THE MARTYR'S BURIAL.
The fawning Greek Isidorus had stealthily wormed his way into the
confidence of Faustus, a servant of Adauctus, by professing to be, if
not a Christian, at least a sincere inquirer after the truth, and an
ardent hater of the edict of persecution. Faustus had therefore promised
to conduct him to a private meeting of the Christians, where he might be
more fully instructed by the good presbyter, Primitius. In the short
summer twilight they therefore made their way to the villa of the
Christian matron Marcella, on the Appian Way, about two miles from the
city gates. A high wall surrounded the grounds. In this was a wicket or
door, at which Faustus knocked. The white-haired porter partly opened
the door, and recognizing the foremost figure, admitted him, but gave a
look of inquiry before passing his companion.
"It is all right," said Faustus. "He is a good friend of mine," and so
they passed on.
The grounds were large and elegant, fountains flashed in the soft
moonlight, the night-blooming cereus breathed forth its rare perfume,
and masses of cypress and ilex cast deep shadows on the pleached alleys.
But there was a conspicuous absence of the garden statuary invariably
found in pagan grounds. There was no figure of the god Terminus, nor of
the beautiful Flora, or Pomona, nor of any of the fair goddesses which
to-day people the galleries of Rome. In the spacious _atrium_, or
central apartment of the house, which was partially lighted by bronze
candalabra, was gathered a company of nearly a hundred persons, seated
on couches around the hall--the men on the right and the women on the
left. A solemn stillness brooded over the entire assembly. Near a tall
cadalabrum stood a venerable figure with a snowy beard--the presbyter
Primitius. From a parchment scroll in his hand he read in impressive
tones the holy words of hope and consolation, "Let not your hearts be
troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me," and the rest of that
sweet, parting counsel of the world's Redeemer.
[Illustration: STAIRWAY TO CATACOMB.]
Before he was through, a procession with torches was seen approaching
through the garden. On a bier, borne by four young men, lay the body of
Lucius the martyr, wrapped in white and strewn with flowers--at rest in
the solemn majesty of death from the tortures of the rack and scourge.
The little assembly within joined the procession without, and softly
singing the holy words which still give such consolation to the stricken
heart, "Beati sunt mortui qui in Domino morientur--Blessed are the dead
who die in the Lord," through the shadowy cypress alleys wound the
solemn procession. Soon it reached an archway, like that shown in our
first chapter, the entrance to the catacomb of St. Callixtus, which lay
beneath the grounds of the Lady Marcella. Then, preceded by torches,
with careful tread the bearers of the bier slowly descended a rock-hewn
stairway, and traversed a long and gloomy corridor, lined on either side
with the graves of the dead.[19] This stairway and corridor are shown in
the engravings which accompany this chapter.
An almost supernatural fear fell upon the soul of Isidorus the Greek,
who had followed in the train of the procession, as it penetrated
further and further into the very heart of the earth. He seemed like
Ulysses with his ghostly guide visiting the grim regions of the
nether-world, and the words of the classic poet came to his mind,
"Horror on all sides, the very silence fills the soul with dread."
Already for more than two centuries these gloomy galleries had been the
receptacles of the Christian dead, and in many places the slabs that
sealed the tombs were broken, and the graves yawned weirdly as he
passed, revealing the unfleshed skeletons lying on their stony bed. To
his excited imagination they seemed to menace him with their
outstretched bony arms. Deep, mysterious shadows crouched around, full
of vague suggestions of affright. His gay, joyous and pleasure-loving
nature recoiled from the evidences of mortality around him. His
footsteps faltered, and he almost fell to the rocky pavement. The
procession swept on, the glimmering lights growing dimmer and dimmer,
and then turning an angle they suddenly disappeared. Fear lent wings to
his feet, and he fled along the narrow path with outstretched hands,
sometimes touching with a feeling of horrible recoil the bones or ashes
of the dead. He hurried along, groping from side to side, and when he
reached the passage down which the funeral procession had disappeared,
no gleam of it was visible, nor could he tell, so suddenly the lights
had disappeared, whether it had turned to the right or to the left. The
darkness was intense--a darkness that might be felt, a brooding horror
that oppressed every sense. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed
to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his faint cry was swallowed up
in the deep and oppressive silence. Had the vengeance of the gods
overtaken him in punishment for his meditated crime? Was he, who so
loved the light and air, and joyous sunshine, never to behold them
again? Must he be buried in these gloomy vaults for ever? These thoughts
surged through his brain, and almost drove him wild. But what sounds are
those that steal faintly on his ear? They seem like the music of heaven
heard in the heart of hell. Stronger, sweeter, clearer, come the holy
voices. And now they shape themselves to words, "Nam et si ambulavero in
medio umbræ mortis, non timebo mala--Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Was it to taunt his
terrors those strange words were sung? Then the holy chant went on,
"Quonian tu mecum es Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata
sunt--For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." What
strange secret had these Christians that sustained their souls even
surrounded by the horrors of the tomb?
