The Key of St. Peter?

No body has ever been the subject of such detailed and delicate detective work as the remains of the onetime fisherman, Simon, whom Jesus renamed Peter. For though, according to tradition and Roman Catholic doctrine, Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, from whom the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven have been handed down to the succession of Popes, no absolutely conclusive evidence of his presence in Rome has yet been found.

In the fourth century Emperor Constantine built the first basilica of St. Peter's on the site of his supposed tomb in an ancient cemetery, and in the present 16th century basilica, the tomb of Peter traditionally lies beneath the Altar of the Confession (reserved to the Pope himself). Over the past 20 years, careful digging has uncovered a number of Christian tombs beneath the altar, with the strong probability that one of them was Peter's; but there was no name or sign to mark it--only a maze of graffiti, scratchings of names, initials and symbols on the ancient stones.

Last week Professor Margherita Guarducci, 56, a slender, youthful-looking spinster who is professor of Greek epigraphy at Rome University, announced that she had found in these graffiti strong new evidence that St. Peter had been buried where tradition has placed him.

Mystical Code. For 5 1/2 years Dr. Guarducci and her sister Maria pored over the strange crisscross of signs and letters in the grottoes beneath the altar, comparing them with those in the catacombs in and near Rome. Gradually, the searchers began to find significant repetitions, and meanings began to take shape.

The 2nd century Christians, driven underground by persecution, developed a mystical code. Commonest of the symbols, and still in use today, is the chi rho --a combination of the first two Greek letters of the word Christ to form a _xr. Similarly, early Christian worshipers and pilgrims used the Latin letters P and E for Peter, M for Mary, T for the Cross. These were often inserted in the names of the worshipers and those they wished to commemorate. Thus the name CRISPINA is written with a Greek X fused with the P, making the chi rho and indicating Crispina's devotion to Christ; beneath the T in the name RENATO, an E is drawn, signifying Peter's crucifixion.

The PE symbol in various combinations occurs again and again in the crypt beneath the confession altar, says Dr. Guarducci. "Everyone naturally expected to find Peter's name spelled out and was disappointed not to find it. But it is there in monogram form, with the E placed at the foot of the P to make it look like a key." The symbol she described looks something like this: r_\sum

Buried Here. In one place, on the so-called "Red Wall" running north and south in the excavations and dating to about 160 A.D., Dr. Guarducci sees something still more significant. Under the Greek letters for P, E, T and R are some letters that could be an abbreviation of the Greek word enesti. Taken together, the letters would mean "Peter is buried here."

Last week Dr. Guarducci presented the weighty, three-volume record of her findings to Pope John as a name-day present on the feast of St. Joseph (the Pope's baptismal name). Said she: "He thanked me and promised he would read it carefully."

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