Oldest Icons of Peter and Paul found

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BusterMartin

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I did a search but didn’t see any results for this. I seem to be terrible at that though, so I apologize if I missed it. I saw this on Yahoo headlines. It’s pretty good timing since I think June 29 is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.
ROME – The earliest known icons of the Apostles Peter and Paul have been discovered in a catacomb under an eight-story modern office building in a working-class neighborhood of Rome, Vatican officials said Tuesday.
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The images, which date from…
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Go to this link to read the rest of the article and see the images.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100622/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_archaeology
 
The comments on that article were distressing to say the least. I think the mindset of our culture is displayed in its worse online. It’s enough to make me want to run screaming from the internet lest I lapse into despair. ):

That said, I’d love to see these icons. 🙂
 
The comments on Yahoo articles are always terrible. I try to comment back on some of them, but some people just don’t want to hear anything other than “religion is bad” or “catholics are bad” or etc…
 
ok so how do we know those paintings are peter and paul…the article says nothing about how they identified them
 
BusterMartin said:
I did a search but didn’t see any results for this. I seem to be terrible at that though, so I apologize if I missed it. I saw this on Yahoo headlines. It’s pretty good timing since I think June 29 is the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul.

Go to this link to read the rest of the article and see the images.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100622/ap_on_re_eu/eu_vatican_archaeology
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The images from the yahoo article are taken at awkward angles. For better pictures, try the cnn article:

cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/06/22/italy.apostles.images/?hpt=C2
 
How very exciting and i agree very emotional.It certainly makes the Apostles tangible.
Thankyou for posting this God bless
 
mskejj said:
Fox News’ article was much better:
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:confused:

They seem to be the same article, written by the Associated Press. Am I missing something?
DaMooksta said:
ok so how do we know those paintings are peter and paul…the article says nothing about how they identified them
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Its a good question, and I had to dig a little bit to find the answer.

Apparently, Jewish tradition of the time did not allow the depictions of persons. Since Christianity was heavily influenced by Judaism during its first couple centuries, no depictions of St. Peter or St. Paul were made during that time. As Christianity better established its own traditions, there was a desire to portray the early saints, but no one knew what they looked like.

This is the explanation given by Professor Antonio Paolucci, director of the Vatican Museums:
"The problem was posed between the third and fourth centuries, when a Church that had become widespread and well structured made the great and brilliant wager that is at the basis of our entire artistic history. It accepted and made its own the world of images, and accepted it in the forms in which the Greco-Roman stylistic and iconographic traditions had developed it. It was in this way is that Christ the Good Shepherd took on the appearance of Pheobus Apollo or Orpheus, and that Daniel in the lion’s den had the appearance of Hercules, the victorious nude athlete.
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“But how could one represent Peter and Paul, the princes of the apostles, the pillars of the Church, the foundations of the hierarchy and doctrine? Someone got a good idea. He gave the first apostles the appearance of the first philosophers. So Paul, bald, bearded, with the serious and focused air of the intellectual, had the appearance of Plato or perhaps of Plotinus, while that of Aristotle was given to the pragmatic and worldly Peter, who has the task of guiding the professing and militant Church through the snares of the world.”
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catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=33959

The newly discovered icons of St Peter and St. Paul were identified because they resembled how those two saints were traditionally depicted back then.
 
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