SACRED EPIGRAPHY AND THE INVOCATION OF THE MARTYRS IN BEHALF OF THE DEAD.
The church is once more in the Catacombs. She has not fled thither from persecution, albeit she is suffering sorely at present; but she has gone down there to live over again the memories of the past. With the lamp of research held aloft, she paces reverently through those dark and tortuous passage-ways where erst she lived in her saints and martyrs. Many a precious relic of her primitive existence is delved out of the accumulated masses of tufa and débris, all more or less showing forth the usages of the early times, and she experiences no small consolation in beholding that what she was then, in all those usages which are founded in dogma, she is now. She has not changed. She is consistent throughout—the beautiful Spouse of Christ, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Every new discovery in those limitless necropolises is a vindication of the maxim of St. Augustine: Ecclesia orat, ergo credit—The church prays, therefore she believes. The chapels, the altars, the rude frescos, the sarcophagi, the very inscriptions on the tombs, bear evidence to the great truth couched in the words of the inspired Doctor of Hippo. To prove, therefore, that the church prays is identical with proving that she believes; and what she believes must be true, else she is no church, not the spouse of Christ, but an unworthy and intruding handmaid. But we are not going to dogmatize. We would only show on archæological authority, that, as the church, in her liturgy, at this day commends the dead and the dying to the intercessory
influence of the saints, so did she in the beginning, when not her dogmas, but her very existence, was called in question; when, had she been a human institution, she must have made a false step, for then there were no critical rationalists or fribbling logicians to take her to task. Sophists there were many, even in those days. But they had good faith enough to acknowledge that, if she were a church at all, she could not err; so they consistently confined themselves to an attack upon her existence.
Among the many important discoveries made of late in the cemetery of St. Domitilla, outside of the gate of St. Sebastian at Rome, by the illustrious Chevalier de Rossi (to whose Bulletin we are indebted for the inscriptions given below), that of the tomb of Veneranda, a Roman matron, is not the least important, since it constitutes a strong link in the chain of archæological evidence on the antiquity of intercessory prayers for the dead. The tomb lies in a chamber which branches off from one of the subterraneous galleries, entered from the apsis of the old basilica. On the wall over the sarcophagus is a fresco in a good state of preservation and of a style anterior to the Byzantine. It represents a matron in the act of praying in the garden of Paradise, which is symbolized by a flower plant springing up at her feet. She is dressed in a loose dalmatic, and veiled like other Christian matrons who are represented as praying in various cemeterial pictures of the third and fourth centuries. There is
none of that stiffness in the style and coloring which indicates the graceless Byzantine school, but such an ease and elegance mark the figure as have induced De Rossi to compare it with that of the “Five Saints” (St. Dionysias and her companions) in the crypt of St. Eusebius in the adjoining catacombs of St. Calixtus. Over the right arm is the inscription, VENERANDA DET. VII. IDVS IANVARIAS. On the left is the figure of a maiden, without any veil, dressed in a long double tunic and pallium. The right hand of the figure is extended as if in the act of welcoming or receiving Veneranda. She points with the left to an open box or casket full of volumes, a symbol of the salutary faith contained in the Holy Scriptures. An open volume is suspended on the wall, and on the pages are the names of the four Evangelists. Beside this figure are the words PETRONELLA MARTyr. Of the title of martyr applied to St. Petronilla we will say a few words presently. On the whole, the style of the fresco, the fashion of the dress, the form of the letters, and the ancient laconism “Petronella Martyr,” without the epithet saint, pronounce the picture to be as ancient as the middle of the fourth century. The purpose of the picture is unmistakable, being in form like many which represent some of the characters in an attitude of prayer, while others are in the act of receiving them into heaven or inviting them to go in as they draw aside the curtains. This picture, however, has the additional worth of declaring explicitly the names of the intercessor and the advocate. The prayers used by the church from time immemorial in behalf of the dying invite the saints and martyrs to come and
meet the departing soul and conduct her to a “place of refreshment, light, and peace.” In the same manner the acclamations which we read in the epitaphs of the early ages call upon the spirits of the blessed to receive the soul of the departed. Here is a beautiful epitaph, discovered in one of the cemeteries of Rome towards the end of the last century:
PAVLOFILIO MERENTI IN PA
cem te svscipian omnivm ispiri
ta sanctorvm.
