eluding pursuit. Familiar with their intricacies, and following a
well-known clew, the Christian could plunge fearlessly into the
darkness, where his pursuer would soon be inextricably lost. Perchance
the sound of Christian worship, and the softened cadence of the
confessors’ hymn, stealing through the distant corridors, may have
fallen with strange awe on the souls of the rude soldiery stealthily
approaching their prey; and, perhaps, not unfrequently with a saving
and sanctifying power. But sometimes, tracked by the sleuth-hounds of
persecution, or betrayed by some wretched apostate consumed by a
Judas-greed of gold, the Christians were surprised at their devotions,
and their refuge became their sepulchre. Such was the tragic fate of
Stephen, slain even while ministering at the altar; such the event
described by Gregory of Tours, when a hecatomb of victims were
immolated at once by heathen hate; such the peril which wrung from a
stricken heart the cry, not of anger but of grief, _Tempora infausta,
quibus inter sacra et vota ne in cavernis quidem salvari 104
possimus!_--“O sad times in which, among sacred rites and prayers,
even in caverns, we are not safe!” It requires no great effort of
imagination to conceive the dangers and escapes which must have been
frequent episodes in the heroic lives of the early soldiers of the
cross.
In the Catacombs more safely than elsewhere could the Christians
celebrate the ordinances of religion, often under cover of the rites
of sepulture, which might even yet be sacred in the eyes of their
enemies. And next to their funeral purposes this seems to have been
their chief use. For this many of their principal chambers and chapels
were excavated, supplied with seats, ventilated by _luminari_, and
adorned with biblical or symbolical paintings. With what emotions must
the primitive believers have held their solemn worship and heard the
words of life, surrounded by the dead in Christ! With what power would
come the promise of the resurrection of the body, amid the crumbling
relics of mortality! How fervent their prayers for their companions in
tribulation, when they themselves stood in jeopardy every hour! Their
holy ambition was to witness a good confession even unto death. They
burned to emulate the zeal of the martyrs of the faith, the plumeless
heroes of a nobler chivalry than that of arms, the Christian athletes
who won in the bloody conflicts of the arena, or amid the fiery
tortures of the stake, not a crown of laurel or of bay, but a crown of
life, starry and unwithering, that can never pass away. Their humble
graves are grander monuments than the trophied tombs of Rome’s proud
conquerors upon the Appian Way. Lightly may we tread beside their
ashes; reverently may we mention their names. Though the bodily
presence of those conscripts of the tomb--the forlorn hope of the 105
army of Christianity--no longer walked among men, their intrepid
spirit animated the heart of each member of that little community of
persecuted Christians, “of whom the world was not worthy; who wandered
in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, ...
being destitute, afflicted, tormented.”[151]
It is impossible to arrive at even an approximate estimate of the
number of victims of the early persecutions. That number has
sometimes, no doubt, been greatly exaggerated. It has also, in
defiance of the testimony of contemporary history, been unreasonably
minified.[152] Tacitus asserts that under Nero a great multitude[153]
were convicted and punished. Pliny says the temples were almost
deserted[154] through this contagious superstition. Juvenal, Martial,
and other classical authors, notice the extraordinary sufferings of
the Christians. Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, says, “It
is impossible to number the martyrs of Christ.”[155] Eusebius, an
eye-witness of the last persecution, states that innumerable
multitudes suffered during its prevalence. After describing their
excruciating tortures, he adds: “And all these things were doing not 106
for a few days, but for a series of whole years. At one time ten or
more, then twenty, again thirty or even sixty, and sometimes a hundred
men, with their wives and children, were slain in one day.”[156] He
also describes the destruction of a Christian town, with all its
inhabitants, by fire.[157] Lactantius, also a contemporary witness,
tells us that the Christians were often surrounded on all sides and
burnt together.[158]
It is very remarkable that so few martyrs’ epitaphs have been found in
the Catacombs, not more than five or six altogether, and some of these
are not of unquestioned genuineness. But this may be attributed to the
humility and modesty of the early Christians, who shrank from claiming
for the sufferers for the truth the august title of martyr, which they
restricted to the one faithful and true witness, Jesus Christ. “We,”
said the victims of persecution at Lyons, “are only mean and humble
confessors.”
There do occur, it is true, certain inscriptions of a memorial
character and of later date than the time of the persecution, some of
which commemorate a large number of martyrs, but they are of little or
no historic value. Such is the inscription to three thousand martyrs
in the Catacomb of Priscilla, already given,[159] and the following
from the Callixtan Catacomb: MARCELLA ET CHRISTI MARTYRES
CCCCL--“Marcella and four hundred and fifty martyrs in Christ.”
Ancient itineraries speak of eighty, or even eight hundred, martyrs
buried in one spot in the Catacombs; and Prudentius declares that he 107
saw the remains of some sixty in a single grave.[160] But surpassing
all the others in exaggeration is an inscription in the church of St.
Sebastian commemorating one hundred and seventy-four thousand holy
martyrs, and forty-six bishops, also martyrs, said to be interred in
the neighbouring Catacomb. Another ancient tradition asserts that
twelve thousand Christians, who were employed in building the Baths of
Diocletian, were buried in the Catacomb of St. Zeno.[161] Piazza
asserts that two hundred and eighty-five Christians were put to death
in two days, under the Emperor Claudius II., A. D. 268, and that more
than two thousand were executed for refusing to sacrifice to the image
of the sun. Indeed, some Roman archæologists discern in every palm
branch or cup, which are so frequently found in the Catacombs,
irrefragable evidence of the martyr’s tomb.[162]
Such atrocious cruelty and lavish destruction of life as these 108
traditions, even if exaggerated, imply, seem incredible; but the pages
of the contemporary historians, Eusebius and Lactantius, give too
minute and circumstantial accounts of the persecutions of which they
were eye-witnesses to allow us to adopt the complacent theory of
Gibbon, that the sufferings of the Christians were comparatively few
and insignificant. “We ourselves have seen,” says the bishop of
Cæsarea, “crowds of persons, some beheaded, others burned alive, in a
single day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken to
pieces, and the executioners, wearied with slaughter, were obliged to
give over the work of blood.[163] ... They constantly vied with each
other,” he continues, “in inventing new tortures, as if there were
prizes offered to him who should contrive the greatest cruelties.”[164]
Men whose only crime was their religion were scourged with iron wires
or with _plumbatæ_, that is, chains laden with bronze balls, specimens
of which have been found in the martyrs’ graves, till the flesh hung
in shreds, and even the bones were broken; they were bound in chains
of red-hot iron, and roasted over fires so slow that they lingered for
hours, or even days, in their mortal agony; their flesh was scraped 109
from the very bone with ragged shells, or lacerated with burning
pincers, iron hooks, and instruments with horrid teeth or claws,
examples of which have been found in the Catacombs;[165] molten metal
and plates of red-hot brass were applied to the naked body till it
became one indistinguishable wound; and mingled salt and vinegar or
unslaked lime were rubbed upon the quivering flesh, torn and bleeding
from the rack or scourge--tortures more inhuman than savage Indian
ever wreaked upon his mortal foe. Men were condemned by the score and
hundred to labour in the mines, with the sinews of one leg severed,
with one eye scooped out and the socket seared with red-hot iron.
