APPENDICES
APPENDIX I.—ON S. PETRONILLA
Baronius, followed by Bishop Lightfoot of Durham and others, calls attention to an etymological difficulty which exists in attempting to derive Petronilla from Petros, which at first sight seems so obvious. These scholars prefer to connect the name “Petronilla” not with Petros but with “Petronius.” Now, the founder of the Flavian family was T. Flavius Petro. Lightfoot then proceeds to suggest that “Petronilla” was a scion of the Flavian house, and became a convert to Christianity, probably in the days of Antoninus Pius, and was subsequently buried with other Christian members of the great Flavian house in the Domitilla Cemetery.
De Rossi, however, and other recent scholars in the lore of the Catacombs, in spite of the presumed etymological difficulty, decline to give up the original “Petrine” tradition, but prefer to assume that Petronilla was a daughter, but only a spiritual daughter, of the great apostle—that is, she was simply an ordinary convert of S. Peter’s.
Of these two hypotheses: (a) dealing with the first, in the very free and rough way in which the Latin tongue was treated at a comparatively early date in the story of the Empire, when grammar, spelling, and prosody were very frequently more or less disregarded save in highly cultured circles, the etymological difficulty referred to by Lightfoot can scarcely be pressed, for it possesses little weight.
(b) As regards the second hypothesis—the shrinking, which more modern Roman Catholic theologians apparently feel, from the acknowledgment that S. Peter had a daughter at all, was absolutely unknown in the earlier Christian centuries. To give an example. As late as the close of the eighth century, on an altar of a church in Bourges dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and other saints, there is an inscription attributed to Alcuin the scholar minister of Charlemagne. In this inscription occurs the following line:
“Et Petronilla patris præclari filia Petri.”
Now, towards the close of the fourth century, Pope Siricius, between A.D. 391 and A.D. 395, constructed the important basilica lately discovered in the Domitilla Cemetery on the Via Ardeatina; but although the basilica in question contained the historic tombs of the famous martyrs SS. Nereus and Achilles, confessors of the first century, as well as the body of S. Petronilla, he dedicated the basilica in question in her honour. Pope Siricius would surely have never named this important and very early church after a comparatively unknown member of the Flavian house; still less would he have called it by the name of a simple convert of the great apostle.
In Siricius’ eyes there was evidently no shadow of doubt but that the Petronilla for whom he had so deep a veneration was the daughter of S. Peter, and nothing but such an illustrious lineage can possibly account for the persistent devotion paid to her remains, a devotion which, as we have seen, endured for many centuries; the ancient tradition that she was the daughter of the apostle was evidently unvarying and undisputed.
It was left to the modern scholar in his zeal for the purity of the language he admired, and for the modem devout Romanist in his anxiety to show that S. Peter was free from all home and family ties, to throw doubts on the identity of one whom an unbroken tradition and an unswerving reverence from time immemorial regarded as the daughter of the great apostle so loved and revered in Rome.
In other places besides in Gaul and Rome we find traces of this very early cult of S. Petronilla. In the neighbourhood of Bury St. Edmunds her memory was anciently reverenced; under the curious abbreviation of “S. Parnel,” still in that locality, there is a church named after her—at Whepstead, Bury St. Edmunds. A yet more remarkable historical reference appears in “Leland’s Itinerary,” an official writing, be it understood, which dates circa A.D. 1539–40. Leland, writing of Osric, somewhile king of Northumbria, the founder of the famous Abbey of Gloucester, tells us how this King Osric “first laye in St. Petronell’s Chappel,” of the Gloucester Abbey. Osric died in the year of grace 729.
Thus before her body, at the instance of the Frankish King Pepin, was translated into the little imperial mausoleum hard by the great Basilica of S. Peter from her tomb on the Via Ardeatina, there was a Mercian chapel named after this Petronilla in the heart of the distant and only very imperfectly christianized Angle-land (England).
In the “Historia Monasterii S. Petri Gloucestriæ,” a document, or rather a collection of documents, of great value, we find an entry which tells us how Kyneburg, the sister of King Osric, and first abbess of the religious house of Gloucester, ruled the house for twenty-nine years, and, dying in A.D. 710, was buried before the altar of S. Petronilla; and later an entry in the same Historia relates that Queen Eadburg, widow of Wulphere, king of the Mercians, abbess of Gloucester from A.D. 710 to A.D. 735, was buried by the side of Kyneburg before S. Petronilla s altar. King Osric himself, who died in A.D. 729, was buried in the same grave as his sister Kyneburg, or as it is expressed in the “Historia,” “in ecclesia Sancti Petri coram altari sanctæ Petronillæ, in Aquilonari parte ejusdem monasterii.”
Professor Freeman quaintly comments here as follows: “It is certain that there was a church of some kind, a predecessor, however humble, of the great Cathedral Church (of Gloucester) that now is, at least from the days of Osric (circa A.D. 729). But more than this we cannot say, except that it contained an altar of S. Petronilla.”
APPENDIX II.—ON S. PETER’S TOMB
S. Peter’s Tomb.—While Pope Paul V’s task of destroying and rebuilding the eastern end of old S. Peter’s (the work of Constantine) was proceeding, somewhat before A.D. 1615 the same Pope designed to make the approaches to the sacred “Confession” of the apostle at the west end of the church more dignified, and it was in the course of building stairs and making certain excavations which were necessary to carry out his plans that his architect came upon a number of graves in the immediate neighbourhood of the walls which encircled the hallowed tomb of S. Peter. Here was evidently the old Cemetery of the Vatican which originally had been planned in the first century by Anacletus. Some memoranda of this discovery were made. But it was a few years later, when more important excavations were carried on in the pontificate of Pope Urban VIII (Cardinal Barberini) in connection with the foundations necessary for the support of the enormous baldachino of bronze over the high altar, that this most ancient cemetery was more fully brought to light.
The circumstances which led to these discoveries of Urban VIII were as follows: The date is about A.D. 1626; Bernini was the architect in the Pope’s confidence, and it was determined to replace the existing canopy over the altar and confession, which was considered too small and insignificant for its position, by the great and massive bronze baldachino which now covers the high altar and the confession leading to the sacred tomb.
The materials for this mighty canopy and its pillars were obtained from the portico of the Pantheon, the roof of the portico of that venerable building being stripped of its gilded bronze. This portico had survived from the days of its builder Agrippa, the son-in-law of the Emperor Augustus.
The act of Urban VIII, thus robbing one of the remaining glories of ancient Rome, was severely criticised in his day, and the well-known epigram survives to commemorate this strange act of late “vandalism”: “Quod barbari non fecerunt, fecit Barberini.”
The new baldachino or canopy of Bernini’s was 95 feet in height, and is computed to weigh nearly 100 tons. To support this enormous weight of metal it was judged necessary to construct deep and extensive foundations. It was in the digging out and building up of these substructures in the immediate vicinity of the apostle’s tomb that the remarkable discoveries we are about to relate were made.
S. PETER’S, ROME—THE CONFESSION. 95 EVER-BURNING LAMPS ARE IN FRONT OF THE ENTRANCE TO THE APOSTLE’S TOMB
The account from which we quote is virtually a semi-official procès-verbal, and was compiled by an eye-witness—Ubaldi, a canon of S. Peter’s, who was present when the discoveries were made, and who has left us his notes made on the spot and at the time. Singularly enough, the memoranda of Ubaldi lay disregarded, hidden among the Vatican archives until comparatively recently. They were found[132] by one of the keepers of these archives, and have been published lately by Professor Armellini.
Before, however, giving the extracts from Ubaldi’s memoranda of the discoveries in the Cemetery of Anacletus in the year 1626, it will be of material assistance to the reader if a short account of the probable present position and state of the great apostle’s tomb is subjoined. It will be borne in mind that the excavations in connection with Bernini’s baldachino were carried out close to the tomb in question.
The vault, in which we believe rests the sarcophagus which contains the sacred remains of the apostle, lies now deep under the high altar of the great church. It was always subterranean, and no doubt from the earliest days was visited by numbers of believers belonging not only to the Roman congregation, but by pilgrims from many other countries. Pope Anacletus, to accommodate these numerous pilgrim visitors, built directly over the tomb a little Memoria or chapel. This apparently was done by raising the walls of the vault beneath, and thus a chamber or chapel above was provided. This Memoria of Anacletus is generally known as the confession. Both these chambers now lie beneath the floor of the existing church. Originally the Memoria of Anacletus above the chamber of the tomb showed above ground; it is no doubt the “Tropæum” alluded to by the Presbyter Caius, circa A.D. 210.
