[313] This striking object of Christian art has been known, says Mrs. Jameson, to cause in Italian women a devotion leading to hopeless passion, madness, and death. (“Sacred and Legendary Art,” in loco.) The soldier saint is regarded as a sort of Christian Apollo, banishing disease and pestilence.
[314] Pope Gregory I. first mentions the story, circ. A. D. 600, as a reason for refusing to send the head of St. Paul to the Empress Constantina.
[315] Discede a me fomes peccati ... quia jam ab alio amatore præventa sum, qui mihi satis meliora obtulit ornamenta, et annulo fidei suæ subarravit me, longe te nobilior, et genere et dignitate.—Ambros., Epis. 34.
[316] Damasus at the end of the fourth century thus commemorates the event in one of his metrical inscriptions, now in a lateral aisle of the basilica of S. Agnese fuori le Mura:
FAMA REFERT SANCTOS DVDVM RETVLISSE PARENTES
AGNEN CVM LVGVBRES CANTVS TVBA CONCREPVISSET
NVTRICIS GREMIVM SVBITO LIQVISSE PVELLAM
SPONTE TRVCIS CALCASSE MINAS RABIEMQVE TYRANNI
VRERE CVM FLAMMIS VOLVISSET NOBILE CORPVS