1. Attention to Peter in Luke-Acts: Recent Studies
Although Peter is often overshadowed by the Paul of Acts, there has been an increasing sensitivity towards his importance as the one whose character spans Luke’s Gospel and his Acts.1 What convinced Peter to include the Gentiles in the church was not scriptural argument but rather the example of the resurrected Jesus appearing to him (much as he has to Paul in the previous chapter) as “un tournant du livre des Actes”.2 Peter had had his mind changed before, at a number of places in the Gospel, but “now” in Acts 10–11 was “big enough” to change his mind, whereas Acts 15:9 (“God … purified their hearts by faith”) simply confirms this change of view, although some basic lack of purity among the Gentiles is avoided through the conditions reported in Acts 15:29 of a “bipolarité de l’intime et du social”.3 Codex Bezae’s specifying the golden rule instead of proscribing strangled meat in the standard codices takes Petrine thought even further in the direction of reconciliation with Pauline thought and Gentile inclusion. Yet Paul is only apostolos occasionally, as in Acts 14:4, and in the alternative sense of the ‘Antiochene’ definition, not one of the apostles as those sent out by Jesus in Luke 10. Even if the honorary apostle (Paul) starts to steal the show, Peter remains the apostle, especially since by Acts 15 he is the only one of the Twelve named.
However, there are places in recent Anglophone scholarship where Peter features in his own right as one of the characters in the Luke-Acts story. Yet there is less interest in his character since it does not seem to ‘develop’ from crisis to crisis, which some (such as Thomas Söding) take to be constitutive of a personal story. Peter does appear to undergo one ‘crisis’ when his vision art Joppa determines how he will treat ‘God-fearers’ like Cornelius and his friends. But this is not quite the same as a green light for mission to the Gentile world. One might argue it is covered by the programme of Acts 2:9 (“visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes”), and needs more a nudge than a conversion.
Peter is one who receives the pre-Ascension promise of Jesus to send the Holy Spirit in Acts 1:5 and 1:8 (cf. Lk 24:47–49). If we view Acts 1:11b ‘This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.’ Many think the traditional explanation, that this refers to the Second Coming, as summed up by Beda, to be valid: in eadem forma carnis et substantia veniet iudicaturus in qua venerat iudicandus, or at least in visible form on the cloud.4 ‘Into the sky’ is mentioned four times. “The ascension of Elijah leads to the endowment of his successor Elisha with Spirit.”5 The Parousia is anticipated, but it is something for some time ahead, so that there is no point sky-watching, Once the Spirit comes, Peter just gets on with it, witnessing.
Now, there is a bit of slippage in what recent scholars have meant by ‘character’. There is an interest in the reception of characters as they develop in the plot in the sense of how “implied readers” would be shaped by them. Hence in Coleman Baker’s Identity, Memory and Narrative6, the author argues for model for reading texts as identity-forming documents: social identity, memory, narrative, not least since Ricoeur’s theory concerns the reader’s character, not the character of the “characters”. One wonders how relevant it is to speak of the cultural memory that becomes unassailable because built on original communicative memory. What can that kulturelles Gedächtnis offer for the shaping of our readerly character?, demands Baker. The formation of the characters serves and is caught up in the identity formation of reader, especially as the reader stays interested in tracing the plot in a “godlike” manner so that (s)he can see the correspondence of characterization and emplotment, as Henry James put it, while tracing the line from collective to cultural memory. But, to answer Baker, of course it is hard to be god-like critic and a disciple-character at the same time. Why not just pay attention to the development of Simon Peter character?
In Acts Peter is leader (“prominence”7 ); he interprets scripture concerning Judas in Acts 1:16,8 and so Peter was ‘taking over a major function of the departed Jesus.’ So Peter is credited with almost-divine initiative taking. “Like Jesus in his inaugural address (Luke 4), Peter addresses the crowd by quoting from the Septuagint and proclaiming the fulfilment of prophecy.”9 Peter is Jesus’ disciple not least in that after declaring at Pentecost that Jesus is God’s Messiah who has risen again, fills this out in Acts 10: 8 (
Baker helpfully reminds us of Luke’s account of Peter’s being formed in his following of Jesus. Now, just how this has anything to do with the formation in turn with the reader’s character given Peter’s “vicaring” of Christ, at least directly, is hard to say. Yet Peter does, if not quite change his mind, show readiness to vary course. Part of his strength is his adaptability.
