In light of René Girard's thesis of mimetic rivalry it is an interesting phenomenon that the two towering figures of the New Testament Church, St. Peter and St. Paul share the same feast day on June 29. Since most saints are celebrated individually, one might think that Peter and Paul would each get a day to himself. Actually, this did happen for a time. Pope St. Gregory I, in declaring St. Peter the patron of Rome, split the celebration by reserving the 29^th for Peter and laying aside the next day, the 30^th, for Paul, but the two have since been reunited on the one date. It happens that the Church calendar has one other diptych for these two saints. St. Peter's Confession is celebrated on January 18 and the Conversion of Paul a week later on January 25. In our ecumenical age, these two feast days form the bookends of the week of Christian Unity.

This shared feast of two spiritual giants reminds me of another institution in which mimetic rivalry is enshrined: American baseball. Some years ago, I read that a leading baseball magazine proposed doing a dual article on two players on the same team who were both having outstanding years. One of the players vetoed this article on the grounds that he was too good to share an article with anybody else, not even a fellow teammate. This would be like St. Peter objecting to sharing the same feast with St. Paul when apparently inferior saints, such as Bartholomew and Matthias, have feast days all to themselves. It is well-known that the presence of two strong personalities in roughly the same sphere of influence is a perfect recipe for mimetic rivalry that can tear the social fabric apart and lead to the violent solution of the sacrificial mechanism. Behind these dual celebrations of Peter and Paul there is a delicate balancing act on the part of the Church. Regardless of how human passions play themselves out, even (or especially!) in the Church, Divine Providence has provided a very different model for the relationship between two strong, outstanding personalities than the World, even the baseball world, offers.

The narration of the Acts of the Apostles is dominated by the apostles Peter and Paul and Luke seems to have taken great pains to balance the impact of these two. The book is pretty evenly divided between a portrait of Peter's missionary work followed by a portrait of Paul's. The seemingly abrupt ending with Paul awaiting trial in Rome easily catches the attention of readers. Less easily noticed is the fact that the narrative of Peter's life is dropped just as abruptly. Luke tells us nothing of what happens to Peter after the Council of Jerusalem. Luke sees fit to take us no further in the lives of these apostles than their preaching the Gospel under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. By saying nothing of how the lives of these saints ended, Luke diminishes the importance of even these great saints and emphasizes their subordination to the Holy Spirit. More important, there is perhaps the insight on Luke's part that the Church is not ready to absorb the cult of martyrs. In order to stress the fact that the God of the Gospels is a God of life and not a god of death, it is necessary to focus on the lives of these apostles and not their deaths. It is true that the martyrdoms of James and Stephen are narrated early in the book, but the death of Stephen stresses Stephen's vision of the risen Christ and both deaths are overshadowed by the spread of the Gospel that takes place after their deaths.

In the middle of Acts is the momentous Council of Jerusalem where the two apostles meet. They meet in a situation ripe for conflict. There is some debate among historians as to how pacific this encounter was in real life. However, the fact that Luke should present the Council as an amicable solution to conflict is highly significant. Interestingly, Luke does not present a speech by Paul in his defense. Rather, it is Peter who speaks up for him in a speech that sounds an awful lot like a speech Paul could have made himself. In effect, Peter imitates Paul in supporting his position at a time when he could have become a mimetic double in conflict. Luke has already portrayed Peter's struggle over the appropriateness of preaching to of the Gentiles through the famous narration of Peter's vision of the sheet come down from Heaven with both clean and unclean animals on it. After Peter's speech, it is James who, acting as mediator, states the solution. This solution draws a distinction between Jews and Gentiles and allows a separate sphere for each. The two groups need not compete. Rather, each group is given space to develop its style of Christianity under the guidance of the Spirit. I don't see this distinction as intending separation in a sectarian sense, but rather noting the differences in the traditions of two groups of people who are yet united through Jesus.

Considerably more tension between Peter and Paul is expressed in Paul's letter to the Galatians. Paul presents himself as having gone to Jerusalem, determined to get his way. He comes across as surprised that he did not have to argue for his point of view regarding the circumcision of Gentile converts and that he and Barnabas received the right hand of fellowship." But, contrary to the support Peter had given in Jerusalem, Paul found it necessary "oppose him [Peter] to his face" for rejecting table fellowship with Gentiles. There is a chance that Peter had suffered a relapse of his own tendency to be swayed by the wrong mimetic crowd, such as happened to him in the courtyard of the high priest. When supported by the other elders in Jerusalem, Peter could accept full fellowship with the Gentiles, but in a situation where his fellow Jews were against that fellowship. Peter could only imitate them rather than Paul. However, we don't have any letters from Peter on the subject and there is plenty of evidence in the New Testament of Paul's uncompromising temper. Indeed, immediately after the Council in Jerusalem, Luke went on to tell of Paul's violent quarrel and breakup with his close friend Barnabas. We also do not know if this quarrel between Peter and Paul was ever healed in this life or was healed only posthumously in the hagiography and liturgy of the Church.

