Overview
Author of more than two dozen books, Michael Grant was one of our finest historians of ancient culture. In Saint Peter, he brings his broad erudition to bear on a life of immense significance. Fisherman, missionary, healer, sinner, confessor, disciple, and martyr, Peter has often been seen more as a fragment of iconography than a man. Despite his unique role—as the most important apostle and the head of the early Church—he has remained shadowy and elusive. In this luminous and insightful biography, Grant re-imagines the life of one of Christianity’s central figures.
Drawing on archaeology and anthropology as well as his extensive knowledge of literature, philosophy, and religious thought, Grant narrates and interprets the trajectory of a life, from which Peter emerges as a strong leader whose complex relations with other early Christians, particularly Paul, mirrored the ferment of his times. Grant probes the traditions connecting Peter to the church at Rome, and examines the legends surrounding his martyrdom. More than just a biography, Saint Peter explores the development of classical scholarship and its research methods, emphasizing our continuing relationship with the past. Perhaps most important, Grant emphasizes the human dimension of the life of Peter and, in doing so, adds greatly to our understanding of the ancient world.
Praise for Saint Peter:
“[A] well-researched and always interesting book.”—The Sunday Telegraph
“We should be grateful to Grant for his coolly dispassionate attempt to disentangle the Peter of history from the Peter offaith and iconography.”—The Spectator
“Michael Grant is clearly at home in the first-century Roman Empire and is very well equipped to unravel the historical Peter from the legends and traditions which have surrounded him....This is a readable, well researched and documented study.”—Hampstead & Highgate Express