This is the first installment of an ongoing series covering the lives of the popes. As I mentioned in the introduction to this series, we know very little about many of the early popes, especially in the first two centuries. Thus, this first installment will take us quickly through the first century Anno Domini.
Note: the dates in the heading for each pope in this series refer to the years of his reign, not of his life. I will not repeat here what is widely known about St. Peter from the New Testament.
The Gospels attest to Simon Peter’s unique office as the chief of the Apostles and the rock on which Christ built His Church, while the Acts of the Apostles and his two canonical epistles give us a picture of his early apostolic activities. After the events in Acts, St.
Peter is said to have founded and led the church at Antioch for several years before moving on to found the church at Rome (together with St. Paul). His first epistle was almost certainly written from Rome, sometimes referred to by the early Christians allegorically as Babylon: “The church that is in Babylon, elected together with you, salutes you: and so does my son Mark” (1 Peter 5:13).
There is a credible tradition that Peter gave his testimony to this Mark, so that the earliest Gospel, named after Peter’s “son” in baptism, is actually the memoirs of St. Peter “as told to” St. Mark. The two best-known extra-Scriptural traditions about St. Peter have to do with his martyrdom, which, like St. Paul’s, came about from Nero’s persecution.
First, that having left Rome to avoid execution, he encountered our Lord walking toward him. Peter asked, “Where are you going, Lord?” (Quo vadis, Domine?) To which Jesus responded, “I am