_FEBRONIA OF SIBAPTE_
The Church had endured a long period of peace after the persecution of
Decius, in 250; and in the half-century that had followed, although
there had been recrudescences of persecution, it had been spasmodic and
local.
During those fifty years the Church had made great way. Conversions had
been numerous, persons in high station suffered not only their slaves,
but their wives and children, to profess themselves Christians. Places
about the court, even in the imperial household, were filled with
Christians; and even some were appointed to be governors of provinces,
with exemption from being obliged to assist at the usual sacrifices. The
Christians built churches of their own, and these not by any means small
and such as might escape observation.
But, internally, there had been a great development of her own powers in
the Church, such as had not been possible when she was proscribed, and
could only exercise her vital functions in secret.
And among one of the most remarkable and significant phenomena of this
vigorous expansion of life was the initiation of monastic life. In Syria
and in Egypt there had for long been something of the kind, but not
connected with Christianity.
In Palestine were the Essenes. They numbered about four thousand; they
lived in convents, and led a strange life. Five writers of antiquity
speak of them—Josephus, Philo, Pliny the Elder, Epiphanius and
Hippolytus. They were a Jewish sect, a revolt against Pharisaism, and a
survival of the schools of the prophets.
Of fervent and exalted piety, of ardent conviction impatient of the
puerilities and the bondage of Rabbinism, they sought to live to God in
meditation and prayer and study.
They built for themselves great houses on the eastern shore of the Dead
Sea, which they occupied. They observed the law of Moses with great
literalness; they had all things in common; they fasted, prayed, and saw
visions. They did not marry, they abstained from wine, they tilled the
soil when not engaged in prayer. They were, in a word, monks, but Jewish
monks.
When Christianity spread, it entered into and gave a new spirit to these
communities without their changing form.
In Egypt, in like manner were the Theraputæ, not Jews, nor confined to
Egypt, but most numerous there. They were conspicuous for their habits
of great austerity and self-mortification. They left their homes, gave
up their substance, fled towns and lived in solitary places, in little
habitations or cells apart yet not distant from one another. Each had
his little oratory for prayer and praise. They neither ate nor drank
till the sun set. Some ate only once in three days, and then only bread,
flavoured with salt and hyssop. They prayed twice a day, and between the
times of prayer read, meditated or worked. Men and women belonged to the
order, but lived separately though sometimes praying in common.
Here again we see the shell into which the new life entered, without
really changing or greatly modifying the external character.
Doubtless the teaching of the Gospel reached these societies, was
accepted, and gradually gave to them a Christian complexion—that was
all.
Whether this sort of life was in accordance with the Gospel, was not
doubted by them, having before them the example of Christ who retreated
into the wilderness for forty days, and His words exhorting to the
renunciation of everything that men hold dear, and the recommendation to
sell everything, give to the poor, and follow in His footsteps.
It is significant that it was precisely in Palestine where the Essenes
had flourished, and in Egypt that the Therapeutæ had maintained such
numerous colonies that we find the most vigorous development of
monachism. It is not possible to doubt that the one slid into the other
imperceptibly.
The persecution of Diocletian broke out in 304. At that time there was
at Sibapte, in Syria, a convent of fifty virgins.
One of these, named Febronia, aged eighteen, was the niece of the
abbess, Bryene. She was wondrously fair of face and graceful of form,
and the old sisters seem to have regarded her with reverence as well as
love, because of her marvellous loveliness of body as well as innocence
of soul. Apparently when quite young she had lost her parents, and had
been taken by her aunt into the convent in earliest infancy, so that she
had grown up among the sisters, as a sweet flower, utterly ignorant of
the world.
She had studied Scripture so deeply, and was so spiritual in mind, that
many ladies living in the cities of Syria came to visit and consult her.
Bryene drew a curtain between her niece and those who visited her, so as
not to distract her thoughts, as also not to expose her to the gaze of
vulgar curiosity.
