Talk:Saint Peter/Archive 1

Hierophant

I think it is reasonable to read Peter as a title synonymous to the Pope as the Highest priest. Peter cognates with Jupiter, hierophant of theRoman Empire, as Kaiphas with the hierophant of the United Kingdom of Israel. Jesus empowerment of Peter was thus understandably tremendously controversial for both the Romans and the ruling Hasmonean dynasty, who had their own Kaiphas. For the time being I couldn't find a substantiation of this attempt of identifying this reading. So, if someone find some source material, good. Historiografies/astromythologies pertaining the star constellation Cepheus gave indication.--Xact (talk) 15:18, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Burial place/relics

A section should be added, mentioning and discussing the recent finding of what appears to be the earthly remains of the apostle. 85.24.74.129 (talk) 01:31, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

Popular Culture

He is referenced in the song Viva la Vida by Coldplay. Should this be added to the popular culture section? —Precedingunsigned comment added by 68.108.114.232 (talk) 07:54, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Funny, but inappropriate

"If God is a DJ, and Heaven's a dance floor, St. Peter would be the bouncer."

Wow - disjointed Christian logic... How could that happen? Stevenmitchell (talk) 22:31, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

This article shows a Protestant Bias

Maybe there should be two articles. One with all the nonsense in this article and one about the real St. Peter.

Please elucidate. I am baffled by how little we know of Peter, who was appointed by Christ to lead the movement in comparison to Paul, who was not. ThePeg 21:52, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah...no that's just wrong. The Catholic Church was founded at the Pentacost when the Holy Spirit descended upon his Apostles.

The schism was the splitting of churches off of the original catholic church, so the catholic church remained, just had fewer members.

I can give a protestant bias: The context of the 'leadership' scripture cited, if it included the context "(17)Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven" (emphasis mine) points to the way that God communicates to men, not to the way that God communicates with Saint Peter. Which sheds a bit of light on the authority of Paul.71.112.180.186 03:13, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Some Changes Explained

I made various changes to the section on the New Testament in this article about St. Peter. Besides nominal changes, I attempted to add more information and additional scholarly opinions in an attempt to present a more informative and balanced article in keeping with the project goals. In each instance I attempted to provide quotes for support. Furthermore I preserved the original opinions for comparison, with one notable exception. The article contained the following quote and then explanatory text:

Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ. For he neither heard the Lord nor accompanied Him. But afterwards, as I said, he accompanied Peter, who accommodated his instructions to the necessities [of his hearers], but with no intention of giving a normal or chronological narrative of the Lord's sayings. Wherefore Mark made no mistake in thus writing some things as he remembered them. For of one thing he took especial care, not to omit anything he had heard, and not to put anything fictional into the statements. —Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, 3.39.14–16

If this tradition were to prove to be true, then this would imply that many of the stories about Peter in the New Testament were not likely to be true, since such stories, particularly the paean to Peter in Matthew, if genuine would be expected to have been included by Mark. The attribution of the Gospels of Matthew and of Mark to their traditional authors is disputed among scholars for many reasons, the most obvious being that the gospels themselves are anonymous, and their titular attributions are not attested earlier than the second-century writings of Papias.

I found the explanatory text to be worthy of removal for the following reasons. (1) The quote clearly says that Mark knew Peter, so it does not follow that “if proved true it would imply many stores in the New Testament were not likely to be true”. Indeed the opposite follows. (2) The discussion of Matthew was out of place and seems rather irrelevant, though I would encourage a better section and discussion on Matthew given its proper due. (3) The mention of paean was vague and the link referenced Homer, not Matthew.

I added "traditional" to "lists of the Twelve" because the text seemed to suggest that the NT contains such a list. Just a slight clarification.

Strange Passage

I found this passage to be a bit out of place:

From the early Christian writings, it is clear that Peter was considered chief leader of the early community. Most of the gospels suggest that he was favored by Jesus. Although, since Peter does not reappear in Matthew's gospel after his denial of Jesus, a few scholars have suggested that for Matthew, Peter was an apostate. Perhaps the mystery is solved by the fact that Jesus appeared to Peter and charged him to return.

I did not edit it, but it seems odd on two accounts: (1) the scholars with this view are not referenced, and (2) the "mystery" is not well explained. It doesn't seem very "mysterious" at all. A "few scholars" have presented a view where a particular interpretation of Matthew is placed in contradiction with Acts and John (and all ancient authorities) - there is no way to "solve" this other than to either reject the interpretation or to agree with it.

Pope from the Greek?

If you actually go back to the origanel language,of the New Testament, Koine Greek (of which if you are interested in learning, the new Interlinear by Wallace is great), you will see that through context and Greek exegesis, Mathew 16:18 cannot be misconstrued to mean that Peter is the first pope. I thought that this would add more info on the subject, but I wanted to post it here before I went ahead and put it on the front page as it can be quite a controversial topic... In order to resolve this question we need to look at two key words in the original Greek: The word “Peter” and the word “rock.” In the original language the text reads: “You are Petros, and on this petra I will build my church.” Notice how Jesus distinguished between Petros (Peter’s name in the Greek, which means “stone” or “pebble”) and petra (the Greek word for “rock” or “boulder”). For Jesus to have avoided any confusion all He needed to do was to simply use the word “Petros” twice. In this way, He would have clearly demonstrated that the church would be built upon Peter. However, as we have seen, He used a different word — namely, “petra” — to make it absolutely clear that He was referring to the foundation of the church. The context of the passage (which, by the way, begins in verse 13) attests to a play, by Jesus, on these two words. In fact, interestingly enough, He used “petra” (or “rock”) to refer to Peter’s confession — that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. Thus, Jesus (not Peter) is said to be the rock upon which the church would be established.

Peter himself underscores this fact in Acts 4:11 and 1 Peter 2:4-8, when he alludes to Christ as a “stone rejected by builders” and as a “rock that makes unbelievers fall.” Furthermore, the apostle Paul calls Jesus the foundation (1 Cor. 3:11), the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20), and the spiritual rock (1 Cor. 10:4) of the church. And so, in light of this we must conclude that the Bible does not support the idea of Peter being the first pope. Ego Eime

Not True. Paul does not say "of the church" as you have stated. If you're going to quote from scripture, let's not add to what the scripture actually says.

• Let us come to the point. Is Jesus the 'chief cornerstone' and precious, mentioned by Simon Peter and the Apostle Paul? Or is it Peter? Peter would thus be preaching about himself, as the 'stone of stumbling' and the 'rock of offense', the chief cornerstone rejected by the builders, and He is precious in our sight. Then the Apostle Paul would have been preaching Peter as the Christ, instead of Jesus. Who is the Stone made without hands, that will crush the empire of the latter days? Is it Jesus or Peter? I am almost afraid to say these words, lest it might cause anyone to stumble. So, think well before you answer. Who is the head of the Christian Church, described by Paul in the letter to the Colossians? If you think it is Peter, tell that to Jesus when you see Him. Simon Peter was a humble servant of God himself, and never would have made this claim. How could Peter have been the first Pope, when there wasn't any Pope or 'papa' for several centuries after the apostles? Jesus Himself said, "Call no man Father; for you have one Father in Heaven, and you are all brothers" (Matthew, I believe). All the blessed saints are brothers; the Pope is not my dad. When Jesus said, "Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name" (again, Matthew, I believe); He was praying to God, not to the Pope.
• James was the first bishop, or 'overseer' of the Jewish Christian Church, which began in Jerusalem! The Romans as a nation were pagans, for centuries afterward. Get your facts and your theology straight, that it might benefit your soul and your clarity of thinking.129.24.93.219 00:28, 27 November 2005 (UTC) (Nov.)

• * In Scripture Jesus is represented as the foundation (1 Cor 3:11), the builder (Mt 16:18), the cornerstone (Acts 4:11), and the temple (Rev 21:22). We also see the apostles and/or believers as: builders (1 Cor 3:10), foundations (Eph 2:20; Rev 21:14), stones (1 Pet 2:4), buildings (1 Cor 3:9), and temples (Eph 2:21). In 1 Timothy 3:15 the Church is the foundation (of the truth). If we are allowed to speak only of Jesus as rock and foundation, we will have to cut several verses out of the Bible.

Could someone tell us what the Koine Greek is which is translated as 'Church'? Tyndale translates it as 'Congregation. I think this is significant as this passage is often cited as justification for the existence of an organised, hierarchial religion. ThePeg 21:55, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

ekklesia. Literally a "called out assembly of citizens". Fasinating stuff. Grover cleveland 23:22, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

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Moved from the main page:

Not true. Peter was never Bishop of Rome. Paul ordained Linus the first bishop in Rome, and the second, Anacletus; Peter ordained the third, Clement, as bishop. Clement became bishop in Rome several years after Peter's death, in a period when a bishop ordained by Paul was in place, so there isn't a case here for some kind of 'direct succession' as claimed by Rome. Bishops, the leaders in the Church, comes from the Greek 'episkopi', overseers. In the Orthodox Church now, as it was then, no bishop is superior to any other in the Church.

Any documentation as to which scholars or religious groups espouse this particular history? As to whether any bishop is superior to any other, it's clear that at the very least some bishops in the Orthodox Church today are given greater honor than others. That's why some are called 'bishops' and some are called 'archbishops', some are called 'metropolitans' and some are called 'patriarchs'. Each has different appropriate forms of address, and so on. I don't know the full history of this modern practice, but am sure it's quite old; archbishops go way back. That's quite different from anything approaching infallibility, but the idea of greater and lesser honor is certainly there at the very least.Wesley

And your sources for these claims are ...???

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I doubt whether the fact that Peter was bishop of Antioch and Rome is mentioned in the Bible. Does anybody have references? Clearly biblical is the fact that he was one of the most important disciples. -- David, 2 January 2003.

No, Peter's bishoprics are recorded separately, not in the Bible. But speaking of Antioch, he is listed at List of Patriarchs of Antioch, and according to that he was succeeded there by Euodius. The article should probably specify that he was succeeded by Linus at Rome, and by Euodius at Antioch. Suggestions for how best to do this without messing up the List of Popes template too badly? Wesley 16:47, 3 Jun 2004 (UTC)

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I don't like the table at the beginning. It frightens me. Would someone move it to the template namespace? --denny vrandečić 08:53, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

It doesn't frighten me, but it is misleading as it presents a Roman Catholic viewpoint as that of all Christians. Few Protestants would "venerate" Saint Peter. Honor, yes. And few Protestants would attribute any current powers to his sainthood. (No, I didn't move it; I'm just thinking out loud.) Pollinator 12:12, Jun 13, 2004 (UTC)

Uhm, I didn't actually mean the content, but the table itself... it looks frightenly complex for a newbie if he wants to edit the page. Did it myself now. --denny vrandečić 11:14, Jun 14, 2004 (UTC)

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Few Protestants deny that Clement, and the later popes, were legitament episcopal successors to Peter as bishops of Rome. What Protestants deny is that there is any special authority that was also passed on. In other words popes are nothing more than pastors entrusted to shepherd the Church of Rome.

Also I removed a sentence about Eusebius considering the 2nd letter of Peter as spurious. He did not. He listed it among the disputed books as are many other books found in today's canon. I'm not sure if the other information in that section is accurate either. -- Ye110man 18:29, 26 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I assume you go with the interpretation of McGiffert and Richardson for rejecting the "spurious" interpretation of the term νόθοι describing the rejected letters (Eusebius, Church History, XXV.3-4), The translator's note below: "then, in this passage, must not be taken, as it commonly is, to mean spurious or unauthentic, but to mean uncanonical"

Given the common use, and the regular translation here of this passage, I would suggest that it at the very least can be taken to mean "spurious" --65.120.153.129 19:35, 16 May 2005 (UTC) (eleuthero--can't log in from here)

For NPOV, shouldn't the section on Roman Catholic views of St. Peter have the counterview of Protestants? Something like "Protestants, of course, do not find any scriptural basis for the office of Pope and find no evidence that Saint Peter was regarded as a Pope-like steward of the church during his lifetime." --Jeffrey Henning 03:03, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Or how about "do not acknowledge the evidence..."

• "If you actually go back to the origanel [sic] language,of the New Testament, Koine Greek"

The original language of the New Testament may have been Koiné Greek, but the conversation in Matthew most likely took place in Aramaic, not Greek. Aramaic did not distinguish Kephas the name from kephas "a stone." (Similarly, French uses Pierre for both.) It's also my understanding that Koiné Greek, unlike Attic Greek, made no distinction in meaning between Petros and petra, using both words to mean a rock or stone. Petros was required in the context because it was masculine gender, but otherwise the significance was nonexistent.

Without some of the bible vague, we would have less room for hope or interpretation (revalations would have exact dates). Anyway, Jesus spoke in Aramaic.

Article title: NPOV?

This title is based on Saint worship, isn't it? It should be changed to Simon Peter. Rantaro 02:24, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)

While I wouldn't say "saint worship", but rather "saint veneration", I would personally have no objection to a more "neutral" name. That could be Simon Peter, Cephas, or probably a large number of other things. We could also move the "Saint Peter" template down to the "Catholic views of Peter" section—although many Protestants call him "Saint Peter", few would say that they venerate him. (The Wikipedia Saints project actually recommends that the template go in the "Veneration" section, not in the introduction or life sections, provided there is enough material to do so.)-- Mpolo 07:18, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)

But all the Christians don't say "Saint Peter". I am a Christian but I don't say him "Saint Peter". He is only "Simon Peter" or "Apostle Peter". Precisely, this encyclopedia isn't only for saint venerators of Catholics and Protestants. Then, this is POV. Rantaro 01:11, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Saint worship? Hardly! That's like saying that calling Karol Józef Wojtyła Pope John-Paul is Pope worship or calling Elizabeth Windsor Queen Elizabeth is Queen worship. Most of us non-saint venerators (and non-God venerators for that matter) are quite happy to use the names Saint Peter or Santa Claus without worrying that the rest of the world is going to think that we've taken up religion! We don't see it as some POV religious statement -- just as use of the most commonly recognised name. And when it comes to a page like List of saints, how do you propose to make it work without using the word "saint" ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 04:07, 2004 Sep 10 (UTC)

I think the problem here comes more from divisions within Christianity than from outside it. For some Protestants, it is offensive to call someone a "saint" other than in the plural: "I am suffering here for all the saints" (St. Paul, paraphrased). As such, to respect their views, I would have no problem at all with changing the title to Simon Peter, Peter the Apostle, Simon of Bethsaida or the like. "Saint Peter" would be mentioned in the first paragraph, as it is common usage for all Catholics and a good number of Protestants. I'm going to go ahead and move the template down lower in the article. It could be that we want it in a slightly different spot in the end, but it's very little effort and makes the article less "Catholic-centered". -- Mpolo 07:19, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough, Mpolo, I have no particular objection to moving the article in principle. I was merely responding to the original statement that "This title is based on Saint worship, isn't it ?" which required a clarifying response. -- Derek Ross | Talk

Well, I don't know that I disagree, exactly, but are there any general naming policies involved here? I don't think we should move this without seeing what the general policy is supposed to be. john k 14:44, 10 Sep 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:WikiProject Saints. It's not binding, but seems to suggest "Saint" in the title is only when it's the only real way of differentiating, like Saint Lawrence. -- Mpolo 15:27, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Also, I found this in Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions/archive1:

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump on Thursday, July 10th, 02003.

