Virgin Saints and Martyrs

by S. Baring-Gould

But although there is so much to make one suspicious as to the very existence of S. Cæcilia, a good many facts have been brought to light which are sufficient to show that it was the stupidity of the composer of the apocryphal Acts which has thrown such doubt over the Virgin Martyr.

If we eliminate what is obviously due to the romantic imagination of the author of the Acts in the fifth century, the story reduces itself to this.

Cæcilia was a maiden of noble family, and her parents were of senatorial rank. From her earliest youth she was brought up as a Christian, but that her father was one is doubtful, as he destined his daughter to become the wife of an honourable young patrician named Valerian, who was, however, a pagan.

Cæcilia would not hear of the marriage on this account; and Valerian, who loved her dearly, by her advice went to Urban the Pope, who was living in concealment in the Catacomb in the Appian Way, to learn something about the Faith. Valerian took with him his brother, Tiburtius; they were both convinced, were baptised, and, as they confessed Christ, suffered martyrdom; and the officer who arrested them, named Maximus, also believed and underwent the same fate. All three were laid in the Catacomb of Prætextatus.

Cæcilia, in the meantime, had remained unmolested in her father’s house in Rome.

The Prefect resolved to have her put to death privately, as she belonged to an illustrious family, perhaps also in consideration for her father, still a heathen.

He gave orders that the underground passages for heating the winter apartments should be piled with wood, and an intense fire made, and that the room in which Cæcilia was should be closed, so that she should die of suffocation. This was done, but she survived the attempt. This is by no means unlikely. The walls were heated by pipes through which the hot air passed, and there was a thick pavement of concrete and mosaic between the fires and the room. Everything depended on the chamber being shut up, and there being no air admitted; but it is precisely this latter requisite that could not be assured. In her own house, where the slaves were warmly attached to her, nothing would be easier than to withdraw the cover of the opening in the ceiling, by means of which ventilation was secured. By some means or other air was admitted, and although, doubtless, Cæcilia suffered discomfort from the great heat, yet she was not suffocated.

The chamber was the Calidarium, or hot-air bath attached to the palace, and in the church of S. Cæcilia in Trastevere a portion of this is still visible.

As the attempt had failed, the Prefect sent an executioner to kill her with the sword.

Her beauty, youth, and grace, so affected the man that, although he smote thrice at her throat, he did not kill her. It was against the law to strike more than thrice, so he left her prostrate on the mosaic floor bathed in her blood.