II S. CÆCILIA
III S. AGNES
VI. THE SISTER OF S. BASIL
VIII THE SISTER OF S. BENEDICT
IX S. BRIDGET
XI S. ITHA
XII S. HILDA
XIII S. ELFLEDA
XIV S. WERBURGA
XVI S. CLARA
XVII S. THERESA
XVIII SISTER DORA.
BLANDINA
THE SLAVE.
I BLANDINA THE SLAVE
In
the second century Lyons was the Rome of Gaul as it is now the second
Paris of France. It was crowded with temples and public monuments. It
was moreover the Athens of the West, a resort of scholars. Seated at
the confluence of two great rivers, the Rhône and the Sâone, it was
a centre of trade. It is a stately city now. It was more so in the
second century when it did not bristle with the chimneys of factories
pouring forth their volumes of black smoke, which the atmosphere,
moist from the mountains, carries down so as to envelop everything in
soot.In
the great palace, now represented by the hospital, the imbecile
Claudius and the madman Caligula were born. To the east and south far
away stand Mont Blanc and the snowy range on the Dauphiné Alps.Lyons
is a city that has at all times summed in it the finest as well as
the worst characteristic of the Gallic people. The rabble of Lyons
were ferocious in 177, and ferocious again in 1793; but at each
epoch, during the Pagan terror and the Democratic terror, it produced
heroes of faith and endurance.The
Emperor Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher full of good intentions,
and a sentimental lover of virtue. But he fondly conceived that
virtue could only be found in philosophy, and that Christianity,
which was a doctrine and not a speculation, must be wrong; and as its
chief adherents belonged to the slave and needy classes, that
therefore it was beneath his dignity to inquire into it. He was a
stickler for the keeping up of old Roman institutions, and the
maintenance of such rites as were sanctioned by antiquity; and
because the Christians refused to give homage to the gods and to
swear by the genius of the emperor, he ordered that they should be
persecuted to the death.He
had been a pretty, curly-haired boy, and a good-looking young man. He
had kept himself respectable, and looked on himself with smug
self-satisfaction accordingly. Had he stooped to inquire what were
the tenets, and what the lives, of those whom he condemned to death,
he would have shrunk with horror from the guilt of proclaiming a
general persecution.In
Lyons, as elsewhere, when his edict arrived the magistrates were
bound to seek out and sentence such as believed in Christ.A
touching letter exists, addressed by the Church of Lyons to those of
Asia and Phrygia giving an account of what it suffered; and as the
historian Eusebius embodied it in his history, it happily has been
preserved from the fingering, and rewriting, and heightening with
impossible marvels which fell to the lot of so many of the Acts of
the Martyrs, when the public taste no longer relished the simple food
of the unadorned narratives that were extant.
“The
grace of God,” said the writers, “contended for us, rescuing the
weak, and strengthening the strong. These latter endured every
species of reproach and torture. First they sustained bravely all the
insults heaped on them by the rabble—blows and abuse, plundering of
their goods, stoning and imprisonment. Afterwards they were led into
the forum and were questioned by the tribune and by the town
authorities before all the people, and then sent to prison to await
the coming of the governor. Vetius Epagathus, one of the brethren,
abounding in love to God and man, offered to speak in their defence;
whereupon those round the tribunal shouted out at him, as he was a
man of good position. The governor did not pay attention to his
request, but merely asked whether he, too, were a Christian. When he
confessed that he was, he also was transferred to the number of the
martyrs.”What
the numbers were we are not told. The most prominent among them were
Pothinus, the bishop, a man in his ninetieth year, Sanctus, the
deacon of the Church of Vienne, Maturus, a recent convert, Attalus, a
native of Pergamus, Blandina, a slave girl, and her mistress, another
woman named Biblis, and Vetius, above referred to.Among
those arrested were ten who when tortured gave way: one of these was
Biblis; but, although they yielded, yet they would not leave the
place of trial, and remained to witness the sufferings of such as
stood firm; and some—among these was Biblis—plucking up courage,
presented themselves before the judge and made amends for their
apostasy by shedding their blood for Christ.The
slaves belonging to the Christians of rank had been seized and were
interrogated; and they, in their terror lest they should be put to
torture, confessed anything the governor desired—that the
Christians ate little children and “committed such crimes as are
neither lawful for us to speak of nor think about; and which we
really believe no men ever did commit.”The
defection of the ten caused dismay among the faithful, for they
feared lest it should be the prelude to the surrender of others.The
governor, the proconsul, arrived at the time of the annual fair, when
Lyons was crowded; and he deemed this a good opportunity for striking
terror into the hearts of the Christians.Those
who stood firm were brought out of prison, and, as they would not do
sacrifice to the gods, were subjected to torture.Blandina
was a peculiarly delicately framed young woman, and not strong. Her
mistress, who was one of the martyrs, was apprehensive for her; but
Blandina in the end witnessed the most splendid confession of all.
