"Having obtained a share in the birth of Christ let us renounce the works of the flesh." ~ The Ancient Church Fathers on the Nativity of Christ

Fresco portrait of Pope Saint Leo the Great (enhanced) from the Church of Santa Maria
Antiqua in Rome, dated to the early 8th century—about 350 years after his death.

As explained in a previous post, the Nativity of Jesus has been celebrated by Christians on December 25 since antiquity. The feast of the Nativity has always been an opportunity for homiletic fireworks on a grand scale, and the Fathers of the Church took full advantage of the sacred day to wax eloquent.

In keeping with this theme, here are a few excerpts from some of the earliest extant homilies delivered by various Church Fathers to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God.

The first comes from Pope Liberius who reigned in the mid-4th century AD. You may remember from a previous post, that Liberius was ejected from the papal see by the Roman Emperor Constantius II, son of Constantine the Great, for the crime of being insufficiently tolerant of Arianism. 

The excerpt below from Liberius was recorded by Saint Ambrose in a letter to his sister Marcellina. Pope Liberius had delivered this sermon on the occasion of Marcellina taking the veil as a consecrated virgin—an event which apparently took place on Christmas day, likely in AD 353 or there abouts. In the sermon, Liberius leans heavily into the nature of the incarnation of Christ, and one can clearly discern the familiar echoes of the Nicene Creed and its refutation of Arianism: 

"Today, indeed, He was born after the manner of men, of a Virgin, but was begotten of the Father before all things, resembling His mother in body, His Father in power. Only-begotten on earth, and Only-begotten in heaven. God of God, born of a Virgin, Righteousness from the Father, Power from the Mighty One, Light of Light, not unequal to His Father; nor separated in power, not confused by extension of the Word or enlargement as though mingled with the Father, but distinguished from the Father by virtue of His generation." [Pope Liberius (AD 352-366), as quoted by St. Ambrose in a letter to his sister Marcellina]

This next excerpt is from Saint Ephraim the Syrian who flourished the mid-4th century. Ephraim is known particularly for his hymns, and the excerpt below is taken from one of the score or so that he wrote for the celebration of the Nativity of Christ. Interestingly, this hymn seems to indicate that the birth of Christ happened at about the same time as the winter solstice (December 21) when "He came forth from the womb in this month in which the sun gives longer light."  

"At the birth of the Son the king was enrolling all men for the tribute-money, that they might be debtors to Him: the King came forth to us Who blotted out our bills, and wrote another bill in His own Name that He might be our debtor. The sun gave longer light, and foreshadowed the mystery by the degrees which it had gone up. It was twelve days since it had gone up, and today is the thirteenth day: a type exact of the Son's birth and of His Twelve.

Moses shut up a lamb in the month Nisan on the tenth day; a type this of the Son that came into the womb and shut Himself up therein on the tenth day. He came forth from the womb in this month in which the sun gives longer light.

The darkness was overcome, that it might proclaim that Satan was overcome; and the sun gave longer light, that it might triumph, because the First-born was victorious. Along with the darkness the dark one was overcome, and with the greater light our Light conquered!" [Saint Ephraim the Syrian, Fourth Hymn on the Nativity of Christ, written prior to AD 373]

Scenes from the Nativity and infancy of Christ from the Ivory throne
of Maximianus, Archbishop of Ravenna, early 6th century AD.

This next excerpt is from the aforementioned Saint Ambrose of Milan and may be traced back to AD 377, a mere three years after he had been made bishop by acclamation even prior to his baptism, having been baptized and ordained bishop on the same day. This tract demonstrates that he had successfully made the  transition from able Roman provincial administrator, to spiritual father of a major metropolitan see, while retaining his well-known and appreciated humility: 

"Therefore Christ became a little one, He became a child, so that you might become a perfect man. H was wrapped in swaddling bands, so that you might be freed from the bonds of death. He lay in a manger so that you might be raised to the altar. He dwelt on earth so that you might live among the stars. There was no room for him at the inn, this was so that you might have many rooms in the heavenly mansions. 'He who was rich made himself poor for your sake, so that you might be rich.' (1 Cor 8:9). The Lord's poverty is my inheritance and His weakness is my strength. For Himself He preferred poverty and want, so that for others He might have abundant wealth. It is I who am washed by those tears that He shed as a crying infant, it is my sins that are wiped away by those tears. [St. Ambrose of Milan, from Commentary of Saint Ambrose on the Gospel of Luke, Book II, Chapter 41]

Finally, given the regnal title of the reigning pontiff, we present a passage taken from a sermon given by the original, Pope Saint Leo the Great about 75 years after Saint Ambrose. In this excerpt, Leo wraps up his Christmas sermon with an admonition to his flock to adhere to the moral commands of Christ and resist the urge to live according to the desires of the flesh—a fair warning to all Christians, ancient and modern alike:

"Let us then, dearly beloved, give thanks to God the Father, through His Son, in the Holy Spirit, 'Who for His great mercy, wherewith He has loved us, has had pity on us: and when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together in Christ' (Ephesians 2:4-5), that we might be in Him a new creation and a new production. Let us put off then the old man with his deeds: and having obtained a share in the birth of Christ let us renounce the works of the flesh. Christian, acknowledge your dignity, and becoming a partner in the Divine nature, refuse to return to the old baseness by degenerate conduct. Remember the Head and the Body of which you are a member. Recollect that you were rescued from the power of darkness and brought out into God's light and kingdom. By the mystery of Baptism you were made the temple of the Holy Ghost: do not put such a denizen to flight from you by base acts, and subject yourself once more to the devil's thralldom: because your purchase money is the blood of Christ, because He shall judge you in truth Who ransomed you in mercy, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit reigns for ever and ever. Amen." [Pope Saint Leo the Great, Sermon 21, mid-5th century AD]

"I wished to see a king, not corpses." ~ Achilles, Alexander, Augustus and the historian as transmitter of heroic virtue

Detail from Augustus Caesar visits the tomb of Alexander the Great by French artist Lionel Royer (1878).

The dominant literary culture of the late 20th century loved to tear down the heroes of the past, focusing almost entirely on their flaws while belittling the virtues, beliefs, and deeds that made them worthy of admiration in the first place. I have written about this annoying tendency previously on several occasions, including here and here.

