s circle, but its early and broad reception is secure. 2 Peter is the most disputed book of the New Testament: doubted by Origen, classed by Eusebius among the antilegomena, and judged pseudonymous by most modern critical scholars, while received by the Church as canonical and apostolic — a matter treated fully, as a structured [Disputed] note, in its own file (see Second Peter and the Authorship Question). For the historian, 1 Peter is a usable witness to the Petrine tradition and (if authentic or from his circle) to the apostle’s mind; 2 Peter’s evidential value for the historical Peter is debated in proportion to the authorship question.

The Early External Witnesses

Outside the New Testament, a cluster of early witnesses fills out the picture, especially for Peter’s death: 1 Clement 5 (c. 96), the earliest external testimony to Peter’s martyrdom; Ignatius, To the Romans 4.3 (c. 110); Papias (early 2nd c.) on Mark; Irenaeus (c. 180) on the Roman church founded by Peter and Paul and on Mark; the presbyter Gaius (c. 200) on Peter’s “trophy” on the Vatican hill; and Eusebius (early 4th c.), who gathers and assesses the whole tradition (HE 2.14–15, 2.25, 3.1, 3.39). These witnesses are the ground for what can be said about Peter’s later career and death at Rome (see Peter at Rome). They are early, independent, and convergent, and they carry real historical weight — quite distinct from the apocrypha below.

The Apocryphal Petrine Literature

A thick layer of later literature gathered around Peter’s name, and Orthodox method treats it as edifying or heretical legend pinned to its source, never as historical evidence on a par with the canonical and early witnesses (METHODOLOGY §3.5):

The Gospel of Peter (later 2nd c.) — a fragmentary passion narrative with docetic tendencies, rejected by Bishop Serapion of Antioch when he found it used at Rhossus (Eusebius, HE 6.12); not by Peter, and not canonical.
The Acts of Peter (late 2nd c.) — the source of the Quo Vadis episode and the crucifixion head downward (see The Martyrdom); a romance of edifying legend, valuable for the history of devotion, not for the history of the apostle.
The Apocalypse of Peter (early 2nd c.) — an apocalyptic vision of heaven and hell, briefly considered for the canon in some quarters (it appears in the Muratorian Fragment with a note of dispute) but ultimately rejected.
The Pseudo-Clementine literature (the Homilies and Recognitions, 3rd–4th c.) — a body of Jewish-Christian romance making Peter the hero of debates with Simon Magus; theologically tendentious and historically worthless for the apostle.
The Letter of Peter to James, the Preaching of Peter (Kerygma Petrou), and other fragments — late, derivative, and non-apostolic.

These works testify to Peter’s towering importance in the later imagination — every party wanted Peter’s name — but none is a source for the historical apostle.

A Textual Question: John 21

One textual question internal to the canon bears on the Petrine record: the status of John 21, the chapter of the restoration. It reads in some respects like an appendix — the Gospel seems to reach a conclusion at John 20:30–31 — and many scholars regard chapter 21 as a later addition by the Evangelist or his circle (Brown 1970). But the chapter is present in every manuscript and version of John; there is no textual evidence that the Gospel ever circulated without it; and the Church receives it as integral, canonical, and inspired Scripture. The “appendix” question is literary, not text-critical, and does not touch the canonical authority of the restoration narrative (see The Restoration).

What Can Be Known

Drawing the inventory together, Orthodox sobriety yields three tiers. Secure (multiply and independently attested): Peter was a Galilean fisherman of Bethsaida and Capernaum, married, brother of Andrew, called by Jesus and made the foremost of the Twelve; he confessed Jesus as the Christ, denied him three times, and was restored; he led the Jerusalem church and opened the mission to the Gentiles; he was associated with Mark and with the Gospel of Mark; he labored and died a martyr at Rome under Nero. Probable: the authorship of 1 Peter (by Peter or his circle); the manner of his death as crucifixion (John 21:18). Legendary, pinned to its source: the Quo Vadis encounter and the inverted crucifixion (Acts of Peter); the Simon Magus romances (Pseudo-Clementines). This is a remarkably full and well-grounded portrait by the standards of ancient biography — which is why the Church has never lacked for a real Peter to venerate, beneath and beyond the legends and the controversies.

References

The Holy Bible — the four Gospels; Acts; 1–2 Peter; John 20:30–31; 21. Cited by book chapter:verse.
Papias of Hierapolis, in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.15. Trans. NPNF II/1. (Mark as Peter’s interpreter.)
Irenaeus of Lyons. Against Heresies 3.1.1. Trans. ANF Vol. 1. (Mark “the disciple and interpreter of Peter.”)
Eusebius of Caesarea. Ecclesiastical History 2.14–15; 2.25; 3.1; 3.3; 3.25; 6.12; 6.25. Trans. NPNF II/1. (The external witnesses; the Gospel of Peter at Rhossus; the disputed books.)
The Apocryphal New Testament. Trans. and ed. M. R. James. Oxford: Clarendon, 1924; and J. K. Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1993). (The Acts of Peter, Gospel of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, Pseudo-Clementines.)
Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John (XIII–XXI). Anchor Bible 29A. New York: Doubleday, 1970. (John 21 as appendix.)
Bockmuehl, Markus. Simon Peter in Scripture and Memory. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2012.
Cullmann, Oscar. Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962.