After Stephen’s death, persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, leading to the scattering of the first Christian community. Jesus had already warned his disciples that persecution awaited them.
“This very night I will be a stumbling block to all of you; for it is written: ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered’.”
On the eve of his Passion, it is Jesus himself who is the shepherd struck by God. Now, it is the head of the nascent Church—the apostle Peter—who is targeted. With this, the persecutors in Jerusalem achieved the opposite of what they desired: by scattering the disciples toward the coast, the word of God spread irrevocably.
Peter, then, fleeing Jerusalem, headed towards the coast. Passing through the town of Lydda, he healed a disciple named Aeneas (Acts 9:33–34). Upon arriving in Jaffa, Peter was once again called to the bedside of a disciple, this time a woman named Tabitha—which means “gazelle” in Aramaic. Peter raises Tabitha from the dead (Acts 9:36–41) in a scene reminiscent of Jesus at the bedside of the synagogue leader’s daughter (Mark 5:41).
As it appears in the Acts of the Apostles, these two miracles led to the conversion of many inhabitants of the Sharon—the coastal plain of ancient Philistia, populated mainly by pagans.
Philip the Deacon had already laid the groundwork (Acts 8:40). After baptizing the Ethiopian eunuch on the way to Gaza, we find him in Ashdod—an ancient Philistine city turned Greek—and then in Caesarea, the political capital of Herod’s kingdom, now the seat of the Roman administration of Judea.
Logically the next chapter of the Book of Acts opens in Caesarea:
“Now in Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion of the Cohort called the Italica, devout and God-fearing along with his whole household, who used to give alms generously to the Jewish people and pray to God constantly.” (Acts 10:1-2)
God answered the centurion’s prayers and commanded him to send messengers to find Peter, who was staying at Simon the Tanner’s house.
On the rooftop terrace of Simon’s house Peter received a vision of a sheet laden with all kinds of animals descending from heaven, and heard a voice telling him: “Get up, Peter, offer them as a sacrifice, and eat!” The vision occurred three times and left Peter perplexed. When it ended, Peter was interrupted in his thoughts by the arrival of the three messengers from Caesarea, who told him about the vision of their master.
Jaffa’s port. Henri Gourinard, 2026.
Simon as a tanner worked with leather, a highly polluting activity. His house was therefore located “by the sea” (Acts 10:6). Today’s church of St. Peter, which commemorates this encounter between Peter and these representatives of the Gentiles, overlooks the port of Jaffa. Built by the Franciscans in the early 20th century on the ruins of a crusader castle, it does not face east like most churches. Instead, it faces west, toward the Mediterranean Sea—through which the Gospel spread—and toward Rome, where the Apostle Peter spent his final days.
By Henri Gourinard