Her parents received the body, and carried it to the cemetery they had in their vineyard on the Nomentian Way, and there laid it in a loculus, a recess cut in the side of one of the passages underground. It was probably just under one of the luminaria, or openings to the upper air, which allowed light to enter the Catacombs; for here, two days later, Emerentiana, a catechumen, the foster-sister of Agnes, was found kneeling by her grave; and the pagan rabble, peering in and seeing her, pelted her with stones, stunned, and then buried her under the earth and sand they threw in.
Constantine the Great built the church over the tomb, removing the upper crust; but it was rebuilt by Honorius I., between 625 and 638. It was altered in 1490 by Innocent VIII.; but retains more of the ancient character than most of the Roman churches.
The day on which Agnes suffered was January 21st. The memory of her has never faded from the Church. It is said that her parents dreamed, seven days after her death, that they saw her in light, surrounded by a Virgin band, and with a white lamb at her side. In commemoration of this dream—which not improbably did take place—the Roman Church observes in her honour the 28th of January as well as the actual day of her death.
So ancient is the cult of S. Agnes, that, next to the Evangelists and Apostles, no saint’s effigy is older. It appears on the ancient glass vessels used by the Christians in the early part of the century in which she died, with her name inscribed, which leaves no doubt as to her identity.
Mrs. Jameson says of the Church of S. Agnese, in Rome: “Often have I seen the steps of this church, and the church itself, so crowded with kneeling worshippers at Matins and Vespers, that I could not make my way among them; principally the women of the lower orders, with their distaffs and market baskets, who had come thither to pray, through the intercession of the patron saint, for the gifts of meekness and chastity.”
In the corrupted Acts, it is told that Agnes was set on a pyre to be burned to death, but that the fire was miraculously extinguished. This is purely apocryphal. It originates in a passage by S. Ambrose, in which he speaks of her hands having been stretched over the fire on a pagan altar, to force her to do sacrifice. This has been magnified into an immense pyre.
“At this age,” said he, “a young girl trembles at an angry look from her mother; the prick of a needle draws tears. Yet, fearless under the bloody hands of her executioners, Agnes is immovable under the heavy chains which weigh her down; ignorant of death, but ready to die, she presents her body to the edge of the sword. Dragged against her will to the altar, she holds forth her arms to Christ through the fires of the sacrifice; and her hand forms, even in those flames, the sign which is the trophy of a victorious Saviour. She presents her neck and her two hands to the fetters which they produce for her; but it is impossible to find any small enough to encircle her delicate limbs.”
FEBRONIA OF SIBAPTE.