Tag Archives: history

In the Vineyard

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The next chapter in my conversion story.

vineyard

In my youth, my faith was like the seed that fell along the path, that was devoured by the birds — my doubts, my questioning, my hurts. The next period of my life was one of new sowing; but my heart was rocky, my soil was shallow, and my faith sprang up quickly, only to wither away in the sun (Matthew 13).

My years of drifting away, and finally running away, had brought me to calamity. But God in His mercy spared me and gave me another chance. After my accident and remarkable healing, both physical and spiritual, I found myself at a crossroads, and had at long last chosen the road of God once again. But I was immature and full of pride. There was still so much that needed to be rooted out of my life before my heart could be ripe to bear true faith.

The Sower (Sower with Setting Sun) (1888), by Vincent Van Gogh. (WikiPaintings.org)

The Sower (Sower with Setting Sun) (1888), by Vincent Van Gogh. (WikiPaintings.org)

I had all the overweening zeal of a new convert, and went on a vehement and public crusade against the sins that had shackled me for so long and had brought about my ruin. It is painful to read my old journal posts from this time, to see how self-righteous and moralistic I was. My faith had no roots; no grounding. I thought I could make up for my lack of foundation with sheer fervency. Thankfully this time only lasted a few months: the first time I was faced with a real trial, a real temptation, I fell flat on my face.

I didn’t understand then that I was just a seedling. I needed to be regrown from the ground up. I had been reborn, but I was an infant in faith. I needed to be supported and cultivated. The Vineyard became my nursery.

The Vineyard was the young adult Sunday school class at Calvary. It was a little ironic to me even then that a group should be called “the Vineyard” in a church that was generally opposed to drinking alcohol, but it was built on the words of Jesus (John 15:5):

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

I had been alone for so long. And this was what I needed: to be truly grafted into the Vine; to find communion and fellowship with fellow Christians; to be loved and nourished. The Vineyard was that place for me.

It was never a place of any especially deep scriptural or theological study like I thought I needed — Calvary was never the place for that — but it was a place of love. There were in truth only a few people there I really connected with — our leaders Mr. Barry and Ms. Leisa, and Shelly and Michael, and a few others — but we became a tight group, and they made me feel loved and welcome and needed, like I belonged and mattered, like my thoughts and observations were valuable and important. It was something I had never known before, at that church or any other. And it was exactly what I needed.

Christ Pantokrator (10th century). Cefalù Cathedral. Cefalù, Sicily, Italy.

Christ Pantokrator (10th century). Cefalù Cathedral. Cefalù, Sicily, Italy.

I remember my thoughts turning to historic Christianity in my life of faith for the first time. The seeds that had been planted in Rome began to bear fruit. I spoke up in class more and more, making observations about the historical connections of our faith to the Early Church. On more than one occasion, someone objected and said, “Wait, isn’t that Catholic?” But Mr. Barry and Ms. Leisa stuck up for me. I felt validated; I felt I had room to grow as a Christian, even an intellectual Christian.

I loved the Vineyard, and the dear brethren I found there. I don’t know where I would be today without them. There were times of trouble ahead, that would bring me to my knees. But I had found my roots; I had learned to abide in the Vine.

A Dialogue with a Rigorous Skeptic

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Giotto. Pentecost (1310)

Pentecost (1310), by Giotto. (WikiPaintings.org)

I have really struggled with how to present this piece, the wrapping up, for now, of my address toward the “rigorous skeptic.” This is my third rewrite. The first, the end of what I originally wrote the first night, seemed to stray from the point and lose coherence when I read it in the morning. The second addressed the roots of “rigorous skepticism” and sounded rather too preachy. Here I’m going to drop any pretense and be as frank as I can.

The fact is, every thinking person has a Rigorous Skeptic who lives inside. Just because one has faith in realities one cannot see and cannot objectively prove doesn’t mean one has abandoned all reason. But one must be careful that Skepticism is not merely Agnosticism in disguise. Questioning and testing every truth is healthy and beneficial. Resigning oneself to the conclusion that truth is unknowable precludes any possibility of faith or belief; it is in effect a refusal to believe. Faith is a gift from God; but one can’t receive that gift if one closes one’s mind and bars the door.

Here I’m going to bare the inner workings of my mind and let my own Rigorous Skeptic express himself for a little while. I’ll present it as a dialogue: a sample of the dialogue that goes on in my head every day of my life. I’ll have to restrain him for now, or else this post would be interminable. But this I offer as evidence that one can believe and still be a Rigorous Skeptic, as long as one is open to the possibilities of faith.

Velazquez, St. Paul

St. Paul (c. 1619), by Diego Velazquez. (WikiPaintings.org)

Acceptor: I believe because of the witness of the New Testament: The extant documents that we have — the Pauline epistles that are universally accepted as genuine, dateable to within two or three decades of the lifetime of Jesus, and the Gospels, which are dateable to no more than four or five. These give witness to the very early belief in Jesus as the risen Messiah, too early for such beliefs to have formed by a process of accretion and of the veneration of a mere man getting out of hand.

Detractor: Unless they were deliberately fabricated.

Acceptor: To what end? What would be in such deception for anyone to gain? Surely there was no monetary gain in misleading Jesus’s earliest followers, or popular or political power — only persecution and death.

Detractor: The followers of Jesus needed him to be their Messiah, to save the Jews and overthrow their Roman oppressors.

Acceptor: Then why not present him as such? The Gospels do not present Jesus as a political or military revolutionary. Jesus had failed to be the Messiah the Jews were looking for: the Jews rejected him, and gave him over to be crucified.

Detractor: At least according to the Gospels. They present that it was the Roman authorities who crucified him: Doesn’t it make more sense for them to have executed him as a troublemaker and rabblerouser, who threatened to incite an uprising?

Acceptor: But the historical fact remains that the Jews did not accept him. And even if many had, they abandoned his cause in dejection when he died.

Detractor: Thus the resurrection. His closest followers “resurrected” him in order to continue what Jesus started.

Hans Memling, Christ Giving His Blessing (1481)

Christ Giving His Blessing (1481), by Hans Memling.

Acceptor: Again: Why not present him as a political revolutionary, were that the case? Not even the Gospel of Mark, dated to ca. A.D. 70 if not earlier (the date of 70 hinges only on the argument that Jesus could not have foretold the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 [Mark 13:2]), presents Jesus as that kind of leader. In fact, there is not even a trace of that. He is presented, even from that early date, as a religious teacher and a “suffering Messiah” with clear deific claims, with the seeds of Christian theology firmly planted and evident. The Gospels present him as the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.

