Confusing Peter and Paul

The stories about the deaths of Peter and Paul display variety on a number of details, but many emphasize the unity of the apostles—the concordia apostolorum. The desire to show unity at times went to the point of making the apostles indistinguishable from each other or even confusing Paul and Peter with each other. This chapter will analyze examples of conflated or reversed descriptions of apostolic speech (particularly Peter speaking with Pauline epistolary language), actions, and fates. It will then explore the influence of these examples on later literary traditions and evidence of similar confusion in early Christian art.

Dating the Deaths

There was no single tradition about the deaths of Peter and Paul. Instead, there existed a cluster of traditions with some overlap on basic points, but much variety on other details. This chapter explores the options presented in attempting to date the deaths. The first part of the chapter treats the question of the date(s) of the deaths of Peter and Paul. It argues that the liturgical date of June 29 appears to control the narratives of many accounts and thus represents a functional and literary date more than an historical one. The second part of the chapter examines reckonings of the year(s) of the martyrdoms. Some authors describe the events at an undetermined time during Nero’s reign, while others provide a specific year—and the years provided vary by more than a decade.

Conclusion

In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter and Paul play the lead roles. The impulsive fisherman from Galilee and the erstwhile persecutor of the followers of Jesus become the primary mouthpieces for this new movement among both Jews and Gentiles. Yet for all of Luke’s descriptions of the apostles’ travels and their deeds, he leaves large gaps in the overall narratives of their lives—gaps also not addressed in the letters ascribed to these apostles. For later Christians these biographical gaps needed to be filled. This gave rise to a robust corpus of literary and artistic traditions that drew inspiration from, and expanded freely upon, both the Acts of the Apostles and the Pauline and Petrine epistolary traditions....

Justifying Death

There was no single tradition about the deaths of Peter and Paul. Instead, there existed a cluster of traditions with some overlap on basic points, but much variety on other details. This chapter explores the explanations for the apostles’ deaths. In some sources Peter rouses the ire of the emperor through his preaching on chastity (Acts of Peter), while Paul is viewed as a political revolutionary (Acts of Paul). However, other, typically later authors emphasize the joint martyrdom tradition and link their deaths to the conflict with Simon Magus. This chapter analyzes texts reflecting each explanation and demonstrates that none can be read at face value, because each is a product of its particular social and political context.

Introduction

In the Cappella Paolina in the Vatican Palace hangs Michelangelo’s Crucifixion of Saint Peter, one of the most recognizable images in Christian art. As a crowd of onlookers watches, the aged and surprisingly muscular apostle lies nailed to a cross, his intense eyes glaring directly at the viewer. One soldier digs a hole for his cross, while seven others struggle to raise the cross into position so that Peter will be suspended upside down....

The Apostles versus Rival Christs

The martyrdom accounts of Peter and Paul display variety on many details, but all include descriptions of their primary antagonists. This chapter explores the two primary characters described in this way in various texts: the Emperor Nero and Simon the sorcerer (Simon Magus). Both are presented as hostile not just toward the apostles but toward their master, Jesus Christ, for in nearly every martyrdom account one or the other is presented as an antichrist figure. The analysis shows that both Nero and Simon are presented as making divine claims that are ontological and functional, and both suffer their ultimate fates as acts of divine judgment. Thus, the earthly conflicts with Peter and Paul are mere reflections of the true battle between Christ and antichrists.

Locating Death and Burial

There was no single story about the deaths of Peter and Paul. Instead, there existed a cluster of traditions with some overlap on basic points, but much variety on other details. This chapter explores the accounts of where the apostles were killed and what happened to their bodies after their deaths. The earliest sources tend to be imprecise or simply silent about the exact locations of the martyrdoms, so the picture is far from clear in the sources. After the executions, the bodies of the apostles travel in divergent ways in different texts, being placed in as many as three different burial places along the way.

Unity in Death?

The dominant Christian tradition claims that the apostles Peter and Paul both died in Rome, but beyond that the circumstances of these deaths differ in the various sources. This chapter examines the question of whether the apostles died separately or together. The earliest sources (Acts of Peter and Acts of Paul) focus on the apostles as individuals and thus highlight the uniqueness of each death. However, because the Roman church came to stake many of its authority claims on the notion of a joint apostolic martyrdom tradition, later authors altered the stories to emphasize a single martyrdom event in Rome for both Peter and Paul. They died together just as they had preached together, and thus these stories emphasize the concordia apostolorum.