In our own time, we are afflicted with a slightly different problem: cultural arbiters who know almost nothing about the great men and women who went before them, save the cherry-picked anecdotes that magically seem to support their political cause of the moment. It has recently gotten to the point where these intellectually vacuous creatures have become parodies of historians and educators, rhetorically incapable of discerning even between men and women, let alone moral and immoral behavior.

But let us not be lulled into the belief that it was always this way. 

Until fairly recently, it was considered one of the primary duties of the historian to exalt the brilliant words and actions of the good and great, offering them up to subsequent generations as worthy of emulation. Whatever foibles may have co-existed with said virtues could be offered as cautionary examples to be avoided, but they were never presented as the primary drivers of the hero’s character.

Education in the classical world followed this pattern, and the celebrated men of one era could often point to their motivation coming from the acts of great men who preceded them—often by centuries. Examples abound, but let’s look at three in particular who lined up as sort of an inspiration conduit. All three of them would become the greatest political or military heroes of their respective ages. 

According to Homer’s Odyssey, following the death of their greatest warrior, Achilles, the Greeks, “heaped up a great and goodly tomb on a projecting headland by the broad Hellespont that could be seen from far from the sea both by men that now are and that shall be born hereafter.” (Odyssey, Book XXIV, 80-84)

This tomb would be visited by many famous individuals in antiquity as a kind of pilgrimage site, particularly for those seeking to venerate the great warrior in anticipation of a campaign of their own. Among those who visited the shrine was Alexander the Great. Seeing parallels between his own expedition and that of the Mycenean Greeks of 800 years before, Alexander made a point of stopping at the site of ancient Troy on his way to make war on the Persians. In Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, the following memorial of the event is recorded:

"Then, going up to Ilium, he sacrificed to Athena and poured libations to the heroes. Furthermore, the gravestone of Achilles he anointed with oil, ran a race by it with his companions, naked, as is the custom, and then crowned it with garlands, pronouncing the hero happy in having, while he lived, a faithful friend, and after death, a great herald of his fame. As he was going about and viewing the sights of the city, someone asked him if he wished to see the lyre of Paris. 'For that lyre,' said Alexander, 'I care very little; but I would gladly see that of Achilles, to which he used to sing the glorious deeds of brave men.'" [Plutarch, Life of Alexander, Section 15]

A few more details are added by Arrian in his Anabasis: 

"Alexander then encircled the tomb of Achilles with a garland….There is indeed a report that Alexander pronounced Achilles fortunate in getting Homer as the herald of his fame to posterity." [Arrian of Nicomedia, The Anabasis of Alexander, Book I, Chapter XII ]

As the most important extant chronicler of Alexander’s campaigns, Arrian also points out that Alexander had a desire to imitate the hero of the Trojan war from his boyhood, and sought to equal and surpass his achievements. [Arrian of Nicomedia, The Anabasis of Alexander, Book VII, Chapter XIV]

Detail from Alexander the Great at the tomb of Achilles by Giovanni Paninni (1718).

Alexander perished after gaining unparalleled victories over the hated Persians. Realizing immediately the inspirational value of Alexander’s remains, his general Ptolemy snatched up Alexander’s corpse when it was on its way back to Macedonia from Babylon, and re-routed it to Egypt and the conqueror’s greatest foundation, Alexandria. There, Ptolemy would establish his own kingdom, and the body of his one-time benefactor would repose in a shrine which was likely much more grand than the ancient tumulus of Achilles. 

Three hundred years after Alexander’s death, another conqueror would arrive following his defeat of Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, and the dissolution of the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt. This was Octavian Caesar who, a few years later, would be called Caesar Augustus, Rome's first emperor. Arriving in Alexandria following his complete victory, Octavian made his way to the shrine of Alexander, as recorded by Suetonius:  

"About this time he had the sarcophagus and body of Alexander the Great brought forth from its shrine,⁠ and after gazing on it, showed his respect by pla­cing upon it a golden crown and strewing it with flowers; and being then asked whether he wished to see the tomb of the Ptolemies as well, he replied, 'My wish was to see a king, not corpses.'" [Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, Life of Augustus]

The reader will note the similarity between Octavian's response and that of Alexander. There is some historical complexity here in that Plutarch's account of Alexander and Suetonius's account of Augustus were written at about the same time (late 1st - early 2nd century AD). Both were certainly based on earlier sources which have not come down to us. It is likely that Octavian was aware of Alexander's response regarding the lyre of Paris when he made his quip about wanting "to see a king, not corpses."

Dio Cassius records Augustus's visit to the body of Alexander as well, but adds an additional detail:

“[Octavian] viewed the body of Alexander and actually touched it, whereupon, it is said, a piece of the nose was broken off. But he declined  to view the remains of the Ptolemies, though the Alexandrians were extremely eager to show them, remarking, 'I wished to see a king, not corpses.' For this same reason he would not enter the presence of Apis, either, declaring that he was accustomed to worship gods, not cattle.” [Dio Cassius, Roman History, Book LI]

Augustus was, no doubt, impressed by his visit because he began construction of a tomb of his own shortly following his return to Rome. This was to be a grand construction rivaling the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, which itself was one of the wonders of the ancient world. This Mausoleum of Augustus would serve to inspire generations of Romans before falling to ruins during the Middle Ages.

As these examples make clear, admiration of heroes for their virtues often extended to that common human desire to visit and adorn the remains of the hero following his death. In doing so, it was hoped that some sort of mystical connection might be established by which some portion of the hero's genius and fortune would be transferred to his devotee. This tendency in antiquity pre-figured the later Christian practice of veneration of the relics of the saints and martyrs, and the subsequent doctrinal understanding of the efficacy of the intercession of the saints who are in Heaven with Christ. 

Thus Christians would gain inspiration and motivation not from men who managed to achieve military glory or political triumphs, like Achilles or Alexander, but from humble souls like Justin Martyr or Augustine of Hippo whose victories often involved the sacrifice or their own lives for the sake of Christ, or the conversion of thousands through fearlessly preaching the truth of the Gospel. 

It is for this reason that Catholics ought to take the teaching of authentic Christian history — which our children will never get in state-run schools and only occasionally in Catholic schools — very seriously. Otherwise, the connection to the virtuous examples of our progenitors would be lost, and in their absence, our children will take their inspiration from the vain two-dimensional paragons provided by movie, pop-music, and sport.

