THE INFLUENCE OF ST. CECILIA ON LITERATURE.
Such a beautiful story could not fail to be repeated. As long as the persecutions lasted, to strengthen their courage, the faithful passed from mouth to mouth these details which had been so affectionately collected. So great, indeed, was the enthusiasm for the memory of Cecilia that she obtained the great and rare honor of being mentioned in the canon of the Mass with Saints Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, and Anastasia. Thus for fifteen centuries, throughout the Catholic world, wherever the holy sacrifice is celebrated, her name is invoked; and, truly immortal, each hour, each moment perhaps, her memory rises from earth to heaven with incense and with prayer.
Her acts, chronicled in the fifth century, have since then been the subject of several works. We shall only mention the Greek translation of Simeon Metaphrastes, the verses of St. Adhelme and of the Venerable Bede in England, the works of Flodoard at Rheims, and Rhoban Maur. Then, during that magnificent efflorescence of philosophy and Catholic literature, we see Victor de Beauvais relate the story of St. Cecilia;[109] Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, preaching several sermons in her honor. In the fifteenth century, the eloquent St. Vincent Ferrer recited her praises; but the Reformation came soon after, and it is only in Italy now that they think of the glories of St. Cecilia.
In vain her history is its own defence; in vain may it claim in its favor the imposing testimony of Christian tradition, in the East as in the West, during fourteen centuries; in vain the liturgies of the churches of Rome, of Milan, of Toledo, of Greece, and of Gaul have inserted in the office for the 22d of November fragments of the text; in vain even the discovery of her body testified anew to its veracity. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the Jansenist school rejected it.
The historical works on the first centuries of Christianity which during the last forty years have been undertaken in France and Germany, by tracing out the original sources with scrupulous care, and taking advantage of monuments, have dealt justly with this excessive criticism.
But error is more prone to spread than easy to uproot. Launoy, that "great demolisher of saints," who, in attacking the most poetic beliefs of the faithful, strayed into the road to rationalism, made a school. Even now Feller's Dictionary of Universal Biography, and, following him (for these works usually copy each other), those of Michaud and of F. Didot, have repeated, on the authority of Tillemont and of Baillet, that the authenticity of the life of St. Cecilia is very doubtful, although the arguments cited in support of this thesis had been successfully refuted by Laderchi early in the eighteenth century,[110] and annihilated for ever twenty years ago by R. P. Dom Guéranger, in his excellent book on St. Cecilia.[111]
The touching story of St. Cecilia must also inspire poets. Without mentioning the ancient hymns to be found in the Italian, Spanish, and Gallic liturgies, several poems in her honor may be quoted. At the time of the Renaissance, Baptiste Spagnuolo made it the subject of a real epic poem, where we find, as in the Æneid, the speeches of Venus and Juno, and the conspiracies of the inhabitants of Olympus against common mortals. The god of pagan love, accompanied by his mother, comes sadly to Juno to complain of the disdain of Cecilia, who wishes to remain a virgin. Forgetting her resentment, the wife of Jupiter inspires the father of Cecilia with the idea of uniting his daughter to a pagan. Foiled in their attempt by the conversion of Valerian, the angry goddess instigated Mars to suggest to Almachius the plan of drowning in blood this Christian band, rebels against the Olympian gods. Among the nine hundred verses may be found some fine ones, but we must confess that these unfortunate pagan reminiscences, so popular in the sixteenth century, ruin the poet's work for us.
Happily, the Roman virgin was to have her life, her death, and her glories sung in poems of purer inspiration. Angelus Tangrinus, priest of Monte Cassino,[112] wrote on this subject a long epithalamium,[113] which lacks neither grace of expression nor of thought.
The English poet Pope has also written an ode to St. Cecilia. The poem is elegantly versified, but cold and unmarked by any Christian feeling. The classic author recalls the magical effect of music in all ages, nor has he forgotten the adventure of Eurydice; he speaks with complacency of the Styx and of Phlegethon, of Ixion and of Sisyphus, of Proserpine and the Elysian Fields. Finally, feeling a pang of remorse, and remembering that he had dedicated his ode to a virgin martyr, he asserts that the poets must instantly abandon Orpheus and proclaim Cecilia the queen of music; for if the musician of Thrace drew by his music a spirit from hell, Cecilia by hers raised the soul to heaven.[114]
Very recently, Count Anatole de Ségur has published a dramatic poem, which seems to us the finest homage that poetry has yet offered to St. Cecilia. The style pure and musical, the interest sustained and engrossing, it merits the praises which the best judges have bestowed on it;[115] and we should willingly quote some verses of this exquisite book,[116] did we not prefer to leave our readers the pleasure of perusing it as a whole.