Detractor: Perhaps, then, the motive was to overthrow the ruling religious elites, the Pharisees and Sadducees and “teachers of the Law.” And as for prophecy: Clearly the authors of the Gospels shaped the “facts” of Jesus’s life in order to appear to fulfill the prophecies.

Acceptor: Jesus failed to be a religious revolutionary also, at least in the near sense of overthrowing the Jewish religious elites. The Jews on the large had rejected Jesus. It would have been of no profit to the earliest Christians to present a risen Messiah if they did not in fact believe him risen; to offer a savior from Roman oppressors who had already crushed the Jews (if in fact the date of 70 for Mark is correct) or to subvert a Judaic temple system that had already fallen. The earliest Christians believed that the risen Christ offered a different kind of salvation, one that extended beyond the Jews (e.g. Mark 6:26–29, 13:10,27).

Hals, St. Luke

St. Luke (c. 1625), by Frans Hals. (WikiPaintings.org)

And as for prophecy: The authors of the Gospels must have been brilliant men to have fabricated such an elaborate and thoroughgoing “fulfillment” of the Old Testament: to present a foretold Messiah who not only quoted the Old Testament Scriptures but lived them; who fulfilled not just a handful or even a dozen prophecies, but hundreds of Scriptures that had not even been traditionally viewed as Messianic prophecy — and not in a forced and clumsy fashion, but in beautiful symmetry from the deepest marrow of the Judaic religion to the trappings of the Jewish monarchy — in a way that satisfied both but subverted neither. If fabricated, it is a masterwork of fiction, written not by single mastermind, but harmonized through the writings of half a dozen different authors — all of whom were engaged in active and deliberate deception, and nearly all of whom went to martyrs’ deaths for that deception, with no evidence that any of them recanted.

Detractor: Perhaps it was not the earliest Christians who constructed such a fabrication, but later editors who altered the primary sources of the New Testament to create this “harmonized” image.

Acceptor: But there is no evidence that this is the case. The manuscript tradition of the New Testament, with papyri dating possibly to the first century and to mere decades after the authorship of the documents, shows no evidence of extensive tampering or emendation. The thousands of textual variants throughout the manuscripts do not call into question a single, major, doctrinal or christological claim of the Christian religion. It appears that we have texts that are reasonably close to the autographs of each New Testament book, and that these texts are substantially unchanged from what existed at the end of the first century.

Detractor: But the canon of the New Testament — certainly what we have is only the documents that later “orthodox” Christians found supported their position.

Papyrus 46

Papyrus 46, one of the oldest extant New Testament manuscripts, dated to ca. 175-225, and containing most of the Pauline epistles. (Wikipedia)

Detractor: But there is little evidence of other early documents that were rejected, either in manuscripts or in quotations in early patristic authors, or any others that were suppressed, as this thesis argues. The earliest extant authors beyond the New Testament, such as Clement of Rome (ca. 97), Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 108), Irenaeus of Lyon (ca. 180), to name a few, express full agreement with what became the established New Testament, quoting from the now-canonical documents extensively, with little evidence or mention of other documents that have been lost or suppressed — only a few, surviving quotations from which support the same canonical unity. There was a general consensus regarding the authority of most of the now-canonical New Testament documents by the middle of the second century (see the Muratorian fragment, ca. 170). The early patristic authors, especially Clement and Ignatius, describe a Christian Church with remarkable unity both in doctrine and polity among many groups of Christians. Clement, a leader in the Church at Rome, wrote to advise and admonish the Church at Corinth. Ignatius wrote letters in exhortation to churches across Syria and Asia Minor and even to Rome. Irenaeus wrote to reject the arguments of Gnostic religions, invoking as authority the same unity and agreement that existed among “orthodox” churches that can be seen in the earlier writers. These documents present a Church firmly structured and organized by orders of bishops and priests and deacons, attested in the New Testament and plainly established in the time of these early extrabiblical writers.

Detractor: That appears, admittedly, to be a strong case for the historical adequacy of the Church’s claims. I have nothing more — for now.

The Authority and Reliability of Paul: More historical thoughts on Early Christianity

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Ribera, Saint Paul (1637)

Saint Paul (1637), by Jusepe de Ribera.

[Continuing my thoughts from last night, about the historical reliability of early Christian testimonies, in particular the biblical texts, and the argument that the “orthodoxy” we see today only stemmed from this faction being the victor among many competing early sects. This is Part 2, and it nearly doubled in size from what I started with tonight.]

My friend challenges that the New Testament texts themselves reveal fault lines and factions within early Christianity. Does this argument have merit?

It is true that Paul describes his conflicts with the Judaizers, early Christians who insisted that Jewish Christians should continue to observe the Mosaic Law, in effect, according to Paul, nullifying Christ’s atoning sacrifice by the argument that salvation was only possible through the works of the Law. (See especially Galatians and Romans.) 1 John 4:2–3 seems to reject the doctrines of the Docetists, who argued that Jesus never truly came in the flesh but was instead a kind of divine phantasm. 1 Timothy 6:20 may mark an rejection of early Gnostic thought, which argued that some secret and esoteric knowledge (γνῶσις or gnosis) was necessary for salvation. So yes, there is evidence of some early disagreement; this is not a great surprise, given human free will.

But what was the nature of these disagreements? How widespread were they, and what following did these alternate viewpoints have? We don’t have that information, since these mentions in the New Testament itself are the only sources we have even attesting to their existence at this early date, just as the New Testament documents are the only testimonies we have to the first-century Christian Church.

The Apostle John is traditionally held to have been really old when he died, around the turn of the second century.

The Apostle John is traditionally held to have been really old when he died, around the turn of the second century.

Even more important: how early were these disputes? The first epistle of John (1 John) is believed to be one of the latest documents of the New Testament, written as late as the final decade of the first century. By that time, those who had personal experiences of Jesus had nearly all passed away. Paul’s first epistle to Timothy (1 Timothy) is generally believed to have been written toward the end of Paul’s ministry and life, between A.D. 62 and 67, also nearly a generation after Christ. A setting in which the firsthand witnesses to Jesus’s life and ministry were passing from the scene would have been ripe for the rise of new interpretations and viewpoints.

But of course, the rigorous skeptic would ask, how do we know which is the original viewpoint, and which are the alternative ones? In addition to examining the dating of the extant documents — the oldest texts, especially those written mere decades after Christ’s ministry, having at least the greatest authoritative claim — we should examine the authors of these texts, and question their claims to authority. In a similar way, in judging the reliability of ancient historians, we consider who they were and how they would have obtained their information. Thucydides, for example, is generally accepted as a reliable authority on his subject, he being a contemporary and firsthand participant in the Peloponnesian War.

