Italian Yesterdays, vol. 1

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

... “This tribute of death, Levi knew it not; this dower of blood, Jehovah demanded it not of Aaron; men die not for a slave—and the Synagogue was not the Spouse.”[8]

The Vatican crypt which received the body of St. Peter immediately after his martyrdom, was excavated under a temple of Apollo, the deity supposed to preside over public games, near the old circus of Nero. By the year 89 or 90 A.D., when St. Peter’s fourth successor, St. Anacletus, became Pontiff, during the reign of the Emperor Domitian, one is led to suppose that this temple was more or less forsaken as a place of pagan worship, since Anacletus was able to “build,” as the phrase runs, a tiny oratory, just large enough for two or three persons to kneel in, around the tomb of St. Peter. Here again, apparent accident served the ultimate designs of Providence in regard to this fore-hallowed site. The Christians desired greatly to deposit the Apostle’s remains in the deep and secret excavations, already crowded with the bodies of martyrs, near the fourth milestone on the Appian Way, the vaults which had more than once afforded refuge to the persecuted brethren and to the Apostle himself. But with the persecution that was raging at the moment of his death, it would have been impossible to transport the body without attracting notice, so the nearest spot was chosen, regardless of the fact that it was in the close neighbourhood of a number of pagan tombs. As we shall see later, this humble resting-place was threatened with desecration in its turn, and was emptied of its treasure for many years in favour of the more distant cemetery.

The martyrdom of St. Peter attracted little notice except from the poor Christians who gathered round his hard deathbed, to weep and pray and receive his last blessing; that of St. Paul, the Roman citizen, was a much more public and popular affair. The intrepid band of disciples who followed him to the chosen spot on the Ostian Way, not far from the other (but divided by the slopes of the Janiculum), risked death more certainly in doing so, and some of them doubtless paid its penalty.

Before reaching the place of execution, St. Paul saw, weeping bitterly by the roadside, the holy matron Plautilla, one of his converts, who had hastened thither to bid him farewell and ask for his last blessing. As our Lord, on the way to Calvary, paused to speak to the daughters of Jerusalem, so St. Paul stayed his steps to console this faithful woman. He asked her to give him her veil, that he might cover his eyes with it when he was beheaded, and he promised that he would return it to her after his death. Plautilla, feeling scarcely worthy of such an honour, yet rejoiced to be able to serve him, eagerly placed her veil in his hands, while his jailers mocked at the Apostle’s promise. But her faith and love were rewarded, and she beheld the beloved Pastor again with her bodily eyes, when, after his martyrdom, he appeared to her and restored the veil, all stained with his blood.

At the spot called then “ad Acquas Salvias,” St. Paul was tied to a pillar, and the executioner’s sword severed his head from his body. The head, in falling, bounded away, touching the ground three times in all, and, at each point where it touched, a spring of clear water instantly burst forth and is still flowing. The first was warm as life-blood, the second tepid, and the third, icy cold. A Frenchwoman has written of this miracle as only a Frenchwoman could: “At the first touch, the soul has but just escaped from the body—that glorious head is yet full of life! At the second, the shadow of death is already cast over those wonderful features; at the third, the eternal sleep has overtaken them, and, though still radiant in beauty, they announce that the lips will never open again in this world, and that the eagle glance is veiled forever.”

The show is over, the Emperor is borne away by his slaves and sycophants, sulky, perhaps, at not having seen more blood or greater wonders. But the destruction of Simon Magus and the alienation of his favourites is avenged. That is something to take back with him to the night’s debauch on the Palatine. The vulgar crowd has followed him, and as the quick Italian night comes down, and the mists roll along the river, while the evening star hangs white in the low crimson of the West, the mourners gather up the sacred body and the haloed head, and hasten, as in St. Peter’s case, to bury the martyr close by, in a bit of land owned by the noble matron Lucina, who, years later, built on it a splendid tomb for his earthly resting-place.

CHAPTER IV ROMAN YESTERDAYS

The Gods of the Roman World—Leaven of Christianity—Measures of the Emperors Against the Christians—Nine General Persecutions—Mad Extremes of Heliogabalus—Rescue of the Bodies of the Apostles—Tragic History of the Appian Way—The Joys of Solitude—How Marion Crawford Became the Master of San Niccola—A Solitude of Relaxation and Quiet—A Secluded Garden on the River in Rome—The Contrasts of Life and the Happiness in Hoping—An Artist’s Festival—How a Roman Emperor Looked.

Few things in the records of the past are stranger than the variations of attitude of the Roman Emperors (barring some hæmatomaniacs like Nero) towards Christianity during the first three or four centuries of our era, quite apart from the moral attributes of the Emperors themselves. One feels, through the edicts, the bored irritation of the rulers at having to trouble themselves at all about a few low-born individuals led away, as was believed, by a crazy illusion about another world, a life after this one, which they promised to all who would renounce the real pleasures—those considered as such by the great ones of the day and their followers—pride and power, riches, ambition, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. “Surely,” one seems to hear authority exclaim, “human nature may be trusted to fight for its own, against such fanatics! We have had our Stoics and their disciples, and no one had to legislate against them. All they claimed was the right to despise ease and pleasure, and to find their reward in the admiration or notoriety that they gained in the process. Their very uncomfortable doctrines were never the cause of great social upheavals! What is behind this new teaching that men should be so excited about it?”

Then little by little there creeps in the sign of an unexplained fear, the sense of being confronted by a new mysterious power, great enough to be menacing to the old order of things, which, after all, had served well and should not be interfered with unnecessarily. Few of the upper classes, except in times of great trouble, really relied much on the protection of Rome’s inherited gods, but all felt that their worship was a powerful weapon wherewith to control or drive the great mass of the people. The common herd clung tenaciously to the belief that prosperity followed on faithfulness to the old deities, and misfortune on any affront offered them. These tiresome Christians went out of their way to show their scorn of the very mixed crowd of gods and goddesses whom Rome had enshrined on her altars, and it was imprudent to seem to pass over such offences against the public taste. One ruler tries to suppress the Christians with a high hand; another suggests a compromise—he is willing to place the statue of Christ in the Capitol if they will show equal respect for the earlier residents there. No? Oh, well, let them be exterminated, then, since they are so bent on destruction! The edicts are issued and fiercely followed up, till even the persecutors weary of the diversion and stop as if for want of breath. But the edicts are not repealed, and they lie there at the disposal of bloody-minded governors or covetous informers, who desire to annex some Christian’s estates or to possess themselves of beautiful Christian maids. Nine official general persecutions we count in all, spread over some three hundred years, but it must not be thought that the Church had peace, except occasionally for very short intervals, between. The reigning Emperor might be a monster like Nero or Domitian, or a gentle-minded tolerant man like Alexander Severus, the streams of blood were made to flow with awful continuity just the same, owing to the enormous power placed in the hands of his deputies, the governors of the cities and provinces that made up the unwieldy Empire.