FINDING A LOST CHURCH.
The present age is pre-eminently one of discovery. In spite of the wise man’s saying, “Nothing under the sun is new,” mankind, wiser in its own conceit than the wise man, insists upon the newness of its every production. In Rome a different spirit prevails. While the new is not entirely neglected, the great delight of many Romans is to find something old—the older the better. They live so much in the past that they follow with an eager interest the various steps taken to enlighten them on the lives and deeds of the men of old, their ancestors on the soil and in the faith which they profess.
Foremost in the pursuit and discovery of Christian antiquities stands the Commendatore de Rossi. It has been said that poets are born, not made: De Rossi’s ability as a Christian archæologist seems to be more the gift of nature than the result of study. With unwearied industry, with profound knowledge, with an almost unerring judgment, he finds out and illustrates the remains of Christian antiquity scattered around Rome—not on the surface, but in the deeps of the earth. The latest and one of the most important discoveries he has made forms the subject of the present paper.
Tor Marancia is a name not much known out of Rome, yet it designates a place which was of some importance in its day. The traveller who contemplates the works of ancient art collected in the Vatican Museum cannot fail to be interested in two very beautiful black and white mosaics which form the floor of the gallery known as the Braccio Nuovo. Mythological fables and Homeric legends are represented in these pavements, and they come from Tor Marancia. In the Gallery of the Candelabra, and in the library of the same museum, a collection of frescos, busts, statues, and mosaics of excellent workmanship and of great interest, likewise discovered at Tor Marancia, are exhibited. All these objects were found at that place in the course of excavations made there in the reign of Pope Pius VI. In ancient times a villa stood at Tor Marancia, of which these formed the decorations.
At this spot also is found the entrance to a very extensive catacomb which contains three floors, and diverges in long, winding ways under the soil of the Campagna. The catacomb has been called by the name of S. Domitilla, on evidence found during the excavations made there. This lady was a member of the Flavian family, which gave three occupants to the imperial throne—Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. It is a well-known fact that those early Christians who were blessed with wealth were in the habit of interring the bodies of their brethren, of saints, and of martyrs within the enclosure of their villas. Such villas were situated outside the limits of the city; and hence we find the entrance to every catacomb beyond the city walls, with the solitary exception of the catacomb or grottos of the Vatican, and the entrances to all of them are found in sites ascertained to have been the property of Christians. It might be easy to multiply instances of this, taking the facts from the Acts of the Martyrs, wherein the places of sepulture are indicated, and the names of those who bestowed the last rites upon the dead recorded.
Domitilla, or Flavia Domitilla, as she is sometimes termed, was a niece of the consul Flavius Clemens, who was cousin of the Emperor Domitian. She was a Christian, having been baptized by S. Peter; and, after a life spent in charitable works, amongst which was the burial of the martyrs “in a catacomb near the Ardeatine Way,” the same of which we write, she also suffered martyrdom. Her two servants, Nereus and Achilleus, were put to death previously, and their bodies were placed in this catacomb by Domitilla.
In 1854, while De Rossi was pursuing his researches in the catacomb of S. Domitilla, he came upon the foundations of a building which pierced the second floor of the subterranean cemetery. This was a most unusual occurrence, and the eminent archæologist eagerly followed up his discovery. He found a marble slab which recorded the giving up of a space for burial “Ex indulgentia Flaviæ Domitillæ”—a confirmation of the proprietorship of the place.
De Rossi naturally concluded that the building thus incorporated in the Christian cemetery was of great importance. The loculi, or resting-places of the dead, were very large, which indicates great antiquity; the inscriptions likewise were of a very early date; and sarcophagi adorned with lions’ heads, marble columns overturned, and other signs, led the discoverer to the conclusion that he had come upon the foundations of a church constructed within this cemetery. In the course of his excavations he had penetrated into the open air, and found himself in a hollow depression formed by the falling in of the surface. Amongst other objects discovered were four marble slabs containing epitaphs furnished with consular dates of the years 335, 380, 399, and 406; and also a form of contract by which the right of burial in the edifice was sold. The proprietor of the land above the cemetery opposed the continuance of the excavations, and the discoverer, obliged to withdraw, covered up the materials already found with earth, and turned his attention to other recently-discovered objects in another place.
