An Altarpiece of St Bartholomew

For the feast of St Bartholomew the Apostle, here is a beautiful altarpiece dated to about 1440, which depicts a series of stories from his traditional legend, by an anonymous Spanish painter known as the Master of Torralba. It is now in the museum of the Château de Castelnau-Bretenoux in France. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons by Benjamin Smith. Click to enlarge.)  

In the central section, we see the Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John at the top, and the Apostle below, holding his traditional instrument, the knife with which he was flayed, and a chain which ends around the neck of a demon, whose hands are locked up in a stock. The last reflects the tradition that Bartholomew was especially powerful over demons, which is also referred to in the Gospel of his Mass, Luke 6, 12-19: “And they that were troubled with unclean spirits were cured.”

The eight panels surrounding it show stories from his apocryphal acts (running first down the left side, then the right), from which this tradition derives, in the version told by Bl. Jacopo di Voragine in the Golden Legend. When he arrives in India to preach the Gospel, a demon which had been wont to speak though an idol in a temple falls silent. (1 and 2) He heals the possessed daughter of a local king (3), after which, the king sends several camels laden with money and gems (4), which the apostle refuses.

On the right side, the Apostle appears to the king in a dram and preaches the faith to him. (5) When the pagan priests of the area attempt to sacrifice to an idol, the demon which inhabits it protests that now that Christ has won the redemption of man, it hurts him when they do so. (6) Bartholomew is then arrested (7) and killed (8). The varying accounts of his martyrdom have him either flayed alive (which will later become the most common way of representing him in art); here the artist shows both.

The predella show events from the Passion of Our Lord: the arrest in the garden, his appearance before Pilate, the flagellation, the deposition from the cross, and the entombment.  

The Feast of All Saints 2025: the Apostles

From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the second day in the Octave of All Saints.

But now let us turn to those in the New Testament whom the waters of baptism and the shedding of the Christ’s Blood washed clean from the error of their fathers’ sin, and from the squalor of the ancient manner of the gentiles, by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Blessed are the eyes of those who merited to see Christ coming in the flesh (Luke 10, 23). The blessed Apostles and disciples had their share in this happy vision and the redemption that was wrought by the precious blood, and imparted it to others. As princes of the Church and founders of the faith, models of the saints and judges of the earth, they have illuminated the whole world with the holiness, their teaching, and their miracles. So great did they show themselves to the world in their holiness, their miracles and their suffering, that they drew every sort of men to hear and wonder at them.

Christ and the Twelve Apostles, by the Master of Seu d’Urgell, ca. 1100. Altar panel, now in the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.)

The Legend of St Bartholomew

In all three Synoptic Gospels, Saints Philip and Bartholomew are named fifth and sixth in the company of the Twelve Apostles, and then nothing else is said about them. The latter is traditionally identified with Nathanael, who figures prominently at the end of the first chapter of St John’s Gospel, and is mentioned at the beginning of the last chapter among those who saw the Risen Lord at the sea of Tiberias. This identification is made partly because in John 1, it is Philip, with whom he is always paired in the Synoptics, who brings him to Christ, and partly because Bartholomew is a patronymic, “son of Tolmai”, which would make “Nathanael” his personal name. The custom of the Church accepts this identification, but always uses the name Bartholomew in the liturgy.

The Apostles Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew and Simon, each of whom contributes one article to the Apostles’ Creed, following a popular medieval legend. 1483-7, by the workshop of the Spanish painter Miguel Ximenez. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

However, the Roman Gospel of his feast day is not his exchange with Christ recorded in St John (1, 44-51), but rather, St Luke’s list of the Twelve Apostles, and the beginning of the Sermon on the Plain, 6, 12-19.

“At that time: Jesus went out into a mountain to pray, and he passed the whole night in the prayer of God. And when day was come, he called unto him his disciples; and he chose twelve of them (whom also he named apostles): Simon, whom he surnamed Peter, and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alpheus, and Simon who is called Zelotes, and Jude, the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, who was the traitor. And coming down with them, he stood in a plain place, and the company of his disciples, and a very great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the seacoast both of Tyre and Sidon, who were come to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases. And they that were troubled with unclean spirits, were cured. And all the multitude sought to touch him, for virtue went out from him, and healed all.”

This choice depends on the final words, referring to the healings of the sick and the possessed, since in his various apocryphal acts Bartholomew effects many cures of both kinds. Many pre-Tridentine breviaries give a fairly full account of these stories, which in their broad outline are similar to the apocryphal acts of some of the other Apostles, most particularly those of St Matthew. Bartholomew goes to India and silences a demon in a temple where people had been wont to come for healing. He then heals the possessed daughter of a king, who embraces Christianity, and helps the Apostle to convert many people, including a good number of the pagan priests. Many impressive miracles and healings attend this preaching, but also excite the jealousy of some of the pagan priests, who remain unconverted, and convince the king’s brother to rise up against him. The latter kills the Apostle, but comes to a bad end, slain by a demon, as are the pagan priests who egged him on, and the faith flourishes in the region.

(Two panels of an altarpiece depicting the legend of St Bartholomew, by the Sienese painter Pietro di Giovanni d’Ambrogio, ca. 1435. (Public domain images from Wikimedia Commons.) In the first, the Apostle is tried before the King Astyages...

and in the second, beaten with clubs.)

Already by the beginning of the 13th century, the Ordinal of Pope Innocent III, the ancestor of the breviary of St Pius V, had reduced this story to a single lesson, a very basic outline of barely more than 100 words. This is a sure sign that even in an age which has, and in many ways deserves, a reputation for uncritical acceptance of all kinds of legends, there was an awareness that the tale is not historically reliable. This lesson does, however, accept the common tradition, going back to Eusebius of Caesarea and St Jerome (both in the 4th century), that Bartholomew preached in Lycaonia, a central region of Asia Minor, before going to India, and then ended his days in Armenia. The oldest version of his acts says that he was beaten with rods and then beheaded; by the high Middle Ages, the tradition was commonly accepted that he was skinned alive before his beheading.

Just as many other Saints are depicted holding the instruments of their passion, St Bartholomew is therefore often shown holding the knife by which he was flayed.

