Then the brightness faded from her face; she became confused, and said in distress, that she had slept, and that the sacred fire was extinguished. Then, with a cry, “The Light! The Light can never be put out.” She extended her arms as if to greet one who was coming towards her, and said:—
“I see Him—He is the true Light, Jesus the Lord!”
And so her spirit departed, and Hyacintha Severa entered into the full shining of the true Light which lighteth every man who cometh into this sad and weary world.
In the sacred Pomœrium, the space marked out by religious rites along the line of the old wall—the ashes of Hyacintha Severa were laid.
The High Priest and Council, touched by her loss, refused to acknowledge publicly that she was a Christian. Loved and honoured in her life by many without, as well as by many within the walls of the Vestals’ House, the old High Priest silenced the accusers, and carried the point that the late Vestal Maxima should be honoured in her death, as she had been loved in her life.
For the old priest knew that the old faith was vanishing away; knew that the Christians were multiplying daily; knew that even in that community the seed had been sown, which might bring forth fruit, and that Hyacintha would not be the only Christian amongst their numbers.
This was no time for suppression by violence or by force; the supporters of the old faith made the lives of the Vestals more and more luxurious, increased their privileges, and the last thirty or forty years of their existence were to all outward seeming their best years.
But the faith in the goddess Vesta and the sacred fire which her priestesses were vowed to keep a pure and inextinguishable flame, was even now rotten at its heart. What had once been received with childlike earnestness and simplicity of belief, was now but a hollow profession, and the old faith was dying.
Cœlia Concordia held the supreme office of Vestal Maxima for many years. She was a woman of keen intellect, and a great friend, we are told, of the famous champion of Polytheism, Vettius Agorius Prætextatus. Her statue was set up in the house of that nobleman, and he received the unwonted honour of having his raised in the Vestals’ atrium.