Valeria, the Martyr of the Catacombs Part 15

"Madam," he replied, in answer to a weak remonstrance against the persecution, "was it not enough that our palace at Nicomedia was burned over our heads, that you must apologise for treason in our very household and the menace of our very person. No; the Christian superst.i.tion must be stamped out, and the wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds maintained."[37]

Hence throughout the wide empire, in the sober language of history, "Edict followed edict, rising in regular gradations of angry barbarity.

The whole clergy were declared enemies of the State; and bishops, presbyters, and deacons were crowded into the prisons intended for the basest malefactors"[38]--"an innumerable company," says the Christian bishop Eusebius, "so that there was no room left for those condemned for crime." "We saw with our own eyes," writes a contemporary historian, "our houses of wors.h.i.+p thrown down, the sacred Scriptures committed to the flames, and the shepherds of the people become the sport of their enemies--scourge with rods, tormented with the rack and excruciating sc.r.a.pings, in which some endured the most terrible death. Then men and women, with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the fire. The persecutors, constantly inventing new tortures, vied with one another as if there were prizes offered to him who should invent the greatest cruelties. The men bore fire, sword, and crucifixions, savage beasts, and the depths of the sea, the maiming of limbs and searing with red hot iron, digging out of the eyes and mutilations of the whole body, also hunger, the mines, and prison. The women also were strengthened by the Divine Word, so that some of them endured the same trials as the men, and bore away the same prize. It would exceed all powers of detail," he goes on, "to give an idea of the sufferings and tortures which the martyrs endured. And these things were done, not for a few days, but for a series of whole years. We ourselves," he adds, "have seen crowds of persons, some beheaded, some burned alive, in a single day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken in pieces, and the executioners, weary with slaughter, were obliged to give over the work of blood."[39] And he goes on to describe deeds of shame and torture of which he was an eye-witness, which our pen refuses to record.

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 zeal of the Christian heroes burned higher and brighter in the fiercest tempest of heathen rage. Age after age summoned the soldiers of the Cross to the conflict whose highest guerdon 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 surpa.s.sing that of a Curtius or Horatius. The meanest hind was enn.o.bled 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."[40] They desired martyrdom more ardently than men afterward sought a bishopric.[41] They exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were counted worthy to suffer for their divine Master. "Let the ungulae tear us," exclaims Tertullian;[42] "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."[43] "The tyrants were armed;" says St.

Chrysostom; "and the martyrs naked; yet they that were naked got the victory, and they that carried arms were vanquished."[44] Strong in the a.s.surance 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 a.s.surance 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 Coryphaeus as he invited him to heaven and promised him an eternal crown."[45] 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 G.o.d's throne Treasures there each word and groan; And not the martyr's speech alone, But every wound is there depicted, With every circ.u.mstance of pain The crimson stream, the gash inflicted And not a drop is shed in vain.[46]

This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle in society. It had no cla.s.sical counterpart.[47] Socrates and Seneca suffered with fort.i.tude, 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."[47] The earth was drunk with the blood of the saints, but still they multiplied and grew, gloriously ill.u.s.trating the perennial truth--_Sanguis martyrum s.e.m.e.n ecclesiae_.

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FOOTNOTES:

[37] These are the very words of the edict quoted in note to Chapter II.

[38] Milman, History of Christianity, Book II., Chapter ix.

[39] Eusebius' "Ecclesiastical History," Book viii., Chaps, ii-xiv.

[40] Hist. Eccles., v. I.

[41] Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quaerebantur quam nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur.--Sulpic. Sever. Hist., lib. II.

[42] Apol. c. 30.

[43] Gregory n.a.z.ianzen. Orat. de Laud. Basil. See also the striking language of Ignatius. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. III. 36.

[44] Chrys. Horn. 74, de Martyr.

[45] Kip, p. 88--from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the ardour for martyrdom rose into a pa.s.sion. Eusebius says (Hist. Eccles., viii., 6) that in Nicomedia "Men and women with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the fire."

Inscripta CHRISTO pagina immortalis est, Excepit adstans angelus coram Deo.