One day a young heathen woman came to the monastery in the first grief
at the loss of her husband, to whom she had been married but seven
months. She had found no comfort in the religion of her parents, who
could not assure her that the soul had any life after death; it was no
true consolation to her to set up a monument in honour of the deceased,
and so, hearing of Febronia, she came to Bryene, and falling at her
feet, entreated to be allowed to tell her trouble to the girl Febronia.
The abbess hesitated, as the woman was a pagan; but at length, moved by
her tears and persistency, gave consent, admitted her into the cell of
the nun, and allowed her to tarry with her as long as she pleased.
They passed the night together. Febronia opened the Gospel and read to
the broken-hearted woman the words of life. They fell on good ground.
The widow wept and listened, and wept again, and as the sun rose on
them, she begged to be properly instructed, so as to receive baptism.
When she was gone, “Who,” asked Febronia, “was that strange woman who
came to me, and who cried as though her heart would break when I read
the Scriptures to her?”
“It was Hiera,” answered the nun Thomais, who afterwards committed the
whole narrative to writing. “Hiera is the widow of a senator.”
“Oh,” said Febronia, “why did you not inform me of her rank? I have been
talking to her just as if she had been my sister.”
The noble widow did become the sister of the nun in the faith, and in
the family of Christ; and when, some time after, Febronia fell very ill,
Hiera insisted on being allowed to be with her and nurse her with her
own hands.
Febronia was but convalescent, and looking white as a lily, when
Selenus, charged with the execution of the imperial decree against
Christians, arrived at Sibapte. He was accompanied by his nephews
Lysimachus and Primus, the former of whom was suspected by Diocletian of
having a leaning towards Christianity, as his mother had been of the
household of faith, and he was a youth of a singularly meditative and
temperate life.
Selenus accordingly brought his nephews with him, to associate them with
himself in the deeds of cruelty that were meditated, and to awe them
into dread of transgressing the will and command of the emperor.
Primus was a cousin on his mother’s side to Lysimachus, and he shared
with him disgust at the cruelty of their uncle, and they did what was in
their power—they sent timely warning to the Christians to escape from a
city that was about to be visited.
As soon as the bishop and clergy of Sibapte heard that the governor
purposed coming to the place, they dispersed and secreted themselves.
The sisters of the convent in great agitation waited on the abbess, and
entreated her to allow them to escape for their lives.
Bryene bade them entertain no alarm, as the danger only threatened, and
was not at their doors: such humble, insignificant folk as they might
expect to be overlooked. At the same time she was really distracted with
anxiety, as Febronia was not strong enough to be removed, and she could
not leave her.
The sisters took counsel together, and electing one named Aetheria as
their spokeswoman, made a second remonstrance, and complained, “We know
what is your real reason for retaining us: it is that you are solicitous
about Febronia; but the bishop and clergy are in hiding. Do try to carry
Febronia away, and suffer us to leave.”
Febronia, however, could not be moved, so Bryene dismissed the nuns, and
they decamped forthwith; two alone remained—Thomais, the writer of the
history, and Procla, who acted as nurse to the sick girl, and who could
not find the heart to tear herself away.
Almost immediately after the sisters had fled, news reached those who
remained that the governor had arrived. Febronia heard her aunt sobbing.
She looked at Thomais, and asked, “I pray you, dear mother, what is the
great mistress” (for this was the title of the abbess) “crying so
bitterly about?”
“My child,” answered the old nun, “she is sore at heart about you. We
are old and ugly, and all that can chance to us is death; but you are
young and fair, and there are things we fear for you of which you know
nothing. We need not say more to you, dearest child, than bid you be
very cautious how you accept any offers made to you by the governor,
however innocent they may appear. A danger lurks behind them of which
you have no conception.”
The night passed in anxious conversation and in mutual encouragement.