Roughly, the height of the two chambers from the floor of the original vault to the ceiling of the Memoria built over it is some 32 feet. There is little difference in the height of each of these two chambers.
The probable explanation of the details given in the Liber Pontificalis of the works of Constantine the Great at the tomb is as follows: Both the chambers of the tomb—the original vault and the Memoria of Anacletus over it—were left intact, but with certain added features, simply devised with the view of strengthening and ensuring the permanence of the sacred spot and its contents. The whole of the chamber of the tomb was then filled up with solid masonry, except immediately above the sarcophagus.
The upper chamber, the Memoria, was strengthened with masses of masonry on each side, so as to bear the weight of a great altar, the high altar of the Basilica of Constantine, which was erected so as to stand immediately over the body of S. Peter. A cataract or billicum, as it is sometimes called, covered with a bronze grating, opened from above close to the altar. There are two of these little openings, one leading into the Memoria, and the other from the Memoria to the chamber of the tomb beneath. Through these openings handkerchiefs and such-like objects would be lowered so as to touch the sarcophagus. This we know was not unfrequently permitted in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries. Such objects after they had touched the coffin were esteemed as most precious relics.
In addition to these works in the two chambers, the Emperor Constantine enclosed the original stone coffin which contained the remains of S. Peter in bronze, and laid upon this bronze sarcophagus the great cross of gold—the gift of his mother Helena and himself. This is the cross which Pope Clement VIII and his cardinals saw dimly gleaming below, when an opening to the tomb was suddenly disclosed in the great building operations which were carried out during the last years of the sixteenth century.
There is scarcely room now for doubt that the bronze coffin and the golden cross are still in the chamber of the tomb where Constantine placed them.
When it was found necessary to excavate for the foundation of the new massive baldachino, Pope Urban VIII was alarmed at first lest the sacred tomb should be disturbed. The warnings of Pope Gregory the Great against meddling with the tombs of saints like Peter and Paul being remembered, “no one dare even pray there,” he once wrote, “without much fear.” Three years were spent in preparation for the work and in casting the baldachino. Then the sudden death of Alemanni, the custodian of the Vatican library, who had the chief charge in the preparative work, and the passing away of two of the Pope’s confidential staff just as the work commenced, appalled men’s minds; but after some hesitation it was decided to go on with the necessary excavations—“All possible precautions,” Ubaldi tells us, “being taken for the preservation of the reverence due to the spot, and for the security of the relics.” The Pope commanded, “that while the labourers were at work there should always be present some of the priests and ministers of the Church.”
Ubaldi describes at length what was found, when each of the four foundations for the four great columns of the baldachino was dug out. We will quote a few of Ubaldi’s memoranda, and then give a little summary of what apparently was discovered in this perhaps the most ancient, certainly the most interesting, of the subterranean cemeteries of Christian Rome.
In the excavation of the first foundation—“only two or three inches under the pavement they began to find coffins and sarcophagi. Those nearest to the altar (above) were placed laterally against an ancient wall” (this was doubtless part of the wall of the Memoria of Anacletus), “and from this they judged that these must be the bodies buried nearest to the sepulchre of S. Peter. These were coffins of marble made of simple slabs of different sizes.” Only one seems to have borne an inscription, and that was the solitary word “Linus.” Was not this the coffin of the first Pope, the Linus saluted in S. Paul’s Roman Epistle?
“Two of these coffins were uncovered. The bodies, which were clothed with long robes down to the heels, dark and almost black with age, and which were swathed with bandages, ... when these were touched and moved they were resolved into dust.... We can only conclude that those who were found so close to the body of S. Peter must have been the first (Martyr) Popes or their immediate successors....
“On the same level, close up to the wall (of the Memoria) were found two other coffins of smaller size, each of which contained a small body, apparently of a child of ten or twelve years old.” “Were these, whose bodies had obtained the privilege of interment so close to the grave of S. Peter, little martyrs?... Close by ... were two (coffins) of ancient terra-cotta full of ashes and burnt bones, ... other fragments of similar coffins were found deeper down as the excavations proceeded, and also pieces of glass from broken phials. It was evident that all this earth was mixed with ashes and tinged with the blood of martyrs.... There were also found pieces of charred wood which one might believe had served for the burning of the martyrs, and had afterwards been collected as jewels and buried there with their ashes.”
A little farther on Ubaldi writes, still speaking of what was found where the first foundation was excavated: “There was next found a small well in which were a great number of bones mixed with ashes and earth; then again another coffin; near this was found another square place on the sides of which more bodies were found, while on one side was the continuation of a very ancient wall (the Memoria of Anacletus). This wall contained a niche which had been used as a sepulchre, and in it were found five heads fixed with plaster and carefully arranged, also being well preserved. Lower down were the ribs all together, and the other parts in their order mingled with much earth and ashes, not laid casually, but with accuracy and great care. All this holy company were shut in and well secured with lime and mortar....
“It now became necessary to consider how the holy bones and bodies which had been taken up might best be laid in some fitting and memorable place; they had been placed in several cases of cypress wood, and had been carried before the little altar of S. Peter in the confession, and here all through these days they had been kept locked up and under seal. It was felt that they ought not to be deprived of the privilege of being near to the body of S. Peter.... So it was resolved that, as they had been found buried together and undistinguished by names, so still one grave should hold them all, since the holy martyrs are all one in eternity,”—as S. Gregory Nazianzen wonderfully says—“ ... a suitable and capacious grave was constructed” (close to the spot) “and there re-interment took place. The following inscription cut in a plate of lead was placed within the tomb—
Corpora Sanctorum prope sepulchrum sancti Petri inventa, cum fundamenta effoderentur æreis Columnis (of the baldachino of Bernini) ab Urbano VIII—super hac fornice erectis, hic siul collecta et reposita die 28 Julii 1626”
In digging for the second foundation a very wonderful “find” was recorded. Ubaldi relates how, “not more than three or four feet down, there was discovered at the side a large coffin made of great slabs of marble.... Within were ashes with many bones all adhering together and half burned. These brought back to mind the famous fire in the time of Nero, three years before S. Peters martyrdom, when the Christians, being falsely accused of causing the fire, and pronounced guilty of the crime, afforded in the circus of the gardens of Nero, which were situated just here on the Vatican Hill, the first spectacles of martyrdom. Some were put to death in various cruel ways, while others were set on fire, and used as torches in the night, thus inaugurating on the Vatican, by the light that they gave, the living splendour of the true religion.... These, so they say, were buried close to the place where they suffered martyrdom, and gave the first occasion for the religious veneration of this holy spot.... We therefore revered these holy bones, as being those of the first founders of the great basilica and the first-fruits of our martyrs, and having put back the coffin allowed it to remain in the same place.”
With great pathos Mr. Barnes, from whose translation of the Ubaldi Memoranda on the discoveries in the Cemetery of Anacletus these extracts are taken, describes the scene of the interment of these sad remains of the martyrs in the games of Nero. We quote a passage specially bearing on this strange and wonderful “find,” where, after describing what took place in the famous games, he went on thus:
“The horrible scene drew to a close at last; the living torches, burning slowly, flickered and went out, leaving but a heap of ashes and half-burnt flesh behind them; the crowds of sightseers wended their way back to the city, and silence fell again on the gardens of Nero. Then there crept out through the darkness, within the circus and along the paths of the gardens, a fresh crowd—men and women, maidens and even little children, taking every one of them as they went their lives in their hands, for detection meant a cruel death on the morrow; eager to save what they could of the relics of the martyrs: bones that had been gnawed by dogs and wild beasts; ashes and half-burnt flesh, and other sad remnants, all of them precious indeed in the sight of their brethren who are left, relics that must not be lost.... Close by the circus, on the other side of the Via Aurelia, some Christians had already a tiny plot of ground available for purposes of burial. There on the morrow, in a great chest of stone, were deposited all the remains that could be collected; for it was out of the question to keep them separate one from another.” It was the beginning of the Vatican Cemetery, hereafter to become so famous. “ ... More than 1600 years afterward, when the excavations were being made for the new baldachino over the altar tomb of S. Peter himself, the sad relics of this first great persecution were brought to light. But they were not disturbed, and still rest in the place where they were originally laid, where now rises above them the glorious dome of the first Church of Christendom.”
