Peter’s Journeys
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Acts 2:14-41 Peter spreads the Good News in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost in 30AD. Three thousand who hear his message become believers. Acts 3:1-4:22 Peter heals a lame man at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple (see Map 12). He and John are arrested by the temple guards and told not to preach. Acts 5:1-16 As the leader of the church in Jerusalem over the next few years, Peter rebukes Ananias and Sapphira when they lie about the money they have received from selling some land. Acts 5:17-42 Peter is the spokesperson when he and another apostle are arrested in Jerusalem. Acts 8:14-24 Peter and John go to Sebaste in Samaria in 35AD and pray for the new Samaritan believers to be filled with the Holy Spirit (see 1 on Map 19).
Map 19 Peter’s Journeys
Acts 8:25 They return to Jerusalem, sharing their message en route in many villages in Samaria. Acts 9:32-35 Later in the year, Peter visits the believers in Lydda (called Lod in the Old Testament) (see 2 on Map 19). He heals Aeneas who has been bedridden for eight years. Lod, today, is the site of Tel Aviv’s international airport. Acts 9:36-43 Peter is called to the port of Joppa where Tabitha (‘Dorcas’ in Greek, meaning a ‘gazelle’), one of the believers, has died. Peter prays for her, and the dead woman comes back to life.
Joppa Joppa (modern-day Jaffa) was the only natural harbour on the coast between Egypt and Phoenicia (see Map 19). It was an important commercial centre that would have been bustling with life when Peter visited it in 35AD. Today it has been superceded as a port by the larger artificial docks at Ashkelon, but the old harbour area of Joppa has become a popular retreat for holiday crowds spilling over from the crowded sandy beaches of Tel Aviv immediately to the north. Peter stayed in Joppa at the home of Simon the Tanner – the reputed site of which can still be visited today. St Peter’s Church commemorates Peter’s visit, while modern visitors to the tastefully restored narrow alleyways of the medieval quarter can get a taste of what Joppa felt like when it was a bustling commercial port in Peter’s day. A modern sculpture called the ‘Statue of Faith’ depicts incidents from the Old Testament including Abraham preparing to sacrifice Isaac (see Genesis 22:9), Jacob’s dream of the staircase to heaven (see Genesis 28:12), and the Israelites marching round the walls of Jericho (see Joshua 6:20). In Old Testament times, Lebanese cedars to construct Solomon’s Temple were unloaded in Joppa (see 1 Kings 5:8-10) and the prophet Jonah attempted to escape from God by embarking from Joppa on a boat heading for Tarshish (see Jonah 1:3).
Acts 10:1-8 Cornelius – a Gentile God-fearing centurion belonging to the Italian Cohort (an auxiliary unit of archers) based at the Roman administrative centre in Caesarea – has a vision of an angel who tells him to send for Peter in Joppa.
Medieval Quarter, Joppa
Acts 10:9-23 Peter – praying on the flat roof of Simon the Tanner’s house in Joppa – also has a vision in which he is told not to call anything ‘unclean’ that God has made ‘clean’ (see Leviticus 11:46-47). Shortly after this, Cornelius’s two Gentile servants and his attendant arrive at Joppa. Peter invites them into the house to be his guests although Jews would not normally eat with Gentiles because they were regarded as ritually ‘unclean’ (see Deuteronomy 14:1-3) and eating with them would make a Jew ‘unclean’.
Peter in Caesarea and Jerusalem Acts 10:23-48 Peter travels to Caesarea towards the end of 35AD and shares the Good News of Jesus’s death and resurrection with Cornelius’s Gentile family and friends (see 2 on Map 19). The Holy Spirit falls on all present and the six Jewish believers from Joppa (see Acts 11:12) are amazed that God has poured out his Spirit on the Gentiles – as they “heard them speaking in different languages and praising God” (Acts 10:46). The new Gentile believers are baptised as “They have received the Holy Spirit just as we did!” (Acts 10:47). Peter stays in the Gentiles’ house at Caesarea for several days.
Roman theatre in Caesarea (Acts 10:24)
Acts 11:1-18 Peter reports back to the Jewish believers in Jerusalem (see 3 on Map 19). The more conservative Hebraic Jewish believers criticize Peter for eating with uncircumcised Gentiles, but most of the disciples agree to accept the new Gentile converts into the fellowship of believers. |
I would not, in the ordinary course of events have wanted to come to England, that Spring of 1966. I, Gulshan Fatima, the youngest daughter of a Muslim Sayed family, descended from the prophet Mohammed through that other Fatima, his daughter, had always lived a quietly secluded life at home in the Punjab, Pakistan. /wp:heading wp:paragraph
Not only was this because I was brought up in purdah from the age of seven, according to the strict, orthodox Islamic code of the Shias, but also
because I was a cripple, and unable even to leave my room without help. My face was veiled from men, other than permitted kinsfolk, like my father and two older brothers, and uncle. For the most part, during those first fourteen years of my feeble existence, the perimeter walls of our large garden in Jhang, about 250 miles from Lahore, were my boundaries.