Is there any kind of rule about whether "Saint" is abbreviated in article titles? —Paul A 05:44 6 Jul 2003 (UTC)

"Saint" is not abbreviated is article titles about individual saints (Saint George, Saint Nicholas), however it may be abbreviated in names of building, etc. when this is common practice (St. David's Cathedral, but Cathedral of Saint Stephan). Furthermore, the title "Saint" is avoided in article titles when possible (John the Baptist, Martin of Tours) - Efghij

In many cases however it is impossible to use a saint's name without using saint because they are identified exclusively with it and unrecognisable without it. (BTW there are a few people who insist on changing the names of buildings from St. to Saint, even though that should not be done. Can we put a wikicurse on these people? :-) FearÉIREANN 17:57 10 Jul 2003 (UTC)

-- Mpolo 16:46, Sep 10, 2004 (UTC)

Hmm...I can agree, in general, with the idea that it should only be used when it's the only way of differentiating, as Saint Lawrence, Saint George, Saint Paul. But Peter's an interesting case. Certainly we could use Simon Peter. On the other hand, he's almost certainly better known as "Saint Peter" than as "Simon Peter", so general wikipedia naming policy would suggest the former. Anyway, I won't fight particularly hard if the consensus is to move to Simon Peter. But I would suggest that we shouldn't move articles where "Saint" is the only way to distinguish, because it might offend certain sects of Protestants. john k 00:23, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As an atheist in a pseudo-secular Anglican country (the UK), I had never ever heard the term "Simon Peter" before it was suggested above. I'd suggest that quite a few people would also be in a similar situation. Wikipedia naming policy is to give a topic the most commonly used name; exceptions are granted for names which are biased or offensive in some way, but the sub-text there is that there is at least one widely-known alternative name - is that the case here?

James F. (talk) 03:57, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think Saint Peter is not his Biblical name and true name, and it's only a name used by Catholic and Protestant churches, but I think Simon Peter is not only for Catholic and Protestant churches. If Saint Peter is widerly-known name for Catholic & Protestant churches, it is not used by other religion that Simon Peter is not a Saint. Then I think its name is POV.Rantaro 04:39, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Saint Paul is essentially a disambiguation page. The actual article is at Paul of Tarsus. Saint Joseph is found at Joseph the Betrothed—I have no idea who uses this term normally. I suspect it was coined by a Wikipedian and allowed to stand. (The talk page has one objection to the naming and no other commentary.) Saint James, the brother of the Lord, is found at James the Just, which is not a name I was familiar with, but maybe that's common outside of the Catholic church, where the liturgy (still) conflates him with James the Less.

If Simon Peter is not that well-known as a name, what about Peter the Apostle, with redirects from Saint Peter, Cephas,Kephas and Simon Peter? -- Mpolo 07:20, Sep 11, 2004 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:naming conventions:

"Generally, article naming should give priority to what the majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, while at the same time making linking to those articles easy and second nature."

If "Saint Peter" meets these requirement, then it should remain "Saint Peter." Otherwise, simply "Peter" is an obvious alternative, in keeping with the handling of many Biblical names. (Of course the existing disambiguation page there would need to be moved to "Peter (disambiguation)"--Johnstone 00:41, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Some meaningless Google statistics:

"Saint Peter" 528,000 hits

"Simon Peter" 75,400 hits

"Cephas" 78,300 hits

"Peter the Apostle" 14,500 hits

"Apostle Peter" 53,200 hits

Those come out pretty strongly in favor of "Saint Peter" as the common name. Obviously, Rantaro can rightfully say that all those pages are POV, but it does appear to be by far the most common usage. Nonetheless, I wouldn't object to Peter or Peter (Bible) or Peter (apostle), either.—Mpolo 07:18, Sep 17, 2004 (UTC)

This is inconclusive, though. Many Protestants will simply refer to him as "Peter". Some additional data:

Peter; + apostle OR disciple; -saint 262,000 hits

the same, -"saint Peter" 311,000 hits

Peter + Jesus; -"Saint Peter" -"Simon Peter" 2,980,000 hits

(That last one is because I figured probably it if it also mentions Jesus, then it's thinking of the same Peter we are looking at.)[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 18:34, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There are also 2,460,000 Google results for "St Peter", which is just a contraction of "Saint Peter". (Also, "Peter" alone would only be used in context. You couldn't just ask someone in the street "What do you know about Peter?" and expect them to know who you were talking about, unlike, say Noah, Moses, Abraham or Jesus.) Proteus (Talk) 21:15, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

If Peter is in line with other saints and if there are redirects from Saint Peter, Simon Peter etc what's the struggle?Wetman 07:25, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The problem is that it doesn't meet the criteria of being the "what majority of English speakers would most easily recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity." Also, after thinking about it some more, although Old Testament figures are referred to by monikers, it's not really in line with the naming of articles on other saints. And some of those that aren't, perhaps should be renamed. It all depends on meeting the aforementioned naming convention.--Johnstone 01:45, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)

As referance, Wiki-ja use Simon Peter instead of Saint Peter. Many people think it's POV.Rantaro 09:28, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Saint Peter seems like the best choice to me, since disambiguation is needed and it is by far the most easily recognizable disambiguation. Plenty of Christians accept the term saint in reference to the New Testament apostles even if they don't care for Roman Catholic practices in designating saints, so I don't think it should be particularly offensive. And the most basic level of recognition is in the popular folklore that has St. Peter guarding the gates of heaven, so I think this is the best choice. Nobody's being forced to believe anything about sainthood, any more than you're forced to accept Buddhist teachings by having an article titled Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama. --Michael Snow 00:00, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think that the article should be called something like Peter (Apostle) or Peter (Diciple), not Saint Peter. As a Protestant, I consider all true Christians to be saints and since every Christian denomination has its own definition of who a saint is, it is somewhat biased to call him a saint since many believe that he is no more a saint than everyone else who has accepted Christ. If we use one of the names I sugested, then there is no bias and it is still a title people know him by. After all, there was only one disciple named Peter. Emperor001 15:36, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

"Non-canonical" Gospel of Thomas

"Non-canonical" is a distracting irrelevance inserted by User:Josh Cherry. The concept of a Biblical canon is an anachronism when discussing Peter or any 1st-century or 2nd-century figure. It is also a POV value judgment arrived at in the 4th century, and as tiresome to the neutral reader as always having to read "the tacky Gospel of Thomas." The upfront agenda in this unwarranted intrusion poooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo is merely to denigrate the Gospel of Thomas. It has no genuine other motivation, and nothing to do with the subject, Peter. We don't all want to be bullied by Catholics. I haven't reverted it, as reverting has become a degraded technique at Wikipedia. Please remove this little blot. Wetman 23:14, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is perfectly valid because it refers to an historical fact concerning a source used. Namely, there were gospels that were canon and those who were not. Earlier in the article there was a reference to a synoptic gospel. I also have no problem with the use of Saint in the article title because that title (Saint) was given to Peter, independent of whether I I believe it is deserved or not. You can refer to historical facts and remain NPOV. RichBlinne 20:58, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The {} sign/s

One or more of the sign/s: {{NPOV}}{{expansion}}{{Cleanup}} placed on this page without any discussion, explanation or reasoning have been removed pending further discussion. (The category Category:Bible stories is now up for a vote for deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Bible stories) Thank you. IZAK 08:27, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whether the category is kept or not, Peter is not a Bible story. I'm confused about why it would be appropriate to list this article in that category. -[[User:Aranel|Aranel ("Sarah")]] 21:26, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Removing the Papal box

Thoughts on removing the papal box? It screws up the layout, all of the information is available in the text and in the Saint box, and the pope and patriarch succession boxes at the bottom even allow you to navigate through the order. I do like the image and will move that into the main text, but I think the box itself is just too much. If there are no objections, I'll remove it in a day or two. --MikeJ9919 17:38, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'm neutral on the issue but I thought I should explain that there are a group of people who have taken up the project of adding the papal boxes to all the articles on people who have held the title of Pope in the Roman Catholic tradition. They have begun at Pope Benedict XVI and have been working backwords until they get to all the biographies. So if you remove the papal box now, it might find itself on the article again in the future. There is debate as to whether or not the papal succession boxes will be removed when the project is completed.

If I had a gun to my head and was forced to choose which infobox to get rid of, it would be the saint box as not all the saint articles have the saint box. However, all the pope articles will have a streamlined pope box by the end of this summer.

As for NPOV questions that might come up since calling Saint Peter a pope of the Roman Catholic Church is a strictly Roman Catholic view.... I think it's safe to have as long as it's in the section of this article that details Roman Catholic views on Saint Peter.

All in all, if you must delete it I do not object. --Gerald Farinas 04:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

On second thought, I removed the Saint box and moved the Christianity box. I think the page looks a lot better now. I'll try to incorporate the Saint box information into the text next. --MikeJ9919 19:04, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

TfD nomination of Template:Templatename

Template:Saint Peter has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion#Saint Peter. Thank you. MikeJ9919 19:16, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Peter and Cephas

Quoth the article:

In the same Holy Scriptures, Saint Paul refers to Saint Peter as Cephas or Kephas, an Aramaic equivalent of the name Peter.

Does this mean that Kephas is Aramaic for "rock" or "piece of rock"? --Jfruh 17:36, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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"kepha" or "kefa," referring to a small transparent green stone used for divination. is it true? --Melaen 8 July 2005 16:54 (UTC)

Simon Peter

I put Peter back into the Born-again Christians category because he was a born-again Christian. If you read John 3, you will see that Jesus said to have eternal life it was necessary to become "born again". Peter was a follower of Jesus and he followed His commandments and became one of the leading evangelists for Jesus after Jesus left Earth. That means Peter followed what Jesus taught, and became born again.

If we are going to remove him from this category, then we need to remove all of the Roman Catholic beliefs about him (that he was the first pope, etc.), because I dispute those beliefs. If this article is only to support a Roman Catholic Peter, PLEASE let me know so I can create a Simon Peter article to have the truth about him told. I though encyclopedias were supposed to be true...also, I thought Wikipedia had a NPOV, that would mean that we have to include him in the Born-again Christians category or it is not neutral...it is only Roman Catholic. --phatcat68 12:52, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have to revert you again, but the simple fact is that the term Born-again Christian does not have the meaning you assign to it in common usage. I'd like to see someone other than you supporting the application of this categoy to this article. -Aranel ("Sarah") 21:40, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

There is no evidence, whether Biblical or extraBiblical, that Peter was "born-again" in the sense that it is used today, your statement that Peter "was a follower of Jesus..." as evidence of Peter's "born-again" status, notwithstanding. The overwhelming scholarship on Peter is consistent with Roman Catholic Tradition. It's a shame that religious bias would show itself in what is supposed to be a neutral document.

• I'm sorry to 'hear' you say that: if it were true that Simon Peter was not 'born again', then he wouldn't be in Heaven right now. Jesus said, "Unless a man is born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of Heaven". (John 3:3) 129.24.93.219 00:03, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

Well then, let's add a category People Who Are Now in Heaven! Then we could add a category People Who Are In Purgatory and then we can debate whether Purgatory exists. Please. Bds yahoo 18:52, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

It's beyond obvious that "born again" in the passage you cited means baptized, born of water and of spirit. You are presupposing that its 20th Century American evangelical Protestant meaning is anything but a modern fabrication arrived at by the knee jerk assumption that everything Catholics believe must be wrong. 24.91.244.221 (talk) 15:16, 7 August 2011 (UTC)

Longest serving Popes

I have written the section on Popes under Coincidences by treating Peter as the longest serving Pope (followed by Pius IX). The pattern still stands whether or not Peter is regarded as a Pope (but second rather than third in each case).

Jackiespeel 17:01, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Actually, ancient sources are inconsistent regarding the length of his reign. He founded the Archdiocese of Rome (which is the supreme archdioceseonly because he founded it), but the length of his reign is, unfortunately, unknown. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 04:22, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Mattew, not Jesus wrote the Gospel of Matthew

It wasn't Jesus who did a play on words with Petros and Petra. It was Matthew.

Furthermore, Jesus likely spoke Aramaic, NOT Greek. He would have used the word Kephas for both "Petros" and "Petra".

• But, Matthew was simply recording and reporting Jesus' words to his Jewish audience. It is not the 'Gospel of Matthew'; but the 'Gospel [of Jesus Christ] According to Matthew'. The other Gospels were the gospel story, according to someone else (three different times), but always about Jesus Christ. 129.24.93.219 00:14, 2 December 2005 (UTC) And yes, Jesus did use two different words to refer to Himself, and to refer to Simon Peter. The reason for that was for Jesus' audience to avoid the error that the Roman Catholic Church has fallen into: Jesus, not Simon Peter, is the 'chief cornerstone' that the builders rejected, and He, not Simon Peter, is 'precious' in our sight.

Of course Jesus, not Peter, is the one we worship. However, Jesus did tell Peter "Simon, Son of John, you are now Petrus the rock on which I will build my church from the surface of the Earth to the Heavens above, such that the Gates of Hell will never prevail against it."

The name "Petrus" is Latin for the still-common boys' name "Peter," but it is also a derivative of "petra," the word for rock. I bolded the name because I was writing it in the original (earliest single-language script) Latin, whereas the rest was in English.