St Bartholomew, by Cecco di Pietro, 1370-1400 ca. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

Artists could also take the opportunity to display their knowledge of anatomy by showing him actually flayed. A particularly good example of this is found in the cathedral of Milan, a sculpture by Marco d’Agrate completed in 1562. In the inscription on the base, the artist cleverly pretends to fear being mistaken for Praxiteles, the most famous sculptor of ancient Greece. “Non me Praxiteles, sed Marcus finxit Agrates. – It was not Praxiteles who made me, but Marco from Agrate.”

Image from Wikimedia Commons by Darafsh, CC BY-SA 3.0

The best known image of St Bartholomew, however, is certainly that in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel, not least because of the popular but mistaken idea that the artist put his own face on the skin.

There is also a very complicated tradition about the frequent translation of his relics, which are venerated in many different places. In his Books of Miracles (chapter 33), St Gregory of Tours writes the following:

“When many years had passed after his passion, and persecution had once again come upon the Christians, and the pagans saw that all the people were coming together at the tomb (of Bartholomew), and frequently offered prayers and incense, led on by jealousy, they stole the body, and putting it into a lead sarcophagus, they threw it into the sea, saying, ‘No longer shalt thou lead our people astray.’ But by the secret working of God’s providence, the lead sarcophagus was picked up and carried from that place by the waters, and brought to an island called Lipari. And it was revealed to the Christians that they should collect the sarcophagus; and when they had done so, they buried it and built a large church over it. When now he is invoked therein, (the Apostle) makes it clear that he helps the peoples by many miracles and blessings.” (PL LXXI, 734A-B.)

A reliquary of St Bartholomew, covered with ex votos, in the cathedral of Lipari. Image from Wikimedia Commons by Effems, CC BY-SA 4.0)

This tradition is also known to the Byzantine Rite, which celebrates a feast of this translation on August 25, and sings these two hymns at Vespers:

“Thy journeys were seen in the sea, o Apostle, and made manifest beyond the understanding of men; for being cast into the sea in a casket, thou didst turn thy course to the West, as renowned martyrs followed thee from the East on either side, and rendering homage to thee at the behest of the Master of all, o Bartholomew the Apostle.

With thy wondrous ascents thou didst sanctify the water, and arrive at the island of Lipari, pouring forth myrrh, o glorious one, and healing incurable diseases, having become for the faithful in that place a savior and a refuge, an intercessor and deliverer before the King and Savior of all, a Bartholomew the Apostle.”

Part of these relics were then moved from Lipari to Benevento, and from there to a church on the Tiber Island in Rome, where they remain to this day.

The altar of the church of St Bartholomew on the Tiber Island in Rome, with a plaque on the front that says “The body of the Apostle Bartholomew.” Photo courtesy of Liturgical Arts Journal, via their Facebook page.

Spinello Aretino’s Altar of Ss Philip and James

At the very end of the 14th century, the painter Spinello di Luca Spinelli (1350 ca. - 1410 ca.), usually known as Spinello Aretino (i.e. from Arezzo) was commissioned to make a frescoed altarpiece for the Dominican church of his native city. The altar itself no longer exists; it was dedicated to the Apostles Philip and James, whose feast is traditionally kept today, along with St Catherine of Alexandria. The fresco, however, remains, and is in relatively good condition. (All images from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY 3.0)

The two Apostles in the center.

On the left side, St James, the first bishop of Jerusalem, heals many of the sick.

His martyrdom, in which he was thrown off the roof of the temple, and then, when found to be still alive, hit in the head with a fuller’s club. Spinello or his patrons either did not know, or chose to ignore, the tradition that St James was in his 90s at the time of his martyrdom.

On the opposite side, two episodes of the legendary acts of St Philip, as told in the Golden Legend of Bl. Jacopo de Voragine. Philip is in Scythia (the central Asian regions around the Caspian Sea), where he is brought by the pagans before a statue of Mars, and ordered to sacrifice to it. A dragon emerges from the statue’s base, killing the son of the priest in charge of the sacrifice, and the two local officials who were keeping the Apostle in chains, while making everyone else present sick with its breath. Philip promises to remedy these ills if the pagans break the statue and replace it with a Cross; when they do, he heals the sick, raises the three dead persons, and banishes the dragon to an uninhabited desert. He then comes to Hierapolis in Asia Minor, where he successfully combats the heresy of the Ebionites, establishes the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is finally crucified by the infidels.

In the upper section, the mystical marriage of St Catherine of Alexandria...

and her martyrdom.

The Feast of All Saints 2024: The Apostles

From the Roman Breviary of 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the feast of All Saints.

From among all those whom the world contains, divine providence chose the twelve Apostles… to lay down the foundation of the new faith, and to raise up the state of the Church while it was still young, so that the sound of their preaching might go out unto all the world, and their words go forth unto the ends of the earth. They clung to the true vine, that is to Christ, like branches, whose fruit, abiding forever, corrupts not; to whom the Lord Himself spoke, saying, “You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven” And again: “I will not now call you servants: for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.” And whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven.” And again He foretold that when He should come to judge the world, that they would sit on twelve thrones, and with Him judge the world. To such patrons, as we believe, this day is declared to be exalted.

The Last Judgment by Giotto, in the Scrovegni Chapel in Padua, 1306

The Legend of St James the Greater

In the Synoptic Gospels, St James the Greater appears as a particularly prominent figure among the Twelve Apostles. When the names of the Twelve are given as a group, he always appears in the first set of four, along with the brothers Peter and Andrew, and his own brother John. After his calling, which is described at the beginning of Our Lord’s public ministry in all three Synoptics, he appears with Peter and John as a witness of several notable events: the healing of Jairus’ daughter, the Transfiguration, when Christ first revealed His divinity to his Apostles, and the Agony in the Garden. The Gospel of St Mark (3, 13-19) tells us that Christ gave to James and John the nickname “Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder”; this transcription of the Hebrew “b’nê regesh” may be intended to suggest something like “boan ergon” in Greek, “the work of shouting.” St Luke writes (9, 53-56) that when the Samaritans did not receive Christ, “James and John … said: ‘Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?’ And turning, He rebuked them, saying, ‘You know not of what spirit you are. The Son of man came not to destroy souls, but to save.’ ” (The words in italics are missing in many ancient manuscripts.)