Chaste matrons and tender virgins were given over--worse fate a
thousand-fold than death--to dens of shame and the gladiators’ lust,
and subjected to nameless indignities, too horrible for words to
utter.[166] And all these intense sufferings were endured often with
joy and exultation, for the love of a divine Master, when a single
word, a grain of incense cast upon the heathen altar, would have
released the victims from their agonies. No lapse of time, and no 110
recoil from the idolatrous homage paid in after ages to the martyr’s
relics, should impair in our hearts the profound and rational
reverence with which we bend before his tomb.
We are left, however, for the most part, without authentic record of
the tragic scenes of Christian martyrdom. The primitive church,
indeed, treasured up these memories of moral heroism as her most
precious legacy to after times. Clement of Rome, it is said, appointed
notaries to search out the acts of the martyrs;[167] and, as we have
seen, Fabian suffered death for his zeal in preserving these
records.[168] But these precious documents for the most part perished
in the Diocletian persecution, although fragments were probably
incorporated with the later martyrologies. The earlier Acts are the
more authentic, and the more simple in character. Those of later date
become more and more florid in style, and are overladen with the
incredible and impossible, till their historic value is entirely
destroyed, except when they are corroborated by collateral testimony,
or by the monumental evidence of the Catacombs. Prudentius, attracted
to Rome by the fame of these repositories of the martyrs’ ashes, wrote
a treatise[169] on their sufferings, in which his fervid imagination
and rhetorical style found amplest indulgence. Later writers still
further embellished and exaggerated the original Acts, till the
wildest stories of ancient mythology, or mediæval legend, were
surpassed by the monkish martyrologists.
This “holy romance,” as Gibbon contemptuously calls it, becomes little 111
else than a record of the most astounding miracles, the most horrible
tortures, and of more than human endurance.[170] It minutely describes
the conflict between the Christian and his heathen persecutor: _hinc
martyr, illinc carnifex_--here the martyr, there the executioner.
The one wreaks his rage upon his victim, the other exhibits a stoical
endurance of suffering rivaling that of the American savage at the
funeral stake, or else an insensibility to pain that lessens the merit
of his acts. “It is cooked, turn and eat,”[171] says St. Lawrence,
broiling on a gridiron. He feels no pain from the vinegar and salt
rubbed on his bleeding wounds. “Salt me the more, that I may be
incorruptible,” says Tarachus to his torturer. He continues to speak
after his tongue is torn out by the roots. The lacerations of the
ungulæ assume to the excited imagination the form of the name of
Christ.[172] Divine odours breathe from the body, which shines like
gold amid the flames that refuse to kindle upon it. A voice from
heaven hails the invincible conqueror, and his soul in the form of a
dove ascends to the skies.[173] The undying instincts of nature are 112
flagrantly violated in some of the Acts. A mother rebukes her child
for begging a cup of water while suffering under the rods of the
lictors; and while it is beheaded before her eyes she, alone unmoved,
sings a versicle of thanksgiving.[174] Often the martyr endeavours to
exasperate with taunts and defiance the heathen magistrate, who
gnashes his teeth and rolls his eyes in impotent rage.[175] “Be dumb,
wretch! O serpent of darkest mind, a curse be upon thee!” exclaims St.
Boniface to his executioner. Vincentius menaces his judge with the
fiery fate of the bottomless pit.[176] These Acts of the Martyrs were
appointed to be read in the churches,[177] till they were prohibited
by the Council of Trullo, A. D. 706.
The enthusiasm for martyrdom prevailed, at times, almost like an
epidemic. It was one of the most remarkable features of the ages of
persecution. Notwithstanding the terrific tortures to which they were
exposed, the fiercer the tempest of heathen rage the higher and
brighter burned the zeal of the Christian heroes. Age after age
summoned the soldiers of Christ to the conflict whose highest guerdon 113
was death. They bound persecution as a wreath about their brows, and
exulted in the “glorious infamy” of suffering for their Lord. The
brand of shame became the badge of highest honour. Besides the joys of
heaven they won imperishable fame on earth; and the memory of a humble
slave was often haloed with a glory surpassing that of a Curtius or
Horatius. The meanest hind was ennobled by the accolade of martyrdom
to the loftiest peerage of the skies. His consecration of suffering
was elevated to a sacrament, and called the baptism of fire or of
blood.
Burning to obtain the prize, the impetuous candidates for death often
pressed with eager haste to seize the palm of victory and the martyr’s
crown. They trod with joy the fiery path to glory, and went as gladly
to the stake as to a marriage feast. “Their fetters,” says Eusebius,
“seemed like the golden ornaments of a bride.”[178] They desired
martyrdom more ardently than men afterward sought a bishopric.[179]
They exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were counted worthy to
suffer for their divine Master. “Let the ungulæ tear us,” exclaims
Tertullian,[180] “the crosses bear our weight, the flames envelope us,
the sword divide our throats, the wild beasts spring upon us; the very
posture of prayer is a preparation for every punishment.” “These
things,” says St. Basil, “so far from being a terror, are rather a
pleasure and a recreation to us.”[181] “The tyrants were armed,” says
St. Chrysostom, “and the martyrs naked; yet they that were naked got 114
the victory, and they that carried arms were vanquished.”[182] Strong
in the assurance of immortality, they bade defiance to the sword.
Though weak in body they seemed clothed with vicarious strength, and
confident that though “counted as sheep for the slaughter,” naught
could separate them from the love of Christ. Wrapped in their fiery
vesture and shroud of flame, they yet exulted in their glorious
victory. While the leaden hail fell on the mangled frame, and the eyes
filmed with the shadows of death, the spirit was enbraved by the
beatific vision of the opening heaven, and above the roar of the mob
fell sweetly on the inner sense the assurance of eternal life. “No
group, indeed, of Oceanides was there to console the Christian
Prometheus; yet to his upturned eye countless angels were
visible--their anthem swept solemnly to his ear--and the odours of an
opening paradise filled the air. Though the dull ear of sense heard
nothing, he could listen to the invisible Coryphæus as he invited him
to heaven and promised him an eternal crown.”[183] The names of the
“great army of martyrs,” though forgotten by men, are written in the
Book of Life. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.”
There is a record, traced on high,
That shall endure eternally;
The angel standing by God’s throne
Treasures there each word and groan;
And not the martyr’s speech alone,
But every wound is there depicted, 115
With every circumstance of pain--
The crimson stream, the gash inflicted--
And not a drop is shed in vain.[184]
This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle in society. It had no
classical counterpart.[185] Socrates and Seneca suffered with
fortitude, but not with faith. The loftiest pagan philosophy dwindled
into insignificance before the sublimity of Christian hope. This
looked beyond the shadows of time and the sordid cares of earth to the
grandeur of the Infinite and the Eternal. The heroic deaths of the
believers exhibited a spiritual power mightier than the primal
instincts of nature, the love of wife or child, or even of life
itself. Like a solemn voice falling on the dull ear of mankind, these
holy examples urged the inquiry, “What shall it profit a man if he
gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” And that voice awakened
an echo in full many a heart. The martyrs made more converts by their
deaths than in their lives. “Kill us, rack us, condemn us, grind us to
powder,” exclaims the intrepid Christian Apologist; “our numbers
increase in proportion as you mow us down.”[186] The earth was drunk
with the blood of the saints, but still they multiplied and grew,
gloriously illustrating the perennial truth--_Sanguis martyrum semen
ecclesiæ._[187]
Christianity, after long repression, became at length triumphant. The 116
church on the conversion of Constantine emerged from the concealment
of the Catacombs to the sunshine of imperial favour. The legend of the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly illustrates the wondrous
transformation of society. These Christian brothers, taking shelter in
a cave during the Decian persecution, awoke, according to the legend,
after a slumber of over a century, to find Christianity everywhere
dominant, and a Christian emperor on the throne of the Cæsars.[188]
The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated
the world.[189] With choirs and hymns, in cities and villages, in the
highways and markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung.[190] The
enemies of God were as though they had not been.[191] The Lord brought 117
up the vine of Christianity from a far land, and cast out the heathen,
and planted and watered it, till it twined round the sceptre of the
Cæsars, wreathed the columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole
land. The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods discrowned, and the
pagan flamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove. Rome,
which had dragged so many conquered divinities in triumph at its
chariot wheels, at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of
Olympus. The old faiths faded from the firmament of human thought as
the stars of midnight at the dawn of day. The banished deities forsook
their ancient seats. They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe or in
the grove of Daphne.[192] The naiads bathed not in Scamander’s stream
nor Simois, nor the nereids in the waters of the bright Ægean Sea. The
nymphs and dryads ceased to haunt the sylvan solitudes. The oreads
walked no more in light on Ida’s lofty top.