In the memoranda on the third foundation there is nothing of very special interest to note.
On the fourth foundation Ubaldi wrote the following strange and peculiarly interesting note: “Almost at the level of the pavement there was found a coffin made of fine and large slabs of marble.... This coffin was placed, just as were the others which were found on the other side, within the circle of the presbytery, in such a manner that they were all directed towards the altar like spokes toward the centre of a wheel. Hence it was evident with how much reason this place merited the name of ‘the Council of Martyrs.’ ... These bodies surrounded S. Peter just as they would have done when living at a synod or council.”
These apparently were the remains of the first Bishops or Popes of Rome, for whom Anacletus made special provision when he arranged this earliest of cemeteries. Their names are, Linus whose coffin lies apart but still close to the apostle’s tomb, Anacletus, Evaristus, Sixtus I, Telesphorus, Hyginus, Pius I, Eleutherius, and Victor. Victor was laid in this sacred spot in the year of grace 203. After him no Bishop of Rome was interred in the Cemetery of Anacletus on the Vatican Hill. Originally of but small dimensions, by that date it was filled up, and the successors of Pope Victor, we know, were interred in a chamber appropriated to them in the Cemetery of S. Callistus in the great Catacomb so named on the Appian Way.
The other interments in the sacred Vatican Cemetery in the immediate neighbourhood of the apostle’s tomb—some of the more notable of which have been noticed in our little extracts from the Ubaldi Memoranda—were apparently the bodies or the sad remains of martyrs of the first and second centuries of the Christian era, or in a few cases of distinguished confessors of the Faith whose names and story are forgotten, but to whom Prudentius (quoted on p. [216]) has alluded.
There is an invaluable record of what lies beneath the high altar and the western part of the great Mother Church of Christendom.
In a rare plan of this Cemetery of the Vatican drawn by Benedetto Drei, Master Mason of Pope Paul V, which apparently was made during the period of the first discoveries under Paul V, some time between A.D. 1607 and 1615, and which has received certain later corrections no doubt after the second series of discoveries consequent upon the excavations for the foundations in the neighbourhood of the tomb of S. Peter, for the great bronze baldachino of Bernini in the days of Pope Urban VIII, about A.D. 1626.
This plan of Drei is most valuable, though not accurate in detail. It marks the position of some of the graves which were found, but not of all that were disclosed in the second series of discoveries under Urban VIII. It was not issued until A.D. 1635. This later date explains the corrections which have been inserted.
PART II
TWO EXAMPLES OF RECENT DISCOVERIES
CRYPT OF S. CECILIA—THE BURIAL-PLACES OF S. FELICITAS, OF JANUARIUS, AND OF HER OTHER SONS
I
Out of the many pages of Catacomb lore, the story of the Crypt of S. Cecilia and its recent discovery, and the identification of the burial-places of S. Felicitas and her seven sons, have been selected to be told here as specially interesting examples of the historical and theological importance of these investigations among the forgotten cemeteries of subterranean Rome.
Allard’s words in his edition of Northcote and Brownlow’s exhaustive résumé of a portion of De Rossi’s monumental work, deserve quoting. Writing of S. Cecilia, he says:
“Les découvertes modernes l’ont bien vengée du scepticisme ou de la prudence excessive de Tillemont: on sait aujourd’hui que Sainte Cecile n’est ni un mythe, ni une martyre venue de Sicile, mais une vraie Romaine, du plus pur sang romain; sa noble et gracieuse figure est décidément sortie des brumes de la légende pour entrer dans le plein jour de l’histoire.”
The “Acts” of her martyrdom in their present form are probably not older than the fifth century, although S. Cecilia suffered in the reign of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus, circa A.D. 177. But these “Acts” are undoubtedly very largely based upon a contemporaneous record: the recent discoveries have enabled historical criticism fairly to restore what was original in the story of the martyr.
Cecilia was a noble Roman lady, who belonged to a family of senatorial rank; her father apparently was a pagan, or if a Christian at all was a man of the world rather than an earnest believer, for he gave his daughter in marriage to a young patrician, one Valerianus, a pagan, but a pagan of the highest character. Cecilia was a devoted Christian: at once she induced her husband and his brother Tiburtius to abjure idolatry. Accused of Christianity at a moment when the Government of the Emperor Marcus was determined to stamp out the fast-growing religion of Jesus, the two brothers were condemned to death, and they suffered martyrdom in company with the Roman officer who presided at their execution, and who, beholding the constancy of the two young patricians, embraced the faith which had enabled them to witness their good confession.
Cecilia shared in their condemnation. The Government, however, dreading the example of the death of so prominent a personage in Roman society, determined to put her to death as privately as possible. She was doomed to die in her own palace. The furnaces which heated the baths were heated far beyond the usual extent, and Cecilia was exposed to the deadly and suffocating fumes. These failed in their effect: after being exposed in her chamber for a night and a day to these fumes, she was still living, apparently unharmed. The Prefect of the city, who was in charge of Cecilia’s execution, then gave orders to a lictor to decapitate the young Christian lady who persistently refused to abjure her religion.
There is nothing improbable in the story, which goes on to relate how the executioner, unnerved with his grim task, inflicted three mortal wounds, but Cecilia, though dying, yet breathed and preserved consciousness.
The Roman law forbade more than three strokes with the sword, and she lived on for two days and nights, during which long protracted agony she was visited by her friends, among whom was a Bishop Urbanus, not the Urbanus Bishop of Rome, as the “Acts” with some confusion tell us, but another Urbanus, probably a prelate of some smaller see.
After she had passed away, her body with all care and reverence was laid in a sepulchral chamber which subsequently became part of the great Cemetery of Callistus. The martyr was interred evidently in a vault or crypt which belonged to her illustrious family; several inscriptions belonging to Christian members of the gens Cæcilia have been found in the immediate vicinity of S. Cecilia’s grave. Less than a quarter of a century after her martyrdom, the subterranean cemetery in which the Cæcilian vault was situated became part of the general property of the Roman congregations. Callistus, afterwards Bishop of Rome, held a high office under Bishop Zephyrinus, and he was set over the cemetery, which was subsequently called after him, the Cemetery of Callistus. At the beginning of the third century—as in the Vatican Crypt, where the earliest Bishops of Rome had been deposited round the body of S. Peter, there was no more room for interments—Callistus arranged the sepulchral chamber known as the Papal Crypt to be the official burying-place of the Bishops of Rome. The chamber in which S. Cecilia was laid was close by this Papal Crypt. De Rossi graphically expresses this: “Ce n’est donc pas sainte Cecile qui fut enterrée parmi les Papes, c’est elle au contraire qui fit aux Papes du IIIme siècle les honneurs de sa demeure funèbre.” (From Allard.)
We will trace the story of the celebrated Roman saint through the ages.
The statement contained in the “Acts of S. Cecilia” of her interment in the Cemetery of S. Callistus no doubt is accurate, although the hand of a somewhat later “redactor” is manifest, for the cemetery only obtained its title of “Callistus” some thirty years after the martyrdom of the saint. S. Cecilia at once seems to have won a prominent place among the martyrs and confessors of the persecution of Marcus Aurelius. This is accounted for not only by the dramatic scenes which a generally accepted tradition tells us were the accompanying features of her passion, but also by the high rank and position of the sufferer and her generous bequest to the Roman congregations.
Towards the close of the fourth century S. Cecilia’s crypt was among the popular sanctuaries specially cared for by Pope Damasus, much of whose work is still, in spite of centuries of neglect, clearly visible. Damasus’ work here was by no means confined to decoration, but included elaborate arrangements for the visits of pilgrims to the shrine, such as a special staircase and considerable masonry work to secure the walls and approaches. Somewhat later, Pope Sixtus III, A.D. 432–40, continued and amplified the decoration and constructive improvements of his predecessor Damasus.