Next morning Selenus sent soldiers to the convent, who broke open the
door, and would have cut down Bryene, had not Febronia started from her
pallet, and casting herself at their feet, implored them to kill her
rather than her old aunt.
Primus arrived at this juncture, rebuked the soldiers for their
violence, and bade them go outside the house. Then, turning to Bryene,
he asked somewhat impatiently why she had not taken advantage of the
warning that had been sent, and escaped.
“Even now,” said he, “I will make shift to help you. I will withdraw the
soldiers, and do you escape by the back of the house.”
Primus then withdrew, and it is possible that the three nuns and
Febronia might have escaped, but that Selenus, suspicious of his nephew,
sent back the soldiers with peremptory orders to secure Febronia and
bring her before him. This was done, and she and the rest were thrown
for the night into the common prison.
Next day Selenus ascended the tribunal, and was accompanied by his
nephews Primus and Lysimachus, whom he forced to attend.
Bryene and Thomais appeared, each holding a hand of the sick girl and
sustaining her. They begged to be tried and condemned with her.
“They are a pair of old hags,” said Selenus. “Dismiss them.”
Then they were separated from their charge.
“Mother,” said Febronia, clinging to and kissing Bryene, “I trust in God
that, as I have been ever obedient to thee in the monastery, so I may be
faithful to what thou hast exhorted me to do, faithful here openly
before all the people. Go then—do not stay here, but pray for me, but
before leaving give me thy benediction.”
Then she slid to her knees, and Bryene, stretching her hands to heaven,
cried: “Lord Jesus Christ, who didst appear to Thy handmaid Thecla, in
her agony, to comfort her, stand by Thy lowly one in her great contest.”
So saying, she fell on the neck of Febronia, and they kissed and wept
and clung to each other till parted by the soldiers.
Then, unable to bear the sight of what she knew must follow, Bryene
retired to the deserted convent, and begged that word might be sent her
as to how all ended.
In the meantime, Hiera had heard of the arrest of Febronia, and wild
with grief she rushed to the place of judgment. She found the court
crammed with people, mostly women, agitated, indignant, and murmuring.
There was a space clear before the tribunal, where stood the accused,
and at one side were various instruments of torture, and a stake driven
into the ground furnished with rings and ropes. On the judgment seat
were Selenus, with his nephews by him.
Selenus turned to Lysimachus, and said, “Do you open the examination.”
The young man, struggling with his emotion, began—“Tell me, young
maiden, what is thy condition?”
“I am a servant,” answered Febronia.
“Whose servant?” asked Lysimachus.
“I am the servant of Christ.”
“And tell me thy name, I pray thee.”
“I am a humble Christian,” answered Febronia.
“May I ask thy name, maiden?”
“The good mother always calls me Febronia.”
Then Selenus broke in: “We shall never have done if you push along in
this fashion. To the point at once. Febronia, I vow by the gods that I
have no desire to hurt thee. Here is a gallant young gentleman, my
nephew; take him as thy husband, and forget the silly stuff, thy
religion. I had other views for the boy, but that matters not; never
have I seen a sweeter face than thine, and I am content to accept thee
as my niece. I am a man of few words: accept my offer, and all is well;
or by the living gods I will make thee rue the refusal.”
Febronia replied calmly, “I have a heavenly Bridegroom, eternal; with
celestial glory as His dower.”
Selenus burst forth with, “Soldiers, strip the wench.” He was obeyed;
they allowed her to wear only a tattered cloak over her shoulders.
Calm, without a sign of being discomposed, Febronia bore the outrage.
“How now, you impudent hussy?” scoffed Selenus; “where is your maiden
modesty? I saw no struggles, no blushes.”
“God Almighty knows, judge, that till this day I have never seen the
face of man, for I was only two years old when I was taken as a little
baby to my aunt, and the rest of my life I have spent there among the
good sisters. Do I seem lost to shame? Nay, I have been assured that
wrestlers strip in the games when they strive for victory. I fear thee
not.”
