Valeria, the Martyr of the Catacombs Part 17

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE MARTYRS CROWNED.

At a flourish of trumpets the iron-studded doors of the cells in which the Christians were confined were thrown open, and the destined martyrs walked forth on the arena in the sight of a.s.sembled thousands. It was a spectacle to arrest the attention of even the most thoughtless, and to move the sympathy of even the most austere. At the head of the little company walked the good presbyter, Demetrius, his silvery hair and beard and benignant expression of countenance giving him a strikingly venerable aspect. Leaning heavily on his arm, evidently faint in frame but strong in spirit, was his daughter Callirhoe. Robed in white, she looked the embodiment of saintly purity, and in her eyes there beamed a heroic courage which inspired a wonder that so brave a soul should be shrined in so frail a body. Adauctus, Aurelius, and other Christian confessors condemned to death, made up the little contingent of the n.o.ble army of martyrs.

The prefect Naso, from his place in the tribune, near the Emperors, read the sentence of the court, that the accused having been proven by ample testimony to be the enemies of the Caesars and of the G.o.ds, had been condemned to death by exposure to wild beasts.

"Nay, not the enemies of the Caesars," exclaimed the aged Demetrius. "We are the friends of all, the enemies of none.[50] We pray for the Caesars at all our a.s.semblies."

"Will you do homage to the G.o.ds?" demanded Diocletian. "Will you burn incense to Neptune? Here is his altar and here are his priests."

"We worship the true G.o.d who made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that in them is," replied the venerable man, with uplifted and reverent countenance, "and Him only will we serve. They be no G.o.ds which are made by man's device, and 'tis idolatry to serve them."

"Away with the Atheists," cried the priests of Neptune; "they blaspheme the holy G.o.ds."

"The Christians to the lions!" roared the mob, and at the signal from the Emperor to the master of the games, the dens of the wild beasts were thrown open, and the savage brutes, starved into madness, bounded into the arena. The defenceless martyrs fell upon their knees in prayer, and seemed conscious only of the presence of Him who stood with the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace, so rapt was the expression of faith and courage on their upturned faces.

The fierce Numidian lions, and tigers from the Libyan desert, instead of bounding upon their prey, began to circle slowly around them, lashing their tawny flanks meanwhile, glaring at their victims from bloodshot fiery eyes, and uttering horrid growls.

At this moment a loud shout was heard, and a soldier, clad in burnished mail, and with his drawn sword in his hand, one of the body guards of the Emperors, leaped from the tribune and bounded with clashing armour into the arena. Striding across the sand, he hurled aside his iron helmet and his sword, and flung himself at the feet of the aged priest, with the words:--

"Father, your blessing; Callirhoe, your parting kiss. I, too, am a Christian. Long time have I sought you, alas! only to find you thus. But gladly will I die with you, and, separated in life, we are united in death and forever."

"_Nunc dimittis, Domine!_" exclaimed the old man, raising his eyes to heaven. "'Now, Lord, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.'" And he laid his hands in blessing on the head of his long-lost son.

"Ezra, my brother!" exclaimed Callirhoe, folding him in her arms. "To think we were so near, yet knew not of each other. Thank G.o.d, we go to heaven together; and, long divided on earth, we shall soon, with our beloved mother, be a united family forever in the skies. 'And G.o.d shall wipe away all tears from our eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain.'"

"Amen! even so, come, Lord Jesus!" spake the young soldier, as he enfolded, as if in a sheltering embrace, the gray-haired sire and the fair-faced girl.

The utmost consternation was exhibited on the countenance of the old Emperor Diocletian. "What! have we Christians and traitors even in our body guard? Our very life is at the mercy of those wretches!"

"I would feel safer with them," said the more stoical or more courageous Galerius, "than with the _delators_ and informers who betray them," and he glanced with mingled contempt and aversion at Naso, the prefect, and Furca, the priest. "When a Christian gives his word, 'tis sacred as all the oaths of Hecate. I want no better soldiers than those of the Thundering Legion."[51]

Meanwhile the wild beasts, startled for a moment by the sudden apparition of the mail-clad soldier, seemed roused thereby to ten-fold fury. Crouching stealthily for the fatal spring, they bounded upon their prey, and in a moment crashing bones and streaming gore appeased the growing impatience of the cruel mob, who seemed, like the very wild beasts, to hunger and thirst for human flesh and blood.