The Transfiguration, by Duccio di Buoninsegna, one of the panels of the dismembered altarpiece of Siena Cathedral known as the Maestà, 1311; this one is now located in the National Gallery in London. (Public domain image from Wikipedia.)

In the Gospel of St Matthew 20, 20-23, it is recounted that their mother, Salome, came to the Lord, “adoring and asking something of him. Who said to her: ‘What wilt thou?’ She saith to him: ‘Say that these my two sons may sit, the one on thy right hand, and the other on thy left, in thy kingdom.’ And Jesus answering, said, ‘You know not what you ask. Can you drink the chalice that I shall drink?’ They say to him. ‘We can.’ He saith to them, ‘My chalice indeed you shall drink; but to sit on my right or left hand, is not mine to give to you, but to them for whom it is prepared by my Father.’ ” This is the Gospel of St James’ feast, and also that of his brother John’s feast “at the Latin Gate”, which commemorates his martyrdom, in fulfillment of the Lord’s prophecy that “My chalice indeed you (plural) shall drink.”

In the Acts, James is named once again with the other Apostles right after the Ascension (1, 13), but then only once more, at the beginning of chapter 12. “And at the same time, Herod the king stretched forth his hands, to afflict some of the church. And he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And seeing that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to take up Peter also.” Concerning his martyrdom, the first among the Twelve, Eusebius of Caesarea records that “Clement (of Alexandria), in the seventh book of his Hypotyposes (a work which is now lost), relates a story which is worthy of mention; telling it as he received it from those who had lived before him. He says that the one who led James to the judgment-seat, when he saw him bearing his testimony, was moved, and confessed that he was himself also a Christian. They were both therefore, he says, led away together; and on the way, he begged James to forgive him. And he, after considering a little, said ‘Peace be with you,’ and kissed him. And thus they were both beheaded at the same time.” (Church History 2, 9)

A 15th century reliquary of St James the Apostle in the cathedral of Pistoia, Italy, which also contains relics of his mother, Maria Salome, as well as St Martin of Tours, and two early local martyrs, priests named Rufinus and Felix.

The tradition that St James went to Spain and began the work of evangelizing that country is a fairly late one; it was unknown to writers of the early centuries, and even explicitly denied by St Julian, the archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain in the later 7th century. The Golden Legend of Bl. James of Voragine devotes very little space to it, saying merely that “he went to Spain, to sow the word of God there. But when he saw that he was making no progress there, and had made only nine disciples, he left two of them there to preach, and taking the other seven with him, returned to Judaea.” These are traditionally known as the “Seven Apostolic Men”, Saints Torquatus, Ctesiphon, Secundus, Indaletius, Caecilius, Hesychius and Euphrasius; the Tridentine Martyrology has an entry for them on May 15th, which states that the Apostles ordained them as bishops and sent them back to Spain, where they preached the Gospel in various places. The Golden Legend goes on to give a lengthy account of St James’ martyrdom, which includes the conversion of a magician named Hermogenes; at the end, a story is told of how his relics were translated to Spain, one which does much to enhance the author’s reputation for excessive credulity.

Lest it seem that too much credulity is given here to the hagiographical skeptics, even the pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary shows great reserve about these traditions, giving no space to any part of the legend of St James, not even the very ancient story recorded in Eusebius. All nine of the Matins lessons for the feast are taken from a homily of St John Chrysostom on the day’s Gospel, in which he says much in praise of Salome as one who followed Christ, and was principally concerned with the eternal salvation of her sons. In the Tridentine Breviary, a new set of readings was composed for the second nocturne, which sum up the traditional story as described above. It also notes that James’ death took place around the time of the Jewish Passover, but that his feast day is kept on the day of the translation of his relics to the famous cathedral at Compostela.

The church of Rome was always very slow to accept new liturgical texts; one often finds that a Saint who was hugely popular in the Middle Ages had a proper Office elsewhere, but was celebrated in the Roman Use with a Common Office. Such is the case with St James. At Compostela itself, an Office was sung with a completely proper set of antiphons, responsories and hymns, which refer to the tradition of his coming to Spain, the presence of his relics, and his frequent aid to the Spanish kings in liberating the peninsula from the Moors during the Reconquista. One of the best of these antiphons was then received by the Dominicans for the Magnificat at First Vespers of his feast, although they did not take on any of the rest of the propers from Compostela.

O lux et decus Hispaniae, sanctissime Jacobe, qui inter Apostolos primatum tenes, primus eorum martyrio laureatus! O singulare praesidium, qui meruisti videre Redemptorem nostrum adhuc mortalem in Deitate transformatum! Exaudi preces servorum tuorum, et intercede pro nostra salute omniumque populorum.

A superb motet by the Spanish composer Ambrosio Cotes (1550-1603), with the first words of the antiphon given above.

O light and glory of Spain, most holy James, who among the Apostles holdest the primacy, the first of them crowned with martyrdom! Our special defense, who merited to see our Redeemer transformed in the Godhead while yet a mortal! Hear the prayers of thy servants, and intercede for our salvation, and of all peoples!

St James is traditionally depicted in the garb of a pilgrim, with a broad hat and a staff, even though he is the destination, and not the traveler. This is not done with other Saints whose tombs or relics were popular pilgrimage centers, indicating perhaps that to the medieval mind, a trip to Compostela was thought of as the pilgrimage par excellence. This may have something to do with its location at almost the westernmost point in continental Europe. Compostela is about 48 miles from a town on the Atlantic called “Fisterra”, which literally means “the end of the land”; pilgrims would often take an extra couple of days to go as far as the ocean itself, beyond which it was believed that there was nothing but more water to the other side of the globe. (Technically, Cabo da Roca in Portugal is 15 minutes of longitude further to the west.)

St James the Greater dressed as a pilgrim, by Ferrer and Arnau Bassa, ca. 1347; from the Diocesan Museum of Barcelona (Courtesy of the Schola Sainte Cécile).

