The "Twin Founders" of Rome
Peter and Paul in the catacombs
A Roman image for a Roman feast, the above ancient fresco of Peter and Paul is a prototype for some of the most recognizable holy images in Christian art and iconography. It’s also a remarkable fresco in its own right. Found in the dark depths of the catacombs, the fresco shines brightly and is impeccably suitable for this mid-summer solemnity. After all, June 29th has been an important Roman holiday for a long time, and this work simultaneously continues and overturns several Roman traditions.
The image itself embodies three kinds of early Christian images.
It is an image of the concordia apostolorum (apostolic harmony).
It is one of the earliest images of Christ in Majesty.
It is an example of the traditio legis image, which is Christ as law giver or Christ handing authority to the apostles.
In this incredible ceiling fresco Peter and Paul—dressed in togas—flank a bearded Christ with a large halo behind him. Peter is on Christ’s left with his iconic square jaw and short curly beard. Paul is on his right with the longer beard. Both hold some kind of scroll and point to Christ as the Highest. Beneath them the Lamb, crowned with a halo, stands on a hill from which four rivers pour forth in a Paradisal image adorned with flowers. Four martyrs stand beneath the Heavenly trio —Gorgonius, another Peter, Tibertinus, and Marcellinus. They surround the Paschal Lamb and hold their hands up to worship Christ and venerate Peter and Paul.
This image of Peter and Paul falls under the concordia apostolorum motif, which emphasizes the harmony between these two apostles who share a spiritual brotherhood. The concordia images with Christ in the center remind us that Christ is the source of and the reason for the harmony between the apostles. Christ is the foundation for their communion and brotherhood. Naturally, Peter and Paul had very little in common. Peter was a simple fisherman with likely little education while Paul was an erudite scholar. Both were impassioned preachers.
The concordia image brings with it allusions to Romulus and Remus — the two other famous Roman brothers whose feast day Peter and Paul’s replaced. Legends tell us that the mythical twins were raised by a she-wolf and were credited with the founding of Rome. While on a quest to found their city, the two brothers disagreed about which hill to build the city on. In a surge of rage Romulus killed Remus and went on to found Rome. By the time of the Empire, Romulus was exalted as a god.
Early Christians understood Peter and Paul to be the “twin founders” of Christian Rome, the Eternal City, which was founded not on fratricide but brotherly harmony and martyrdom. It was in Rome that St. Peter was crucified upside down and St. Paul was decapitated. In the middle of the second century, St Irenaeus already spoke of the “Church founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious Apostles, Peter and Paul.” (Against Heresies 3, 3, 2).
Just as Romulus and Remus shared a womb for nine months, it was said that Peter and Paul shared a prison cell for the same length of time. Their imprisonment ended in their martyrdom and birth to eternal life. They helped build up the sacred city not with bricks but with their blood. As Pope Saint Leo the Great said in a homily on their feast day ,
These (Peter and Paul) are your holy fathers and true shepherds who founded you in a much better way and with a much happier omen than those by whose effort the first foundations of these walls were established. For the one who gave his name to you founded you with a brother’s murder (Sermon on the Natal Day of Peter and Paul 54, 422).
Like Romulus and Remus, Peter and Paul were sometimes known for their differing dispositions and even disagreements. In what is known as the “incident at Antioch,” Paul corrects Peter; Peter likewise criticizes Paul for being turgid and inarticulate in some of his letters. (Gal 2:12-13) (2 Peter 3:15-16)
However, unlike the biological twin brothers, their city was not built on pragmatic fratricide, but on their faith in Christ and their martyrdom. Their disagreements, though tense, are examples of charitable fraternal correction. Instead of driving them further apart, their disagreements brought them to a greater appreciation of the Truth, which was the subject of their lengthy discussions during their imprisonment. Early Christian tradition tells us that in prison they preached together and even blessed one another before their martyrdom.
The image from the catacombs is also an example of the traditio legis (the handing of the law), which represents Christ as the law with Peter and Paul on either side holding a scroll. In this image, Christ confers authority to Peter and Paul who stand around his throne as the principle apostles.
