Valeria, the Martyr of the Catacombs: A Tale of Early Christian Life in Rome

by W. H. Withrow

  CHAPTER XXX.

  FATE OF THE PERSECUTORS--TRIUMPH OF CHRISTIANITY.

  It remains only to trace briefly the fate of the unfortunate EmpressValeria--less happy than her lowly namesake, the martyr of theCatacombs--and the doom of the persecuting tyrants. In the violent andbloody deaths, often more terrible than those which they inflicted onthe Christians, which overtook, with scarce an exception, these enemiesof the Church of God, the early believers recognized a divineretribution no less inexorable than the avenging Nemesis of the Paganmythology.[56]

  Diocletian, smitten by a mental malady, abandoned the throne of theworld for the solitude of his palace on the Illyrian shores of theAdriatic, where tradition avers that he died by his own hand.

  A still more dreadful doom befell the fierce persecutor, Galerius.Consumed by the same loathsome and incurable disease which is recordedto have smitten his great rivals in bloodshed, Herod the Great andPhilip II., from his dying couch he implored the prayers of theChristians, and, stung by remorse for his cruelties, commanded thesurcease of their long and bitter persecution.

  The Empress Valeria, his widow, by her beauty had the ill fortune toattract the regards of his successor in persecution, the EmperorMaximin. Spurning his suit with the scorn becoming a pure andhigh-souled woman, at once the daughter and widow of an Emperor, sheencountered his deadly hate. Her estates were confiscated, her trustedservants tortured, and her dearest friends put to death.

  "The Empress herself," says Gibbon, "together with her mother, Prisca,was condemned to exile; and as they were ignominiously hurried fromplace to place, before they were confined to a sequestered village inthe deserts of Syria, they exposed their shame and distress to theprovinces of the East, which during thirty years, had respected theiraugust dignity." On the death of Maximin, Valeria escaped from exile andrepaired in disguise to the court of his successor, Licinius, hoping formore humane treatment. But these hopes, to use again the language ofGibbon, "were soon succeeded by horror and astonishment, and the bloodyexecution which stained the palace of Nicomedia sufficiently convincedher that the throne of Maximin was filled by a tyrant more inhuman thanhimself. Valeria consulted her safety by hasty flight, and, stillaccompanied by her mother Prisca, they wandered above fifteen monthsthrough the provinces in the disguise of plebeian habits. They were atlength discovered at Thessalonica; and as the sentence of their deathwas already pronounced, they were immediately beheaded and their bodiesthrown into the sea. The people gazed on the melancholy spectacle; buttheir grief and indignation were suppressed by the terrors of a militaryguard. Such was the unworthy fate of the wife and daughter ofDiocletian. We lament their misfortunes, we cannot discover theircrimes."[58]

  At length, on the triumph of the British-born Emperor, Constantine, overhis rivals for the throne of the world, like the trump of Jubilee, theedict of the toleration of Christianity, pealed through the land. Itpenetrated the gloomy dungeon, the darksome mine, the Catacombs' dimlabyrinth, and from their sombre depths, vast processions of "noblewrestlers for religion," thronged to the long-forsaken churches, withgrateful songs of praise to God.

  Christianity, after long repression, became at length triumphant. Itemerged from the concealment of the Catacombs to the sunshine ofimperial favour. Constantine, himself, proclaimed to eager thousands theNew Evangel--the most august lay preacher the Church has ever known. Thelegend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly illustrates thewondrous transformation of society. These Christian brothers, takingshelter in a cave during the Decian persecution, awoke, according to thelegend, after a slumber of over a century, to find Christianityeverywhere dominant, and a Christian Emperor on the throne of theC[ae]sars.[59] The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun, quicklyirradiated the world. With choirs and hymns, in cities and villages, inthe highways and markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung. Theenemies of God were as though they had not been.[60] The Lord brought upthe vine of Christianity from a far country, and cast out the heathen,and planted and watered it, till it twined round the sceptre of theC[ae]sars, wreathed the columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole land.The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods discrowned, and the paganflamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove, Rome, whichhad dragged so many conquered deities in triumph at its chariot wheels,at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of Olympus. The oldfaiths faded from the firmament of human thought as the stars ofmidnight at the dawn of day. The banished deities forsook their ancientseats. They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe nor in the grove ofDaphne. The naiads bathed not in Scamander's stream nor Simois, nor thenereids in the waters of the bright [AE]gean Sea. The nymphs and dryadsceased to haunt the sylvan solitudes. The oriads walked no more in lighton Ida's lofty top.

