Apostolic · d. c. 64–67
Holy Apostles Peter and Paul
Preeminent chief apostles, martyred at Rome
The Church crowns the year of apostles with its two chiefs together: Simon the Galilean fisherman whom Christ named Peter, the Rock, first to confess him as Son of the living God, who denied him three times, wept, and was three times restored with 'feed my sheep'; and Saul of Tarsus, Pharisee and persecutor, thrown to the ground by the risen Christ on the Damascus road and remade as Paul, apostle to the nations, whose letters form much of the New Testament. Their labors — Peter chiefly among the circumcised, Paul in a lifetime of journeys, shipwrecks, beatings, and church-planting — met at Rome, where early and unanimous tradition holds both were martyred under Nero: Peter crucified, by tradition head downward at his own request, Paul as a Roman citizen beheaded. Their joint feast, prepared by the Apostles' Fast, was kept from the early centuries.
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