“Stretch her, face downwards, over a slow fire. Bind her hands and feet
to four stakes, and so—scourge her.”
He was obeyed, and the crimson blood trickled over her white skin at
every stroke of the lash, and hissed in the glowing charcoal.
The multitude, looking on, could not bear the sight, and with one voice
entreated that she might be removed and dismissed.
But the shouts only made Selenus more angry, and he ordered the
executioners to redouble the blows. Thomais, unable to endure the sight,
fainted at the feet of Hiera, who uttered a cry of “Oh, Febronia, my
sister! Thomais is dying.”
The poor sufferer turned her head, and asked the executioner to throw
water over the face of the fainting woman, and begged to be allowed to
say a word to Hiera.
But the judge interposed to forbid this indulgence, and ordered Febronia
to be untied and placed on the rack.
This was sometimes called “the little horse.” It had four legs united by
planks. At each end was a crank. The sufferer was attached by the feet
and hands at ankles and wrists to cords that passed over rollers between
the planks. She thus hung below and between the two pieces of wood. At a
signal from the magistrate, the executioners turned the cranks, and
these drew the feet and hands tighter towards the rollers, and strained
them, so that if this were persisted in, the limbs were pulled out of
joint.
“Well, girl,” asked Selenus, “how do you like your first taste of
torture?”
“Learn from the manner in which I have borne it, that my resolution is
unalterable,” answered Febronia.
On the rack her sides were torn with iron combs. She prayed incessantly:
“O Lord, make haste to help me. Leave me not, neither forsake me in my
hour of pain!”
“Cut out her tongue,” ordered the judge.
Febronia was detached from the rack and tied to the post in the centre
of the place. But when the multitude saw what the executioner was about
to do, the excitement and indignation became so menacing, that the judge
thought it prudent to countermand the order. Instead of which, however,
he bade the surgeon in attendance extract her teeth. When he had drawn
seventeen, Selenus bade him desist.
“Cut off her breasts.”
This atrocious order caused a renewed uproar. The physician hesitated.
But Selenus was fairly roused. “Coward, go on! Cut!” he shouted, and the
surgeon, with a sweep of the razor, sliced off her right breast.
Febronia uttered a cry as she felt the steel gash her: “My Lord! my God!
see what I suffer, and receive my soul into Thy hands.”
These were the last words she spoke.
“Cut off the other breast, and put fire to the wound,” said Selenus.
He was obeyed. The mob swayed and quivered with indignation; women wept
and fainted. Then with a roar broke forth the execration, “Cursed be
Diocletian and all his gods!”
Thereupon Hiera sent a girl running to the convent to Bryene to tell her
all. And the old abbess flung herself on the ground sobbing, “Bra, bra,
bra! Febronia, my child!” Then raising her arms and straining her eyes
to heaven, she cried, “Lord, regard Thy humble handmaiden, Febronia, and
may my aged eyes see the battle fought out, and my dear child numbered
with the martyrs.”
In the meantime Selenus had ordered the cords to be removed which bound
Febronia to the stake. Then she dropped in a heap on the sand, her long
hair flowing over and clothing her mangled body.
Primus said under his breath to his cousin, “The poor girl is dead.”
“She died to bring light and conviction to many hearts—perhaps to mine,”
answered Lysimachus aloud, that his uncle might hear. “Would that it had
been in my power to have saved her! Now let her finish her conflict and
enter into her rest.”
Then Hiera, bursting into the arena, stood wild with indignation and
anguish before the judge, and shrieked, as she shook her hands at
him,—“O monster of cruelty! shame on thee, shame! Thou, born of a woman,
hast forgotten the obligation to honour womanhood, and hast insulted and
outraged thy mother in the person of this poor girl. God, the Judge
above judges, will make a swift work with thee, and cut it short, and
root thee out of the land of the living.”