Et quae locutus martyr, et quae pertulit: Nec verb.u.m solum disserentis condidit, Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio, Quae vis doloris, quive segmenti modus: Guttam cruoris ille nullam perdidit. _Peristeph._

[46] Video, proboque meliora, Deterioraque sequor.--_Hor._

[47] The pagans called the martyrs ?a???at??, or self murderers.

[48] Tertul., Apol., c. 50.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE MAMERTINE PRISON.

Let us now turn our attention to the fate of the characters in our tale of Christian trial and triumph, around whom its interest chiefly centres. They have been consigned to one of the most dismal of the many gloomy dungeons of Rome--the thrice terrible Mamertine prison--haunted with memories of long centuries of cruelty and crime. Manacled each to a Roman soldier, Adauctus, Aurelius, Demetrius, and Callirhoe, together with other Christians condemned to martyrdom, marched through the streets under the noontide glare of a torrid sun. A guard armed _cap a pie_, flung open an iron-studded door, and admitted them to a gloomy vault a few steps below the level of the street. Here a brawny Vulcan, with anvil and hammer, with many a brutal gibe smote off the fetters that linked the prisoners and soldiers together, and riveted them again so that these victims of oppression were bound together in pairs.

Sometimes it happened that one of a pair thus bound together died, and the survivor endured the horror of being inseparably fettered to a festering corpse. To this the apostle refers when, groaning over the corruptions of his sinful nature, he exclaims: "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"

"My dainty lady," said the hideous Cyclops, as he rudely seized the arm of Callirhoe, "this is not the sort of bracelet you've been used to wear. I should not much mind, being bound to such as you myself, only I would prefer silken fetters to those iron gyves." Then, as she shrank from his touch and winced as he bruised her tender flesh in unriveting the fetters, he said, with an insolent jeer, "I wont hurt you more than I can help, my beauty. You are not used to having such a rough chamberlain;" and he uttered a coa.r.s.e jest with which we shall not pollute our page.

A rosy flush stormed the brow of the maiden as she turned her blus.h.i.+ng cheek to the mildewed and cold stone wall, in haughty silence disdaining a word of reply to the brutal ruffian.

"Nay, my fine gentlemen," went on this typical Roman jailer, as Adauctus and the aged Demetrius, weary with their march, sank upon a stone bench, "this is too luxurious an apartment for you. For you we have a deeper depth." And Be pointed to an opening in the floor, hitherto unnoticed in the gloom. "Nay, you need not shrink, old man," he went on, as Demetrius recoiled from the grave-like opening at his feet. "Your betters have been there before you."

"Father, your blessing e'er you go," exclaimed Callirhoe, and flinging herself on his breast, she received his kiss and benediction.

By means of a leathern strap beneath their arms, the prisoners were one by one let down into a hideous vault, like men to a living burial. Into this lower dungeon no beam of light struggled, save a precarious ray from the opening in the floor above. The loathsome cell was even then dank with the slime of well-nigh a thousand years, its construction being attributed to Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome. Here the African prince, Jugurtha, was starved to death. "What a cold bath is this!" he exclaimed, as he descended into its chilly gloom. Here the Gallic king, Vercingetorix, also died. Here the usurper Seja.n.u.s was executed, and here the fellow conspirators of Cataline lingered to death. If we would accept Roman tradition, we would also believe that St. Peter and St. Paul were immured in this dismal vault, and in the case of the latter ill.u.s.trious martyr it is more than likely that the story is true. A stairway has now been constructed to this lower depth, and the present writer has stood upon the stone pavement worn by the feet of generations of victims of oppression, and has drunk of a spring at which the Apostle of the Gentiles may have quenched his thirst.

The prisoners enjoyed not long even this sad reprieve from death. They were destined soon to finish their course by a glorious martyrdom. The Emperors determined to gratify at once their own persecuting fury and the cruel thirst for blood of the Roman mob, by offering a holocaust of victims in the amphitheatre. The _Acta Diurna_, a sort of public gazette of the day, which circulated in the great houses, and baths, and other places of concourse, contained the announcement of a grand exhibition of the _ludi circenses_, or gladiatorial games, to be celebrated in honour of the G.o.d Neptune--_Neptunus Equestris_. In the public s.p.a.ces of the Forum, and in the neighbourhood of the Flavian Amphitheatre and elsewhere, where the crowd around them would not obstruct the highway, were displayed large white bulletin boards, on which were written in coloured chalks a list of the games--like the playbills which placard the streets of great cities to-day--and heralds proclaimed through every street, even in the crowded Ghetto, the splendour of the approaching games. These were on a scale on which no modern manager ever dreamed.