The Roman Church made no error. Jesus built the Church, but used Peter as a kind of medium. The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 04:41, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

"Most scholars"

Ah, those wonderful weasel words, though here they're defending something that doesn't need defending. The article says that "most scholars" believe Jesus spoke Aramaic. Are there any scholars who don't think Jesus spoke Aramaic? ("If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for me!") --Jfruh 20:36, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

You are right, as far as I know, no-one doubts Aramaic would have been Jesus's main language. There is a debate as to how far he may have additionally spoken Greek (or Hebrew) - but that's another matter. (Although, like most of these topics, we would probably be safer putting: 'virtually all scholars, except the inevitable obscure tin-foil-hat revisionist that some Wikipedian is surely about to mention, believe that.....)Doc ^ask? 22:22, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

Papal infobox suggestion

I'm not any flavor of Christian. I both see why you'd want to have a the papal infobox in this article and why its POV to have it there. I have a suggestion: rather than have it all up front at the very top of the article (which sort of implies that the most important thing about his is that he's the 1st pope/bishop of Rome, which many Christians would dispute), why not have it under the "Roman Catholic Church" heading? --Jfruh 13:33, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

The box is POV. Was Peter ever a 'Pope'? =POV. Is this the most important thing to say about him? =POV. Was Linus in any sense an historical successor or even historical figure? At best POV (most neutral scholars (and many RC's) seriously doubt the historicity of the early papal succession). Peter's date of death is speculative. I'd prefer the box removed, it is POV and adds no information not easily found in the article (where it is easier to qualify the nature of the claims). The fact that some people might want to have it here irrelevant - it infringes on NPOV so it has to go. Puting in the RC section, I would perhaps accept, but only as a compromise if we can't get a consensus to remove it altogether.

However, to avoid an edit war, I will leave it in place for a few days - but if no response in made to my charge that it is POV, I will then remove it again. --Doc ^ask? 17:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Doc, to have papal boxes on all the popes recognized by the RCC except Peter also strikes me as being POV -- it's essentially saying that Peter was not a pope, and belief that he was a pope is pretty fundamental to a lot of Catholic theology about the papacy. Obviously he wasn't the pope the way Benedict XVI is the pope, but you'll concede that the apostolic succession thing is the basis of Catholic claims to papal supremecy.

I realize that this is a potentially sticky argument because Peter was an important figure to several different Christian groups who have mutually contradictory views about how and why he is important. That's why I agree that putting the papal box up top -- as if that was the most important thing about him -- is inappropriate. I don't think it would be a terrible thing to put it in the Catholic beliefs section. In fact, I'm just going to go ahead and do it -- we'll see if it sticks. --Jfruh 19:59, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, I'm willing to look for an acceptable compromise here - and your move is a very good start. But I would gently question some of your logic -you seem to accept that the box reflects a 'RC POV', yet point out the inconsistency of having it on other 'popes' and not here. I'd submit that might be an argument for removing it from the others - rather than one for putting it here. Even the historical existence of some of the other popes is questioned - yet this box proclaims a line of succession and implies historicity.

I'd prefer to omit the box altogether, but my proposed compromise (and I'm not quite sue how to do it) is to make it clear in the box that this is 'according to Roman Catholic tradition'. I think that the tradition is important enough to report (perhaps even in a box) in the RC section, as long as it is not asserting (or, equally, denying) factuality. Actually, if you want consistency, it might not be a bad idea to have such a rider in all of the papal boxes. --Doc ^ask? 22:27, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

There are several points in the nearly-2000-year papal sequence where there are disputes and POV differences over who was or wasn't a pope. There are a number of antipopes, and also cases of people who were elected pope and then died before being properly consecrated, causing disputes over whether they deserve to be listed as a pope or not. There are also some attempts to depose popes, and popes who attempted to resign, with disputes over whether such actions were legally binding at the time. Nevertheless, Wikipedia has somehow managed to get a consistent sequence of succession boxes and infoboxes for a lineage of popes, which usually (but not always) follows that which is officially endorsed by the Roman Catholic church at present (though even the official church list has changed over time). There's something appealing to my neat sense of logic to having such an unbroken sequence, but perhaps it is not historically justified. (BTW, I'm not any sort of Christian, either, but have for some reason taken on the task of putting in infoboxes on numerous pope articles, going by the sequence given in the pre-existing succession boxes.)*Dan T.* 18:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

2 Peter and Authenticity

If we could adjust the final two paragraphs here, it would appear there is a "discussion" going on between one writer who upholds doubt with another upholding confidence in the authenticity of the book. There would appear to be enough facts with minimal POV difficulty in the first few paragraphs of the section without adding in the "most liberal scholars believe" followed by "most conservative scholars believe" sniping.--eleuthero 20:18, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Patron Saint of Rabies?

I'm not sure if this is supposed to be there, but it says that Peter is the patron saint of Rabies. I'm not an expert, but this doesn't seem to be the sort of thing to have a saint for. I'd change it myself, but I'm not Catholic so I'm not sure what it's supposed to be replaced by. "Babies" maybe?

    ~Cyril Uberfuzz

It appears that a certain St. Hubert or maybe St. Francis might be the rabies guy, but not Peter. I've fixed this. pschemp | talk 04:43, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Infact more checking reveals the answer to be Hubertus. pschemp | talk 04:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Not Rabies, RABBIS! LOL 86.138.186.75 23:31, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

2 saint info boxes

I don't think we need two saint info boxes. which one should be deleted? Gugganij 11:28, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Dave from Australia here. I think this page is poorly structured. It doesn't make sense, it states that peter never got to rome, just babylon? but then says he was crucified in Rome? So what happened? It doesn't explain when he left the holy land to go to Rome.

Pope Peter

I'v heard that no pope has ever named themselves Pope Peter II because to do so would be seen as extremely vain and ambitious. I think this merits inclusion in the article if anyone can find a source for it. savidan^{(talk) (e@)} 11:23, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, I don't think that sounds reasonable at all. Following that line of thinking there wouldn't be anyone ever in Catholic cultures named after previous people, saints, popes or kings, don't you think? John Paul took his name from both the apostle and the sait.--T-man, the wise 02:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Well, technically John Paul II took his name from John Paul I, who took his from John XXIII and Paul VI, the two previous popes before him, but it does all come down to the saints, mostly. The Prophecy of Saint Malachy has something about a pope called "Peter of Rome" who'll bring about Doomsday, or something like that. 222.126.76.56 23:19, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

According to the Prophecy the second Pope Peter will be the final Pope of the Catholic Church. User:Gavin Scott

Who's prophecy? Peter was never the rock the church was intended to be built on. In fact Peter himself says (1Peter 2:4-8) that Jesus is the cornerstone. He even says this will be rejected by many people. The discourse in Matthew 16:13-20 isn't saying Peter himself is the rock, It's saying that Peter's belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, is the Rock that the Church will be built upon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.161.188.11 (talk) 17:22, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

fyi, the post you are responding to was made 4 years ago. Also, while the claim you make is a common one, grammatically, it is impossible. Either Jesus was referring to A) Peter, B) himself, which could only be determined if he was physically pointing to himself, or C) he was speaking gibberish.Farsight001 (talk) 22:11, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Judaism and "St Peter"?

This paragraph: "In Jewish folklore St Peter has a pristine reputation as a greatly learned and holy man who established the Sunday Sabbath for God-Fearers instead of Saturday, Noel (as a new year feast but not as Christmas) instead of Hanukkah, the Feast of the Cross instead of Rosh Hashana, Pascha instead of Pesach, remembering the feast of the Jews instead of Sukkot, and the Ascension for them instead of Shavuot. R. Judah Ha-Hassid, who led Germany's 12th-century Hasidei Ashkenaz, considered him to be a Tzaddik (a Jewish saint or spiritual Master among Hasidim)."

sounds very un-Jewish to me, a novice student at best. I can find no extensive references to R. Judah Ha-Hassid in reference to "St. Peter" that don't ultimately have their origin in Wikipedia.

It's very unlikely a Jewish figure would applaud any changes in the Torah, especially of the magnitude of substituting "the Feast of the Cross instead of Rosh Hashana..."

Can someone verify this? It sounds very off, or at the least revisionist; I am not even sure Judaism has "saints" as such.

A Tzaddik Is Not a Saint, Tzaddiks are only really a hasidic Institution, as A Jew I can Guarantee they're is NO CHANCE St. Peter is a Tzaddik. The first real observed was the Besht. Their is also no validitiy in the applause of replacing Jewish holy-days with Cristian ones. My guess is this paragraph was written by a so-called "Messianic" Jew, aka Hebraized Evangelical Christian. I hope this is deleted. -Zack

Post thought- Hasidism was founded in the 17th century I beleive, No chance there were 12th century German Hasidism, Hasidism was never even prevalent in Germany!

-Zack

I am in full agreement. I have never heard anything of this sort and after asking four rabbis (including one Rabbi Shalman, a very significant figure in Reform Judaism with a world-wide reputation) from both a Conservative synagogue and a Reform synagogue I have recieved no conformation. As such, I am going to take the initiative and delete the section. If anyone is able to provide substantial proof they can revert the deletion.Israelite9191 16:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Was this the section you are all talking about?

According to Jewish folklore (Toledot Yeshu narrative), St. Peter (Shimeon Kepha Ha-Tzadik) has a pristine reputation as a greatly learned and holy man who established the Sunday Sabbath for God-Fearers (converted from among Gnostic heretics known as the watchers) instead of Saturday, Noel (as a new year feast but not as Christmas) instead of Hanukkah, the Feast of the Cross instead of Rosh Hashana, Pascha instead ofPesach, remembering The Feast of The Jews John 7:2 instead of Sukkot, and the Ascension for them instead ofShavuot. R. Judah ben Samuel of Regensburg, who led Germany's 12th-century Chasidei Ashkenaz, considered him to be a Tzaddik (a Jewish saint or spiritual Master among Hasidim) (Sefer Hasidim). The Tosaphist Rabbeinu Tam wrote that he was "a devout and learned Jew who dedicated his life to guiding gentiles along the proper path". Tam also passed on the traditions that St Peter was the author of the Sabbath and feast-day Nishmat prayer, which has no other traditional author, and also that he authored a prayer for Yom Kippur in order to prove his commitment to Judaism despite his work amongst Gentiles (R. J.D.Eisenstein). Legends about Peter and his activities are also mentioned in other medieval works, such as the Mahzor Vitri.

It seems to me you just don't want people to know about the Toledoth Yeshu? But I don't understand why that could be. It would be more in the interest of certain anti-semitic "Christian" groups like the KKK rather than the interest of Jews to keep it hushed up.82.6.114.172 07:53, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Coming back to the point above it seems the sources for this are Rabbi Yehuda David Eisenstein's articles on Simon Peter in Otzar Midrashim and Otzar Israel as well as notes in the Mahzor Vitry and Sefer Hasidim all these besides the Toledoth Yeshu, so I think the passage deserves to be put back in.82.6.114.172 10:26, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Could you provide links to these publications, so that other editors can evaluate their reliability and verifiability? Or at least ISBN or ISSN numbers for the books or publications? Wikipedia has policies and guidelines regarding reliable sources and verifiability that allow un-referenced statements to be deleted as original research. Gentgeen 17:02, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Is this right?:

'was one of the twelve original disciples or apostles of Jesus'

I'm a Catholic from the Peninsula of Yucatan, Spanish is my native language, and maybe I'm wrong but, from my understanding, there were many disciples of Jesus, but the apostles were only the 12. The sentence implies that a disciple is the same as an apostle; therefore, to me, it'd make more sense written "...was a disciple and one of the twelve original apostles of Jesus'. --T-man, the wise 02:17, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Paul refers to himself as an apostle, and mentions others as 'apostles', indeed he speaks of the gift of 'aspostleship', so the word can be used in different ways. It can refer to the 12, but it does not have to be so limited. --Doc ^ask? 02:27, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Take a look at where Paul refers to himself as an apostle. He is clearly self-appointed, claiming that he does not need any "letter", or certification from the disciples. T-man is right in that there is a clear sense of apostle to mean the 12, but Paul broadened the definition somewhat, and included himself.Trishm 03:42, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Usage of "Saint"

I removed the stuff about Protestants believing that all Christians are saints in contrast to Catholics. Catholics believe all non-canonized Christians (at least) are "saints" too, that's what "communion of saints" in the Apostles' Creed refers to - the Church Militant (for them, at least). 203.215.120.226 10:16, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Shall I move Marcion to Saint Marcion then? Clinkophonist 21:02, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

This slightly misses the point - certainly Roman Catholics also believe that all Christians are 'saints', but the relevance of mentioning this under Protestantism is that it is on the basis of the this understading of 'saint' that Protestants object to the Roman Catholic veneration of 'canonised saints'. (As for 'Saint' Marcion, well at least all Protestants and Roman Catholics agree that that heretic goes straight to hell ;) )--Aoratos 23:11, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Its interesting to remember that Marcion argued that people holding the views of what is now Protestantism and Roman Catholicism are already in hell, and Valentinian emphasised this. Clinkophonist 12:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Peter in Rome??

Saint Peter buff, trying to track this down - need some help. I've added a citation request for Saint Peter going to Rome.

This assertion Peter went to Rome is based on a tradition but its cited within the article as fact. I know that many believe Peter to have gone to Rome, but faith does seem to be enough for other Wikipedia articles, and so I'm asking someone to track down evidence that Peter went to Rome.

• Certainly the early writers who documented the early Popes say nothing of his visit
• The Gospels's don't have Peter going to Rome
• Saint Paul doesn't greet Saint Peter in Rome when he writes to Rome, though he greets just about everyone else
• Saint Peter certainly wan't there when Saint Paul arrived there and greeted the Jews in Rome who claim not to have heard anything about the Gospel when Paul arrives. In fact they really wanted to hear his thoughts (Acts 28:21-22)
• We do know that Peter went to Babylon for quite some time, where he wrote his letters from (1 Peter 5:13).
• We also know that he brought the Gentile Cornelius to Christ (Acts 10:10-48)
• And we know that he headed back to Jerusalem from Babylon to attend the Countil of Jerusalem (and Paul headed back from Rome) (Acts 15:1-11)
• We also knew that Saint Peter and Saint Paul argued with each other occasionally (but this needs not be mentioned in the article)
• Other historians that document Peters travels are Metaphrastes (Cave, Antiquitates Apostolicæ), but but he doesn't have Peter going to Rome either.
• Peter writes in his own Apostolic Constitutions (Book VII Section IV) that Paul appointed the first Bishop of Rome as the Saint Linus article seems to suggest that Paul had more to do with Rome.