The Mausoleum of Augustus following the renovations initiated by Mussolini in the 1930s.

As a postscript, it is worth remembering that most of the devotees who visited the tombs of dead heroes did not possess the innate ability to attain greatness themselves and often absorbed the wrong message. A few of them were downright awful human beings who brought destruction upon themselves and their countries. Suetonius records that the notorious emperor Gaius Caligula treated the tomb of Alexander with somewhat less respect than his great grandfather, having looted Alexander's armor which he sometimes wore in public [Lives of the Caesars, Life of Caligula]. 

Meanwhile, the Mausoleum of Augustus would later be restored, and made the centerpiece of a piazza by a self-styled illustrious man of the 20th century who viewed himself as the successor of Achilles, Alexander, and Augustus. This was none other than Il Duce himself, Benito Mussolini, who wished to attain the status of hero without bothering to emulate the heroic virtues. Upon his death, his desecrated corpse became not the center of cultic devotion, but rather an object of scorn and shame, hanging from a lamp-post. 

“It is better to be Herod’s hog than his heir.” ~ Did Herod's Massacre of the Innocents actually happen?

Detail from The Massacre of the Innocents by Léon Cogniet, 1824.

Three days after the feast of the Nativity of Jesus, the Catholic Church traditionally commemorates the massacre of the Holy Innocents – the children of Bethlehem slain by King Herod following the birth of Christ.

This event is recorded in the Gospel of Saint Matthew in connection with the arrival of the Magi – the Wise Men from the East – who had followed a star to Jerusalem, and had sought out the newborn king of the Jews. According to Matthew’s account, King Herod requested that the Magi return to him after finding the child, ostensibly so that Herod could join in worshipping the newborn King.

But the Magi were suspicious of Herod’s true motives. Matthew’s Gospel gives the account of what happened next:

“And having received an answer in sleep that they should not return to Herod, they went back another way into their country…. Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.  Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:  ‘A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.’” [Matthew 2:12, 16-18]

Matthew is alone among the evangelists in recording this event. There is also no non-Christian Roman, Greek, or Jewish historian who reports on it directly. As a result, the massacre has fallen under the skepticism of the modern era which views all early Christian sources as highly suspect. Indeed, there exists a tendency in some circles to consider any events recorded in Christian sources which are not corroborated by contemporary non-Christian sources as little more than hagiographic fantasies, interpolations or outright fabrications. Meanwhile non-Christian sources are not treated with anything like that kind of rigor.

As readers to this blog know, I tend to give early Christian writers the benefit of the doubt, and will even give late antique and early medieval writers latitude when they are discussing earlier events, as many of them are relating information from more ancient sources that were subsequently lost.

In the case of Herod's massacre of the children of Bethlehem, I see no reason why Matthew’s account shouldn’t be taken at face value. It is cited by Christian authors as early as Saint Justin Martyr, who mentions Matthew’s account in the mid-second century AD in his Dialogue with Trypho (Chapter 78). It’s worth noting that Trypho was a Jew and Justin was a convert to Christianity from paganism. While Trypho disputes much of what Justin says, it is not recorded that he disputed the historicity of Justin’s mention of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.

A similar case may be found in Origen’s work, Against Celsus. Celsus was a pagan philosopher who wrote an anti-Christian polemic in the mid-to-late 2nd century AD entitled The True Word. Most of what we know about this work is contained in Origen’s response which was written in the mid-3rd century, and in which he quotes freely from The True Word. As a rhetorical device, Celsus puts some of his arguments into the mouth of a fictional Jew, and it seems fairly clear that Celsus had learned a considerable amount about the relationship between Judaism and Christianity from Jewish associates. Even so, Celsus retained a Hellenistic antipathy toward the Jews as he frequently held their practices up to scorn. We find a passage in Against Celsus, which discusses the massacre of the innocents, saying specifically that Celsus's fictional Jew did not believe that Herod had conspired against the infant Christ, nor that an angel had warned Joseph in a dream to flee into Egypt. (Against Celsus, Book 1: Chapter 61). Later in that same paragraph, however, Celsus assumes that this event did occur. He has his Jewish mouthpiece say to Jesus: 

“But if [the massacre of the innocents] was done in order that you might not reign in [Herod's] stead when you had grown to man's estate, why, after you did reach that estate, do you not become a king?” 

Of course, part of the reason Celsus must doubt that the massacre of the innocents took place is because he has his own thoroughly blasphemous alternate version of the infancy of Christ, the details of which “are frequently identical with those of the Talmud.” (Celsus ~ Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906) 

Finally, we have perhaps the most interesting and obscure of all the ancient references to the massacre of the innocents. It is provided by the pagan writer Macrobius in the early 400s AD. This late Roman author penned a book of various anecdotes compiled on the occasion of the Saturnalia. In one passage, Macrobius provides a litany of jokes and clever sayings, including the following: “On being informed that among the boys under two years of age whom Herod had ordered to be slain in Syria, Herod’s own son had also been slain, Augustus said: “It is better to be Herod’s hog than his son.” This quip probably raises more questions than it answers. At the very least, Macrobius seems to have his facts scrambled given that Herod's son, Antipater, was an adult when he was put to death around the time of Christ's birth. What the quote does reveal is that even a late antique pagan like Macrobius was aware of the massacre of the innocents, an event that was most likely an accepted part of conventional knowledge among the Roman educated classes.

A point often mentioned to nullify the massacre is that the event is nowhere mentioned by the great Jewish historian of the 1st century AD, Flavius Josephus. As useful as he is in recording in detail the reign of Herod, it can not be expected that Josephus provides every detail. It has been pointed out by more than one scholar that Bethlehem was a small town with a likely population of less than 2,000 at the time of Christ's birth. The number of boys under age two was probably fairly small—perhaps 40-50 at the most. Considering the scale of some of the atrocities committed by Herod that Josephus does record, is it surprising that the butchery of 40-50 infants might pass unnoticed? A list of Herod's enormities may be found in the excellent article by Richard T. France, "Herod and the Children of Bethlehem," Novum Testamentem, Vol. 21, Fasc. 2 (Apr., 1979), pp. 98-120

Ciarán Hinds (right) accurately portrayed a paranoid and malevolent
Herod the Great in The Nativity Story (2006).