Selenus, stung with these words, exasperated at the resentment of the
mob, and finding that he had fairly roused his nephews into defiance of
his authority, shouted his orders to have the widow put on the rack.
But at this point some of the town authorities interfered, and warned
the judge that he was proceeding to dangerous lengths. Hiera was well
connected, popular; and if she were tortured, a riot was certain to
ensue. “Half the town will rush here and insist on being tried and
tortured. They will all confess Christ.”
Selenus reluctantly gave orders for the release of Hiera, and directed
the current of his rage on Febronia, now unconscious. He ordered first
her hands, then her feet, and finally her head to be struck off; and
when all was finished, rose from his seat, turned to Lysimachus, and saw
that his face was bathed in tears. He hastily withdrew to supper, angry
with himself, his nephews, and the mob.
Lysimachus and Primus descended to the arena, and standing by the
mutilated body, vowed to renounce the gods of Diocletian and to worship
the God of Febronia. Then the young men gave orders for the removal of
the mangled remains to the house of Bryene.
Almost the whole city crowded to see the body of the young girl who had
suffered so heroically.
That night Lysimachus could not eat or speak at supper, and Selenus
forced himself to riotous mirth and drunk hard.
We cannot quite trust what follows. It was too tempting to a copyist to
allow the governor to go away unchastised. Perhaps it is true that in a
drunken and angry fit Selenus, pacing the room storming, slipped on the
polished pavement, and in falling hit his head against a pillar—with the
result that he never spoke again, having congestion of the brain, and
died next day. It is quite possible that this may be true. If it were an
interpolation by a copyist, he would have killed him by fire falling
from heaven and consuming him—that was the approved way with the
re-writers of the Acts of Martyrs.
When Constantine became Emperor both the young men were baptised,
retired into solitude and embraced the monastic life.
The name of Febronia is in the Greek, Coptic and Abyssinian Kalendars.
The simple and apparently quite trustworthy account of her death was by
Thomais, the nun who saw her die, and had known her all her short life.
[Illustration: THE DAUGHTER OF CONSTANTINE.]
V
_THE DAUGHTER OF CONSTANTINE_
Constantia, whose name does not appear in the Roman Kalendar, but which
has found its way into several unauthorised lists of the Saints, is
chiefly known through the Acts of S. Agnes. Little or nothing reliable
is recorded concerning her, and her story would not have been included
in this collection, were it not for two circumstances—one, that two of
the most interesting monuments of Old Rome are associated with her name,
one directly, the other indirectly; and next, that a caution, very
desirable of being exercised, may be learned from a consideration of her
story—not to cast over as utterly fabulous and worthless the legends
that come down to us of the Saints of early times, because they are
stuffed with unhistorical and ridiculous incidents and marvels. Let us
now see very briefly what the _legend_ is concerning Constantia.
She was the daughter of Constantine the Great, and was afflicted with a
distressing disease, supposed at the time to be leprosy, but which was
in all probability scrofula.
The Roman general, Gallicanus, having been in favour with the Emperor,
and having lost his wife, was offered Constantia in marriage by his
master—not a particularly inviting proposal, and Gallicanus did not,
possibly, regret that he was called away by an inroad of the barbarians
into Thrace, to defend the Roman frontiers against them. Before engaging
in battle he made a vow, in the event of success, that he would believe
in Christ and be baptised. He succeeded in repulsing the enemy, and
returned to Rome to find that Constantia had been healed of her disorder
at the tomb of S. Agnes, and that she had persuaded his three daughters,
Augusta, Attica, and Artemia, to live with her, as consecrated virgins,
near the shrine of the Virgin Martyr, to whose intercession she
attributed her cure.
Constantia had two chamberlains, John and Paul, to whom, at her death,
she bequeathed much of her possessions.
