Travellers are accustomed to tell amusing stories of the impatience and irreverence of the Neapolitans during the exposition, whenever there is an unusual delay in the liquefaction. They charge them with addressing the saint alternately in expressions of religious homage and of
bitter reproach, praying and beseeching him one moment and apostrophizing him the next in slang terms of vituperation. Such travellers, we may be sure, are either drawing on their own imagination or on the store of anecdotes they have heard from others. They usually know little of Italian, and are utterly ignorant of the peculiar dialect of the Neapolitan people—almost a language in itself. The only possible excuse for making such a charge would be a stranger’s misconception or misinterpretation of the demonstrative gestures they indulge in when deeply moved, and his utter ignorance of the words they are uttering. We opine, however, that the motive, generally, is a wish to parade droll and amusing statements, even if they be neither witty nor true.
We have been assured by many respectable clergymen of Naples, who, of course, know their own people, and often have to chide them, that there is not a word of truth in this charge.
The clergy and the laity of Naples, of all classes, learned and unlearned alike, believe most steadfastly and earnestly in the miraculous character of the liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius. Many strangers who have seen it and have examined it critically have come to the same conclusion. Although the church has not spoken authoritatively on the matter, still the consensus of so many learned, intelligent, and pious persons who have so accepted it—the fact that during so many centuries it has stood the test of time, and that science has not been able to explain it away or to reproduce it artificially—and the very character of the liquefaction itself, with its attendant circumstances, so clear, so plain, and so decisive—all leave no room for reasonable doubt.
To complete our statement, we must, perhaps, go still further back, and inquire how it has come about that a portion of the blood of a Christian bishop, beheaded in the year 305, under Diocletian, and in virtue of edicts by that emperor for the suppression of Christianity, should, after the lapse of so many centuries, be now found in a glass ampulla, or vial, at Naples. To some, this primary fact may, at first sight, appear as strange and as extraordinary, if not as unaccountable, as the subsequent liquefaction itself.
To an Italian Catholic, indeed, a doubt on this head would scarcely present itself. The usages and the thoughts of his ancestors in the faith have come down to him so naturally that they form, as it were, part of his being. He thinks, and feels, and knows as his fathers did before him. In such cradle-lands of Christianity, and among a people that has never swerved from the faith since the early ages of the church, there is what we might term an inherited Catholic instinct, a readiness and a correctness of Catholic thought in religious matters, which those of other lands that received the light of Christianity only at a later period, and consequently have not such a bond of ancestral connection with the Christians of the days of persecution, can only reach by study and cultivated piety. However, even a moderate acquaintance with the usages and customs of those early ages will show in many instances that what some have considered peculiar national traits of perhaps later growth are in reality deeply rooted in the customs of those ancient times; and that many a point, often set down as a fond fancy or a singular product of superstition, is firmly established as a truth, by historical research into their records.
This is the case with the question before us.
As we study the daily life of those early Christians, passed under circumstances so very different from those of our modern life, and strive to realize to ourselves their thoughts and aspirations, their motives and modes of action, nothing stands out in bolder relief than their exalted conception of the honor and glory of martyrdom. In the exquisite pages of Fabiola and of Callista, the learned Cardinal Wiseman and Dr. Newman have made these early Christians live again before us; and we catch some insight into their enthusiasm on this subject. To them, a martyr, dying for the faith of Christ, was—and truthfully—a hero of the highest grade. Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John xv. 13.
They could never sufficiently honor him. For, honor him as they might, all they could do would fall infinitely short of the honor which God had already bestowed on his soul in heaven, and that which he would bestow on his body in the resurrection. A martyr’s blood, in their view, stood next in rank to the blood of the Saviour.
Their daily life made martyrdom the prominent subject of their thoughts. Day after day, they saw their brethren seized, imprisoned, tortured, and put to death for the faith. Each day, any one of themselves might be seized and led to martyrdom. The greatest of all triumphs, and the surest passport to everlasting bliss, was to persevere unto the end in that conflict; the greatest of all misfortunes was to fail and renounce or deny the faith for fear of death. Each one strove to hold himself ever ready for the trial. Their pastoral injunctions; their mutual exhortations;