I tend to agree with the conclusion offered by Dr. France in the above mentioned article: 

"The historical evidence, such as it is, suggests that the incident is not in itself improbable, but very much in keeping with what we know of Herod's reign. Among the more striking atrocities of that period, it was a relatively minor incident, which has understandably not left any clearly independent mark in the very selective records of Herod's reign." 

Rather than being so quick to dismiss scriptural narratives as fabrications, we should at least apply to them the same credibility thresholds that we apply to other ancient sources. 

Belisarius and Procopius celebrate the defeat of the Goths at the Siege of Rome, March of AD 538 ~ An excerpt from Belisarius, Book III: Rome the Eternal

Belisarius and Procopius chat atop the Pincian Gate in Rome. 
Image created using hotpot.ai/art-generator

In March of the year AD 538, the late Roman general, Belisarius, pulled off one of the most incredible feats in military history: he successfully defended the massive city of Rome—with its 12 miles of circuit walls—with a scant 5,000 soldiers, against a vast army of Goths that outnumbered his own some 15 or 20 to 1. Indeed, by the time the Gothic King Vitiges broke up the siege after twelve frustrating months, it had become unclear which side was the besieged and which was the besieger. Unable to prevent the Romans from bringing in supplies or leaving the city in force, Vitiges found himself bogged down with a stubborn fortified city in front of him, and far flung enemy cavalry units ravaging his supply lines behind him, threatening to cut him off from his base in Ravenna.

What did Belisarius do once it became clear that the Goths were abandoning their camps and moving out? Did he allow the reduced but still tremendous force of Goths to go in peace, counting himself blessed and fortunate that the city had withstood the prolonged siege against such heavy odds? 

He did not. 

Instead, he rode out with every available man and attacked the Gothic rear-guard. 

I recorded Procopius's eye-witness account of the end of the siege in a previous post here.

Belisarius, Book III: Rome the Eternal, provides a dramatized description of this action with Belisarius's biscuit-eaters Longinus and Mundilas leading the charge. Mundilas is injured, while Longinus is killed despite amazing acts of valor. This much is recorded in Procopius's History of the Wars. I embellished the action in the novel.

Here is an excerpt from the novel, presenting a scene on the walls of Rome in the immediate aftermath of the Gothic withdrawal. In this scene, Belisarius has an opportunity to speak privately with his secretary, Procopius of Caesarea—the man who would go on to become the most important historian of the Justinianic period.

I had fun writing this scene. I hope you enjoy it!

 End of Chapter XXXI...

Belisarius secured the gatehouse at the Milvian Bridge that he had been forced to cede when the Gothic host first arrived the previous March. With that act, the great siege of Rome came to an end. Belisarius entered the city to cheering throngs, many of whom had ventured out of the gates to watch the battle from the protection of the tree line. The ecstasy of the Romans was tempered only by the arrival of a cart bearing Mundilas and Longinus—the first gravely injured, the second slain. Meeting the bereaved men of Longinus, Belisarius offered his sincere sympathy, weeping along with them without shame.

Later, Belisarius stood alone atop the Pincian Gate, for once gazing into the city, not outward toward the Gothic camps now in ashes. As the celebration continued unabated well into the night, Belisarius insisted that the gates be manned and the guards be sober, lest the Goths sneak into the city via stratagem while its inhabitants were lulled into a drunken slumber. To drive home the point, Belisarius himself kept vigil all night on the walls.

“Has the great wooden horse arrived yet, O Aeneas?” Procopius laughed. He made his way slowly and carefully up the stone steps, his tottering gait threatening to cast him fifty feet down.

“No sign of it,” Belisarius smiled, offering his secretary a strong hand up. “If you would warn me against it, though, be mindful of the fate of Laocöon. How are you at wrestling with snakes?”

“I would fare no better than the ill-fated Trojan priest, I suppose,” Procopius sighed. “I fear serpents above all things. Here, I have brought you a drink—wine mixed with honey, and a good vintage, too.”

“Though I am on duty, I accept. From any hand but yours I might demur, old friend,” Belisarius replied, recalling the recent attempt to drug the gate guards using spiked wine.

The two stood in silence as Belisarius sipped.

“Was it worth it?” Procopius intoned quietly, casting his bleary gaze over a large group of revelers carousing in the plaza below. “Was recovering this city worth the lives of Longinus and Principius and Tarmutus?”

“Don’t forget about Chorsamantis, Bochas and Cutilas,” Belisarius added. Poor Cutilas had lingered a month after suffering his gruesome head wound, only to perish of fever despite the best efforts of Theoctistus. “May Christ have mercy on their souls.” He made the sign of the cross on his forehead.

“Maxentius, Petronius and Valentine, too,” continued Procopius. “And so many other good men.”

“And Constantinus,” Belisarius added gloomily. “His unhealthy lust for plunder killed him as surely as any Gothic spear. But my answer is yes. This is the Eternal City of Rome, the birthplace of the Empire and the rampart of civilization. Had more good men been willing to give their lives to defend it in past ages, it would never have fallen under the sway of the barbarians to begin with.”

“But if too many good men die, who...who...but wicked men and weaklings will remain to defend Rome?” Procopius asked with a tipsy stammer.

“God will raise up others as He raised up this generation. That is why what you are doing is of such great import.”

“My letters to the praetorian prefect about the grain supply are pointless—irrelevant two weeks after they are written,” Procopius lamented.

“Not your letters, friend. Your history.”

Click here for more information.

“That disorganized pile of waste paper?” Procopius replied, the wine loosening his tongue. “Alas, your words earlier today—was it really today? It feels like weeks ago—your words have put a worry into my heart. What will the ending be? Will our astounding run of blessed good fortune continue? Or will some great disaster turn the tale into an awful tragedy? Or worse, will a sequence of little disasters grind us down into abject failure. You know, when my mood turns this way, I have considered destroying all my notes and abandoning the work completely.”

“Am I truly speaking with the same man who said that he was writing a history to be read for a thousand years?” Belisarius replied in amazement. “Has our victory in the siege somehow drained your cask of optimism?”

“Even victories, it seems, come with a cost in noble lives lost that can never be replaced,” Procopius sighed. “Writing about the death of yet another hearty soul like Longinus makes me never want to write again.”

“That is not well at all,” Belisarius chided, turning deadly serious. “You must persevere and continue to write without flinching and without despair, no matter what outcome God has ordained for our campaign. For if those men died in this cause, their deaths will not be in vain if their names are recorded for posterity so that those who read in the far distant future, hundreds or thousands of years from now, may remember and admire their acts.”