Yet this seems to pass many scholars by. When we consider Frank Dicken and Julia A. Snyder,11 we can soon see that this collection has a lot to do with (e.g.) the identity of Jesus, women in Luke-Acts, the prodigal, the rich and the poor. To take the last for instance, Cornelis Bennema writes:
we can classify each character along three continua (complexity, development, inner life), and the plot the character on a continuum representing the degree of characterization involved (from agent to type to personality to individuality)…. the author communicates his particular perspective or point of view through the characters in the story, implicitly leading the reader to evaluate the characters, thus creating various degrees of affinity with these characters. This has two implications. First, characters are potential change agents – they have the ability to effect transformation in the reader.12
In other words, for Bennema, just what happened to Peter as character and possibly as historical person (which might be glimpsed through that literary character) is nowhere as important as Luke’s point of view about fixed social realities (even if those are to be challenged), and the hoped-for transformation of the reader.
In the same volume Steve Walton’s “Jesus, Present and/or Absent?”,13 briefly touches on the personal value of the speeches of Peter and Paul. “Petrine and Pauline testimony is clearly of high value, for these are people full of the Spirit, whereas the testimony of opponents (e.g., in 17:7) needs handling with care, as I have sought to do above.”14 This is interesting in that he privileges apostolic witness even as or perhaps not least as communicated through Luke. With focus on Acts 8 and the actions and speeches of Peter and John, on the question of baptism in the Spirit rather than baptism in Jesus’ name (Acts 8:15–16), Walton concludes:
Jesus himself is a person in Acts. Hence the implication of Acts 8:15–20 is that for Luke to record that Jesus, having received the Spirit from the Father, now pours out the Spirit, is to place Jesus in the same category as YHWH, and thus to invite worship of Jesus.15
Actually, the text might be saying something else. The Samaritans had already had the baptism of Jesus, but what Peter and John are doing is facilitating a baptism in the Spirit. Jesus is not mentioned as part of the present action, let alone given a part to play in the Spirit’s transmission, except for to say that a past baptism in his name (water baptism) isn’t enough. Yet later, Walton claims: “Aeneas is healed by Jesus the Messiah himself, not merely in Jesus’ name (9:34).”16 But when it says “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you”, it would seem the name carries power when used by a faithful apostle, in contrast to the seven sons of Sceva (Acts 19:14–15) who not have that warrant, but try to use the name of Jesus. One might not want to distinguish those two things (Jesus and Jesus’ name). but it could be that Jesus’ name being invoked is precisely what makes the difference in the moment. Perhaps it would be better to ask what Peter thought. He says “Jesus heals you”, hence, while taking no claim for that healing in that very present moment, he instructs Aeneas to get up and to turn outwards. As Peter invokes Jesus so too are people directed to the Lord God; baptism in his name should also open up access to God himself.
This is part of the issue of a scholarly avoidance – in support of a principle of divine monergism – of the intentions and character of the faithful persons in the New Testament, especially since the faithful (Peter, John then Luke) are the ones who compose the story out of their characters and deeds. In Acts 10:35–36 (
2. A Counter -Example to the Comparative Neglect of Peter Can Be Seen in the 2010 Work of Markus Bockmuehl, The Remembered Peter17
While Frank Mußner18 and others suggest that Paul seems to “swallow up” Peter as Acts goes on, it may be more appropriate to conceptualize the Peter-Paul creative tension as one of “poles of unity”. Indeed Bockmuehl is happy to use the heading “a tense but vital partnership” to describe the Peter-Paul relationship, adding: “there is some validity in his [Baur’s] insight that Luke’s Paul looks surprisingly Petrine, and his Peter somewhat Pauline”.19 Indeed one aspect of this is the shared theological language as Marguerat observed.20 From 1 Clement 5:1–6 we learn that the two Apostles jointly laid foundations of churches at Antioch and Rome. According to James Dunn, appreciatively mentioned here by Bockmuehl, Peter is even portrayed as the bridge-builder extraordinaire (pontifex maximus) between James and Paul. In the Ps-Clementine Homilies Peter does not take on Simon Magus as an alter Paulus, but as one who completely refuses to be a disciple of Christ (Hom. 17.20.1) since his proto-Gnosticism is above all that.21 Peter always remains the disciple of Jesus, whatever else he becomes. Moreover, the later we go into early Christian literature, “the Pseudo-Clementines continue the understanding of this literate and learned apostle as the advocate and personal guarantor of memory for authentic Christianity – containing an emphasis found as early as 2 Peter and elsewhere in the New Testament. Simon Peter in other words, is the personal locus of the apostolic tradition.”22 Simon Peter is not Paul, and that is OK.
