SUBVERSION // AD 64

Peter would have heard the stories of the coming messiah long before he met Christ. There had been many figures who had accomplished the will of God by force in his tradition and the messiah would be the same. His tradition was of Phinehas, who speared through two pagan fornicators in his camp for the sake of purity; of Elijah who lured pagan idolators into a contest that ended in their being consumed by fire. Most recently, of Judas Maccabaeus, a revolutionary leader who two centuries prior resisted and overthrew the pagan Syrian empire, establishing an independent Jewish state for a century. The coming kingdom, so thought Peter, would be one established by this same Maccabean zeal; the messiah would have to bear the sword and take the kingdom by force.

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Christ subverted these expectations. The kingdom of heaven is the kingdom of earth inverted. Beginning with the beatitudes, His teachings directly opposed all worldly sensibilities. Citizens of heaven were to love their enemies, to bless those who curse them, to pray for those who persecute them. The improverished shall gain riches, the hungry shall be fed, the merciful shall receive mercy. In a stark contrast to the order of the times, Christ told his disciples that they would not exercise authority through power, but through service, "for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve;" not to receive glory, but to suffer.

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After Christ's work, the kingdom of heaven would in time subvert the kingdom of man, leaving nothing unturned. So revolutionary was the Apostles teaching of a crucified Messiah that Roman officials would refer to them as "those who have turned the world upside down." The Apostle Peter would become the bastion of the faith, even to death. Years after Christ's death on a cross, St Peter would suffer the same execution, he however would request to be crucified upside down, himself unworthy to partake of the same death as his Lord. By the time St Peter gained his martyr's crown, Christ's work had already soaked into the roots of the world and its foundation began to shift, leaving the saint upright and the whole world around him inversed.