The third element which identifies St James in art is a scallop shell, a custom which ultimately derives from the medieval laws collectively known as the Peace of God. These laws prohibited armed men from bothering various classes of people, including all women and children, clerics and monks, pilgrims, merchants and Jews. Women and children are obviously such, clerics and monks were identified by their tonsure; the other groups habitually wore something to identify them as members of one of the classes entitled to the protection of the Peace of God. For pilgrims, the hat and staff were not at first sufficiently distinct to serve that purpose, and so they would wear something else to indicate their destination. The scallop shell showed that one was traveling as a pilgrim to or from the shrine of St James, along the Galician coast where scallops grow in abundance. This became so well know that even today, the German word for “scallop” is either “Jakobsmuschel – James’ mussel” or “Pilgermuschel – a pilgrim mussel.”

The Legend of St Philip the Apostle

The feast of the Apostle St Philip is traditionally kept on this day, together with St James the Younger, a custom which derives from the presence of their relics in the Roman basilica of the Twelve Apostles, which was originally dedicated only to the two of them. In the Synoptic Gospels, he is not mentioned apart from the list of the twelve disciples whom Jesus called his Apostles (Matthew 10, 1-4 and parallels). However, St Clement of Alexandria, writing ca. 200 AD, knew a tradition that Philip was the man who asked leave to go bury his father, to whom Christ replied, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.” (Stromata 3, 4, 25, citing Matthew 8, 22.)

Reliquaries of Ss Philip and James displayed in the crypt of the church of the Twelve Apostles. Photo by Agnese, from part 3 of the very first Roman Pilgrim series, in 2014. 

In the Gospel of St John, on the other hand, Philip is a very prominent figure. After Christ “finds” him, and calls him, saying no more than “Follow me!”, Philip brings to Him Nathanael, who confesses “Thou art the Son of God, Thou are the king of Israel.” (1, 43-49.) At the multiplication of the loaves and fishes, it is Philip to whom Christ says “Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?”, and who replies “Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one may take a little.” (6, 5 and 7). Later on, Philip and Andrew together introduce some gentiles to Jesus. (12, 20-22) Finally, during the Last Supper, Philip says to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”, to which Jesus replies, “Have I been so long a time with you; and have you not known me? Philip, he that seeth me seeth also the Father. How sayest thou, show us the Father? Do you not believe, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?” (14, 8-10) A fuller version of this passage, John 14, 1-13, is listed as the Gospel for the feast of Ss Philip and James in the very oldest lectionary of the Roman Rite, ca. 650 AD, and provides most of the proper antiphons for the Office, as well as the second Alleluia and the Communion antiphon of their Mass.

A motet based on the Communion of the Mass of Ss Philip and James, in a polyphonic setting by the Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621).

At the beginning of the Acts, he is named in the company of the Apostles in the upper room. (1, 13). When the first seven deacons were chosen, one of them is also called Philip, and there was already in antiquity some confusion between the two. Eusebius of Caesarea, for example, in his Ecclesiastical History (3, 31), takes it for granted that they are the same person, referring to his four daughters, even though in Acts 21, 9, it is stated that it was Philip the deacon who had four daughters. He quotes a letter from Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, to Pope Victor I (189-99), which refers to Philip’s burial at Hierapolis in Phrygia, (now called Pammukale, in southwest Turkey), where he had preached the Gospel for many years. He also cites from one of the very first Church historians, Papias, bishop of Hierapolis and a contemporary of Pope Victor, the story that Philip had raised a man from the dead, a story which Papias had heard from one of Philip’s daughters.

Like several other Apostles, Philip also has an apocryphal set of Acts written about him; his is a compilation of fifteen different episodes which vary in their degree of absurdity. One of these episodes, the ninth, is a brief account of the slaying of a dragon, which he does on his missionary travels in the company of his fellow Apostle Bartholomew, and his sister, whose name is given as Mariamne.

In the Golden Legend of Bl. Jacopo de Voragine, the account of St Philip is quite short, far shorter, in fact, than that of St James, and also contains a dragon-slaying episode. However, the story is told in a completely different manner from that of his fictitious Acts. In the Golden Legend version, Philip is in Scythia, where he is brought by the pagans before a statue of Mars, and ordered to sacrifice to it. A dragon emerges from the statue’s base, killing the son of the priest in charge of the sacrifice, and the two local officials who were keeping the Apostle in chains, while making everyone else present sick with its breath. Philip promises to remedy these ills if the pagans break the statue and replace it with a Cross; when they do, he heals the sick, raises the three dead persons, and banishes the dragon to an uninhabited desert. He then comes to Hierapolis, where he successfully combats the heresy of the Ebionites, establishes the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and is finally crucified by the infidels.

In the year 1487, a wealthy Florentine merchant named Filippo Strozzi commissioned the painter Filippino Lippi to fresco a chapel dedicated to the name Saint whom he shared with the artist. The complex and agitated style which Lippi learned from his teacher, Sandro Botticelli, perfectly suits the complex and agitated scenes of the dragon’s defeat and the Apostle’s crucifixion. The dragon is clearly too small to really pose a threat, representing that his power is vanquished by that of Christ’s minister. The statue of Mars is shown as a colored figure like the living persons in the lower part of the scene, and not as a white stone figure like the statues below him; this is often understood to represent the fact that the conflict between paganism and Christianity was very much alive in the Florence of Lorenzo the Magnificent and Savanarola.

St Philip Banishing the Dragon, by Filippino Lippi, in the Strozzi Chapel of Santa Maria Novella, Florence, 1487-1502

The Crucifixion of St Philip

In the pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary, this story is told in terms very similar to those of the Golden Legend, even so late as the editions published in the 1520s. The scholars charged with revising the legends of the Saints for the Breviary of St Pius V were very concerned to remove anything that might bring discredit on the Church, and were particularly severe with episodes of dragon-slaying; there is no hint of the story whatsoever in the revised legend of St Philip, the version which is still read to this day in the Breviary of the Extraordinary Form. (Ss George, Martha and Margaret of Antioch are treated in similar fashion.)

Nevertheless, in the 18th century, when statutes of the 12 Apostles were put up in the Lateran Basilica, the Pope’s own cathedral, a reference to the old legend was kept. This work by Giuseppe Mazzuoli, executed between 1703 and 1712, shows St Philip stepping on a dragon, albeit also a very small one.