Twenty years after, in 1874, Monsignor de Merode purchased the land overlying the catacomb and church, and the excavations were again undertaken under most favorable circumstances. In vain did the Commission of Sacred Archæology, under De Rossi’s guidance, seek for the four marble columns and the two beautiful sarcophagi that had been seen there twenty years before. The proprietor is supposed to have carried them away. But they found instead the floor of the church or basilica, with its three naves, the bases of the four columns, the apse, the place where the altar stood, and the space occupied by the episcopal chair behind the altar. The basilica is as large as that of San Lorenzo beyond the walls. The left aisle is sixty feet long by thirteen broad; the central nave is twenty-four feet broad; and the right aisle, which is not yet entirely unearthed, is considered to be of the same breadth as the first mentioned; the greatest depth of the apse is fifteen feet. “The church,” says De Rossi, “is of gigantic proportions for an edifice constructed in the bowels of the earth and at the deep level of the second floor of a subterranean cemetery.”
Here, then, was a basilica or church discovered in the midst of a catacomb. That the latter belonged to Flavia Domitilla was well known; and yet another proof, which illustrates archæological difficulties and the method of overcoming them, was found here. It was a broken slab of marble containing a portion of an inscription:
......RVM
.....ORVM
(*)
and having the image of an anchor at the point(*). It was concluded that the anchor was placed at an equal distance from both ends of the inscription, and the discoverer, with the knowledge he already has of the place, supplied the letters which he considered wanting to the completion of the inscription, and thus produced the words,
SEPVLCRVM
FLAVIORVM
*
(sepulchre of the Flavii). This reading is very probably the right one, and its probability is greatly strengthened by the position of the anchor, since the full inscription, as here shown, leaves that sign still in the centre.
But to find the name borne by these ruins when the building of which they are the sole remnants was fresh and new presented a task to their discoverer. It was necessary to seek in ancient works—pontifical books and codices—for some account of a basilica on the Ardeatine Way. In the life of S. Gregory the Great it is related that this pontiff delivered one of his homilies “in the cemetery of S. Domitilla on the Ardeatine Way, at the Church of S. Petronilla.” The pontifical books and codices, although they differ in details—some saying in the cemetery of Domitilla, and others in that of Nereus and Archilleus, which is the same place under another name—agree in the principal fact. On the small remnant of plaster remaining on the wall of the apse an unskilled hand had traced a graffito, or drawing scratched on the plaster with a pointed instrument, somewhat resembling those found on the walls of Pompeii. This graffito represents a bishop, vested in episcopal robes, seated in a chair, in the act of delivering a discourse. This rude sketch of a bishop so occupied, taken in conjunction with the fact that S. Gregory did here deliver one of his homilies, is a link in the chain of evidence which identifies the ruin with the ancient basilica of S. Petronilla.
But a still more convincing testimony was forthcoming. A large fragment of marble, containing a portion of what appeared to have been a long inscription, was found in the apse. There were but few complete words in this fragment, and these were chiefly the termination of lines in what seemed to have been a metrical composition. Odd words, selected at random from a poem, standing alone, devoid of preceding or succeeding words, might not seem to furnish very rich materials even to an archæologist. These wandering words were, however, recognized to be the terminal words of a poem or eulogium written by Pope Damasus in honor of the martyrs Nereus and Achilleus. Now the connection between this metrical eulogium and the basilica was to be sought for. In the Einsiedeln Codex the place where this poem was to be seen is stated to have been the sepulchre of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, on the Appian Way, at S. Petronilla. The poem, or rather this fragment of it, being found at this sepulchre, it was natural to conclude that the church was that of S. Petronilla. The Appian Way is the great high-road from which the Ardeatine Way branches off near this spot.