I've probably missed the source of this tradition somewhere. Hopefully someone can help out here by pointing to a reference. Hopefully it shouldn't be hard to find if its true. Therefore I think that Peter's journey to Rome either needs to be set as a tradition without substantiation, or cited.

The assertion of Peter's going to Rome ought to be described here as tradition rather than historically uncontested fact. The sources for this tradition all come from the second century, and as mentioned above aren't backed by any of the 1st century texts. While it is more probable that Peter met a martyr's end, we simply don't have the historical basis for determining that it was in Rome, let alone that it was an upside-down crucifixion (which seems mostly to fuel the christological views of the author of Acts of Peter).

The point about knowing things about Peter's mission from 1 Peter, however, is problematic as many scholars see it as being pseudepigraphal. Acts, likewise, proves to be problematic in many instances and its claims must be viewed very critically and carefully. The correspondence of Paul to the Romans seems to be the best case that at least in Paul's time, there was no connection between Rome and Peter. But against Apostolic Constitutions, which is not likely written by Peter anyhow, Paul seems in his own letter not to have been the founder of the Roman community. So with all this, I think it shows that our evidence surrounding the association of Peter with Rome as a historical fact of the 1st century is simply lacking evidence - it might have been so, but we can't at present determine. Best to reference it as church tradition.GeneralRamos (talk) 13:42, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Keep up the good work all you volunteers. This place is awesome!

I came to this article hoping to understand what the traditional explanation or explanations is as to how Peter went from being a leader in the Jerusalem church to being crucified in Rome. How did he end up in Rome, and how much time is he said to have spent there? As it stands now, the article says little or nothing about this and it would be very helpful if this information could be added. Sylvain1972 19:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the tradition of Peter that well, but I can add that the tradition of him ending up being crucified in Rome appeared to be true when they found his body under Saint Peter's. They were excavating under the Basilica in the middle 20th century, and they found a grave with markings around it that said that "Peter is within." They found the coffin and the remains appeared to really be Peter's, from what we know through tradition. The man's bones indicated he was about Peter's reputed age when he died, and the clincher is that the feet were chopped off --tradition tells us Peter was crucified upside down, and the missing feet were due to the Romans chopping his legs to get the body off the inverted cross. Our traditions seem to be continuously confirmed by archaeology. Maybe you might want to take a more archaeological viewpoint of Petrine tradition? I find that it might be more reliable than historical sources. Since the Christians of Peter's time were considered rebels, they would need to live quietly under the radar; they'd be too distracted to be able to form cohesive writings about the Christian community in Rome. They didn't have the sort of organisation needed to get their stories straight.J.J. Bustamante 05:47, 24 May 2007 (UTC) Our traditions seem to be continuously confirmed by archaeology HAHAHAH, That's funny. The inscripion Petros enì dates to II cent. - III cent. AD.

Added a reference which supports the belief that Peter went to Rome. Also in 1 Peter 5:13 many scholars believe that the reference to Babylon is actually Rome. Note 62 in http://www.dabar.org/SemReview/fallbabyprob.html is an example —Preceding unsignedcomment added by Another berean (talk • contribs) 19:40, 26 October 2007 (UTC) No Babylon was Babylon and Rome was Rome: Peter went to Jerusalem from Babylon to attend the Countil of Jerusalem and Paul headed back fromRome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by193.43.176.101 (talk) 08:06, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

The Mormons

I have added a section under religious interpretations about the Latter-day Saint conception of Peter. He is a major player in what they claim to be a restoration of the original Christianity through Joseph Smith, and as such this interpretation should be included. Please contact me with any problems, etc. Thank you, --Pahoran513 21:04, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

This article shows a Protestant Bias

Maybe there should be two articles. One with all the nonsense in this article and one about the real St. Peter.

how do you know it's nonsense were you there when any of this happened besides more than half the stuff in The Bible is nonsense

Splitting an article in two pieces in order to handle a possible bias is not appropriate. But you are welcome to contribute to this article.Gugganij 22:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

You're right. We also need to include the fact that his corpse is beneath St. Peter's basilica in Rome. KittyHawker 06:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

i don't think it's ever actually been PROVEN that it's actually Peter, i could be wrong

What...?!

"In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus prediction of Peter's denial is coupled with a prediction that all the apostles ("you", plural) would be "sifted like wheat", but that it would be Peter's task ("you", singular), when he had turned again, to strengthen his brethren (Luke 22:31-32)."

That is not correct in any way!

The text in the New King James Version: "And the Lord said, "Simon, Simon!" Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren."

Would Christ have given Peter a special prayer, for Peter and Peter only, after saying that the 11 disciples would stifle as wheat, and that Satan has asked for them? Surely not! He loves His children, would a father--a Heavenly Father, to be exact, let his children be prey to a wolf? Most assuredly not. I shall delete that sentence.

Plus, it makes no mention whether He be referring to the disciples or Peter, except for His saying, "Simon, Simon!" —The precedingunsigned comment was added by 58.69.0.242 (talk) 10:18, 11 January 2007 (UTC).

The New Testament wasn't originally written in English. As such, reading the text in English loses some of the meaning, but the Greek makes it quite clear. The Greek says "Simon, Simon, idou, ho Satanas exetesato humas (this is you, plural, referring to the apostles), tou siniasai hos ton siton; Ego de edeethen peri sou (you, singular, addressing Peter), hina me eklipe he pistis sou; (your, singular again), kai su pote epistrepsas sterixon tous adelphous sou(your, singular)". If you don't understand any of the Greek, you can always read the original KJV: "And the Lord said: Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted,strengthen thy brethren." Notice that it's you and hence plural in the first two instances, and thou, and so singular thereafter. Hence, we can see that it is the apostles who Satan has asked for, but Peter who Jesus prayed for. Unfortunately language changes since the KJV was constructed have obscured the question in the NKJV, and most other modern English translations. BovineBeast 16:49, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't this Vandalism?

"Death

Saint Peter died by a noun with a scalp knife, whom butchered him for being a christian. Later studies found out that the noun was drunken and possesed by Hitler."

Seriously... and possessed is misspelled. XD Jaimeastorga2000 20:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Funny

I just watched the South Park episode Fantastic_Easter_Special, so I found this edit funny. Jamdonut 12:45, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Syrian Pope?

I saw one of the categories he is listed under is "Syrian Pope". Now I don't know so much about Christianity, but the article doesn't mention Syria, and I'm pretty sure he was from Judaea or at least the Galilee (modern day Israel). --Valley2city^₪‽ 08:14, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but I think it refers to how Peter was the Bishop of Antioch, which is in Syria. Likewise, the current Bishop of Rome is called the Roman Pontiff, even though he's German.J.J. Bustamante 05:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

"The wise man built his house upon the rock.."

Matthew 7:24 Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

In this passage, the word for rock in Greek is ‘petra’, which means a large foundation type rock. These days we use concrete foundations when we build houses.

The discussion between Jesus and Peter went like this:

Matthew 16:13–19 When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?

Mat 16:14 And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.

Mat 16:15 He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

Mat 16:16 And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Mat 16:17 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Mat 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Mat 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Peter said: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church..”

The Greek word for Peter is ‘petros’, which means a small stone, one which would be used in the construction of a building, such as a church. These days we use bricks and blocks, but then they used stones.

In the phrase, “Upon this rock”, the word again is ‘petra’; a large stone foundation.

Jesus wasn’t telling Peter that he would be the foundation of His church, or that any single man would be. That would go against the principle taught in Matthew 23:8–12.

But statement: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” represents the testimony of Jesus, which is the foundation of our Lord's church. Peter would be honored as part of the building material. His writings where included in the bible, and they are a very solid testimony for us today.

Acts 8:37 ..And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. ..and he baptized him.

Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Revelation 12:17 And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Revelation 19:10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Rush4hire 17:18, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

There are several points which are not mentioned in the main document: First, that discussions of the Greek form of the word are secondary, because Jesus was presumably speaking Syriac. So the pebble/boulder argument is probably irrelevant. This is particularly significant since Mark's Greek is a bit dodgy. Second, that Matthew's version of the story may be doubtful because of the "agenda" issue -- Jesus seldom speaks of an organization, and attributing these words to him is convenient if Peter is to be recognized as the head of the church. Third, kepha also means blockhead or clod, making this a potentially "embarrassing" passage and thereby providing later authors an incentive to provide an alternative explanation or simply cut it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by88.217.113.254 (talk) 21:06, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

Possible vandalism?

Umm, please tell me this line isn't true:

"Peter got his name after his neighbors in Jerusalem found out about his 'Milimeter Peter.' "

204.115.253.51 19:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah , that isn't true. People just think they're funny when they do that crap ...

Infoboxes

Why are there two infoboxes? Trevor GH5 11:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

St Peter never referred to himself as the Pope, or head of the church

Jesus plainly stated that he was 'the Christ'; and Muhammad plainly stated that he is 'Allah's prophet'. By comparison, Peter NEVER said he was the 1st Pope. How can this not be mentioned in this article?

He never claims to be more than simply an apostle of Jesus. Angry Aspie 01:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

The article clearly shows that the office of Pope is a development of Peter's primacy over the apostles, and one can very easily infer that the title itself did not exist back then, and hence Peter did not call himself a Pope. There is no need to create undue emphasis. That is enough.Ariedartin JECJY ^Talk 16:24, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

• On 3 May 2007, there was a strange little bit of vandalism. Instead of being removed, it was then expanded on 4 May 2007. While it may be factual, it doesn’t belong in the infobox. I’m going to remove it. --evrik ^(talk) 19:10, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

St. Peter: uniquely associated with God in scripture

I just added the following statement by archbishop Fulton J. Sheen to Wikiquote.

"Another instance in which our Lord associated Peter with himself was in the payment of the temple tax. It is the only time in scripture where God associates a human being with himself under the personal pronoun we .... Now at the time of the payment of the temple tax our blessed Lord told Peter to pay it, and he said to pay it “for me and thee.” Then he adds, “that we may not scandalize.” Here he makes himself one with Peter. He is associated with Peter in a way that no one else can ever be associated. We - Christ and Peter. That is why papal encyclicals begin with the word we."

• • Through the Year with Fulton Sheen, compiled by Henry Dieterich, Servant Books, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1985, Ignatius Press, 2003. Selection for August 1st: When God said "we", p. 127. ISBN 0898708737 ISBN 978-0898708738

I thought I'd post it here also. Perhaps the article should make mention of St. Peter's unique and highly privileged position at some point.Delta x 18:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Mention of Peter's profession of faith and the keys to the kingdom?

Shouldn't there be a section in the New Testament Account part mentioning St. Peter's profession of faith and Jesus giving him the keys to the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 16:18-20? I know it's covered in the Roman Catholic section further down, but it seems to me to be too important to leave out of the main biography section. Tjtenor2 04:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If Jesus truly gave Peter (stone or Rock), the Keys to Heaven and earth; would this not put Peter on the same footing as Jesus? If he bound something on earth, God would have to do as Peter said and bound it in Heaven? This would mean the Pope is currently on the same footing as God? The way people 'worship' him when he ventures out, it looks like it. Also, Peter did not do the primary, or most of the 'teaching' of Gods Word... if he was the foundation, he should have done the majority of teaching Gods Word1?! Peter was and is only human, God would not have built His Church on such a sandy foundation. After He tells the disciples what will happen, Peter speaks, and He then tells 'Satan to get back'... some foundation to build a Church. Now before I get a few thousand emails for blasphemy, let me say this... I currently belong to the ELCA, which is currently morally and spiritual bankrupt, in part thanks to Bishop Hanson, the leading Antichrist of the ELCA. He and his followers have taken us back to what we had escaped from... partly the 1662 Act of Uniformity. Can some one explain to me "The queen of Heaven" and how Catholics view this? One last thing; considering the history of the Catholic Church, do they really think they are God's Church? Please feel free to email me, I only search for the truth, if it is backed by Gods Word. Richard Douglas (talk) 01:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Birth Year (date)

Is there any available scholarship (or credible speculation) on St Peter's birth year (date)?

We can assume that he was an approximate contemporary of Jesus and the other disciples, but he could be from 0~10 years younger to 0~15 years older than Jesus. - Peter Ellis - Talk 00:45, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Odd category

Does the category "Jewish popes" have any encyclopedic relevance? Antique Rose 06:04, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Peter was Jewish. Possibly others among the early popes will be found to be Jewish as well. The original idea was to separate out the non-Italian popes. This was considered particularly significant for French popes, a fairly large group. Student7 10:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

How many Jewish popes are there? Isn't the pope a Christian by definition? Antique Rose 02:45, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

It depends on how you define "Jewish". Is it a religion, or a lineage? Bytebear 05:04, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I guess some people don't use "categories." They roll up. If you press on a desired category at the bottom of the page, it rolls up into a higher category. The category that "Jewish pope" rolled up into was a category containing popes of other nationalities, for people who care about such things. We are category minded. Enjoy filing. (I know. I know). Anyway, I had my crack at it. Let someone else try. I guess it would upset people who hate categories to find that their city is in it's own category. If it is a small place, maybe the only member of that category.Student7 13:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Badly misplaced focus

The article strives mightily to maintain balance between Catholic claims to authority (based on Peter) versus various Protestant objections, devoting an inordinant amount of space to the question. In the process, the editors seem to have lost sight of the fact that the arguments would have completely mystified poor Peter, who wouldn't have hadn't any clue what they were all about.

Friends: to do justice to the man w need to deal with his frame of reference. Everything else would be better taken up in alt.relgion.catholic-protestant-legitimacy (I made that address up, but you get the idea.)

--Philopedia 23:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Category:Jewish Christians

Peter is the only one out of the original disciples listed in the category "Jewish Christians". I would think that either all the disciples should be put under this category, or it should be stripped from Peter's article.

Saint Paul is also listed in this category, but given how central his conversion story is to his biography, I can see how he should remain, even if Peter is removed.