The decorations and paintings of this crypt, as at present visible, clearly date from the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries. De Rossi considers that the existence of these successive decorations, and the fact that various works, constructive as well as ornamental, were evidently at different epochs executed here, tell us that this is an historic sepulchral chamber highly venerated by many generations of pilgrim visitors.
From very early times, most probably from the days of the Emperor Marcus, there has been a church traditionally constructed on the site of an ancient house, the house of the martyr Valerian, Cecilia’s husband. Recent investigations, have gone far to substantiate the ancient tradition, for beneath the existing Church of S. Cecilia portions of an important Roman house of the second century have come to light.
The church, originally a private house of prayer, at a very remote period became a public basilica. It had fallen into a ruinous condition, and was rebuilt by Pope Paschal I in the ninth century. This restoration of the old basilican church no doubt suggested to Paschal his inquiry after the remains of the loved martyr in whose memory the church had been originally dedicated. The dramatic and well-authenticated story of the finding of the body by Paschal is as follows:
II
The great translation of the remains of the 2300 martyrs and confessors from the catacombs into the city for the sake of protecting these precious relics from barbarian pillage took place in the days of Pope Paschal I (ninth century). When this translation was going on, Paschal made an inquiry after the burying-place of S. Cecilia. Although the lengthy entry in the Liber Pontificalis makes no mention of any special reason for this investigation, there is no doubt but that the restoration work which was being carried on at the basilica of the saint across the Tiber suggested it to the Pope. The tomb of the famous saint could not be found, although for centuries it had been emphatically alluded to in several of the Pilgrim Itineraries, and in the yet more ancient “Guide,” subsequently copied by William of Malmesbury several centuries later.
A REPLICA OF MADERNO’S EFFIGY OF S. CECILIA—AS SHE WAS FOUND—IS IN THE NICHE OF THE S. CALLISTUS CATACOMB CHAMBER—WHERE THE BODY ORIGINALLY WAS DEPOSITED
It was about the year of grace 821, after long and fruitless searching for the lost tomb, and when he had come to the conclusion that the body of S. Cecilia had been carried away probably by Astolphus and the Lombards in their destructive raids, and that the tomb had been destroyed, that Pope Paschal early one morning, while listening to the singing of the Psalms in the great Vatican Basilica, fell asleep; as he slept he saw the form of a saint in glory; she disclosed her name, “Cecilia,” and told him where[133] to look for her tomb.
Acting upon the words of the saint in the vision, he found at once the lost tomb, and when the coffin of cypress wood was opened, the body of Cecilia was seen unchanged, still wrapped in the gold-embroidered robe in which she had been clothed when her loving friends laid her to rest after her martyrdom, with the linen cloths stained with her blood folded together at her feet.
She lay in the position in which she had passed away. Those who had buried her, left her thus—not lying upon the back like a body in a tomb, but upon the right side, with her knees drawn together and her face turned away—her arms stretched out before her. In her touching and graceful attitude she seemed as though she was quietly sleeping.
Just as he found her, in the same coffin with the robe of golden tissue and the blood-stained linen folded by her feet, Pope Paschal reverently deposited her in a crypt beneath the altar of her church in the Trastevere district, simply covering the body with a thin veil of silk.
Nearly eight hundred years after (A.D. 1599), Sfondrati, titular Cardinal of the Church, while carrying out some works of restoration and repair in this ancient Church of S. Cecilia, came upon a large crypt under the high altar. In the crypt were two ancient marble sarcophagi. Responsible witnesses were summoned, and in their presence the sarcophagi were carefully opened. In one of these the body of S. Cecilia lay just as it had been seen eight centuries before by Pope Paschal I—in the same pathetic attitude, robed in gold tissue with the linen cloths blood-stained at her feet.
Every care was taken by the reigning Pope Clement VIII to provide careful witnesses of this strange discovery; among these were the famous scholars Cardinal Baronius and Bosio; the greatest artist of the day, Stefano Maderno, was summoned to view the dead saint and to execute the beautiful marble portrait which now lies in the recess of the Confession beneath the high altar of the well-known church in the Trastevere at Rome. In an inscription, Maderno, the artist, tells how he saw Cecilia lying incorrupt and unchanged in her tomb, and how in the marble he has represented the saint just as he saw her.[134]
The second sarcophagus found by Cardinal Sfondrati in the crypt of the Church of S. Cecilia beneath the high altar, was also opened by him. It was found to contain the bodies of three men, who had clearly suffered violent deaths—two of them had been decapitated, and the third had evidently been beaten to death by a horrible means of torture sometimes used—the “plumbatæ”—leathern or metal thongs loaded with lead; one of these, which evidently had been used in the death-scene of a martyr, was found in a crypt of this cemetery. These three were no doubt the remains of SS. Valerianus (the patrician husband of S. Cecilia), Tiburtius his brother, and the Roman officer Maximus, whose remains, brought no doubt by Pope Paschal I from the Prætextatus Cemetery where we know they had been interred, were deposited by him in the crypt of the Church of S. Cecilia close to the body of the famous martyr with whom they were so closely and gloriously connected.
The story of the discovery and certain identification of the original sepulchral chamber of S. Cecilia is vividly told by De Rossi with great detail. It was one of his important “finds.” With the tradition before him—with the clear references in the pilgrim traditions—the great archæologist was sure that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the sepulchral chamber of the Popes or Bishops of Rome of the third century, must be sought the crypt where S. Cecilia lay for more than six centuries.
First he discovered that adjoining the official Papal Crypt was another chamber, evidently of considerable size, in which a luminare[135] had been constructed, but the chamber and the luminare were choked up with earth and ruins. He proceeded to excavate the latter; as the work proceeded, the explorers in the neighbourhood of the chamber came upon the remains of paintings.
Lower down, almost on the level of the chamber, these paintings became more numerous and more distinct. The work of digging out went on slowly; more paintings had evidently once decorated that ruined and desolate chamber of death—one of them, a woman richly dressed, obviously represented S. Cecilia. Another of a bishop inscribed with the name of S. Urbanus, the bishop connected with the story of the saint. The paintings were of different dates, some as late as the seventh century. A door which once led into the Papal Crypt was found: remains of much and elaborate decorative work were plainly discerned, work of various ages, belonging some of it to the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries.
In one of the walls of the chamber a large opening had been originally constructed to receive the sarcophagus of the martyr.
All showed clearly that this had once been a very famous historic crypt, the resort of many generations of pilgrims, and its situation answered exactly to what we read in the Pilgrim Itineraries, in the Liber Pontificalis, and in other ancient authorities as the situation of the original burying-place of S. Cecilia. The subjects, too, of the dim discoloured paintings pointed to the same conclusion.
In the immediate neighbourhood of the sepulchral chamber De Rossi counted some twelve or thirteen inscriptions telling of Christian members of the “gens Cæcilia” who had been buried there—all testifying to the fact that originally this portion of the great group of the so-called “Callistus” Catacomb was the property of the noble house in question, and that probably at an early date it had been made over to the Christian Church in Rome. The saint and martyr therefore had been laid amidst the graves of other members of her family.[136]
In the chain of testimony which has been brought together one link seems to call for an elucidation. How is it that Pope Paschal I failed at first to discover the sepulchral chamber of S. Cecilia, considering it lay so close to the famous Papal Crypt, and in fact communicated with it? The answer is that no doubt at some time previous to his research the crypt of S. Cecilia had certainly been “walled up,” “earthed up,” or otherwise concealed to protect this revered sanctuary from the prying eyes and sacrilegious hands of Lombards and other barbarian raiders. It must be remembered that for centuries the tomb of S. Cecilia had been one of the principal objects of veneration in this great cemetery. Signs of this later work of concealment were also discovered by De Rossi.
De Rossi, in his summing up, comes to the conclusion that no doubt whatever rests upon the identification of the original burying-place of S. Cecilia, and that the sepulchral chamber discovered by him adjoining the Papal Crypt was the spot where her sarcophagus lay for centuries—the actual chamber which was subsequently adorned and made accessible by Pope Damasus; which was further decorated by several of his successors in the papacy; and which was visited and venerated by successive generations of pilgrims from all lands.