She was frightfully tortured with iron hooks and hot plates applied
to her flesh from morning till night, till the executioners hardly
knew what more to do; “her entire body being torn and pierced.”Brass
plates, red hot, were also applied to the most tender parts of the
body of the deacon, Sanctus, but he continued unsubdued, firm in his
confession. At last he was thrown down on the sand, a mass of wounds,
so mangled and burnt that he seemed hardly to retain the human shape.
He and Blandina were conveyed back to prison.Next
day “the tormentors tortured Sanctus again, supposing that whilst
his wounds were swollen and inflamed, if they continued to rend them
when so sensitive as not to bear the touch of the hand, they must
break his spirit”—but it was again in vain.Then
it was that Biblis, the woman who had done sacrifice, came forward
“like one waking out of a deep sleep,” and upbraided the
torturers; whereupon she was dragged before the chief magistrate,
confessed Christ, and was numbered among the martyrs.The
proconsul ordered all to be taken back to prison, and they were
thrust into a black and noisome hole, and fastened in the stocks,
their feet distended to the fifth hole—that is to say, stretched
apart as far as was possible without dislocation—and so, covered
with sores, wounds and blisters, unable to sleep in this attitude,
they were left for the night. The suffocation of the crowded den was
too much for some, and in the morning certain of those who had been
crowded into it were drawn forth dead.Next
day the aged bishop Pothinus was led before the magistrate. He was
questioned, and asked who was the God of the Christians.
“If
thou art worthy,” answered he, “thou shalt know.”He
was then stripped and scourged, and beaten about the head. The crowd
outside the barriers now took up whatever was at hand, stones,
brickbats, dirt, and flung them at him, howling curses and
blasphemies. The old man fell gasping, and in a state hardly
conscious was dragged to the prison.And
now, on the great day of the fair, when the shows were to be given to
the people, the proconsul for their delectation threw open the
amphitheatre. This was a vast oval, capable of holding forty thousand
spectators. It was packed. On one side, above the arena, was the seat
of the chief magistrate, and near him those reserved for the city
magnates. At the one end, a series of arches, now closed with gates
of stout bars and cross-bars, hinged above and raised on these hinges
by a chain, opened from the dens in which the wild beasts were kept.
The beasts had not been fed for three days, that they might be
ravenous.It
was the beginning of June—doubtless a bright summer day, and an
awning kept off the sun from the proconsul. Those on one side of the
amphitheatre, the slaves on the highest row, could see, vaporous and
blue on the horizon, above the crowded tiers opposite, the chain of
the Alps, their crests white with eternal snows.
“No
sooner was the chief magistrate seated, to the blare of trumpets,
than the martyrs were introduced. Sanctus had to be supported; he
could hardly walk, he was such a mass of wounds. All were now
stripped of their garments and were scourged. Blandina was attached
to a post in the centre of the arena. She had been forced every day
to attend and witness the sufferings of the rest.”But
even now they were not to be despatched at once. Maturus and Sanctus
were placed on iron chairs, and fires were lighted under them so that
the fumes of their roasted flesh rose up and were dissipated by the
light summer air over the arena, and the sickening savour was inhaled
by the thousands of cruel and savage spectators.Then
they were cast off to be despatched with the sword.The
dens were opened. Lions, tigers, leopards bounded forth on the sand
roaring. By a strange accident Blandina escaped. The hungry beasts
paced round the arena, but would not touch her.Then
a Greek physician, called Alexander, who was looking on, unable to
restrain his enthusiasm, by signs gave encouragement to the martyrs.
