The Early Christians in RomeSpence-Jones, H. D. M. (Henry Donald Maurice)
History
The Early Christians in Rome
Spence-Jones, H. D. M. (Henry Donald Maurice)
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Rome (Italy) -- Church history
“It now became necessary to consider how the holy bones and bodies
which had been taken up might best be laid in some fitting and
memorable place; they had been placed in several cases of cypress
wood, and had been carried before the little altar of S. Peter in
the confession, and here all through these days they had been kept
locked up and under seal. It was felt that they ought not to be
deprived of the privilege of being near to the body of S. Peter....
So it was resolved that, as they had been found buried together and
undistinguished by names, so still one grave should hold them all,
since the holy martyrs are all one in eternity,”--as S. Gregory
Nazianzen wonderfully says--“ ... a suitable and capacious grave was
constructed” (close to the spot) “and there re-interment took place.
The following inscription cut in a plate of lead was placed within the
tomb--
_Corpora Sanctorum prope sepulchrum sancti Petri inventa, cum
fundamenta effoderentur æreis Columnis (of the baldachino of
Bernini) ab Urbano VIII--super hac fornice erectis, hic
siul collecta et reposita die 28 Julii 1626”_
In digging for the second foundation a very wonderful “find” was
recorded. Ubaldi relates how, “not more than three or four feet down,
there was discovered at the side a large coffin made of great slabs of
marble.... Within were ashes with many bones all adhering together and
half burned. These brought back to mind the famous fire in the time
of Nero, three years before S. Peters martyrdom, when the Christians,
being falsely accused of causing the fire, and pronounced guilty
of the crime, afforded in the circus of the gardens of Nero, which
were situated just here on the Vatican Hill, the first spectacles of
martyrdom. Some were put to death in various cruel ways, while others
were set on fire, and used as torches in the night, thus inaugurating
on the Vatican, by the light that they gave, the living splendour of
the true religion.... These, so they say, were buried close to the
place where they suffered martyrdom, and gave the first occasion for
the religious veneration of this holy spot.... We therefore revered
these holy bones, as being those of the first founders of the great
basilica and the first-fruits of our martyrs, and having put back the
coffin allowed it to remain in the same place.”
* * * * *
With great pathos Mr. Barnes, from whose translation of the Ubaldi
Memoranda on the discoveries in the Cemetery of Anacletus these
extracts are taken, describes the scene of the interment of these
sad remains of the martyrs in the games of Nero. We quote a passage
specially bearing on this strange and wonderful “find,” where, after
describing what took place in the famous games, he went on thus:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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