In the ninth century the sarcophagus containing the sacred remains was translated as we have seen by Pope Paschal I, and brought to the ancient Basilica of S. Cecilia in the Trastevere, where it has rested securely ever since. In the year 1699 it was seen and opened and its precious contents inspected by Pope Clement VIII, by Cardinal Sfondrati, by Cardinal Baronius, by Bosio and others, as we have related.
After the translation in the ninth century, the original crypt, in common with so many of the catacomb sanctuaries, was deserted and allowed to go to ruin—utterly forgotten until De Rossi rediscovered it and reconstructed its wonderful history.
Writing in the earlier years of the twentieth century, Marucchi, the follower and pupil of De Rossi, in his latest work on the Catacombs, reviews and fully endorses the conclusions of his great master on the question of the tradition of S. Cecilia’s tomb.
What we stated at the beginning of this little study is surely amply verified. S. Cecilia and her story no longer belong to mere vague and ancient tradition, but live in the pages of scientific history.
III
We will cite another example, and a yet more striking one, of the light thrown by the witness of the catacombs on important questions which have been gravely disputed, in connection with the history of the very early years of Christianity.
Ecclesiastical historians of the highest rank have gravely doubted the truth of the story of the martyrdom of S. Felicitas and her seven sons[137] in the days of the Emperor Marcus about the middle of the second century. The splendid constancy in the faith of the mother and of her hero sons, in the opinion of these grave and competent critics was a recital almost entirely copied from the record of the Maccabean mother and her seven brave sons, and so the Passion of S. Felicitas and her sons has been generally consigned to the shelf of early legendary Christian history; few historians would venture to quote as genuine this pathetic and inspiring chapter of the persecution of the Emperor Marcus. It is regarded as a piece of literature, devised in the sixth century or even later, and quite outside serious history.
But recent investigations in the great subterranean city of the Roman dead have completely changed this commonly held view, and the episode in question must now take its place among the acknowledged Christian records of the middle of the second century. She belonged to the ranks of the great ladies of Rome; her husband, of whom we know nothing, was dead, but Felicitas and her sons were well known in the Christian community of the capital, where she was distinguished for her earnest and devoted piety.
Her high rank gave her considerable influence, and she was in consequence dreaded by the pagan pontiffs. These high officials, aware of the Emperor Marcus Antoninus’ hostility to the Christians, laid an information against the noble Christian lady as belonging to the unlawful religion. They represented her as stirring up the wrath of the immortal gods by her powerful influence among the people. Marcus at once directed the Prefect of the city, Publius, to see that Felicitas and her sons sacrificed in public to the offended deities. This was in the year of grace 162.
The “Acts of the Passion,” from which we are quoting here, no doubt with very little change represent the official notes or procès-verbal of the interrogatory at the trial.
The Prefect Publius at first with great gentleness urged her to sacrifice, and then finding her obdurate, threatened her with a public execution.
Finding persuasion and threats of no avail, Publius urged her, “If she found it pleasant to die, at least to let her sons live.” Felicitas replied that they would most certainly live if they refused to sacrifice to idols, but if they did sacrifice, they would surely die—eternally.
The public trial subsequently took place in the open Forum; again the Roman magistrate urged the mother to be pitiful to her sons, still in the flower of their youth, but the brave confessor, turning to the young men, told them to look up to heaven—there Christ with His saints was waiting for them: “Fight,” she said, “my sons, the good fight for your souls.”
The young men in turn were placed before him. The Prefect in the name of the Emperor offered them each a splendid guerdon and coveted privileges at the Imperial court if they would only consent to sacrifice publicly to the gods of Rome. One and all of the seven refused, preferring to die with their noble mother, choosing the other guerdon, the alternative guerdon offered in the name of the great Emperor, the fearful and shameful deaths to which an openly professing Christian in the days of Marcus was condemned by the stern Roman law.
The interrogatory and the noble answers of mother and sons as contained in the “Acts of the Passion of S. Felicitas,” are at once a stirring and pathetic recital.
The final condemnation naturally followed. The death sentences were confirmed by the Emperor, and sternly carried out.
Felicitas and her seven sons suffered martyrdom,[138] and through pain and agony passed to their rest and bliss in the Paradise of their adored Master Christ.
Around these “Acts” a continual war of criticism has been waged: the question has by no means as yet been positively decided.
Tillemont hesitatingly expresses an opinion that they have not all the characteristics of genuine “Acts.” Bishop Lightfoot is yet more positive in his view that they are not authentic. Aubé repeats a similar judgment. On the other hand, De Rossi, Borghesi, and Doulcet accept them as genuine. But all are agreed that they are very ancient. The interrogatory portion is no doubt a verbatim extract from the original procès-verbal.
The piece appears to have been originally largely written in Greek, but Gregory the Great, who refers to it, speaks of another and better text which we do not possess. One striking indication of its great antiquity is that no mention is made of the tombs of the martyrs. Had these “Acts” dated even from the fifth century this would not have been omitted, for in the fifth century the martyrdoms had obtained great celebrity.
A very early mention of these tombs, however, we find in the so-called “Liberian” or “Philocalian” Catalogue, which was partly composed or put together not later than the year of grace 334. The alternative name of the Catalogue is derived from Filocalus, the famous calligrapher of Pope Damasus, who most probably was the compiler of the work, which consists of several tracts chronological and topographical of the highest interest, some originally doubtless composed at a very early date. It contains, among other pieces, a Catalogue of Roman Bishops, ending with Liberius, and a piece termed “Depositio Martyrum,” in which the burying-places of the seven sons of Felicitas are carefully set out. This ancient memorandum has been of the greatest assistance to De Rossi and Marucchi in their identification of the original graves of the “seven.”
When De Rossi had penetrated into the cemetery of Prætextatus on the Appian Way, he came upon what was evidently a highly decorated chamber, once lined with marble, and carefully built and ornamented. It was, he saw, an historic crypt of the highest interest. The vault of the chamber was painted, and the fresco decorations were still fairly preserved. The paintings represented garlands of vines and laurels and roses, executed with great taste and care; the style and execution belonged to work which must be dated not later than the second century. Below the beautifully decorated vault was a long fresco painting of the Good Shepherd with sheep; one sheep was on his shoulders. This painting has been sadly interfered with by a loculus, or grave, of later date, probably of the fourth or fifth century; on the loculus in question could still be read the following little inscription—perfect save for the first few letters:
. . MI RIFRIGERI JANUARIUS AGATOPUS FELICISSIM
. . . MARTYRES
Some sixth-century Christians, anxious to lay their beloved dead close to the martyrs, had caused the wall of the chamber to be cut away, for the reception of the body, regardless of the painting, and then while the plaster was still fresh had cut these words of prayer, which may be translated, “May Januarius, Agatopus,[139] and Felicissimus refresh (the soul of ...).” Agatopus and Felicissimus were two of the deacons of Pope Sixtus II, who had (probably in the same catacomb) suffered martyrdom, A.D. 258. Their sepulchral chambers were subsequently identified.
The question at once presented itself to De Rossi—was not this chamber ornamented with paintings clearly of the second century, the crypt where S. Januarius had been laid? All doubt on this point was subsequently cleared up, for eventually in many fragments the original inscription which Pope Damasus had caused to be placed over the door or near the altar was found. The inscription ran thus:
BEATISSIMO · MARTYRI
JANUARIO
DAMASUS · EPISCOP ·
FECIT
The body of S. Felicitas the mother was laid in the cemetery in the Via Salaria Nova which bears her name. After the Peace of the Church towards the end of the first quarter of the fourth century, a little basilica was erected over the spot in the catacomb in question where the remains of the martyred mother had been deposited. As late as A.D. 1884, while digging the foundations of a house, the little basilica was discovered—in Marucchi’s words, “on y reconnut aussitôt le tombeau de Ste Felicité.” Paintings of the mother and her sons adorn the walls. Beneath the basilica was a crypt in which the Salzburg Itinerary tells us lay her youngest son S. Silanus: the words of this Pilgrim Itinerary run thus: “Illa pausat in ecclesia sursum et filius ejus sub terra deorsum.”
At the end of the eighth century Pope Leo III translated the remains of the mother and son to the Church of S. Suzanna, near the Baths of Diocletian, where they still rest.
