Lodewijk Schelfhout

Scandal sheets may blacken the reputations of heroes, past and present, but we expect “approved” official biographies to present them as nothing less than paragons of virtue. This is, certainly, not true of the Founders of the Christian Faith in the canonical New Testament narratives! The disciples come across as a thick-headed, quarrelsome lot who miss the point of parables even a child can understand and disrupt the solemnity of their last meal with their Master by fighting over who will get the best posts in the coming Kingdom of God. Early 20^th century Dutch Printmaker Lodewijk Schelfhout depicts another sorry moment in the less-than-inspiring saga of Christ’s Chosen Twelve in this embarrassingly intimate, almost comical, etching of Peter and John asleep in the Garden of Gethsemane. The future Pope of Rome and the Evangelist are clearly recognizable from their traditional portraits in sacred art—and their snoring is surely loud enough to be heard by Jesus, the tiny figure praying in the background! There is an odd kind of comfort in this humbling reminder that saints have clay feet just like the rest of us. However strange it might seem, as the Apostle Paul puts it, God has chosen to store the very treasures of heaven “in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us (2 Corinthians 4:7, KJV).” (John Kohan)