The acclamation reads: Paulo Filio merenti: in pacem te suscipian(t) omnium ispirita sanctorum—To the worthy son Paul: May the spirits of all the saints receive thee in peace. The strange plural form, ispirita or spirita, need not be wondered at. The Catacombs abound in similar inscriptions. Here are a few of the most noteworthy: Leopardum cum spirita sancta [that is, Cum spiritibus sanctis] acceptum—Leopard received with the blessed spirits. Another inscription, bearing the date 291, reads: Refrigera cum spirita sancta—Grant him refreshment with the blessed spirits. From what has been said a clue may be had to the understanding of many more or less laconic acclamations which the visitor meets with in the Roman Catacombs; such as, CVM SANCTIS—INTER SANCTOS. They are to be taken in the sense explained above, because they allude clearly to the soul of the departed, and not to the body, which is buried close to the tomb of the saint appealed to. The prayers and acclamations of the faithful to the saints in behalf of the dead were not simply the outpourings of tender hearts moved by a pious fancy, but the result of a strong belief, confirmed by the authority of the church speaking in her liturgies.
In an ancient Sacramentary of Gaul we read, in the Mass of a martyr: Tribue (Domine) tuorum intercessione sanctorum martyrum caris nostris, qui in Christo dormiunt, refrigerium in regione vivorum—Grant, O Lord! through the intercession of thy holy martyrs, to our beloved who sleep in Christ, refreshment in the land of the living; and in the Mass of SS. Cornelius and Cyprian: Beatorum martyrum, Cornili [sic] et Cypriani … nos tibi Domine commendet oratio, ut caris nostris, qui in Christo dormiunt, refrigeria æterna concedas—Let the prayer of thy blessed martyrs, Cornelius and Cyprian, commend us to thee, O Lord! that thou grant eternal refreshment to our beloved who sleep in Christ.[90] In an ancient Mass, discovered by More, express mention is made of the times of persecution—a proof that the invocation of the saints for the repose of the faithful departed was an established usage in the very earliest days of the church. Before the reading of the diptychs the priest prayed in these words: Deus, præsta, si quies adridat te colere, si temptatio ingruat, non negare—God, grant that if peace smile upon us, we may continue to worship thee; if temptation assail us, we may not deny thee. Here there is an evident allusion to the intervals of peace which the early Christians enjoyed between different persecutions. After the recitation of the diptychs the priest continued: Sanctorum tuorum nos gloriosa merita, ne in pœna(m) veniamus, excusent; defunctorum fidelium animæ, quæ beatitudinem [sic] gaudent nobis opitulentur; quæ consolatione indigent ecclesiæ precibus absolvantur—May the glorious merits of thy saints excuse us, that we may not be brought to punishment;
may the souls of the faithful departed that enjoy blessedness assist us; may those [souls] that need consolation be pardoned through the prayers of the church. The distinction in this prayer between the commemoration of the living, of the blessed, and of those souls that have need of the prayers of the church could not be more evident.