At the end of the Second Epistle of Peter, there is an interesting reference to "our brother Paul, who is so dear to us." Most scholars seriously doubt that Peter himself could have written or even dictated this letter, but that Peter's name would be connected to these words is a significant example of the Church's corporate effort to maintain a peaceful relationship between the two apostles. The author "Peter" said that Paul wrote "with the wisdom that is his special gift." Amicable as these words are, "Peter" cautions his readers that some points in Paul's letters are hard to understand and are "easily distorted by uneducated and unbalanced people." The tension between the two great apostles is close to the surface here. It appears that a strong effort was made to keep the tension from reaching the breaking point.

We have, moreover, a particularly strong instance of Paul himself taking pains to quell rivalry in Corinth where Peter and Paul were among those being triangulated in the fray. Paul takes the Corinthians severely to task for using such slogans as: "I am for Paul," "I am for Cephas." Clearly, any alleged rivalry between Peter and Paul was being used by members of the congregation to further their own rivalry with each other. Far from fanning the flames of conflict, Paul distances himself from it in no uncertain terms and renounces any possible gain he might get from the "Paul" Party in Corinth.

That things had not gotten better in Corinth by the next generation is evident in the Epistle to the Corinthians by St. Clement of Rome. The occasion of the letter is an "abominable and unholy schism" in the community. Clement wastes little time in naming jealousy and envy as the prime causes of this schism. He then gives a catalog of persecutions starting with Cain which were the result of these vices. After his list of Old Testament martyrs, he comes to the present time where "through jealousy and envy the greatest and holiest pillars [of the Church] were persecuted, and they endured to the death." Clement goes on to describe the deaths of Peter and Paul, carefully giving equal space for each of them. In countering the dissension based on rivalry in Corinth, the dual example of Peter and Paul stresses the harmony between the two great apostles.

The Golden Legend, a 13^th century compilation of saints' lives by Jacob of Voragine, offers a handy summary of the hagiography on Peter and Paul. This is not the book one goes to for the most accurate history of the early church or anything else, but it is one of the best books for studying the way saints have been presented as models to the faithful. Early in his long entry on Paul, Jacob explicitly curbs the rivalry that has occurred on account of the two saints: "We find that at different times Paul is portrayed as Peter's inferior, as greater than Peter, or as Peter's equal, but the fact is that he was inferior in dignity, greater in preaching, and equal in holiness."

Jacob gives much attention to the apocryphal stories concerning Peter's conflict with Simon Magus (greatly inflating the brief narrative of the two in Acts.) Interestingly, Paul, after his arrival in Rome, is portrayed as a partner with Peter in combating the magical machinations of this evil sorcerer. The series of contests with Simon Magus offers an illustration of the mimetic rivalry that surrounded the apostles as they preached the Gospel of Christ. The attitudes toward peace on the part of Peter and Simon are bluntly expressed in Jacob's narration of a public debate between them. Peter greets Simon: "Peace be with you, brothers, who love the truth!" But Simon replies: "We have no use for your peace! If there is peace and harmony, we will make no progress in our search for the truth. Thieves keep peace among themselves! Therefore do not invoke peace but war!" Since Nero is portrayed as a consistent supporter of Simon, there is a political dimension and this struggle leads to the martyrdom of the two apostles under Nero. For a Girardian, the doubling of names of the two prime antagonists is interesting: Simon Peter and Simon Magus.

Not surprisingly, then, Jacob upholds the traditional belief that Peter and Paul were martyred on the same day and at the same hour, although Jacob concedes that they did not suffer at precisely the same spot. Since Paul was a Roman citizen and Peter was not, Paul was beheaded while Peter was crucified.

In the New Full Edition of Butler's Lives of the Saints, the style of hagiography is, understandably, quite different. The uniting of the names of these two apostles and their linkage to Rome goes back to early sources. In the second century, St. Ireneaus called the Church of Rome "the greatest and most ancient Church, founded by the two glorious apostles, Peter and Paul." Archaeological investigations along the Appian Way have unearthed rooms with inscriptions honoring both saints together and a bronze medal dating from the first half of the second century pictures the heads of the two saints on the same side of the medal. The claim that Peter spent much time in Rome is disputed in Butler, but it is judged likely that he was martyred under Nero. Paul is believed to have been executed in Rome at Tre Fontana, also under Nero, in 65. Butler states bluntly, however that "the belief that Paul and Peter died on the same date has no evidence to support it." That may be, but clearly it has been important to the Church that the deaths of these two be linked together in the Church's memory.

In the Magnificat antiphon for First Vespers of the Feast of Ss. Peter & Paul, it says""Peter and Paul were at one in their love of the Lord: neither in life nor death were they divided." The second half of this text comes from David's lament for Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. 1:23). A verse from a portion of scripture dealing with a long mimetic struggle is applied to another problematic relationship to heal whatever division there may have been in real life and offer the Church a model of mimetic amity.