Valentin, Paul Writing

Saint Paul Writing His Epistles (ca. 17th century), by Valentin de Boulogne (1591–1632).

To begin, let us consider Paul, the largest target, he being the author of the greater part of the New Testament. It is reasonable to accept that there was in fact a Christian leader named Paul who wrote a series of letters in the first century. It is also reasonable to accept that at least some of the letters we ascribe to Paul were in fact written by Paul. If this weren’t the case, we would have to ask why this Paul character had such authority if he never wrote anything authoritative. It is reasonable to accept, from the fact that his letters were accepted as authoritative, that Paul’s teaching and influence covered a fairly wide geographic area for the time, with Pauline letters being addressed to Christians in places as diverse as Philippi, Ephesus, Corinth, and Rome. We have no reason to question that Paul actually visited these places and taught those Christians in person: otherwise, no one would have accepted his letters as authoritative. These letters, if authentic, can be reasonably dated to the A.D. 50s and 60s, based on internal evidence.

Shakespeare

Or, Shakespeare could have written St. Paul.

Of course, it is conceivable that “Paul” himself could have been an elaborate hoax perpetrated by someone writing in the second or third century, planting and disseminating Pauline letters around the Christian world (by that time vast). Perhaps Paul never existed at all, let alone visited any of the places he is supposed to have visited, and the supposed recipients of his letters never received them at all. ― But this line of reasoning presses “rigorous skepticism” to the point of the ridiculous.

Ignatius of Antioch

St. Ignatius of Antioch

We know with reasonable certainty that Paul did exist; we know that his letters were disseminated among Christian communities fairly rapidly. Nearly all of the canonical Pauline letters were in circulation and were accepted by Christians by the end of the first century — by the testimony of Ignatius of Antioch, who quoted most of them explicitly in the letters he wrote to Christian communities around Syria and Asia Minor and to Rome. We can draw from Ignatius’s quotations both that he had access to the many New Testament documents he quotes — and probably knew them by memory, since it seems unlikely he would be traveling to his death carrying a full library — and also that the communities to which he was writing would have understood his allusions and their context also, having access to the same documents themselves. Also tellingly, he did not quote or allude to any other documents that were later rejected from the New Testament canon.

So it seems reasonable to conclude that Paul was widely accorded authority by at least some Christians as early as the A.D. 50s and 60s. These Christians were spread over a wide area, to nearly every corner of the world that the Christian message had then advanced — since, at least according to “orthodox” accounts, Paul was the one advancing it. The fact that he was accepted by Christian groups in many places and not by isolated sects is an argument in favor of his authority and reliability as an historical source. Organized, dissenting sects would have had identifiable leaders — just as we know the names of the major proponents of nearly all of the later “heresies.” Here there is no evidence at all of such organized sects during Paul’s lifetime — neither through literature of their own, nor through rigorous opposition that would have been evident in the surviving “orthodox” documents.

[There’s more where that came from! Stay tuned!]

“Rigorously skeptical”: Historical thoughts on the Christian faith

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Hans Memling, Christ Giving His Blessing (1481)

Christ Giving His Blessing (1481), by Hans Memling.

[This is a post that ballooned into about three posts when I sat down to write it. So I split it up, rather than giving you far more than anyone wants to read.]

Once again, my plans for what I was going to write about today have been disrupted. I had a heated discussion with a dear friend today that has set me to thinking. My friend is a self-proclaimed atheist, but a former Christian who has been deeply wounded. He is a thinker, a philosopher, and his mind works in ways that mine cannot. But I wanted to do my best to address his questions in a more thoughtful way, not in the heat of a moment.

To preface, I will say that though I’ve had some academic training, I am not an academic. I have not read deeply of the academic historiography of the early Church. I am a man of faith, and my faith informs everything I do. But my friend challenged that the historical claims of the Christian Church do not stand up to a “rigorously skeptical” examination; that they cannot be accepted without presuming that the claims of the Church are true, resulting in a circular argument. I disagree.

Darius the Great

Darius the Great of Persia.

First, what is reasonable to expect in holding historical claims to a “rigorously skeptical” standard? Aren’t there many things in history that we accept as fact based on little and imperfect evidence? My friend has a background in ancient history, and though I’ve dabbled in that some, that has never been my bag; so I admit I am arguing from something I don’t know much about. But don’t we generally accept the narrative of the Persian Wars of Greece given by Herodotus and Xenophon, though neither was a contemporary, or Livy’s account of the early Roman republic, though he only saw the end of it? In the absence of any other testimony, it seems, historians treat theirs with reasonable skepticism, but nonetheless accept them as the best sources we have. Early Christianity and the historical testimonies to it should be held to the same standard.

So let’s take a look at early Christianity. My friend argues, as is widely accepted by secular academics, that there was no Christian orthodoxy in the beginning, and that what we today accept as “orthodoxy” is only the victor of a battle for supremacy among many competing Christian sects. All of my arguments, he challenges, rest on the assumption that the “orthodox” account of early Christian history today is true. He challenges that there are contradictions and inconsistencies in the New Testament that evince this early factiousness.

Codex Vaticanus

A leaf from Codex Vaticanus, one of the earliest extant manuscripts of the Greek New Testament.

I accept, with every reasonable textual scholar, that there are certain problems and inconsistencies in the text of the New Testament; but these, I argue, are minor, involving only details and chronologies, and do not affect the substance of any Christian doctrine they teach. These inconsistencies show only that the New Testament documents were written by different people at different times in different places, and that the authors weren’t all in constant communication with each other, to compare their notes and get their facts straight. To me, these inconsistencies are an argument in favor of the historical reliability of the New Testament rather than against it: we have several different people telling a story that is substantially the same.

Doctrinally, the documents of the New Testament demonstrate an even more telling consistency. Despite differences in emphases, each of the half-dozen or so writers of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, James, Jude — even more if one argues that John the Evangelist and John the Presbyter and John the Revelator were different people) expresses the same basic doctrines about Christ: that he was the Jewish Messiah, the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies; that he was the divine Son of God, to be identified with God Himself; that he died, was resurrected, and would come again in glory.

[It feels so unsatisfying to cut it off there. But that just gives you something to look forward to tomorrow.]

Resurrection Chapel: Or, God Makes a Home for the Lonely

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Nesterov, Resurrection (c. 1892)

Resurrection (c. 1892), by Mikhail Nesterov. (WikiPaintings.org)

As I’ve relocated, I have lamented most of all leaving behind my mother parish, the one that gave birth to me as a Catholic and nourished me as a neophyte. It is not easy for me to make friends, but at Saint John’s I found such love and welcome and hospitality and cultivated several friendships that I will always cherish.

