We have seen already (p. 33 f.) that in the East at an early date there was a commemoration of St Peter in close connexion with the commemoration of the Lord’s Nativity. But at Rome in the earliest Western Kalendar (the Bucherian) we find two festivals that deserve consideration: (1) Natale Petri de Cathedra at Feb. 22; and (2) Petri in Catacumbas et Pauli Os[t]iense, at June 29, to which are added the words, Tusco et Basso Coss. To deal first with the latter entry; as the consulate of Tuscus and Bassus marks A.D. 258, it has been not unnaturally conjectured that the record marks the date of some translation of the Apostles’ relics. But that conjecture does not absolutely exclude the supposition that the day chosen for the translation was the day which was believed to have been the day of their martyrdom. The translation, as Bishop Pearson[88] long ago supposed, was the removal, perhaps with a view to safety, of the remains to a place at the third milestone on the Appian Way, called ‘Ad Catacumbas,’ during the heat of the persecution under Valerian.
The observance of a commemoration of St Paul on June 30 (still so marked in the Roman Kalendar), has been accounted for by the fact that the bishop of Rome celebrating mass first at the tomb of St Peter, and afterwards on the same day having to go a long distance to the tomb of St Paul, there to celebrate again, it was arranged to observe the festival of St Paul on the day after June 29, with a view to avoiding the fatigue and inconvenience of the two functions on the one day.
Cathedra Petri. The entry cited above from the Bucherian Kalendar, Natale Petri de cathedra, ‘the Festival of Peter of the Chair,’ looks very like the record of the dedication of a church, where perhaps a seated statue of the Apostle was placed[89]. We are at once reminded of the large seated figure of Hippolytus discovered in 1551 on the Via Tiburtina. Or, as De Rossi supposes, the festival may have had to do with the actual wooden chair (as was supposed) which St Peter had used, and of which we hear in the time of Gregory the Great. But, whatever may have been the origin of the festival, it came at a later time to be regarded as marking the date of the beginning of St Peter’s episcopate; and there is some evidence that the festival was made much of as a Christian set off against the popular pagan solemnity of Cara cognatio on Feb. 22, when the dead members of each family were commemorated.
Duchesne asserts, with something of undue confidence, that this was without doubt the ground for the selection of the date Feb. 22 for the Christian festival; but without committing ourselves to the acceptance of Duchesne’s view, we may say that it may well have been a reason why efforts were made to draw off the faithful, by means of the Christian solemnity, from the temptation to join in rites incompatible with their profession. The festival was unknown in the East, and, what is more remarkable, equally unknown in the Church of North Africa; but it appeared early in Gaul, and, as has been conjectured, with a view to prevent the festival falling, as would occasionally happen, in Lent, the date was pushed back to Jan. 18. At Rome it continued to be observed on Feb. 22.
It would seem to have been due to the anxiety of the early mediaeval Kalendar-makers and Martyrologists to comprehend in their lists everything in the way of church solemnities recorded in any Kalendar that we have the invention of St Peter’s Chair at Antioch. They found some Kalendars marking Cathedra Petri at Jan. 18, and others at Feb. 22. Might not, they would argue, these double dates be accounted for by the old accounts that St Peter had exercised an episcopate at Antioch before he came to Rome?
Venerable Bede does not mark any Festival of St Peter’s Chair at Jan. 18, but at Feb. 22 writes ‘Apud Antiochiam Cathedra S. Petri.’ But in the Martyrology, known as Gellonense (circ. 800), and in Usuard’s Martyrology we find at Jan. 18, ‘Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli quâ Romae primo sedit,’ and at Feb. 22 ‘Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli quâ sedit apud Antiochiam’ (Gellonense), ‘Apud Antiochiam Cathedrae S. Petri’ (Usuard). There continued to be a variety of use in different dioceses as to the day on which ‘St Peter’s Chair’ was celebrated; and it was not till as late as 1558 that Pope Paul IV settled the question by ordering that the feast of the Roman Chair should be observed on Jan. 18, while Gregory XIII restored Feb. 22 as the feast of the Chair at Antioch. This is not the place to discuss whether there was, properly speaking, any episcopate of St Peter at Antioch. It is significant that the churches of Greece and the East knew nothing of the feast of St Peter’s Chair at Antioch[90].
St Peter ‘ad vincula,’ ‘St Peter’s Chains.’ The Eastern Church celebrates the festival of St Peter’s Chain on Jan. 16; the Latin Church celebrates the corresponding festival on Aug. 1. Both festivals not improbably had their origins in the dedication of churches, where what were supposed to be a chain or chains which had bound Peter were preserved. The plural, ‘chains,’ in the Roman name is significant, and will be understood by reference to the 4th and 5th Lections for the feast in the Roman Breviary. The feast does not appear in Western Kalendars till the eighth century.
The seventeenth century building, S. Pietro in Vincoli, on the Esquiline, occupies the site of the church of the Apostles, reconstructed at the expense of the imperial family between A.D. 432 and A.D. 440, where the precious relics were deposited.
In connexion with this feast attention should be called to the fact that in the so-called Hieronymian Martyrology at Aug. 1, we find no reference to the chains, but there is the particularly interesting entry: ‘At Rome, dedication of the first church both constructed and consecrated by blessed Peter the Apostle[91].’