Here in the catacombs Christ is presented as the Word and the Law, which he holds in his lap. He exudes authority and wisdom which he shares with the two principle apostles who stand near him also holding scrolls. The artist depicts Christ in purple Roman Imperial garb as a Roman Emperor, the “Pater Patriae.” Like Roman Emperors, Christ was Priest and Father and held authority over a Kingdom. Also like these worldly rulers, he embodies the law. Unlike the Emperors, Christ’s Kingdom is Eternal and his Law is not subject to sinful man’s whims but predicated on his infinite goodness and love.
Paul helped the early Church understand the idea of our Christian adoption in his letters by using the familiar Roman framework of adoption. For the Romans, adoption was used as a way to designate heirs when families did not have any children, or sons for political influence. Many of the Emperors used adoption to designate their heirs including well known Emperors Augustus, Trajan, Hadrian, and Marcus Aurelius.
This particularly Roman language allowed Paul a way to explain the high office Christ gives us in his own kingdom when he adopts us. Roman culture was significant because unlike other cultures, Romans did not have primogeniture, so all brothers and sisters in a family all inherited meaningfully.
Paul explains the meaning of Christian adoption: “Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” (Romans 8:17) It is not merely that Baptism brings us into God’s family in the modern sense, but that in so doing we also all become co-heirs of the Father’s kingdom, and the Church inherits apostolic authority to govern that kingdom as stewards.
Unlike prior images of Christ, where he was depicted as a Shepherd, here Jesus has a beard in the mold of Roman philosophers. Like the Philosophers, Christ was a teacher who called his followers to a new way of life. Unlike the philosophers Jesus did not merely teach about the way, he said, “I am the Way” (John 14:6). Because of this, early Christians referred to themselves as “followers of the Way.”
In this fresco, Peter and Paul are also represented as bearded philosophers wearing togas. In Rome, togas were a public marker of Roman citizenship (something not all Romans possessed); in this image they mark citizenship in Christ’s Heavenly Kingdom. These apostles of Jesus are not pragmatists but principled followers of Truth, who spread the Kingdom of God through the sacraments and their preaching.
The Lamb underneath this Heavenly trio reminds us that Jesus is a different kind of ruler than the Roman Emperors, who were often cruel and immoral. Christ is Priest, but he is also Sacrifice and Innocent Victim.
By combining images from Old Testament Prophecies and from Revelation, the artist presents a vision of the Heavenly Paradise. One such Old Testament prophecy reads:
And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord (Isaiah 2:2-4).
This fourth century artist also includes multiple images from Revelation including the Alpha and the Omega (the Beginning and the End) surrounding Christ’s halo and the Paschal Lamb standing atop the mountain (Revelation 1:8).
Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing at the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders…He went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who sat on the throne... And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. (Revelation 5:1-8).
In this fresco, Christ is the risen Lamb whose sacrifice allows him to open the prophecies and the new law within the scroll. The top part of the image, where Christ holds the law, helps us to interpret the meaning of the Lamb from Revelation in the bottom half.
That the artist painted Peter and Paul standing next to Christ and as large as Christ tells us a lot about the Early Christian’s understanding of the “twin founders” place in the Heavenly hierarchy.
By the 4th century, images of Peter and Paul were common and their joint solemnity commemorating their sacred day of martyrdom had become a grand celebration in Rome as it still is today.
As Saint Augustine exhorts us in his homily for the solemnity, Let us “celebrate this day made holy for us by the apostles' blood. Let us embrace what they believed, their life, their labors, their sufferings, their preaching, and their confession of faith.”
It really is amazing how many early images of Peter and Paul there are! I could only include a few.
I see why it can be confusing. I included it to illustrate the difference between the Romulus/Remus myth and Christian brotherhood exemplified by Peter and Paul. There is a common archetype of “twin brothers” being at odds with one another in many cultures, e.g. Romulus and Remus, and also Cain and Abel in the Biblical canon. Both of those stories ended with murder but Peter and Paul’s did not. These stories share symbolic patterns. We can see many parallels between the stories that highlight the extraordinary nature of Christianity and how it transforms the world. Symbolism happens in reality and history and is not only relegated to myth as we see in the Christian story and history of the Church.
Happy feast!