Trajan exhibited games which lasted a hundred and twenty-three days, in which 10,000 gladiators fought and 11,000 fierce animals were killed.

Sometimes the vast arena was flooded with water, and _naumachia_ or sea-fights were exhibited. The vast flood-gates and cisterns by which this was accomplished may still be seen.

The chief attraction of the games provided by the Emperors Diocletian and Galerius, however, was not the conflict of what might almost be called armies of trained gladiators, nor the slaughter of hundreds of fierce Libyan leopards and Numidian lions, but the sacrifice of some scores of helpless and unarmed Christians--old men, weak women, and tender and innocent children.

There was much excitement in the schools of the gladiators--vast stone barracks, where they were drilled in their dreadful trade. They were originally captives taken in war, or condemned malefactors; but in the degenerate days of the Empire, knights, senators, and soldiers sought distinction in the arena, and even uns.e.xed women fought half-naked in the ring, or lay dead and trampled in the sands. To captives of war was often offered, as a reward for special skill or courage, their freedom and fierce and fell were conflicts to which men wore spurred by the double incentives of life and liberty.

Special interest was given to the forthcoming games by the distinguished reputation of one of the volunteer gladiators, a brilliant young military officer, our friend Ligurius Rufus, who, sated and sickened with the most frenzied dissipations that Rome could offer, plunged into this mimic war to appease by its excitement the gnawing ennui of his life.

The bets ran high upon the reckless young n.o.ble who was the favourite of the sporting spend-thrifts and profligates of the city. The vilest condition of society that ever cursed the earth was filling up the measure of its iniquity, and invoking the wrath of Heaven. The wine shops in the Suburra and the gladiators' quarter were overflowing with a brawling, blaspheming, drunken mob, the vilest dregs of the vilest city the patient earth has ever borne upon its bosom.

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CHAPTER XXIV.

THE EVE OF MARTYRDOM.

Far different was the scene presented by another spot not far distant--a vaulted chamber beneath the stone seats of the Coliseum, whither the destined Christian martyrs had been removed on the eve before the day of their triumph. As an act of grace, some coa.r.s.e straw, the refuse of a lion's lair, had been given them, and the relief to their fetter-cramped limbs, stiffened with lying on a rough stone floor, was in itself an indescribable delight. But they had a deeper cause of joy. They were found worthy to witness a good confession for Christ before Caesar, like the beloved Apostle Paul; and even as their Lord Himself before Pontius Pilate. And now the day of their espousals to their Heavenly Bridegroom was at hand.

The silvery-haired Demetrius, a holy calm beaming in his eyes, uttered words of peace and comfort. The coa.r.s.e black barley-bread and muddy wine which had been given them lest death should cheat the mob of their promised delight on the morrow, the venerable priest had consecrated to the Supper of the Lord--the last viatic.u.m to strengthen their souls on their journey to the spirit world. Sitting at his feet, faint and wan, but with a look of utter content upon her face, was his daughter Callirhoe, a heavenly smile flickering about her lips. With an undaunted courage, a heroic resolve beaming from his eyes, stood Adauctus, waiting, like a valiant soldier at his post, the welcome word of the great Captain of his salvation: "Well done! good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Ever and anon the deep-mouthed roar of a hungry lion rent the air, his fierce bound shook the walls of his cage, and his hot breath came through the bars as he keenly sniffed the smell of human flesh. But though it caused at times a tremor of the quivering nerves of the wan and wasted girl, it shook not her unfaltering soul Listen to the holy words calmly spoken by the venerable Demetrius: "'_Non turbetur cor vestrum_--Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you.' Yes, daughter. Yes, brave friend; before another sun shall set we shall see the King in His beauty, and the laud that is very far off. Mine aged eyes shall see, too, the beloved Rachel of my youth, to behold whom they have ached these many years. And thou, child, shalt see the mother after whom thy heart hath yearned."