O ye vain false gods of Hellas!
Ye are vanished evermore!
Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the
empire its influence had been felt permeating the entire community.
Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservative
element--the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst of
anarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principle
previously unknown in the heathen world, ruling not by terror but by 118
love; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faith
amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the
reeking abominations of a sensual age.
Yet this mighty energy thus at work eluded the notice, or excited only
the disdain, of some of the keenest observers and greatest thinkers
the world has seen. Classical literature contains only a few short
notices of that religion which was transforming the age. A galaxy of
philosophers and historians, gazing mournfully at the seething mass of
moral putrefaction around them, and profoundly conscious of its
apparently cureless evil, treated as contemptible the most powerful
moral agent in the world--that regenerative principle which was to
reorganize society on a higher type than ever was known before.[193]
The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation, and paganism seemed
entirely unconscious of its impending doom.
But this wonderful influence, which accomplished so much, seemed at
length strangely to lose its power, and did not fulfil the
regenerative work which it began. It failed to check the degeneracy of
the age or to avert the dissolution of the empire. The many crimes of
that colossal orgy cried to heaven for vengeance. The taint was too
inveterate to be eradicated; the evil was immedicable; Rome was
already effete and moribund. It was weighed in the balance and found
wanting. Therefore the inexorable penalty, which evermore follows
wrong, as a shadow its substance, was suffered to descend. An awful
Nemesis, like an avenging Fate, overtook the great and wicked city 119
in its pride and guilt; and the mystical Babylon of the West, reeking
with sensuality, idolatry, and blood, soon beheld the Goths at her
gates, and the Huns within her walls.[194]
[31] A deal of fanciful theory has been indulged in as to the
origin of the Catacombs. They have been attributed to a
pre-historic race of Troglodytes, who loathed the light of day,
and burrowed like moles in the earth. MacFarlane has an eloquent
apostrophe to the old Etrurians, by whom he imagined they were
excavated twelve hundred years before the Christian era. We have
seen also how they were erroneously attributed to the pagan
Romans.
[32] _Victoribus victi leges dederunt._ On the Tiber, the
Tigris, and the Nile, this saying was strikingly verified. Yet
Judaism is an essentially conservative, not an aggressive,
religion. It was unadapted for such wide-spread conquests as
those of Christianity, or even of Mohammedism. The ancient mould
of thought, having served its purpose, was broken. Judaism may be
said to have died in giving birth to Christianity.
[33] _Hist._, v, 5.
[34] In 1853 a Jewish Catacomb was discovered at Venosa, in
Southern Italy, containing one gallery seven feet high and four
hundred feet long. In 1854 another was discovered at Oria, with
many Hebrew symbols and inscriptions. There were many Jews in
Apulia and Calabria.
[35] In eo quippe haud ulla, ut in reliquis, Christianæ religionis
indicia et signa apparebant--Bosio, _Rom. Sott._, 142.
[36] _Cimitero degli Antichi Ebrei Scoperto recentemente in
Vigna Randanini, illustrato da Raffaele Garrucci._ 8vo. Roma,
1862.
[37] See Fig. 18.
[38] Nunc sacri fontis nimus, et delubra locantur
Judæis.--_Sat.,_ iii, 13.
[39] It is incredible that the Apostle Peter had any share in
planting the Roman Church. If he had, Paul would not, as he does,
utterly ignore his labours. “_Only Luke_ is with me,” writes
St. Paul, just before his death; yet he and Peter are feigned to
have suffered on the same day. The story of St. Peter’s
twenty-five years’ episcopate at Rome is too absurd to require
disproof. The very minuteness of detail in the legends of St.
Peter is their own refutation. In vain are we shown the chair in
which tradition asserts that he sat, the font at which he
baptized, the cell in which he was confined, the fountain which
sprang up in its floor, the pillar to which he was bound, the
chains which he wore, the impression made by his head in the wall
and by his knees in the stony pavement, the scene of his
crucifixion, the very hole in which the foot of the cross was
placed, and the tomb in which his body is said to lie; they all
fail to carry conviction to any mind in which superstition has
not destroyed the critical faculty. The mighty fane which rises
sublimely in the heart of Rome in honour of the Galilean
fisherman, like the religious system of which it is the visible
exponent, is founded on a shadowy tradition, opposed alike to the
testimony of Scripture, the evidence of history, and the
deductions of reason. The question whether Peter _ever_ was
in Rome has recently been publicly discussed under the very
shadow of the Vatican. Verily, _Tempora mutantur_.
[40] Nos quoque ut Judaicæ religionis propinquos, sub umbraculum
insignissimæ religionis certé licitæ.--_Ad Nat._, i, 11.
[41] Execrantur rogos, et damnant ignium sepulturas.--Minuc.
Felix, _Octav._, ii, 451. Tertullian declared it to be a
symbol of the fires of hell. Possibly, also, the expense and
publicity inseparable from the practice of cremation made it a
matter of necessity for the early Christians to adopt the less
costly and more private mode of subterranean interment. Merivale,
indeed, asserts that the early Roman Christians burned their
dead, (vi, 444,) and adduces in support of this strange theory
only the pagan dedication D. M., found on some Christian tombs.
As will be shown, (Book III, i,) these letters were part of a
common epigraphic formula, and give no warrant for this startling
statement.
[42] Bishop Hall.
[43] It would appear from this inscription that some of the
family of Restitutus were still pagans, and were buried apart
from the rest. The early Christians regarded it as unlawful to
commingle the heathen and believers in common burial. St. Cyprian
makes it a capital charge against the heretical Bishop of
Asturia, that he “buried his children in profane sepulchres and
in the midst of strangers.” See also Ruth i, 17. Compare Cic.,
_de Leg._, ii, 22, and _de Off._, lib. ii.
[44] Apol. xxxix. The following inscription, recently discovered
in the ruins of Cæsarea, a Roman town in Africa, attests the
provision made by wealthy Christians for the burial of their
poorer neighbours:
AREAM AT [AD] SEPVLCHRA CVLTOR VERBI CONTVLIT
ET CELLAM STRVXIT SVIS CVNCTIS SVMPTIBVS
ECCLESIÆ SANCTÆ HANC RELIQVIT MEMORIAM,
SALVETE FRATRES PVRO CORDE ET SIMPLICI
EVELPIVS VOS SATOS SANCTO SPIRITV.
