The early Christian Church was always considered under two great divisions: the church of the converted Jews, and the church of the Gentiles. The first was represented by St. Peter, the second by St. Paul. Standing together in this mutual relation, they represent the universal Church of Christ; hence in works of art they are seldom separated, and are indispensable in all ecclesiastical decoration. Their proper place is on each side of the Saviour, or of the Virgin throned; or on each side of the altar; or on each side of the arch over the choir. In any case, where they stand together, not merely as Apostles, but Founders, their place is next after the Evangelists and the Prophets. [Illustration: 66 St. Paul St. Peter (Crivelli)] Thus seen almost everywhere in companionship, it becomes necessary to distinguish them from each other; for St. Peter does not always bear his keys, nor St. Paul his sword. In the earliest examples, these attributes are wholly omitted; yet I scarcely know any instance in which a distinct type of head has not been more or less attended to. [Illustration: 67 St. Peter (Greek type, eleventh century)] The ancient Greek type of the head of St. Peter, ‘the Pilot of the Galilean lake,’ is so strongly characterised as to have the air of a portrait. It is either taken from the description of Nicephorus, so often quoted, or his description is taken from some very ancient representation: it certainly harmonises with all our preconceived notions of St. Peter’s temperament and character. He is a robust old man, with a broad forehead, and rather coarse features, an open undaunted countenance, short grey hair, and short thick beard, curled, and of a silvery white: according to the descriptive portrait of Nicephorus, he had red weak eyes,—a peculiarity which it has not been thought necessary to preserve in his effigies. In some early pictures he is bald on the top of the head, and the hair grows thick around in a circle, somewhat like the priestly tonsure; and in some examples this tonsure has the form of a triple row of curls close to the head, a kind of tiara. A curious exception to this predominant, almost universal, type is to be found in Anglo-Saxon Art,[161] where St. Peter is always beardless, and wears the tonsure; so that but for the keys, suspended to a ring on his finger, one might take him for an elderly monk. It is a tradition that the Gentiles shaved the head of St. Peter in order to make him an object of derision, and that this is the origin of the priestly tonsure. [Illustration: 68 St. Peter with one Key (Taddeo Gaddi)]