Chapter Eight

The Clues in the Vatican Library

The Vatican Library houses the greatest collection of early writings in the world. With the destruction of the great Library of Alexandria and the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire, most classical and early Christian writings were lost forever. The total cultural history of Greece, Rome, and the West nearly perished in the ashes of the Empire. Numerous plays by Sophocles, writings by the great Greek philosophers, detailed Roman histories, and early Christian writings were completely destroyed. The entire heritage of the West might itself have become like Egyptian and Mayan history, only a faint, dead reconstruction from faded inscriptions. But here and there ancient writings survived: at Constantinople, where the knowledge of the Old Empire was maintained until its conquest in 1453; in monasteries scattered from Ireland to Admont and Melk in Austria; at St. Peter’s; and in other remote places. Over the 1,600 years between construction of the old St. Peter’s and 1940, the originals and copies of virtually every surviving early Christian or Roman work found their way to the Vatican Library. It housed well over a million books, manuscripts, and papyrus, as well as seventy-five thousand ancient codices, many found nowhere else in the world.

The Apostle Project team’s first job before beginning the actual excavation under the Vatican was to search the ancient documents in the Vatican Library for clues and guidance to the whereabouts of Peter. Their research began in 1939–1940. Was there ancient confirmation that he really came to Rome? Was there proof that he was buried there and, if so, where and how? What markers or memorials were mentioned in ancient contemporary literature? What happened to the tomb (if it existed) in the intervening centuries of barbarian, Saracen, and German looting of the Vatican?

The Vatican Library is the ultimate repository of the Church’s secrets. This is probably why the position of head librarian has always been occupied by well-regarded and very serious priests of great intelligence — such as Pius XI. The library contains works as tragic as the 1311 plea for help from 231 Knights Templar about to be burned at the stake and the final letter of Mary, Queen of Scots, awaiting execution by her relative, Queen Elizabeth I. It also contains works as trivial as Michelangelo’s letters complaining over his pay for the Sistine Chapel. There is additionally an ancient “secret history” of the reign of Emperor Justinian, written about 600, and a plea from many English nobles and churchmen to the pope on behalf of Henry VIII’s attempted divorce from Katharine of Aragon. The library also contains numerous documents of great historical significance, including the excommunication of Martin Luther and the trial of Joan of Arc. It even contains Galileo’s signed renunciation of his belief that the Earth revolved around the sun, which he made to avoid execution as a heretic. The Vatican Library is truly the smorgasbord of Western historical documents — secret and public, tragic and triumphant — gathered for well over five hundred years, often with no other copy in the world.

The sheer size of the Vatican Library is both its strength and its weakness. Even today, it is often said that some librarians can find documents that others cannot locate. In 1939–1940, there were only crude manual indexes to the ancient documents. It likely took more than a year to mine the Vatican Library for clues to Peter’s death and burial, and to make other preparations.

The task began, of course, with the Bible itself, which paints a full, if conflicting, picture of Peter during Christ’s life. He was both incredibly brave and cowardly, but always deeply devoted to Christ. The Bible provided important clues to the physical characteristics of Peter. He was a Jew from Palestine, a fisherman, and likely quite robust. Assuming he was roughly the same age as Christ in A.D. 30, he would have been in his sixties by 64–66, the time of Nero’s persecution. If the later accounts that claimed he was crucified upside down were true, his relics would show forensic evidence not only of age, but also the great violence to which he was subjected.

The Bible, with the exception of two letters written by Peter, leaves Peter in Jerusalem in 44, almost twenty years before his death. The two much later, undated letters from Peter, believed to have been written in about 66, are clearly penned by a man on the run from persecution to followers also facing persecution and death. However, they infer Peter’s presence in Babylon — a code word used by ancient Christians and Jews for evil, materialistic Rome. The Bible likewise contains the final letter of Peter’s comrade, Saint Paul, clearly written from Rome while he was awaiting his execution by Nero: “… the time of my departure is at hand. I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:6–7). Paul’s burial site on the road to Rome’s Port Ostia, just outside Rome’s walls, has been continuously maintained by Christians since his death in 64–65.

Ignatius of Antioch, an early Christian who knew Peter, wrote while being brought to Rome for execution in 105 that he would be joining Peter and Paul, who were buried there. The Apostle Project excavators also located a letter written by a presbyter named Gaius around 200, responding to the boasting of a heretical leader named Proclus: “I can show you the trophies of the apostles. For, whether you go to the Vatican hill, or to the Ostian road, you will meet with the monuments of them who by their preaching and miracles founded this church.”72 By “trophies,” Gaius referred to the tombs of the apostles.

In the case of Paul, Gaius’s words are validated: Christians continue to honor Paul’s actual grave on the Port Road. Finding the so-called Trophy of Gaius marking Peter’s gravesite thus became central to the search.⁷³ The excavators believed that if the monument erected by early Christians and described by Gaius survived, Peter would be near or under it. To further complicate matters, however, the excavators found early writings that warned that the site of Peter’s burial had been used as bait by the Romans to lure and capture Christians.⁷⁴

Constantine’s Treasure

One of the most extraordinary books of history is the Liber Pontificalis (“Book of the Popes”).⁷⁵ It is like a yearbook for the Catholic Church, maintained for 1,500 years. Written intermittently since before the fall of the Western Roman Empire, it contains biographies and summaries of the popes from Peter until Pope Pius II in 1464, written by a series of different authors from the fifth century forward.

This book provided definitive guidance to the Apostle Project. According to the Liber Pontificalis, Constantine surrounded the grave of Peter with a marble enclosure and then centered the original St. Peter’s Basilica directly over Peter’s remains, which were placed in a large bronze sarcophagus. Within the marble enclosure, Constantine assembled a great treasure of gold and silver objects to honor Peter. These included hundreds of pounds of golden crowns, thousands of pounds of silver objects, and other ancient artifacts. The treasure was reportedly topped by a massive, 150-pound golden cross inscribed with the name of Constantine and his mother, Helena. The Liber Pontificalis reportedly relied upon a letter written by Constantine himself, and it was definitive on the subject of Peter’s tomb, providing exact measurements and precise dimensions.

If the Liber Pontificalis was correct, the excavators should be able simply to go to the center of the basilica, locate and break through Constantine’s marble enclosure, and find not only Peter, but also one of history’s greatest treasure troves.

Discouragingly, various authorities indicate that during the late persecutions (250–311), remains of the Christian dead lost their protected status under Roman law and were routinely desecrated and destroyed. Like the Nazis’ desecration of Jewish cemeteries throughout Europe, the ancient Roman persecutors even made war on the dead. Perhaps Peter’s remains had been destroyed long before the time of Constantine. Perhaps the search would turn up nothing at all.