“Of course, you are right,” Procopius grimaced, focusing his eyes on a bonfire burning outside the city. “The purpose of history is to give the future examples of valor to imitate and perfidy to despise. And certainly, the acts of Principius and Longinus did just that.”

“So then you will continue?” Belisarius asked, exhaling a vaporous cloud into the chilly night air.

“Yes, I will continue, Magister,” Procopius replied pensively. “Though I will pray hard that my history doesn’t devolve into a dreary chronicle of disasters and obituaries.”

“Indeed,” Belisarius nodded. “I will do my very best to make sure that you are well supplied with noble deeds and heroic victories to record.”

Procopius smiled a little sadly, but remained silent. Would that you had the power to ensure that, O Magister.

If you want to see how things turn out for Belisarius, check out Book III: Rome the Eternal which is available from Arx Publishing here, on Amazon.com here, on Amazon Kindle here, and other bookselling websites.

"Art thou not Sebastian whom I before commanded to be slain with arrows?" ~ A few interesting points about Saint Sebastian's ancient Passio.

The Burial of Saint Sebastian (1877) by Alejandro Ferrant y Fischermans. Click to enlarge.

Saint Sebastian is one of the great ancient martyrs of the Roman Catholic Church as well as one of the saints most frequently depicted in artwork down through the centuries. The image of Sebastian tied to a stake, his body riddled with arrows, is one of the most immediately recognizable and jarring images of the ancient martyrs.

As with many of the martyrs from the days prior to Constantine, his story has become somewhat muddled. He is mentioned in a homily of Saint Ambrose (On Psalm 118) as having come from Milan. Most of the rest of his biography comes from a Passio of dubious provenance. Scholars of the previous era ascribed this work to Saint Ambrose himself, though more modern scholars tend to dismiss this attribution. Few doubt the antiquity of the Passio, however, and the existing work is commonly dated to the early fifth century—or about a century after the events recorded therein.

As with many of the ancient martyrdom accounts, the Passio has not been translated into English. It does, however, exist excerpted in numerous other works, including a detailed synopsis which may be found at The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity site, sponsored by Oxford University. 

A different type of synopsis of the Passio may be found in the Homilies of Aelfric of Eynsham, a late 10th century Anglo Saxon abbot who transcribed the Latin tale into Old English for the edification of his monks. Here is the ancient story of Sebastian’s martyrdom as told in part with excerpts from Aelfric’s work. The entirety of the account may be found here: Skeat: Aelfric's Lives of Saints, p. 117 and following.

The Passion of Saint Sebastian, Martyr, January 20

There was a holy servant of God, called Sebastian, who was a long time in the city of Milan for education, and was baptized into Christ with full faith. He was a very prudent man, truthful in word, righteous in judgment, in counsel foreseeing, trusty in need, a prevailing intercessor, shining in goodness, and in all his ways honorable. 

Daily he fulfilled his Lord's service zealously, but he concealed, nevertheless, his deeds from the emperor Diocletian who was the devil's worshipper. Diocletian loved the holy man, notwithstanding, and knew not that he believed in the living God. He set him as prefect over a cohort, and bade that he should always be in his presence; and all the household held him as a father, and honored him with love, because God loved him. He followed the emperor, unknown to him, however, not as if he durst not suffer for his Lord, but he desired to encourage those whom the heathen emperor daily killed for their faith in Christ.

Diocletian, as we know, reigned from AD 284 through AD 305 when he abdicated and retired to a fortified palace on the Dalmatian coast. The notion that secret Christians may have existed in the court of Diocletian is in no way surprising and jives well with the account of Lactantius in On the Deaths of the Persecutors. Indeed, it is possible that Diocletian’s own wife, Prisca, and daughter, Valeria, were secret Christians. 

Sebastian was able to use his position in the court to console the brothers Marcus and Marcellianus who were imprisoned as Christians by Chromatius, the Prefect of Rome, and condemned to death unless they offered sacrifice to the pagan divinities. These brothers were from an aristocratic family and both wavered as their family members attempted to convince them to save their lives by abjuring the Christian faith. Due to the stature of their families, Chromatius offered a thirty day reprieve for the martyrs to consider their position.

During this time, however, Sebastian convinced the family of Marcus and Marcellianus to accept Christ. When the thirty days expired, Tranquillinus, the father of the young men, came before Chromatius and professed his own faith in Christ, mentioning that his gout had been cured following his baptism. As it turns out, Chromatius suffered from the same ailment and would later secretly summon Sebastian and the priest Polycarp so that they might also heal him. In order to effect the healing, Sebastian and Polycarp endured a three day fast, after which they returned to Chromatius and enjoined him to allow them to destroy all the pagan idols in his house. Chromatius agreed, and the two Christians proceeded to burn, smash, or melt down all of the 200 images of the pagan divinities in the house. 

What happens next is very strange indeed, as it seems to tie this ancient Christian literary source to one of the most fascinating archaeological discoveries of the 20th century.

When Chromatius failed to recover after his house was cleansed, Sebastian and Polycarp then deduced that something evil must yet remain in his house. At this point, Chromatius reveals something interesting: 

“I have in my treasure-chest a wonderful instrument, for my information, according to the position of the stars as they stand in the heavens. On that instrument Tarquinius, my father, spent of red gold alone more than two hundred pounds.”

Previously in the same narrative, this instrument is described as follows: 

An excellent work of mechanical contrivance, of glass, and gold, and of glistening crystal. This instrument was designed to show with certainty by the stars what should happen to every man in the course of his life; but it was so formed according to the heathen error.

The remains of the so-called Antikythera Mechanism, believed to be an
ancient machine used to compute the movement of the stars and planets.

Does this sound familiar? If you are at all aware of Mediterranean archaeology, it should. In 1901, some sponge divers found a strange ancient artifact in the waters off the Greek island of Antikythera. This item would become known as the Antikythera Mechanism, a type of ancient gear-driven computer used to predict the movements of the stars. It is tantalizing to think that this passage in the Passio of St. Sebastian is actually describing a similar type of machine. It may also be an indication that the Antikythera mechanism was not unique and that other similar devices were known even as late as the 5th century AD.

