Posted by St. Apollinaris/Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Today we celebrate the feast of St. Apollinaris, as well as commemorating the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost. St. Apollinaris was an early Christian martyr associated with Ravenna. The traditional account as recorded in the Breviary is that St. Apollinaris was ordained by St. Peter and was martyred in Ravenna later in the first century. This account has been challenged on the grounds that there are some grounds for associating the life and martyrdom of St. Apollinaris with the second rather than the first century. It is argued that the attempt to date him in the first century rather than the second was part of an attempt to assert the ancient privileges of the see of Ravenna relative to that of Rome. It is certainly true that Ravenna later became the seat of the imperial exarchate in Italy after the reconquests of Justinian in the sixth century. For a time it was more prominent in worldly terms than Rome, which, following the collapse of the Roman empire in the west in the fifth century, had degenerated into a plague infested provincial town. The prominence of Ravenna proved a passing phase as the territories that had been reconquered in Italy were lost again. By the medieval period Venice had replaced Ravenna as the most important city in the area. The subsequent neglect of Ravenna led to the preservation of the mosaics and iconography from the time of Byzantine Italy for which it is now famous, not least in the Church that is dedicated to St. Apollinaris. Thus, while little is known about St. Apollinaris himself beyond the fact of his being an early Christian martyr associated with Ravenna, his legacy lives on in the mosaics and iconography that have been preserved in Ravenna.
Today’s epistle was written from Rome by St. Peter to Christians in Asia Minor. It was written during the reign of the Emperor Nero at the time of the first great persecution of Christians after the fire of Rome. It had been rumoured (not without good reason) that the emperor had started the fire himself to further his own agenda for rebuilding the city. Nero tried to deflect attention away from himself by fastening the blame upon the Christians, a group that the Romans were gradually starting to recognise as distinct from Judaism, and were generally disliked for their isolation from society. The Roman historian, Tacitus, in recounting the event, refers to Christianity as a “pestilent superstition”. In other words, received opinion was that, even if the Christians were not responsible for the fire of Rome, they still deserved to be punished. St. Peter himself would later be martyred by Nero, but before his martyrdom he wrote this great epistle to the Christians in Asia Minor. Perhaps some of them had recently escaped from the persecution in Rome, but St. Peter warned them that they were still likely to face persecution. It was better that they suffered for well doing, than for ill doing.
St. Peter appealed to them as a fellow elder, a witness of the sufferings of Christ and a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed in the time to come. They were to feed the flock of God which was among them, not for filthy lucre’s sake, but voluntarily, neither as lords over God’s heritage but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart. They are to exercise humility towards each other, for God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. They are to resist the devil, who goes about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he will devour. After their sufferings in this life, God will call them to his eternal glory in the world to come (1 Peter 5).
During Jesus’ ministry St. Peter had strongly protested against Jesus’ redefinition of his messianic role in terms of reversal, repudiation, suffering and death. However, after Jesus’s resurrection, Jesus entrusted Peter with the care of his flock, and said that he would also, like his Master, suffer death (John 21). It seems that it was this in mind that St. Peter wrote his epistle. He said that Christ had fulfilled his role not by violence, but as the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, who was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. When he was reviled he did not revile again. Confronted by a world filled with violence, he took evil upon himself and somehow subsumed it into good.
“The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and they that have power over them, are called beneficent. But you not so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is the leader, as he that served. For which is greater, he that sitteth at table, or he that serveth? Is not he that sitteth at table? But I am in the midst of you, as he that serveth” (Luke 22). On the same night on which he was betrayed Jesus acted out these words in washing his disciples feet (John 13). St. Peter had again strongly protested against this at the time. Later he would understand after Jesus had no longer only taught, but also acted and suffered. The Kingdom of Christ was very different from the kingdoms of this world. The rulers of this world based their authority on force and violence. But they were hirelings who cared only for themselves and advancing their own interests and nothing for their sheep. The true leader, the Good Shepherd, gave his life for the sheep. Those entrusted with authority in the Church should follow this example.
They should not be lords over God’s heritage, but rather what a later successor of St. Peter, St. Gregory the Great, called the Servants of the Servants of God. St. Gregory states that “he, who, by despising death, hath shown us how to do the like; he hath set before the mould wherein it behoveth us to be cast. Our first duty is, freely and tenderly to spend our outward things for his sheep, but lastly, if need be, to serve the same by our death also… And some there be who love the things of this world better than they love the sheep; and such as they deserve no longer to be called shepherds… He that seeketh a shepherd’s place, but seeketh no gain of souls, that same is but an hireling; such a one as is ever ready for creature comforts, he loveth his pre-eminence, he groweth sleek upon his income, and he liketh well to see men bow down to him.”
The warning against distorting Christian leadership from serving others to lording it over God’s heritage speaks powerfully to us today. In past ages of faith there was a disastrous feudalisation of the Church in which the leadership came to be seen as in a literal sense the very thing that St. Peter warned against, lords over God’s heritage. We may think that such an age of deference is past now, but in fact the danger is even greater today in the de- Christianised societies of the western world. Many church leaders have conformed to a worldly understanding of leadership and behave like chief executives of multinational corporations. They are hirelings who are consumed by the false standards of this world rather than the Kingdom of Christ.
It is important to remember that this warning applies to us all. For we are all tempted, as St. Peter was, to protest against the redefinition of leadership by Jesus in terms of service rather than that of lording it over others. Like St. Peter, we need to learn to model ourselves on the one who gave himself self sacrificially for the needs of others. It is not something we can do of our own strength, but God comes to us in Christ reconciling the world to himself and not counting our sins against us. Let us pray that we will be enabled, like St. Peter was, to become by grace what he is by nature.
Let us take to heart a prayer of John Henry Newman: “Teach me, dear Lord, frequently and attentively to understand this truth: that if I gain the whole world and lose thee, in the end I have lost everything: whereas if I lose the world and gain thee, in the end I have lost nothing.”