The Blessing of Wine on the Feast of St John the Evangelist

The Roman Ritual contains two different forms for the blessing of wine on the feast of St John the Evangelist. The first consists simply of three prayers; the second is slightly more elaborate, with three different prayers, preceded by a Psalm and a series of versicles. Both versions contain references to the origin of the blessing, an interesting example of how the Church has embraced and preserved a non-Biblical story about the life of an Apostle.

Many people have heard of New Testament Apocrypha such as the Protoevangelium of James, the traditional source for the names of the Virgin Mary’s parents and the story of Her presentation in the Temple. Some of these have had a significant influence on the Church’s devotional life and its artistic traditions. Irresponsible scholars have also created a whole cottage industry of foolish writings about Our Lord and the early Church based on some of the Gnostic Gospels, while generally ignoring the apocrypha of the New Testament’s other literary categories, Acts, Epistles and Apocalypses. Like the apocryphal Gospels, the majority of these were clearly written to lend credit to one heresy or another, and therefore rejected by the Church. In some cases, however, once the heresy in question had faded into obscurity, the relevant apocrypha regained popularity, since their heretical content was no long understood or perceived as such.

One example is the apocryphal Acts of John, a work of the second century with strong overtones of the Docetic heresy, which taught that Christ had only the appearance of a human body. It tells the story that when St John was brought before the Emperor Domitian (81-96), he offered to prove the truth of his preaching about Christ by drinking a deadly poison, in accordance with the Lord’s words at the end of St Mark’s Gospel (16, 18), “if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.” The poison did him no harm; this has given rise to the traditional representation of John holding a chalice with a serpent or dragon emerging from it, which symbolize either the poison or its effectiveness leaving the cup.

St John the Evangelist, by El Greco, 1604, now in the Prado Museum in Madrid.

When the Emperor thought he had been saved by trickery, the poison’s toxicity was proved on a condemned prisoner, who died instantly, but was later raised to life by John. For this, he was exiled to the Greek island of Patmos, as recorded in the authentic book of the Apocalypse, where he stayed until Domitian’s death; when the acts of the latter were rescinded by the Senate on account of his extreme cruelty (as reported by St Jerome), John was permitted to return to Ephesus, where he lived out his days.

St John’s Vision on Patmos, by Giotto, 1317-20, in the Peruzzi Chapel of the Basilica of the Holy Cross in Florence.

This story is referred to explicitly in the rubrics of the Ritual, and in the first prayer of the first form of the blessing of wine, as follows: “And just as the blessed John, drinking poison from a cup, remained altogether unharmed, so may all who drink of this cup today in his honor, be set free by his merits from every illness (inflicted by) poison, and all other harmful things…” Likewise, the second prayer asks that all who drink of the blessed wine “may receive of Thy gift health in both body and soul.”

The second version of the blessing begins with the Psalm “The Lord is my shepherd”, certainly chosen because of its best known verse, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” as well as for the words “my chalice which inebriateth me, how goodly is it!” The versicles said after it include the verse of St Mark’s Gospel mentioned above. The first of its three prayers begins with an explanation of the Incarnation: “Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, who willed that Thy Son, coeternal and consubstantial with Thee should come down from heaven, and be incarnate in the world of the Virgin Mary in this fullness of time.” The last part of this beginning, “this fullness of time”, rather than “the fullness of time”, seems to refer to the Christmas season, in which the Divine Incarnation is made manifest, as witnessed by St John above all others, and during which his feast day is kept.

The prayer continues, “that He might seek the lost and wandering sheep and bring it back to the sheepfold upon His shoulders; and further, that he might cure the man who fell in among thieves from the pain of his wounds.” This refers to a story recorded by St Clement of Alexandria, and repeated by Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History (3, 23), that a young convert of St John turned to a life of violence as a brigand; the Apostle, though now very elderly, pursued the fellow into the mountains where he was wont to hide, and brought him to repentance. The second prayer says, “Lord Jesus Christ, who willed Thyself to be called the true Vine, and Thy Holy Apostles the branches”, citing the long discourse of Christ at the Last Supper recorded only in John’s Gospel. The third adds a reference to the creation of bread alongside the fruit of the vine, in reference to the Eucharistic discourse of chapter six of the same Gospel; it also says that John “not only passed unharmed from the drinking of poison, but also raised from the dead those laid low by poison”, referring to the story of the prisoner cited above.

The Feast of St Thomas the Apostle

In the three synoptic Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles, St Thomas is mentioned when the list of the Apostles’ names is given, but nothing else is said about him. St John, on the other hand, mentions him in three different places. The first is in chapter 11, 16, when, before Christ goes to Bethania to raise Lazarus from the dead, Thomas says “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” The second is during the long discourse at the Last Supper, when Thomas says to Christ, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?”, to whom Jesus answers, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me.” (14, 5-6)

The third occurrence is, of course, one of the most famous episodes in all the Gospels, which is read on his feast day in both the old and new rites, and which has been depicted in innumerable artworks.

The Incredulity of St Thomas, represented on a capital in the cloister of the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, near Burgos in northern Spain; last quarter of the 11th century. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by GFreihalter, CC BY-SA 3.0.) The Saint to whom this abbey is dedicated, and for whom the founder of the Dominicans was named, has his feast day one day before St Thomas.

“Thomas, one of the twelve, who is called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.’ And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Jesus cometh, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace be to you.’ Then he saith to Thomas, ‘Put in thy finger hither, and see my hands; and bring hither thy hand, and put it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing.’ Thomas answered, and said to him, ‘My Lord, and my God.’ Jesus saith to him, ‘Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.’ ” (John 20, 24-29)

The Breviary homily for his feast is by St Gregory the Great, originally preached on Low Sunday (Hom. 26 in Evang.); the passage was clearly chosen because of the feast’s proximity to Christmas. “Thomas’ lack of faith has benefited our faith more than the faith of all the disciples that believed, for while he is brought back to faith by touching, our minds are strengthened in faith, every doubt being laid aside. Indeed, the Lord permitted His disciple to doubt after His resurrection, just as He willed before His birth that Mary have a spouse, who nevertheless did not consummate their marriage. For thus did the disciple doubt, and touch, and so become a witness of the truth of the Resurrection, just as His Mother’s spouse was the keeper of Her untouched virginity.” Thomas is thus a witness to the truth of the Resurrection, and also of the Incarnation. “Therefore, he saw a man, and confessed Him to be God, saying ‘My Lord and my God.’ Therefore, by seeing, he believed, who, on seeing a true man, acclaimed Him to be God, whom he could not see.”

