On the Feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul

The whole world, dearly beloved, does indeed take part in all the holy anniversaries, and loyalty to the one faith requires that whatever is recorded as done for the salvation of all should be celebrated everywhere with shared rejoicing. But besides the reverence that today’s festival has won from all the world, it is to be honored in our city with a special joy of its own, so that gladness may abound on the day of their martyrdom in the place where the chiefs of the apostles met their glorious end. For these are the men through whom the light of Christ’s gospel shone on you, Rome, and through whom you, who were the teacher of error, were made the disciple of truth. These are your holy fathers and true shepherds. They gave you a claim to be counted among the heavenly kingdoms, and they built you under far better and happier signs than the men by whose zeal the first foundations of your walls were laid, of whom the one who gave you your name stained you with his brother’s blood. These are the ones who raised you to such glory that, made a holy nation, a chosen people, a priestly and royal state, and the head of the world through the holy see of blessed Peter, you came to rule more widely by the worship of God than by earthly government. For although you grew great by many victories and spread your rule over land and sea, what your labors in war subdued is less than what the peace of Christ has conquered. [a]

For the good, just, and almighty God, who has never withheld his mercy from mankind, and has always taught all people alike to know him through the most abundant benefits, has by a more secret counsel and a deeper love taken pity on the willful blindness of those who wandered and on their leanings toward evil, by sending his Word, equal with him and eternal with him. The Word, becoming flesh, so united the divine nature with the human that by lowering his own nature to the uttermost he raised ours to the highest. But so that the effect of this grace beyond words might be spread abroad throughout the world, God’s Providence prepared the Roman empire, whose growth reached such limits that the whole multitude of nations was brought into close connection. For the work God had planned especially required that many kingdoms should be bound together under one empire, so that the preaching of the word might quickly reach all peoples, since they were held under the rule of one state. And yet that state, not knowing the Author of its greatness, though it ruled almost all nations, was enslaved by the errors of them all, and seemed to itself to have practiced religion greatly because it rejected no falsehood. And so its release through Christ was all the more wonderful because it had been so tightly bound by Satan. [d]

For when the twelve apostles, after receiving through the Holy Spirit the power of speaking in all tongues, had divided the world into parts among themselves and had undertaken to teach it the good news, the most blessed Peter, chief of the apostolic company, was appointed to the citadel of the Roman empire. This was so that the light of truth, which was being revealed for the salvation of all the nations, might spread more effectively from the head itself throughout the whole body of the world. What nation did not then have people living in this city? What peoples did not know what Rome had learned? Here the teachings of philosophy had to be crushed; here the follies of earthly wisdom had to be scattered; here the worship of demons had to be refuted; here the blasphemy of every idolatry had to be rooted out, here where the most stubborn superstition had gathered together all the various errors that had been devised anywhere.

To this city, then, most blessed apostle Peter, you were not afraid to come. While the apostle Paul, the partner of your glory, was still busy setting other churches in order, you entered this forest of roaring beasts, this deep and stormy ocean, with greater boldness than when you walked on the sea. You who had been frightened by the high priest’s servant girl in the house of Caiaphas had no fear of Rome, the mistress of the world. Was there any less power in Claudius, or any less cruelty in Nero, than in the judgment of Pilate or in the savage rage of the Jews? So it was the force of love that overcame the reasons for fear, and you did not think those to be feared whom you had undertaken to love. You had surely conceived this fearless affection already when the profession of your love for the Lord was confirmed by the mystery of the question asked three times. And nothing else was asked of this earnest purpose of yours than that you should spend the food with which you yourself had been enriched in feeding his sheep, whom you loved. [e]

Your confidence was also increased by many miraculous signs, by many gifts of grace, by many proofs of power. You had already taught the people of the circumcision who had believed. You had already founded the church at Antioch, where the dignity of the Christian name first arose. You had already instructed Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia in the laws of the good news. And with no doubt about the success of the work, and knowing full well how short your life would be, you carried the trophy of Christ’s cross into the citadel of Rome, where, by God’s foreordaining, the honor of great power and the glory of much suffering went with you. [f]

There your blessed brother apostle Paul also came, “the chosen vessel” and the special teacher of the Gentiles, and was joined with you at a time when all innocence, all modesty, and all freedom were in danger under Nero’s rule. His fury, inflamed by excess in every vice, hurled him headlong into such a fiery furnace of madness that he was the first to attack the Christian name with a general persecution, as though God’s grace could be put out by the death of saints, whose greatest gain it was to win eternal happiness by despising this fleeting life. So “precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints,” and no degree of cruelty can destroy the religion founded on the mystery of Christ’s cross. Persecution does not shrink the church but enlarges it, and the Lord’s field is clothed with an ever richer crop, while the grains that fall one by one spring up and are multiplied a hundredfold. That is why the thousands of blessed martyrs show how large an offspring has sprung from these two seeds sown from heaven. Rivaling the triumphs of the apostles, they have gone far and wide through the city in throngs clad in purple and gleaming red, and have crowned it, as it were, with a single diadem of countless jewels. [g]

Over this company, dearly beloved, whom God has set before us as an example of patience and to strengthen us in the faith, there must be rejoicing everywhere in the remembrance of all the saints. But in the excellence of these two fathers we must rightly glory with louder joy, for God’s grace has raised them to so high a place among the members of the church that he has set them like the two lights of the eyes in the body whose Head is Christ. About their merits and virtues, which pass all power of speech, we must make no distinctions, because they were equal in their election, alike in their labors, and undivided in their death. But as we have proven for ourselves and as our forefathers held, we believe and are sure that amid all the labors of this life we must always be helped to obtain God’s mercy by the prayers of special intercessors, so that we may be raised up by the apostles’ merits in proportion as we are weighed down by our own sins. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. [i]