ECCLESIA FRATRVM HVNC RESTITVIT TITVLVM....
A worshipper of the Word has given this area for sepulchres, and
has built a vault at his own cost; he left this memorial to the
Holy Church. Hail, brethren! with a pure and simple heart,
Euelpius [salutes] you, born of the Holy Spirit.
The congregation of the brethren replaced this inscription....
[45] 2 Tim. iv, 21. Suet., _Vit. Ner._, c. 28, 29; Tac.,
_Ann._, xv, 37. See also Dio., lxiii, 13.
[46] E.g. Flavia Domitilla, the niece of Domitian, and her
husband, Clemens. Their children had been adopted by the Emperor,
and designated as his successors. So near came Christianity to
grasping the sceptre of the Cæsars in the first century. Dio
Cass., _Hist._, lxvii, 13. Suet. in _Domit._, xv. The niece of
Domitilla, also of the same name, suffered exile for the faith,
A. D. 97. She gave the land for the Catacomb which still bears
her name.
Marcia, Mammæa, the mother of Alex. Severus, the Emperor Philip,
and Prisca and Valeria, the wife and daughter of the
arch-persecutor Diocletian, either embraced or greatly favoured
Christianity.
[47] _Apol._, c. 37.
[48] [Transcriber’s note: Footnote missing in the original.]
[49] Religiosum locum unusquisque sua voluntate facit, dum
mortuum infert in locum suum. _Marcian. Digest._, i, 8, 6, § 4.
[50] _Cod. Justin._, lib. ix, tit. 19, _de Sepulchro
Violato_, leg. 1, 5; _Cod. Theod._, lib. ix, tit. 17.
Proximum sacrilegio majores semper habuerunt. So the poet
exclaims:
Res ea sacra, miser; noli mea tangere fata:
Sacrilegae bustis abstinuere manus.--
“Touch not my monument, thou wretch; it is a sacred thing: even
sacrilegious hands refrain from the violation of graves.”
[51] Xen., _Mem._, ii, 2, § 13.
[52] _Roman Sepulchral Inscriptions_, p. 9, London, 1858.
[53] Mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum
Hic dabat; heredes monumentum ne sequeretur.
Hor., _I Sat._, viii, 12.
[54] Literally, “the angry gods.”
[55] Reinesius.
[56] Corpora animadversorum quibuslibet petentibus ad sepulturam
danda sunt. _Digest._, xlviii, 24, 2.
[57] Both of these are given by Dr. McCaul in his _Christian
Epitaphs of the First Six Centuries_, an admirable little
volume, my indebtedness to which will be elsewhere acknowledged.
He also quotes the following from Henzen’s _Inscr. Lat. Select.
Col._, No. 6371: PETO A BOBIS [VOBIS] FRATRES BONI PER
VNVM DEVM NE QVIS VI TITVLO MOLESTET POST MORTEM--“I beseech
you, good brothers, by the one God, that no one by force injure
this inscription after my death.”
[58] Aringhi, lib. iv, c. xxvii.
[59] Sometimes an anathema was invoked upon the disturber of the
grave, as in the following interesting example, found in the
island of Salamis, and quoted by Dr. McCaul from Kirchoff,
_Corpus Inscript. Græc._, No. 9303: Οἶκος αἰώνιος Ἀγάθωνος
ἀναγνώστου καὶ Εὐφημίας ἐν δυσὶ θήκαις ἰδίᾳ ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν. Εἰ δέ
τις τῶν ἰδίων ἢ ἕτερός τις τολμήσῃ σῶμα καταθέσθαι ἐνταῦθα παρὲξ
τῶν δύω ἡμῶν, λόγον δῴη τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἀνάθεμα ἤτω μαραναθάν--“The
everlasting dwelling of Agatho, a reader, and Euphemia, in two
graves, one for each of us separately. If any one of our
relatives, or any one else, shall presume to bury a body here
beside us two, may he give an account of it to God, and may he be
anathema maranatha.”
[60] It is remarkable that Shakespeare’s epitaph should present
almost as uncouth a specimen of epigraphy as any of the barbarous
inscriptions of the Catacombs. See the following copy:
Good Friend for Iesus SAKE forbeare
To diGG T-E Dust EncloAsed HERe
Blest be T-E Man T/Y spares T-es Stones
And curst be He T/Y moves my Bones.
[61] Maitland reads thus: IN CHRISTO. MARTYRIVS VIXIT ANNOS
XCI PLVS MINVS ELEXIT DOMVM VIVVS. IN PACE.--“In Christ.
Martyrius lived ninety-one years, more or less. He chose a home
during his life-time. In peace.”
[62] Collegium salutare Dianæ et Antinoi, constitutum ex Senatus
Populique Romani decreto, quibus coire, convenire, collegiumque
habere liceat. Qui stipem menstruam conferre volent in funera, in
id collegium coeant, neque sub specie ejus collegii nisi semel in
mense coeant, conferendi causa unde defuncti sepeliantur.
[63] The _sesterce_, or _sestertius_, was about 2d·5 farthings,
the _as_ about 3d·4 farthings. The _amphora_ held about six
gallons.
[64] Muratori, tom. ii, classis vii, _Collegia Varia_.
[65] _Ibid._
[66] Trajan regarded with suspicion even fire brigades and
charitable societies, (Pliny, X _Epis. 43 et 94_,) and forbade
the assemblies of the Christians, but permitted the monthly
contribution of the clubs--Permittitur tenuioribus stipem
menstruam conferre. _Digest._, xlvii, 22, 1.
[67] Modicam unusquisque stipem _menstrua die_, vel quum velit,
et si modo velit, et si modo possit, apponit: nam nemo
compellitur, sed sponte confert.... Nam inde non epulis ... sed
egenis alendis _humandisque_ ... etc. Tert., _Apol._, c. 39.
[68] See first footnote.
[69] _Bullettino_, 1864, 62.
[70] Rom. xvi, 5, 3.
[71] _Philosophoumena_, ix, 11.
[72] Actorem sive syndicum, per quem, quod communiter agi
fierique oporteat, agatur, fiat.--_Digest._, iii, 4, 1, § 1.
[73] E veramente che almeno fino dal secolo terzo i fideli
abbiano possiduto cemeteri a nome commune, e che il loro possesso
sia stato riconosciuto dagl’imperatori, è cosa impossibile a
negare.--De Rossi, _Rom. Sott._, tom. i, p. 103.
[74] The dreaded _crimen majestatis_.
[75] Hostes Cæsarum, hostes populi Romani.
[76] Non pluit Deus, duc ad Christianos.--Aug., _Civ. Dei_, ii, 3.
[77] Si Tiberis ascendit in mœnia, si Nilus non ascendit in arva,
si coelum stetit, si terra movit, si fames, si lues, statim,
“Christianos ad leones.”--_Apol._, x. “But I pray you,” he adds,
“were misfortunes unknown before Tiberius? The true God was not
worshipped when Hannibal conquered at Cannæ, or the Gauls filled
the city.”
[78] Eusebius describes their activity in bringing wood and straw
from the shops and baths for the burning of Polycarp. _Eccl.
Hist._, iv, 15.