When Julian the Apostate assumed the purple, in 361, he did not openly
persecute the Church, but he turned out of their situations such
officers of the court and army as refused to renounce Christ. John and
Paul he particularly disliked, partly because they were zealous
Christians, and had had much to do with the conversion of Gallicanus,
but also because they had obtained by bequest so much of Constantia’s
estate, which he desired to draw into the imperial treasury. He sent
word that they were to be deprived of their offices, and were to be
privately put to death in their own house.
Accordingly, when they had retired to their residence on the Cœlian
Hill, the ministers of Julian pursued them, dismissed the servants, and
secretly conveyed them down into the cellar of their palace, and there
killed and buried them.
Three persons, however, knew of what was going on—Crispinus,
Crispinianus, and Benedicta—and, to prevent the matter getting bruited
about, these the soldiers also put to death.
Gallicanus was living at Ostia, and he was ordered into exile. He
withdrew to Alexandria, where the chief magistrate, Baucianus, summoned
him before his tribunal, required him to do sacrifice to idols, and,
because he refused, had him decapitated. He has found a place in the
Roman Martyrology on June 25th.
Now the whole series of incidents is full of difficulties. The name of
Gallicanus was not uncommon. Vulcatius Gallicanus was prefect of Rome in
317, and Ovius Gallicanus was Consul in 330, but of either of them being
engaged against the barbarians in Thrace there is no historical
evidence.
It is also incredible that the Gallicanus of the legend should have been
publicly tried as a Christian and condemned as such under Julian.
The Emperor Constantine had a daughter, Constantia, we know from profane
history, who was married to Hannibalianus—a thoroughly unprincipled
woman, in fact, if we may trust the highly coloured picture drawn of her
by Ammianus Marcellinus. She was a demon in human form, a female fury
ever thirsting for blood. But though generally called Constantia, her
correct name was Flavia Julia Constantina.
Of the Constantia of the legend there is no mention by the historical
writers of the time; but this is not remarkable if she were, as is
represented in the story, a woman who took no part in public life, but
lived in retirement, partly because of her disorder, and then because
she had embraced the religious life.
A further difficulty arises in the account of the martyrdom of SS. John
and Paul, her chamberlains. The Acts represent them as subjected to
interrogation by Julian himself in Rome, whereas it is quite certain
that after he became Emperor he did not set foot in Italy.
It will be seen, therefore, that there is here every reason for
repudiating the whole story as fabulous, and some would go so far as to
say that Constantia, the virgin daughter of Constantine, Gallicanus,
John and Paul were all of them mythical characters, creatures of the
imagination. But there are certain very good and weighty reasons on the
other side for inducing an arrest of judgment.
In the first place, close to the basilica and catacomb of S. Agnese is a
very interesting and precious circular church, erected by Constantine
the Great, at the request of his daughter Constantia, as a thankoffering
for her recovery from the distressing disease which had disfigured her
and made life a burden to her. This church is, perhaps, the most
remarkable specimen we have existing of ecclesiastical architecture of
the age of Constantine. It is quite untouched, and is rich with frescoes
of the period.
But a still more remarkable monument is one quite recently disinterred.
It is the house of the martyrs John and Paul, which has existed for
centuries buried under the foundations of the great church that bears
their names on the Cœlian Hill, a church erected by the one English
Pope, Nicolas Breakespeare, in 1158. The discovery of the house is
itself a romance. What is known of its early history is this: Julian the
Apostate died in 363. The death of John and Paul had taken place in 362.
Julian was followed by Jovian, who died in 364, and was succeeded by
Valentinian.
Now, directly Julian was no more, Byzantius, a senator and a Christian,
interested himself in the matter. The recent martyrdom was in all
mouths, and it was known that the bodies lay in the cellar of the house.
Byzantius had the bodies lifted and placed in a white alabaster or
marble box, and converted the upper storey of the house into an oratory.
The son of Byzantius was Pammachius, the friend and correspondent of S.