So at least it would seem, for all at once we learn that the mob
roared for Alexander, as one who urged on the Christians to
obstinacy. The governor sent for him, asked who he was, and when he
confessed that he was a Christian, sent him to prison.Attalus
was now led forth, with a tablet on his breast on which was written
in Latin, “This is Attalus, the Christian.”As
he was about to be delivered to the tormentors, some one whispered to
the proconsul that the man was a Roman. He hesitated, and sent him
back to prison.Then
a number of other Christians who had Roman citizenship were produced,
and had their heads struck off. Others who had not this privilege
were delivered over to the beasts. And now some of those who had
recanted came forward and offered themselves to death.Next
day the proconsul was again in his place in the amphitheatre. He had
satisfied himself that Attalus could not substantiate his claim to
citizenship, so he ordered him to torture and death. He also was
placed in the iron chair; after which he and Alexander were given up
to be devoured by the beasts.This
was the last day of the shows, and to crown all, Blandina was now
produced, together with a boy of fifteen, called Ponticus. He, like
Blandina, had been compelled daily to witness the torments to which
the rest had been subjected.And
now the same hideous round of tortures began, and Blandina in the
midst of her agony continued to encourage the brave boy till he died.
Blandina had been roasted in the iron chair and scourged.As
a variety she was placed in a net. Then the gate of one of the larger
dens was raised, and forth rushed a bull, pawed the sand, tossed his
head, looked round, and seeing the net, plunged forward with bowed
head. Next moment Blandina was thrown into the air, fell, was thrown
again, then gored—but was happily now unconscious. Thus she died,
and “even the Gentiles confessed that no woman among them had ever
endured sufferings as many and great.” But not even then was their
madness and cruelty to the saints satisfied, for “... those who
were suffocating in prison were drawn forth and cast to the dogs; and
they watched night and day over the remains left by beasts and fire,
however mangled they might be, to prevent us from burying them. The
bodies, after exposure and abuse in every possible way during six
days, were finally cast into the Rhône. These things they did as if
they were able to resist God and prevent their resurrection.”The
dungeons in which S. Pothinus, S. Blandina, and the rest of the
martyrs were kept through so many days, are shown beneath the abbey
church of Ainay at Lyons. It is possible enough that Christian
tradition may have preserved the remembrance of the site. They are
gloomy cells, without light or air, below the level of the river. The
apertures by which they are entered are so low that the visitor is
obliged to creep into them on his hands and knees. Traces of Roman
work remain. Adjoining is a crypt that was used as a chapel till the
Revolution, when it was desecrated. It is, however, again restored,
the floor has been inlaid with mosaics, and the walls are covered
with modern frescoes, representing the passion of the martyrs.What
makes it difficult to believe that these are the dungeons is that the
abbey above them is constructed on the site of the Athenæum founded
by Caligula, a great school of debate and composition, and it is most
improbable that the town prisons should have been under the
university buildings. In all likelihood in the early Middle Ages
these vaults were found and supposed to have been the prisons of the
martyrs, and supposition very rapidly became assurance that they were
so. The prison in which the martyrs were enclosed was the
lignum or
robur, which was
certainly not below the level of the river.The
question arises, when one reads stories of such inhuman cruelties
done, did the victims suffer as acutely as we suppose? I venture to
think not at the
time. There can be
no question, as it is a thing repeatedly attested, that in a moment
of great excitement the nerves are not very sensitive. The pain of
wounds received in battle is not felt till after the battle is over.
Moreover, it may be questioned whether the human system can endure
pain above a certain grade—whether, in fact, beyond a limit,
insensibility does not set in.I
attended once a poor lady who was frightfully burnt. A paraffin lamp
set fire to a gauze or lace wrap she had about her neck. All her
throat and the lower portion of her face were frightfully burnt. I
was repeatedly with her, but she was unconscious or as in a sleep;
there was no expression of anguish in her face. She quietly sank
through exhaustion. I have questioned those who have met with
shocking accidents, and have always been assured that the pain began
when nature commenced its labour of repair. Pain, excruciating pain,
can be endured, and for a long period; but I think that when carried
beyond a fixed limit it ceases to be appreciable, as insensibility
sets in.This
is a matter for investigation, and it were well if those who read
these lines were to endeavour to collect evidence to substantiate or
overthrow what is, with me, only an opinion.S.
CÆCILIA.