[79] Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdedit reos et quæsitissimis
poenis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos
appellabat.... Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis
contecti laniatu canum interierint, aut crucibus affixi, aut
flammandi atque, ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis
urerentur.--_Ann._, xv, 44.
[80] A telegraphic despatch from Rome of date January 16, 1873,
announces that the Pope claims to have discovered the bodies of
the apostles Philip and James. Highly improbable, and of no
practical importance if true. Not the bones of the saints buried
centuries ago, but the spirit which animated them and the
principles for which they died, are the true sources of the
church’s power.
[81] Sulpic. Sever., _Hist._, ii, 41.
[82] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, iii, 17. A. D. 93-96.
[83] Prope jam desolata templa coepisse celebrari; et sacra
solennia diu intermissa repeti.--_Epis. ad Traj._ Among the
most distinguished sufferers during this persecution was Clement,
third bishop of Rome, exiled to Pontus, and, it is said, cast
into the sea, A. D. 103; also the venerable Ignatius, bishop of
the church at Antioch, linked by tradition with the Saviour
himself, as one of the children whom he took in his arms and
blessed. Condemned by Trajan to exposure to wild beasts in the
amphitheatre at Rome, a passion for martyrdom possessed his soul.
“Suffer me to be the food of the wild beasts,” he exclaimed, “by
whom I shall attain unto God. For I am the wheat of God; and I
shall be ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may become the
pure bread of Christ.”--_Epis. ad Romanos_, §§ 4, 5.
[84] Sacra Romana diligentissimè curavit, peregrina
contempsit.--Spartian. in _Hadrian._ A. D. 117-138.
[85] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, iv, 9. Jus. Mar., _Apol._, i, 68,
69.
[86] A. D. 138-161.
[87] Irenæus, iii, 3, § 3.
[88] A. D. 161-180.
[89] The following inscription, referring to the Antonine period,
is given by Maitland, (page 40,) as from the Catacomb of
Callixtus. Although it seems to imply the actual prevalence of
persecution, it is evidently, even if genuine, of later date than
the time alleged. The presence of the sacred monogram, as well as
the somewhat florid and pleonastic style, indicate an origin not
anterior to the age of Constantine, when it became the fashion
with outward pharisaism to adorn the sepulchres of the martyrs,
although the truths for which they died were often treated with
neglect:
[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Reputed Martyr Symbol.]
ALEXANDER MORTVVS NON EST SED VIVIT SVPER ASTRA ET CORPVS
IN HOC TVMVLO QVIESCIT. VITAM EXPLEVIT SVB ANTONINO IMP
QVI VBI MVLTVM BENEFITII ANTEVENIRE PRAEVIDERET PRO
GRATIA ODIVM REDDIDIT. GENVA ENIM FLECTENS VERO DEO
☧ SACRIFICATVRVS AD SVPPLICIA DVCITVR. O TEMPORA INFAVSTA
QVIBVS INTER SACRA ET VOTA NE IN CAVERNIS QVIDEM SALVARI
POSSIMVS. QVID MISERIVS VITA SED QVID MISERIVS IN MORTE
CVM AB AMICIS ET PARENTIBVS SEPELIRI NEQVEANT TANDEM IN
COELO CORVSCANT. PARVM VIXIT QVI VIXIT IN. X. TEM.
“In Christ. Alexander is not dead, but lives above the stars, and
his body rests in this tomb. He ended his life under the Emperor
Antonine, who, foreseeing that great benefit would result from
his services, returned evil for good. For while on his knees and
about to sacrifice to the true God, he was led away to execution.
O sad times! in which, among sacred rites and prayers, even in
caverns we are not safe. What can be more wretched than such a
life? and what than such a death? when they cannot be buried by
their friends and relations--at length they sparkle in heaven. He
has scarcely lived who has lived in Christian times.”
Maitland renders the concluding letters, IN. X. TEM, by “In
Christianis temporibus.” The furnace seems to indicate that the
martyr suffered death by fire, or, possibly, by immersion in
boiling oil--a mode of punishment which St. John is said to have
undergone, but without receiving any harm.
Another still more apocryphal inscription is given by Maitland,
(page 65.) It is probably of the fifth century. The Pudentiana
referred to is said to have spent her patrimony in relieving the
poor and burying the martyrs.
HOC EST COEMETERIVM PRISCILLAE
IN QVO EXISTVNT CORPORA TRIVM MILLIVM MARTYRVM
MARTYRIO PER ANTONINUM IMPERATOREM
AFFECTORVM QVOS S. PVDENTIANA
FECIT IN HOC SVO VENERABILI TEMPLO SEPELIRI.
“This is the Cemetery of Priscilla, in which are the bodies of
three thousand martyrs, who suffered under the Emperor Antonine,
whom St. Pudentiana caused to be buried in this her own place of
worship.”--Aicher, _Hortus Inscriptionum_. More authentic relics
of this reign are the large tiles with which part of the Catacomb
of Callixtus is paved. They all bear the words, OPVS DOLIARE EX
PRAEDIIS DOMINI N ET FIGL NOVIS, which, according to Marini, is
the stamp of the imperial manufactory of Marcus Aurelius.
[90] “Hanc dextram ad te Jupiter, tendo, quae nullius unquam
sanguinam fudit,” is the form of prayer given by Claudian.
Euseb., v, 5.
[91] A. D. 180-193.
[92] See chap. ii, book iii.
[93] _Strom._, lib. ii, A. D. 193.
[94] _Apol._, 37. Sicut sub Hilariano præside, cum de areis
sepulturarum nostrarum adclamâssent, areæ non sint.--_Ad
Scap._, c. iii. A. D. 203.
No more pathetic episode is contained in the whole range of the
Martyrology than that of the youthful mother, Perpetua, who
suffered at Carthage under Severus. Few can read unmoved the acts
of her martyrdom, which bear the stamp of authenticity in their
perfectly natural and unexaggerated tone, and the absence of
miracle. Young--she was only twenty-two--beautiful, of noble
family, and dearly loved, her heathen father entreated her to
pity his gray hairs, her mother’s tears, her helpless babe. But
her faith proved triumphant over even the yearnings of natural
affection; and, wan and faint from recent childbirth pangs, she
was led, with Felicitas, her companion, into the crowded
amphitheatre, and exposed to the cruel horns of infuriate beasts.
Amid the agonies of death, more conscious of her wounded modesty
than of her pain, with a gesture of dignity she drew her
disheveled robe about her person. She seemed rapt in ecstasy till
by a merciful stroke of the gladiator she was released from her
suffering, and exchanged the dust and blood of the arena, and the
shouts of the ribald mob, for the songs of the redeemed, and the
beatific vision of the Lord she loved.
[95] Cædit et humanas hostias.--Lamprid., _Heliogabalus_.
[96] A. D. 222.
[97] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, vi, 21.
[98] The site, according to tradition, of St. Maria in Trastevere.
[99] A. D. 250-253. Execrabile animal Decius, qui vexaret
ecclesiam.--Lactan., _de Mort. Persec._, c. 3, 4. He would rather
tolerate, he said, a rival for his throne, than a bishop in Rome.
Cypr., _Ep._ 53.
[100] Called respectively _Sacrificati_, _Thurificati_, and
_Libellatici_, of whom the first were esteemed the most guilty.