The faith of the early Christians in the efficacy of the prayers of the martyrs especially, was the reason why they had such a strong desire, and regarded it as a great privilege, to be buried near the tombs of the martyrs. St. Gregory Nazianzen, in his funeral epigrams, makes frequent allusions to proximity with the tombs of the martyrs, and takes occasion thence to apostrophize them in behalf of the dead. In an epigram which he wrote on the death of his mother, Nonna, whose body was laid close to the martyrs, he says: “Receive, O martyrs! this great victim, this mortified flesh, joined to your blood.” The words “joined to your blood” have a spiritual signification. By her life of mortification and sacrifice she had assimilated herself to the martyrs; but they have also a literal meaning, and allude to the material contiguity of her tomb with that of the martyrs; for he premises with the words, “Her body we have placed near the martyrs.” The idea that the blood of the martyrs penetrated into the neighboring tombs, and its spiritual signification, that the merits of their sufferings, and their intercession, invoked by the living, would be salutary to the dead, are beautifully shown forth in the epigram of St. Ambrose on the tomb of his brother Satirus, who was buried in Milan, side by side with the martyr St. Victor:
“Hæc meriti merces ut sacri sanguinis humor
Finitimas penetrans abluat exuvias.”[91]
This distich was quoted by the Irish monk Dungal, in the eighth century, as a powerful argument in favor of intercessory prayer, against Claudius of Turin, who was opposed to the invocation of the saints in behalf of the dead. The same thought is expressed in the touching verses of Paulinus of Nola, wherein he narrates the sepulture of his little child near the last resting-place of the martyrs. And as the little innocent (he died at the age of eight days) had no short-comings of his own to atone for, the father beseeches him, and his cousin Celsus, who died at the age of eight years, that the intercession of the martyrs, near whose holy remains they slept, might be turned to the benefit of their parents.
“Innocuisque pares meritis, peccata parentum
Infantes castis vincite suffragiis.”[92]
This was in the time of St. Augustine. We find him interrogated by the same Paulinus, who had granted permission to a widow to bury her son, Cynesius, near the tomb of St. Felix of Nola: Utrum prosit cuique post mortem quod corpus ejus apud sancti alicujus memoriam sepeliatur—Whether it might benefit one after death to have his body buried near the tomb of some saint. The answer was St. Augustine’s celebrated work entitled De cura pro mortuis. The ultimate conclusion of the book is this: that being buried in proximity to the tomb of the martyrs is beneficial to the dead in this much only: that the remembrance of the place invites the living to commend them to the intercession of the martyrs
whose holy remains repose near by. It is in this sense that we must understand Maximus of Turin when he writes: Fratres, veneremur eos [martyres] in sæculo, quos defensores habere possumus in futuro; et sicut eis ossibus parentum nostrorum jungimur, ita et eis fidei imitatione jungamur; … sociemur illis tam religione quam corpore—Brethren, let us venerate them [the martyrs] in this life, that we may have them as our defenders in the next; and as we are united with them through the bones of our parents, so also let us be joined to them by imitating their faith; let us be associated with them in religion as well as in the body. Nor did the archdeacon Sabinus depart from the spirit of the church and the old fathers when he censured the indiscreet desire and the material devotion of many of the faithful, in wishing to be buried near the tombs of the martyrs. He himself chose the last place, near the door, in the Church of St. Lawrence outside the walls of Rome, and on his tomb is the following inscription, written at his own dictation:
“Nil juvat, immo gravat, tumulis hærere piorum;
Sanctorum meritis optima vita prope est.
Corpore non opus est, anima tendamus ad illos,
Quæ bene salva potest corporis esse salus.”[93]
In the first part of the epitaph he alludes to the difficulty of finding a place vacant near the tombs of the martyrs, and in the end he writes that the efficacy is not in being joined to them in body, but in the soul, which, being saved, will ensure the salvation of the body. Maximus, whose words we cited above, and who was bishop of Turin after the year 412, insinuates the same when he says: Et sic ut eis ossibus parentum
nostrorum jungimur. Hence we conclude that the usage of burying the dead near the bodies of the martyrs was regarded as an ancient tradition even in the fifth century. It is not the fact of the material burying-place to which we would invite the reader’s attention, but to the spirit of faith in the efficacy of the martyrs’ intercession. The chamber which contains the tomb of Veneranda is filled with loculi, most of which date back as far as the year 356. A Roman epitaph of the year 382 testifies that even at that date they were very few who obtained the privilege of being buried intra limina sanctorum—within the threshold of the saints. The privilege was only granted to those whose merits during life had been eminent, and who had signalized themselves in the service of God, and especially in their charity towards the poor. Thus we read of a Roman by the name of Verus, qui post mortem meruit in Petri limina sancta jacere—who after his death merited that he should repose within the sacred threshold of Peter. We are far, however, from asserting that the formula sociatus sanctis always alludes to the proximity of a martyr’s tomb. Very often the formula refers to the soul, which is already supposed to be in Paradise. Here is a fragment of a beautiful epitaph found in the cemetery of St. Commodilla:
BIVS INFANS PER AETATEM SENE PECCA EDENS AD SANCTORVM LOCVM IN PA ESCVT
The ingenious De Rossi makes of this fragment the following inscription: (Euse)bius infans per ætatem sene (sine) pecca(to) (acc)edens ad sanctorum locum in pa(ce) (qui)escit—The infant Eusebius, going to the place [abode] of the saints without sin, because of his age, rests in peace.
