Click to enlarge this area Click to enlarge this area Click to enlarge this area Click to enlarge this area Click to enlarge this area Source: Weitzmann, Age of Spirituality

Sarcophagus with Scenes from the Life of St. Peter

ca.  330 AD
From Arles, Musée Réattu

This is an image map.  Click on any area to see an enlargement.

Discussed in Erich Dinkler’s introduction to “The Christian Realm: Abbreviated Representations” in Weitzmann.

The upper part is the lid, with the young men in the fiery furnace on the left and the Magi on the right.  The selection of episodes in the main frieze is very much like that in the sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus.  The episodes are (left to right):

  1. Peter’s water miracle (see our page for St. Peter)
  2. The arrest of Peter
  3. Christ and Peter (the cock prophecy?)
  4. Peter and another apostle with an orant
  5. The Cana miracle (no Peter)
  6. Christ healing the blind man (the small fellow in the foreground, being presented by Peter)
  7. The raising of Lazarus — Peter looking on from behind Christ, Lazarus in mummy, Martha or Mary at Christ's feet.
    8.

More of St. Peter
More of Lazarus
More of the Miracle at Cana
More of the other miracles
More of the Magi