The indignant rhetoric of Cyprian expresses his holy horror at
this vile apostasy: “They made haste to give their souls the
mortal wound.... That altar where he was about to die--was it not
his funeral pile? Should he not have fled, as from his coffin or
his grave, from that devil’s altar, when he saw it smoke and fume
with stinking smell?... Thou thyself wast the sacrificial victim.
Thou didst sacrifice thy salvation, and burn thy faith and hope
in these abominable fires”--Nonne ara illa, quo moriturus
accessit, rogus illi fuit? Nonne diaboli altare quod foetore
tætro fumare et redolere conspexerat, velut funus et bustum vitæ
suæ horrere ac fugere debebat?... Ipse ad aram hostia, victima
ipse venisti. Immolâsti illic salutem tuam, spem tuam, fidem
tuam, funestis illis ignibus concremâsti.--_De Lapsis_, p. 124.
[101] Dionysius of Alexandria, in _Euseb._, vi, 41.
[102] A. D. 254-259.
[103] Ἐκκλησία, Euseb., vii, 10.
[104] Milman, _Hist. of Christianity_, Am. ed., Book II.,
chap. vii.
[105] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, vii, 10.
[106] Ut episcopi et presbyteri et diacones incontinenter
animadvertantur, ... capite quoque mulctentur.--_Cypr._, ep.
72, _ad Successum_.
[107] Οὐδαμῶς ἔξέσται ὑμῖν ἢ συνόδους ποιεῖσθαι ἢ εἰς τὰ καλούμενα
κοιμητήρια εἰσιέναι--Dionys., in _Euseb._, vii, 11.
Jussum est, ut nulla conciliabula faciant, neque coemeteria
ingrediantur.--Pontius, _Passio Cypriani_.
[108] In Africa, Cyprian, the intrepid bishop of Carthage, after
a stormy episcopate, obtained the crown of martyrdom. On
receiving the sentence condemning him to death, he exclaimed,
“God be thanked!” and went as joyous to his fate as to a marriage
feast.--Pontius, _Passio Cypr._
[109] “Vitam solitariam agebat in cryptis.” Of St. Urban it is
similarly said, “Solebat in sacrorum martyrum monumenta.”--_Acts
of Cecilia._
[110] Baronius: _Ann._, tom. iii, p. 76. Among his companions in
death was Hippolytus, a Roman convert, of whom a beautiful legend
is recorded. His pagan relatives, entrusted with the secret of
his retreat, supplied his wants by means of their children, a boy
and girl of ten and thirteen years. He one day detained the
children in the hope that their parents would seek them, and thus
have the opportunity of religious instruction from the good
bishop. His plan succeeded, and eventually they with their
children were baptized and suffered martyrdom together! Baron.,
_Ann._, iii, 69. Even though unauthentic, this story is a type,
doubtless, of many incidents which occurred in the strange social
relations of the church in the Catacombs.
[111] Xistum in cimiterio animadversum sciatis ... et cum eo
diaconos quatuor.--Cypr., _Epis._, lxxx, _ad Successum_.
[112] Another martyr whose Acts, although disfigured with some
grotesque and exaggerated circumstances, contain elements of
great beauty, was Lawrence, a deacon of the bishop Sixtus.
Esteeming it no sacrilege, but rather the highest consecration of
the property of the church, he distributed it in alms among the
suffering Christians. Being commanded to surrender to the emperor
the confiscated ecclesiastical treasure, he presented to the
commissioner a number of aged and impotent poor, saying, “These
are the treasures of the church.” After incredible tortures,
which form the subject of many a picture of Roman Catholic art,
he is said to have been roasted to death over a slow fire.
Ambros., _Officin._, i, 41.
[113] A. D. 259.
[114] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 13.
[115] _Ib._, viii, 23.
[116] A. D. 275.
[117] _Probus et vere probus situs est._ Obiit A. D. 283.
[118] Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century, asserts
that under Numerian, the brother and contemporary of Carinus,
Chrysanthus and Daria suffered martyrdom in a Catacomb on the
_Via Salaria_. A number of the faithful being observed to visit
their tombs, the emperor ordered the entrance to be built up and
covered with a heap of sand and stones, that they might be buried
alive in common martyrdom. When their remains were discovered by
Damasus, in the fourth century, he refrained from removing them,
and simply made an opening from an adjacent gallery, that
pilgrims to the early shrines of the faith might behold, without
disturbing it, this “Christian Pompeii.” Gregory asserts that
these interesting relics were still to be seen in his day--the
skeletons of men, women, and children lying on the floor, and
even the silver vessels (_urcei argentei_) which they used.
[119] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 1.
[120] _Ibid._
[121] _De Mort. Persec._, c. xxiii.
[122] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 1.
[123] Caius ... fugiens persecutionem Diocletiani in cryptis
habitando, martyrio coronatur.--_Lib. Pontif._; cf. Euseb.,
_Hist. Eccles._, vii, 32.
[124] Ἐκ τῶν ἐν στρατείαις ἀδελφῶν καταρχομένου τοῦ
διωγμοῦ.--_Hist. Eccles._, viii, 1.
[125] _Vita Const._, ii, 54.
[126] The following inscription, found in Spain, and given by
Gruter, seems designed as the funeral monument of dead and buried
Christianity. But though apparently destroyed, like its divine
Author, instinct with immortality it rose triumphant over all its
foes.
DIOCLETIAN · CAES · AUG · GALERIO · IN ORIENTE · ADOPT ·
SVPERSTITIONE CHRIST · VBIQ · DELETA ET CVLTV DEOR · PROPAGATO.
“To Diocletian, Cæsar Augustus, having adopted Galerius in the
East, the Christian superstition being every-where destroyed, and
the worship of the gods extended.”
[127] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 2. The effects of the
persecution were felt even in Britain. (Gildas, _de Excid.
Britan._, in Bingham, viii, 1.) Alban was the first British
martyr at a somewhat earlier date.
[128] “The dungeons destined for murderers,” says Eusebius, “were
filled with bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists,
so that there was no room left for those condemned for
crime.”--_Hist. Eccles._
[129] Nec unquam sine cruore humano coenabat.--Lactan., _de
Mort. Persec._
[130] Date of Edict, April 30, A. D. 311. Euseb., _Hist.
Eccles._, ix, 1.
[131] Eusebius gives the edict, taken from a brazen tablet at
Tyre, in which the Emperor speaks of “the votaries of an
execrable vanity, like a funeral pile long disregarded and
smothered, again rising in mighty flames and rekindling the
extinguished brands.” _Hist. Eccles._, ix, 9.
[132] The courtly panegyrist of Constantine gratefully speaks of
him as a “light and deliverer arising in the dense and
impenetrable darkness of a gloomy night.” Euseb., _Hist.
Eccles._, x, 8.
[133] Eusebius compares the victory of the Milvian Bridge to that
of Moses and the Israelites over Pharaoh and his hosts. _Hist.
Eccles._ ix, 9.
[134] Daremus et Christianis et omnibus liberam potestatem
sequendi religionem quam quisque voluisset--“We give to the
Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow whatever mode
of worship they may wish.”--Decree of Milan, preserved in
Lactantius, _de Mort. Persec._, and in Euseb., _Hist.
Eccles._, x, 5.