--RunnerupNJ 22:32, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Blatant Vandalism

I am quite baffled by the blatantly wrong Peter image shown for this article. Next time, if you have a legitimate edit to make, please make sure the article is free from at least obvious vandalism, like you know, having a photograph of a modern man with shirt and all as opposed to a classical painting of some sort. Otherwise it becomes tedious trying to find which version to revert to. Tourskin (talk) 05:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

--- I changed the photo from "peter ryan" to nothing. I don't know who put "peter ryan" up, but I felt nothing was better than a completely false picture of saint peter. I don't know how to upload photos here, I will leave it to someone else to fix it. —Precedingunsigned comment added by 24.253.77.90 (talk) 06:10, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, but I was directing my message to some of the registered users who had been moving the page to another title and ignoring this.Tourskin (talk) 02:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Commented out paragraph

I commented out the following paragraph:

===Title as First Bishop of Rome and not Pope===
There are a matter of complaints in other Churches that Peter was indeed the first Bishop of Rome but he was not the first Pope. This is because in the first Church all Bishops were all equal. When the West left the East in the Great Schism the Bishop of Rome then became known as a "Pope". Therefore the Roman Catholic Church was not the first original Church as the proof above tells us. This proof is from Orthodox Info.

My reason for doing so was twofold: first of all, the linked reference is only to the homepage of the Website Orthodoxinfo.com, and not to any article the editor believes substantiates his claims. Second of all, the statement is innacurate. The Orthodox Church does not have any problem with the use of the title "Pope". The Bishops of Rome used this title prior to the East-West Schism, and there is no historical evidence of objection by the Eastern Patriarchs. The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria is also called Pope, even to this day. MishaPan(talk) 15:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Well done. Leadwind (talk) 04:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Page needs a lot of work

I've given the lead a good going over because that's the most important part of an article, and because I've got a lot of experience with leads. The rest of the page needs work, too. There's lots of well-intentioned information with no proper sourcing, and it's going to have to go if no one can find references for it. Leadwind (talk) 13:45, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Uncited material

I deleted this paragraph.

In the early Greek versions of this exchange between the risen Jesus and Peter, Jesus asks whether Peter loves him unconditionally (ἀγάπος). Peter responds that he considers Jesus a friend (φίλος). The third time, Jesus asks whether Peter considers Jesus a friend (φίλος), and Peter responds that he considers Jesus a friend (φίλος). One interpretation of this is that Peter actually denies Jesus two more time (i.e., denies Jesus the unconditional love (ἀγάπος) that Jesus requests); Jesus "comes down" to Peter's level with the final request of mere friendship (φίλος). (<ref>See, for example, Thomas Keating's Awakenings -- http://www.contemplativeoutreach.org/awakenings/awake06.htm</ref>

Someone put a lot of work into this, and it sounds interesting, but the citation is not scholarly so not allowed. Can someone verify this interpretation? Leadwind (talk) 23:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Deleted, cited material

Soidi has cleaned up a fair bit of my work on the page. Thanks. This sentence also got deleted, and I think it should be reinstated.

In John's version of the Last Supper, Jesus washes the disciples' feet instead of instituting a new covenant in his body and blood (the bread and wine), as found in the synoptics.<ref name ="Harris">[[Stephen L Harris|Harris, Stephen L.]], Understanding the Bible. Palo Alto: Mayfield. 1985.</ref>

I don't think that the average reader understands that foot-washing appears instead of the body and blood covenant, which appears only in the synoptics.

That said, this deletion suggests that others' patience with my work is wearing thin, and maybe I should lay off this page for a while.Leadwind (talk) 13:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

There were two problems: the matter was off-topic, unrelated to St Peter; and it declared that Jesus washed feet instead of instituting the Eucharist (i.e., that Jesus did not in fact institute the Eucharist).

The source quoted must surely have meant that John described the washing of feet instead of describing the institution of the Eucharist.

Can we agree to remove it as off-topic, and so make irrelevant the question whether what Harris is quoted as saying (that Jesus washes the disciples' feet instead of doing something else) is so (at best) ambiguous that it requires adding a quotation or two for the view that it is by no means NPOV to assert that Jesus did not in fact institute the Eucharist. Lack of mention of an action is not the same as denyingthat it took place. Most people suppose there was no question of doing one action instead of the other.

So let us avoid a dogfight by removing what seems to be a bone of contention. OK? Soidi (talk) 12:09, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Confessio photo

It's currently captioned: "Looking down into the confessio containing Relics of Saint-Peter, Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome." Barring strenuous objection, I'm going to change this when I get a few minutes to figure out how to phrase it. The relics are kept elsewhere in the tomb complex. Pictured in the photo is the Niche of the Palliums. BLHersey (talk) 01:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Dont know what to name this

The article simply does not appear scholarly -- there's protestant & catholic biases throughout. It's unfortunate that wikipedia can't get this stuff right -- it's not hard & there's plenty of great info. This article should begin, like any good history, with what we know and how we know it. Like many religious figures, what we know is often limited to texts created long after the religious persona lived. if that's the case, and it is in the case of St. Peter just as it is in the case of Jesus Christ, it is very important to spell this out up front. Ie. "According to the New Testament, Saint Peter is an apostle of JC. . . In the writings of the early Christian scholars it is alleged that Peter journeyed to Rome and established a church . . "

As it stands, this entry does not remotely resemble decent scholarship. —Precedingunsigned comment added by 71.232.118.211 (talk) 01:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

FYI, random IP, new additions to the talk page are supposed to go at the bottom, which is why I moved it down here. Also - everything you complain about not being in the article is there last I checked. Might I suggest reading the whole thing? Your additions to the article are patently false and constitute vandalism of said article as has been explained to you multiple times already. Continued vandalism will result in this IP address being blocked, just as your other one already was. Farsight001 (talk) 02:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Although there has been some unnecessary edit warring recently, it seems to have raised a legitimate point i.e. that all traditions on Peter's death are not based on New Testament accounts and should therefore be dealt with at some other point in the article.

It seems to me that there are several schools of thought on Peter:-

1. He was martyred in Rome and was the first Pope (Catholic orthodoxy)

2. He was martyred in Rome but later Catholic claims about his importance are dubious (probably the dominant Protestant view)

3. The account in the Gospels and the Acts is accurate or largely accurate, but later accounts about him going to Rome are dubious (some radical Protestants)

4. He did end up in Rome but some later accounts of his death are dubious (one possible interpretation of the evidence)

5. All we can say for sure is that there was an early Christian leader called Peter who gets the odd mention in some of Paul's epistles (some radical revisionists).

With the possible exception of 4 I believe all these views are held by some people, so the article ought to reflect this, while avoiding giving undue weight to minority views. PatGallacher (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Peter at one point in his writings says "greetings from Babylon". The real Babylon being an abandoned settlement and the word "Babylon" being a common code word for Rome, many do believe that scripture quite clearly tells us that Peter was in Rome. Hence, to say that the new testament is silent in that regard is not exactly accurate. That's what the word "cryptic" was there for. As such, I would suggest changing it back, but will await reply. The other changes seem to be improvement though. Farsight001 (talk) 13:01, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Farsight, "Babylon" can mean the province as well as the city, and the province continued to be an important centre of Judaism, see eg Wikipedia on the Babylonian Talmud. So yes, the reference to "Babylon" meant Babylon and not Rome. Zythophile (talk) 16:37, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Notice that this article has become a bickering ground for the Protestant v. Catholic debate. There is very little in the document about the Orthodox Christian position, and they are not even mentioned in the discussions. Maybe if Western Christians stopped thinking with their narrow world view, the truth might come out? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.240.141.50 (talk) 19:06, 6 August 2011 (UTC) — 71.240.141.50 (talk •contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

You are more than welcome to contribute your own edits regarding the Orthodox point of view. Elizium23 (talk) 19:38, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

Syrian popes

What was the objection to putting him in this category? PatGallacher (talk) 15:46, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, the category mostly involved popes who are born in modern-day Syria, which he wasn't. Yazan (talk) 15:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Pebbles and mustard seeds

Antique Rose, please explain your reversion, and your qualifications for making it. —Preceding unsigned comment added byDctoedt (talk • contribs) 21:03, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I find the edit too argumentative. Antique Rose (talk) 21:18, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

There's nothing the least bit 'argumentative' about it; all it does is suggest a possibly-interesting comparison of two scriptural passages. I'm reverting the section to my old edit; if you're going to continue this back-and-forth over something so minor, please come up with a better justification. D. C. Toedt 23:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dctoedt (talk • contribs)

Better reason? Like how it's preachy? Or that it's original research? Mere speculation and grasping at straws? It doesn't belong in the article. There really is no justification to add it in the first place. If we stick in every interesting scriptural comparison, this article would be a complete mess. Like Schizophrenic mess. Farsight001 (talk) 01:06, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

63.3.22.3

The user at the above IP was clearly making some POV edits, and I, being oddly entertained by such forms of vandalism, was looking back through the edits to see how many times he/she did it and I noticed that citations (notes) 18 and 19 seem to be inappropriate for sources. 18 is a random blog, and 19 is, last I checked, an anti-Catholic hate site. Is there any reason for them to stay?Farsight001 (talk) 09:39, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The actual citation for notes 18 and 19 seem fine. The problem stems from the additional references appended onto the notes. Why was this done? It certainly isn't proper Wikipedia style to append a secondary link onto a reference note, much less a reference which bears little or no relation to the work cited in the note. Both appended references should be removed simply for that reason alone. Not the notes for 18 and 19, just the "a more populat account..." links. The appended reference on note 18 is indeed to a blog and is, therefore, also outside standard Wikipedia style and practices. The blog does contain a link to an actual Atlantic Monthly article which might make a good additional reference - in the proper place. The additional reference appended to note 19 doesn't seem to me to be anti-Catholic in any way. I wouldn't know, being an atheist, I suppose. Maybe I'm misreading the link somehow? In any case, it might be acceptable if put in the proper location in the article itself, rather than appended to an unrelated note. Age Happens (talk) 10:21, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Ah. I see now. I just noticed the links and wasn't reading the actual citations. The reference appended to 19 certainly is anti-Catholic - not the page itself - that's surprisingly neutral sounding, but the website as a whole. It's pretty much to the Jack Chick level of anti-Catholic. And 18 is to a blog, but as you noticed, it linked to a potentially good source. Since you placed that link in your post, I'm going to go ahead and remove the appended references for 18 and 19. If you don't mind, please check and make sure I did it properly. I'm not too good with citation formatting. Farsight001 (talk) 22:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I pulled that off just fine. Also wanted to point out in case anyone felt the need to re-add them in some way - those were listed as "more popular accounts", and I'm pretty sure that they're not.Farsight001 (talk) 22:07, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me! Thanks for taking care of it! Age Happens (talk) 13:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

It is so annoying how often Catholics jump onto the "They are Anti-Catholic Bigots" bandwagon. They want to live in their own bubble world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by71.240.141.50 (talk) 19:09, 6 August 2011 (UTC) — 71.240.141.50 (talk •contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Peter

lubit li memnya aliko —Preceding unsigned comment added by95.104.104.185 (talk) 09:25, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Peter

lubit li memnya aliko —Preceding unsigned comment added by95.104.104.185 (talk) 09:28, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Non-Catholic Patronned institutions listed

Bath Abbey is an Anglican Church, and I suspect many of the instituitions listed are not Catholic, so I removed "In Roman Catholic religious doctrine and tradition, " and asked for a much needed reference.

Bainrc (talk) 18:01, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it.Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was no consensus to move  Skomorokh, barbarian  10:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Saint Peter → Peter the Apostle — This is dictated by the Wikipedia naming convention on use of the honorific "Saint". Afaprof01 (talk) 21:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

“ Saints go by their most common English name, minus the "Saint", unless they are only recognisable by its inclusion. For example,Paul of Tarsus, Ulrich of Augsburg but Saint Patrick. (See also List of saints.) Make redirects from forms with "St.", "St", and "Saint". Popes who are also saints are given their papal name, with a redirect from the forms with "Saint". For example, Pope Pius X, with redirects from Pope Saint Pius X and other forms. ”

• Agree with the move to "Peter the Apostle." "Simon Peter the Apostle" is also appropriate, so long as alternatives are redirected to the main article. It's time for this last of the 12 apostles articles to be brought into conformity with the Wiki naming convention. Peter was known as "Saint" only in the Catholic, Eastern and Anglican traditions. Oberlin (talk) 01:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)
• Disagree, on the whole. It's like "Saint Patrick": even the jokes about him, told by Presbyterians, Lutherans etc., would be less intelligible if "Saint Peter" were replaced by "Peter the Apostle". Soidi (talk) 05:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

To be fair, it makes no difference how common "their most common English name" is. The naming convention is "most common English name, minus the 'Saint'." ^{Carlaude:Talk} 01:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

By "most common English name, minus the 'Saint'", you obviously don't mean we should move the article to "Peter". Soidi (talk) 12:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

No. The proposal says: Move to Simon Peter or to Peter the Apostle Afaprof01 (talk) 17:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• Very strongly oppose; this is exactly the class of case for which the exception about Saint Patrick was written. This disruptive editor has been campaigning at a whole slew of articles, and not waiting for consensus. Please stop. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

• Move to Simon Peter or to Peter the Apostle. Either of these terms are clear. This is not like Saint Patrick, in that Patrick cannot very well be called Patrick the Apostle or called Maewyn Succat Patrick (Maewyn Succat was his original name but when he became a priest, he decided to take Patrick as his Christian name. This is so underknown, however, that the fact is not anywhere even in his Wikipedia article.) Simon, as some of you recall, was Peter's name before Jesus gave him a new one. Afterward, people in the Bible, use either name for him. Unlike with Maewyn Succat, even when people today do not recall the origin of Simon Peter's two names -- they will be able to recall their/its meaning. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 01:00, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• Simon Peter would be unambiguous; it is distinctly less common than Saint Peter, and the implicit assertion that it is generally used of the subject is open to doubt. Neither name is contemporary, but with Saint Peter this is obvious, whereas Simon Peter is misleading. Both these are secondary but persuasive reasons. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• St. Peter is ambiguous. See the long list at St. Peter (disambiguation). I find Simon Peter to be common (among we who may really look up this person) and unambiguous.^{Carlaude:Talk} 19:35, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
• On Google there are 22,500 hits for "Maewyn Succat", 19,200 hits for "Patrick of Ireland" and 3,180,000 hits for "Saint Patrick", about a hundred times more. Thus we use Saint Patrick over and against the standard practice.
• But on Google there are 2,380,000 for "Peter the Apostle" but only 2,310,000 hits for "Saint Peter"-- the so-called more common name. "Simon Peter" has 598,000 hits. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 02:02, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

And 11 million for "St. Peter". What's your point?Farsight001 (talk) 02:43, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but many of the "St. Peter" hits will really be in reference to a church or school, etc., that is named for him. The point is that "Peter the Apostle" and "Simon Peter" are very common names for the person, and it is thus totally unlike the case for Patrick. ^{Carlaude:Talk} 11:25, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

• Disagree. For non-Christian adherents who are only marginally familiar with his name or proper application of the honorific, it will only cause confusion. For Christians, I believe the article should be maintained with his most common name along with the honorific, although much argument could conceivably ensue (witness the discussion at hand). Alan (talk) 01:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• How many sedevacantists will there need to be before we remove the title Pope from Benedict XVI and John Paul II according to this argument? The most common name seen in English-language texts is Saint Peter; that's what most of our readers will have seen before coming here, no matter what their belief in the figure's sainthood. Oppose, Knepflerle (talk) 11:09, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it.Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This may be relevant to other discussions about other saints. Just who are the denominations who recogise him as an apostle but not a saint. Are they very marginal? PatGallacher (talk) 12:40, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It is relevant, but then there is the question as to how many churches recognize saints in any sort of official sense, and how many use the word in some sort of unofficial, "accepting the standard usage" tense. With the exception of the Anglicans and Lutherans, so far as I can tell, few of the so-called Protestant groups have formal recognition of saints, but some still use the word anyway as an honorific. John Carter (talk) 20:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Move?

