Twin Pillars

Solemnity of Saint Peter and Saint Paul

Today’s feast is an important one in our Church’s calendar but is not one which gets the attention it deserves because it’s not always that the twenty ninth of June falls on a Sunday. So, don’t be surprised and think this is a new celebration in view of the fact that we have a newly minted Pope. It is a feast of not only one but two Apostles of the Lord, in fact, described in Tradition and in our liturgy as the Princes of the Apostles. St Peter, whose birth name was Simon, is one of the Twelve. St Paul, though not one of the Twelve and not one of the followers of the Lord while He was still on this earth, is also regarded an apostle of the Lord by his own designation in his letters. Some mistakenly believe that Paul also underwent a name change after his conversion, but he actually had two names - Saul was his Jewish name and Paul was his Latin name, since he was a Roman citizen.

Though Saints Peter and Paul were not martyred on the same day, they lived and died as twin giants for one Church and share a feast day, befitting their friendship and their leadership. There is something wonderful in these two holy heavyweights sharing a feast, forever shouldering each other like brothers in their zeal for the Father and acting as twin pillars of the Church. One of the reasons, among many, why they were paired from the earliest centuries of the Church, is not because of their association and encounters recorded in the Acts of the Apostles and Paul’s letters, but because they served as a new paradigm for the refounding of the city of Rome, contrasted with another set of siblings - the legendary twin founders of the Eternal City who were said to have been raised by a she-wolf.

According to legend, Romulus and Remus, the former after whom the city of Rome was named, were abandoned at birth and cast into the Tiber River where they were discovered by a she-wolf who nursed them. When they grew up, the twins embarked on a quest to found their own city. Romulus and Remus disagreed about which hill to build their city on. Eventually, Romulus just started digging a ditch around the Palatine Hill and built a wall to mark the boundaries. Remus mocked his brother’s work, and in a fit of anger Romulus killed him and then buried him under the wall which Romulus erected around the city. The story is reminiscent of the first account of fratricide in the Bible; Cain killed his brother Abel. It is also ironic that Rome and her empire were founded on fratricide.

Now contrast this with the re-founding of Rome through the spread of Christianity by Saints Peter and Paul. Although both were unrelated and came from vastly different backgrounds and places of origin, they would find a common home in the city of Rome where both will be martyred. It is more than coincidence that their places of martyrdom and burial would be separated by the ancient wall which had separated the two ancient founders of Rome. St Peter would be martyred and buried within the walls while St Paul would be entombed outside the walls. Two eponymous major basilicas sit above their respective tombs.

Like Romulus and Remus, Peter and Paul too had their disagreements. If anyone had a cause for strife and division, it was these two. They had little in common. Paul was the chief persecutor of the early Christians led by Peter. Even after Paul’s conversion, there were also heightened moments of tension and disagreement between the two, especially on how Gentile converts to Christianity should be treated. In fact, Paul speaks of confronting Peter to his face for backtracking on an earlier decision to welcome these Gentile converts without condition. It took divine action to make these enemies into brothers. Peter and Paul were ultimately bound together in a bond stronger than blood: the love of Christ.

It is in this love that Peter and Paul had the foundation of their relationship. Through Christ, these two men were closer than twins in the womb. Peter and Paul are often depicted together in iconography in a circle, embracing one another in a brotherly hug with expressions of affection, like a pair of twins in the womb of their mother. This orientation is also reflected in the two Roman basilicas built over their tombs. Instead of just facing East, the direction of the rising sun from which the Lord is said to return, the two basilicas face each other across the Tiber - as if perennially yearning to be united in an eternal embrace. In contrast, images of Romulus and Remus, the mythological twins, are usually facing away from each other, as one ended up killing the other.

Peter and Paul remind us that brothers can be born from unlikely sources and that the spiritual bonds of fraternity can be stronger than blood ties. What is stronger than the blood which runs through our veins is the blood shed for us on the cross, a blood which has inspired so many Christians to give up their own life’s blood in knowing that eternal glory awaits them on the other side of the threshold of death. Peter and Paul were united in such a death as this. Early Christian tradition tells us they were imprisoned together for nine months before their martyrdoms on the same day. If the Old Rome was built on fratricide, brother killing brother, the New Rome and her Kingdom were founded on fraternal love, brothers dying for each other.

Today, the effigies of these two great Apostles stand as guardians to the entrances of the major Basilica of St Peter, as stone lions would in front of Chinese temples in the East. If the stone lions were meant to keep evil and inauspicious forces out, our two saints beckon to welcome pilgrims of the world to enter. A pillar must always have a partner, and so Peter and Paul are the twin pillars that hold up the doorway of the Church. So staunch are they that the rest of the faithful must celebrate their feast days together as one. They shared their life for the Faith, and so, to this day, they share it also in the observation of their glorious entrance into life eternal. As we celebrate the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, let us look to their model of fraternal correction and mutual love as we work to spread the gospel message in our own lives.