Valeria, the Martyr of the Catacombs Part 4

"Who would think he was so wicked?" said a poor freed-woman who sold sugar barley in the Forum. "Sure he looks innocent enough."

"He _is_ innocent," replied her neighbour, who kept a stall for the sale of figs and olives. "'Tis that wretch who is wicked," looking fiercely at the Prefect as he moved from the court.

"You are right," said a grave-looking man, speaking low, but with a look of secret understanding; "but be careful. You can do the brave Lucius no good, and may betray the others into jeopardy," and he pa.s.sed swiftly through the throng.

"'Tis time all these Atheists were exterminated," said Furbo, a sort of hanger-on at the neighbouring temple of Saturn. "The G.o.ds are angry, and the victims give sinister auspices. To-day when the priest slew the ram for the sacrifice, would you believe it? it had no heart; and the sacred chickens refused their food."

"And they certainly are to blame for the floods of the Tiber, which destroyed all the olives and lentils in my shop," said Fronto, the oil and vegetable seller.

"And the rain rusted all the wheat on our farm," said Macer, the villicus or land-steward.

"And the fever has broken out afresh in the Suburra," croaked a withered old Egyptian crone, like a living mummy, who told fortunes and sold spells in that crowded and pest-smitten quarter, where the poor swarmed like flies.

"And the drought has blighted all the vines," echoed Demetrius, the wine-merchant.

"I never knew trade so dull," whined Ephraim, the Jewish money-lender.

"We'll never have good times again till these accursed Christians are all destroyed."

"So say I," "And I," "And I," shouted one after another of the mob, till the wild cry rang round the Forum, _"Christiani adleones"_--"The Christians to the lions."[18]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Euseb. Hist Eccles., viii. 7.

[17] "Salt me the more, that I may be incorruptible," said Tarachus, the martyr, as he underwent this excruciating torture.

[18] "If the Tiber overflows its banks," says Tertullian, "or if the Nile does not; if there be drought or earthquakes, famine or pestilence, the cry is raised, 'the Christians to the lions.' But I pray you," he adds, in refutation of these absurd charges, "were misfortunes unknown before Tiberius? The true G.o.d was not wors.h.i.+pped when Hannibal conquered at Cannae, or the Gauls filled the city."--Tertul. _Apol._, x.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MARTYR'S BURIAL.

The fawning Greek Isidorus had stealthily wormed his way into the confidence of Faustus, a servant of Adauctus, by professing to be, if not a Christian, at least a sincere inquirer after the truth, and an ardent hater of the edict of persecution. Faustus had therefore promised to conduct him to a private meeting of the Christians, where he might be more fully instructed by the good presbyter, Primitius. In the short summer twilight they therefore made their way to the villa of the Christian matron Marcella, on the Appian Way, about two miles from the city gates. A high wall surrounded the grounds. In this was a wicket or door, at which Faustus knocked. The white-haired porter partly opened the door, and recognizing the foremost figure, admitted him, but gave a look of inquiry before pa.s.sing his companion.

"It is all right," said Faustus. "He is a good friend of mine," and so they pa.s.sed on.

The grounds were large and elegant, fountains flashed in the soft moonlight, the night-blooming cereus breathed forth its rare perfume, and ma.s.ses of cypress and ilex cast deep shadows on the pleached alleys.

But there was a conspicuous absence of the garden statuary invariably found in pagan grounds. There was no figure of the G.o.d Terminus, nor of the beautiful Flora, or Pomona, nor of any of the fair G.o.ddesses which to-day people the galleries of Rome. In the s.p.a.cious _atrium_, or central apartment of the house, which was partially lighted by bronze candalabra, was gathered a company of nearly a hundred persons, seated on couches around the hall--the men on the right and the women on the left. A solemn stillness brooded over the entire a.s.sembly. Near a tall cadalabrum stood a venerable figure with a snowy beard--the presbyter Primitius. From a parchment scroll in his hand he read in impressive tones the holy words of hope and consolation, "Let not your hearts be troubled, ye believe in G.o.d, believe also in me," and the rest of that sweet, parting counsel of the world's Redeemer.