We dwell not on the painful spectacle. The gallant young soldier was the first to die. The brave girl, with a gesture of maiden modesty, drew her dishevelled robe about her person, and with a queenly dignity awaited the wild beast's fatal spring. She was mercifully spared the spectacle of her father's dying agony. Her over-strung nerves gave way, and she fell in a swoon upon the sands. Demetrius met his fate praying upon his knees. Like Stephen, he gazed steadfastly up into heaven, and the fashion of his countenance was suddenly transfigured as he exclaimed: "Lord Jesus! Rachel, my beloved! we come, we come." And above the roar of the ribald mob and the growl of the savage beasts, fell sweetly on his inner ear the song of the redeemed, and burst upon his sight the beatific vision of the Lord he loved, and for whom he gladly died.

So, too, like brave men, victorious o'er their latest foe, Adauctus, Aurelius, and the others calmly met their fate. When all the rest were slain, a lordly lion approached the prostrate form of Callirhoe, but she was already dead. She had pa.s.sed from her swoon, without a pang, to the marriage supper of the Lamb--to the presence of the Celestial Bridegroom--the fairest among ten thousand, the one altogether lovely--to whom the homage of her young heart had been fully given. She was spared, too, the indignity, of being mangled by the lion's jaws.

When the king of beasts found that she was already dead, he raised his ma.s.sy head, gave a mournful howl, and strode haughtily away.

In the great gallery of Dore paintings at London, is one of this Flavian Amphitheatre after a human sacrifice such as we have described. There lie the mangled forms upon the gory and trampled sands. The sated wild beasts prowl listlessly over the arena. The circling seats rise tier above tier, empty and desolate. But poised in air, with outspread wings, above the slain, with a countenance of light and a palm of victory, is a majestic angel; and sweeping upward in serried ranks, amid the shining stars, is a cloud of bright-winged angels, the convoy of the martyrs'

spirits to the skies. So, doubtless, G.o.d sent a cohort of sworded seraphim to bear the martyrs of our story blessed company, and to sweep with them through the gates into the city.

FOOTNOTES:

[50] This famous phrase dates from the time of Tertullian, in the 3rd century, and is also recorded in the Catacombs.

[51] The _Legio Tonans_, tradition affirms, was a legion composed wholly of Christians, whose prayers in a time of drought brought on a violent thunder-storm, which confounded the enemy and saved the army.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE MARTYRS BURIED.

Darker and darker grew the shadows of night over the great empty and desolate amphitheatre, but a few hours before clamorous with the shouts and din of the tumultuous mob. The silence seemed preternatural, and a solemn awfulness seemed to invest the shrouded forms which lay upon the sand. By a merciful provision of the Roman law, it made not war upon the dead, and the bodies even of criminals were given up to their friends, if they had any, that they might not be deprived of funeral rites.

Having wreaked his cruel rage upon the living body, the pagan magistrate at least did not deny the privilege of burial to the martyrs' mutilated remains. It was esteemed by the primitive believers as much an honour as a duty, to ensepulchre with Christian rites the remains of the sacred dead.[52]

Faustus, the faithful freedman of Adauctus, Hilarus, the fossor, and the servants of the Christian matron, Marcella, came at the fall of night to bear away the bodies of the martyrs to their final resting-place in the silent Catacomb. The service was not devoid of danger, for vile informers prowled around seeking to discover and betray whomsoever would pay the rites of sepulture to the remains of the Christian martyrs. But there are golden keys which will unlock any doors and seal any lips, and Marcella spared not her wealth in this sacred service.

On the present occasion, too, special facility was given for carrying out this pious purpose. Through the influence of the Empress Valeria, Hilarus, the fossor, was enabled to show to the chief custodian of the amphitheatre an authorization under the hand of Galerius for removing the bodies of the "criminals who had paid the penalty of the law"--so ran the rescript.

Beneath the cliff-like shadow of the Coliseum gathered this little Christian company. The iron gates opened their ponderous jaws. By the fitful flare of a torch weirdly lighting up the vaulted arches, with gentle and reverent hands, as though the cold clay could still feel their lightest touch, the bodies of the dead were laid upon the biers.

Through the silent streets, devout men in silence bore the martyrs to their burial. Through the Porta Capena, which opened to the magic spell of the Emperor's order; through the silent "Street of Tombs," still lined with the monuments of Rome's mighty dead, wended slowly the solemn procession. There was no wailing of the pagan _naenia_ or funeral dirge, neither was there the chanting of the Christian hymn. But in silence, or with only whispered utterance, they reached the door of the private grounds of the Villa Marcella.