The parish here in my hometown is much larger and rather overwhelming. In the year I’ve been occasionally hearing Mass there, in times I’ve come home to visit, I have yet to make a new and real connection. This, I know, is partially my own fault, for not stepping out of my shell and introducing myself; but I just don’t do well in crowds.

I have dreaded the loneliness and the struggle to make friends and find a place here. But I should have remembered that God has always taken care of me, every step of my way. Though I tend to be a loner, I have never been alone. He has always provided, placing just the right people in my life at just the right time. And He has done so again — in a most prodigious and unexpected way, as if to affirm that every step of my road so far has been His, and to remind me that He continues to order the road ahead. Though it may appear dark and unknown, He will always provide a lamp for my feet and a light for my path (Psalm 119:105).

Tintoretto, The Resurrection of Christ (1565)

The Resurrection of Christ (1565), by Tintoretto. (WikiPaintings.org)

My first week at home was a struggle. Saturday I went Christmas shopping with my family, and missed the scheduled time for Reconciliation in the parish at home. I felt I desperately needed to go, and feared going another week without His Eucharistic presence. I was browsing MassTimes.org (a very handy website) and found a listing both of Mass times and Confession for parishes in my area. And then, my eyes lit on something unexpectedly familiar.

I have known for a while that there was a small mission parish in Lawrence County, Alabama, the neighboring county to mine, the root from which some dozen of my family lines sprang, and also (not entirely by coincidence) the county on which I’m focusing my thesis research. The last I heard, the Catholic mission in Lawrence County was meeting in Moulton, the county seat, and did not have a permanent church building or a priest. That, as it turns out, was old information. No longer a mission, they still do not have a priest, and rely on visiting priests from all around the diocese to celebrate Mass on Sunday evenings. They have since inhabited the building of an older church that had disbanded, a very old and storied church — among the oldest churches in Lawrence County, that gives its name to the surrounding community: Morris Chapel.

My eyes went wide. Morris Chapel, once a Methodist Episcopal church, is also the church where a number of my ancestors were members. My great-great-great-great-grandfather, Dr. William Alldredge, and his family were, I believe, members there; and my great-great-great-grandfather, Rev. Thomas Benton Parker, was at one time pastor of the church.

Dr. William Alldredge (1809–1880), ca. 1850.

Dr. William Alldredge (1809–1880).

Dr. William Alldredge is one of my more illustrious ancestors (in my own family, anyway). He was among the earliest settlers of North Alabama, coming down the river from Tennessee with his father in 1816. During the 1850s, he traveled to New York to attend medical school, and returning home, he settled in Lawrence County as a country doctor. Dr. William was also a staunch Methodist, of whom the story is told that once while engaged in a heated and lengthy argument with a Baptist friend on the issue of predestination, he struck the friend with his riding crop, arguing, “I couldn’t help it. It was predestined.”

Rev. Thomas Benton Parker (1844–1913) and his wife Frances Jane (Gray) Parker (1839–1910).

Rev. Thomas Benton Parker (1844–1913) and his wife Frances Jane (Gray) Parker (1839–1910).

Thomas Benton Parker was a longtime and well-known Methodist circuit rider and preacher in his day. I do not know a lot about his personality, don’t have any letters from him or stories about him, or any sermons that he preached (though some of these might exist). But I know that he must have been a good and faithful man and an inspiring preacher, because he was the father, father-in-law, or grandfather of some half-dozen Methodist ministers after him — including a young William Warren Aldridge, Dr. William’s grandson and my great-great-grandfather, who was saved and called to preach as a member of Thomas Benton’s flock, and married Tom’s daughter.

And Thomas Benton Parker lies buried there in the cemetery at Morris Chapel — which is what especially struck me in learning that a Catholic church now occupied the site.

Resurrection Chapel, at Morris Chapel

Resurrection Chapel, at Morris Chapel.

I was elated by my discovery — and relieved by the fact that the church offered Confession before Sunday evening Mass. It being only a few miles away, I resolved to attend, for the sake of Reconciliation, for curiosity, and to share my connection.

I found much more connection than I expected: an intimate, personal atmosphere in which I truly felt communion with the people around me and with the Lord. The parishioners — of whom there were only a couple dozen on this stormy night — were gracious, kind, and hospitable, more than any church I’ve ever been a part of. They immediately embraced me as a member of the family. Rick Chenault, the church director, in the final stages of entering the permanent diaconate, warmly welcomed me, and invited me to stay for a meeting of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul: this parish, though small, gives abundantly to do God’s work of caring for the poor, such that even other churches in the area send their cases to them. Everyone I met there heartily introduced themselves and treated me as a brother. And to my surprise, I already knew several of them, from school and work years ago. I had the distinct feeling that I was home.

Inside the church

They have made some additions since this photo was taken, but you can still tell it was once a country Methodist church. Also, it's not easy to retrofit Methodist pews with kneelers.

Resurrection Chapel was founded in 1992 by Glenmary Home Missioners, a Catholic society dedicated to reaching and serving the spiritual needs of the Catholic faithful in rural areas across America, and to spreading the Gospel of Christ and the Catholic faith into new areas. Currently, all of their missions are in the rural South, in traditionally evangelical, but today heavily unchurched, areas. Now in their own church building — at Morris Chapel — Resurrection Chapel is a growing and dynamic parish, full of love and life and faith. (I can attest to this even though I was there on such a stormy, messy night.)

I was surprised and again elated to learn that the first Catholic Church in North Alabama, in what would only in 1969 become the Diocese of Birmingham (that’s /ˈbɜrmɪŋhæm/, or bur´•ming•ham, for you Brits), was established in Moulton in Lawrence County in 1835 by Rev. Peter Mauvernay, to serve the local community of Irish immigrants. It lasted only a few years, until Fr. Mauvernay was called away to become the president of Spring Hill College in Mobile. Now, so many years later, we are striving to be a Catholic presence in such a heavily Protestant region.

T.B. Parker grave

The grave of T.B. Parker.

My dad quipped that T.B. Parker would turn in his grave if he knew that Catholics had now taken hold of his church — and that might have been the case in his earthly life. But I like to believe that Tom, now living with Christ, has discovered the truth of Christ’s Church, and was instrumental in bringing Resurrection to Morris Chapel, and bringing me there, too.