  O ye vain false gods of Hellas! Ye are vanished evermore!

  Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of theempire, its influence had been felt permeating the entire community.Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservativeelement--the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst ofanarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principlepreviously unknown in the heathen world, ruling not by terror but bylove; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faithamid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the reekingabominations of a sensual age.

  We should do scant justice to the blameless character, simple dignity,and moral purity of the primitive Christians, if we forgot thethoroughly effete and corrupt society by which they were surrounded. Itwould seem almost impossible for the Christian graces to grow in such afoetid atmosphere. Like the snow-white lily springing in virgin purityfrom the muddy ooze, they are more lovely by contrast with thesurrounding pollutions. Like flowers that deck a sepulchre, breathingtheir fragrance amid scenes of corruption and death, are these holycharacters, fragrant with the breath of heaven amid the socialrottenness and moral death of their foul environment.

  It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to portray, the abominablepollutions of the times. "Society," says Gibbon, "was a rotten, aimlesschaos of sensuality." It was a boiling Acheron of seething passions,unhallowed lusts, and tiger thirst for blood, such as never provokedthe wrath of Heaven since God drowned the world with water, or destroyedthe Cities of the Plain by fire. Only those who have visited the secretmuseum of Naples, or that house which no woman may enter at Pompeii, andwhose paintings no pen may describe; or, who are familiar with thescathing denunciations of popular vices by the Roman satirists andmoralists and by the Christian Fathers, can conceive the appallingdepravity of the age and nation. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Churchamong this very people, hints at some features of their exceedingwickedness. It was to shame even to speak of the things which were doneby them, but which gifted poets employed their wit to celebrate. Abrutalized monster was deified as God, received divine homage,[61] andbeheld all the world at his feet, and the nations trembled at his nod,while the multitude wallowed in a sty of sensuality.

  Christianity was to be the new Hercules to cleanse this worse thanAugean pollution. The pure morals and holy lives of the believers were aperpetual testimony against abounding iniquity, and a living proof ofthe regenerating power and transforming grace of God. For theythemselves, as one of their apologists asserts, "had been reclaimedfrom ten thousand vices;" and the Apostle, describing some of the vilestcharacters, exclaims, "such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye aresanctified." They recoiled with the utmost abhorrence from thepollutions of the age, and became indeed "the salt of the earth," thesole moral antiseptic to prevent the total disintegration of society.

  Thus amid idolatrous usages and unspeakable moral degradation theChristians lived, a holy nation, a peculiar people. "We alone arewithout crime," says Tertullian; "no Christian suffers but for hisreligion." "Your prisons are full," says Minutius Felix, "but theycontain not one Christian." And these holy lives were an argument whicheven the heathen could not gainsay. The ethics of paganism were thespeculations of the
cultivated few who aspired to the character ofphilosophers. The ethics of Christianity were a system of practical dutyaffecting the daily life of the most lowly and unlettered. "Philosophy,"says Lecky, "may dignify, but is impotent to regenerate man; it maycultivate virtue, but cannot restrain vice." But Christianity introduceda new sense of sin and of holiness, of everlasting reward and of endlesscondemnation. It planted a sublime, impassioned love of Christ in theheart, inflaming all its affections. It transformed the character fromicy stoicism or epicurean selfishness to a boundless and uncalculatingself-abnegation and devotion.

