Virgin Saints and Martyrs

by S. Baring-Gould

But a still more remarkable monument is one quite recently disinterred. It is the house of the martyrs John and Paul, which has existed for centuries buried under the foundations of the great church that bears their names on the Cœlian Hill, a church erected by the one English Pope, Nicolas Breakespeare, in 1158. The discovery of the house is itself a romance. What is known of its early history is this: Julian the Apostate died in 363. The death of John and Paul had taken place in 362. Julian was followed by Jovian, who died in 364, and was succeeded by Valentinian.

Now, directly Julian was no more, Byzantius, a senator and a Christian, interested himself in the matter. The recent martyrdom was in all mouths, and it was known that the bodies lay in the cellar of the house. Byzantius had the bodies lifted and placed in a white alabaster or marble box, and converted the upper storey of the house into an oratory.

The son of Byzantius was Pammachius, the friend and correspondent of S. Jerome. He did something also. He erected a handsome church over the tomb of the saints, and this was completed in 410, forty-eight years after their martyrdom.

There had, however, been no break in the tradition, for Byzantius had made his oratory only two or three years later than their martyrdom.

The basilica erected by Pammachius consisted of an oblong nave, with side aisles and an apse to the west. To the east end was a quadrangle, surrounded by a cloister, and with a water-tank in the middle. By means of a flight of steps visitors were enabled to descend to the “Confession,” or place whence they could look down on the alabaster box containing the relics of the martyrs in the cellar; and in the angles of the wall below, a triangular white marble table was placed, hollowed out in the middle for oil, in which a wick burned to throw light on the tomb.

Hard by, in later years, was the family mansion of S. Gregory the Great, who sent Augustine and his little band, in 597, to convert the Anglo-Saxons of Kent. Now, Gregory knew well this church of SS. John and Paul, and often prayed there. Somewhere about 603 he sent a present to Queen Theodelinda, the Bavarian Princess, who had married Agilulph, the Lombard, and among other things some of the oil from this very lamp. This identical vial of oil is preserved among the treasures of Monza, along with some little gold hens and chickens presented by Theodelinda.

Now, a few years ago, Padre Germano, a Passionist father of the monastery attached to the church, in studying the blank south wall of the church that rises out of the little lane, the Clivus Scauri, by which one mounts to reach the entrance of the church, observed that it consisted of a whole series of blocked-up arches and windows above them. In a word, it looked like a three-storey shop-front, or factory of brick, with the openings filled in. What could be the meaning of this? Such an arrangement was not suitable to the basilica of Pammachius, and had certainly no significance for the Church of Adrian I.

Then, all at once, it flashed on him what it really was: it was nothing more nor less than the street-front of the palace of John and Paul, which had been solidly built, and consequently had been utilised first by Pammachius and then by Adrian I. Now the church is built at the top of a steep slope, and the level of the floor of the church is far above the arches. It next occurred to the Padre: Is it not possible that the old house of the martyrs may be beneath the floor of this church?

He obtained leave to search. He went round to persons interested in Christian antiquities, and begged a little money, and so was enabled to begin his excavations; and, lo! he discovered that when in 410 Pammachius had built his basilica he had filled in the lower portion of the house, all the most important rooms and the cellars, with earth and rubbish, and had raised his church above it all, knocking away the floors of the upper storeys and blocking up what had been the bedroom windows. The writer of this account was in Rome during two winters when the Padre was engaged on the excavations, and was frequently there, and saw the results as they were reached. And these results were: first, that a Christian mansion of the fourth century was disinterred, the only one of the kind known to exist; and more, the tomb of the saints into which Byzantius had put the bodies was found; also the very lamp-table from which S. Gregory took the oil for sending to Theodelinda, and the early altar set up by Byzantius in one of the halls of the house which he had converted into an oratory. Nay, more,—paintings were found, whether of the date of Byzantius or of his son Pammachius is uncertain—one representing the soldiers killing Crispinus, Crispinianus, and Benedicta, and another showing Constantia, with her two chamberlains and other attendants. There were also figures which may be Byzantius and his wife, or Pammachius and his, bringing gifts to the tomb of the martyrs. The cellar was discovered with the old wine-bottles, some marked with the sacred sign; and the frescoes in the reception-room were Christian: a woman lifting up holy hands in prayer; Moses, with the roll of the Law; the good sheep and the bad one, with the Milk of the Word, and so on.

Now, all this shows conclusively that there really were such martyrs as John and Paul, and that although their story has been embroidered, there is a substratum of truth in it.