/wp:quote wp:paragraphIt was Father who brought me to England—he who looked down on the English for worshipping three gods, instead of one God. He would not even let me learn the infidel language in my lessons with Razia, my teacher, for fear I should somehow become contaminated with error and drawn away from our faith.
Yet he brought me, after spending large sums in a fruitless search for treatment at home, to seek the best medical advice. He did this out of kindness and concern for my future happiness, but how little we knew as we landed at Heathrow airport that early April day, of the trouble and sadness that waited round the corner for our family.
/wp:paragraph wp:heading {“level”:3}Strange that I, the crippled child, the weakest of his five children, should have become in the end the strongest of all, and a rock to shatter all he held dear.
/wp:heading wp:quote/wp:quote wp:paragraphI have only to shut my eyes, even now in maturity, and a picture rises before me of my father, dear Aba-Jan, so tall and lean in his well-tailored, high-necked, black coat trimmed with the gold buttons, over the loose trousers, and on his head the white turban lined with blue silk. I see him, as so often in childhood, coming into my room to teach me myreligion.
I see him standing by my bed, opposite the picture of the House of God at Mecca, Islam’s holiest place, the Ka’aba, erected it is said, by Abraham and repaired by Mohammed. Father takes down the Holy Quran from its high shelf, the highest place in the room, for nothing must be put on or above the Quran. He first of all kisses the green silk cover and recites the Bismillah i-Rahman-ir-Raheem. (I begin this in the name of God the Compassionate, the Merciful.)
/wp:paragraph ]]>Peter hands over the leadership to James
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Acts 12:1-19 The narrative now skips a few years to 44AD. Peter (who is regarded as a radical Jew for mixing with Gentiles) is arrested in Jerusalem during the Passover festival on the orders of King Herod Agrippa I, who has recently beheaded the apostle James, the brother of John. Peter is miraculously freed from prison during the night by an angel. He rejoins the believers – who are meeting at the home of John Mark in Jerusalem. He hands over the leadership of the Jerusalem church to the more traditional James (the brother of Jesus – see Galatians 1:19) and flees elsewhere for safety. St Mark’s Church, in the Armenian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, is believed to mark the site of John Mark’s home. Acts 15:1-21 Peter addresses the assembly of believers in Jerusalem in 49/50AD. James – as leader of the church – concludes that the Jewish believers shouldn’t insist that Gentiles who have become believers in Jesus must adopt all the Jewish religious traditions (see Acts 15:12-21).
Pedestrianised shopping street in the Christian Quarter of
Gal. 2:11-14 Peter meets Paul in Antioch in 50AD, shortly after the Council of Jerusalem (see 4 on Map 19). Paul accuses Peter of changing his mind and drawing back from eating with Gentiles – under pressure from the more traditional Hebraic Jewish believers from Jerusalem. 1 Cor. 1:12 When Paul writes to the Corinthian believers in 56AD, some believers in Corinth claim to follow Peter, while others claim to follow Paul or Apollos. Peter may, therefore, have escaped to Corinth between 44 and 49AD (see 5 on Map 19). 1 Pet. 1:1 In 66AD, Peter writes from Rome to the Jewish believers in the Roman provinces of Asia Minor – in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia (see 6 on Map 19). 2 Pet. 1:14-15 In 67AD, Peter writes again from Rome, where he has been imprisoned and is about to be executed. |
The First Patriarch of the Antiochian Orthodox Church
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Acts 11:19 After the stoning of Stephen in 35AD, some Greek-speaking Jewish believers travel to Antioch in Syria to spread the Good News to the Jews living there (see 1 on Map 20). Acts 11:20-21 Other believers from Cyprus and Cyrene (in modern-day Libya) also arrive in Antioch and preach to the Greek-speaking Gentiles living there (see 2 on Map 20).
Map 20 Antioch – The Gentile Church
Acts 11:22-24 Barnabas (who is also from Cyprus – see Acts 4:36) is sent to investigate the new Gentile believers in Antioch (see 3 on Map 20). He is pleased to see evidence of God’s grace poured out on the Gentiles, and encourages them. Acts 11:25-26 Barnabas goes to Tarsus in 43AD and brings Paul back to Antioch (see 3 & 4 on Map 20). They stay here teaching the new believers for a year. Acts 11:26 The believers are called ‘Christians’ for the first time at Antioch. This may originally have been intended as a term of abuse for those who believed that Jesus was the Christ – the Messiah.