II S. CÆCILIA
In
1876, when I was writing the November volume of my “Lives of the
Saints,” and had to deal with the Acts of S. Cæcilia, I saw at
once that they were eminently untrustworthy—they were, in fact, a
religious romance, very similar to others of the like nature; and my
mistrust was deepened when I found that the name of Cæcilia did not
appear in either the Roman Kalendar of the fourth century, nor in the
Carthagenian of the fifth.The
Acts were in Greek, and it was not till the time of Pope Gelasius
(496) that her name appeared at all prominently; then he introduced
it into his Sacramentary.The
Acts as we have them cannot be older than the fifth century, and
contain gross anachronisms. They make her suffer when Urban was Pope,
under an apocryphal prefect, Turcius Almachius; but the date of Pope
Urban was in the reign of Alexander Severus, who did not persecute
the Church at all—who, in fact, favoured the Christians.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.No
sooner was the executioner gone than from all sides poured in her
relatives, the slaves, and the faithful to see her, and to receive
the last sigh of the Martyr. They found her lying on the marble
pavement, half conscious only, and they dipped their kerchiefs in her
blood, and endeavoured to staunch the wounds in her throat.She
lingered two days and nights in the same condition, and without
moving, hanging between life and death; and then—so say the
Acts—Pope Urban arrived, braving the risk, from his hiding-place,
to say farewell to his dear daughter in the Faith. Thereupon she
turned to him, commended to him the care of the poor, entreated her
father to surrender his house to the Church, and expired. In the Acts
she addresses the Pope as “Your Beatitude,” an expression used in
the fifth century, and certainly not in the third.She
died, as she had lain, her face to the ground, her hands and arms
declining on the right, as she rested on that side.The
same night her body was enclosed in a cypress chest, and was conveyed
to the cemetery of S. Callixtus, where Urban laid it in a chamber
“near that in which reposed his brother prelates and martyrs.”So
far the legend. Now let us see whether it is possible to reconcile it
with history.In
the first place, it is to be observed that the whole of the
difficulty lies with Urban being Pope. If we suppose that in the
original Acts the name was simply “Urban the Bishop,” and that
the remodeller of the Acts took the liberty of transforming him into
Pope Urban, the difficulty vanishes at once. He may have been some
regionary bishop in hiding. He may not have been a bishop at all, but
a priest; and the writer, ignorant of history, and knowing only of
the Urbans as Popes, may have given rise to all this difficulty by
transforming him into a Pope.Now,
in the Acts, the Prefect does not speak of the Emperor, but of
“Domini nostri invictissimi principes” (our Lords the unconquered
Princes). The Emperor, therefore, cannot have been Alexander. Now,
Ado the martyrologist, in or about 850, must have referred to other
Acts than those we possess, for he enters S. Cæcilia as having
suffered under Marcus Aurelius and Commodus—that is to say, in 177.
This explains the Prefect referring to the orders of the Princes.If
we take this as the date, and Urban as being a priest or bishop of
the time, the anachronisms are at an end.That
the Acts should have been in Greek is no proof that they were not
drawn up in Rome, for Greek was the language of the Church there, and
indeed the majority of the most ancient inscriptions in the Catacombs
are in that language.So
much for the main difficulties. Now let us see what positive
evidences we have to substantiate the story.The
excavation of the Cemetery of S. Callixtus, which was begun in 1854,
and was carried on with great care by De Rossi, led to the clearing
out of a crypt in which the early Bishops of Rome had been laid. The
bodies had been removed when Paschal I. conveyed so many of those of
the saints and martyrs into Rome, on account of the ruin into which
the Catacombs had fallen, but their epitaphs remained, all of the
third century, and in Greek; among these, that of Urbanus, 230; and
it was perhaps precisely this fact which led the recomposer of the
Acts to confound the Urban of S. Cæcilia’s time with the Pope. The
first Pope known to have been laid there was Zephyrinus, in 218. Here
also was found an inscription set up by Damasus I., recording how
that the bodies of bishops and priests, virgins and confessors lay in
that place.Now
by a narrow, irregular opening in the rock, entrance is obtained to a
further chamber, about twenty feet square, lighted by a
luminare in the
top, or an opening to the upper air cut in the tufa. This, there can
be no manner of doubt, is the crypt in which reposed the body of S.