To remove all doubt regarding the spirit which prompted the early Christians to desire burial near the tombs of the martyrs, we will cite a passage from one of the homilies of Maximus, Bishop of Turin: “Therefore the martyrs are to be honored most devoutly; but we must venerate those especially whose relics we possess. With these we have familiarity; … they receive us when we go out from this body.” This special devotion of familiarity with the martyrs, whose relics the faithful possessed, as it inspired the pious trust that the spirits of the martyrs would welcome them into the realms of bliss, so did it induce the faithful living to invoke the intercession of the martyrs for those who were already gone from this life. But we have yet some of the most beautiful epigraphs to cite—those touching, deprecatory appeals to the saint or martyr by name, near whose tomb the remains of the departed are placed: SANCTE LAVRENTI, SVSCEPA(m) (h)ABETO ANIMA(m) (ejus)[94]—St. Lawrence, receive his soul!
In the cemetery of St. Hippolytus Bosius read the following: REFRIGERI TIBI DOMNVS IPOLITVS refriger(et) tibi dom(i)nus Hippolytus—May the lord Hippolytus refresh
thee. Here is an invocation, in a fragmentary state, of St. Basilla: SERENVS FLENS DEPRECOR
IPSE deum…ET BEATA(m) BASILLA(m) VT VOBIS PRO M(eritis). Another appeal to St. Basilla may be seen in an epigraph now exposed in the Lateran museum. It is that of a bereaved father and mother who commend their departed daughter to the protection of the saint: Domina Basilla, commandamus tibi Crescentinus et Micina Filia(m) nostra(m) Crescen(tiam)—St. Basilla, we, Crescentius and Micina, recommend our daughter Crescentia to thee. Side by side with this is the epitaph of Aurelius Gemelli, a child of four years of age. It was written by his mother, of whose tender affection a more moving expression cannot be found than those four words: Commando Basilla Innocentia(m) Gemelli—Basilla, I recommend [to thee] Innocence Gemelli. She calls him not only innocent, but innocence itself. Since we have mentioned the above as a specimen of the tender affection of the Romans for their dead, and how they gave expression to it in their epitaphs, it may not be out of place to mention another, to be seen to-day in the hypogeum of the Church of St. Praxedes. It is in this form: Sancti Petre, Marcelline, suscipite vostrum alumnum!—Sts. Peter and Marcellinus, receive your pupil. The Chevalier de Rossi is of the opinion that this inscription belongs to the cemetery of St. Helen, on the Labican Way. As a sort of counterpart to it he gives another, of the same tenderness of tone, which he read in Carpentras: MARTER BAVDELI S PER PASSIONIS DIE DNO DVLCEM SVVM COMMENDAT ALMVNVM—Martyr Baudelius per passionis [suæ] die(m) Domino dulcem suum commendat alumnum—The martyr Baudelius, through the day of his passion, commends
his sweet pupil to the Lord. Hence we may conclude with the illustrious archæologist, whose erudition has borne us out so far, that the custom of burying the dead near the tombs of the martyrs, and of asking, as it were, their local protection for the dead, was universal in the first five or six centuries. He cites the only exception to this usage that has come within his extensive observation. It is a Greek epitaph, in which the three divine Persons, the archangels Michael and Gabriel, the prophets Jeremias and Henoch, the Blessed Virgin, and, finally, the sibyl are besought in behalf of the departed.
