FEBRONIA OF SIBAPTE.
FEBRONIA OF SIBAPTE.
FEBRONIA OF SIBAPTE.
IVFEBRONIA 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 oftheir 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 timesof 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 comfortin 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, andto 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 realreason 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 bythe 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 restwere 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 toendure 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 haveborne 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 tomany 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 weretortured, 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 orspeak 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.
THE DAUGHTER OF CONSTANTINE.
THE DAUGHTER OF CONSTANTINE.
THE DAUGHTER OF CONSTANTINE.
VTHE 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 thelegendis 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 andPaul, 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 gettingbruited 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 inhuman 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 theycould 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 thatit 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 lowerportion 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 Byzantiusand 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. Thefact 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.
THE SISTER OF S. BASIL.
THE SISTER OF S. BASIL.
THE SISTER OF S. BASIL.
VI.THE SISTER OF S. BASIL
It is most rare to be able to obtain a glimpse into the home-life of the ancients. In the first centuries of our era, in the Greek and Roman world, life was so much in public, that there was hardly any domestic life at all; and it was only with Christianity that the quiet, retired and sweet home society constituted itself.
In the midst of flaunting paganism, the first believers were driven indoors, so to speak; they were precluded from much of the amusement that went to fill up the time of the heathen. They could not sit on the benches of the amphitheatre, nor attend at the representations of the theatre. They were largely prevented from being present at banquets given by friends, as these began and ended with libations to the gods, and the benediction ofthe deities called down on the meats. They were precluded from taking part in civil life, by the oaths and sacrifices associated with every official act.
Thinking, feeling, believing differently from their fellow-citizens, they could not associate with them easily abroad, and were consequently driven to find their society in their own homes.
Perhaps it is only in the writings of S. Basil and his brother S. Gregory of Nyssa that we get anything like a look into the interior of a Christian household in the fourth century. It is therefore, although a quiet picture of an uneventful and unexciting existence, full of interest and charm. S. Basil belonged to a family both noble and wealthy, in Cappadocia, in Asia Minor. His ancestors had occupied public positions either as magistrates or at the imperial court.
His grandmother, Macrina, a native of Neocæsarea, in Pontus, had been brought up by S. Gregory the wonder-worker; and she and her husband, whose name is not recorded, were confessors in the persecution of Diocletian. They fled to the wooded mountain sides, leavingtheir houses and possessions; and in their places of retreat subsisted mainly on the wild deer, that were so tame that they allowed themselves to be easily snared. They remained in concealment for seven years, and it was not till an edict in favour of the Christians was promulgated, on April 30th, 311, that they ventured to return to Neocæsarea.
Macrina died in Pontus about 340. Her son Basil inherited the piety of his parents, and he took to wife Æmilia, a woman of great virtue, the daughter of a man who had been put to death after having been deprived of his goods by the Emperor Licinius. She had lost her mother in early youth.
Basil and Æmilia were very wealthy. They owned extensive estates in Pontus, Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia; they had a large family, ten children, of whom the eldest was Macrina, named after her grandmother; S. Basil was the eldest son, then came Naucratius, Gregory, afterwards of Nyssa, and Peter, the youngest, afterwards of Sebaste. We know no more of the four younger girls than that they were well provided for in marriage, and one of them haddaughters who became superiors of a monastery in Cæsarea under the direction of their uncle, S. Basil.
Basil the elder, the father, died about 349, shortly after the birth of Peter. Æmilia was now left a widow with a large family to look after, but she was assisted in everything by her eldest daughter, Macrina, who was her inseparable companion.
When Macrina had been born she had been confided to a nurse, but it was remarked that she was almost always in her mother’s arms. Æmilia took pains to form the mind of the little girl, and give it a religious direction. She taught her first of all sentences from the Book of Wisdom, then made her commit sundry psalms to memory; so that, as her brother Gregory wrote, the Psalter became to her a companion day and night, and she was for ever singing psalms or reciting them in her heart.
Macrina was a good and patient needlewoman. Not only was the house large, but the brothers and sisters needed attention, and their clothes keeping in order, and Æmilia and her eldest daughter were constantly engaged attheir needles, to keep pace with the demands of the family; and as they were always together, one mind was but the reflexion of the other.
What tended to make Macrina a still, stay-at-home girl, was an early love affair. She had been engaged by her father’s consent to a high-principled, well-born young man, and the marriage was only deferred because of Macrina’s youth. But before this took place he fell ill of fever and was carried off rapidly. After this Basil thought of uniting his daughter to some other suitable person, but Macrina urgently entreated to be allowed to remain with her mother. “My dear husband,” she said, “is not dead,—he lives with God. He has gone on a far journey—that is all, and I shall remain faithful to him whilst he is away.”