Cæcilia.In
the Acts it was said to adjoin that in which were laid the Bishops of
Rome; though, as these bishops were of later date than Cæcilia, if
we take her death to have been in 177, their crypt must have been dug
out or employed for the purpose of receiving their bodies at a later
period.Again,
it is an interesting fact, that here a number of the tombstones that
have been discovered bear the Cæcilian name, showing that this
cemetery must have belonged to that
gens or clan. Not
only so, but one is inscribed with that of Septimus Prætextatus
Cæcilianus, a servant of God during thirty years. It will be
remembered that Prætextatus was the name of the brother of Valerian,
who was betrothed to Cæcilia, and it leads one to suspect that the
families of Valerian and of Cæcilia were akin.The
chapel or crypt contains frescoes. In the
luminare is painted
a female figure with the hands raised in prayer. Beneath this a cross
with a lamb on each side. Below are three male figures with the names
Sebastianus, Curinus (Quirinus), and Polycamus. Sebastian is
doubtless the martyr of that name whose basilica is not far off.
Quirinus, who has the
corona of a priest,
is the bishop and martyr of Siscia, whose body was brought in 420 to
Rome. Of Polycamus nothing is known, save that his relics were
translated in the ninth century to S. Prassede.Against
the wall lower down is a seventh-century representation of S.
Cæcilia, richly clothed with necklace and bracelets; below a head of
Christ of Byzantine type, and a representation of S. Urban. But these
paintings, which are late, have been applied over earlier decoration;
behind the figure of S. Cæcilia is mosaic, and that of Christ is
painted on the old porphyry panelling. There are in this crypt
recesses for the reception of bodies, and near the entrance an arched
place low enough to receive a sarcophagus; and there are traces as
though the face had at one time been walled up.The
walls are covered with
graffiti, or
scribbles made by pilgrims. An inscription also remains, to state
that this was the sepulchre of S. Cæcilia the Martyr, but this
inscription is not earlier than the ninth or tenth century.In
817 Paschal I. was Pope, and in the following year he removed
enormous numbers of the remains of martyrs from the Catacombs into
the churches of Rome, because the condition into which these
subterranean cemeteries were falling was one of ruin. They had been
exposed to the depredations of the Lombards, and then to decay. Some
had fallen in, and were choked.Precisely
this Catacomb had been plundered by the Lombard king, Astulf, and it
was not known whether he had carried off the body of S. Cæcilia or
not. All those of the former popes Paschal removed.In
844, however, Paschal pretended that he had seen S. Cæcilia in a
dream, who had informed him that she still lay in her crypt in the
Catacomb of S. Callixtus. No reliance can be placed on the word of a
man so unprincipled as Paschal. At this very time two men of the
highest rank, who were supporters of Louis the Pious, the Emperor,
had been seized, dragged to the Lateran Palace, their eyes plucked
out, and then beheaded. The Pope was openly accused of this barbarous
act. The Emperor sent envoys to examine into it, but Paschal threw
all sorts of difficulties in their way. He refused to produce the
murderers; he asserted that they were guilty of no crime in killing
these unfortunate men, and he secured the assassins by investing them
with a half-sacred character as servants of the Church of S. Peter.
Himself he exculpated from all participation in the deed by a solemn,
expurgatorial oath. Such was the man who pretended to visions of the
saints. His dream was an afterthought. In the clearing out of the
crypt of S. Cæcilia, the wall that had closed the grave was broken
through, and the cypress chest was disclosed. Whereupon Paschal
promptly declared he had dreamt that so it would be found. The body
was found in the coffin, incorrupt, and at its feet were napkins
rolled together and stained with blood.This
discovery, which seems wholly improbable, is yet not impossible. If
the arcosolium
had been hermetically sealed up, the body need not have fallen to
dust; and, as a fact, De Rossi did discover, along with Marchi, in
1853, a body in the Via Appia, without the smallest trace of
alteration and decay in the bones.[1]Paschal
himself relates that he lined the chest with fringed silk, and
covered the body with a silk veil. It was then enclosed in a
sarcophagus of white marble, and laid under the high altar of the
Church of S. Cæcilia in Trastevere.This
church has been made out of the old house of S. Cæcilia, and to this
day, notwithstanding rebuildings, it bears traces of its origin.Nearly
eight hundred years after this translation, Sfondrati, cardinal of S.
Cæcilia, being about to carry on material alterations in the
basilica, came on the sarcophagus lying in a vault under the altar.
