Images: Wikimedia Commons
Clavis number: ECMA 129
Other descriptors: Stone of Apostolic Victory over Simon Magus
Location: Santa Francesca Romana (Piazza di Santa Francesca Romana 4). The first Christian building on the site was an oratory dedicated to Peter and Paul erected by Pope Paul I (757–767). This oratory was replaced by the church of Santa Maria Nova in the ninth century, renamed Santa Francesca Romana in the fifteenth.
Category: sacred sites
Related literature: Acts of Peter; Passion of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul (Pseudo-Marcellus); Gregory of Tours, Glor. mart. 27; Marvels of Roman Churches 1.7
Featured characters and locations: Paul (apostle), Peter (apostle), Simon Magus.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: stone
Size: not specified
Date: ante 583–593 CE
Features: two impressions in the stone with a modern label reading, “IN QUESTE PIETRE POSE LE GINOCHIA SAN PIETRO QUANDO I DEMONII PORT[ARONO] SIMON MAGO PER ARIA” (On these stones, Saint Peter placed his knees when the demons carried Simon Magus up in the air).
The earliest testimony to the impressions is by Gregory of Tours, writing ca. 583–593. He states that the impressions were made by both Peter and Paul:
An oration by Peter and Paul exposed and refuted the cunning of Simon Magus. Still today at Rome there are two small indentations in the stone upon which the blessed apostles knelt and delivered their oration to the Lord against Simon Magus. When rain water has collected in these indentations, ill people gather it; once they drink it, it soon restores their health. (trans. Raymond van Dam, Gregory of Tours: Glory of the Martyrs [Translated Texts for Historians 4; Liverpool, Liverpool University Press, 1998]).
The Marvels of Roman Churches, composed ca. 1375, places the impressions in Santa Maria Nova and states that they were made by Paul:
In New Saint Mary is a table wherein is painted by Saint Luke, as it is said, the image of Saint Mary with her child; and upon a time when that church was burned, this table also was set on fire, and was blackened all over and nought doth appear either of the garments of of the limbs, but the faces of the mother and child endure unhurt, as yet appeareth. In the same at an altar is the stone that is marked by the kneeling of Saint Paul, when he prayed during the flight of Simon Magus, who fell before that church, where the place is marked on the stones. (Marvels of Roman Churches 1.7; comp. 1375; trans. Francis Morgan Nichols, Mirabilia vrbis Romae. The Marvels of Rome, or a Picture of the Golden City [London: Ellis and Elvey, 1889], 121–52)
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The contest between Peter and Simon Magus is documented in several texts about the ministry of Peter in Rome. The earliest is the Acts of Peter, which describes Simon’s flight over the Via Sacra. Peter prays and Simon falls to the ground, breaking his leg in three places (Acts Pet. 32). Later adaptations of the story add particular details. In the Passion of Peter from the Apostolic Histories collection, Simon flies with the assistance of demons and dies where he lands (Pass. Pet. 18); in the Passion of the Apostles Peter and Paul, both apostles are present when Simon flies, again with the assistance of demons (Pass. Pet. Paul 11). The text that relates the most to the impressions is the Passion of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul attributed to Marcellus (known as Acts of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in its Greek form). This text is the most widely-attested account of the martyrdoms of both apostles and thus contains the most well-known and influential version of the Simon story. When Simon mounts the tower, Paul is praying on his knees and Peter is standing (52). Then Simon takes flight:
(55) Then Peter looked at Paul and said, “Paul, lift your head and see.” When Paul raised his head, his eyes full of tears, and saw Simon flying, he said, “Peter, why are you hesitating? Finish what you have started. Even now our Lord Jesus Christ calls us.” Hearing them, Nero scoffed and said, “These men see that they are now defeated and are going mad.” Peter said, “Now you will recognize that we are not mad.” Paul said to Peter, “Now do what you had started to do.” (56) Looking toward Simon, Peter said, “You angels of Satan, who are carrying him in the air in order to deceive the hearts of unbelieving people, I command you through God, the creator of all things, and through Jesus Christ, whom he raised from the dead on the third day, not to carry him any longer but to let him go.” And immediately he was dropped and fell onto the place called the Sacred Way. He was broken into four parts and turned into four stones, which remain to the present day as a testimony to the apostolic victory. (Pass. Holy Pet. Paul 55–56; trans. David L. Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul [WGRW 39; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015], 221–316).
Another memorial to the events described in Pass. Holy Pet. Paul was known to John of Malalas. He states that the body of Simon is still present on the Via Sacra beneath a stone enclosure called the Simonion (Chronographia 10.34; composed post 563). This seems at variance with the “four stones” of Pass. Holy Pet. Paul, but some medieval witnesses state that the four stones were transformed by Simon Magus’s blood and brains into one (sources described in Lipsius, 2.1:326). Lipsius argues that the two descriptions—the knee impressions and Simon’s corpse—refer to the same monument (Lipsius 2.1: 417).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Inglis, Erik. “Inventing Apostolic Impression Relics in Medieval Rome.” Speculum 96.2 (2021): 309–66.
Lipsius, Richard A. Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostellegenden. 2 vols. in 3 parts. Leipzig: Mendelssohn, 1889–1903; reprinted Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1959; reprinted by the same in 1972 (see vol. 2.1, pp. 326, 417).
Merkt, Andreas. “Rocks, Chains, and Keys: The Acts of Peter, Its Hagiographical Spinoffs, and the ‘Material Reception’ of Matthew 16, 18–19.” Pages 209–42 in Peter in the Early Church: Apostle–Missionary–Church Leader. Edited by Judith M. Lieu. Leuven: Peeters, 2021 (see pp. 220–25).
__________. “The Hetero-Topography of the Forum Romanum. How Late Antique Peter Traditions generated an Augmented Reality of Public Space.” Pages 21–54 in The Apostles Peter, Paul, John, Thomas and Philip with their Companions in Late Antiquity. Edited by Tobias Nicklas, Janet E. Spittler, and Jan N. Bremmer. Leuven: Peeters, 2021 (see pp. 35–40)
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Santa Francesca Romana.” Roman Churches.
“Santa Francesca Romana, Rome.” Wikipedia.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 22 August 2022.