Peter's Mother-in-Law

Adriaen Collaert, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From Vita Iesu Salvatoris varijs iconibus ab Adriano Collaert
expressa
Flemish, c. 1580-1590
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

" On leaving the synagogue
Jesus entered the house of Simon and Andrew with James and John.
Simon’s mother-in-law lay sick with a fever.
They immediately told him about her.
He approached, grasped her hand, and helped her up.
Then the fever left her and she waited on them."

Mark 1:29-31

Part of the Gospel for Wednesday of the First Week of Ordinary Time, Weekday Cycle 2

 

In the period directly following his baptism in the Jordan at the hands of John the Baptist Jesus performed some actions that are foundational for his earthly ministry.  He began to collect disciples, he began to perform miracles of healing and community and he began to preach in the local synagogues,  Among those actions are some that appear to have close family connections.  At Cana, he accepts the prodding of his mother to perform a public miracle and, in the town of Capernaum he heals the mother-in-law of one of his recently chosen disciple.   

As we learn from the beginning of the Gospel reading above Simon and his brother Andrew seem to be living with their families in a common house, a not uncommon situation in history, provided the family had sufficient space.  They receive a visit from Jesus, who brings with him the other pair of recently recruited disciples who are brothers, James and John.  In some traditions this latter set of brothers are, in fact, members of Jesus' extended family.  In this tradition they are the cousins of Jesus, children of one of the Virgin Mary's sisters.  For more about this possible connection, see my article about the Holy Kindred tradition and its iconography.

At the time of their visit Peter's mother-in-law, who also lives with them, is ill with a fever.  She was obviously a well-regarded member of the household of Peter and Andrew for two reasons.  First, her son-in-law mentions her condition to his new friend.  So, her absence is noted and Peter feels it necessary to explain it, possibly in the hope that this very powerful friend may be to help.  And, second, when Jesus does heal her, she immediately gets up and takes charge again, suggesting that she was really the person who ran the household.  

This is the only time that we hear about the members of any family members of Christ's disciples.  We can imagine any kind of scenario for their lives, and throughout history many people have imagined many different arrangements.  But none of them have any foundation in Scripture.  Therefore, the one thing we can say with Biblical certainty about the apostles is that Peter was a married man when he began to follow Jesus.  We know nothing about his wife, nor about their marriage, nor about their children if there were any.  The suggestion that a young woman mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles may be Peter's daughter cannot be proved either way.  Nothing at all is known about Peter's wife.  We don't know if she was alive or dead at the time of the meeting of Peter with Jesus.  We don't know, we don't know, we don't know...

 

Visual Storytelling

The Early Middle Ages

With so little written material available about the details of the earliest miracles of Jesus, artists were free to devise images that told the story in the most understandable way possible.  

I did not expect to find a large amount of visual material for this subject and I did not.  However, I found more than I expected to and it was spread over a longer period than I had anticipated as well.  

Although I wasn't able to locate any images from the first one thousand years of Christianity, I did find a surprising number from the second Christian millennium, beginning in the middle of the tenth century with the work of the Reichenau monastery scriptorium such, as the Codex Egberti.  In addition, the Byzantine mosaic tradition offers a similar line of images.

The Gregory Master and Workshop, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From the Codex Egberti
German (Reichenau), c. 980-993
Trier, Stadtbibliothek_
MS 24, fol. 22v

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From the Book of Pericopes of Saint Erentrud
German (Salzburg), c. 11th-12th Century
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek,
MS Clm 15903, fol. 70r

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From the Gospels of Otto III
German (Reichenau), c. 1000
Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek
MS Clm 4453, fol. 149v (detail)

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Byzantine (Sicily), c. 1189
Monreale, Cathedral of the Assumption

Toros Roslin, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From the T'oros Roslin Gospels
Armenian, 1262
Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum
MS W 539, fol. 39v

 The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Byzantine (Laconia), 14th Century
Mystras, Church of the Virgin Hodegetria
Photo: University of Bologna

Mosaic of the Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Byzantine, c. 1316-1321
Istanbul, Church of Our Savior in Chora

The Later Middle Ages and Beyond

The image of the healing of Peter's mother-in-law continued to be utilized in illustrations of the New Testament throughout the later Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Baroque and later periods, right up to the end of the nineteenth century.  

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Austrian, c. 1349-1351
The Institute of the Material Culture of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period
Austria - CC BY-NC-ND

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From a  Book of New Testament Illustrations
German (Upper Rhine), c. 1425-1435
New York, The Morgan Library and Museum
MS M 720, fol. 3r

The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
From a Book of Gospels
Moravian, c. 1430
Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek
MS Cod. 485, fol. Vienna, 17r

Phillips Galle, Visiting the Sick/The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Flemish, 1577
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

This image uses the story of Jesus' healing of Peter's wife's mother to represent one of the corporal works of mercy, Visiting the Sick.

Johannes Wierix after a design by Bernardino Passeri, Jesus Heals Peter's Mother-in-Law
Flemish, 1593
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Denys Calvaert, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, First Quarter of the 17th Century
Paris, Church of Saint Jacques du Haut Pas

, 

Claude Vignon, Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, c. 1639-1643
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

Giovanni Maria Mariani, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Italian, c. 1655-1656
Rome, Hospital of the Holy Spirit

Jacques Pajou the Younger, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, 1790
Paris, Hospital Saint-Louis-de-la-Salpêtrière, Chapel of Saint Vincent de Paul'

Johannes Pieter de Frey, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
Dutch, 1797
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum

It was one of these later images of the healing of Saint Peter's mother-in-law that was chosen as one of the illustrations for the beautiful copy of the Bible purchased by my parents when I was about four years old and which formed part of the pathway that led me, through pictures and later through words, into a lifelong interest in the Holy Bible and its message, of the Church and of the God we worship.

James Tissot, The Healing of Peter's Mother-in-Law
French, c. 1886-1894
New  York, Brooklyn Museum

J© M. Duffy, 2026