One might add here the essay Bockmuehl wrote as a postscript to the proceedings of the Edinburgh conference.23 According to Hans Urs von Balthasar,24 Peter’s greater love issuing in his own crucifixion, as forecast by Jesus as per John 21 is what qualifies him to be the vicar of Christ. This gets reinforced by Luke 22:32: ‘and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.’ For this reason Balthasar claims “The transfer of Christ’s pastoral ministry to Peter cannot be expurgated from the Gospel”.25 Peter’s ministry simply needs to be qualified and tempered and supported by others: Mary, Paul, John, James and their successors. Balthasar starts with Peter as he is today and tries to redraw some of the lines, connecting Rome and Antioch as inspired by the New Testament. The whole figure of Peter speaks in favour of a ‘second-chance for grace’ type of discipleship.
Bockmuehl admits that the second-century remembered Peter is clearly shaped by a scriptural persona, which in turn is already indebted to a corporate ecclesial memory (cf. Clement Alex., strom 1.1.11.3) But in concluding he scolds Balthasar’s ecclesial allegorizing, according to which the post-biblical, modern reality sees itself as the fuller meaning of the sketchy, insufficient hints about Peter’s position in the church of his own time.
At the same time it would seem that, in reading Scripture’s Peter and his ongoing task and office in the church, abstract ecclesial allegorizing may be no more exegetically useful or faithful than a more specifically personal typology – documenting and expounding leaders past and present who exemplify this apostle’s discipleship, his faith, and his pastoral call. Perhaps the authority in Peter’s office of shepherding and guarding the mission of Christ’s flock subsists first and foremost in the faith, the love, and the hope of all believers, from which individual leaders derive their contingent task. An office of Peter so construed might grant more tangible meaning and authority to that other scripturally grounded title of the pope: “the servant of the servants of Christ”.26
In other words, there is no need to seek a sensus plenior in the historical Peter, since that very figure ‘already’ has full authority. What does seem appropriate to Bockmuehl is to see Peter’s faith, hope and love as figurative of all Christian leaders through the ages and on that ground allow church leaders to claim authority. Yet that doesn’t seem any less allegorical for all that it might be called personal typology: as if a scriptural figure could be just an object for inspiration. If tradition is a steadily growing and developing and mutating stream then we shouldn’t be surprised that there is an amount of ecclesial allegorizing. This is why I appreciate Rudolf Pesch’s criterion of the trajectory of this figure of Peter: “inwieweit der spätere Gebrauch des Petrusbilder in bezug auf das Papsttum übereinstimmt mit der Zielrichtung des Neuen Testaments.“27 Pesch concludes that it is the Faith of Peter that was the Rock. And that’s just it: it’s not Peter’s ‘serviceability’ but rather Peter’s personal Christology, even if that then became something quite quickly objectified a few decades later in terms of “die lebendige Weiterglaube des Glaubens der Apostel”,28 it is the word taking shape in personalform, even “die lebendige Gegenwart des Wortes in der personalen Gestalt der Zeugen”.29 But on that basis of a historical continuity of faith and on that alone can there be an office which seeks to preserve unity: if each Pope is to be Peter then each must look to Christ with the eyes of the Confessor.
3. Critique of Luke for ‘Whitewashing Peter’
In the same volume from the Edinburgh conference mention should be made of a useful study on Peter in Luke-Acts. Of course. In his ‘Moving the People to Repentance: Peter in Luke-Acts’, Finn Damgaard argues that in comparison with his synoptic parallels, Luke airbrushes Peter’s picture.
