Heortology : $b A history of the Christian festivals from their origin to the present dayKellner, K. A. Heinrich (Karl Adam Heinrich)
Religion
Heortology : $b A history of the Christian festivals from their origin to the present day
Kellner, K. A. Heinrich (Karl Adam Heinrich)
Church year; Fasts and feasts
A parish church was dedicated to St Cecilia in Rome as early as 499,
to which two priests were attached, and a cemetery was named after
her fellow-sufferers, Tiburtius and Valerian, in the sixth century.
No further information respecting her cultus has come down to us from
antiquity, and in the literature of the patristic period, with the
exception of Venantius Fortunatus in the sixth century, her name is not
mentioned. Her cultus was apparently limited to Rome, although she had a
chapel or church in Ravenna,[674] as the poet just mentioned states.
A change took place when Pope Paschal I. in 821 discovered the saint’s
body, in consequence, as he said, of a vision; until then it was believed
that the Lombards had carried it away with them. Paschal had the body
taken from the cemetery of SS. Sixtus and Prætextatus, where he found it,
and brought to her church in Rome, where it still remains. Immediately
after her death, according to the statement in her _Passio_, her body
must have been placed in the papal crypt.[675] Her name was then inserted
in the martyrologies of Ado, Usuardus, and Rabanus Maurus, and placed
under the 22nd November, which is certainly the day of the translation
of her relics, for the _Hieronymianum_ in its oldest recension gives the
16th September as the day of her death (_Natalis_). St Cecilia appears in
Bede and in the Frankish calendars of the eighth century composed under
Roman influence, but in the most ancient calendar of Carthage, one looks
for her name in vain.[676] After the miraculous discovery of her relics
and their translation, on account of the interest taken in such matters
in the ninth century, her fame spread throughout the whole Christian
world; and churches were dedicated to her, even in the recently converted
North Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account