Paul, the “other”, a different apostle, placed next to Peter in all his difference, almost as if to guarantee from the very beginning that the Christian Church would always be plural and nourished by diversity. A Jew of the diaspora, born in Tarsus, the capital of Cilicia, he went up to Jerusalem to become a scribe and rabbi in the following of Gamaliel, one of the most famous teachers of the rabbinic tradition; Paul was a Pharisee, expert and zealous in the law of Moses, who had known neither Jesus nor his first disciples, but who distinguished himself by his opposition and persecution of the infant Christian movement. Paul could call himself a “miscarriage” (cf. 1Cor 15,8) in comparison to the other apostles who had seen the risen Lord Jesus, but asked to be considered as one sent, a servant, an apostle of Jesus Christ just like them, because he had placed his life at the service of the Gospel, he had made himself an imitator of Christ even in sufferings, he had done his utmost in apostolic journeys in the entire eastern Mediterranean, he was driven by concern for all the churches of God. His passion, his intelligence, his dedication to announcing the Lord Jesus shine through all his letters, and the Acts of the Apostles too give sincere testimony of this. By his own definition, he is “the apostle of the gentiles”, while Peter is “the apostle of the circumcised” (Gal 2,8).

Peter and Paul, both of them disciples and apostles of Christ, are nevertheless so very different: Peter a poor fisherman, Paul a rigorous intellectual; Peter a Palestinian Jew from an obscure village, Paul a Jew of the diaspora and Roman citizen; Peter slow to understand and to act, Paul consumed by eschatological urgency. They were apostles with two different styles, they served the Lord in very different ways, they lived the Church in a manner that was sometimes dialectic if not in opposition, but bought sought to follow the Lord and his will and together, thanks to their very diversity, they were able to give a face to the Christian mission and a foundation to the church of Rome that presides in charity. It is hence just to celebrate their memory together, a memory of unity in diversity, of life given over for the love of the Lord, of charity lived in expectation of Christ’s return.