[14]. See “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”
[15]. “Argumentosa”—that which is proven.
[16]. This hypothesis appears to me more reasonable than the one usually put forward, viz: That Cecilia’s inscription was destroyed by the Goths. They destroyed many such inscriptions, with the tombs that bore them, but the resting-place of St. Cecilia when discovered showed no marks of violence and answered precisely to the contemporary description of it.
[17]. It is amusing to note in this connection the statement in Baedeker’s guidebook for Rome, p. 422: “St. Cecilia in Trastevere—originally a dwelling house, which was converted into a Church by Urban I., who was misled by the erroneous tradition that St. Cecilia had once occupied it.” The italics are my own. Such ignorance of history requires no comment.
[18]. The coffin is four feet, three inches long, thirteen inches broad, and seventeen inches high.
[19]. Augustus Hare.
[20]. Every Cardinal takes his title from one or other of the ancient Churches—hence the term “Titular Cardinal of St. Cecilia,” “of St. Clement,” etc., etc.
[21]. The Acts of St. Cecilia have always been considered among the most absolutely authentic of those preserved by the Church, and every circumstance connected with the finding of her body, both by Paschal and Sfondrato, bears them out. Tillesnaut, the lying Jansenist historian so dear to heretic students, and who seems to have had a particularly malevolent hatred for St. Cecilia, has made a ludicrous attempt to prove—if such arguments could be called by that name—that St. Cecilia was not a Roman, and as we know her never existed. He supports this amazing theory on one line many times re-copied by ignorant scribes, of the poet Fortunatus, who speaks of “St. Cecilia” as having suffered in “Sicilia.” The Church knows of no Sicilian martyr of that name, but there was one in Sardinia, a name which one of Fortunatus’ copyists apparently mistook for “Sicilia.”
[22]. Galerius, on his deathbed, by the so-called “Edict of Sardis,” disavowed his errors and proclaimed liberty for the Christians, but the war against them was still carried on both by the usurping Emperors who were Constantine’s rivals, and by the hatred of the still powerful pagan Governors.
[23]. These words are always quoted in Latin and so I transcribe them, but in reality they appeared in the Greek tongue.