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.