As with the other Apostles, a number of apocryphal writings are associated with St Thomas. In the early sixth century, the Gelasian Decree, a catalog of books approved and rejected for ecclesiastical use by the church of Rome, lists three apocryphal works under his name: an account of his acts, a Gospel written in his name “which the Manicheans use”, and an apocalypse. The term “Manicheans” may here not mean the actual Manicheans, but rather represent a vague memory of the early groups of heretics collectively known as the Gnostics. These latter wrote a large number of fictitious Gospels, many of which have been rediscovered in modern times; one of the earliest of these, a work about which an incalculable amount of nonsense has been written, is named for St Thomas.

However, the Gnostics eclipsed very rapidly after St Irenaeus’ withering attack on them in the later 2nd century, and it is unlikely that the authors of the Gelasian decree really knew much about them. The Manicheans, on the other hand, were known from St Augustine’s writings against them, and were still active in the mid-5th century, when Pope St Leo I (444-61) discovered a group of them within the church in Rome, about 60 years before the Gelasian Decree. In Augustine’s book against the Manichean bishop Faustus (22.79), he reproves the sect for their acceptance of a story in which Thomas behaves in a manner wholly inappropriate for a disciple of the real Jesus Christ, one which clearly came from an apocryphal Acts, and not a Gospel.

Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 1, the oldest manuscript of the Gospel of Thomas, now at the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. (Public domain image from Wikimedia.)

Although these Acts of Thomas are not historically authentic, some aspects of them concerning his deeds after the Ascension are attested early on and very consistently: namely, that he preached the Gospel in India, and died there, and that his relics were later translated to the Syrian city of Edessa, which was once a very important center of Christianity in the Middle East. For this reason, even some of the more skeptical scholars of hagiography, including the revisers of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, Fr Herbert Thurston SJ and Donald Attwater, grant their likelihood. The Roman Breviary states that before coming to India, he preached the Gospel to various peoples in the lands east of Mesopotamia, and gives the name of the place where he died as “Calamina”, the location of which is unknown. The Martyrology adds that his relics were further translated from Edessa to Ortona (via Crete), a town on the Adriatic coast of Italy, where they were brought in the mid-13th century, and are still venerated to this day.

The Byzantine tradition, which keeps his feast on October 6th, also attests to his evangelization of India, which is mentioned several times in the proper texts of his Office. “As a servant of the Word, and of His ineffable Incarnation, you drew from the well of wisdom, o Thomas the Apostle; for with the rod of the Cross you saved souls, searching them out from the depths of deceit. Thus with the net of thy teaching, you enlightened the whole world; and with the light of knowledge, you made splendid the darkened minds of the Indians. Wherefore, delighting in the far-shining glory of Christ, beseech Him to have mercy on our souls.”

The church of Rome always remained very cautious about the more legendary lives of the Saints, and the pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary says little more about Thomas than does that of St Pius V. Many other churches, however, read one version or another of a story contained in Bl. Jacopo de Voragine’s Golden Legend, that St Thomas was an architect, and was sent to India by a revelation of Christ in person, to build a palace “in the Roman style” for a King named Gundifor; this is what accounts for the common representation of him with an architect’s measure in his hands. Apart from this, however, the story has little to differentiate it from the apocryphal Acts of the other Apostles. Thomas performs various miracles, especially healings, along the way, converts a number of people among the Indian royalty, and destroys an idol. This provokes the wrath of a local king, who attempts to kill him in a variety of creative ways, none of which succeed; finally, he is pierced by lances, his body is buried by those whom he has converted, and many miracles take place at the tomb.

St Thomas the Apostle, by Nicholaes Maes, 1656

St Thomas’ feast was adopted in the West in the 9th century, and assigned to December 21st; the reason for this choice of date is unknown, but it is unlikely to be a mere coincidence that nine other months have the feast of an Apostle or Evangelist within their last ten days, thus distributing them more or less evenly through the year. He was also kept on this date in Milan, but in the post-Tridentine editions of the Ambrosian Missal, the following rubric was inserted before his feast. “The Mass of this Apostle… is always transferred to a feria of the preceding week… except in a church titled to him.” This was done to protect the special series of ferias at the end of Advent, called the “feriae de Exceptato” (the precise meaning of which is not clear), the equivalent of the Roman ferias of the O antiphons. The feast day was later moved first to June 27th, and then to July 3rd, the date on which the Syrian church commemorates the translation of his relics to Edessa. The post-Conciliar reform of the Roman Rite followed suit in moving him to July 3rd; the official account of the changes made to the calendar, published by the Vatican Polyglot Press in 1969, states that this was done “so that the series of major ferias of Advent not be interrupted.”

As I have noted before, some churches added one or more antiphons to the O series for the end of Advent, and one of these was composed for St Thomas. “O Thoma Didyme, per Christum quem meruisti tangere, te precibus rogamus altisonis, succurre nobis miseris, ne damnemur cum impiis in adventu judicis. – O Thomas the Twin, through Christ, Whom thou didst merit to touch, with prayers resounding on high we beseech thee, come to help us in our wretchedness, lest we be damned with the wicked at the Coming of the Judge.” Although the Ambrosian Rite does not have the other O antiphons, before the Tridentine reform, it used this text as the antiphon “after the Gospel” at Mass on his feast day.

The Feast of All Saints 2023: The Apostles

From the Breviary according to the use of the Roman Curia, 1529, the continuation of the sermon for the seventh day in the Octave of All Saints.