St Peter’s Cave Church, Antioch in Syria (Antakya) (Galatians 2:11)
Antioch in Syria Antioch was the capital of the Roman province of Syria and Phoenicia. Known as Antioch on the Orontes or Syrian Antioch, it was an important port on the River Orontes, founded in c.300BC (see Map 20). In Paul’s day it was the third largest city in the Roman empire (after Rome and Alexandria) and had a large colony of expatriate Jews living there among the predominantly ‘Greek’ (meaning non-Jewish or Gentile) population. Indeed, the Jewish historian Josephus records that there were more Jews living in Antioch at this time than in any other city of the world outside Judaea. Antioch was a thriving city where Herod the Great had paved over two miles / 3 km of its streets with marble, and had erected a colonnade from end to end. It was the home of Nicholas, a Gentile convert to Judaism, who was one of the seven Spirit-filled men who were chosen by the disciples to distribute food to the poorer believers in Jerusalem (see Acts 6:5). Nicholas may well have returned to Antioch after the stoning of Stephen and the persecution of the believers in Jerusalem (see Acts 8:1). Antioch subsequently became one of the four great centres of the Christian faith before the Council of Nicaea in 325AD (the other three being Rome, Alexandria and Jerusalem). Like several other cities called Antioch (e.g. Antioch in Pisidia), the city was named after King Antiochus I, a Seleucid (Greek) king descended from Seleucus – one of Alexander the Great’s generals who divided up the Greek empire on Alexander’s death in 323BC. Visitors to modern-day Antakya (Antioch) in Turkey will find little evidence of the thriving Christian community that developed here in Paul’s day. St Peter’s Cave Church is in a cave believed to be the meeting place where Peter taught the early Christian believers on one of his visits to Antioch (see Galatians 2:11). Re-built by the Crusaders after the city became the capital of the principality of Antioch in 1098AD, it was abandoned when the Crusaders left, but was repaired by Capuchin monks in the 19th century. Little else remains from Paul’s day, apart from an impressive collection of Roman mosaics and artefacts housed in the local Hatay (Antakya) Archaeological Museum. Acts 11:27-30 During their year based in Antioch, Barnabas and Paul travel to Jerusalem (see 5 on Map 20), taking a gift from the believers in Antioch for the members of the Jerusalem church who are suffering because of a famine. King Herod Agrippa dies while they are in Jerusalem in 44AD (see Acts 12:19-23). Acts 12:25 Barnabas and Paul return to Antioch with John Mark (see Acts 12:12 and 6 on Map 20). Acts 13:1-4 Barnabas and Paul, accompanied by John Mark, are sent by the church in Antioch to Cyprus in 46AD (see 7 on Map 20). They are the first Christian missionaries to be sent overseas. |
New Testament accounts
There is no obvious biblical evidence that Peter was ever in Rome, but the first epistle of Peter does mention that “The church that is at Babylon, elected together with you, saluteth you; and so doth Marcus my son” (1 Peter 5:13). It is not certain whether this refers to the actual Babylon or to Rome, for which Babylon was a common nickname at the time, or to the Jewish diaspora in general, as a recent theory has proposed.[62][63]
While the church in Rome was already flourishing when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans about AD 57,[64] he greets some fifty people in Rome by name,[65] but not Peter whom he knew. There is also no mention of Peter in Rome later during Paul’s two-year stay there in Acts 28, about AD 60–62.
Church Fathers
The writings of the 1st century Church Father Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35–c. 107) refer to Peter and Paul giving admonitions to the Romans, indicating Peter’s presence in Rome.[66]
Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–c.202) wrote in the 2nd century that Peter and Paul had been the founders of the Church in Rome and had appointed Linus as succeeding bishop.[67]
Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) states that “Peter had preached the Word publicly at Rome. (A.D. 190)“[68]
According to Origen (184–253)[69] and Eusebius,[70] “after having first founded the church at Antioch, went away to Rome preaching the Gospel, and he also, after [presiding over] the church in Antioch, presided over that of Rome until his death”.[71] After presiding over the church in Antioch by a while, Peter would have been succeeded by Evodius,[72] and thereafter by Ignatius, who was a student of John the Apostle.[73]
Lactantius, in his book called Of the Manner in Which the Persecutors Died, written around 318, noted that “And while Nero reigned, the Apostle Peter came to Rome, and, through the power of God committed unto him, wrought certain miracles, and, by turning many to the true religion, built up a faithful and stedfast temple unto the Lord.”[74]