Thus far we have appealed almost exclusively to the testimony afforded us by inscriptions discovered in the Roman Catacombs. In conclusion we would transcribe entire two epitaphs which, though not Roman, are of the greatest importance in the matter we have been treating. One is the epitaph on the tomb of Cynesius, in the Church of St. Felix of Nola, the same of whom Paulinus wrote to St. Augustine, asking “whether it were efficacious to bury the dead near the tomb of the martyrs.” The inscription was probably dictated by Paulinus himself. We give it with the restorations:
ilium nuNC FELICIS HABET DOMVS ALMA BEATI
atque ita per loNGOS SVSCEPTVM POSSIDET ANNOS
patronus plACITO LAETATVR IN HOSPITE FELIX
sic protectVS ERIT IVVENIS SVB IVDICE CHRISTO
cum tuba terriBILIS SONITV CONCVSSERIT ORBEM
excitæque aniMAE RVRSVM IN SVA VASA REDIBVNT
Felici merito HIC SOCIABITVR ANTE TRIRVNAL[95]
Here there is a thought expressed rarely to be met with in sacred epigraphy—that the martyr Felix will, on the day of general resurrection, accompany his “guest” before the tribunal of the Great Judge, and that “the youth shall be protected before the judge, Christ.” As a general rule the patronage of the martyrs is invoked for the souls of the faithful departed as they are now. We will give another epigraph in conclusion which confirms the conception we have just been speaking of. It is read upon the tombstone of a priest in Vercelli, by name Sarmata. It is metrical, and the illustrious Father Bruzzi is inclined to attribute its authorship to St. Flavian, the poet, who was bishop of Vercelli about the end of the fifth century. This is the Flavian who was styled by his contemporaries the “Damasus of Liguria.” Sarmata was buried in the loculi between the martyrs Nazarius and Victor. The chronicles speak of this privilege in the following terms: Sedes proxima sanctis martyribus concessa est ad mercedem meritis—The nearest place to the martyrs was given as a reward of his merits. Here is the epitaph:
NAZARIVS NAMQVE PARITER VICTORQVE BEATI
LATERIBVS TVTVM REDDVNT MERITISQ CORONANT
O FELIX GEMINO MERVIT QVI MARTYRE DVCI
AD DOMINVM MELIORE VIA REQVIEMQVE MERERI.[96]
Nazarius and Victor are here spoken of as the ushers of Sarmata into the presence of the Lord—ad Dominum—and to eternal rest. In the same manner St. Petronilla is
represented, in the fresco of which we spoke in the beginning, as introducing the matron Veneranda into Paradise. The epigraphical, liturgical, and patristic testimonies hitherto quoted place in a clear and unmistakable light the deep religious significance and the topographical worth of the representation on the tomb of Veneranda. St. Petronilla, the patroness of the departed, and whose holy ashes reposed not far distant, familiarly (the expression of Maximus of Turin) receives her into heaven, and the painter gave expression to the holy trust of her relatives that St. Petronilla would intercede for her, while the picture itself would invite them to pray more fervently to the saint whose holy “memories” (St. Augustine) were near at hand.
