Fabiola; Or, The Church of the Catacombs

by Nicholas Patrick Wiseman

The various assemblies had broken up before the discovery of the violated edict. But they may rather be said to have adjourned to the cemeteries. The frequent meetings of Torquatus with his two heathen confederates in the baths of Caracalla had been narrowly watched by the capsarius and his wife, as we have already remarked; and Victoria had overheard the plot to make an inroad into the cemetery of Callistus on the day after publication. The Christians, therefore, considered themselves safer the first day, and took advantage of the circumstance to inaugurate, by solemn offices, the churches of the catacombs, which, after some years’ disuse, had been put into good repair and order by the fossores, had been in some places repainted, and furnished with all requisites for divine worship.

But Corvinus, after getting over his first dismay, and having as speedily as possible another, though not so grand, a copy of the edict affixed, began better to see the dismal probabilities of serious consequences from the wrath of his imperial master. The Dacian was right: he would have to answer for the loss. He felt it necessary to do something that very day, which might wipe off the disgrace he had incurred, before again meeting the emperor’s look. He determined to anticipate the attack on the cemetery, intended for the following day.

He repaired, therefore, while it was still early, to the baths, where Fulvius, ever jealously watchful over Torquatus, kept him in expectation of Corvinus’s coming to hold council with them. The worthy trio concerted their plans. Corvinus, guided by the reluctant apostate, at the head of a chosen band of soldiers who were at his disposal, had to make an incursion into the cemetery of Callistus, and drive, or drag, thence the clergy and principal Christians; while Fulvius, remaining outside with another company, would intercept them and cut off all retreat, securing the most important prizes, and especially the Pontiff and superior clergy, whom his visit to the ordination would enable him to recognize. This was his plan. “Let fools,” he said to himself, “act the part of ferrets in the warren; I will be the sportsman outside.”

In the meantime Victoria overheard sufficient to make her very busy dusting and cleaning, in the retired room where they were consulting, without appearing to listen. She told all to Cucumio; and he, after much scratching of his head, hit upon a notable plan for conveying the discovered information to the proper quarter.

Sebastian, after his early attendance on divine worship, unable, from his duties at the palace to do more, had proceeded, according to almost universal custom, to the baths, to invigorate his limbs by their healthy refreshment, and also to remove from himself the suspicion, which his absence on that morning might have excited. While he was thus engaged, the old capsararius, as he had had himself rattlingly called in his ante-posthumous inscription, wrote on a slip of parchment all that his wife had heard about the intention of an immediate assault, and of getting possession of the holy Pontiff’s person. This he fastened with a pin or needle to the inside of Sebastian’s tunic, of which he had charge, as he durst not speak to him in the presence of others.

The officer, after his bath, went into the hall where the events of the morning were being discussed, and where Fulvius was waiting, till Corvinus should tell him that all was ready. Upon going out, disgusted, he felt himself, as he walked, pricked by something on his chest: he examined his garments, and found the paper. It was written in about as elegant a latinity as Cucumio’s epitaph, but he made it out sufficiently to consider it necessary for him to turn his steps towards the Via Appia, instead of the Palatine, and convey the important information to the Christians assembled in the cemetery.

Having, however, found a fleeter and surer messenger than himself, in the poor blind girl, who would not attract the same attention, he stopped her, gave her the note, after adding a few words to it, with the pen and ink which he carried, and bade her bear it, as speedily as possible, to its destination. But, in fact, he had hardly left the baths, when Fulvius received information that Corvinus and his troop were by that time hastening across the fields, so as to avoid suspicion, towards the appointed spot. He mounted his horse immediately, and went along the high-road; while the Christian soldier, in a by-way, was instructing his blind messenger.

When we accompanied Diogenes and his party through the catacombs, we stopped short of the subterranean church, because Severus would not let it be betrayed to Torquatus. In this the Christian congregation was now assembled, under its chief pastor. It was constructed on the principle common to all such excavations, for we can hardly call them edifices.

The reader may imagine two of the cubicula or chambers, which we have before described, placed one on each side of a gallery or passage, so that their doors, or rather wide entrances, are opposite one another. At the end of one will be found an arcosolium or altar-tomb: and the probable conjecture is, that in this division the men, under charge of the ostiarii,[148] and in the other the women, under the care of the deaconesses, were assembled. This division of the sexes at divine worship was a matter of jealous discipline in the early Church.