  This divine principle developed a new instinct of philanthropy in thesoul. A feeling of common brotherhood knit the hearts of the believerstogether. To love a slave! to love an enemy! was accounted theimpossible among the heathen; yet this incredible virtue they beheldevery day among the Christians. "This surprised them beyond measure,"says Tertullian, "that one man should die for another." Hence, in theChristian inscriptions no word of bitterness, even toward theirpersecutors, is to be found. Sweet peace, the peace of God that passethall understanding, breathes on every side.

  One of the most striking results of the new spirit of philanthropy whichChristianity introduced is seen in the copious charity of the primitiveChurch. Amid the ruins of ancient palaces and temples, theatres andbaths, there are none of any house of mercy. Charity among the pagans,was at best, a fitful and capricious fancy. Among the Christians it wasa vast and vigorous organization and was cultivated with nobleenthusiasm. And the great and wicked city of Rome, with its fierceoppressions and inhuman wrongs, afforded amplest opportunity for theChrist-like ministrations of love and pity. There were Christian slavesto succour, exposed to unutterable indignities and cruel punishment,even unto crucifixion for conscience' sake. There were often martyrs'pangs to assuage, the aching wounds inflicted by the rack or by thenameless tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their bruised andbroken hearts to cheer with heavenly consolation. There were outcastbabes to pluck from death. There were a thousand forms of suffering andsorrow to relieve; and the ever-present thought of Him who came, not tobe ministered unto, but to minister and to give His life a ransom formany, was an inspiration to heroic sacrifice and self-denial. Anddoubtless the religion of mercy won its way to many a stony pagan heartby the winsome spell of the saintly charities and heavenly benedictionsof the persecuted Christians. This sublime principle has since coveredthe earth with its institutions of mercy, and with a passionate zeal hassought out the woes of raan in every land, in order to their relief.

  In the primitive Church voluntary collections[62] were regularly madefor the poor, the aged, the sick, the brethren in bonds, and for theburial of the dead. All fraud and deceit was abhorred, and all usuryforbidden. Many gave all their goods to feed the poor. "Our charitydispenses more in the streets," says Tertullian to the heathen, "thanyour religion in your temples." He upbraids them for offering to thegods only the worn-out and useless, such as is given to dogs. "Howmonstrous is it," exclaims the Alexandrian Clement, "to live in luxurywhile so many are in want." "As you would receive, show mercy," saysChrysostom; "make God your debtor that you may receive again withusury." The Church at Antioch, he tells us, maintained three thousandwidows and virgins, besides the sick and the poor. Under the persecutingDecius the widows and the infirm under the care of the Church at Romewere fifteen hundred. "Behold the treasures of the Church," said St.Lawrence pointing to the aged and poor, when the heathen prefect came toconfiscate its wealth. The Church in Carthage sent a sum equal to fourthousand dollars to ransom Christian captives in Numidia. St. Ambrosesold the sacred vessels of the Church of Milan to rescue prisoners fromthe Goths, esteeming it their truest consecration to the service ofGod. "Better clothe the Christ," says living temples of Jerome, "thanadorn the temples of stone." "God has no need of plates and dishes,"said Acacius, Bishop of Amida, and he ransomed therewith a number ofpoor captives. For a similar purpose Paulinus of Nola sold the treasuresof his beautiful church, and, it is said, even sold himself into Africanslavery. The Christian traveller was hospitably entertained by thefaithful; and before the close of the fourth century asylums wereprovided for the sick, aged, and infirm. During the Decian persecution,when the streets of Carthage were strewn with the dying and the dead,the Christians, with the scars of recent torture and imprisonment uponthem, exhibited the nobility of a gospel revenge in their care for theirfever-smitten persecutors, and seemed to seek the martyrdom of Christiancharity, even more glorious than that they had escaped. In the plague ofAlexandria, six hundred _parabolani_ periled their lives to succour thedying and bury the dead. Julian urged the pagan priests to imitate thevirtues of the lowly Christians.

