The chaste folds of her dress were restrained by a girdle. At her feet were found the blood-stained cloths which had bound her wounds; and her arms, thrust forward, still seemed to serve as a veil. Three fingers of her right hand were open, only one of the left, as if even in dying she had wished to avow her belief in one God in three persons. Finally, so that she might not give to the world her last look, but think only of Christ, her spouse, by a supreme effort she had turned her head aside.
Thus she reposes on her bier of cypress; thus extended on the flags she had died; and thus a great artist has faithfully represented her to us. The celebrated statue of Etienne Maderno, lying on its side, full of modesty and of grace, seems the dying virgin herself; and the whiteness of the marble, which so resembles the paleness of death, adds yet more to the illusion. Seen in this honored place, in this house which was the saint's and has become God's, this masterpiece of Christian sculpture, admirably executed and in exquisite taste, touches the heart profoundly.
THE INFLUENCE OF ST. CECILIA ON LITERATURE.
Such a beautiful story could not fail to be repeated. As long as the persecutions lasted, to strengthen their courage, the faithful passed from mouth to mouth these details which had been so affectionately collected. So great, indeed, was the enthusiasm for the memory of Cecilia that she obtained the great and rare honor of being mentioned in the canon of the Mass with Saints Felicitas, Perpetua, Agatha, Lucy, Agnes, and Anastasia. Thus for fifteen centuries, throughout the Catholic world, wherever the holy sacrifice is celebrated, her name is invoked; and, truly immortal, each hour, each moment perhaps, her memory rises from earth to heaven with incense and with prayer.
Her acts, chronicled in the fifth century, have since then been the subject of several works. We shall only mention the Greek translation of Simeon Metaphrastes, the verses of St. Adhelme and of the Venerable Bede in England, the works of Flodoard at Rheims, and Rhoban Maur. Then, during that magnificent efflorescence of philosophy and Catholic literature, we see Victor de Beauvais relate the story of St. Cecilia;[109] Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Bonaventure, preaching several sermons in her honor. In the fifteenth century, the eloquent St. Vincent Ferrer recited her praises; but the Reformation came soon after, and it is only in Italy now that they think of the glories of St. Cecilia.
In vain her history is its own defence; in vain may it claim in its favor the imposing testimony of Christian tradition, in the East as in the West, during fourteen centuries; in vain the liturgies of the churches of Rome, of Milan, of Toledo, of Greece, and of Gaul have inserted in the office for the 22d of November fragments of the text; in vain even the discovery of her body testified anew to its veracity. Towards the middle of the seventeenth century, the Jansenist school rejected it.
The historical works on the first centuries of Christianity which during the last forty years have been undertaken in France and Germany, by tracing out the original sources with scrupulous care, and taking advantage of monuments, have dealt justly with this excessive criticism.
But error is more prone to spread than easy to uproot. Launoy, that "great demolisher of saints," who, in attacking the most poetic beliefs of the faithful, strayed into the road to rationalism, made a school. Even now Feller's Dictionary of Universal Biography, and, following him (for these works usually copy each other), those of Michaud and of F. Didot, have repeated, on the authority of Tillemont and of Baillet, that the authenticity of the life of St. Cecilia is very doubtful, although the arguments cited in support of this thesis had been successfully refuted by Laderchi early in the eighteenth century,[110] and annihilated for ever twenty years ago by R. P. Dom Guéranger, in his excellent book on St. Cecilia.[111]
The touching story of St. Cecilia must also inspire poets. Without mentioning the ancient hymns to be found in the Italian, Spanish, and Gallic liturgies, several poems in her honor may be quoted. At the time of the Renaissance, Baptiste Spagnuolo made it the subject of a real epic poem, where we find, as in the Æneid, the speeches of Venus and Juno, and the conspiracies of the inhabitants of Olympus against common mortals. The god of pagan love, accompanied by his mother, comes sadly to Juno to complain of the disdain of Cecilia, who wishes to remain a virgin. Forgetting her resentment, the wife of Jupiter inspires the father of Cecilia with the idea of uniting his daughter to a pagan. Foiled in their attempt by the conversion of Valerian, the angry goddess instigated Mars to suggest to Almachius the plan of drowning in blood this Christian band, rebels against the Olympian gods. Among the nine hundred verses may be found some fine ones, but we must confess that these unfortunate pagan reminiscences, so popular in the sixteenth century, ruin the poet's work for us.