Images: not online; image from Spier, Picturing the Bible, p. 241.
Clavis number: ECMA 131
Location: Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Florence
Other descriptors: none
Category: lamps
Related literature: Martyrdom of Blessed Peter the Apostle, by Pseudo-Linus; Passion of Processus and Martinianus
Featured characters and locations: Peter (apostle), Mamertine, Rome.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: bronze
Size: 11.5 × 13.5 × 14.5 cm
Images: this bronze lamp, created in Rome, consists of two nozzles and a ring foot. The top of the lamp features a wreath, symbolic of the victory obtained in Christian martyrdom, frames the scene. The standing figure is the apostle Peter who is depicted striking stones in a prison. The kneeling figure is a Roman jailer who is pictured as being baptized from the water that emerged from the stones. Bronze lamps adorned with Christian imagery and symbols like this one were used in the homes of the Roman aristocracy during the late fourth and early fifth centuries.
Date: end of fourth century CE
Provenance: Rome
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
This story is recounted within the Martyrdom of the Blessed Apostle Peter:, attributed to Linus (as well as the Passion of Processus and Martinianus) where Peter baptizes two Roman guards named Processus and Martinianus, during his incarceration in the Mamertine prison in Rome. The two jailers then later plead with Peter to escape in order to save his life.
But the guards of the prison, Processus and Martinianus, together with the other magistrates and those associated by way of their office, appealed to him, saying, “Lord, go where you wish, because we believe that the emperor has now forgotten about you. But that most wicked Agrippa, enflamed by lust for his concubines and the intemperance of his passion is eager to destroy you. If an order from the king were accusing you, then we would have a command concerning your execution from Paulinus—a very prominent man to whom you were handed over and from whom we received the order to guard you. After we believers in this region of the Mamertine prison were baptized in the name of the Holy Trinity in a spring brought forth from stone by prayers and the glorious sign of the cross, you went around as freely as you pleased. No one bothered you or would be doing so now, if the demonic fire that troubles the city had not taken over Agrippa so violently. For this reason we beg you, minister of our salvation, to do us this favor in return. Because you freed us from the chains of sin and demons, now depart free from prison and being fettered with chains—a cruelty that we are charged to enforce—not just with our permission but our request, for the salvation of so great a multitude.” (Lin. Mart. Pet. 5; trans. David L. Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul [WGRW 39; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015], 139–69).
Peter was seen as a revered leader and hero of the Christian church, and so the story of the water miracle shown here may have arisen as an analogue to the Water Miracle of Moses. It is likely this story was not written down because it was well-known and existed no later than the 4th century when it begins to appear on sarcophagi.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bovini, Giuseppe. Monumenta figurati paleocristiani conservati a Firenze. Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1950 (pp. 13–15).
Dresken-Weiland, Jutta. “The Role of Peter in Early Christian Art: Images from the 4th to the 6th Century.” Pages 115–34 in The Early Reception an Appropriation of the Apostle Peter (60–800 CE): The Anchors of the Fisherman. Edited by Roald Dijkstra. Euhormos 1. Leiden: Brill, 2020 (pp. 116–19).
Huskinson, Janet M. Concordia Apostolorum: Christian Propaganda at Rome in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries: A Study in Early Christian Iconography and Iconology. Oxford: B. A. R., 1982 (pp. 137–40).
Spier, Jeffrey. Picturing the Bible: The Earliest Christian Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007 (p. 241).
Volbach, Wolfgang Fritz, and Max Hirmer. Early Christian Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 1961 (p. 315, fig. 12).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Entry created by Matthew Gruchow, under the supervision of Christy Cobb, University of Denver, 26 July 2023.