As Bishop of Rome, Pope Leo XIV is considered the heir of St. Peter, the leader of the Twelve Apostles chosen by Jesus, and (according to tradition) the very first Pope. But what is the source of this tradition? The Bible talks about Peter as a disciple, an apostle, and one of the Twelve, but never calls him a bishop or a “Pope.” And while New Testament texts record Peter’s activities in Galilee, Jerusalem, and Antioch, the only Biblical connection of Peter with Rome is a passage in the First Epistle of Peter which alludes to the “church in Babylon.” Having reviewed what the Bible has to say about Peter in a lecture on “The Historical Peter,” John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place turns this week to extra-canonical sources, including early Christian writers of the 1st and 2nd centuries, apocryphal books like the Acts of Peter, the Gospel of Peter, and the Apocalypse of Peter, and finally later Christian writers of the 3rd and 4th centuries. He will contrast these sources with the rest of the historical record concerning the development of the bishopric of Rome and the Papacy.