Today June 29

Today is the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (first century), but to make it easier on myself, I am going to take a page from the pre-reformation of the Calendar book and cover St. Peter on this, his original feast day and St. Paul on his, tomorrow. (I wonder if St. Paul minds that he always gets second billing when the two of them are mentioned? Probably not. I think that Peter's impetuosity is always -- and justly -- emphasized, but his natural leadership ability isn't, at least not anymore. But I believe he was the type of man who galvanizes a room just by walking into it.)

Simon Bar-Jonah (Simon Johnson to use an Anglicized patronymic) was called "Peter" by Our Lord. I read somewhere in an exegesis of the central passage in Matthew 16:18 "Amen, amen, I say to you: Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church -- (one of only two places in the New Testament the word church [Greek, ecclesia] occurs, the other being Matthew 18:17)" that "Peter" would be the equivalent of "Rocky," and that fits Peter's character somehow, I think.

Peter was a fisherman, married (and probably a widower), the head of the apostles and the mouthpiece of the Twelve as is evidenced in many places in Scripture. Since he is given the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" (and by that we don't mean Heaven itself, which a great man once proved to me by pointing out that Our Lord telling the scribe "You are not far from the kingdom of heaven" did NOT mean "You are about to die"!), by analogy with the text of Isaiah 22:10-22, he is effectively the viceroy -- or vicar -- of the eternal King in his reign on earth. He is also called a shepherd (John 21:15-17) . . . a shepherd of one flock, for it is in the tenth chapter of the same Gospel we see an emphasis on the one flock. Local pastors are called shepherds too (cf Acts 20: 28 and 1 Peter 5: 2), but "one flock" requires "one shepherd" and in that we see Peter as the one after Jesus' visible presence is gone. Also in Luke 22: 32 we see Peter as the support or stability of his brethren. Tradition sees this as hearkening back to the whole image of Peter as Rock, the rock upon which the Church is built by Christ.

The fact that he visited Rome is hardly disputed, nor the fact of his martyrdom there. Recent excavations under the Vatican Basilica reveal an aedicula or small shrine that contains bones dating back to the first century (from carbon dating and stamps in the bricks used to build the shrine itself). Evidence suggests rich and noble mausoleums were destroyed by Constantine in order to build Old St. Peter's atop this shrine and inscriptions prove it was a place of Christian pilgrimage since the early fourth century. As far as it being Peter, well, it's always been considered to be, and no other city claimed to have his bones. The familiar stories we hear about Peter in Rome are not to be given a whole lot more credit than legends. However, we are not basing our argument on those alone.

The eminently reasonable Eusebius records the second-century priest Gaius as having the trophies of Peter and Paul there in Rome. Dionysius of Corinth says Peter and Paul both preached and were martyred in Rome, in a letter to the Romans dated 170 AD. St. Ignatius of Antioch describes Peter and Paul commanding the Church there in Rome in his letter to the Romans dated in the early second century. The fact is that the First Epistle of Peter is said to be from "Babylon" which was contemporary slang for Rome. And the claim is made by Clement of Rome that Peter and Paul were the pre-eminent recent martyrs there. All of which convinces me.

While some of our Protestant brothers and sisters maintain that the early Church was so focused on and convinced of the near proximity of the end times that they would not have made provision for Peter's successor, that leaves out one all-important figure. Christ, being holy Wisdom itself, could not fail to know, in fact, that the End was NOT imminent, and thus would have made sure that provision was made for leadership to be passed on, since the Church would continue on past Peter's death. And the gates of hell (the powers of mortality or evil) would not prevail against it. Neat how that works. Viva il Papa!