To get back to our narrative, Sebastian and Polycarp then discoursed to Chromatius upon the evils and vanity of astrology, indicating that the infernal machine must be disposed of. They even put their lives on the line, saying that if they broke the costly device and Chromatius did not recover from his illness, then they would submit to being thrown into a furnace and killed. Chromatius agreed. The device was broken. And Chromatius subsequently recovered. As a result, he and his son became Christians. 

Now, certainly there will be some who will latch onto this episode as an example of Christians being so "anti-science" that they even destroyed a precious ancient computing device. Before advancing this claim, however, it is well to keep in mind that the device itself, as expensive and finely crafted as it may have been, was not actually used for any scientific purpose. It was used for the superstitious purpose of attempting to predict the future via the movement of the stars.

Chromatius subsequently resigned his position as Prefect of the city of Rome and was replaced by a certain Fabianus, a man who was much more zealous in carrying out the persecutions mandated by Diocletian against Christians than Chromatius had been. This Fabianus soon laid hold of Marcus and Marcellianus, tortured them, and put them to death. Soon after, he denounced Sebastian to Diocletian as well. 

Given that Fabianus was, supposedly, the Prefect of Rome, it is reasonable to conjecture that the denunciation of Sebastian likely took place in AD 303 when Diocletian was in Rome for the celebration of his Vicennalia or 20th anniversary of his reign. This event was meant to be a great, two month long, triumphal festival commemorating the happy and prosperous reign of Diocletian and Maximian. There is evidence, however, that the event became tragic. The Chronography of AD 354 reports that during the event, 13,000 people were killed when the boxes at the circus collapsed. It is also possible that Pope Marcellinus was martyred during this time.  

Writing in On the Deaths of the Persecutors, Lactantius claimed that Diocletian was so perturbed during the celebrations at Rome that he departed the city prematurely before his consulship could even begin on January 1. He would subsequently become gravely ill on his journey back to Nicomedia.

Let us assume that the unhappy vicennalia celebration at Rome is the setting for the scene described below in Aelfric’s homily as the dramatic conclusion of St. Sebastian's Passio:

Then became Diocletian fiendishly angry, and commanded him to be led out in hard bonds, into a field, and there to be bound, and assailed with arrows until he gave up his life. Then the soldiers led away the servant of Christ, and set him for a mark, even as the wicked man commanded, and fastened their arrows into him before and behind, as thickly on every side as a hedgehog's bristles, and so left him alone, lying for dead.

Then came a certain widow, who was a martyr's relict, in the same night, where he lay sorely wounded, desiring to bury his body, and found him living. Then she brought him to her house alive, and within a few days entirely healed him. Then came the Christians, and urged the [Christian] warrior, that he ought to depart far away from the city.

But Sebastian commended himself to God, and went up to the staircase, which stood against the emperor's palace, and when the emperor came, thus cried to him:

“Your idol-priests who dwell in your temples tell you many lies concerning the Christians, saying that they are verily adversaries to your kingdom, and also to your people; but your kingdom prospereth through their good merits, because they pray for the Roman people and for your dominion, without ceasing.”

Then looked Diocletian, the fiendish murderer, towards the holy man, who stood there so loftily, and said haughtily, “Art not thou that Sebastian, whom I before commanded to be slain with arrows?

Sebastian said, “Christ raised me up again to the end that I might declare to thee before all the people your unrighteous persecution against the Christians.”

Then bade the emperor that the soldier of God should be beaten to death with clubs within his own city. Then the murderers did even as the emperor commanded, and by night hid his holy corpse in a foul sewer, saying amongst themselves, that at least the Christians should not get at his body, and make him into a martyr afterwards.

The most ancient extant image
of St. Sebastian, dating from the
mid-6th century AD, may be found in
Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. 

Here again, we see a common theme—the desire of the persecutors to deny the martyr's body to the Christian community. 

But the Christians did find Sebastian’s remains. They were recovered by a widow named Lucina who claimed to have been visited by Sebastian in a dream. 

The relics of St. Sebastian would then take on a life of their own, being first deposited in the catacombs at Rome. A basilica would be built over the site in the mid-4th century AD—San Sebastiano fuori le Mura—which would become on one of the seven pilgrim churches of Rome. 

Some of his relics would eventually find their way to Soissons in France in the early 9th century where they would remain until they were plundered and thrown into a ditch by Calvinists in 1564.

It is said that a relic of the top of Sebastian’s cranium may be seen to this day in the church of St. Sebastian in Ebersberg, Bavaria.

A good summary of the remaining relics and their locations may be found in St. Sebastian's entry in Butler's Lives of the Saints. 

The Synthesis of a Loveable Ascetic and a Grave-faced Administrator ~ Pope Saint Gregory the Great and his venerable parents

Pope St. Gregory the Great flanked by his parents, Gordianus and St. Silvia.

Today, September 3, is the feast of Pope Saint Gregory the Great on the modern calendar. This great pope who is simultaneously considered the last Father of the ancient Church and the first of the medieval Church, has featured frequently on this blog (see his rebuke of the bishops of Dalmatia and his ponderings on Purgatory, in particular). I had not previously looked into Gregory’s early life, however, and falling as it does in the mid-6th century which is right in my wheel-house, I figured I would do a little research. 

It seems that the earliest Vita of Gregory was written by John the Deacon in the 9th century, at least 200 years after his death. An English translation of this multi-volume work is apparently not available, so I resorted to an early 20th century work that draws heavily from John’s Vita, namely, Gregory the Great: His Place in History and Thought by F. Holmes Dudden which may be found in full at Archive.org. 

Flipping through this work, I immediately discovered the image above of Gregory on the frontispiece flanked by his parents, Gordianus and Silvia. This 17th century engraving was originally published as part of the Ecclesiastical Annals of Baronius. It is drawn from two ancient paintings of Gregory's parents that he caused to be set up in Monastery of Saint Andrew in Rome which was founded on the site of his hereditary estate on the Caelian hill. The site of this monastery is today occupied by the Church of San Gregorio Magno al Celio. 