The Lukan Peter does not protest against Jesus’ passion predictions (Luke 9:21–22), so Jesus has no need to reprimand him. Luke also comes to Peter’s rescue in the transfiguration story by claiming that the disciples fell asleep; as a consequence, Peter could not have known of the previous conversation between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah when he suggested making three dwellings, and in case a former reader of Mark or Matthew might hold Peter responsible for such an ill-timed remark, Luke explains that Peter was still heavy with sleep, clarifying that Peter “did not know what he said” (Luke 9:33). Luke also whitewashes Peter at the Mount of Olives. While Peter is singled out by Jesus and reproached for his sleeping in the Gethsemane story in both Mark and Matthew (Mark 14:37; Matt 26:40), the Lukan Jesus, by contrast, reproaches the disciples as a group, and the reproach is softened by the note that the disciples were “sleeping because of grief” (Luke 22:45).30
In the light of Dietrich’s detailed work, which I shall mention below, I think the thesis that Luke is whitewashing Peter is not quite on point. In fact, Peter must decrease because Jesus must increase (as John the Baptist and Paul of Philippians 3 also learned). However the emphasis in Damgaard’s essay on Peter as the one who turns, in order to model “turning”, is valid, not least because it is Christ to whom he turns.
Luke’s recasting of Peter’s denial and subsequent turning reflects the people’s involvement in Jesus’ crucifixion and their subsequent repentance and returning. Luke thus turns Peter’s denial and turning into a paradigmatic experience for repentance and “conversion” similar to Paul’s “conversion … When Peter commands the people to “turn” (
ἐπιστρέψατε , Acts 3:19) it might also be read as Luke’s subtle reference to Peter’s own turning (seeσύ ποτε ἐπιστρέψας , Luke 22:32).31
For Luke Peter is the model penitent and pilgrim, but perhaps by the time of Acts he is less penitent.
While Mark’s portrayal of Peter time and again focuses on Peter’s misunderstanding of Jesus’ person and mission (Mark 1:35–38; 8:31–33; 9:5–7) and his weakness and fear (Mark 14:37–41, 54, 66–72) and only hints at his remorse and perhaps repentance at the end (Mark 14:72; 16:7), Luke has moved Peter’s “conversion” and acknowledgment of Jesus’ holiness forward to his call as a disciple, as Peter’s words indicate: “Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man” (Luke 5:8). Luke’s portrayal of Peter focuses accordingly on Peter’s life after his “conversion,” and this might explain why he writes an embellished version of the Peter narrative.32
Hence Peter is not absent at the crucifixion, at least by implication in Lk 23:49, was the first at the tomb (24:12) and to meet the Risen Christ (24:47).
But most importantly, he would carry on Jesus’ mission in Luke’s Gospel by moving the people to repentance (see also Luke 24:47).
I think Damgaard fails to spot the discontinuity or caesura that Pentecost marks between Luke and Acts, however: Peter moves from someone in the Gospel who needs to repent again and again to one whose life is consistently turned. Acts does not so much present Peter as continuously penitent as one who is continuously faithful. Pilgrim, but not penitent.
So one might want to qualify this otherwise very clear and compelling argument by wondering whether Peter in Luke 22:54–62 is really given any whitewashing treatment at all, when compared with the two gospel parallels. More importantly this emphasis on Peter’s character (repentant, self-aware) comes at the expense of viewing the preaching by Peter of Christ and salvation as more central to Peter’s purpose in the book (again, with Dietrich). The accent is on the authority of the apostle-preacher, not of the person-saint.
4. The Subjective Devotion: Peter’s Confessing and Being Moved by, But Not Following Jesus
As Larry Hurtado once answered his own question: What accounted for Jewish monotheism becoming Jesus-monotheism?
“The most plausible factor for this is the effect of powerful religious experiences in early Christian circles experiences that struck the recipients as having revelatory validity and force sufficient to demand such a significant reconfiguring of monotheistic practice.”33
Inherent in this approach is that something is received according to the measure of the one receiving it. This does not mean overcoming any distinction between object and subject as in German Idealism, but it does mean starting and ending with the latter, the subject. Quidquid recipitur ad modum recipientis recipitur: Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 75, a. 5; 3a, q. 5. In the Summa Theologiae, 1a, q. 12, a. 4, a more specific application of this principle is proposed in terms which say that “a thing known exists in a knower according to the mode of a knower.” (Cogitum … est in cognoscente secundum modum cognoscentis.) Yet “the meat in the sandwich” is the risen body of the Lord. What one receives is given, even if how received and known can vary. One starts and ends by acknowledging that the Gift that is given is larger and all-embracing, existing before and enduring after any “reception”.
