[annalex]

Mk 10:28-31
#	Douay-Rheims	Vulgate
28	And Peter began to say unto him: Behold, we have left all things and have followed thee.	coepit Petrus ei dicere ecce nos dimisimus omnia et secuti sumus te
29	Jesus answering said: Amen I say to you, there is no man who hath left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel,	respondens Iesus ait amen dico vobis nemo est qui reliquerit domum aut fratres aut sorores aut matrem aut patrem aut filios aut agros propter me et propter evangelium
30	Who shall not receive an hundred times as much, now in this time: houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions: and in the world to come life everlasting.	qui non accipiat centies tantum nunc in tempore hoc domos et fratres et sorores et matres et filios et agros cum persecutionibus et in saeculo futuro vitam aeternam
31	But many that are first shall be last: and the last, first.	multi autem erunt primi novissimi et novissimi primi

[annalex]

Domine quo vadis?

Annibale Carracci
1601-02
Oil on panel, 77,4 x 56,3 cm
National Gallery, London

***

This tale from the life of St Peter is recorded in the collection of legends written down by Jacobus a Voragine in the 13th century. It tells how the apostle, having triumphed over Simon Magus, was persuaded by the Christians of Rome to leave town. Jacobus a Voragine relates how Peter encountered Christ on the Appian way and asked "Quo vadis domine" (Whither goest thou, master?), to which Christ replied "To Rome, to be crucified anew."

This apocryphal legend is in fact the beginning of Peter's own martyrdom. This would certainly explain the vigorous movements in Carracci's painting, with the apostle recoiling in terror. It is not the unexpected encounter with the risen Christ that has taken the apostle aback, but his awareness of his own human frailty. Annibale's magnificent rhetoric reminds the spectator of Christ's call to turn back.

(source)