First the bodies were borne to the villa, where, by loving hands, the stains of dust and blood were washed away. Then, robed in white and bestrewn with flowers, they were placed on the biers in the marble atriun. Again the good presbyter Primitius read the words of life as at the burial of Lucius, the martyr,[53] and vows and prayers were offered up to G.o.d.

While this solemn service was in progress, a lady, deeply-veiled, was seen to be agitated by violent grief. Convulsive sobs shook her frame, and her tears fell fast. When the forms of the martyrs were uncovered, that their friends might take their last farewell, the Empress Valeria, for it was she, flung herself on her knees beside the body of the late slave maiden, and rained tears of deep emotion on her face. More lovely in death than in life, the fine-cut features seemed like the most exquisite work of the sculptor carved in translucent alabaster. A crown of asphodel blossoms the emblems of immortality--encircled her brow, and a palm branch--the symbol of the martyr's victory--was placed upon her breast.

"Give her an honoured place among the holy dead," said the Empress, amid her sobs, to the venerable Primitius.

"I have given orders," said the Lady Marcella, "that she, with her father and brother, shall sleep side by side in the chamber prepared as the last resting-place for my own family. We shall count it a precious privilege, in G.o.d's own good time, to be laid to rest near the dust of His holy confessors and martyrs."

"Aurelius shall share the tomb," said Hilarus, the fossor, "which he made for himself while yet alive, beside his n.o.ble wife, Aurelia Theudosia."

"Be it mine to honour with a memorial tablet the remains of my good master Adauctus," said Faustus, the freedman, with deep emotion.[54]

"It shall be my privilege," said the Empress, "to provide for my beloved handmaiden, as a mark of the great love I bore her, a memorial of her saintly virtues; and let her bear my name in death as in life, so that those who read her epitaph may know she was the freedwoman and friend of an unhappy Empress."

The Empress Valeria now retired, and with her trusty escort, returned to the city.

With psalms and hymns, and the solemn chanting of such versicles as: _"Convertere anima mea, in requiem tuam"_--"Return unto thy rest, O my soul;" and _"Si ambulavero in medio umbrae mortis, non timebo mala"_--"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil," the funeral procession wound its way, by gleaming torchlight, through the cypress glades of the garden to the entrance of the Catacomb of Callixtus. Here additional torches and tapers were lighted, and carefully the sacred burdens were carried down the long and narrow stair, and through the intricate pa.s.sages to the family vault of the Lady Marcella.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SUBTERRANEAN ORATORY, CATACOMB OF CALLIXTUS.]

This vault was one of unusual size and loftiness, and had been especially prepared for holding religious service during the outbreak of persecution. Marcella held the office of deaconess in the Christian Church, and when even the privacy of her own house was not a sufficient safeguard against the prying of pagan spies, she was wont to retire to the deeper seclusion of this subterranean place of prayer. On each side of the door were seats hewn in the solid rock, one for the deaconess, the other for the female catechist who shared her pious labours. Around the wall was a low stone seat for the female catechumens, for the most part members of her own household, who here received religious instruction. The accompanying engraving indicates the appearance of this ancient oratory or cla.s.s-room, its main features unchanged, although the lapse of centuries has somewhat marred its structure and defaced its beauty.

With solemn rites and prayers the remains of the martyrs were consigned to their last long resting-place. Amid the sobs and tears of the mourners, the good presbyter Primitius paid a loving tribute to their holy lives and heroic death--all the more thrilling because they themselves stood in jeopardy every hour. In the presence of the martyred dead the venerable pastor then broke the bread and poured the wine of the Last Supper of the Lord, and the little company of worshippers seemed united in still closer fellowship with those who now kept the sacred feast in the kingdom of their common Father and G.o.d.

Before they left the chamber, Hilarus, after he had hermetically sealed the tombs of Demetrius and Ezra, his son, cemented with plaster a marble slab against the opening of that on which was laid--rude couch for form so fair--the body of the chief subject of our "ower true tale." As it was designed to be but a temporary memorial of the virgin martyr, until the costly epitaph which the Empress was to provide should be ready, he took the little pot of pigment which he had brought for the purpose, and with his brush in, scribed the brief sentence:--

VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE.

ANIMA DULCIS, INNOCVA, SAPIENS ET PVLCHP IN XRO.