Peter is of course often “Simon” in Luke’s gospel as much as he is “Peter”. However as Peter he is the faith-filled one who declares his personal commitment to Jesus after the wavering of the rich young man (Lk 18:28). This is in keeping with the disciple’s spontaneity as far back as Chapter 5. The human Simon relates to a familiar human Jesus who comes to his home, then gets into his Simon’s own boat, to use it to teach and to express his powerful authority. His outburst after the miraculous catch of fish (Lk 5:8) might have been spurred by impatience at having had his boat commandeered at a point he still had to catch anything. The human Jesus has the even more human, all too human Peter as a foil. Peter is ‘divine’ in as much as he is the foil to the One he mirrors, for better and for worse, that is Jesus the Christ. The Peter of Luke 9:20 who presents an expression of faith (“The Messiah of God”) anchored in the pre-Easter reality (the confessed faith of the disciples up to that point in Jesus’ ministry) is sandwiched by the Peter who will tell the master (
Peter’s high status in Acts can hardly be attributable to his performance in the Gospel, but to his moments of self-abasement as at Luke 5:6–7, simultaneous with the elevation of Jesus from ‘master’ to ‘Lord’ on Peter’s lips.36 Whereas the Matthean parallel (Matt 16:16f–19) views Peter’s confession as attributable to the Spirit of prophecy, Luke is silent about that in Luke 9: there will be no such illumination until after Pentecost. Jesus’s teaching in the rest of the gospel swings between addressing the lawyers and Pharisees and addressing the disciples. Peter is their shop steward or “porte-parole”37, who represents the others to Jesus; yet with his desertion the rest will follow (22:31–34-“Simon”; 54–60) and perhaps or that reason it is Cleopas and friend (Luke?), not Peter who ran to the tomb on his own (24:2) who supply the main witness, while the Lord “also appeared to Simon” (24:34), as one untimely appeared to, as one might put it, and yet the ‘last but not least’.
Moving into Acts, the Petrine gospel is about resurrection (Acts 2:23–24). Jesus was the preordained good man wrongly (outside the law) put to death so God could resurrect him as one who couldn’t be consigned to death forever since he was Messiah. Something very similar is found with Paul (Acts 13: 26–34), with a bit more emphasis on the Jewish leaders not understanding the prophecy. Peter wants to get on to talk about the Spirit and see things happen “near and far off” (3:25). Paul is preaching a few years later, when the situation has moved on. As Dietrich comments, any possible high estimation of Peter runs up against his having let Jesus down through lacking the bigger picture, and also that Luke “drops” him after Acts 12.38 In Acts Peter’s function does admittedly end rather abruptly. Yet as a rock-like foundation his proclaimed faith is crucial to getting things started. Peter is “der Apostel Jesu schlechthin”,39 and in that sense in functioned (again “funktioniert”) as an intermediary, on the basis of his closeness to Jesus in as much as he had the confessional faith of Luke 9:20.
It could be argued that in Acts, although not totally lacking personal agency, Peter is more an instrument, being one part of a whole soteriological process which has Christ’s death, resurrection and exaltation as high point, than a friend of the Lord. As Providence worked with him in the Gospels, despite his own errors, in Acts it is the Holy Spirit “directly”, who leads and teaches him to help others. Simon Magus in Acts 8 does ask Peter to ‘pray for me to the Lord’. Likewise in Acts 5 his probing the financial probity of Ananias then Sapphira, as one who speaks on behalf of the Holy Spirit, – this presupposes a close personal connection with God. There is an authority in his peremptory and summary judgement on them, although they are given a chance to admit their guilt. Peter does seem to be seized by the Spirit, so as to be the Spirit’s instrument.
A development in Peter’s own soteriology might be traced, with Acts 10 being in continuity with his earlier stated beliefs, and Acts 15 in continuity with Acts 10. Peter also would plausibly have had time to become literate and even learned.40 A familiarity with Jesus seems to give way to a certain distance from the Ascended Lord even while continuing the work and mission of Jesus. This seems to happen up to the point of the vision at Joppa and the resulting sermon of Acts 10:34–43, where Acts 10:9 emphasizes the voluntaristic nature of uncleanness: kashrut rules served God’s looking for obedience but are not part of everlasting natural order. This gives the impression that unlike Paul in Acts who continues to see the imitation of Christ one that takes him down into suffering and journey, the Christology of the Lukan Peter in Acts is very much one of an exalted cosmic Lord and Peter’s contribution to the mission one of penance done and witness lived powerfully. However the vision is intensely personal.