[Ill.u.s.tration: STAIRWAY TO CATACOMB.]

Before he was through, a procession with torches was seen approaching through the garden. On a bier, borne by four young men, lay the body of Lucius the martyr, wrapped in white and strewn with flowers--at rest in the solemn majesty of death from the tortures of the rack and scourge.

The little a.s.sembly within joined the procession without, and softly singing the holy words which still give such consolation to the stricken heart, "Beati sunt mortui qui in Domino morientur--Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord," through the shadowy cypress alleys wound the solemn procession. Soon it reached an archway, like that shown in our first chapter, the entrance to the catacomb of St. Callixtus, which lay beneath the grounds of the Lady Marcella. Then, preceded by torches, with careful tread the bearers of the bier slowly descended a rock-hewn stairway, and traversed a long and gloomy corridor, lined on either side with the graves of the dead.[19] This stairway and corridor are shown in the engravings which accompany this chapter.

An almost supernatural fear fell upon the soul of Isidorus the Greek, who had followed in the train of the procession, as it penetrated further and further into the very heart of the earth. He seemed like Ulysses with his ghostly guide visiting the grim regions of the nether-world, and the words of the cla.s.sic poet came to his mind, "Horror on all sides, the very silence fills the soul with dread."

Already for more than two centuries these gloomy galleries had been the receptacles of the Christian dead, and in many places the slabs that sealed the tombs were broken, and the graves yawned weirdly as he pa.s.sed, revealing the unfleshed skeletons lying on their stony bed. To his excited imagination they seemed to menace him with their outstretched bony arms. Deep, mysterious shadows crouched around, full of vague suggestions of affright. His gay, joyous and pleasure-loving nature recoiled from the evidences of mortality around him. His footsteps faltered, and he almost fell to the rocky pavement. The procession swept on, the glimmering lights growing dimmer and dimmer, and then turning an angle they suddenly disappeared. Fear lent wings to his feet, and he fled along the narrow path with outstretched hands, sometimes touching with a feeling of horrible recoil the bones or ashes of the dead. He hurried along, groping from side to side, and when he reached the pa.s.sage down which the funeral procession had disappeared, no gleam of it was visible, nor could he tell, so suddenly the lights had disappeared, whether it had turned to the right or to the left. The darkness was intense--a darkness that might be felt, a brooding horror that oppressed every sense. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and his faint cry was swallowed up in the deep and oppressive silence. Had the vengeance of the G.o.ds overtaken him in punishment for his meditated crime? Was he, who so loved the light and air, and joyous suns.h.i.+ne, never to behold them again? Must he be buried in these gloomy vaults for ever? These thoughts surged through his brain, and almost drove him wild. But what sounds are those that steal faintly on his ear? They seem like the music of heaven heard in the heart of h.e.l.l. Stronger, sweeter, clearer, come the holy voices. And now they shape themselves to words, "Nam et si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala--Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." Was it to taunt his terrors those strange words were sung? Then the holy chant went on, "Quonian tu mec.u.m es Virga tua, et baculus tuus, ipsa me consolata sunt--For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." What strange secret had these Christians that sustained their souls even surrounded by the horrors of the tomb?

[Ill.u.s.tration: CORRIDOR OF CATACOMB.]

Isidorus groped his way amid the gloom toward these heavenly sounds.

Soon he caught a faint glimmer of light reflected from an angle of the corridor, and then a ray through an open doorway pierced the gloom.

Hurrying forward he found the whole company from which he had become separated gathered in a sort of chapel hewn out of the solid rock. The body of Lucius lay upon the bier before an open tomb, hewn out of the wall. The venerable presbyter, by the fitful torchlight which illumined the strange group, and lit up the pious paintings and epitaphs upon the wall, read from a scroll the strange words, "And I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the Word of G.o.d and for the testimony which they held, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" A great fear fell upon the soul of the susceptible Greek, for the slain man seemed, in the solemn majesty of death, to become an accusing judge.