Dudden provides the sparse information that we have about Gregory’s parents:

Gregory’s father bore the Imperial name of Gordianus. He is styled “Regionarius,” but what his office was is far from clear…Of Gordianus and his work we know practically nothing. We gather from the “Lives” that he was wealthy, the owner of large estates in Sicily, and of a stately mansion on the Caelian Hill in Rome…Of Gregory’s mother, Silvia, we have again but scanty information. Like her husband, she appears to have been of good family, and in later life she became famous for ascetic piety. After the death of Gordianus she embraced a life of seclusion and went into retreat at a place called Cella Nova, close by the great door of the Basilica of St. Paul. Here, in after ages, stood an oratory dedicated to the blessed Silvia; and the patrician lady herself is still commemorated as a saint on the third of November.

Dudden then remarks on the aforementioned portraits as they were described by John the Deacon: 

Through a fortunate circumstance we are able to form a tolerable notion of the outward appearance of the Regionary and his wife, for Gregory had the pair painted in the atrium of St Andrew's Monastery, and three hundred years later the portraits were inspected by John the Deacon, whose interesting description of them is still extant. In the first painting the Apostle Peter was represented sitting, with his right hand clasping the hand of Gordianus, who was standing near. The Regionary was clad in a chestnut-colored planeta or chasuble, over a dalmatic, and wore shoes. He was a tall man, with a long face, light eyes, a short beard, bushy hair, and a grave expression of countenance. 

The second picture showed Silvia seated, robed in white — a lady of full height, with a round, fair face, wrinkled with age, yet still bearing traces of great beauty. Her eyes were large and blue, with delicate eyebrows, her lips were well-formed, her expression cheerful. With two fingers of her right hand she was in the act of making the sign of the cross. In her left was a Psalter, on the open page of which was inscribed with the verse, “Let my soul live, and it shall praise Thee; and let Thy judgments help me.”  

Full image of St. Gregory and his
parents from Dudden's frontispiece.
Click to enlarge. 

John's description leaves us with a pleasant impression of Gregory's parents, and the word-sketch of the aged mother has a special charm. But the whole account is valuable inasmuch as it helps us to understand some of the characteristics of Gregory's mind and character. For it cannot be doubted that Gregory inherited certain traits from each of the parents whose portraits he had painted in St Andrew's. Some physical resemblances to each are noticed by John. And it is not to be questioned that many also of Gregory's moral and intellectual peculiarities may be accounted for by means of the principle of heredity. From his mother he doubtless derived his almost feminine tenderness and power of sympathy, his innate bent toward asceticism, his religious mysticism, his self-sacrificing, self-effacing disposition. From his father, no less certainly, he inherited his administrative capacity, his legal acumen, his unswerving love of justice, and that inexorable severity towards hardened offenders which caused him to be feared, in some degree, even by those who loved him best. Thus the nature of the parents is reproduced in the offspring, and in the transactions of Gregory’s life we are again and again reminded, now of the grave-faced man of business and administrator of the Region, now of the loveable, ascetic woman who crosses herself as she ponders over the psalter.

Of Gregory’s sole sibling, Dudden says the following:

Gordianus and Silvia had two sons; one they called Gregory—the watchful…while of the other we have no record. That he existed is proved by two passages in Pope Gregory’s correspondence. But we know nothing about him, not even his name.

It seems that the mansion of Gordianus still exists beneath the foundations of San Gregorio Magno al Celio, and Dudden offers the following tantalizing glimpse into this portal to the ancient Church:

In the present day, the palace of Gordianus is no longer visible. Centuries have raised the level of the soil, and the church and monastery of San Gregoria, which occupy the site, are entirely modern. In 1890, however, a search of the cellars of the monastery revealed the fact that deep beneath the modern buildings the old house still exists in a marvelous state of preservation, and might easily be excavated without impairing the stability of the church above. Unfortunately, the projected excavation has not been carried out.

Based on a brief web search, no later excavations were undertaken and the marvelously preserved boyhood home of Saint Gregory the Great remains to be discovered by future generations. 

Some excerpts from Gregory the Great’s writings as they appear on this blog may be found below: 

• Saint Maurus Walks on Water ~ As told by Pope Saint Gregory the Great 
• The Curious Tale of Florentius and the Bear ~ early 6th Century Italy 
• "The blessed pope John, worn by illness, gave up the ghost and died in prison" ~ Pope Saint John I, a political martyr of the 6th century AD  
• When Saint Benedict met Totila, King of the Goths 
• "The fire marvelous strangely turned back" ~ Saint Marcellinus of Ancona 
• "Now, leave if you can" ~ Saint Scholastica and her brother, Saint Benedict 
• "Cut off a thong of his skin" ~ The martyrdom of Saint Herculanus AD 549

"I myself saw her incorrupt" ~ November 22, feast of St. Cecilia

Detail of Stefano Maderno's Saint Cecilia from AD 1600 —
a year after the sculptor had seen the saint's incorrupt remains.

November 22 is the feast day of one of the most ancient female martyrs of the Church – Saint Cecilia of Rome. Unlike many of the other early martyrs I have mentioned in this blog (eg. here, here, here, and here), Saint Cecilia’s Acts are considered by ecclesiastical scholars to be unreliable, having been composed two to three hundred years after her death. That said, there does seem to be broad agreement on some of the basic facts:

1. There was a Christian martyr named Cecilia. 
2. She was martyred in Rome. 
3. She was buried in the catacombs of St. Callixtus in Rome. 
4. She had a following in Rome that memorialized her from very early times. 
5. A basilica was built on the site of her house by Pope Urban in the 3rd century AD. 

As mentioned in previous posts on the destruction of Christian books under Diocletian (The Scriptures Destroyed by Fire) and the poetical remark of Prudentius on the same theme (The Oblivion of a Silent Age), the situation of Cecilia as an authentic Christian martyr with a legendary biography composed much later is far from unique. It seems clear that the Christians of the 6th century possessed only fragmentary details of the lives of many of the early martyrs, to which they added considerable pious embellishment.

St. Cecilia from the
6th century mosaics in
St. Apollinare Nuovo
in Ravenna.

The best and most comprehensive Life of Saint Cecilia (note, this link will open a PDF) was written by Abbé Prosper Guéranger and published in English in 1866. It contains her Acts set into a very broad context of the historical milieu in which Cecilia lived—presumably the 220s AD—and going in places very far afield from the main focus of the work. Abbé Guéranger seems to accept many of the romanticized aspects of the Vita, but includes numerous valuable references to Saint Cecilia from ancient ecclesiastical sources.