5. Coda
Perhaps as a coda in place of a conclusion it is not inappropriate to conclude by summing up the gist of what faith meant for 1 and 2 Peter.
1 Peter 1:8 speaks of ‘not seeing him’ but believing him with love and joy because getting salvation of souls. 1:13 then calls them to ‘set all your hope on the grace that Jesus Christ will bring you when he is revealed.’ 1:16, to be holy in conduct as in the image of God. 1:19 introduces the notion of being ‘redeemed by precious blood of lamb without blemish’; and to trust in God who raised him. And correspondingly to be renewed by the Isaianic word (40:6–8); but also Isaiah 53 in 2:22–24. which reads like a sermon on that text: “bore our sins”. At 3:15 we read: “but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you”. In Chapter 3 he thinks of Christ as in spirit a preacher of his own gospel. There is a present identification with Christ’s sufferings (5:1 “Now as an elder myself and a witness of the sufferings of Christ”). Christ is very much the mediator. In identification with him, (not in imitating his character alone) lies the path of salvation.
This means Peter was looking at Jesus even where he (Peter) is the active one: following from behind as in John’s epilogue. And in 2 Peter what he does know are things about Jesus, a memory which he uses to refresh those of the one who were not there, since he was ‘an eyewitness of majesty’ (2 Peter 1:12–16) and he wants that
Bibliography
Adams, Sean, The Tradition of Peter’s Literacy: Acts, 1 Peter and Petrine Literature, in: Helen K. Bond/ Larry W. Hurtado (eds.), Peter in early Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI 2015, 130–145.
Baker, Coleman, Identity, Memory and Narrative in Early Christianity. Peter, Paul and Recategorization in the Book of Acts, Eugene, Or. 2011.
Balthasar, Hans Urs, The Office of Peter And the Structure of the Church (2nd Edition), San Francisco 2007.
Barrett, Charles K., A critical and exegetical commentary on the Acts of the Apostles. 1. Preliminary introduction and commentary on Acts I–XIV, Edinburgh 1994.
Bennema, Cornelis, “The rich guys are the bad guys”. Lukan Characters and Wealth Ethics, in: Frank Dicken/ Julia Snyder (eds.), Characters and Characterization in Luke-Acts, London 2016, 95–107.
Bockmuehl, Markus, ‘Scripture’s Pope meets von Balthasar’s Peter’, in: Helen K. Bond/ Larry W. Hurtado (eds.), Peter in early Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI 2015, 321–340.
Bockmuehl, Markus, The Remembered Peter: in ancient reception and modern debate, Tübingen 2010.
Bond, Helen K./ Hurtado, Larry W. (eds.), Peter in early Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI 2015.
Bovon, François, De vocatione gentium: histoire de l’interprétation d’Act. 10, 1–11, 18, dans les six premiers siècles, Tübingen 1967.
Bovon, François, L’ évangile Selon Saint Luc I (1,1–9,50) (Commentaire du Saint Luc, Sér. 2, 3a), Genéve 1991.
Darr, John A., On Character Building: the Reader and the Rhetoric of Characterization in Luke-Acts, Louisville 1992.
Dicken, Frank/ Snyder, Julia (eds.), Characters and Characterization in Luke-Acts, London 2016.
Dietrich, Wolfgang, Das Petrusbild der lukanischen Schriften (BWANT 94), Stuttgart 1972.
Dunn, James D. G., Jesus Remembered. Christianity in the Making, Grand Rapids, MI 2003.
Hurtado, Larry W., Lord Jesus Christ. Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity, Grand Rapids, MI, 2005.
Marguerat, Daniel, Paul in Acts and Paul in His Letters (WUNT 310), Tübingen 2013.
Marguerat, Daniel, Les Actes des Apôtres (13–28): Commentaire du Nouveau Testament (Ser. 2.5b), Geneva 2015.
Marguerat, Daniel, L’historien de Dieu, Luc et les Actes des apôtres, Geneva 2018.
