John and Paul

Who was John and Paul?

John and Paul are saints in the Roman Catholic Church. They were martyred at Rome on 26 June. They should not be confused with the famous apostles of the same name. The year of their martyrdom is uncertain according to their Acts; it occurred under Julian the Apostate.

In the second half of the fourth century, Byzantius, the Roman senator, and Saint Pammachius, his son, fashioned their house on the Cælian Hill into a Christian basilica. In the fifth century the presbyteri tituli Byzantii are mentioned in an inscription and among the signatures of the Roman Council of 499. The church was also called the titulus Pammachii after Byzantius's son, the pious friend of St. Jerome.

In the ancient apartments on the ground-floor of the house of Byzantius, which were still retained under the basilica, the tomb of two Roman martyrs, John and Paul, was the object of veneration as early as the fifth century.

The Sacramentarium Leonianum already indicates in the preface to the feast of the saints, that they rested within the city walls, while, in one of the early itineraries to the tombs of the Roman martyrs, their grave is assigned to the church on the Cælian.