The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

In the Philocalian or Liberian Calendar, A.D. circa 334, an entry appears under the heading of “Depositio Martyrum,” telling how two more of the seven martyred sons of Felicitas were buried in the Cemetery of S. Priscilla, namely, SS. Felix and Philip.

After the Peace of the Church, the basilica subsequently known as S. Sylvester was erected over a portion of the great Priscilla Cemetery, and many of the bodies of the more famous martyrs were brought up from the subterranean galleries and chambers and buried in conspicuous places in the new Basilica of S. Sylvester; amongst these were the remains of the two sons of Felicitas, SS. Felix and Philip. This is carefully described in the Pilgrim Itineraries or Guides. These two well-known martyrs were deposited under the high altar of S. Sylvester. In the second Salzburg Itinerary, known as “De locis SS. Martyrum,” they are thus specially mentioned: “S. Felicis [sic] unus de septem et S. Philippus unus de septem,” and in William of Malmesbury, copying from a much older Itinerary, we read, “Basilica S. Silvester ubi jacet marmoreo tumulo co-opertus ... Martyres ... Philippus et Felix.” Marucchi thinks he can point out the tomb in the subterranean crypt where the two originally were laid.

The three remaining sons of Felicitas, namely, SS. Alexander, Vitalis, and Martialis, were interred in the cemetery of the Jordani on the Via Salaria Nova. This cemetery, owing to its state of ruin and the difficulty of pursuing the excavating work, has only been very partially explored; but Marucchi believes he has found a broken inscription referring to “Alexander, one of the seven brothers.” It is probable that other traces of the loculi of these three will come to light when this large but comparatively little known catacomb, which is in a very ruinous and desolate condition, is carefully examined: at present large portions of it are quite inaccessible.

The second Salzburg Itinerary “De locis SS. Martyrum” specially guides the pilgrim to tombs of these three thus: “propeque ibi” (alluding to the Basilica of S. Chrysanthus and Daria built over a portion of the Cœmeterium Jordani) “S. Alexander et S. Vitalis, sanctusque Martialis qui sunt tres de septem filiis Felicitatis ... jacent.” William of Malmesbury in his transcript of an ancient Itinerary also mentions them, as do other of the Pilgrim Guides.

In the celebrated “Monza” Catalogue and in the “Pittacia,” or small labels, belonging to the phials which contained a little of the sacred oils which were burnt before the tombs of the more eminent confessors and martyrs (the phials of oils which were sent by Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 590–604) to Theodelinda the Lombard Queen), the names of Felicitas and six of her martyred sons occur.

In the “Pittacia” or labels they are grouped topographically together, as we have given them above, Felicitas’ being in a separate label, Januarius also in a separate label, then the two groups together as above, the “two” and the “three.” There is a reason for S. Silanus, who was buried with his mother in the cemetery named after her, being absent from this “Monza” Catalogue, and from the labels on the phials of oil. His body, as the “Liberian” Catalogue informs us, was missing for a season from its original loculus, it having been stolen away, but was subsequently recovered and replaced.

The suspicion of the legendary character of the story of the martyrdom of S. Felicitas and her seven sons is largely traceable to the conclusions of some critical scholars (by no means of all) that the “Acts of S. Felicitas” and her sons are not authentic, that is, that they are not a contemporary piece, but were compiled at a somewhat later and uncertain date. It is, however, by the most trustworthy of these critics conceded that they are very ancient.

But granting these conclusions are accurate and that the “Acts,” in the strict sense of the word, are not authentic, the circumstances of the Passion and the martyrdom of the mother and her heroic sons rest on other authorities outside and quite independent of the “Acts”—authorities of the highest value and absolutely unquestioned.

Of these the testimony of the catacomb tombs of the mother and her seven sons, a somewhat novel witness, is the one we have especially brought forward here.

It is an evidence unchangeable, and which admits of no subsequent revision or addition. In its special department it is perhaps the strongest piece of testimony that can be brought forward, and much of this strange unexpected witness was unknown until quite lately—until these forgotten cemeteries were partially explored by competent and indefatigable scholars of our own day and time.