It is sad that the Methodist congregation of so many years has passed away; but the labors of the Methodists are a seed that has fallen to the ground and borne good fruit here. Resurrection is a more than apt name. Resurrection Chapel is a light in the darkness — both to the lost of Lawrence County, and to me.

It’s been a good while since I’ve believed in mere coincidences. And here are too many to stack up: that I would be longing and praying for a Catholic family in my new home; that Resurrection Chapel would be longing and praying for a permanent church home themselves; and that our needs would coincide, and we would find each other on the very ground my ancestors trod and laid down their dust. I am still overwhelmed and amazed by God’s providence — truly a home for the lonely (Psalm 68:6, NASB), and another signpost in the road.

Missing Information: The Historical Limitations of Sola Scriptura

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(This little essay originated as a comment in another blog just now, and I thought it might be worth sharing.)

Bible

As a historian — and this is one of the things that led me to Catholicism — I feel like it’s a fallacy of the doctrine of sola scriptura to presume that we have all the sources and aren’t missing any information. We have to remember that there were twenty, thirty, maybe forty years between the events of Christ’s earthly ministry and the writing of the earliest Gospel. For those decades, the Church wasn’t just sitting around waiting patiently for God to give them the New Testament so they could begin preaching the Gospel. The original mode of transmitting the Gospel was by oral preaching and teaching, by the Apostles going out into the world and spreading it by word of mouth. The churches they established were many and far-flung, but they were in touch with each other, by believers traveling among them, by the Apostles returning to visit the churches like Paul wrote about, bringing news and teaching.

We have to accept that we just don’t have all of that from Scripture. The writers of the New Testament didn’t record absolutely everything that happened or was going on between the churches. The Gospels, by their own admission, aren’t even a full account of everything Jesus said and did (John 21:25) — and such a thing isn’t even possible. No writer can record everything, not even a divine one — because He’s limited by the very earthly medium of paper and pen. The books of the New Testament very frequently refer to events we don’t know about and can only infer, to people we don’t know, even to letters we don’t have (1 Corinthians 5:9, 7:1).

Now, Protestants believe that everything they need for salvation is recorded in the Scriptures — and I like to think that God really did give them enough to get them into heaven, since He surely knew ahead of time that they were going to bolt. But that doesn’t mean that everything is in the Scriptures. On many points, the Bible is silent. That doesn’t mean, however, that there necessarily aren’t answers. The Tradition handed down by the Church — not vague, amorphous “traditions,” but historically documented testimony to the Church’s beliefs from the earliest ages — can shed light in many places, and complete our incomplete picture of the Early Church.

It’s very compelling to me to study the Bible and discover all I can about the people and places in it — but my salvation doesn’t hinge on which Mary was which or whether Jesus’s “brothers” were Apostles or even whether they were His brothers. Not even Tradition offers definite answers to many questions. Since I know I don’t have all the facts — not about the Early Church and certainly not about God — I’m content to just let some things be mysteries, things I wonder about but won’t know until I get to ask. I believe and have faith in the things I know for sure, and that’s that the Gospel is true and Jesus is my Savior.

Charles Carroll, Catholic Founder

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Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Charles Carroll of Carrollton.

Happy Fourth of July! I know I have a good few readers from other places, but here in the United States, the Fourth of July is our Independence Day, the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, only one was a Roman Catholic: Charles Carroll of Carrollton, of the colony of Maryland.

Maryland was founded in 1634 by the Lords Baltimore as a safe haven for Catholics during the time of the European wars of religion. Maryland was a leading early proponent of religious toleration, passing the Maryland Toleration Act in 1649, which mandated freedom of worship and prohibited hate speech toward any Christian, the first document in the world to do so — though it only applied to orthodox, Trinitarian Christians, and prosecuted denials of the Christian faith. Religious strife soon spread even to Maryland, though, when only a year later in 1650, Puritans, having overthrown and executed King Charles I in the English Civil War, seized the colony of Maryland, repealed the act, and established a new government prohibiting both Catholicism and Anglicanism (you’ve gotta love the Calvinists). Lord Baltimore regained control of the colony in 1658, and reenacted the Toleration Act.

Thirty years later, the “Glorious Revolution” of 1688, in which the Catholic king of England, James II, was deposed by the Protestant William and Mary, was not so glorious for Catholics in Maryland. Puritans, by then a majority in the colony, again seized the opportunity to overcome the Catholic government, in what became known as the “Protestant Revolution” of Maryland. They again revoked the Toleration Act and barred Catholics from worshipping publicly. Over the next decades, the new government gradually stripped Catholics of their civil rights, including the rights to hold public office, vote, or inherit property.

This is the culture in which Charles Carroll (1737–1832) was born and raised. Descending from an old Irish Catholic family, Carroll was known, and signed his name, as “Charles Carroll of Carrollton,” to distinguish himself from his father and grandfather of the same name. Carroll was born illegitimate, as at the time of his birth, his parents were not legally married, in an effort to protect the family estates from the Protestant government’s restrictions on inheritance (they married twenty years later). Carroll was educated in Jesuit schools, first at a secret school in Maryland and then in France. At the behest of his father, he remained in Europe, where he had far greater opportunities as a Catholic, until he was twenty-eight in 1765. He received a thorough classical education, and returned one of the most educated men in America. Carroll’s father granted to him Carrollton, a vast, 17,000-acre estate in Frederick County, Maryland. He became one of the wealthiest planters in Maryland, if not in all the colonies.

Declaration of Independence

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull.

Though barred from actively participating in politics, Carroll became increasingly concerned as tensions with Britain mounted in the 1770s. In 1772 he engaged in an anonymous debate against Loyalist Daniel Dulany in the Maryland Gazette, over rising taxes and fees to state officials and Protestant clergy. After his identity became known, Carroll became more and more involved in opposition to British rule. In 1774 he was elected to Maryland’s committee of correspondence, and from then on represented Maryland on both the colonial level and to the other colonies. In 1776 he was elected to the Continental Congress, and though he did not arrive in time for the debate on the Declaration of Independence, he did sign the official document.

Following independence from Britain and the formation of the United States, Carroll served as Maryland’s first United States senator, from 1789 to 1792, when he resigned, preferring to remain in the Maryland State Senate, in which he served until 1800. He was the longest-lived and last living Signer of the Declaration of Independence, passing away in 1832 at the age of 95. His funeral was at the Baltimore Cathedral, the first Roman Catholic cathedral in the United States, now known as the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or the Baltimore Basilica).

