OUR ROMAN-LETTER

New Zealand Tablet, 15 May 1919, Page 37

OUR ROMAN-LETTER

(By > “Scottus.”)

(Concluded from last week.) A short distance further, on the side of the same road, there stands a church, which since the ninth century has been dedicated to St. Sebastian, but which was previously known as the Basilica of the ’Apostles. The idea was general that the body of St. Fabian, who was one of those buried in the crypt of the Popes, as mentioned just now had been transferred to the church of St. Praxedes within the city. But a casual entry in . an old calendar suggested that its last resting-place-* was beside that of St. Sebastian in the church of ; the latter, where as a matter of fact their joint festival has long - been, and still is, celebrated - on January 20. Moreover, a venerable tradition persisted , in-. maintaining that the neighborhood of that church ; had "been honored in some special way by the presence or the relics of SS. Peter and Paul, Some ; would have it that the two Apostles really dwelt there for a time; others prefer the supposition that their bodies were hidden there in time of unusual stress when the persecutor in his anger was about to ; seize and scatter to the winds the venerable bones that seemed to lend fresh courage to the Christian community; while others favor the explanation furnished.-by the story that tells how the Eastern Christians, hearing of the death of their glorious compatriots in Rome, and anxious to secure their remains to their native land, journeyed to the city, managed to lay hold of the two bodies, and were carrying them off when discovered by the Roman Christians who overtook them and, retaking the precious relics of their Apostles, laid them temporarily to rest where they had recovered them, that is, where the church now stands. Be this as it may, there was no doubt that as early as the fourth century there existed -on that spot memorials ) known as the Vestiges of the Apostles, Peter and Paul. A generation ago investigation had led to the surmise that these Vestiges had been situated right behind the present church, and precisely in a small circular structure known 1 as the Platonia. But many were not so easily convinced, and their doubt was intensified when further excavations and researches showed that this structure' was in reality a tiny temple erected in memory of the martyr St. Quirinus. They preferred to think that the Vestiges were to be sought within the church, where, according to the chance entry in a tenth-century calendar, reposed the body of St. Fabian, right in -the centre of the church, alongside the; Vestiges of the Apostles. Amongst those who held this view was Mgr. De Waal, the cultured rector of the Teutonic Institute of St. Mary, one of the most prominent members of the Pontifical Archaeological Commission, who long ago expressed the opinion that the key to the riddle was to be sought underneath the floor of the church. - - Want of sufficient funds to carry out the necessary excavations had long formed an insurmountable obstacle. But this difficulty being at last overcome, he set to work ; and the result was the discovery of, : Christian memorials, the value of which it would ; be hard • to exaggerate. _ . _ ,’y) -r- ■-rs-r -j--.- c--v-v Right in the centre of the church, there was known to have existed an altar to the memory of L : Pope St. Fabian which was removed when the church was re-

modelled 'and repaired in the early years of the seventeenth 51 century; and there, a few feet beneath the fl||pi| Mgr. De Waal found three marble coffins placed side ’ by side. v On being \ carefully opened, the centre coffin was found to contain a fairly ' well preserved body which had evidently been embalmed, traces of the aromatic, spices used in the. process being clearly visible, and their fragrant odor still fresh after all these cefaturies. On the breast lay the * withered fragmehtfeef a palm branch) and beside the liead .a small marble slab with the simple inscription, ‘“S Favianus Ic Requiesit(V showing that there lay the mortal remains of Pope Fabian, who had given up his life' for the Faith oh January 20, A.D, 250. g But, important as:was this discovery, it faded into insignificance before what followed. Around the' open space where the coffins lay there came to light the "" lower parts of a structure which was evidently terior, to the basilica built on the spot in the time- of £ Pope Damasus (384), would appear to have been dis- f turbed as little as possible during the building of the | latter, shears traces of having been" elaborately decora- % ted before the end of the third century,-and most im- i portant of all, is covered with what is known as graffiti f or scribblings scratched on the plaster with a nail or s similar instrument by the devout who took this means | of giving expression to the devotion that brought them y to the spot. In these rude scribblings we are;, able 3 to read as clearly and.; unmistakably, as if ; written | yesterday that the faithful who frequented that spot / came to honor the memory of the Apostles and invoke | their intercession: “Paul and Peter (thus they wrote) f. pray for Victor” ; or “Paul and Peter intercede for i Erate” ; or “Paul and Peter bear Sozomen in mind”— (Pavle ed Petre Petite Pro Victore ; Pavle Petre Petite Pro Erate VRogate; Pavle Petre in Mente Habete Sozomen).' '»■ j Bearing in mind the principle laid , down by De Rossi, and accepted by all -..archaeologists” that such graffiti, or chance scribblings made by visitors to places of) devotion, constitute a faithful echo ,of history ) and may be taken as infallible guides in the search 'for,. forgotten . shrines: and; places •; of /veneration, we have ; T 0 . ‘ AbVA.,:' , .A-;. *r r' ' ■ 7 - % t> ~v.- » v - ; ;y. here in these simple invocations brought to - light by a Mgr. De Waal proof positive - that we are here in "the' presence of the Vestiges of the Apostles. Between the year 250 and 400 the faithful regarded this- particular spot with, feelings of profound veneration, arid believed that it had been sanctified in some special way by the living presence or the precious relics of thetwo Apostles of Rome.