Now that the signification of the picture has been fairly determined, it may not be an unfitting conclusion to our paper to inquire into the accuracy of the title of martyr applied to St. Petronilla in this fresco. In the first place, it is certain that no other saint or martyr is alluded to but the veritable St. Petronilla whose remains reposed in the hypogeum of the basilica of SS. Nereus and Achilleus. Still, it is also certain from the Acts of the two martyrs, in which mention is made of St. Petronilla, that she was not a martyr in any sense whatever. The martyrology of Ado speaks of her thus: “When Flaccus, a knight, desired to be united with her in marriage, she asked for a delay of three days, and, together with her foster-sister, Felicula, giving herself up to continual fasting and prayer, and the divine Mysteries being celebrated on the third day, as soon as she had received the Sacrament of Christ she lay down upon her bed and gave up the
ghost.” In other codices of her life the opening chapter is entitled, De obitu Petronillæ et passione Feliculæ—On the death of Petronilla and the martyrdom of Felicula. Hence there is a formal contradiction between her Acts and this fresco. Without entering into a critical examination of the authenticity of the Acts of Nereus and Achilleus—which, by the way, receive new confirmation from every fresh discovery in the cemetery—we will merely say that, were they apocryphal, the supposition would be that they would rather magnify her glory, by giving her the title of martyr, than diminish it. Setting aside the inscription, the appearance of the picture confirms her Acts. She is said to have been a virgin of extraordinary beauty, and that she belonged to a noble family. The picture coincides perfectly with this belief; for she is represented as being beautiful; she wears her hair in plaited tresses, wound into a knot on the top of the head, according to the custom of virgins in those days; while the make of her dress proclaims her as belonging to noble rank. For the rest, there is not a single authentic document which gives her the title of martyr, but all speak of her as Sancta Petronilla, or simply Virgo Petronilla. Hence there is no reason in the world why we should give credence to the inscription of the painter. The title of martyr accorded to her by him does not become an inexplicable mystery to us when we recall to mind the many and obvious examples of the title of martyr being given, especially by private individuals, without due regard for historical facts. For instance, St. Pudentiana, St. Cyriaca, and others have been styled martyrs, when we have positive evidence that they
were not. Thus popes who lived after the persecutions—Mark, Julius, and Damasus—are called martyrs. Nay, Petronilla herself is named martyr in the Liber Pontificalis, at the life of Leo III. (816), when the history of her life, as given by Ado, was universally accepted. However, if we recall to mind what has already been said on the special confidence of the primitive Christians in the intercession of the martyrs for the dead; if we reflect that they were regarded as the principal citizens in the kingdom of God, to whom the heavens were opened, as St. Stephen said (martyribus patent cœli), and hence that to them was attributed, equally with the angels, the office of introducing departed souls into the divine Presence, it is easy to understand why the artist, in portraying Petronilla as receiving Veneranda into Paradise, either believed her a martyr or deliberately wished to make her equal to one. Pictoribus atque poetis æqua est licentia.
But in this matter we must not observe the material form as it is presented to us, accurately or inaccurately as the case may be. That is merely relative and secondary. It is the spirit of the work which we must contemplate—that great faith in the intercessory prayers of those who had fought the good fight, and whose happiness was complete in the Beatific Vision. Some of the epigraphs may be very inaccurate, even exaggerated; yet they bear, in their way, testimony to a sublime dogma of the church—the communion of saints, not only for the good of the living, but for the happy repose of the dead. In fine, they are the embodiment of the loving counsel: “It is a holy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins.”
[90] Mabillon, Liturgia Gallicana vetus, pp. 278, 289.
[91] Such the reward of his merit that his sacred blood should penetrate and lave [spiritually] adjacent remains.
[92] And being alike in the merits of innocence, children, cover the sins of your parents by your pure Intercession.
[93] It availeth nothing, nay it oppresseth rather, to lie near the tombs of the blessed. The best life approacheth the merits of the saints. In body it is not necessary; let us cleave to them in soul, which, being saved, can be the salvation of the body.
[94] The inscription is one carried from Rome to the museum in Naples.
[95] The holy house of Blessed Felix now holds him, and so possesses him for long years. Felix his patron is glad in his happy guest; thus when the awful trumpet shall shake the world with its sound, and resuscitated souls shall return to their bodies, the youth shall be protected before Christ, the Judge; he will stand near Felix before the tribunal.
[96] For Blessed Nazarius and Victor alike protect him at their side and crown him with merits. Oh! happy he who was worthy to be led to the Lord through a happier path by the two martyrs, and to obtain repose.