Then turning his scroll the presbyter read on, "What are these arrayed in white robes and whence came they? These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of G.o.d, and serve Him day and night in His temple.... They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ... and G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

These holy words stirred strange emotions in the agitated breast of the young Greek. Sweeter were they than ought he had ever read in Pindar's page, and more sublime than even Homer's hymns. If these things were true, he thought, he would gladly change places with the martyr on his bier, if only he might exchange the torturing ambitions, strifes and sins of time for the holy joys which that marvellous scroll revealed.

Then by loving hands the martyr's body was placed in its narrow tomb. A marble slab, on which were simply written his name and the words, "DORMIT IN PACE--He sleeps in peace," was cemented against the opening.

With a trowel, a palm branch, the symbol of martyrdom, was rudely traced in the yet unhardened cement, and the little company began to disperse.

"O sir," cried the young Greek, clasping the hand of the venerable Primitius, "teach me more fully this excellent way."

"Gladly, my son," replied the benignant old man. "Come hither to-morrow.

For here," he added with a smile, "my friends insist that I must remain concealed till this outburst of persecution shall have pa.s.sed.[20]

Hilarus, the fossor, will be thy guide. He will now conduct thee back to thy friend Faustus, who is seeking thee."

By the dim light of a waxen taper which he carried, Hilarus led the Greek to the entrance to the Catacomb, where they found Faustus waiting in some alarm at the delay of his friend. In the bright moonlight they walked back to the city. Isidorus thought well to evade giving an account of his adventure in the Catacomb, and, to turn the conversation, asked how the Christians had obtained the body of Lucius from the public executioner.

"Oh, money will do anything in Rome," said Faustus, at which the Greek visibly winced. "The Lady Marcella, in whose grounds the Catacomb is, devotes much of her wealth to burying the poor of the Church, and her steward had no difficulty in purchasing from Hanno, the executioner, the mangled remains of the martyr. 'Tis like, before long, that he will have many such to sell."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[19] For the details above given, see Bingham's _Origines Ecclesiastica_

[20] Liberius, Bishop of Rome, lay concealed in the Catacombs for a whole year, during a time of persecution.

CHAPTER VII.

WITH HILARUS THE FOSSOR.

"No one becomes vile all at once," said the Roman moralist, and we would be unjust to the fickle, fawning Greek Isidorus, if we concluded that deliberate treachery was his purpose, as, at the invitation of Primitius, he repaired next day to the catacomb of St. Calixtus. His was a susceptible, impressionable nature, easily influenced by its environment, like certain substances that acquire the odour, fragrant or foul, of the atmosphere by which they are surrounded. Amid the vileness of the Roman court, his better feelings died, and he was willing to become the minion of tyranny, or the tool of treachery. Amid the holy influences of the Christian a.s.sembly, some chord responded, like an Eolian harp, to the breathings of the airs from heaven. It was, therefore, with strangely conflicting feelings, that he pa.s.sed beneath the Capuan Gate, and along the Appian Way, toward the Villa Marcella.

His better nature recoiled from his purposed treachery of the previous day. His heart yearned to know more of that strange power which sustained the Christian martyr in the presence of torture and of death.

He was recognized by the porter at the gate of the villa as the companion of Faustus, and on his inquiry for the house of Hilarus, the fossor, was directed to a low-walled, tile-roofed building, such as may be seen in many parts of the Campagna to the present day. About the house were many stone chippings, and numerous slabs of marble. Under a sort of arbour, covered with vine branches in full leaf, stood a grisly-visaged man, with close-cropped, iron-gray hair, chipping with mallet and chisel at a large sarcophagus, or stone coffin, upon a mason's bench.