In the Philocalian or Liberian Calendar, A.D. circa 334, an entry appears under the heading of “Depositio Martyrum,” telling how two more of the seven martyred sons of Felicitas were buried in the Cemetery of S. Priscilla, namely, SS. Felix and Philip.
After the Peace of the Church, the basilica subsequently known as S. Sylvester was erected over a portion of the great Priscilla Cemetery, and many of the bodies of the more famous martyrs were brought up from the subterranean galleries and chambers and buried in conspicuous places in the new Basilica of S. Sylvester; amongst these were the remains of the two sons of Felicitas, SS. Felix and Philip. This is carefully described in the Pilgrim Itineraries or Guides. These two well-known martyrs were deposited under the high altar of S. Sylvester. In the second Salzburg Itinerary, known as “De locis SS. Martyrum,” they are thus specially mentioned: “S. Felicis [sic] unus de septem et S. Philippus unus de septem,” and in William of Malmesbury, copying from a much older Itinerary, we read, “Basilica S. Silvester ubi jacet marmoreo tumulo co-opertus ... Martyres ... Philippus et Felix.” Marucchi thinks he can point out the tomb in the subterranean crypt where the two originally were laid.
The three remaining sons of Felicitas, namely, SS. Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were interred in the cemetery of the Jordani on the Via Salaria Nova. This cemetery, owing to its state of ruin and the difficulty of pursuing the excavating work, has only been very partially explored; but Marucchi believes he has found a broken inscription referring to “Alexander, one of the seven brothers.” It is probable that other traces of the loculi of these three will come to light when this large but comparatively little known catacomb, which is in a very ruinous and desolate condition, is carefully examined: at present large portions of it are quite inaccessible.
The second Salzburg Itinerary “De locis SS. Martyrum” specially guides the pilgrim to tombs of these three thus: “propeque ibi” (alluding to the Basilica of S. Chrysanthus and Daria built over a portion of the Cœmeterium Jordani) “S. Alexander et S. Vitalis, sanctusque Martialis qui sunt tres de septem filiis Felicitatis ... jacent.” William of Malmesbury in his transcript of an ancient Itinerary also mentions them, as do other of the Pilgrim Guides.
In the celebrated “Monza” Catalogue and in the “Pittacia,” or small labels, belonging to the phials which contained a little of the sacred oils which were burnt before the tombs of the more eminent confessors and martyrs (the phials of oils which were sent by Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 590–604) to Theodelinda the Lombard Queen), the names of Felicitas and six of her martyred sons occur.
In the “Pittacia” or labels they are grouped topographically together, as we have given them above, Felicitas’ being in a separate label, Januarius also in a separate label, then the two groups together as above, the “two” and the “three.” There is a reason for S. Silanus, who was buried with his mother in the cemetery named after her, being absent from this “Monza” Catalogue, and from the labels on the phials of oil. His body, as the “Liberian” Catalogue informs us, was missing for a season from its original loculus, it having been stolen away, but was subsequently recovered and replaced.
The suspicion of the legendary character of the story of the martyrdom of S. Felicitas and her seven sons is largely traceable to the conclusions of some critical scholars (by no means of all) that the “Acts of S. Felicitas” and her sons are not authentic, that is, that they are not a contemporary piece, but were compiled at a somewhat later and uncertain date. It is, however, by the most trustworthy of these critics conceded that they are very ancient.
But granting these conclusions are accurate and that the “Acts,” in the strict sense of the word, are not authentic, the circumstances of the Passion and the martyrdom of the mother and her heroic sons rest on other authorities outside and quite independent of the “Acts”—authorities of the highest value and absolutely unquestioned.
Of these the testimony of the catacomb tombs of the mother and her seven sons, a somewhat novel witness, is the one we have especially brought forward here.
It is an evidence unchangeable, and which admits of no subsequent revision or addition. In its special department it is perhaps the strongest piece of testimony that can be brought forward, and much of this strange unexpected witness was unknown until quite lately—until these forgotten cemeteries were partially explored by competent and indefatigable scholars of our own day and time.
There are, besides, other important “pieces,” which for want of space have not been quoted here, bearing on the same subject, namely, on the historical existence of S. Felicitas and her seven sons, and their brave witness and consequent martyrdom in the days of the Emperor Marcus Antonius, such as, inscriptions of Pope Damasus, a homily in honour of S. Felicitas by Pope Gregory the Great, and a laudatory notice by S. Peter Chrysologus, Archbishop of Ravenna, A.D. 433–54, etc.
PART III
EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN THE CATACOMBS
I
In this section we will give at some length what these (same) catacombs tell us of the thoughts of the early Christian congregations on some of the more important problems dealing with death and with the life beyond the grave, and incidentally with the early Christian view on the question of the communion of saints.
The scanty remains of the literature of this early period, as we have already hinted, valuable though they are, partake rather of the nature of scholars’ researches and conclusions. What we find painted and graved on the million graves of this vast subterranean God’s Acre tells us in simple popular language exactly what the Christian folk, who lived and worked and suffered in the two centuries which followed the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul, thought and felt on these momentous points.
The graves in this silent city, perhaps numbering some three, four, or even five millions, belong to all ages, to every rank and order. There are crypts containing the remains of members of the Imperial family, of men and women of senatorial and of the most exalted rank among the proud patrician houses. There are graves of merchants and traders, of the very rich, of the very poor; there are innumerable graves of freedmen, of the vast class too of the sad-eyed slave.
Here, too, are not a few tombs of men and women who gave up all, even dear life, for the Name’s sake, and who, because they professed unswerving faith in the divine Son of God, through pain and agony passed to their rest in the Paradise of God.
Some of the ruined graves were once strikingly adorned; very many of them being made of costly marbles and beautifully decorated, while around these sepulchral memorials of the great and wealthy are found numberless graves roughly though lovingly fashioned.
Of the epitaphs and inscriptions carved and painted on these graves, some are exquisitely worked, evidently by professional artists. Many more, however, were rudely and hurriedly painted or scratched on the plaster or stone tablet which closed in the shelf in the wall in which the dead was laid.
The inscriptions are for the most part in Latin, but in the first and in much of the second century the words are often in Greek. In some instances the two languages are curiously mingled, the epitaph beginning in one tongue and ending in another: occasionally the Latin words are written in Greek characters.
Various corrupt ways of spelling are not unusual, the ordinary rules of grammar are not unfrequently broken. Indeed, as is observable in some of the Latin poetry of the early Christian centuries where the rules of classical prosody are ignored, so here in the prose used by the children of the people a similar disregard of language and spelling is observable. It was the beginning of the popular patois which eventually crystallized into modern Italian.
There is a curious and interesting difference between the epitaphs of the catacombs written when Christianity was a proscribed religion, when those who embraced it were liable to more or less bitter persecution, and the epitaphs of the latter years of the fourth as of the following centuries. Men wrote in those first three Christian centuries in the dark and lonely corridors and chambers where their loved dead were laid, not for any human eye to read, save their own when they visited that sacred God’s Acre,—just a name—or an emblem of their dearest hopes, a little picture of the Good Shepherd and His sheep, a word or two of sure hope and joyous confidence in the eternal future—and nothing more. Very short, very simple, very touching are these early Christian epitaphs. The great and noble set out no pompous statement of the rank and position of their dead: we read little of the piety and goodness of the many saintly ones whose remains rested in those long silent corridors.
But in the cemeteries (mostly above ground) of the last years of the fourth and in the following centuries, when the Church enjoyed peace, and when a different spirit brooded over the works and days of Christians, we begin to meet with those foolish tasteless phrases which as time went on became more and more in fashion, telling of the dead one’s rank and position, of the goodness and holiness and devotion of the deceased.
Dean Stanley quotes an epitaph in the cloisters of his loved Abbey of Westminster, which he says reminded him of the catacomb inscriptions in a way which none other of the pompous and elaborate epitaphs in that noble English home of the great dead had done. It is of a little girl, and runs thus:
“Jane Lister · deare childe.”
The first and most prominent feature in the life of the Christians of the first three centuries which the inscriptions of the catacombs make clear to us was their intense conviction of the reality of the future life.
The epitaphs speak of the dead as though they were still living. They talk to the dead. They felt that there was a communion still existing with them—between them and the survivors—a communion carried on under new conditions, and finding its consolation in incessant mutual prayer.
