Upon This Rock: The Life of St. Peter - Hardcover

WALTER F. MURPHY taught constitutional law to generations of students at Princeton, where he held the chair of McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence first occupied by Woodrow Wilson. Born in Charleston, S.C., Murphy served as a Marine in Korea and won a Distinguished Service Cross and a Purple Heart. He graduated from Notre Dame and George Washington University and earned a PhD in political science from the University of Chicago. His novels include the New York Times bestseller 'The Vicar of Christ,' which won the Chicago Foundation for Literature Award, and 'The Roman Enigma.'

The difficult task of reconstructing the ambiance of the early Christian era is accomplished in a colorful and credible novel by the author of the acclaimed Vicar of Christ. Murphy cautions in a prefatory note that his characterization of Peter, the disciple chosen by Jesus to be the "rock," the foundation of the Catholic Church, is the "best fit" between what little can be gleaned from the New Testament and what scholars have attributed to the people of the time. He draws Peter as a man of conflicting emotions, a man who bears the stigma of betraying the Master, as attested by the Gospels, a man who may also be branded "the drunkard, the adulterer, the waffler," as he is in a fictional dialogue with the latter-day disciple, Paul. The novel is shaped as a chronicle by Quintus, a Greek follower of The Way, who records Peter's struggle with himself and with his floundering leadership. We hear his anger at God caused by his daughter's paralysis; we witness the colloquial repartee between Peter and Paul as they attempt to reconcile Christian Jews and Gentiles. Although some of the author's invention may be controversial, in this robust novel he captures the sweep of events that led to the martyrdom of the first Pope.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.