Her father did not press her—indeed, the devotion of Macrina to her mother was so tender and so close that he thought neither could bear to be parted. When he also died, then the union of hearts and interests became closer.
As the children grew up they dispersed, and received their several inheritances; but they all carried away with them indelibly thestamp impressed on their hearts by their mother and eldest sister; and in the end three of them became bishops and saints. Peter, the youngest, had been most in their hands, but the favourite brother was Naucratius.
As soon as all the birds were out of the nest, then Æmilia felt that there was nothing to retain her in the city, and she pined to be away from its dusty streets and noisy market in the green, sweet country, and in quiet with God.
Accordingly she and Macrina retired to a villa they possessed on the banks of the river Iris, at some little distance from the town of Ibora. This they converted into a sort of monastery. The slaves and other servants, if they chose to unite in the same life, were given freedom and accepted on the footing of sisters, no distinction being made between the members of the little community.
S. Gregory of Nyssa says of this society: “They were all as one in what they ate and drank, as to their furniture and cells, and there was no token that they belonged originally to different ranks in the world. There was noruffle of temper among them, no petty jealousies, no suspicions, no spite .... all their occupation was in prayer and the singing of psalms, which went on night and day.”
Peter, the youngest, who had been ordained, lived near at hand, and for the care he had received as a child returned his ministerial offices. S. Basil also for awhile lived in retirement not far off, and was a help and comfort to them.
Macrina suffered about this time from a painful abscess in her breast, and Æmilia constantly urged her to let a doctor examine and lance it. She was afraid lest, should it not be opened, it might break internally. But Macrina was so modest and sensitive—perhaps absurdly so—that she shrank from the ordeal of letting a man treat the place. At last the old lady insisted; the abscess had become so hot and swollen that she was alarmed.
Macrina, struggling against shame, went into the little oratory, and remained weeping and praying there all night, sometimes with her face against the ground and her tears running over the dust. The heat and painin her breast and the tension were so insupportable, that she gathered up some of the cool earth and pressed it to the swelling, when it burst, and she was relieved; and so the need for calling in a surgeon was overpassed.
At length Æmilia died, at an advanced age. None of her children were with her at the time except Macrina and Peter; however, as she was dying, the old and saintly woman murmured blessings on the absent darlings, and taking Peter by one hand and Macrina by the other, said, “Lord, I offer to Thee my firstfruits and my tithe. Accept them, O Lord, and pour the floods of Thy grace into both their hearts.” They were her last words. She died in 373, and was laid beside her husband whom she had loved so well. The grief of Macrina was not to be expressed. She had been the inseparable companion of her mother since her earliest infancy, and they had not had a thought or wish but what was in common.
Before Macrina had recovered from this blow she was called on to endure another. Her favourite brother, Naucratius, was founddead in the field along with his servant Chrysapius, without it being known what had caused their death.
Six years later she was called to mourn the loss of her eldest brother, S. Basil. It was she who, with his friend Gregory Nazianzen, had been the means of turning his heart entirely to God. As a young man he had been disposed to push his way as a statesman. In 355 Basil had been at school with Julian, afterwards Emperor, and an apostate from the faith, and with Gregory, who was the son of the Bishop of Nazianzus. Basil had not formed a high opinion of the former, but with Gregory “it was one soul in two bodies.” On returning to Cæsarea after his father’s death, Basil turned towards a life in the world, and a prospect of advancement in official life opened to him. It was then that Macrina had exerted all her influence over him, and gave him that final direction which made of him so glorious a saint and teacher of the Church.
And now Macrina had lost him.
In the month of September or October in the year following the death of S. Basil,Gregory—now Bishop of Nyssa—was present at the Council held at Antioch, and on leaving it he resolved on paying a visit to Macrina. He had not seen her since the death of their brother Basil, and he wished to talk with her about him. The journey was long, and the snows were already powdering the lower ranges of the lofty mountains he had to pass.
On the night previous to his arrival on the banks of the Iris, after a tedious and long day’s travel, he had a dream. It seemed to him that he held relics in his hands that emitted a blaze of white light.
When he awoke he wondered what this dream could signify, for he was not above the superstition of his age which attributed importance to dreams; but as he neared the monastery he met a servant who told him that Macrina was dangerously ill, and Gregory at once concluded that his dream was a portent of her approaching dissolution.
Sick at heart, he pressed forward, and arrived at the villa. Those within came forth to welcome him, except the sisters, who remained in the church, sorrowful at the prospect oflosing their best friend, yet glad that she should see her brother before her death.
Gregory at once entered the church and prayed, and gave his episcopal benediction to all. Then he asked to be conducted to Macrina.