They were assured that the soul of the departed was united with the saints—that it was with God, and in the enjoyment of peace, happiness, rest; so often the little epitaph breathes a humble and loving prayer that they, the survivors, might soon be admitted to a participation in these blessings. Sometimes the survivors invoked the help of the prayers of the departed, since they knew that the soul of the departed lived in God and with God; they thought that the prayers of a soul in the presence of God would be a help—must be a help—to those whose time of trial was not yet ended.
Dr. Northcote well summarizes all this: “In a word, they realized most intensely that all the faithful, whether in the body or out of the body, were still living members of one mystical body, the body of Christ; that they formed one great family, knit together in the closest bonds of love; and that this love, stronger than death, had its proper work and happiness in prayer—prayer of the survivors for those who had gone before, prayer of the blessed for those who were left behind.” (Epitaphs of the Catacombs, chap. v.)
This deeply rooted belief in the life beyond the grave; this intense conviction that the division between this life and the life beyond the grave does not sever the claim of affection and love, never interrupt—no, not for an hour—the interchange of loving offices.
We will quote a very few of the older epitaphs painted or graved upon the marble or stone tablet or on the thick plaster-work which closed in the shelf in which the dead were deposited.
On some of these tablets we read simply the name of the dead; on others the name is accompanied with a Christian emblem, such as an anchor, the mystic fish, the ἰχθύς—each letter of which refers closely to the Saviour: (ι) Jesus, (χ) Christ, (θ) God, (ύ) the Son, (ς) the Saviour; the palm branch, the token of the victory over death; the dove, symbol of a Christian soul, occasionally of the Holy Ghost; this dove or bird was a favourite emblem of the soul, the idea being that the soul resembled a bird of passage dwelling for a season here and then flying away beyond the seas to a brighter, serener home. Very often we come upon the figure of the Good Shepherd, sometimes with a lamb in His arms.
II
De Rossi tells us how he had studied over fifteen thousand of these epitaphs, and that every year about five hundred more were deciphered. We will copy a very few of these:
“To dear Cyriacus—sweetest son—Mayest thou live in the Holy Spirit.”
“Matronata—who lived a year and 32 days—Pray for thy parents.”
“Bolosa—may God refresh thee—In Christ.”
“Sweet Faustina—mayest thou live in God.”
“Peace to thy soul, Oxycholis.”
“Agape, thou shalt live for ever.”
“Filumena—thy spirit is in peace.”
“Baccis, sweet soul in the peace of the Lord, a virgin—Her father to his sweetest daughter.”
“Victorina is in Peace and in Christ.”
“Amerinus to his dearest wife Rufina; may God refresh thy spirit.”
“His parents made this for their good and sweetest son Felix.... May Christ receive thee in peace.”
“Porcella sleeps here in peace.”
“Severa; mayest thou live in God.”
“Farewell, my dear one, in peace with the Holy souls; Farewell in Christ.”
Never a word of sorrow on these graves of the dead—never a word of repining—never a regret that they have been taken away. Only just a few words telling of their sure hope for their dear ones, and a prayer to God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit to keep them in their loving guardianship.
SEPULCHRAL INSCRIPTIONS FROM THE ROMAN CATACOMBS
We must dwell a little on the question of the testimony which these epitaphs of the first age of Christianity bear on the practice of the living asking for the help of those who had passed within the veil. There is no doubt but that at a later period and all through the Middle Ages this was the practice, and it has led to results which true theologians generally deplore. The question here is—How far was this the practice of the Church of the first days?
Now there is no doubt whatever but that the mediæval Church from very early times taught that the prayers of great saints possessed a peculiar efficacy, and in the uneducated mind this shaded into something like a belief that these saints possessed some actual power of themselves to interfere in and to influence human affairs. We shall presently quote some of S. Augustine’s views here.
In the case, however, of the early Christians whose thoughts are reflected in their great City of the Dead, the case was very different. They believed so intensely in the continuance of life after death that they maintained their communion with the departed by an interchange of prayers.
S. Cyprian, a great theologian and a cautious teacher, believed that the blessed dead were anxious for those whom they had left behind. Now, granting that this was the common feeling of Christians in respect to their dear dead ones whom they believed were dwelling close to God and His Christ, we can well conceive how natural it was for them to ask them for their prayers—for were they not dwelling close to God and His Christ to Whom their prayers must be addressed? Thus in the Church of the first two hundred and fifty years this communion, largely made up of the constant interchange of prayer between the living and the dead, rested on this family and friendship bond, and on no other. The formal invocation of saint and martyr as of some specially powerful soul belongs to a later date. It was not the teaching, certainly not the general teaching, of the Church of the catacombs.
But even in the catacombs it appears that very soon the custom crept in of crowding round the grave of some famous martyr, as though some special virtue belonged to the spot where the saint’s remains had been deposited; and the little chamber where the hallowed remains of a hero or heroine of the faith lay, was soon filled with graves—graves excavated utterly without any regard to the paintings or decorations which adorned the chamber and its original tomb, paintings and decorations which were ruthlessly cut away to make room for new loculi where the dead might rest close to the remains of the saint or martyr.[140]
The point, however, which especially concerns us here is the testimony, repeated many thousand times, which the catacombs bear to the perfect confidence of the early Christians in the continuance of life beyond the grave. To the faithful dead—to the believers in Jesus Christ—there was no break caused by death, for them life went on as it had done aforetime; conscious life went on after death, only under different and happier conditions.
To appreciate the striking change in the conception of death—the most important event in the life of man on earth—it will be interesting to glance at the testimony supplied in the same period by pagan epitaphs. A very brief examination will suffice to show what an impassable gulf separated the Christian from the pagan conception.
What at once catches our attention in any study of pagan epitaphs is the complete want of any hope beyond the grave. All the elaborate pagan pictures of the future life popularized in Greek circles by the Homeric poems, and in Latin society by the exquisite verses of Vergil, when brought face to face with the stern reality of the tomb are simply blotted out—are treated as purely fables.
Death, in these pagan epitaphs, the true expressions of popular pagan belief in the first three centuries of the Christian era, is ever viewed as an enemy; is described as an everlasting sleep, and the grave is represented as the last eternal home.
It has been well said that this melancholy idea was conveyed in the quiet sadness of that one word “Vale,” or in the more impassioned repetition of it, “Vale, Vale dulcissima—semper in perpetuo vale.” Farewell, farewell, sweetest one—for ever farewell. Now and again a favourite pagan formula was summed up in two words—“fuisti; vale.”
Some of the pagan epitaphs are playfully sarcastic, as: “Ah, weary traveller, however far you may walk, you must come here at last.” Some even make a mock at death, bidding others enjoy themselves while they live. “Live for the present hour, drink and play, for you are sure of nothing, only what you eat and drink is really yours.” “Fortune makes many promises but keeps none of them; live then for the present hour, since nothing else is really yours.” Some epitaphs are bitter: “I lived as I like, but I don’t know why I died.” “Here it is, so it is, nothing else could be.”
Here an inscription on a young woman’s grave mourns her early death: “I lift up my hands against the God who took me away at the age of twenty, though I had done no harm.” A father thus grieves for the loss of his child: “The fates judged ill when they robbed me of you.” Father and mother often write themselves down as most wretched, most unhappy (“miserrimi-infelicissimi”). Sometimes they use these sad and cheerless terms of their dead children. Mothers now and again describe themselves as “left to tears and groans,” or as “condemned to perpetual darkness and daily sad lamentation.” Parents lament their dead child thus: “Our hope was in our boy; now all is ashes and mourning.” Frequently these mourn for their dead children as follows: “They have died without having deserved it.” Another parent bewails the child’s death in these terms: “Neither talent, nor amiability, nor loving winning ways, have been of any avail to prolong the child’s days; in spite of all this, he has become the foul prey of the cruel Pluto.”
On very many indeed of pagan tombs undoubtedly there is evidence of much love and deep affection for the departed, but there is no gleam of hope of reunion or of happiness in another life; indeed, as a rule, there is no other life hinted at. If any venture to look beyond the grave—which is rarely the case—all beyond the grave is dark and sad and melancholy.