Catholics have a long history of getting the short end of the stick as far as religious liberty is concerned. As a Catholic, Charles Carroll was a leading proponent for liberty and toleration for all. Maryland’s Toleration Act marked an important precedent upon which the religious provisions of the First Amendment were founded. I am thankful today for the sacrifices and labors of our Founding Fathers, especially men like Charles Carroll, who saw religious freedom to be a universal human right.

Our bishops’ Fortnight for Freedom, observed for the past two weeks, has recalled our religious freedoms to my mind ever more vividly, especially as we Catholics again face encroachment upon our freedom to practice our religion. In Father Joe’s homily on Sunday, he pointed out an important distinction that many non-religious people fail to realize: Our freedom to worship, to conduct our liturgy in our private space, is only one part of religious liberty. Our freedom to practice our religion — our freedom to live our lives according to the precepts of our faith — is another matter, every bit as valuable and every bit as essential. It is this freedom that the government is now seeking to abridge.

The First Roman Martyrs

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Why is it that it’s only when I have a dozen other things I’m supposed to be doing (cleaning my disgusting apartment, doing laundry, revising a history paper for school) that my mind is bursting with blog ideas?

The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer

The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer (1883), by Jean-Léon Gérôme, my favorite Orientalist painter. It truly captures the drama and the agony of the first Christian persecutions, and yet the peace before God.

Today is the Feast of the First Holy Martyrs of the Holy Roman Church, celebrated the day after the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. This celebration encompasses the many nameless Christian martyrs who suffered under the persecution of the emperor Nero beginning in A.D. 64 (Peter and Paul both also died under this persecution), as well as many other lesser-known Roman martyrs.

Tacitus

Tacitus.

These persecutions are vividly described in the Annales (Annals) of the Roman historian Tacitus (A.D. 56–117), one of the first mentions of Christianity in secular literature, written ca. A.D. 116. The context is the aftermath of the Great Fire of Rome in July 64 (Annales XV. 44, ed. G. P. Goold, trans. John Jackson, for Loeb Classical Library, 1937):

But neither human help, nor imperial munificence, nor all the modes of placating Heaven, could stifle scandal or dispel the belief that the fire had taken place by [Nero’s] order. Therefore, to scotch the rumour, Nero substituted as culprits, and punished with the utmost refinements of cruelty, a class of men, loathed for their vices, whom the crowd styled Christians. Christus, the founder of the name, had undergone the death penalty in the reign of Tiberius, by sentence of the procurator Pontius Pilatus, and the pernicious superstition was checked for a moment, only to break out once more, not merely in Judaea, the home of the disease, but in the capital itself, where all things horrible or shameful in the world collect and find a vogue. First, then, the confessed members of the sect were arrested; next, on their disclosures, vast numbers were convicted, not so much on the count of arson as for hatred of the human race. And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts’ skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night. Nero had offered his Gardens for the spectacle, and gave an exhibition in his Circus, mixing with the crowd in the habit of a charioteer, or mounted on his car. Hence, in spite of a guilt which had earned the most exemplary punishment, there arose a sentiment or pity, due to the impression that they were being sacrificed not for the welfare of the state but to the ferocity of a single man.

Why Protestants Should Care

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St. Gregory the Great

St. Gregory the Great, a Christian of the sixth century.

So, I finally revealed my blog to my Facebook and Twitter friends. And a good many of them have followed me. Being a little more public has brought about a good bit of self-scrutiny: Am I relevant? Why should anybody want to read my blog? Why should Protestants, in particular, want to read my blog?

Well, let me say up front that my aim is not to convert anybody. If my own journey in any way inspires anyone else to look into the Catholic Church for themselves, I would be gratified and humbled; but I don’t really expect that to happen.

But the first reason I would give why Protestants should read my blog is that the Roman Catholic Church is Christian, too. There’s such a tendency — particularly in the evangelical branches of the faith, as I can attest — to marginalize and ignore the modern Catholic Church as something foreign, irrelevant, and obsolete, at best — at worst as something corrupt, unbiblical, and anti-Christian. Growing up evangelical, I simply never heard about the Catholic Church. Reading even the most scholarly and thoughtful evangelical books, I never saw the Catholic Church mentioned. When I did hear it mentioned, it was usually in shades of otherness and mistrust — as a “dead religion” bound up in “empty tradition” and “works’ righteousness.” The primary thing I want to convey about my newfound faith is that this stereotype is completely false. By my witness and by my words, I hope to vividly proclaim the life and love of the Catholic faith. And, as Protestants, I hope you will welcome this message and embrace Catholics as brothers and sisters in the faith.

Not only is the Catholic Church Christian, but it is an essential part of the Christian heritage of all Protestants. The Christian faith didn’t suddenly emerge out of nothing in 1517. Whatever you may believe personally about the Catholic Church, you must acknowledge that the Roman Catholic Church received and nourished and protected the Christian faith, and its Bible, through nearly 1,500 years of history, at last bearing it into the hands of the Protestant Reformers in the sixteenth century. What happened over the course of those prior centuries? Growing up, I had little idea, and I suppose many other Protestants do not either. There is a tendency among many Protestants to reject the Catholic past, when in fact it is the Christian past. Did the faith die, or shrivel up, or disappear, over those ages? Did the Catholic Church cease to be Christian? One only need look as far as just a few of the shining examples of faith we have in the saints, to assure oneself that it did not: St. Gregory the Great (c. 540–604), St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226), St. Ignatius Loyola (1491–1556), St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873–1897). These and many other Christians of the past can inspire and enrich your faith.

Through understanding the Christian past — where your faith has come from, how it came to you, and the people of the past who have lived and shared it — you can better understand the faith and how to live it today. Through appreciating the Catholic Church as the Mother Church of your own, rather than rejecting it as something lost and devoid, you can gain assurance of the integrity, security, and timelessness of the Christian Gospel over all the ages of history. You may even find something of value to your own faith that has been lost through all the turmoil of the Reformation and its aftermath. As an historian, a friend, and an evangelical, I hope to be able to share the history of the Church in an accessible and interesting way.

Finally, I hope you will read my blog because we are all Christians together. We all share the love of God and the Gospel of Christ. And we owe it to our Lord not to abandon His Church to the division and disunity to which our ancestors have driven it. It is the burden of each and every one of us to strive for understanding across the chasms we have made — because Christ is undivided; it is we who have brought brokenness to the earthly Church, and we who perpetuate it every day that all Christians cannot break bread together. It is my hope that through striving to understand our differences and disagreements in these pages, I will help all see that we are not that far apart, and maybe even help us to draw closer together — closer to reunification. I truly believe that it is possible, and that it is more important now than ever before that we stand together as the Body of Christ.

