IV. COMPOSITION D.-Of the Two Apostles.

In the central painting, D 1, which was copied by permission for the writer from the Cemetery of SS. Nereus and Achilles (it is given in Rom. Sott. vol. II. pl. liv.)— we see Christ seated in the midst as the teacher of the world, with a box containing the rolls of the Scriptures at his feet, and on either side of him six Apostles, of whom one only is seated while the other five stand. Thus it appears at once to the eye that all the twelve are represented by the two chief Apostles Peter and Paul, the distinct Apostolate of the Gentiles being here merged in that earlier Apostolate of the Circumcision which S. Paul says was committed to Peter. For the two courts of the spiritual temple, though in one sense distinct as the inner court of the Jews and the outer court of the Gentiles, are not separated; nor is their double Apostolate so separate as to be incapable of being represented as one. The outer court of the Gentiles is originally only an expansion of the inner; and it is opened to them first in Cornelius by Peter; and both Peter and the eleven continued afterwards to build up from the Gentiles, as well as from the Jews, the unity of one Catholic Church, while S. Paul in like manner, though the special Apostle of the Gentiles, laboured not for them alone, but also, and first in every place, for the Circumcision. And after his first imprisonment at Rome he wrote a general Epistle to the Hebrews. So the Church being one, and originating from the sanctuary itself and from the inner court, and SS. Peter and Paul being reckoned as the heads of the joint Apostolate and hierarchy of the whole

Church, one sometimes finds, as here, one of the twelve Apostles of the inner court omitted to make room for S. Paul, so that the number twelve may be preserved; as if the city of God, the New Jerusalem, even in its widest sense, had twelve gates, "which are the twelve Apostles of the Lamb." Sometimes, on the contrary, the twelve Apostles of the Circumcision, with S. Peter at their head, are all represented together with S. Paul, so as to show by the group of thirteen that there is a distinct Apostolate for the outer court of the Gentiles.

In D 2 there are the bottoms of three glasses, which, like all the rest used in these Compositions, have been engraved and described in the work of P. Garucci. The middle one, a, exhibits Christ in the air, that is, invisibly and from heaven, crowning with two crowns of martyrdom the two Apostles, Peter and Paul, who are seated as the joint founders and teachers of the Roman Church and of the world. To these three figures the names are added, "Christus," "Petrus," Paulus," though some of the letters do not appear. Around these runs an incription, "Semper vivas hilaris in pace Dei cum tuis," "May you ever live happy in the peace God, with all belonging to you;" a good wish, seemingly, from him who drinks to the giver of the agape. (Boldetti, p. 514. 72, and Garucci, pl. xv.)

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The glass b, to our right, shows S. Agnes with her hands uplifted in prayer, as if praying for the two Apostles Peter and Paul, who stand on either side, without being in the same attitude of prayer themselves. The names are inscribed over against each of the three figures, that of Agnes being colloquially corrupted into "Annes." But S. Agnes being a young girl who suffered martyrdom nearly a century and a half after the Apostles, it is plain that she cannot be thought of as interceding for them;

they, rather, as having been glorified "with Christ" long before, were praying for her, and for all her contemporaries, when she suffered. We may ask then, For whom does she really pray? and the Roman Christians reply, "For whom should she pray but for us, of whose Church she is so great an ornament?" So we learn that the two Apostles Peter and Paul (the founders of the Roman Church), are put as a symbol to represent the Roman Church, and through it the Church at large, which they founded. If the Greek word "ZESES," "Live,” occurs here alone at the bottom of the glass, this is perhaps because the three other sides are occupied by the three names; but in other cases, as in C 1 b, it appears alone without any such reason. Sometimes the two words, in Greek and Latin, "PIE BIBE" and "ZESES VIVAS," occur together (see Garucci, pl. x. 8); and so the sense of "BIBATIS" is determined. The Greek word "PIE," too, occurs together with the Latin "VIVAS.”

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Having now learned, by the help of S. Agnes, that the two Apostles Peter and Paul stand not for the two men themselves, but for the Church which they founded, we shall not mistake, as we else might have mistaken, when we find in D 2, c, a female figure with the name "MARIA" praying for the same two Apostles, who stand again with their names inscribed as dwarfs under her extended hands. The diminutive stature of the Apostles has probably the same sense with their position, placing them visibly under the prayer and protection of the woman who prays. In like manner, in paintings of baptisms, the person baptized, though full grown, is represented sometimes with the stature of a boy; and the paralytic carrying his bed,—the blind man whose eyes Christ touches,-Lazarus whom Christ raises from the dead, and the sister of Lazarus at Christ's feet,—are

often sculptured as pigmies on the sarcophagi. S. Mary, then, here is not represented as accompanied or attended upon by the Apostles, her contemporaries, nor as praying for them personally; but, like S. Agnes, S. Peregrina, and other saints on the glasses, she is praying for the Church which the two Apostles founded.

Having learned the use made of them as a symbol, we may return in thought to the paintings of Composition B, and reflect that there also the two men who point to the Incarnation, who seek the benefit of the prayers of the Blessed Virgin, who pray with her, and help or enable her to pray, are not so much the two Apostles personally, as the Church itself on earth which they founded.

On the opposite side, D 3, we have two more glasses, d and e (equally with the preceding given and described by P. Garucci), and a sculpture, f, from a sarcophagus. (Rom. Sott. vol. 1. pl. xxi.) This last is inclosed in a ring merely for the sake of symmetry.

On the glass in the middle, d, (Garucci, pl. x.) a single crown of martyrdom unites the two heads of the Apostles Peter and Paul (the names being attached), to show that the two together are one joint foundation for the Roman and for the whole Church.

But lest any one should wrest the sense of this painting, and argue that, therefore, the two Apostles are in all respects equal and co-ordinate, so that the Church began from a dualism, and not from unity, a glass, e, is added on one side, with the figure of a man striking the rock, and the name "PETRVS" inscribed, showing plainly to all such as doubt, that the Christians transferred the story of Moses striking the rock from the Old Testament to the Gospel, and that for them Moses was Peter. But if Peter strikes the rock in the New Covenant as Moses

struck it in the Old, then it is clear that he represents the unity of the whole hierarchy, and communicates the grace of the Gospel to the whole of the spiritual Israel, S. Paul himself included. For when all were athirst in the wilderness, all the congregation, from the first to the last, and Aaron himself, however closely associated with his brother, depended on the rod of Moses. Wherefore, by analogy, there is no room in the new Israel any more than in the old for a dualism; but the rod of Moses in the hand of Peter is the single source of grace to the indivisible unity of the Catholic Church both of the circumcision and of the uncircumcision. The Glass e is preserved in the Vatican. It has been published by Boldetti, p. 200; and by P. Garucci, in his pl. x. 9.

Corresponding to this glass, on the opposite side of d, is a sculpture, f, which occurs repeatedly on sarcophagi of the fourth century. The present example is taken from Rom. Sott. vol. 1. pl. xxi. The sarcophagus is from the crypt of the Vatican. Here we see Peter receiving from Christ the keys; and the same inference may be drawn from this that we have collected from the glass e. For Peter receives the keys and unlocks the door of grace to all the world, both Jews and Gentiles; and that authority which is given jointly and indifferently to all the Apostles, is given separately and primarily to him: nor can any real and permanent discord result from this double gift; since the grace of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, which is to be with the Apostles and the Church to the end, cannot be divided against itself. Whatever appearance, therefore, there may be, whether in point of numbers or antiquity, in favour of any minority, as if the Apostolic Church were divided, it must be disregarded by faith and by right