What's with the statue of Peter in St. Peter’s Cathedral?

I did a google search too.

Of the first dozen sites that came up, not one said it was speculation. Everyone of them gave the attribution to Arnolfo Di Cambio. It was just simply stated. Not at all questioned.

 

Yes, this site says that "some scholars say that." The source doesn't appear to support that view, nor even really care. Do some doubt it? Of course; someone had to make up the junk that you posted here, so apparently some "scholars" differ in opinion. That's not new; that also doesn't make it "more true."

 

Ray,

Ah the sliding scale arguements again. Let's deal with your statements for a change. You forgot about Eph 2:20 and so have egg on your face. Are prophets and Apostles the foundation or not. You said Jesus was the only foundation. Actually correctly understood it is a correct statement because the foundation of Prophets and Apostles is the foundation that Jesus laid. Any other foundation is a foundation on sand that will surely crumble. Now in a like many with Jesus being the foundation and Prophets being the foundation, Christ is the Rock, but that does not contradict Peter being the Rock. It is just your dichotomous thinking that causes this stumbling block for you. Peter can (and is) the Roch ("you are Peter (means Rock Ray) and upon this Rock I will build my Church." Only extreme twisting and perversion of the plain word of God will come to a conclusion that anyone but Peter is the Rock in this verse (mt 16:18). I agree Jesus is the Rock. Jesus is the Foundation. Jesus is the light of the world. That does not prevent Peter from being the Rock, Apostles and prophets being the foundation upon which the Church was built, and the people of the Church from being the light of the world. In fact it is the reason that these things are true. Your arguements are nonsense.

Blessings though

 

thessalonian,

If Peter and the Prophets were foundations or Rocks who do you tell people to trust for their salvation?

Please, take your head of the spiritual tundra and look up the two Greek words for Rock in Matthew 16:18 and then try to tell us that they both have the same meaning. Why then the different and unique words for stone?

Because Jesus is the only and true Foundation on which to build our faith; the Prophets and apostles were merely like John the Baptist, 'voices crying in the wilderness of this world.' When we speak of a foundation we are not talking about bricks and mortar, but a person who God deems absolutely essential in bringing us to eternal life forevermore. John 3:16 tells all interested people that Jesus is the Rock of our salvation and the Anchor of our souls. [Hebrews 6:19-20]

 

john6:63
Quick google by me turns up:
http://enrico2.firenze.net/arnolfo.html
http://www.archINFORM.net/arch/669.htm?ID=e325d58ddf5673da3fe0058c3332fd8c
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/vaticano/T-Treasury.html
There are hundreds of sites linking the 2.

There are indeed some among my colleagues who doubt that Arnolfo crafted the statue.
What is however certain is that it was created centuries after the fall of the Roman empire. It is a clearly a statue from the late middle ages.

For those who can't distinguish statues of Roman origin from statues created at least 8 centuries later, I suggest reading either of the following books
http://www.nl.bol.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/Store/nl/-/EUR/BOL_ParametricSearch-Start;sid=MVerahkPc4uraiajGlmVXfndM3veDZ0jYc4=
If you can't manage Dutch there always is janson
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0130197297/qid=1068248213/sr=ka-2/ref=pd_ka_2/002-8960095-3199269

 

5th century casting?
Nice example of the RC 'tradition' of making objects more significant than they are.

"Then were did the statue come from?"
The Catholic church, hired an artist to cast it.
Most likely Arnolfo, maybe a contemporary of him.


" You’d think that the Catholic Church would know, right?"
With 2000 years of history to keep track of , sometimes details get lost.

" No speculation to it. I mean St. Peter’s Cathedral is a Catholic structure, is it not?"
Yes it is.

 

It was removed from the Pantheon and "altered" in the 13th century for adaption into St. Peter's Basilica.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Mioque --

Hint. Try looking for Vaticano Illustrato II to see what it says about the statue of Jupiter taken from the Pantheon "edited" by a certain sculpter of your adoration and set in the Basilica of your homage.

In Christ,

Bob

 

It was removed from the Pantheon and "altered" in the 13th century for adaption into St. Peter's Basilica.

Source?

 

Emperor hadrianus had the pantheon build from 118 to 126. That includes the statues.
2nd century Roman statuery only pays a passing resemblance to late medieval sculptures.

It is the building of the Pantheon itself that is reused as a church, not the artworks/idols within.

Vaticano illustrato II
Only 2 links, being basically the same text and those 2 are Alexander Hislop type stuff.
As in complete nonsense.

I'll try to dig up some stuff on Vaticano Illustrato.

 

Ahh now there is the "historian" coming out - instead of the verbatim Catholic Apologist.

Well done for a moment.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob, a key to effective communication is to know your audience.

Mioque is not a Catholic.

Please, look at his profile.

Your error in this regard serves only to make you appear to be mindlessly antiCatholic.

 

Ray,

I don't think your incredibly stupid because you do have a PHD or Doctorate or something like that so the only other alternative is incredibly blind. Not to mention you simply deny the very clear text of the Bible and are Aramically challenged. Forgive me for being so blunt but I find your post incredibly amazing for someone who calls themselves a Christian and apparently views themselves as a Bible Scholar. There is simply no nice way for me to put it.