It was not alone—another was with it.In
the presence of witnesses one of these was opened. It contained a
coffin or chest of cypress wood. The Cardinal himself removed the
cover. First was seen the costly lining and the silken veil, with
which nearly eight centuries before Paschal had covered the body. It
was faded, but not decayed, and through the almost transparent
texture could be seen the glimmer of the gold of the garments in
which the martyr was clad. After a pause of a few minutes, the
Cardinal lifted the veil, and revealed the form of the maiden martyr
lying in the same position in which she had died on the floor of her
father’s hall. Neither Urban nor Paschal had ventured to alter
that. She lay there, clothed in a garment woven with gold thread, on
which were the stains of blood; and at her feet were the rolls of
linen mentioned by Paschal, as found with the body. She was lying on
her right side, the arms sunk from the body, her face turned to the
ground; the knees slightly bent and drawn together. The attitude was
that of one in a deep sleep. On the throat were the marks of the
wounds dealt by the clumsy executioner.Thus
she had lain, preserved from decay through thirteen centuries.When
this discovery was made, Pope Clement VIII. was lying ill at
Frascati, but he empowered Cardinal Baronius and Bosio, the explorer
of the Catacombs, to examine into the matter; and both of these have
left an account of the condition in which the body was found. For
five weeks all Rome streamed to the church to see the body; and it
was not until S. Cæcilia’s Day that it was again sealed up in its
coffin and marble sarcophagus.Cardinal
Sfondrati gave a commission to the sculptor Maderna to reproduce the
figure of the Virgin Martyr in marble in the attitude in which found,
and beneath this is the inscription:—“So I show to you in marble
the representation of the most holy Virgin Cæcilia, in the same
position in which I myself saw her incorrupt lying in her sepulchre.”A
woodcut was published at the time of the discovery figuring it, but
this is now extremely scarce.In
the second sarcophagus were found the bones of three men; two, of the
same age and size, had evidently died by decapitation. The third had
its skull broken, and the abundant hair was clotted with blood, as
though the martyr had been beaten to death and his skull fractured
with the plumbatæ
or leaded scourges.The
Acts of S. Cæcilia expressly say that this was the manner of death
of Maximus. The other two bodies were doubtless those of Valerian and
Tiburtius.Of
the statue by Maderna, Sir Charles Bell says: “The body lies on its
side, the limbs a little drawn up; the hands are delicate and
fine—they are not locked, but crossed at the wrists; the arms are
stretched out. The drapery is beautifully modelled, and modestly
covers the limbs.... It is the statue of a lady, perfect in form, and
affecting from the resemblance to reality in the drapery of the white
marble, and the unspotted appearance of the statue altogether. It
lies as no living body could lie, and yet correctly, as the dead when
left to expire—I mean in the gravitation of the limbs.”S.
Cæcilia is associated with music: she is regarded as the patroness
of the organ. This is entirely due to the highly imaginative Acts of
the Fifth and Sixth Century.
“Orpheus
could lead the savage race;And
trees uprooted left their place,Sequacious
of the lyre:But
bright Cæcilia rais’d the wonder higher:When
to her organ vocal breath was given,An
angel heard, and straight appear’d,Mistaking
earth for heaven.”So
sang Dryden. Chaucer has given the Legend of S. Cæcilia as the
Second Nun’s Tale in the Canterbury Pilgrimage.There
is a marvellous collection of ancient statues in Rome, in the
Torlonia Gallery. It was made by the late Prince Torlonia. Unhappily,
he kept three sculptors in constant employ over these ancient
statues, touching them up, adding, mending, altering. It is a vast
collection, and now the Torlonia family desire to sell it; but no one
will buy, for no one can trust any single statue therein; no one
knows what is ancient and what is new. The finest old works are of no
value, because of the patching and correcting to which they have been
subjected.It
is the same with the Acts of the Martyrs: they have been tinkered at
and “improved” in the fifth and sixth centuries, and even later,
no doubt with the best intention, but with the result that they
have—or many of them have—lost credit altogether.What
a buyer of statuary from the Torlonia Gallery would insist on doing,
would be to drag the statues out into the sunshine and go over them
with a microscope and see where a piece of marble had been added, or
where a new face had been put on old work. Then he would be able to
form a judgment as to the value of the statue or bust. And this is
precisely the treatment to which the legends of the martyrs have to
be subjected. But this treatment tells sometimes in their favour.
Narratives that at first sight seem conspicuously false or
manufactured, will under the critical microscope reveal the sutures,
and show what is old and genuine, and what is adventitious and
worthless.S.
AGNES.