[135] In the violent deaths or loathsome diseases of many of
their persecutors the Christians recognized the retributive
judgments of the Almighty, which were considered so remarkable as
to occasion the special treatise _de Mortibus Persecutorum_,
attributed to the pen of Lactantius. Nero died ignominiously by
his own hand. Domitian was assassinated. During the reign of
Aurelius war, famine, and pestilence wasted the land. Decius
perished miserably in a marsh, and his body became the prey of
the prowling jackal and unclean buzzard. Valerian, captured by
the Persians, after having served as a footstool to his haughty
foe, is said to have been flayed alive and his skin stuffed with
straw. Aurelian was slain by the hand of a trusted servant, and
Carinus by the dagger of a husband whom he had irreparably
wronged. Diocletian, having languished for years the prey of
painful maladies, which even affected his reason, it is said
committed suicide. Galerius, like those rivals in bloodshed and
persecution, Herod and Philip II., became an object of loathing
and abhorrence, being “eaten of worms” while yet alive. Maximian
fell by the hand of the public executioner; and Maxentius, in the
hour of defeat, was smothered in the ooze of the Tiber beneath
the walls of his capital. Severus opened his own veins and bled
to death. The first Maximin was murdered; the second, a fugitive
and an exile, committed suicide by poison, and, according to
Eusebius, was so consumed by internal torments that “his body
became the tomb of his soul.” Licinius, the last of the
persecutors, was slain by his ferocious soldiery, and his name,
by a decree of the Senate, forever branded with infamy. Thus with
indignities and tortures, often surpassing those they inflicted
on their Christian subjects, perished the enemies of the church
of God, as if pursued by a divine retribution no less inexorable
than the avenging Nemesis of the pagan mythology. See Lactantius,
_de Mort. Persec._, _passim_; Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 17;
ix, 9, 10; Tertul., _Ad. Scap._, c. 3.
[136] The church of St. Marcello, in the Corso, commemorates the
scene of his indignities. There is reason to believe that each
church or _titulus_ within the city had its own cemetery
without the walls, over which the presbyter of the title had
jurisdiction. Marcellinus, as bishop, had charge of the
ecclesiastical Cemetery of Callixtus, as appears from a
contemporary inscription.
[137] Gruter, _Inscrip._, p. 1172, No. 3.
[138] _Rom. Sott._, p. 172.
[139] There is a pleasing tradition recorded of Sylvester, the
successor of Melchiades, to the effect that, having fled, on
account of the persecution, to the caverns of Mount Soracte, the
Emperor Constantine sent for him to receive religious
instruction. Seeing the soldiers approach, as he thought to lead
him to martyrdom, Sylvester exclaimed, “Now is the accepted time,
now is the day of salvation,” but was in a few days installed as
bishop of Rome in the imperial palace of the Lateran. Soracte,
once sacred to Apollo and the Muses, but now to Christ and the
saints, is known, in commemoration of this event, as _Monte San
Silvestro_.
[140] Gruter, p. 1171, No. 8.
[141] Their names and piety are commemorated by two churches in
Rome. Eusebius also records with approbation the story of the
Christian matron Sophronia, wife of the Prefect of Rome, who
committed suicide to escape the polluting embraces of the tyrant
Maxentius. _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 14.
[142] _Bullettino_, January, 1869.
[143] The following satirical remarks of De Brosses, a Romanist
writer, concerning the supply of relics from the Catacomb of St.
Agnes, will indicate how unauthentic are these objects of
veneration: “Vous pourriez voir ici la capitale des Catacombes de
toute la chrétienté. Les martyrs, les confesseurs, et les
vierges, y fourmillent de tous côtés. Quand on se fait besoin de
quelques reliques en pays étranger, le Pape n’a qu’à descendre
ici et crier, _Qui de vous autres veut aller être saint en
Pologne?_ Alors s’il se trouve quelque mort de bonne volonté
il se lève et s’en va.”
[144] From the Catacomb of St. Agnes. The ancient Martyrology
records the conversion of a Roman nobleman of this name in the
time of Julian, together with that of his wife and fifty-three
members of his household, and his subsequent martyrdom and burial
in the Catacombs. It is probable that Theophila had learned in
Gaul to write Latin, though only in those singular Greek
characters which, as Julius Cæsar informs us, were used in that
country, and that, after the death of the whole family, she
employed some equally unlettered stone-mason to engrave this
remarkable inscription.
[145] De Rossi gives several dated inscriptions of the reign of
Diocletian, (Nos. 16 to 28,) thus absolutely identifying the age
of those portions of the Catacombs.
[146] In Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun” there is a fantastic legend of
“The Spectre of the Catacombs,” the ghost of an apostate betrayer
of the Christians, which still haunts the scene of its hateful
perfidy.
[147] See plan of this _arenarium_ and stairway in chap. v,
fig. 26.
[148] In A. D. 359 Liberius, bishop of Rome, lay hid for a year
in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, till the death of the Arian
Constantius; and in A. D. 418 Boniface I. in the Catacomb of St.
Felicitas, during the usurpation of the antipope Eulalius.
[149] The similar excavations of Quesnel, in France, were long
inhabited by both human beings and cattle.
[150] Latebrosa et lucifugax natio.--_Minuc. Felix._
[151] Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:
“La terre avait gémi sous le fer des tyrans;
Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,
Qui dans les noirs détours des grottes reculées
Dérobaient aux bourreaux leurs têtes mutilées.”
_Poëme de la Religion Vengée_, chap. viii.
[152] See especially Dodwell’s learned but unsatisfactory Essay,
_De Paucitate Martyrum_, and Gibbon’s laboured extenuation of the
severity of the persecutors.
[153] Ingens multitudo.--_Ann._, xv.
[154] Jam desolata templa.--_Epis._, 97, lib. x.
[155] Exuberante copia virtutis et fidei numerari non possunt
martyres Christi.--_Lib. de Exhort. Martyr._, c. xi.
[156] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 9.
[157] _Ibid._, viii, 11.
[158] Universum populum cum ipso pariter conventiculo
concremavit. Lactan., _Instit. Divin._, v, 11: Gregatim
amburebantur.--_Ibid._
[159] Page 78.
[160] Sexaginta illic defossas mole sub una
Reliquias memini me didicisse hominum.--_Peristeph._, xi.
[161] The story of the martyrdom of ten thousand Christians on
Mount Ararat, under Trajan, and of the massacre of the Thundering
Legion, consisting of six thousand Christians, by Maximian, are
fictions of later date. In the Church of St. Gerion at Cologne
are many reputed relics, chiefly heads, of these last. The
legendary tendency to exaggeration in numbers seems irresistible.
In commemorating the slaughter of the Innocents the Greek Church
canonized fourteen thousand martyrs. Another notion, derived from
Rev. xiv, 3, swelled the number to a hundred and forty-four
thousand. The absurd story of the eleven thousand martyrs of
Cologne is probably founded on a mistaken rendering of the
inscription VRSVLA · ET · XI · MM · VV, interpreted,
Ursula and eleven thousand virgins, instead of eleven virgin
martyrs.--_Maitland_, p. 163. A Romish legend, of course
exaggerated, says seventy thousand Christians suffered martyrdom
in the Coliseum.
[162] In Rock’s _Hierurgia_, a Romanist work, is an account
of a Catacomb at Nipi, near Rome, in which are said to be
thirty-eight martyr tombs, the epitaph of one of whom plainly
asserts his death by decapitation: MARTYRIO CORONATVS CAPITE
TRVNCATVS IACET--“Crowned with martyrdom, having been
beheaded ... lies here.”