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it.Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was once more, not done.  Skomorokh, barbarian  11:05, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

---

Saint Peter → ? —

• Continuation of a discussion that started on my user talk page. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 13:39, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
• Religious People! A poorly written c-class article that needs a lot of work...and we spend all that energy fighting over the name!? No good deed goes unpunished. Let this be a lesson to you. - Ret.Prof (talk) 12:30, 18 October 2009 (UTC) -Why isn't Paul of Tarsus ‎ named St. Paul? - Go figure.
• I saw no reason to move in the section above; I see none now. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:26, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
• As before: how many sedevacantists will there need to be before we remove the title Pope from Benedict XVI and John Paul II according to this argument? The most common name seen in English-language texts is Saint Peter; that's what most of our readers will have seen before coming here, no matter what their belief in the figure's sainthood. Oppose, Knepflerle (talk) 15:31, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
• The problem is that there are several names that are correct. I tend to use titles IE President Obama, St. Peter, St. Paul, Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ ete. therefore, I am happy with "Saint Peter". However Wikipedia tends to use the proper name, which is probably more appropriate, (NPOV) for many do not accept Jesus as the Christ or Peter's' sainthood. - Ret.Prof (talk) 17:03, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose move for two reasons:

• I cannot see any good reason to consider such a move until a specific alternate name is given, which has not yet happened, which would be I think required to be able to reasonably apply WP:NAME
• Even then, however, I think that this may well be the best name for this article as per that page. There are a number of English speakers who will not be particularly familiar with Christianity, and for whom Simon Peter or other names are not easily understandable. However, I think even they may have heard of Saint Peter's Basilica and the like, and for them using this name would probably be the most intuitive. John Carter (talk) 20:29, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

• Oppose: "Saint Peter" is the most commonly used name for this person. Majoreditor (talk) 21:57, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose: I just looked through the reference texts in my office, including the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, and they all list this topic under Saint Peter. - Ret.Prof (talk) 23:54, 18 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose St. Peter is a primary common name in Christian world in some Christian countries. ApprenticeFan ^talkcontribs 02:24, 19 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. — CIS ^(talk |stalk) 22:39, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
• Oppose like or not, agree or not, be Christian or not (and I'm not), Saint Peter is the common name for this person in the English language and this is the English wiki (or supposed to be). And to be very honest: I hate this use of 'npov and neutrality excuses' to hide a sneaky political correctness campaign. Some English names, expressions, and the most popular dating system have Christian origins. So does "bless you" when someone sneezes. Don't like it? Then use a diffrent language. Just because many of us (including myself) are non-Christians doesn't mean that we are obliged to "neutralize" and twist the English language along political correct lines. Stuff political correctness and stuff this kind of so-called "neutrality". Flamarande (talk) 09:22, 24 October 2009 (UTC) PS: a political correct language = Newspeak

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it.Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Some Material is Plagiarized from what Sources?

Where is the 2nd paragraph plagiarized from? From what source or sources? It is obviously plagiarized since no one has used language like that in a hundred years... Much of it also appears misleading... Stevenmitchell (talk) 23:48, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Connection to Rome Section

Of all the sections of Wikipedia articles I have seen, the 'Connection to Rome' part of this article ranks among the worst. See this horrible piece of self-conflict:

Irenaeus of Lyons believed in the second century that Peter and Paul had been the founders of the Church in Rome and had appointed Linus as succeeding bishop.[31][32] The notion that Peter was the first bishop of Rome and founded the Christian church there can be traced back no earlier than the third century.[44][neutrality is disputed]

Not only should nothing with disputed neutrality even be in an article, but it blatantly conflicts with a point backed by verified neutral sources a few lines above. And then this:

The study of the New Testament offers no proof that Jesus established the papacy nor even that he established Peter as the first bishop of Rome.[45][neutrality is disputed]

Assuming that this was a serious edit and not Protestant spam, but why is this even in and stated as a fact? Like most Biblical arguments, it's a matter of opinion based on interpretation.

92.232.174.184 22.1.10 18:13 GMT —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.232.174.184 (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

You're quite right that the section presented contradictory ideas, and, while I haven't looked into the source whose neutrality was disputed, I am also sure that it was not the best WP:RS available. So I've removed those claims backed up by the disputed reference, and I have used the recent BMCR review of Otto Zwierlein's Petrus in Rom, which, while its arguments will certainly not win universal agreement, is certainly a work whose scholarly integrity is unimpeachable, and thus serves as a better representative of the critical scholarship that raises questions about the reliability and solidity of the traditions that Peter was in Rome. Wareh (talk) 19:59, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

Revert

I recovered the edits made earlier. Both Non-Lutheran and Lutheran view on Papacy shall be presented on equal footing. And I can't see how "non-encyclopedic/unreliable" the original edit was. Instead, I smell Catholic POV. MainBody (talk) 09:10, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

And I smell anti-Catholic POV. Seriously, that is not how wikipedia works. Both lutheran and non-lutheran view on the Papacy shall be presented on equal footing? First of all, that's blatantly contrary to policy. Second, it sounds like you're violating WP:OWN and third, your position of having it half Lutheran is ridiculous. Why half Lutheran? What about the dozens of other denominations? Do you honestly think that Lutherans deserve half the article and every other denomination has to split the rest of it among themselves? Get real.

Plus, like I explained in the revert of what you added the first time, it's definitely not in an encyclopedic tone.Farsight001 (talk) 12:21, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for such informative and useful sources, but wrong guess, I am not going to have it exactly half-half. I am talking about whether we include non-Lutheran sources on the whole context of Jesus-Peter conversation. Let's examine your accusation:

• Non-Lutheran Christians also reject the Catholic teaching on Peter's status, saying that Peter himself was hardly the Rock because at the same time Jesus criticized Peter, in the same chapter of the Gospel of Matthew:

So, where is the non-encyclopedia tone/"Anti-Catholicism"? you point it out and I will fixe it.

• Jesus turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men'. (Matthew 16:23)

Are you saying the word of Christ is Anti-Catholic? Jesus criticizing Peter is Anti-Catholic?

• The apologists claim that it's impossible for Jesus to build a church upon a Satanic stumbling block. Jesus's comment is thus about Peter's confession instead of Peter himself.Bible commentaries also states that the Bible verse of Galatians 2:11 clearly rejects Peter's Primacy claimed by Catholic church.

So, talking about "Distinction between Protestantism and Catholicism" is Anti-Catholic? Show me where's the non-encyclopedic tone. I'm ok with rephrasing.

Farsight001, showing readers the whole context is one of the best ways to reach NPOV. Please offer your clarification, as honestly I still have impression that the reverts are simply echoing the RCC propagandists. I call that "POV-pushing".

MainBody (talk) 06:55, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Where do I even begin? They don't "say". They "claim". And "was not the rock" is far more npov than "was hardly the rock". Plus a citation would be nice and some explanation of exactly why Jesus criticizing Peter means he couldn't be the rock would be helpful too. The quotation from scripture you added is then there to make an obvious point. Then in the next paragraph, you use words like "satanic stumblingblock" to refer to Peter. Then in the next sentence, you make a statement of fact when it is instead an opinion. Then you use the rather generic "bible commentaries", which is to open and certainly not universally true. I'd say a good half of the bibles in existence would say otherwise about those verses. I know mine does. Add to that the questionable sources you used, and that whole paragraph really just doesn't belong. Then you continue with the OR and the SYNTH by providing more verses and interpreting them yourself.

And just so you know, in every religious discussion I have ever participated in or watched online, the first one to do the accusing of propaganda is the propagandist. So telling me I'm echoing the "RCC propagandists" doesn't help you case any, especially since there's no such thing.Farsight001 (talk) 05:36, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Blatantly wrong, as an analogy, first wikipedians pointing out POV are hardly POV starters. I smell Catholic POV-pushing or propaganda, just because I saw people inserting RCC apologetic view in this Protestant view section and it is absolutely inappropriate and weird. I welcome Catholic apologetic responses, but at least not in this Protestant view section.

BTW, on v23 I added a one-piece WELS reference which comes with NPOV wordings- MainBody (talk) 08:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're just going to ignore the reasons I gave for why your additions were unacceptable, I'm just going to ignore your excuses for making your changes and blindly revert.Farsight001 (talk) 12:30, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

IP: 63.3.4.2

IP 63.3.4.2, I would like to see your reasons for why we should accept the re-factoring of entire sections. Frankly, I can see at a glance that your edits are heavily biased to be critical of the subject, which is why they are being reverted. --Pstanton (talk) 08:55, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Was Peter Bishop of Antioch?

There is no evidence that monarchical "bishops" existed in the early apostolic age. Acts 15 is clearly against it. Thus, Peter was never any bishop over a city church so early as Antioch. Neither is there any proof that Peter was ever a monarchal bishop anywhere ever. Also, there is no proof that Peter was a founder of the Church at Antioch. The citation of an orthodox modern website is not a reliable source. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EnochBethany (talk • contribs) 17:33, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

First - that you disagree with what it says is in no way a valid reason to remove a sourced statement without discussion first. In fact, it borders on disruptive editing.

Second - many reliable sources, which is really all wikipedia cares about, indicated that there most certainly is evidence of bishops. In fact, many sources consider the apostles to simply be the very first bishops.Farsight001 (talk) 19:40, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Why is this page unprotected?

Just look at the edit history. It's like a nuthouse around here. Varlaam (talk) 22:17, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Universal church?

In the "Patronage" table, St. Peter is called patron of the Universal Church, which is a link piped to "Christian Universalism." However, these are two different things. The Catholic understanding of the universal church is the communion of all 23 churches under the Roman Pontiff, and its patron is St. Joseph. As far as I know, the Universalist Church does not go by the name "Universal Church." So perhaps we should say "Universalist" instead, if that is actually what we mean. Elizium23 (talk) 15:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I noticed that too. Saint Joseph is the universal patron of the Church., not Saint Peter. LoveforMary (talk) 19:06, 3 February 2012 (UTC)LoveforMary

Historicity

Can anyone provide information on his history outside of new testament sources? — Precedingunsigned comment added by Phreed100 (talk •contribs) 13:47, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

The Apocrypha and many texts like Deuterocanonical texts (ex. Banned From the Bible 1 + 2 History explains the texts in video form) tell of how Peter is executed on a cross upside down. However, many christians do not believe most things outside of the bible. In any case, there are several texts ommited from the new testament. These texts you may find what you are looking for. ~~Darien

Dubious

The picture of Peter striking Malchus is bogus. It falsely shows Peter about to strike his left ear. Both Luke 22:50 and John 18:10 say he "cut off his right ear". A downward stroke would continue into his neck or shoulder.
—Telpardec (talk) 18:35, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Agreed - ~Darien — Preceding unsigned comment added by173.190.5.127 (talk) 08:41, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

bishop's office likely didn't exist in the time of St Peter..

In the forth line, Saint Peter is credited with having been the bishop of Antioch. The source given, is clearly written by a true believer, with little regard for the fact that the currently used terms are the outcome of centuries of re-interpreting a very limited pool of original (mostly oral for decades) information. The mistake made, is that the institution of Bishop, (being the highest authority on his own, above that of the council of elders) was created most likely at least a century later. (Source: see the Wiki-lemma on Bishop) By retrospectively naming St Peter a bishop, one suggests that absolute church power in one hand was already normal by that time. But this is most likely untrue; churches were then run by a council of elders, in which the leader of this council was at best a primus inter paribus (first among equals.)

By calling St Peter a bishop, the false suggestion is given that the hierarchical, one guy is the boss-structure of the catholic church was created by its first generation of leaders, which is a clear example of what historians call a 'mythe d'origine' , a mythical story, unproven but presented as a fact, used to explain and justify a current power-structure.