The Bones of St. Peter

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This should be the conclusion of my three-parter on the Tomb of St. Peter at St. Peter’s Basilica on the Vatican, in which I hope to discuss the discovery of St. Peter’s relics and the issue of their authenticity. Also, a bibliography! Previously, “The Tomb of St. Peter,” “The Grave of St. Peter.“

Red Wall bones

The bones found beneath the Red Wall (briefly replaced there for the photograph). (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

The bones the Vatican archaeologists had discovered in 1942, in the niche at the foundation of the Red Wall, to one side of St. Peter’s grave, remained safely locked in lead-lined chests in the private chambers of the pope for over a decade. Only a cursory examination had been given to them by the pope’s private physician, who declared that they were the bones of a man in his seventies — the age Peter was expected to have been at his martyrdom. The pope had made only a brief, uncertain announcement concerning the bones in 1950. The hungry press, a curious academia, and the anxious Church widely wondered about their authenticity, and the frustration only built at the Vatican’s reticence and characteristic slowness.

Finally, in 1956, at the request of Pope Pius XII, Venerando Correnti, a leading anthropologist and professor at Palermo University, examined the Red Wall bones. Correnti’s meticulous examination and testing took over four years. In the end, his findings were disappointing: these were almost certainly not the bones of Peter. The pile contained the bones of as many as four individuals: two men in their fifties, a man in his forties, and an elderly woman in her seventies, as well as an assortment of animal bones. The animal bones were not a great surprise: the ancient necropolis was known to have been near the emperor Nero’s circus and stables, and discarded animal carcasses may have left their bones strewn all throughout the area.

The bones that had been the objects of hope for over a decade — the bones found in, or at least to the side of, St. Peter’s grave — were not the saint’s relics at all. But that is not the end of the story. Another set of bones had been discovered at the site, that Correnti now prepared to examine.

Graffiti wall

The Graffiti Wall, on the north side of the Tropaion, showing the repository. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Unknown to the archaeologists at the time, there had been a serious blunder early in the excavation. Early in 1942, when the team had first discovered the Graffiti Wall at the north side of the Tropaion, with its curious marble receptacle slightly exposed, they had initially chosen not to disturb it, wishing to fully photograph and document the valuable graffiti before risking damage to the plaster by reaching into the hole. When they finally did examine it, they found nothing inside but a medieval coin, some bone fragments, and other debris.

But by the time they got to it, the receptacle had already been tampered with. Monsignor Ludwig Kaas, the administrator of St. Peter’s Basilica and nominal head of the investigation, had a habit of inspecting the excavations alone at night after the archaeologists had left. Kaas was not an archaeologist himself, and had little appreciation for proper archaeological procedure. Troubled by possible disrespect to the bones of saints, as unknown graves and bones were uncovered in the course of the investigation and set aside, Kaas would remove these bones and place them respectfully in boxes.

Pallia diagram

In this diagram of the Niche of the Pallia and the surrounding tomb, the Graffiti Wall is labeled Wall g. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Late one night within a couple of days of the Graffiti Wall being exposed, Kaas examined it and its receptacle. He brought with him Giovanni Segoni, one of the foreman of the Sampietrini, the skilled workmen charged with the care of St. Peter’s Basilica, who had been assisting in the excavations. At Kaas’s direction, Segoni widened the hole in the plaster and removed the contents of the repository: a considerable pile of human bones with some shreds of reddish cloth. Segoni placed these in a wooden box, sealed it, and labeled it. The box would remain in a storeroom throughout the remainder of the excavation, unknown to any of the archaeologists.

In 1952, when Dr. Margherita Guarducci was examining the graffiti of the Graffiti Wall, she encountered Segoni by chance. She inquired about the contents of the receptacle and learned that he had emptied it himself, and he led her to the box. Not realizing that the archaeologists were unaware of Kaas’s actions, Guarducci was surprised by the size and extent of the bones, and even more so by what she believed was a failure on the part of the archaeologists to document them and consider their importance. It was not until more than a decade later, when Guarducci discussed the matter with Kirschbaum and the other archaeologists, that all realized what had happened.

But Guarducci placed the neglected bones in the queue for Correnti to examine. Preoccupied for so long with the disarrayed pile of Red Wall bones, Correnti did not get to the Graffiti Wall bones until 1962. Fully expecting this to be another collection of mixed bones, he was surprised by his unexpected findings: they were the remains of one elderly man, between sixty and seventy years old, of sturdy build. There were two other puzzling aspects: the bones were encrusted with soil in their crevices and hollows, as if buried and exhumed; and a number of the larger bones appeared to have been stained with a reddish or purplish dye, the color of the shreds of fabric discovered in the box. Sometime after the decay of the flesh, the bones had been dug up from a grave and wrapped in a purplish cloth.

Graffiti Wall Repository

The inside of the Graffiti Wall repository. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

It was Guarducci who, learning of Correnti’s findings, developed the theory that the Graffiti Wall bones might be the bones of St. Peter himself. But why would Peter’s bones be in the marble repository of the Graffiti Wall, and not in the central grave? What was the purpose of the repository? It might have been, Guarducci reasoned, a hiding place, a container for the bones’ safekeeping and protection from Roman persecutors and vandals. At the time of the Graffiti Wall’s construction in the mid-third century, Christianity was under the most aggressive persecution it had suffered in decades, under the emperors Decius and Valerian. Might the Church have felt the bones were threatened?

A closer examination of the scraps of cloth discovered with the bones brought a stunning revelation: it was a cloth dyed what appeared to be purple, and interwoven with pure gold thread of the finest craftsmanship. The dye used, upon chemical testing, proved to be the authentic Roman purpling agent, reserved for royalty.

Peter's bones

A sampling of the bones believed to be those of St. Peter. These are the carpals and metacarpals of the left hand. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

And the dirt encrusted on the bones — could it reveal where the bones had been before? Testing the soil composition of the central grave, the outer courtyard, and the area around the Graffiti Wall, the soil on the bones was a perfect match for the soil in the central grave, quite distinct from the soil in the other locations. These bones appeared to have been at one time buried in the central grave.

But hadn’t the repository been opened in the Middle Ages, as evidenced by the medieval coin discovered inside? A careful disassembly of the Graffiti Wall by the archaeologists revealed that the receptacle had in fact been intact since its construction, and was only cracked open by the archaeologists’ recent excavations (with sledgehammers). While taking it apart, a number of other coins fell out from the wall’s crevices; they reasoned that the medieval coin had fallen into the repository through these cracks. The remains of a dead mouse were also discovered inside, who must have entered somehow — verifying the possibility that small items might have entered the repository without breaching it.