After (the Patriarchs and Prophets) follows the venerable choir of the Apostles, who adorn with a crown of twelve stars our holy mother the Church, who is clothed in the warmth of the true Sun, and shines forth with charity. Those who shine with their light, and are warmed by their ardor will never fall into the darkness of error, or languish with faithless cold in the night of sin. In this world, their tongues are become the keys of heaven, and therefore, as princes of the nations they are exceedingly exalted as gods; and in the next, in the dignity of their power to judge, they will sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

An icon of the Twelve Apostles painted in Constantinople towards the end of the 14th century. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

The Legends of Saints Simon and Jude

In the Breviary of St Pius V, the lives of the Apostles Simon and Jude are summed up in a single lesson of fewer than sixty words. It is noted that St Simon was called “the Chananean, also the Zealot”; the term “Chananean” was thought by some of the Church Fathers to refer to Cana of Galilee, where the Lord turned water into wine, but it is simply a hellenization of the Hebrew word “qanna’i – zealous.” St Thaddeus, more often called Jude, was the author of one of the seven Catholic Epistles. After the Ascension, the former went to evangelize Egypt, the latter to Mesopotamia; they later met in Persia, where they continued to preach the Gospel, and were eventually martyred.

The pre-Tridentine Roman Breviary, on the other hand, gives a much more elaborate account of their lives after the Lord’s Ascension. St Simon is said to have preached the Gospel in many places, which are not specifically named. When St James the Less was killed in 62 A.D., Simon was chosen by the other Apostles to succeed him as bishop of Jerusalem. Having governed the mother church of Christianity for many years, and reached the age of one-hundred and twenty, he was tortured and crucified under the Emperor Trajan. In reality, these stories derive from the life of a different saint with a similar name, Symeon of Jerusalem, who is mentioned by Eusebius of Caesarea (ca. 260-340) in the third book of his Ecclesiastical History.

Chapter 11. After the martyrdom of James and the conquest of Jerusalem … it is said that those of the Apostles and disciples of the Lord that were still living came together from all directions with those that were related to the Lord according to the flesh … to take counsel as to who was worthy to succeed James. They all with one consent pronounced Symeon, the son of Clopas, of whom the Gospel also makes mention, to be worthy of the episcopal throne … He was a cousin, as they say, of the Savior; for Hegesippus records that Clopas was a brother of Joseph.

Chapter 32. (Citing Hegesippus again) Speaking of certain heretics, he adds that Symeon was accused by them at this time; and since it was clear that he was a Christian, he was tortured in various ways for many days, and astonished even the judge himself and his attendants in the highest degree, and finally he suffered a death similar to that of our Lord. But there is nothing like hearing the historian himself, who writes as follows: “Certain of these heretics brought accusation against Symeon, the son of Clopas, on the ground that he was a descendant of David and a Christian; and thus he suffered martyrdom, at the age of one hundred and twenty years, while Trajan was emperor and Atticus governor. … And after being tortured for many days he suffered martyrdom, and all, including even the proconsul, marveled that, at the age of one hundred and twenty years, he could endure so much. And orders were given that he should be crucified.”

The Martyrdom of Saints Simon and Jude

In his famous Golden Legend, Bl. Jacopo de Voragine writes that the confusion between Symeon of Jerusalem and the Apostle Simon was noted by Eusebius, St Isidore and Bede the Venerable. In the Tridentine reform of the Breviary, therefore, the error was corrected; the story of St Symeon of Jerusalem was detached from that of the Apostle, and he was given his own feast day on February 18.

In each of the Synoptic Gospels, when the Evangelists give the names of the Twelve Apostles, Simon and Jude appear together at the end of the list, right before Judas Iscariot; Ss Matthew (chapter 10) and Mark (chapter 3) give the name of the latter as Thaddeus, but St Luke (chapter 6) calls him Jude. St John does not give a list of the names of the Twelve, but recounts in chapter 14 that Jude “not the Iscariot” at the Last Supper asked Christ, “Lord, how is it, that thou wilt manifest thyself to us, and not to the world?” It is with the name Thaddeus that he is mentioned in the Communicantes of the Roman Canon, and by this name he also came to be associated with one of the most beloved stories of the Christian tradition, the legend of King Abgar, and the painting of the Holy Face of Edessa.

The Holy Face of Edessa, often called the Mandylion from the Syriac word for the cloth on which the image was made.

As recorded by Eusebius in the Ecclesiastical History (I. 13), King Abgar of Edessa suffered from an incurable disease of some kind; having heard of the many healings wrought by the Lord during His earthly ministry, he sent Him a letter asking Him to come to Edessa and heal him. The Lord replied by letter that He would not come personally, but that after His Resurrection, one of His disciples would be sent to cure him; and in due time, the Apostle Thomas sent one of the seventy disciples, a certain Thaddeus, to perform this office. Eusebius gives what purport to be the texts of the two letters, which were kept, he claims, in the public archives at Edessa. The story is repeated in a much more elaborate form in an early fifth-century apocryphal work, “The Doctrine of Addai,” in which the name of the disciple sent to King Abgar appears as Addai, rather than Thaddeus.

The Vigil of Ss Simon and Jude

In the Roman Rite, the term “vigilia – vigil” traditionally means a penitential day of preparation for a major feast. The Mass of a Saint’s vigil is celebrated after None, as are the Masses of the ferias of Lent or the Ember Days, and in violet vestments; however, the deacon and subdeacon do not wear folded chasubles, as they do in Lent, but the dalmatic and tunicle. The Mass has neither the Gloria nor the Creed, the Alleluja is simply omitted before the Gospel, not replaced with a Tract, and Benedicamus Domino is said at the end in place of Ite, missa est.

Folio 116v of the Gellone Sacramentary, ca. 780 AD, with the Mass of the vigil of Ss Simon and Jude, and the beginning of the Mass of their feast. (Bibliothèque National de France, Département des Manuscrits, Latin 12048)

The joint celebration of the Apostles Simon and Jude in a single feast originated as a proper custom of the Roman Rite, which was then copied by both the Ambrosian and Mozarabic Rites. (In the Byzantine Rite, St Simon’s feast is kept on May 10th, and St Jude’s on June 19th.) As with the feast of Ss Philip and James, this custom seems to have arisen from the presence of their relics in a Roman church; they have been venerated in St Peter’s Basilica since the 7th or 8th century. Neither the vigil nor the feast appears in the very oldest liturgical books of the Roman Rite such as the Old Gelasian Sacramentary and the Wurzburg lectionary, ca. 750 AD. However, both are found only about 30 years later in the Gellone Sacramentary, and their place in the liturgy is certainly well established by the mid-9th century.