The following words put into the mouth of a dead girl well voice this general feeling: “Here I lie, unhappy girl, in darkness.” “Traveller, curse me not as you pass,” moans another inscription, “for I am in darkness and cannot answer.”
III
The wonderful change in popular feeling as shown in the Christian epitaphs when contrasted with the pagan epitaphs of the same period is indeed startling! What we read in the Roman City of the Dead tells us something of the spirit which dwelt in these companies of believers in the Name. This something is sufficient to account for the new life led by so many, for the superhuman courage displayed by the army of martyrs and confessors, for the ultimate victory, some two hundred years later, of the religion of Jesus.
We who live in what is perhaps the evening of the world’s story—we mark the glowing words of the New Testament writings, the fervid exhortations and noble resolves of men like Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp—the saintly teachings of great theologians like Irenæus, Tertullian, and Cyprian.
And as we read, we feel that these writers were evidently intensely persuaded of the truth of such sublime and soul-stirring assertions; we know, too, that these writers and teachers lived the beautiful life they taught,—that they died, many of them, with a smile on their lips and a song in their hearts.
But what of the People—the common folk, the ordinary everyday citizen; the slave and the little trader of the thousand cities of the Empire, the soldier of Rome, and the patrician of Rome—what did they think of all this?—these new strange words, these sunlit hopes, these glorious golden promises of the great teachers of Christianity?
The catacombs give us the answer. In quite late years, slowly, painfully, the antiquary and the scholar have opened out the secrets of the long-hidden City of the Dead which lies all round immemorial Rome, and, thanks to their labours, from words and pictures graven and painted on a million graves, comes to us, across the many centuries, the answer with no uncertain voice.
Yes, the People—the slave and the trader, the soldier and the noble—believed the words of the New Testament writings, and accepted the teaching of the early Christian teachers, and believing, struggled to lead the life the Master loved. None for a moment would dare to doubt the mighty power of this strange weird testimony of a million tombs; it is indeed a voice from a thousand graves.
Then, too, what may be termed the terminology, that is the words and expressions used in these vast cemeteries for all that is connected with death and burial, teaches the same truth—that for a believer in the Name, all the gloom and dread and horror usually associated with death are absent in these short epitaphs.
The catacomb inscriptions and pictures, besides their overwhelming testimony to the belief of the early Christians in the continuance of life after death, in the immortality of the soul, a testimony expressed in a countless number of ways, bear their witness to some of the more important dogmas of the Christian faith.
The extreme brevity of the inscriptions and the necessarily small space allotted to the pictures and emblems graven and painted on the sepulchral slabs, for the most part very small, of course preclude anything like any complete enunciation even of the principal Articles of the Christian faith: still what we find on these slabs tells us with no uncertain voice in whom these early congregations believed, and to whom these fervent prayers were addressed. Each of the Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity are named in many of these epitaphs.
We find many instances of the formula of the ancient creeds, “In God and in Christ.” This distinct enumeration of the two first Persons of the Blessed Trinity bears witness to the Catholic faith of the composers of the epitaphs.
Nor is the Third Person of the Trinity absent from these epitaphs. We read on some for instance: “In the Holy Spirit of God”; “Mayest thou live in the Holy Spirit.” Even the mention of all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity has been found engraved on these sepulchral tablets.
What, however, is most striking in these early records of the belief of the Christian congregation is the testimony they bear—a testimony repeated an innumerable number of times—to the primitive belief in the supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. We find again and again such formulas as “In the name of Christ”; “In God the Lord Christ”; “In God Christ”; “The great God Christ” (“Deo Magno Christo”). In the earliest epitaphs the most common symbol is the fish, painted, carved, or written at the beginning or end of the epitaph, not as part of the sentence, but as a complete formula in itself. Now this was a declaration of faith in “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”; the letters which form the Greek word Ichthus, as we have explained, being the initials[141] of the words of this formula.
There is no doubt that from the earliest times the fish was an acknowledged symbol of our Lord. It became at once a sacred “tessera” or sign—quite unintelligible to the pagan and official world, but to the believer a most precious symbol, containing with striking brevity and yet with striking clearness, a complete précis, so to speak, of the creed, a profession of facts as far as related to the Saviour.
The catacombs are full of Christ. It was to Him that the Christians of the age of persecution ever turned: it was on Him they rested—in gladness and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; in the days of danger—and these were sadly numerous in the first two centuries and a half—and in the hour of death. It was from His words they drew their strength. In the consciousness of His ever-presence in their midst, they suffered gladly for His sake. With His name on their lips they died fearlessly, joyfully passing into the Valley of the veiled Shadow. On the tablet of marble or plaster which closed up the narrow shelf in the catacomb corridor where their poor remains were reverently, lovingly laid, the dear name of Jesus was often painted or carved.
The catacombs are full of Christ. We have spoken several times of the paintings on the walls and ceilings of the corridors and chambers. There is great variety of these, the Old and New Testament supplying the majority of subjects. But by far the favourite subject of representation—certainly the leading type of Christian art in the first days—was the figure of the “Good Shepherd.” It does not only appear in the City of the Dead. It was often graved upon chalices used in the holy Eucharist. It was traced in gold upon glass, it was moulded upon lamps, it was carved upon rings. But it is to the catacombs that we must go to find it in its most varied and pathetic forms—now painted in fresco upon the walls of the corridors and chambers where the dead lie so thickly; now roughly, now more carefully carved on countless tablets; now sculptured upon the more costly sarcophagi.
Sometimes the Shepherd is represented with one sheep, at times with several; some listening to His voice—some turning listlessly away. We come upon it in a thousand places on the tombs themselves—in the little chapels or oratories leading out of the corridors where the more distinguished among the dead sleep. It is the favourite symbol of the Christian life and faith.
This constantly recurring figure of the Good Shepherd with His sheep in the catacombs throws much light on this deeply interesting and at the same time important question—What were the thoughts of that early Church in Rome respecting Christ and His teaching?
We must remember they lived very near the times when the greatest figure in history lived on earth, and talked with men. We shall do well to bear in mind that the first generation of these Roman Christians were taught by Peter and by Paul, and that through most of the second century men lived whose fathers must have seen and listened to these great servants of the Divine Master, certainly to their immediate disciples.
The form in which they loved best to think of this Almighty Saviour was as “the great Shepherd of the sheep”—the Shepherd of the First Epistle of S. Peter—the Shepherd of S. Luke and of S. John.[142]
A great and eloquent writer[143] in one of his most suggestive works does not hesitate to speak of what he terms the popular religion of the first Christians as the religion of “the Good Shepherd.” He says they looked on that figure and it conveyed to them all they wanted. And then he adds sorrowfully that “as ages passed on ‘the image of the Good Shepherd’ faded away from the mind of the Christian world, and other emblems of the Christian faith took the place of the once dearly loved figure.”
“Instead of the good and gracious Pastor, there came the omnipotent Judge, or the Crucified Sufferer, or the Infant in His mother’s arms, or the Master in His parting Supper.”
All these later presentments of the Divine Saviour emphatically are beautiful and true, but they are not what the first Christians especially dwelt on. These loved to think of Him first and chiefest as “the Good Shepherd who gave His life for the sheep.”
Among the many pictured figures of the “Good Shepherd” in the catacomb sepulchral galleries, the Shepherd is occasionally represented with a kid or a goat in place of a sheep in His loving arms: “And other sheep I have which are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and there shall be one fold, one shepherd.” The catacomb theology, as expounded by the catacomb teachers, went beyond even these gracious words, when it represented the creature on the shoulders of the Master, as not a lamb but a kid—not a sheep but a goat. These Christians of the first day were persuaded that their Master’s mission on earth was “not to repel but to include, not to condemn but to save; they believed in His tender compassion and boundless charity.”[144]
This sweet and loving view provoked the indignant remonstrance of the stern Tertullian (circa A.D. 200). On this harsh protest of the great African Father Tertullian, Matthew Arnold founds one of his most touching poems:
“He saves the sheep—the goats He doth not save:
So spake the fierce Tertullian.
But she sighed:
The infant Church, of love she felt the tide
Stream on her from her Lord’s yet recent grave,
And then she smil’d, and in the Catacombs,
With eye suffused, but heart inspired true,
She her Good Shepherd’s hasty image drew,
And on His shoulder not a lamb but kid.”