Again, the basilica of S. Petronilla was frequented by pilgrims from many nations in the VIIth century. Among these were Gauls, Germans, and Britons. In their itineraries of the martyrs’ sepulchres in Rome, and in the collection of the metrical epigraphs written at these places, it is proved that the original name of this church was that of S. Petronilla. “Near the Ardeatine Way is the Church of S. Petronilla,” say these old documents, and they likewise inform us that S. Nereus and S. Achilleus and S. Petronilla herself are buried there: “Juxta viam Ardeatinam ecclesia est S. Petronillæ; ibi quoque S. Nereus et S. Achilleus sunt et ipsa Petronilla sepulti.”
A second fragment of the slab containing the metrical composition of Pope Damasus has since been found, and this goes to confirm the testimony furnished by the former fragment. In the following copy of the inscription the capital letters on the right-hand side are those on the fragment first discovered; those on the left belong to the recently-discovered portion:
“Nereus et Achilleus Martyres.
“Militiæ nomen dederant sævumQ gerebant
Officium pariter spectantes jussA TYRanni
Præceptis pulsante metu serviRE PARati
Mira fides rerum subito posueRE FVRORem
COnversi fugiunt ducis impia castrA RELINQVVNT
PROiiciunt clypeos faleras telAQ. CRVENTA
CONFEssi gaudent Christi portaRE TRIVMFOS
CREDITe per Damasum possit quid GLORIA
CHRISTI.”
The date of the church was likewise ascertained. It is known that Pope Damasus, the great preserver of the martyrs’ graves, would never allow the Christian cemeteries to be disturbed for the purpose of building a church therein; and although he himself strongly desired that his remains should repose in one of these sacred places by the side of his predecessors, he abandoned this desire rather than remove the sacred ashes of the dead. It may naturally be concluded, then, that this church was built after his day—he died in 384—as were the churches of S. Agnes, S. Lawrence, and S. Alexander, all of which are beyond the city walls and built in catacombs. The catacombs under the Church of S. Petronilla showed an inscription bearing the date of 390, and in the church itself a monumental slab with the date of 395 has been found. It is thus almost certain that between the highest date found under, and the lowest date found in, the church—that is, between the years 390 and 395—the basilica of S. Petronilla was constructed.
For about three centuries and a half this church was well frequented. We have records of gifts sent to it, precious vestments, etc., by Pope Gregory III., who reigned from 715 to 741. But in 755 the Longobards came down upon Rome; they desecrated the churches and cemeteries around the city, and then began the siege of Rome. After peace was made, the pontiff of the period, Paul I., transferred the relics and remains of the saints to safer custody, and the Church of S. Petronilla became deserted. From unmistakable signs it seems that this desertion was conducted in a most regular manner, and that it was closed and despoiled of its precious objects. The door which entered the left aisle was found walled up; the altar, the seats of the choir, the episcopal chair, and the ambons or marble pulpits ware all removed and transported elsewhere. The floor of the church, so far below the level of the surrounding soil, formed a resting-place for the water which drained through the neighboring lands after rains had fallen, and this undoubtedly formed the strongest reason for the abandonment of S. Petronilla. Nothing was left in it but sarcophagi and sepulchres, the pavements with their marble epitaphs—so valuable to-day in revealing history—some columns with their beautifully-carved capitals, which time or an earthquake has overturned and hidden within the dark bosom of the earth for more than a thousand years.
The hundred pilgrims who came from America, with a hundred new-found friends, assembled on the 14th of June, 1874, to pray in that disentombed old church. They had come from a world unknown and undreamt of by the pilgrims who had formerly knelt within these walls; and as they looked around on the wide and desolate Campagna, and on the monument of Cecilia Metella shining in the distance white and perfect, in spite of the nineteen centuries that have passed away since it received its inmate, and at the blue, changeless sky overhead, and then turned their eyes upon the church, decorated that morning with festoons of green branches and gay flowers, the same as it may have been on other festive occasions a thousand years ago, they may have felt that time has effected almost as little change in the works of man as in those of nature, and that all things in Rome partake of Rome’s eternity.