In the common Mass for the vigil of an Apostle, all of the proper texts except for the Gospel refer to a single person, as for example the Epistle, which begins with the words “The blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the just man.” The vigil of Ss Simon and Jude therefore has a different Mass, the texts of which all refer to more than one person, in keeping with their joint celebration. The three orations of the Mass in the Missal of St Pius V are the same as those found in the Gellone Sacramentary, and originated with this vigil, but the Gregorian propers and Scriptural readings are all also used in other Masses.

The altar of the left transept of St Peter's Basilica, in which are kept the relics of Ss Simon and Jude; the altar itself is now also dedicated to St Joseph.

The Introit, Gradual and Communion all take their text from Psalm 78, which the Church Fathers often associated with those who, like the Apostles, had given their lives for the Faith. An anonymous “Exposition of the Psalms” previously attributed to St Jerome says e.g., in regard to the words which begin the Introit, “Why should I not understand this to be simply said about the martyrs who were shut up in prisons? … And I say that God does truly hear the voice of those prisoners.” (PL 26, 1289B)

“Intret in conspectu tuo, Dómine, gémitus compeditórum: redde vicínis nostris séptuplum in sinu eórum: víndica sánguinem Sanctórum tuórum, qui effúsus est. Ps. 78 Deus, venérunt gentes in hereditátem tuam: polluérunt templum sanctum tuum: posuérunt Jerúsalem in pomórum custodiam. Gloria Patri. Intret. – Let the sighing of the prisoners come in before Thee, O Lord; render to our neighbors sevenfold in their bosom: repay our neighbors sevenfold into their bosoms; revenge the blood of thy servants, which hath been shed. Ps. 78 O God, the heathens are come into thy inheritance, they have defiled thy holy temple: they have made Jerusalem as a place to keep fruit. Glory be… Let the sighing…”

Likewise, in his Exposition of the Psalms, St Augustine says of the psalm verse, “I believe the words ‘as a place to keep fruit’ should be understood to mean the laying-to-waste caused by the devastation of persecution: … And certainly, when the Church seemed to be laid waste because the heathen were persecuting it, the spirits of the martyrs passed to the heavenly banquet, as if they were many of the sweetest fruits from the Lord’s garden.” (Enarratio in Ps. 78)

This choice may also reflect a long-standing hagiographical confusion, by which the Apostle Simon was thought to be the same person as a kinsman of the Lord named Symeon, who became bishop of Jerusalem after the death of St James the Less, and was martyred at the age of 120 in the reign of the Emperor Trajan.

St Simon the Apostle; statue by Francesco Moratti, 1704-9, in the Lateran Basilica. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0.)

The Epistle is taken from the fourth chapter of St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (verses 9-14), in which he describes the duties of an Apostle. “We are made a spectacle to the world, and to angels, and to men.” A commentary on the Epistles of St Paul which was traditionally (but incorrectly) attributed to St Ambrose says about this, “the Apostles became a spectacle, because they were publically mocked, and set to the injury and the death which they suffered. By ‘the world’, he means both angels and men, because there are also evil angels, … (and) the injuries done to the Apostles delighted them.” (PL 17 205A)

This reading first appeared in the Roman Rite in the mid-8th century on the feast of two martyrs named Abdon and Sennen, Persians who were killed at Rome in the 3rd century; they are still commemorated in the Extraordinary Form on July 30th. Their bodies were left to lie “before the image of the sun god,” a colossal statue of the Emperor Nero which stood next to the Colosseum, one of the places where gladiatorial “spectacles” were held and Christians were martyred. It makes for an interesting coincidence, but no more than that, that their native land, Persia, is traditionally said to be the place where St Jude died for the faith.

The Gospel, John 15, 1-7, is one of two traditionally read on the feasts of Martyrs in Eastertide, the other being verses 5-11 of the same chapter. This is the only place where this passage is read outside that season, but the reason for doing so is not readily discernible. The concluding words “you shall ask whatever you will, and it shall be done unto you” may seem to reflect the devotion to St Jude as the patron of lost causes, but this devotion is extremely recent, no earlier than the 19th century, and its origin obscure.

The Offertory is taken from an Old Latin version of Psalm 149, and includes a small variant from the Vulgate version of St Jerome. “Exsultabunt sancti in gloria; lætabuntur in cubilibus suis. Exaltationes Dei in faucibus (“gutture” in the Vulgate) eorum. – The Saints shall rejoice in glory: they shall be joyful in their resting places. The high praises of God shall be in their mouth.”

The first part of this is frequently said in the Office of Several Martyrs, and was chosen in reference to the fact that the original focus of devotion to the Saints was always at the place of their burial. This same chant is sung on the feasts of Ss Processus and Martinian, whose relics are also kept at St Peter’s; in the modern basilica, they are in the main altar of the right transept, directly opposite that of Ss Simon and Jude in the left transept. It is also sung on the octave day of Ss Peter and Paul, and on the feast of the Holy Maccabees, whose relics are in another church dedicated to St Peter, the basilica which houses his chains.

Like most Masses in the ancient sacramentaries, this vigil originally had its own proper preface, which refers to the ancient character of such days as preparation for a major feast.

VD: Quia tu es mirabilis in omnibus sanctis tuis, quos et nominis tui confessione praeclaros, et suscepta pro te fecisti passione gloriosos. Unde, sicut illi ieiunando orandoque certaverunt, ut hanc possent obtinere victoriam, ita nos potius quae exercuere sectantes, convenientius eorum natalicia celebremus. Per Christum. – Truly it is worthy … because Thou are wondrous in all Thy Saints, whom Thou has made honorable by the confession of Thy name, and glorious by the passion which they accepted for Thee. Wherefore, just as they strove by fasting and praying, that they might be able to obtain this victory, so may we also, by follow their practices, more fittingly celebrate their birth into heaven.