Shall we replace bishop with 'council-leader', or, to keep it simple. 'leader'?Pieter Felix Smit (talk) 12:37, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

I would agree. I think the best change is just to say something like "tradition holds that he founded the church in Antioch and was an early leader" and leave it at that since his later involvement in Antioch cannot be corroborated. Ckruschke (talk)Ckruschke

Done something like that. Johnbod (talk) 22:15, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Names and etymology section

I have to confess, I've read this three times and still don't understand what it's saying. Could someone please rewrite it?--Dweller (talk) 15:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

What the !!@%#%$ happened to the Names and Etymologies section??? It wasn't like that before. Please revise it and make it more English-friendly. I am not opposed to having Hebrew Characters, but it is so difficult to read and to look at! LoveforMary (talk) 19:00, 3 February 2012 (UTC)LoveforMary

What happened most recently was that you removed most of it, without a clear edit summary. I have rewritten most of it, & put the Hebrew/Syriac detail into notes, for those who understand that stuff. Johnbod (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Well its nice that you can speak Hebrew or Syriac, because I don't. Thanks for cleaning up their mess. LoveforMary (talk) 22:13, 3 February 2012 (UTC)LoveforMary

Don't worry, I don't either! Johnbod (talk) 22:14, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Resurrection appearance to Peter

this statement: "Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians[23] contains a list of resurrection appearances of Jesus, the first of which is an appearance to Peter.[24] Here Paul apparently follows an early tradition that Peter was the first to see the risen Christ,[6] which however did not seem to have survived to the time when the Gospels were written.[25]"

Is contradicted by Luke 24:34. — Preceding unsigned comment added by71.128.192.142 (talk) 17:03, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Jesus in Islam

The article mentions Muslims seeing Ali as vicegerent to Mohammed the prophet similar to Peter as vicegerent to Jesus the prophet and Messiah, but Muslims don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They see him as a prophet, one of three great ones, Mohammed and Moses being the other two, and Mohammed being the most important. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.76.245.253 (talk) 20:33, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Agree. I found the sentence and editted it as follows: "Likewise, they see Peter as the vicegerent, behind Jesus."Ckruschke (talk) 17:02, 3 April 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke

If Muslims do not believe Isa to be Masih, then how do we explain the facts given in those articles? Complete hoaxes?Elizium23 (talk) 18:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll take your word for it. Seems obvious to me that Muslims wouldn't see Christ as the Messiah, but what do I know I'm not Muslim...Ckruschke (talk) 18:50, 3 April 2012 (UTC)Ckruschke

In Islam Jesus is perhaps the most important of Prophets after Muhammed (PbuH) and held in very high regard. Mythic Writerlord (talk) 18:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Mythology category?

This article presents a lot of unfounded nonsense about a possibly fictional character as if it absolutely true. What it does is describe a mythological character, and perhaps could have a section on possible historicity. Otherwise it's pretty much a religious page that takes all the myths as true and never mentions that they might not be. Huw Powell (talk) 04:53, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Octagonal Church - Orthodox or Catholic?

This article indicates that the Octagonal Church over the house of St. Peter in Capernaum is Franciscan, which would mean that it is Catholic. It could be Eastern Catholic... but there are no Franciscans in Orthodoxy, right? Elizium23 (talk) 05:27, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Saint Peter vs. Peter (disciple of Jesus)

I understand that Saint Peter is a very common way to refer to this man and that this would therefore be appropriate due to Wikipedia's common name rule; however, is there anything to be said about objectivity being placed above the common name? The "saint" title is subjective to certain Christian traditions, many people referring to this man regularly as simply "Peter" and not "Saint Peter". Latter-day Saints, many Protestants, and Muslims are among those who do not use the "saint" title while still referring to this man. I posit that this article should be titled Peter (disciple of Jesus) but won't put a move request in until I get a little feedback. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 14:43, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Cannot believe!

I cannot believe that someone just came into this article and hijacked all the treasure of information that was here. They were not biased! They were just information which were encyclopedic, verifiable and in consensus among Wikipedian editors.

So sad that someone who obviously has a liberal progressive anti-Catholic bias gets to come in and "REMOVE" all the details on Saint Peter on the InfoBox, as well as "neutralize" the lead paragraph. Estoy triste! LimosaCorel (talk) 16:53, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

You may have missed the fact that the very detailed infobox on Peter as a saint was not removed from the article, but rather was moved down to the Patronage section. The material in the box seems like a good fit in that section of the article.--Srleffler (talk) 23:33, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

do us all a favour and just remove the Roman Catholic associations to Saint Peter on the lead paragraph. Make it as atheist-friendly as possible. While you're at it, have the Wikipedian courts draw a constitution of Separation of Church and State on this article. You people make me sick to my stomach. Moving down the infobox, with its treasured information open to any reader on the suspicion of bias and "neutrality" is bullcrap. I wouldn't be goddamn surprised to just read the article one day as "Peter, follower of Jesus and THATS IT." You people know exactly what and WHO i mean. LimosaCorel (talk) 09:13, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

You're not really representing your church very well by writing with this angry and uncivil tone. Nobody has said that the infobox was moved because of any bias or neutrality issue. It was moved because the documentation for that particular infobox says that it belongs in the section of the article on the veneration of the saint, if there is such a section. --Srleffler (talk) 15:01, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

LimosaCorel, whether I am (or anyone else is) a "liberal progressive anti-Catholic" or not—something which I, personally, am not—would make no difference as to what objectivity is in this situation. I understand the strong feelings you have towards your presumably Roman Catholic faith; however, not everyone is a Roman Catholic and, therefore, this article must be accessible to all. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 19:36, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you people just remove the whole article since these liberalist editors wish to get rid of anything that pertains to religion claiming it is "Bias". People are not stupid, they come here to LEARN, not necessarily be immersed into religious doctrine but you cannot deprve them of the rich history and details of the Apostle Peter simply because you disdain the Catholic and Orthodox churches... sad!!!!! We don't do this to our Muslim articles, why commit them here. Incroyable!!!!!! LimosaCorel (talk) 16:57, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Limosa's remarks that someone tries to remove needed information. The current infobox is meaningless (just his picture and dates), while the other one had meaningful information [1]. I will move it up to the lead. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 11:53, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

I see that there are many parameters in {{Infobox Christian leader}}, so why not using them? --Tomcat (7) 11:55, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Infobox saint was moved to another section of the article, per the instructions in the documentation of that template, so no information was removed from the article. --JFH (talk) 14:10, 17 February 2013 (UTC

To say that this man is primarily a saint is to express bias towards certain Christian traditions. If Protestantism, Mormonism, Islam, and various other faiths did not exist, the case for keeping this man's name with the "Saint" title, as well as having a saint infobox as the primary source of information in the lead, would be stronger. The reality is though that these groups do exist, and it is therefore improper to primarily designate this man a saint. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 19:31, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Limosa...for using such a denigrating term — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.66.140.122 (talk) 17:21, 17 February 2013 (UTC)

Let us please keep this discussion civil. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 19:36, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Lead picture

Hello,

can we please replace the lead picture with that one? Regards.--Tomcat (7) 11:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

It's a very early icon, but a bit battered, and with a small head for an infobox unless cropped. Something less Papal would be good in the lead, & the Rubens could fill a gap lower down. this detail has a good size]]. There are images from the Catacombs of Rome which are the earliest, and where he already has the appearance his images were to keep. Johnbod (talk) 14:19, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree that a less papal picture would be preferable. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 19:39, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 3

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Not moved due to lack of consensus. Editors are divided about which version is the most common name, and whether "Saint" is a honorific to avoid.  Sandstein  20:22, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

---

Saint Peter → Peter (disciple of Jesus) – "Saint Peter"—while a very common name—is subjective to certain Christian traditions and is avoidable. Using Peter (disciple of Jesus) is objective, neutral, and suitable to all. The parenthetical clarification is used in articles such as Mary (mother of Jesus) and Michael (archangel). Many people regularly refer to this man without referring to him as "Saint Peter", including Latter-day Saints and many Protestants. Wikipedian77 (talk) 15:00, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Please read WP:COMMONNAME. Article names follow that. Move was also discussed just above and rejected. History2007 (talk) 15:11, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

By the way, this seems part of a larger sequence of requested moves by this user, may need a few of these to help. History2007 (talk) 15:17, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• Strong oppose what History2007 said. --Dweller (talk) 15:15, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
• Comment History2007, I'm working hard to try and make Wikipedia more objective and neutral. Undermining these discussions is not appreciated. I also very much oppose the notion that historical Wikipedia decisions should dictate the fate of articles for the rest of the livelihood of Wikipedia. Objectivity should always be placed above Wikipedia politics, and I frankly am uncomfortable with this article title as I do not revere this man as a "Saint" nor would I ever refer to him as "Saint Peter". For some situations, this is inevitable (such as the "Boston Massacre"); however, for this article, Peter (disciple of Jesus) is available and is a more reasonable and objective name. A great parallel to this is that the article for "Saint Mary" is titled Mary (mother of Jesus). —Wikipedian77 (talk) 15:27, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't regard this Peter as a "Saint" any more than I regard his namesake as "Great", but COMMONNAME is sensible and well-established as Wikipedia policy. If I saw a Wikipedia article on "Peter (disciple of Jesus)", I'd assume it was about some other less-well known disciple called Peter that we have an article about in addition to one about the very famous disciple pretty much universally known as "Saint Peter". --Dweller (talk) 15:45, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The long and short of it is that WP:COMMONNAME rules. History2007 (talk) 15:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

How does that explain the article title "Mary (mother of Jesus)" or "Michael (archangel)" when Saint Mary and Saint Michael are certainly the recognizable names of these respective persons? —Wikipedian77 (talk) 15:54, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I've never heard of her being called that, and only heard of him being called that in the context of Marks and Spencer. But assuming you're right, that's an WP:OTHERSTUFF argument that suggests we address those articles, not this one. --Dweller (talk) 15:58, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, in the section just above here, he directly acknowledged the COMMONNAME to be Saint Peter - so that discussion is over. Policy is clear: needs to use the COMMONNAME. The move request will fail per policy. My last comment here - unwatching now. History2007 (talk) 16:01, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I understand "Saint Peter" to be a very common way to address this man, but so is simply "Peter". I did not acknowledge it as the most common way. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 16:50, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Any support from users who want to see the highest possible amount of objectivity in Wikipedia article titles? —Wikipedian77 (talk) 16:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
• Support COMMONNAME means we use the most common name in reliable source, of which there are many for this subject. This, this, this, and this use Peter, without Saint. I don't see much/any discussion of reliable sources in previous discussions. --JFH (talk) 16:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

That would imply that this article should be at Peter, with that page moved to, say, Peter (disambiguation). Not to Peter (disciple of Jesus) --Dweller (talk) 16:17, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I would agree that this Peter is the primary topic for Peter and would support that. But if I can't get that, I'd point out that Saint is not a helpful disambiguation because there are a lot of them. There is only one Peter (disciple of Jesus) and only one Peter the Apostle (I'd support either). --JFH (talk) 16:20, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I would be totally fine with "Peter". —Wikipedian77 (talk) 16:48, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - (ec) I see the problem, but think that the proposed new name is not a solution I can support. Coming from a Protestant background, I only found the article via redirect, and imagine it's even worse for people without any Christian background to associate a meaning to "Saint". Unfortunately, the same is true for "disciple", rather a technical Christian term also, whereas every reader will understand "mother (of Jesus)". Peter (Bible)? - The current lead says "Simon Peter, also known as Saint Peter", - also known, no more! It does not try to explain or at least link Saint. How can that be the article name? --Gerda Arendt (talk) 16:23, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't believe disciple is a solely Christian term; however, I understand that Peter may be the best name for the article. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 16:53, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support - per WP:FIVEPILLARS

Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view.

WP:HONORIFIC and WP:NPOV both override WP:COMMONNAME, just as COMMONNAME is often overridden for various other reasons, and just as we don't have Mahatma Gandhi even though that is the COMMONNAME, or Sri Satya Sai Baba which is also COMMONNAME. Peter may be the best name since the name was coined for this one individual, which can't be said of Andrew (apostle) Matthew (evangelist) and so on. Failing Peter as 1st choice, Peter (apostle), Peter (disciple), Peter (disciple of Jesus) are also possible and all preferable to the current title. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:35, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Also, even if the above wasn't the case, if we check print sources "Saint Peter" isn't in fact COMMONNAME after all, more suprisingly a search shows "Saint Peter" doesn't come even remotely close.

SEARCH["Saint Peter was"] = 38,000x but a glitsch with GoogleBooks cannot distinguish "-Saint_Peter's was" which means that only 13-15,000 or so are really for "Saint Peter was" the other 25,000 are "Saint Peter's was" being miscaught.

SEARCH["Peter was" disciple OR apostle -Saint] = 102,000x. In other words 7-8x as many for apostle/disciple Peter than calling the original man Saint Peter.

So in conclusion "Saint Peter" isn't COMMONNAME, it's only the name for dozens of Churches named after the man who isn't called Saint Peter in most print sources.

Summary: Even if COMMONNAME wasn't overridden by WP:HONORIFIC and WP:NPOV Saint Peter isn't COMMONNAME anyway. In ictu oculi (talk) 17:49, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

WP does not pretend that honorifics do not exist. If someone is called a Saint, Pope, or King, that is what we use. This has nothing to do with a neutral point of view, but is just what they are called. Apteva (talk) 19:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support a factual Peter (Apostle), as suggested above, and think other honorific "Saint" people should be treated similarly. But then please also Paul (Apostle) which is Paul the Apostle now, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 18:05, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I hadn't noticed that one, but Gerda is right about Paul the Apostle too, though the WP:HONORIFIC WP:NPOV is less blatant. In ictu oculi (talk) 18:12, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Right now "the Apostle" is dominant, see Category:Twelve Apostles. I'm not saying it's the best, but we might need to have an RfC or write a guideline or something. --JFH (talk) 18:19, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: It seems as though the users in support of changing the name of this article would prefer either simply "Peter" or Peter with a parenthetical clarification, e.g., "Peter (disciple)", "Peter (disciple of Jesus)", or "Peter (apostle)". For those in support, do you feel this accurately represents your views? Also, any further input on which of the aforementioned titles would be best? —Wikipedian77 (talk) 20:20, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
• Comment Apostle Peter ? -- 65.92.180.137 (talk) 22:45, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
• Support. The common name would just be "Peter", but this is a very common name, and should not be taken by any single individual; the next best thing is "Peter (disambiguator)"; this would do no harm as "Saint Peter" would continue redirecting to the page, and a hatnote would continue referencing the other Saint Peters. bd2412 T 23:02, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

You may have missed the fact that, while Peter is a very common name, all of the other Peters are named after this Peter.--Srleffler (talk) 02:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:NPOV. Peter is most commonly just called Peter. I would support moving the article simply to Peter as others have proposed, but would equally support Peter (disciple of Jesus) or Peter (apostle), both of which accurately and precisely disambiguate the name (unlike "Saint", which fails to completely disambiguate the term, and is not neutral).--Srleffler (talk) 02:46, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose current suggestion, but plain Peter would make sense. Saint Peter should continue to redirect. Johnbod (talk) 02:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose. Many works of art, toponyms and buildings are named after "Saint Peter", not "Peter" nor "Peter (disciple of Jesus)". Per History2007. José Luiz ^talk 08:26, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