Jerome. He did something also. He erected a handsome church over the
tomb of the saints, and this was completed in 410, forty-eight years
after their martyrdom.
There had, however, been no break in the tradition, for Byzantius had
made his oratory only two or three years later than their martyrdom.
The basilica erected by Pammachius consisted of an oblong nave, with
side aisles and an apse to the west. To the east end was a quadrangle,
surrounded by a cloister, and with a water-tank in the middle. By means
of a flight of steps visitors were enabled to descend to the
“Confession,” or place whence they could look down on the alabaster box
containing the relics of the martyrs in the cellar; and in the angles of
the wall below, a triangular white marble table was placed, hollowed out
in the middle for oil, in which a wick burned to throw light on the
tomb.
Hard by, in later years, was the family mansion of S. Gregory the Great,
who sent Augustine and his little band, in 597, to convert the
Anglo-Saxons of Kent. Now, Gregory knew well this church of SS. John and
Paul, and often prayed there. Somewhere about 603 he sent a present to
Queen Theodelinda, the Bavarian Princess, who had married Agilulph, the
Lombard, and among other things some of the oil from this very lamp.
This identical vial of oil is preserved among the treasures of Monza,
along with some little gold hens and chickens presented by Theodelinda.
Now, a few years ago, Padre Germano, a Passionist father of the
monastery attached to the church, in studying the blank south wall of
the church that rises out of the little lane, the Clivus Scauri, by
which one mounts to reach the entrance of the church, observed that it
consisted of a whole series of blocked-up arches and windows above them.
In a word, it looked like a three-storey shop-front, or factory of
brick, with the openings filled in. What could be the meaning of this?
Such an arrangement was not suitable to the basilica of Pammachius, and
had certainly no significance for the Church of Adrian I.
Then, all at once, it flashed on him what it really was: it was nothing
more nor less than the street-front of the palace of John and Paul,
which had been solidly built, and consequently had been utilised first
by Pammachius and then by Adrian I. Now the church is built at the top
of a steep slope, and the level of the floor of the church is far above
the arches. It next occurred to the Padre: Is it not possible that the
old house of the martyrs may be beneath the floor of this church?
He obtained leave to search. He went round to persons interested in
Christian antiquities, and begged a little money, and so was enabled to
begin his excavations; and, lo! he discovered that when in 410
Pammachius had built his basilica he had filled in the lower portion of
the house, all the most important rooms and the cellars, with earth and
rubbish, and had raised his church above it all, knocking away the
floors of the upper storeys and blocking up what had been the bedroom
windows. The writer of this account was in Rome during two winters when
the Padre was engaged on the excavations, and was frequently there, and
saw the results as they were reached. And these results were: first,
that a Christian mansion of the fourth century was disinterred, the only
one of the kind known to exist; and more, the tomb of the saints into
which Byzantius had put the bodies was found; also the very lamp-table
from which S. Gregory took the oil for sending to Theodelinda, and the
early altar set up by Byzantius in one of the halls of the house which
he had converted into an oratory. Nay, more,—paintings were found,
whether of the date of Byzantius or of his son Pammachius is
uncertain—one representing the soldiers killing Crispinus, Crispinianus,
and Benedicta, and another showing Constantia, with her two chamberlains
and other attendants. There were also figures which may be Byzantius and
his wife, or Pammachius and his, bringing gifts to the tomb of the
martyrs. The cellar was discovered with the old wine-bottles, some
marked with the sacred sign; and the frescoes in the reception-room were
Christian: a woman lifting up holy hands in prayer; Moses, with the roll
of the Law; the good sheep and the bad one, with the Milk of the Word,
and so on.
Now, all this shows conclusively that there really were such martyrs as
John and Paul, and that although their story has been embroidered, there
is a substratum of truth in it.
What is probably the basis of the whole story is this: that Constantia,
an infirm, scrofulous daughter of Constantine, residing in Rome,
believing herself to have received some alleviation in her condition by
praying at the tomb of S. Agnes, not only induced her father to build a
basilica above that tomb, but also the remarkable Church of St.
