Note 202 — Chapter XXIX · THE SAME DAY: ITS SECOND PART.
Reading edition
The Church of St. Agnes in the Piazza Navona, one of the most beautiful in Rome.
“Cui posse soli Cunctipotens dedit Castum vel ipsum reddere fornicem * * * * * Nil non pudicum est, quod pia visere Dignaris, almo vel pede tangere.” Prudentius.
[203] “Non intorto crine caput comptum.” Her head not dressed with braided hair. St. Ambrose, lib. i. de Virgin. c. 2. See Prudentius’s description of St. Eulalia, περι στεφ hymn. iii. 31.
[204] “Solvitur acris hyems, grata vice veris et Favoni.” Horace.
[205] Pudicitia.
[206] St. Ambrose, ubi supra.
[207]
“Æterne Rector, divide januas, Cœli, obserratas terrigenis prius, Ac te sequentem, Christe, animam voca, Cum virginalem, tum Patris hostiam.” Prudentius, περι στεφ 14.
[208] This was the usual practice, to behead out of the gate, at the second, third, or fourth mile-stone; but it is clear from Prudentius and other writers that St. Agnes suffered at the place of trial, of which we have other instances.
[209] Prudentius.
[210] St. Ambrose.
[211] Prudentius mentions that a sudden fall of snow shrouded thus the body of St. Eulalia lying in the Forum. Ubi sup.
[212] Red paint.
[213] Revenge.
[214] “[The tomb] of Dionysius, physician [and] priest,” lately found at the entrance to the crypt of St. Cornelius, in the cemetery of Callistus.
[215] “Qui verbo suo instaurat universa.” The Breviary.
[216] Eusebius, in his account of Serapion, teaches us that this was the manner of administering Holy Communion to the sick, without the cup, or under only one kind.
[217] Persons freed from slavery retained the title of freedman or freedwoman (libertus, liberta) of the person to whom they had belonged, as “of Augustus.” If they had belonged originally to a free class, they were liberated as ingenuus or ingenua (well-born) and restored by emancipation to that class.
[218] Phil. ii. 7.
[219] Isaias vii. 14.
[220] “Cum arcam suam, in qua Domini sanctum fuit, manibus indignis tentasset aperire, igne inde surgente deterrita est, ne auderet attingere.” “When she attempted to open, with unworthy hands, her chest, in which was the holy (body) of our Lord, she was deterred from daring to touch it, by fire rising up from it.” De Lapsis.
[221] See Martenne, De antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus.
[222] So in the eastern liturgies. Fortunatus calls the Blessed Eucharist, “Corporis Agni margaritum ingens.” “The huge pearl of the Body of the Lamb.” Lib. iii. car. 25.
[223] De morte Satyri.
[224] St. Aug. Tract. cxviii. in Joan.
[225] Tertullian (who lived earlier than two hundred years after Christ, and is the oldest Latin ecclesiastical writer) de Corona Milit. c. 3.
[226] Audientes.
[227] Genuflectentes.
[228] Electi and competentes.
[229] These will be found, particularly in the baptism of adults, joined with repetitions of the Our Father.
[230]
“Agnæ sepulchrum est Romulea in domo, Fortis puellæ, martyris inclitæ. Conspectu in ipso condita turrium Servat salutem virgo Quiritum: Necnon et ipsos protegit advenas, Puro ac fideli pectore supplices.” Prudentius.
“The tomb of Agnes graces Rome, A maiden brave, a martyr great. Resting in sight of bastioned gate, From harm the virgin shields her home; Nor to the stranger help denies, If sought with pure and faithful sighs.”
[231] St. Ambrose said Mass in the house of a lady beyond the Tiber. (Paulinus, in his Life, tom. ii. Oper. ed. Bened.) St. Augustine mentions a priest’s saying Mass in a house supposed to be infested with evil spirits. De Civ. D. lib. xxii. c. 6.
[232] Isaias xxxv. 1, 2.
[233] The ceremony employed after desecration.
[234] Euseb. H. E. lib. x. c. 5.
[235] In the East, some governors, wearied with wholesale murders, adopted this more merciful way of treating Christians towards the end of the persecution. See Eusebius.
[236] This scene is described from reality.
[237] Eusebius, ubi sup.
[238] The law of retaliation, such as was prescribed also in the Mosaic law, “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth,” &c.
[239] Clinical baptism, or that of persons confined to their beds was administered by pouring or sprinkling the water on the head. See Bingham, book xi. c. 11.
[240] A. D. 303.
[241] The religious who lived in community, or common life, were so called.
[242] A. D. 303.
[243] Confession of sins in private was made before baptism. See Bingham, Origines, b. xi. ch. viii. § 14.