That's irrelevant. The article subject is a person. I have not objection to Saint Peter in Art or Churches named after Saint Peter. But reliable sources tend to call this person Peter. --JFH (talk) 22:40, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Would you please clarify what do you mean by "reliable source"? I can agree with you that the Bible and several patristic sources call him "Peter" but there are many, many Theology books (from various christian denominations, as said before) that call him "Saint Peter" (not to say many lay ones also - magazines, periodics and the like for example). Are you implying that those sources are not reliable? Or, possibly, that the only reliable source on the matter is the Bible? José Luiz ^talk 23:00, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Not at all, I hope that's not how I'm being interpreted. The Bible is a PRIMARY source, and therefore requires interpretation. Besides, it's not in English. I provided several reliable sources above, chosen because they are cited in the article. I'm sure there are many which use Saint Peter, but it does not seem to be the majority. --JFH (talk) 23:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

According to whom, if I may ask? This one, for example, call him "Saint Peter the Apostle"... José Luiz ^talk 23:24, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

That is a good example of a reliable source, and I am glad that a reliable source has finally been provided for this position, though I would point out that it opts for both titles rather than just "Saint Peter." I have provided four sources above which do not use "Saint." In Ictu has done some statistical analysis using Google Books. I still don't think there's a good case for "Saint Peter." --JFH (talk) 23:30, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

JFH, it's not a popularity contest! I surely can provide you with very good sources (if Britannica is not enough - Bede, for ex.). I can easily agree with you about the vast majority of saints (including Saint Matthew), but not Peter (and probably Saint Patrick and a very few others). José Luiz ^talk 23:48, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it kind of is a popularity contest. According to WP:COMMONNAME, we need the most common name used in reliable sources. Bede, while an excellent primary source, probably wouldn't be considered a reliable source since he is so old. Also, once again, not in English so not helpful with respect to naming. --JFH (talk) 03:21, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I really think you are giving WP:COMMONNAME an undue importance, but we'll never agree on that here. About Bede, I really don't know to answer you. Almost all works from that time dealing with Theology were either in Latin or Greek.... And, based in what you think about old primary sources, is there anything about those people ("apostles") that can be sourced without the Bible, which is older, primary, and, by the way, also not written in English?José Luiz ^talk 22:42, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

What else would we use besides COMMONNAME? There are a ton of modern, reliable, English-language sources on this person, and those, according to COMMONNAME, are what we use. --JFH (talk) 23:07, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

As I said, we're not going to agree on that here (Britannica dsagrees with you, for instance). Even then, if the question is "popularity", I'm pretty sure that Saint Peter is much more popular than Peter simply because there are over two billion Catholics in the world... And more and more of them write in English, even if the majority of then doesen't have English as their primary language As tiresome as it may be, I can look up in my own sources about usages of "Saint Peter" in English ( and, trust me, there are plenty either way). José Luiz ^talk 00:17, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

• The guideline: I was not even going to look here but In ictu left me a message and pointed to Wikipedia:NCCL#Saints and I did get a chuckle when I read that the guideline actually says: "but Saint Peter rather than the less recognizable Pope Peter." because he was clergy. But what do I care? History2007 (talk) 09:35, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I am not surprised that guidelines about Saints prefer "Saint Peter". But he first was a fisherman, then a disciple (follower, friend ...) of Jesus, then an apostle (Apostle?), MUCH later the concept of Sainthood was established. The article calls him Saint only once, in the lead (+ in a pic caption), without explaining to an outsider what Saint means. Not a good article name, if you ask me, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 09:56, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

These are not very helpful arguments Gerda. How many times does the article call him "disciple of Jesus"? One doesn't expect to see full names or article titles used throughout an article. Is Peter (fisherman) a suggestion? If he needs any disambiguation from plain "Peter", which he probably does, then WP:COMMONNAME is the guiding policy, and "Saint" is clearly the most common disambiguator. Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, if I could not help you. "Saint Peter" is a name (at least it looks like one, Saint being part of a name) that I would expect to be used in the article. In "Peter (Apostle)", Apostle is only a disambiguation for the name Peter. I see a difference. "Saint" clearly is no disambiguator. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I gave several reliable sources which use his unbeatified name in headings. It might be common in hagiographies and such, but those aren't reliable sources. When we choose a disambiguator, we're not in WP:COMMONNAME territory anymore, we should choose the best disambiguator. Saint is bad as a disambiguator because there are a ton of Saint Peter's. --JFH (talk) 14:16, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is Christian sources who can get away with using plain "Peter" because everybody knows who they mean; general ones can't. COMMONNAME still applies when disambiguation is needed, and this is very clearly the primary St Peter, with no other coming close. It is ludicrous to say "Saint Peter" is confined to "hagiographies and such" - careful, your POV is showing. Johnbod (talk) 20:56, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Not all of my references were "Christian." No one has supplied the reliable sources which supposedly use Saint Peter. In ictu also has a nice little Google book search above which demonstrates the paucity of "Saint Peter" without even excluding unreliable works. --JFH (talk) 22:27, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I think the best name for this article would simply be Peter with "Saint Peter" redirecting to it. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 18:23, 12 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose The notion that we have to ditch an "honorific" borders on the silly. WP:COMMONNAME takes obvious preference here, no matter what one's religious views are. Peter ^Isotalo 20:30, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

You obviously did not read the discussion, summary: he is not commonly called that name, and the name makes no sense in history until one church proclaimed him a Saint. To say "the denial of Saint Peter" (or other biblical facts) sounds strange to me. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:59, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Not "one" church: there are at least a dozen that consider him a "Saint" (including Lutherans, Orthodox, Coptics and many more). And in the case of traditional saints, there was not a "proclamation" of any kind: it was usual from the very beginning to call the "holy martyrs" or "blessed men" a "saint" (e.g. Gregory of Nazianzus called Basil of Caesarea that in his eulogy for the latter's funeral in the fourth century - here in English). José Luiz ^talk 22:33, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

I didn't say what you understood. I didn't say only one church proclaimed him Saint. My concern is how can you speak about him for the time until a he was considered a Saint, after his death? And yes, that goes for all other Saints, it was not part oftheir name when they lived, should not have room in a "biography". --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think I've ever heard him referred by anything other than "Saint Peter", regardless of context-sensitive exceptions. As Johnbod pointed out: only quite specific Christian sources refer to him only as "Peter". Everyone else uses the same formula as with Saint Andrew, Saint George and many others.

Peter ^Isotalo 08:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I grew up in Germany, he would be referred to as "Petrus", as our Bible does, as said below. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

And I grew up in Sweden. "Petrus" would be a good alternative here too. Or "Sankte Per". Both are irrelevant, though. This is English Wikipedia. Peter ^Isotalo 17:13, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• Peter? Which Peter? Oh, Simon Peter, Peter (fisherman), Peter (disciple), Peter (apostle), Peter (epistlator), Peter (bishop of Rome), Pope Peter I, Peter (martyr), Peter (rock). The Saint Peter. If this article is renamed, Saint Patrick, Saint George and Saint Nicholas should be too: Patrick (missionary), George (martyr) and Nicholas of Myra, perhaps. One of those even works already, although it is hardly a common name for Santa Claus. If there is a suggestion that having any article about a person under a title starting with the word "Saint" is inherently "subjective", whatever that means, can we please a conversation about that in one central place, not in several places simultaneously, including here and Talk:Saint Matthew and Talk:Saint Andrew as currently. -- Theramin (talk) 02:29, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Except the other Saint Peters. --JFH (talk) 02:55, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, as JFH pointed out earlier, Saint Peter isn't even the COMMONNAME. A major difference, as well, is that Peter is referred to throughout the Bible as simply Peter, whereas all the men you mentioned are known essentially solely as their names with the "Saint" title. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 03:58, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

and, as was pointed out before, this is the Peter after whom all the others are named, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 08:43, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose To argue his title should be disregarded because it was bestowed by the Church, which seems to be the argument here, is preposterous. All titles are bestowed by someone or other, and this man is notable only because of his role in early Christianity. He is known as Saint Peter. To rename the article with some long parenthetical attempt to explain who he was, rather than using the name by which he is known, is not justified.88.167.22.75 (talk) 11:27, 14 February 2013 (UTC)
• (edit conflict) Support but only Peter the Apostle. There are several reasons, but I will name some examples:
  • Consistency: We have Paul the Apostle, etc. There is no good reason to seperate him from the Apostles
  • Logic: He was not known "Saint Peter" until his death, but he was primarly known as being one of the twelve Apostles.
  • Irrationality: "Saint" is subjective. There were many non-theological people who were declared a saint
  • Confusion: It seems like people are heavily sticking to COMMONNAME, a silly guideline that has caused more harm than harmony. I don't think we should declare that page as an ultimate principle.
  • Question: Was Peter venerated as a saint in every Christian denominations? --Tomcat (7) 11:35, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Not all Christian traditions venerate this man as a saint, including Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, evangelicals, and many traditional Protestants. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 14:25, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose. Current title is his common name. I don't see any bias in referring to him as a saint, which doesn't imply acceptance of his saintly status given how it's how he's generally known. I can't see it as being any different from referring to "the Prophet Mohammed", which plenty of non-Muslims do. Proteus (Talk) 14:22, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Did you read the discussion? This has already been addressed. Saint Peter doesn't even prove itself to be the COMMONNAME. Additionally, Muhammad's article is titled Muhammad and not Prophet Muhammad or Muhammad, peace be upon him for a reason: objectivity! —Wikipedian77 (talk) 14:31, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

As a reminder: Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 14:38, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Common name and what now? Is there a reason why other Apostles are not given the title "Saint", even though they are clearly saints, too? I agree that this is a violation of NPOV. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 14:47, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose: Per WP:COMMONNAME. The C of E God Save the Queen! (talk) 09:29, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. By far the best known person known as St Peter and the only one known only as St Peter. -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:19, 15 February 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: To anyone who opposes the name change due to WP:COMMONNAME, I implore you to read the above discussion before commenting. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 19:41, 18 February 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose per WP:PRIMARYTOPIC, which suggests the article should be Peter. Does anyone really think that someone typing in "Peter" is looking for anything else? StAnselm (talk) 20:06, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

I actually agree with this. I should have requested "Saint Peter" be moved to "Peter", with "Saint Peter" redirecting. I think "Peter (disciple of Jesus)" is not ideal and would prefer simply "Peter". —Wikipedian77 (talk) 20:11, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Proposal to change this to RfC

I think this is too complex and difficult for a simple RM discussion. It needs to be reformatted into an RfC and properly advertised at WP:CENT and relevant WikiProjects. Is there consensus to do this? --Dweller (talk) 10:38, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not sure there is. We'd have to start all over again, and if we do this we should probably try to widen it to cover the fairly small group of remaining "Saint Foo" titles, AND (which is more difficult) try to define clearer rules for when such titles should still be used. As it is, it is not exceptionally long for an RM discussion. Why an RFC would be thought better at dealing with complexity I'm not sure, but it might be more authoritative. I'm not against one though. Johnbod (talk) 14:08, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Widening the scope to take in other apostles and Saints generally is a good idea. --Dweller (talk) 14:11, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I think so, too, and that is a reason to move it from here, --Gerda Arendt (talk) 14:15, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I'd say a relook at WP:NCCL#Saints may be in order. The phrase "only recognizable by its inclusion" is apparently being taken to mean that if many people unfamiliar with the subject wouldn't recognize the article title without the Saint part, then we use Saint. But that's not how naming with HONORIFICS usually works. We leave out very common honorifics like King Tut or Dr. Spock. The question, according to WP:HONORIFICS, isn't whether the person is commonly recognizable without the honorific, but if they are almost never named without it, as I think is the case with Saint Patrick, but clearly not Peter, nor any other biblical person. --JFH (talk) 14:54, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

That guideline is firstly not being respected by many here, and secondly (imo) not being understood correctly. Many here would clearly prefer Patrick (saint) or something. There is certainly something to be said for clarifying it, and adding to HONORIFICS so they are not quoted against each other. Johnbod (talk) 15:12, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

I think you're mistaken about anyone here preferring Patrick (saint). I've seen it brought up here only by those opposed to the name change, as a straw man argument. Saint Patrick is not a good candidate for renaming, because the saint is pretty much universally known in English by that name, and would not be recognizable without the honorific.--Srleffler (talk) 05:25, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Srleffler. Virtually no one refers to Saint Patrick as Patrick. Very different from the man being discussed here. —Wikipedian77 (talk) 06:09, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that, like "Patrick" and unlike say "Catherine of Alexandria", "Peter" is not recognizable in a general context without either "Saint" (which is hardly an "honorific") or some other form of disambiguation, and there is no standard form of disambiguation other than "Saint". This is a problem shared by a number of saints who lack surnames or "of place" names, amplified of course because so many other people are named after them, so the plain name is very rarely primary. The best solution is just to use "Saint". Please explain why this, which I of course agree is not used by all Christian groups, but is understood by all, is acceptable in the case of Patrick, but not Peter? It is not as if Ireland lacks evangelical Protestants, indeed the north is famous for its population of them. Like Peter, Patrick is very likely not to be called "Saint Patrick" in academic historical writing covering his period, because the context removes the need for disambiguation (there were no significant other "Patricks" recorded for some time after his death). But that doesn't work for an article title here. Johnbod (talk) 14:28, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

"Recognizable in a general context" is not a criterion, otherwise we would have King Tut and Dr. Spock. For Patrick, I'm pretty sure reliable sources use Saint Patrick almost exclusively. A quick look over the sources at that article makes it look like that's the case. I also did a Google book search similar to In Ictu's above and found 34,000 results for ["Saint Patrick was"], and 15,400 for ["Patrick was" apostle OR bishop -Saint] (he is considered the apostle to Ireland and was a bishop). Peter is different because he is a biblical character, and so there are a huge number of reliable sources on the biblical narrative that use Peter, and would never use Saint even to disambiguate. --JFH (talk) 14:56, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure you're wrong about Patrick; I've read plenty (& written here) on Irish early medieval history & art history - have you? Google is wholly useless here (especially your choice of terms); you need to look at the actual top sources, or use more subtle searches. Try this scholarly article for example or this one, both on the first page of book results for "Patrick Confessio" (Confessio being the short title of his famous Latin autobiography). Johnbod (talk) 15:22, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Both of those works use Saint Patrick in their first mention of him, on pages 9 and 1, respectively. --JFH (talk) 15:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

In their introductions but not their main text, fwiw. Nor do they feel it necessary to re-use it when he re-occurs many pages later in the text. Take it from me that others don't use it at all. Johnbod (talk) 17:00, 14 February 2013 (UTC)