Even if I were to grant you that Jesus solely is the Rock (I most certainly do not deny this), That the Prophets and Apostles are the foundation of Christianity is as plain as the nose on you face. Once again this is not a denial of Jesus being THE foundation. I better post Eph 2:20 because you apparently have never read it.

Ephesians 2:19
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of GOD's HOUSEHOLD (that's the Church),
having been built on the FOUNDATOIN of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,

Jesus is the cornerstone here. Prophets and Apostles are the foundation. The Prophets and Apostles are the foundation because they gave us the scriptures and the teachings with regard to Jesus who is the foundation of the teachings and scriptures so he is also the foundation! (1 Cor 3:11). Further the foundational charateristics of the Apostles and Prophets is their faith which is given to them by God. They are the foundation not apart from Jesus but because of Jesus and through Jesus. You look for contradiction where there are none. You pit scripture against scripture. It can't be any more plain.

As for Peter being a stone rather than a Rock you are Aramically challeneged because the name we know Peter was given in Aramaic was Kepha. We know this because in John 1:42, 1 Cor 3,9, and 15 Peter is called CEPHAS. A form of the word Kepha. We know that Jesus did not speak Greek when he spoke the words of Matt 16:18 but Aramaic. The vary words "bar-jona", son of John show this to be true. They are Aramaic. Peter was called Petros only because Greek distinguishes gender and so Peter being called Petra would have been giving him a woman's name. Kind of like calling you Raya. Like calling Victor Victoria. Same deal. For little stone he would have had to say little Kepha. Kepha means rock in Aramic. Matt in writing the text in Greek (though there is some evidence that it was actually written by him in Aramic) translated it to Petros to avoid this problem. Further the evidence is shaky that Petros actually means stone because in Matt 10 for instance, the word used for stone is lithos. Now why would Peter not have been given the name lithos which does mean stone? "Thou art lithos and on this Rock I will build my Church" would have worked just fine. Ancient Greek may have made the distinction of Petros being little stone but the evidence is weak at best in Jesus time.

Blessings

 

Bob Ryan
There seem to be at least 2 candidates for what might be Vaticano illustrato II.

Il Vaticano / descritto ed illustrato da Erasmo Pistolesi ; I: Con disegni a contorni dir. dal pittore Tommaso De Vivo. (1838.) II-VII: Con disegni a contorni dir. dal pittore Camillo Guerra. (1829.) VIII: Con disegni a contorni dir. dal pittore Tommaso De Vivo. (1838.)

La Patriarcale basilica Vaticana illustrata. Rome, Agostino Valentini, 1845.

I'll have access to Il Vaticano on monday (long live the K.D.C. ), the other one is going to be more difficult.

 

Bob, a key to effective communication is to know your audience.

Mioque is not a Catholic.

Please, look at his profile.

Your error in this regard serves only to make you appear to be mindlessly antiCatholic. </font>[/QUOTE]As it turns out - I was made fully aware of that by MIOQUE himself a long while back. However - his posts speak for themselves despite the claim.

Having said that - there is a catholic missing out on his duty here. If you can not convince MIOQUE of the need to signup - who could you convince?

In Christ,


Bob

 

I will be watching for it and will be interested to see if having that added historic text alters your views - at all.

In Christ,

Bob

 

Bob Ryan
"I will be watching for it and will be interested to see if having that added historic text alters your views - at all."

The real problem in this case is the shoddy reference provided.
I'm not even certain if it is: il vaticano illustrato, or vaticano illustrato II.
I suspect that using the word combination "vaticano illustrato" is bad Italian grammar and that it should either be imbedded in a longer sentence (In un documento del Vaticano illustrato ieri dal cardinale
Ratzinger si stabilisce che non c'e' parita' tra le fedi ed
i relativi libri sacri.), or that at least one of the o's at the end of the words ought to be turned into an a.

All of this means that it is next to impossible to be certain you are reading the specific document the text on the website is pointing to.

 

Apparently there used to be a 19th century magazine called: 'L'ESPOSIZIONE VATICANA ILLUSTRATA' so that is candidate number 3...

In other news, "Il Vaticano / descritto ed illustrato da Erasmo Pistolesi" does not contain anything resembling a claim that part of the Peter statue we are debating was created during the Roman empire.

 

neal4christ:

Sorry man, but the statue IS UGLY to me. I wouldn't want it in my home. Of course I'd try to
sell it to someone who would offer me the highest amount (maybe ebay).

I like stain glass windows, though I feel Tiffany far excelled those of the Gothic period in both color and design.

The money was wasted on a chunk of rock that has no place in a church, though it might make a nice
tombstone.

You may not like my OPINION but then I DON'T like the STATUE. It certainly doen't look like a fisher of men (or of fish for that matter).

I guess if YOUR church was deciding between a new furnace, a new roof, or a dumb statue, you'd opt for the chunk of rock.

I might add that I don't dislike gothic and renaissance art. I do dislke pretentious art, and I pick and choose. I am also not fond of attitudes that suggest that one doesn't call the emperior's new clothes as one sees them...