The beautiful terseness of the following would seem to indicate
their genuineness: “Paulus was put to death in tortures, in order
that he might live in eternal bliss.”
“Clementia, tortured, dead, sleeps; will rise.”
From the following, found on a cup attached to a tomb, it would
seem that the martyr was first compelled to drink poison, which
proving ineffectual, he was dispatched by the sword: “The deadly
draught dared not present to Constans the crown, which the steel
was permitted to offer.”
[163] Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, viii, 9.
[164] _Ibid._, viii, 12.
[165] Called _ungulæ_, from their resemblance to the claws of a
beast of prey.
[166] See examples of the above named tortures in Eusebius’s
_Hist. Eccles._, v, 2; vi, 41; viii, 14; _The Martyrs of
Palestine_, viii; and Lactantius, _passim_.
On the 22d of April, 1823, says Cardinal Wiseman, a grave in the
Catacombs was opened, and, beside the white and polished bones of
a youth of eighteen, whose epitaph it bore, was found the
skeleton of a boy of twelve or thirteen, charred and blackened
chiefly about the upper part. This was probably the remains of a
youthful martyr hastily interred in another’s grave, to come to
light after the lapse of fifteen centuries.
Prudentius describes the martyr Hippolytus as torn limb from limb:
Cernere erat ruptis compagibus ordine nullo,
Membra per incertos sparsa jacere situs.
[167] _Lib. Pontif._, c. iv. These notaries were called by the
Greeks ὀξυγράφοι or ταχυγράφοι, that is, short-hand writers.
Eusebius says they reported the extemporaneous discourses of
Origen. _Hist. Eccles._, vi, 36.
[168] Hic fecit sex vel septem subdiaconos, qui septem notariis
imminerent ut _gesta martyrum_ fideliter colligerent.--_Lib.
Pontif._
[169] The Peristephanon--“Concerning the [martyrs’] crowns.”
[170] In the thirteenth century many of the stories were
collected in the _Legenda Aurea_ by Jacques de Voragine, an
archbishop of Genoa. After the discovery of printing the press
teemed with this legendary literature, Flowers of the Saints,
Acts of the Martyrs, etc., embellished with numerous engravings,
representing with horrible minuteness the Dantean tortures on
which the monkish mind loved to expatiate.
[171] Assatum est: versa et manduca.
[172] --Latus ungula virgineum
Pulsat utrimque, et ad ossa secat,
Eulalia numerante notas.
Scriberis ecce! mihi Domine;
Quàm juvat hos apices legere.--_Peristeph._, _Hymn_ ix.
[173] See martyrdom of Polycarp, Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, iv. 15.
[174] At sola mater hisce lamentis caret,
Soli sereno frons renidet gaudio.--Prudent., _Peristeph._
[175] His persecutor saucius
Pallet, rubescit, æstuat,
Insana torquens lumina.
Spumasque frendens egerit.--_Ibid._, _Hymn_ ii.
[176] Bitumen et mixtum pice
Imo implicabunt Tartaro.--_Ibid._
[177] Hence called legends, a word which has in consequence come
to signify the incredible or fictitious. Upon a mere verbal
mistake was founded the account by the mediæval writers of a most
formidable weapon called the _catomus_, which name gave rise to
the verbs _catomare_ and _catomizare_, to express its use. It was
at length discovered that _catomus_ was but the Latin form of the
Greek adverbial phrase κατ’ ὤμων, signifying, “upon the
shoulders.” (Maitland, p. 167.)
[178] _Hist. Eccles._, v, 1.
[179] Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quærebant
quam nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetunt.--Sulpio.
Sever., _Hist._, lib. ii.
[180] _Apol._, c. 30.
[181] Gregory Nazianzen. _Orat. de Laud. Basil._ See also the
striking language of Ignatius. (Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, iii, 36.)
[182] Chrys. _Hom._ 74, _de Martyr._
[183] Kip, p. 88--from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the ardour for
martyrdom rose into a passion, or indeed an epidemic. Eusebius
says, (_Hist. Eccles._, viii, 6,) that in Nicomedia “Men and
women with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed
into the fire.”
[184] Inscripta CHRISTO pagina immortalis est,
Excepit adstans angelus coram Deo.
Et quæ locutus martyr, et quæ pertulit:
Nec verbum solùm disserentis condidit,
Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio,
Quæ vis doloris, quive segmenti modus:
Guttam cruoris ille nullam perdidit.--_Peristeph._
[185] The pagans called the martyrs βιαθάνατοι, or
self-murderers.
[186] Tertul., _Apol._, c. 50.
[187] As early as the middle of the second century Justin Martyr
says, “There is not a nation, Greek or Barbarian, or of any other
name, even of those that wander in tribes or live in tents, among
whom prayers and thanksgiving are not offered to the Father and
Creator of the universe in the name of the crucified Jesus.” The
decree of Maximin states that almost all men had abandoned the
worship of the gods and joined the Christian sect: Σχεδὸν ἅπαντας
ἀνθρώπους, καταλειφθείσης τῆς τῶν τεῶν θρησκείας, τῷ ἔθνει τῶν
Χριστιανῶν συμμεμιχότας.. Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, ix, 9.
Lucianus of Antioch says that before the last persecution the
greater part of the world, including whole cities, had yielded
allegiance to the truth--Pars pæne mundi jam major huic veritati
adstipulatur; urbes integrae; etc.--Trans. of Euseb. by Rufinus.
[188] Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot conceive
the possibility of this event. “Sed et Cæsares credidissent super
Christo,” he exclaims, “si aut Cæsares non essent seculo necessario,
aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Cæsares.”--_Apol._, c. 21.
[189] Οἷά τις ἡλίου βολή.--Euseb., _Hist. Eccles._, ii, 3.
[190] _Ibid._, ix, 1; x, 9.
[191] _Ibid._, x, 4. Literally, “They are no more because they
never were.” In his eloquent oration on the renovation of the
cathedral of Tyre Eusebius applies, with remarkable elegance and
propriety, the promises of Scripture concerning the restoration
of the exiled Jews from Babylon and the final establishment of
the church of God (Psa. lxxx; xcviii; Isa. lii; liv) to the
condition of Christianity in his day. The above citations are
given almost in his very words.
[192] A few years after the death of Constantine the Emperor
Julian found at this celebrated shrine of Apollo, on the festival
of the god, instead of the hecatombs of oxen and the crowds of
worshippers which he expected, only a single goose, and a pale
and solitary priest in the decayed and deserted temple.--Gibbon,
ii, 448, Am. ed.
[193] See a thoughtful essay on this topic in Froude’s _Short
Studies on Great Subjects, First Series_.
[194] The church itself experienced many corruptions before the
date of Constantine. Among the recent converts from paganism a
crop of heresies sprang up. “When the sacred choir of the
Apostles,” says Hegesippus, (_apud_ Euseb., iii, 32,) “had passed
away, then the combinations of impious error arose by the fraud
and delusion of false teachers.” The schisms of Marcian and
Novatian, Valentine and Montanus, early rent the Christian
community. The exclusive ecclesiasticism of Cyprian, the
episcopal assumptions of Victor, and the secular ambition and
rapacity of Paul of Samosata, were portents of the spirit which
afterward bore such bitter fruit. That pride and luxury had begun
to invade the simplicity of primitive times, which, when the
church basked in the sunshine of imperial favour, so completely
withered its spiritual power.