We have an account of the last scene from his own pen, and this shall be given with only a little condensation.
“A woman who was there opened the door to me, and led me within. I found my sister lying on the ground, on a plank covered with sackcloth (the Cilician material made of goat’s hair, much in use for blankets) and with a pillow of the same supporting her head. She was very ill, but when she saw me, unable on account of her great weakness to rise and meet me, she lifted herself on one elbow, placing the other hand on the ground for her support. I ran to her, and insisted on laying her down again as she had been. Then she lifted her hands to Heaven and said, ‘I thank Thee, O Lord my God, in that Thou hast fulfilled the desire of my heart.’
“She did her utmost to conceal from uswhat a difficulty she found in breathing, so as not to increase our distress; and her face was bright and smiling, and she spoke of such matters as she thought pleasing to us. But when we came to mention Basil, then my face expressed the grief I was in at his loss. But she, on the contrary, spoke of the matter with serenity of soul and elevation of mind, so that I felt myself as though carried up above all worldly considerations into heavenly regions with her.
“Presently she said, ‘Brother, you have had a tedious journey, and must be very tired: I pray you take a little rest.’ And although it was a delight to me to listen to her, yet I obeyed; and I went forth into the garden, where was a pleasant shady walk. However, I was in such trouble of mind that I could admire nothing, and I could think only of what must shortly happen.
“I suppose she must have divined my thoughts, for she sent word to me not to fret, as she hoped speedily to be better; but she really meant that she would escape from her present pains, and be with God, for whomher soul ever thirsted. I got up when I heard this, and went to see her again. Then, when we were together, she began to talk about old times, since our childhood, and all as calmly and consequently as though she were reading out of a book. She talked of the mercies shown by God to our father, mother, and all the family.
“I wanted to tell her about my troubles when the Emperor Valens banished me for the Faith, and of other troubles in which I had been involved; but she cut me short with ‘Never lose sight of the obligations you owe to God. Think chiefly of the advantages you have received from Him.’
“As she was speaking we heard the song of the virgins calling to vespers, and my sister bade me go to the church. Thus passed the night, and when day dawned I could see clearly by her condition that it would be her last, for the fever had exhausted her last powers.
“My soul was agitated by double feelings: one was grief, for nature would make me feel, and I knew that the words I heard were thelast that would be uttered by one very dear to me; the other was admiration at the calm and trust with which she awaited death.
“The sun was nigh setting without her having lost the force of her mind. Then she ceased to speak to us, but folded her hands and fixed her eyes on her heavenly Bridegroom. Her little bed was turned with the feet to the east, and she spoke to Him in a low voice, which we could hardly hear. We did, however, collect some of her words: ‘O Lord, Thou deliverest us from the fear of death; Thou makest the close of life the commencement of a new and truer life. Thou sufferest us to sleep awhile, and then wilt call us with the trumpet at the end of time. To the earth Thou entrustest the dust of which Thy hands have fashioned us, to reclaim it and clothe it with immortality and glory. Lord, Thou who on the Cross didst pardon the malefactor, remember me in Thy kingdom.’
“Then Macrina made the sign of the cross on her eyes, her mouth, and her heart; and, the strength of the fever having parched her tongue, we could no longer follow her, butsaw that her lips continued to move. She closed her eyes; but when a lamp was brought into the room she opened them, and made a sign that she desired to recite vespers. But her tongue failed her, only her spirit was active, and her lips and hands moved as before, and we understood when she had finished, by her again signing herself.
“Finally she drew a long, deep sigh, and passed away in prayer. Seeing what had taken place, and remembering a wish she had expressed to me, in our last conversation, that I should render her the last offices, I put out my shaking hand to her face to close the eyes and mouth. But I did this only to fulfil my promise, for really there was no need, as eyes and mouth were closed, so that she appeared rather to be sleeping than dead. Her hands lay on her breast, and her body rested modestly, as that of a virgin.”
When Macrina was being prepared for burial, there was no other raiment of hers found save her veil, her mantle, habit, and a pair of worn-out shoes. Then Gregory gave one of his own tunics for clothing his sister’sbody, and over her was cast her mother’s black cloak; “and,” says Gregory, “the blackness of this cloak made her face seem so much the whiter, as though it shone with light.”
As she was being clothed, a widow, who loved her and attended to these last offices, untied a slender string that was round her neck, and released a little cross and an iron ring.
“Keep the cross,” said Gregory to the widow, “as a remembrance of her; and I shall ever preserve the ring.”
Who can tell? Perhaps that poor little iron ring was the reminiscence of her engagement to the young man to whom she had long ago been betrothed, and to whom she had remained ever faithful.