Mußner, Franz, Petrus und Paulus, Pole der Einheit (QD 76), Freiburg i. Br. 1976.
Nave, Guy D., The Role and Function of Repentance in Luke-Acts, Leiden 2002.
Pervo, Richard, Acts. A Commentary, Minneapolis 2009.
Pesch, Rudolph, Simon-Petrus: Geschichte und geschichtliche Bedeutung des ersten Jüngers Jesu Christi (Päpste und Papsttum), Stuttgart 1980.
Ratzinger, Joseph, ‘Primat, Episkopat und Successio Apostolica’, in: Karl Rahner/ Joseph Ratzinger (eds.), Episkopat und Primat (QD 11), Freiburg i. Br. 1961.
Rowe, C. Kavin, Early Narrative Christology: The Lord in the Gospel of Luke, Berlin 2012.
Tannehill, Robert C., Narrative Unity. Luke-Acts: A Literary Interpretation (Vol. 2, The Acts of the Apostles) Minneapolis 1990.
van den Horst, Peter, Peter’s Shadow: the Religio-Historical Background of Acts 5:15, NTS 23 (1977) 204–212.
Walton, Steve, Jesus, Present and/or Absent? The Presence and presentation of Jesus as a Character in the Book of Acts, in: Frank Dicken/ Julia Snyder, Characters and Characterization in Luke-Acts (eds.), London 2016.
See Marguerat, Paul. François Bovon has of course offered us De vocatione gentium (Histoire de l’interprétation d’Actes 10,1–11,18 dans les six premiers siècles. Mohr, 1967), which is centred on Peter’s mission.
Marguerat, L’historien de Dieu, 243.
Marguerat, Les Actes des Apôtres, 104; also at L’historien de Dieu, 245.
Barrett, Acts 1–14, 84. The reference is to Beda Venerabilis, Expositio actuum apostolorum (CPL 1357), cap.: 1, l. 103.
Pervo, Acts, 45.
Baker, Identity, Memory and Narrative.
Baker, Identity, Memory and Narrative, 79.
Cf. Tannehill, Narrative Unity, 20.
Baker, Identity, Memory and Narrative, 87.
See van den Horst, Peter’s Shadow, 204–212.
Dicken/ Snyder, Characters and Characterization in Luke-Acts.
Bennema, ‘The rich guys are the bad guys’, 108. Bennema here relies much on Darr, On Character Building.
Walton, Jesus, Present and/or Absent?, 123–140.
Ibid., 134.
Ibid., 137.
Ibid., 139.
Bockmuehl, The Remembered Peter.
Mußner, Petrus und Paulus, 74f. 133.
Bockmuehl, The Remembered Peter, 67.
Marguerat, L’historien de Dieu, 247: “C’est ainsi qu’il prête à l’apôtre Pierre, entre Ac 2 et Ac 15, un langage saturé de sémitismes où les citations scripturaires abondent.”
Bockmuehl, The Remembered Peter, 110, with reference to Dunn, Jesus Remembered.
Bockmuehl, The remembered Peter, 100–101.
Bockmuehl, Scripture’s Pope.
von Balthasar, The Office of Peter.
Quoted by Bockmuehl, Scripture’s Pope, 332.
Bockmuehl, Scripture’s Pope, 340.
Pesch, Simon-Petrus, 168.
Ibid., 169.
The words are those of Ratzinger, Primat, Episkopat und Successio Apostolica, 52.
Damgaard, Moving the People to Repentance: Peter in Luke-Acts, 121.
Ibid., 122.
Ibid., 126.
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 64.
Bovon, L’Evangile de Luc I, 487, with reference to Dietrich, Das Petrusbild, 112–116.
Dietrich, ibid.
See Rowe, Early Narrative Christology, 86. Also Nave, The Role and Function of Repentance.
Bovon, Luc I, 467.
Dietrich, Petrusbild, 327: “Einer möglichen Überbewertung seiner Person treten zum einen personbedingte Momente wie etwa das Verhalten gegenüber Jesus und das Erfordernis dauernder Horizonterweiterung, zum anderen die zeitliche Begrenzung seiner nicht zum Abschluß gebrachten Tätigkeit entgegen“.
Ibid., 329.
See Adams, The Tradition of Peter’s Literacy.