apostolicfathers0201clem - Carmel Apologetics

5i8 EPISTLE OF S. POLYCARR
If therefore we had possessed only the Acts, we might have rejected the whole
story of Ctecilia as pure fiction without any basis of historical truth. Indeed, the
narrative would, if true, have had no interest for my present investigation, inasmuch
as the martyrdom is placed by these Acts outside the limits of time with which I am
concerned. But we are compelled by certain historical incidents, relating
or supposed remains of Cecilia, to reconsider the matter.
to the real
In the year 817 Pope Paschal I. removed to the different churches within the city
the reliques of 2300 martyrs buried in the extra-mural catacombs — among them
those lying in the Papal crypt in the Cemetery of S. Callistus. Desiring to translate
the remains of S. Ccecilia with the rest, he could nowhere find them. He therefore
accepted the common rumour that they had been carried off by the Lombards under
Aistulph (a.d. 755). Four years later however the saint herself appeared to him in a
vision, and told him that he had been so close to her that they ' could have conversed
together' ut (' proprio loqui invicem ore valeremus'). Acting upon this hint
he renewed the search and, as he tells us in the diploma issued on the occasion
(Labb. Cotic. ix. p. 593, ed. Coleti, Mans. Cone. xiv. p. 374), '
Ipsius venerabilis virginis
corpus... in Coemeterio Sancti Xysti sito foris portam Appiam, stent in sacratissima
illius passionc manifoste narrattir, inter collegas episcopos, in aureis indumentis cum
venerabili sponso^ reperimus, ubi etiam linteamina, cum quibus sacratissimus sanguis
ejus abstersus est de plagis quas spiculator [speculator] trina percussione crudeliter
ingesserat, ad pedes beatissimae virginis in unum revoluta '
plenaque cruore invenimus
(see De Rossi Rom. Sottcrr. 11. p. 133). Compare Laderchi S. Cacc. Virg. el Marl.
Aet. I. p. 100, where this Diploma is annotated by Bosio. The same account is given
also by the writer who continued the Liber Pontifiealis from A.D. 757 — 858, and
who therefore was contemporary or almost contemporary with the discovery ;
but
the similarity of language shows that he had the account of Paschal himself before
him, and does not write independently. For 'Sancti Xysti' however the Liber
Pontifiealis Praetextati'— substitutes '
an error which is explained by the circumstances
mentioned below in the note. The burial place named by Pope Paschal is the Crypt
of S. Xystus (or Sixtus) in the .Cemetery of S. Callistus, ' in Coemeterio S. Callisti
ad S. Xystum'. It was the common burial place of the popes in the third century and
the earlier years of the fourth, the principal personage being Xystus II, the martyr in
the persecution under Valerian (a.d. 258). Sometimes however instead of ' ad S.
Xystum' it was called 'ad S. Caeciliam', from the other famous martyr who lay in
of S. Ccecilia was trans-
this locality. From this its original resting-place the body
lated with all honour to the basilica which bears her name in the Trastevere. At the
1
The ' venerabilis sponsus ' here men- their original resting-place to this crypt
tioned is doubtless Valerian; but Valerian, of S. Xystus. Other independent reasons
Tiburtius, and Maximus, were buried not
exist for supposing that such a translation
in the Cemetery of S. Callistus, but in took place (De Rossi Rom. Sotterr. il. p.
that of Praetextatus, on the other side of 134 sq). This hypothesis will explain
the Appian way. Unless therefore the the error of the Liber Pontifiealis which
words cum ' venerabili sponso ' are a places the body of S. Csecilia herself in
later insertion in the diploma, being the Cemetery of Prretextatus. Some
taken from the Liber Pontifiealis, there copies of Paschal's letter combine the
must have been before Paschal's time a two, and write ' S. Sixti seu Praetextranslation
of Valerian's remains from tati '.