Petros Fragment

The Petros Fragment from the Red Wall, discovered inside the repository. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

Another fact that had been overlooked, seemingly irrelevant when the repository was thought to have been empty: the fragment of the Red Wall bearing the “Petros eni” (“Peter is inside”) inscription had been discovered inside the repository, jarred loose from a position on the Red Wall where the Graffiti Wall met it and covered it. Perhaps the placement of the inscription was related to the repository. Perhaps, in fact, the words had been hastily scratched just as the wall was being sealed with the bones inside.

Lateran Reliquaries

The reliquaries in the ciborium of St. John Lateran, of the heads of St. Peter (right) and St. Paul (left).

And what of the other relics held by the Church to belong to St. Peter? The Basilica of St. John Lateran holds in its reliquaries what are believed to be the heads of Peter and Paul. The last time the Lateran reliquaries had been opened was 1804, when it was observed that only fragments remained of the heads. At least one fragment of a skull had been found with the Graffiti Wall bones — would this conflict with the remains of the Lateran skull? With the permission of Pope Paul VI, the Lateran reliquary was opened and Correnti was allowed to examine its contents. The one condition was that he could not report detailed information about the Lateran relic, for the sake of its veneration; he could only state whether or not it in any way conflicted with or contradicted the Graffiti Wall bones. After several months of careful study, Correnti announced unequivocally that the two sets of bones were consistent with each other.

Bones in repository

The supposed relics of St. Peter returned to their repository in the Graffiti Wall. (Fabbrica di San Pietro)

On June 26, 1968, Pope Paul announced to the world that the relics of St. Peter had been discovered and identified. Not every question had been answered, but the pope himself was convinced. When all examinations were complete, the researchers carefully placed the bones in nineteen clear, padded plastic containers, and with a brief ceremony, returned them to their resting place in marble repository of the Graffiti Wall.


My feelings about whether these Graffiti Wall bones are the true relics of St. Peter have been wavering back and forth. Some points for consideration:

  1. This is almost certainly St. Peter’s grave (see my reasoning). At the time the Church turned the tomb over to Constantine, its leaders clearly believed the grave was intact and the relics still there, as did Constantine himself. But why weren’t these bones in the grave itself? If the Graffiti Wall bones are Peter’s, did the leaders of the fourth century Church remember they were there?
  2. The Graffiti Wall repository was built for a reason, and apparently built to be hidden. If not a hiding place for Peter’s bones, then whose? Other people had been buried close to Peter — but who else might have warranted a burial in Peter’s Tropaion itself?
  3. Following the decay of the flesh from these bones, the bones had been exhumed from the earth, as evidenced by the earth encrusted on them. They were then wrapped with a purple cloth, as shown by the dye stains on the bones themselves. Clearly these bones were transferred from their original grave and placed in the wall repository. And the earth on the bones is consistent with the earth of the central grave.
  4. The cloth that wrapped the bones was sumptuous, of the richest royal purple and interwoven with delicate gold thread. It is doubtless these bones belonged to a greatly venerated individual.
  5. The Graffiti Wall and its repository are believed to have been constructed in the mid-third century, probably the decade between 250 and 260. The repository was then sealed, and not exposed until the excavations of the 1940s. So these bones must belong to someone who died in the first three centuries. No carbon dating was performed on the bones out of a reluctance to destroy any piece of the relics, and a decision that it would not reveal any more precise date than could be reckoned by the above logic.
  6. The “Petros eni” fragment was in the section of the Red Wall that was covered up by the Graffiti Wall and its repository. Could the marking refer to the resository — Peter is inside here? Was it marked as the wall was being sealed?
    7. St. Peter's Skeleton

    The surviving parts (shaded) of the skeleton believed to be St. Peter’s. Anatomically, about one half of the skeleton survives; by volume, about one third. (Walsh)

  7. The bones belong to an elderly male, probably between the ages of sixty and seventy, of a sturdy build. This is consistent with the facts known of St. Peter, who is believed to have been martyred between 63 and 67.
  8. The surviving skeleton, including a fragment of the skull and jawbone, were deemed not to conflict in any way with the skull and jaw fragments believed to reside in the Lateran reliquary.
  9. Also very curiously, every part of the skeleton is represented by the bones but the feet, which are both absent in their entirety. Conceivably this could be a product of Peter having been crucified upside down: for an easy and hasty removal from the cross, the body might have been hacked off above the ankle.
  10. At the time Constantine built his memoria encasing the tomb and St. Peter’s Basilica around it, he chose to preserve it exactly as it was, including the asymmetrical and unaesthetic Graffiti Wall, which forced the memoria to be slightly lopsided in shape (and the Niche of the Pallia continues to be to this day). Why was this part of the monument kept despite its unattractiveness? Did the Church insist on its retention, knowing it contained the relics?

At the moment, I’m leaning toward these bones being the genuine relics of St. Peter. This certainly isn’t a conclusive case. It, like so much, has to be a matter of faith for the faithful — and it’s certainly not an essential point of faith for anyone. I am reassured by the thought that this is certainly the grave of Peter, in which his earthly body decayed, and in which his dust lies, whether these are his bones or not. The magnificent church of St. Peter’s Basilica, the central church of Roman Catholic Christianity, if not all of Christendom, stands over the grave of the Prince of Apostles.

Bibliography

Books

  • Walsh, John Evangelist. The Bones of St. Peter. New York: Doubleday, 1982. The first book I read on the subject. A riveting and detailed narrative and great introduction to the excavations and to the question of Peter’s bones, and the most up-to-date publication. Full text available online (but missing many of the helpful diagrams, I think).
  • Kirschbaum, Engelbert, S.J. The Tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1959. A more detailed and technical account of the excavations by one of the leading excavators himself. More satisfying and informative from a technical standpoint than Walsh, which helped me in some questions I still had in visualizing the excavation.
  • Toynbee, Jocelyn, and John Ward Perkins. The Shrine of St. Peter, and the Vatican Excavations. New York: Pantheon, 1957. I’ve just started reading this one. But Toynbee and Ward Perkins are two very well-known names in both history and archaeology, and this book is frequently referenced in the other two books. I understand that they, as outsiders, had a more critical approach to the excavations.
  • Margherita Guarducci. The Tomb of St Peter. Hawthorn Books, 1960. I haven’t read this one yet, but I look forward to Guarducci’s account. It’s also available online.

Websites

There are extensive bibliographies to additional books, articles, and other publications in the books, especially Walsh. In fact, here you go. That should lead you to most everything that’s out there — though it’s possible there have been publications since 1982.