riumphale, uia Aurelia, iii K. iul.’ In the last notice the temple of erat probably refers to a temple of Cybele (Duchesne p. 120; Lipsius p. 401) on this site; by the palatiwm Neronianum is meant either Nero’s gardens or the Circus (prob- ably to be identified with the Nawmachia). It was apparently on this spot that Anencletus, accord- ing to the Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne pp. 55, 125), built a memoria beati Petri, where tradi- tion said that all the Roman bishops till the time of co a (except Clement and Alexander) were buried. The Church of San Pietro in Mon- torio is the outcome of another and later tradition that the apostle suffered on the Janiculum—a tradi- tion which possibly arose from a confusion between the via Aurelia on the Vatican and the older via Aurelia with the porta Aurelia on the Janiculum.*
(2) The Ad Catacumbas.—In the Depositio Mar- tyrum, one of the tracts which form the collection called by the general name of the Liberian Cata- logue, and which were possibly edited in 354 by Furius Filocalus, who certainly illuminated them and who executed the inscriptions of Damasus in the catacombs (Lightfoot, Clement i. p. 249), we find the notice: ‘iii Kal. iul. Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Ostense Tusco et Basso cons.’ There can be no doubt that this is a blundering revision of an original notice running thus: ‘iii Kal. iul. Petri et Pauli in Catacumbas Tusco et Basso cons.,’ the reviser, whoever he may have been, interpreting the statement as referring to the martyrdom of the apostles. This misinterpretation of the original notice is still more flagrant in the Martyr. Hierony- mianum: ‘iii KI. iul. Rome natale apostolorum Petri et Pauli: Petri in Vaticano uia Aurelia: Pauli uero in uia Ostensi : utrumque in Catacumbas; passi sub Nerone, Basso et Tusco consulibus.’ In reality the year indicated is A.D. 258, and the re- ference is to the transference of the apostles’ remains from their respective resting-places on the Ostian and Aurelian roads to the Catacumbas on the Appian road, i.e. the Church of St. Sebastian, during the Valerian persecution, a few weeks before the martyrdom of pope Xystus in August. Da- masus, as we learn from the Lib. Pontif. (ed. Duch- esne pp. 84f., 212; cf. p. civ), decorated the chamber, and placed over the locus bisomus the inscription—
* Hic habitasse prius sanctos cognoscere debes,
Nomina quisque Petri pariter Paulique requiris,
Discipulos oriens misit, quod sponte fatemur. . . .
Roma suos potius meruit defendere ciues.’ A misunderstanding of the common memorial day of the two apostles, which finds definite expression in the blundering notice of the Depositio, gave rise, it appears, to the legend that the two apostles suffered on the same a statement which first occurs in Jerome, de Virr. Illustr. 5: [Paulus]
(Pagan and Christian Rome £ 127 f.) supposes an!
* Lanciani that the erection of this church on the iculum to com- memorate the martyrdom is due to a misinterpretation of the tradition tha‘ St. Peter suffered inter duas metas.
PETER (SIMON)
—_—
‘quarto decimo Neronis anno eodem die quo Petrus Rome pro Christo capite truncatur, sepultusque est in uia Ostiensi.’ The historical fact that the apostles’ remains were supposed to have lain at one time near the place of their death and again in the Catacumbas, and then (see below) to have been re- stored to their original resting-places, gave rise to two stories. (a) The reference to the East in the verses of Damasus suggested the legend found in the Acta Petri et Pauli (ed. Lipsius p. 220) of Eastern Christians attempting to steal the bodies. These Acts assert that the bodies rested in the Catacum- bas a year and seven months; a later tradition, found in the Salzburg age makes the period 40 years (Duchesne p. ev; Benson, Cyprian He 482f.). (δ) According to the Liber Pontijicalis ( Duchesne pp. 65 ff., 150 ff.), Cornelius, bishop of Rome 251-253, at the request of a certain matron named Lucina, removed the bodies of the apostles by night from the Catacumbas. The body of Paul Lucina buried in her own grounds on the Ostian road. ‘Beati Petri accepit corpus beatus Cornelius episcopus et posuit iuxta locum ubi crucifixus est, inter corpora sanctorum episcoporum, in templum Apollonis, in monte Aureo, in Vaticanum palatii Neroniani, iii Kal. iul.’ The epithet awreus has probably arisen from the word Aurelius.
(3) The Vatican.—The Liber Pontificalis (ed. Duchesne pp. 78 f., 176; ef. the addition in one MS of the Passio Sanctorum App., ed. Lipsius p. 176)
ives the legend, derived originally from the Acta ilvestri, extant only in later recensions, that Con- stantine was baptized by Silvester, and thereby cured of leprosy; that at the request of the bishop he built a dasilica in honour of St. Peter on the site of a temple of Apollo; that he placed the apostle’s body there in a tomb of bronze sur- mounted by a golden cross. It is likely enough that the basilica was begun at the end of Con- stantine’s reign. But the body of the apostle cannot have been removed there before 354, since that is the date of the Liberian Depositio, where it is implied that the body still rested ad Cata- cumbas. The translation therefore must have taken place between 354 and the time when Da- masus (366-384) placed in the Catacuwmbas the inscription quoted above. On the whole subject see Duchesne, Lid. Pontificalis PP. civ ff., 119f., 125, 152, 193 ff., 214; Lipsius, Die Apokr. Apostelg. Il. i. p. 391 ff. (with reff. to his earlier works) ; Lightfoo , Clement ii. p. 499f.; Benson, Cyprian . 481 ff. ; Erbes, ‘Das Alter der Griber ἃ. Kirchen es Paulus ἃ. Petrus in Rom,’ in Brieger’s Zeitschr. JS. Kirchengesch. vii. p. 1ff. (1885); Lanciani, Pagan and Christian Rome pp. 122 ff., 345 ff. (1892); de Waal, Die Apostelgruft ad Catacumbas (1894); Erbes, ‘Die Todestage der A postal Paulus ἃ. Petrus,’ 1899 (Texte u. Untersuch. NF iv. 1).