  Christianity also gave a new sanctity to human life. The exposure ofinfants was a fearfully prevalent pagan practice, which even Plato andAristotle permitted. We have had evidences of the tender charity of theChristians in rescuing these foundlings from death, or from a fate moredreadful still--a life of infamy. Christianity also emphaticallyaffirmed the Almighty's "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," which crime thepagans had even exalted into a virtue. It taught that a patientendurance of suffering, like Job's, exhibited a loftier courage thanCato's renunciation of life.

  We have thus seen from the testimony of the Catacombs, the immensesuperiority, in all the elements of true dignity and excellence, ofprimitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization by which it wassurrounded. It ennobled the character and purified the morals ofmankind. It raised society from the ineffable slough into which it hadfallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to the domestic relations oflife, and enshrined marriage in a sanctity before unknown.Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became infected in the daysof its power and pride, even the worst form of Christianity wasinfinitely preferable to the abominations of paganism. It gave asacredness before unconceived to human life. It averted the sword fromthe throat of the gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy fromexposure to untimely death, nourished it in Christian homes. It threwthe [ae]gis of its protection over the slave and the oppressed, raisingthem from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men and thefellowship of saints. With an unwearied and passionate charity ityearned over the suffering and the sorrowing everywhere, and created avast and comprehensive organization for their relief, of which the worldhad before no example and had formed no conception. It was a holyVestal, ministering at the altar of humanity, witnessing ever of theDivine, and keeping the sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for theworld. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an era of unspeakablepollution and sadness, revived the sinking heart of mankind, and madepossible a Golden Age in the future transcending far that which poetspictured in the past. It blotted out cruel laws, like those of Draco,written in blood, and led back Justice, long banished, to the judgmentseat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal code, and, as experiencehas shown, lessened the amount of crime. It created an art purer andloftier than that of paganism; and a literature rivaling in elegance ofform, and surpassing in nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productionsof the classic muse. Instead of the sensual conceptions of heathenism,polluting the soul, it supplied images of purity, tenderness, andpathos, which fascinated the imagination and hallowed the heart. Ittaught the sanctity of suffering and of weakness, and the suprememajesty of gentleness and truth.

  NOTE.--The entire subject of Christian evidences from the Catacombs, which has been so cursorily glanced at in the foregoing pages, is treated with great fullness of detail and copious pictorial illustration in a work by the writer, "The Catacombs of Rome, and their Testimony Relative to Primitive Christianity." Cr. 8vo, 560 pp., 136 engravings. New York: Phillips & Hunt. Price $2.50. It discusses at length the structure, origin, and history of the Catacombs; their art and symbolism; their epigraphy as illustrative of the theology, ministry, rites, and institutions of the primitive Church, and Christian Life and Character in the early ages. The gradual corruption of doctrine and practice and introduction of Romanist errors, as the _cultus_ o
f Mary, the primacy of Peter, prayers of the dead, the invocation of saints, the notion of purgatory, the celibacy of the clergy rite of monastic orders, and other allied subjects are fully treated.

  FOOTNOTES:

  [57] See Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum, Passim_; Eusebius _Hist.Ecclec._ viii, 17; ix. 9, 10; Tertullian _ad Scap._, c. 3.

  [58] Valeria quoque per varias provincias quindecim mensibus plebeiocultu pervagata.... Ita illis pudicitia et conditio exitio fuit.Lactantius _De Mart. Persec._ Cap. 51.

  [59] Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot conceive thepossibility of this event "Sed et C[ae]sares credidissent super Christo,"he exclaims, "si aut C[ae]sares non essent seculo necessario, aut si etChristiani potuissent esse C[ae]sares." _Apol._, c. 21.

  [60] Literally, "They are no more because they never were." Eusebiusapplies, the promises of Scripture concerning the restoration of theexiled Jews from Babylon (Psa. lxxx; xcviii;) to the condition ofChristianity in his day. The above citations are given in his verywords.

  [61] While yet alive, Domitian was called, "our Lord and God"--_Dominuset Deus noster._

  [62] Nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert _Tertul Apol._ c. 39.

  THE END.