Constanza, which is hard by. That she had chamberlains named John and
Paul, devout Christians, is also more than probable, as also that she
bequeathed to them a large portion of her fortune. The fact of their
being zealous Christians, and exerting themselves vigorously to advance
the Faith, that among other converts they made was Ovius Gallicanus, who
had been Consul in 330, is also probable. That they were secretly put to
death in their own mansion on the Cœlian Hill, by the orders of Julian,
and buried in their cellar, is quite certain. The chain of evidence is
unbroken.
That Constantia had as her friends and fellows in her retired devout
life three of the daughters of the ex-Consul, is not at all unlikely.
That he was banished to Alexandria by Julian may be admitted. But this
is the utmost. The recomposer of the Acts tried to spice the story to
suit the taste of his times, and in doing so fell into extravagances,
anachronisms, and absurdities.
Constantia may have felt grateful for the disorder that kept her out of
the current of public life, and from the intrigues of the palace.
Her father, with all his good qualities, was a violent man; and his
adoption of Christianity was due to political shrewdness rather than to
conviction.
In 324 Crispus, her accomplished brother, whose virtues and glory had
made him a favourite with the people, was accused of conspiring against
his father by his stepmother Fausta, who desired to clear him out of the
way to make room for her own son Constantius. Another involved in the
same charge was Licinius, a son of the sister of Constantine, and who
was also a young man of good qualities.
Constantine was at Rome at the time. He went into a fit of blind fury,
and had his son put to death, and ordered the execution of Licinius.
Then, coming to his senses, and finding that he had acted without having
any evidence of the truth of the charges, he turned round on his wife
Fausta, and ordered her to be suffocated in a vapour bath.
Constantine died in 337.
“One dark shadow from the great tragedy of his life reached to his last
end, and beyond it,” says Dean Stanley. “It is said that the Bishop of
Nicomedia, to whom the Emperor’s will had been confided, alarmed at its
contents, immediately placed it for security in the dead man’s hand,
wrapped in the vestments of death. There it lay till Constantius
arrived, and read his father’s dying bequest. It was believed to express
the Emperor’s conviction that he had been poisoned by his brothers and
their children, and to call on Constantius to avenge his death. That
bequest was obeyed by the massacre of six out of the surviving princes
of the imperial family. Two alone escaped. With such a mingling of light
and darkness did Constantine close his career.”[2]
One of Constantia’s sisters, Constantina, has been already mentioned.
Her second husband was Gallus. “She was an incarnate fury,” says
Ammianus Marcellinus; “never weary of inflaming the savage temper of her
husband. The pair, in process of time, becoming skilful in inflicting
suffering, hired a gang of crafty talebearers, who loaded the innocent
with false charges, accusing them of aiming at the royal power or of
practising magic.” Those accused were all put to death and their goods
confiscated. She died of fever in 353.
Another sister, Helena, was married to the Apostate Julian. Her brother,
Constantius, although a Christian, was as ensanguined with murders as
one of the old Cæsars. Her brothers Constans and Constantine II. fought
each other, and Constantine was slain. Violence, bloodshed, stained the
whole family, except perhaps Helena and certainly the blameless
Constantia. In the midst of such violence and crime, it was indeed
something to disappear from the pages of the profane historian and to be
remembered only as a builder of churches.
The rotunda near S. Agnese, that bears Constantia’s name, was erected
during her life, to serve as her mausoleum, and in it she and her sister
Helena were laid. She was laid in the beautiful sarcophagus of red
porphyry that was in the church. This was carried off by Pope Paul II.,
who intended to convert it to his own use, and it is now preserved in
the Vatican.
The vaulting of the church is covered with mosaic arabesques of flowers
and birds referring to a vintage.
[Illustration: THE SISTER OF S. BASIL.]