Chapter II: 49 (3)

[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.