[Illustration: CORRIDOR OF CATACOMB.]
Isidorus groped his way amid the gloom toward these heavenly sounds.
Soon he caught a faint glimmer of light reflected from an angle of the
corridor, and then a ray through an open doorway pierced the gloom.
Hurrying forward he found the whole company from which he had become
separated gathered in a sort of chapel hewn out of the solid rock. The
body of Lucius lay upon the bier before an open tomb, hewn out of the
wall. The venerable presbyter, by the fitful torchlight which illumined
the strange group, and lit up the pious paintings and epitaphs upon the
wall, read from a scroll the strange words, "And I saw under the altar
the souls of them that were slain for the Word of God and for the
testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How
long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on
them that dwell on the earth?" A great fear fell upon the soul of the
susceptible Greek, for the slain man seemed, in the solemn majesty of
death, to become an accusing judge.
Then turning his scroll the presbyter read on, "What are these arrayed
in white robes and whence came they? These are they which came out of
great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in
the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and
serve Him day and night in His temple.... They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more ... and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes."
These holy words stirred strange emotions in the agitated breast of the
young Greek. Sweeter were they than ought he had ever read in Pindar's
page, and more sublime than even Homer's hymns. If these things were
true, he thought, he would gladly change places with the martyr on his
bier, if only he might exchange the torturing ambitions, strifes and
sins of time for the holy joys which that marvellous scroll revealed.
Then by loving hands the martyr's body was placed in its narrow tomb. A
marble slab, on which were simply written his name and the words,
"DORMIT IN PACE--He sleeps in peace," was cemented against the opening.
With a trowel, a palm branch, the symbol of martyrdom, was rudely traced
in the yet unhardened cement, and the little company began to disperse.
"O sir," cried the young Greek, clasping the hand of the venerable
Primitius, "teach me more fully this excellent way."
"Gladly, my son," replied the benignant old man. "Come hither to-morrow.
For here," he added with a smile, "my friends insist that I must remain
concealed till this outburst of persecution shall have passed.[20]
Hilarus, the fossor, will be thy guide. He will now conduct thee back
to thy friend Faustus, who is seeking thee."
By the dim light of a waxen taper which he carried, Hilarus led the
Greek to the entrance to the Catacomb, where they found Faustus waiting
in some alarm at the delay of his friend. In the bright moonlight they
walked back to the city. Isidorus thought well to evade giving an
account of his adventure in the Catacomb, and, to turn the conversation,
asked how the Christians had obtained the body of Lucius from the public
executioner.
"Oh, money will do anything in Rome," said Faustus, at which the Greek
visibly winced. "The Lady Marcella, in whose grounds the Catacomb is,
devotes much of her wealth to burying the poor of the Church, and her
steward had no difficulty in purchasing from Hanno, the executioner, the
mangled remains of the martyr. 'Tis like, before long, that he will have
many such to sell."
[Illustration]
FOOTNOTES:
[19] For the details above given, see Bingham's _Origines Ecclesiastica_
[20] Liberius, Bishop of Rome, lay concealed in the Catacombs for a
whole year, during a time of persecution.