Saint Peter. Saint Peter, also known as Simon Peter, Simeon, Simon, Sham'un al-Safa, Cephas, or Peter the Apostle, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, and the first leader of the early Church. According to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome under Emperor Nero. He is traditionally counted as the first Bishop of Rome; or pope; and also by Eastern Christian tradition as the first Patriarch of Antioch. The ancient Christian churches all venerate Peter as a major saint and as the founder of the Church of Antioch and the Roman Church, but differ in their attitudes regarding the authority of his present-day successors. According to Catholic teaching, in Matthew 16:18 Jesus promised Peter a special position in the Church. Two general epistles in the New Testament are ascribed to Peter, but modern scholars generally reject the Petrine authorship of both. The Gospel of Mark was traditionally thought to show the influence of Peter's preaching and eyewitness memories. Several other books bearing his name; the Acts of Peter, Gospel of Peter, Preaching of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, and Judgment of Peter; are considered by Christian denominations as apocryphal, and are thus not included in their Bible canons. Peter's original name, as indicated in the New Testament, was Simon or Simeon. The Simon/Simeon variation has been explained as reflecting the well-known custom among Jews at the time of giving the name of a famous patriarch or personage of the Old Testament to a male child along with a similar sounding Greek/Roman name. The precise meaning of the Aramaic word is disputed, some saying that its usual meaning is rock or crag, others saying that it means rather stone and, particularly in its application by Jesus to Simon, precious stone or jewel, but most scholars agree that as a proper name it denotes a rough or tough character. Both meanings, stone and rock, are indicated in dictionaries of Aramaic and Syriac. Catholic theologian Rudolf Pesch argues that the Aramaic cepha means stone, ball, clump, clew and that rock is only a connotation; that in the Attic Greek petra denotes grown rock, rocky range, cliff, grotto; and that petros means small stone, firestone, sling stone, moving boulder. The combined name appears 19 times in the New Testament. In some Syriac documents he is called, in English translation, Simon Cephas. Peter's life story is told in the four canonical gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, New Testament letters, the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews and other Early Church accounts of his life and death. In the New Testament, he is among the first of the disciples called during Jesus' ministry. Peter became the first listed apostle ordained by Jesus in the early church. Peter was a fisherman in Bethsaida. He was named Simon, son of Jonah or John. The three Synoptic Gospels recount how Peter's mother-in-law was healed by Jesus at their home in Capernaum; this passage clearly depicts Peter as being married. 1 Corinthians 9:5 has also been taken to imply that he was married. In the Synoptic Gospels, Peter was a fisherman along with his brother, Andrew, and the sons of Zebedee, James and John. The Gospel of John also depicts Peter fishing, even after the resurrection of Jesus, in the story of the Catch of 153 fish. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus called Simon and his brother Andrew to be fishers of men. A Franciscan church is built upon the traditional site of Apostle Peter's house.In Luke, Simon Peter owns the boat that Jesus uses to preach to the multitudes who were pressing on him at the shore of Lake Gennesaret. Jesus then amazes Simon and his companions James and John by telling them to lower their nets, whereupon they catch a huge number of fish. Immediately after this, they follow him. The Gospel of John gives a comparable account of The First Disciples. In John, the readers are told that it was two disciples of John the Baptist who heard John the Baptist announce Jesus as the Lamb of God and then followed Jesus.