First among these is the Leonian Sacramentary which Abbé Guéranger calls the most ancient of the Church, the greater part of which was composed by Pope Saint Leo the Great (reigned, AD 440-461). This sacramentary contains a preface dedicated to Saint Cecilia which reads as follows:

“Cecilia, destined by the will of her parents to become the spouse of a mortal, scorned a union which was to last but a short time, and jealous of the crown of chastity, sought an immortal spouse, preferring the honors of everlasting life to the joys of maternity. Her glory is enhanced by her having prevailed upon Valerian to whom she was united in marriage, to join her in the practice of perpetual chastity, and to share with her the crown of martyrdom.” [Taken from Guéranger, Life of Saint Cecilia, page 159]

Cecilia is mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis, probably written sometime in the early 6th century but based on earlier sources, under the entry for Pope Urban I. This contains the following notice:

“[Urban] by his teaching turned many to baptism and faith, and among them Valerianus, a man of high nobility, husband of holy Cecilia.” [Taken from Loomis: Liber Pontificalis, page 21]

In the 1916 edition of the Liber, the editor, Louise Ropes Loomis, includes a helpful notice which indicates that the author of the Liber was probably familiar with the legendary Passion of St. Cecilia. In the same note, she also includes a translation of the earliest version of the Passion as provided in the Acta Sanctorum – the gigantic encyclopedic work begun by the Bollandists of the 17th century which compiles authentic acts of the saints:

Click for more info.

Cecilia, a virgin of lofty rank, carried always the Gospel of Christ hidden in her bosom….She was espoused to a young man, Valerianus….Valerianus found holy Urbanus, the bishop, who had already been twice a confessor and was in hiding among the tombs of the martyrs….

“Dost thouh call thyself that Urbanus whom the Christians entitle their pope? I hear that he is now condemned a second time and again he has betaken himself into hiding for the same cause.”

(Valerianus and Tiburtius, his brother,) were executed with the sword…. The holy Urbanus baptized in her (Cecilia’s) house more than four hundred of both sexes….

Almachius commanded that Cecilia should be brought before him and he asked her, saying…. “Of what state art thou?”

Cecilia said, “A free woman and a noble of high rank.” … The examiner beheaded (Cecilia). [Taken from Loomis: Liber Pontificalis, page 22, Footnote 1]

The above is probably all we can reliably know about the life and death of Saint Cecilia. However, events which transpired after her death related to her cult as a saint and martyr are manifold and more reliable. One such event, which confirms her veneration in Rome of the AD 540s, shows Pope Vigilius confronting the officers of the Empress Theodora in the basilica of St. Cecilia on her feast day:

When Augusta [Theodora] heard this, she sent Anthemius the scribe, with orders and great authority to Rome, saying: “If you find him in the basilica of Saint Peter, let him go. But if you find Vigilius in the Lateran or in the palace or any other church, set him immediately upon a ship and bring him to us. Else, by Him who liveth forever, I will have you flayed.”

And Anthemius the scribe came to Rome and found Vigilius in the Church of Saint Cecilia, November 22, for it was her birthday. And Anthemius took him while he was distributing gifts to the people [scholars interpret this to mean Holy Communion], and brought him down to the Tiber and set him on a ship. The people and the multitude followed him calling out that they would have a prayer from him. And when he had spoken a prayer, all of the people said: “Amen,” and the ship began to move.

The Romans saw that the ship in which Vigilius was seated had begun to move and then commenced to throw stones after him and sticks and dirty vessels and to cry out, “Your hunger go with you! Your pestilence go with you! You have done evil to the Romans; may you find evil where you go!” [Taken from Loomis: Liber Pontificalis, page 156]

More background on this fascinating episode may be found in a previous post: "I am receiving the reward for my deeds" ~ The Miserable Reign of Pope Vigilius, AD 537-555

Fresco of St. Cecilia in the
Catacombs of St. Callixtus.
Click image to enlarge.

The discovery and translation of Cecilia’s relics is a story unto itself. She was apparently buried first in the ancient catacomb of Callistus nearby the tombs of Pope Urban I, Saint Sebastian, St. Quirinus. This portion of the catacomb contains numerous frescos painted between the 5th and 13th centuries, including the one of Cecilia at right. Her relics were lost after the Lombard invasions of the 6th through 8th centuries, and rediscovered by Pope Pascal I in the 9th century, whence they were translated to the Basilica of Saint Cecilia in Trastevere which is traditionally believed to have been built over Cecilia’s house. It was said at the time when Pascal discovered Cecilia’s remains that they were in a state of perfect preservation. About 800 years later, in AD 1599, the sarcophagus was opened again by Cardinal Sfrondrati in the presence of witnesses. Sabine Baring-Gould tells the rest of the story:

It contained a coffin or chest of cypress wood. The Cardinal himself removed the cover. First was seen the costly lining and the silken veil, with which nearly eight centuries before Paschal had covered the body. It was faded, but not decayed, and through the almost transparent texture could be seen the glimmer of the gold of the garments in which the martyr was clad. After a pause of a few minutes, the Cardinal lifted the veil, and revealed the form of the maiden martyr lying in the same position in which she had died on the floor of her father’s hall. Neither Urban nor Paschal had ventured to alter that. She lay there, clothed in a garment woven with gold thread, on which were the stains of blood; and at her feet were the rolls of linen mentioned by Paschal, as found with the body. She was lying on her right side, the arms sunk from the body, her face turned to the ground; the knees slightly bent and drawn together. The attitude was that of one in a deep sleep. On the throat were the marks of the wounds dealt by the clumsy executioner. 

Thus she had lain, preserved from decay through thirteen centuries. When this discovery was made, Pope Clement VIII was lying ill at Frascati, but he empowered Cardinal Baronius and Bosio, the explorer of the Catacombs, to examine into the matter, and both of these have left an account of the condition in which the body was found. 

For five weeks all Rome streamed to the church to see the body; and it was not until Saint Caecilia’s Day that it was again sealed up in its coffin and marble sarcophagus. [Baring-Gould: Virgin Saints and Martyrs, [1901] p. 35]

Cardinal Sfrondrati summoned a young sculptor named Stefano Maderno to immortalize the incorrupt form of St. Cecilia in marble. That sculpture may be seen to this day at the Basilica of St. Cecila. Beneath the statue are words of the artist himself: “So I show to you in marble the representation of the most holy virgin Caecilia, in the same position which I myself saw her incorrupt lying in her sepulchre.”

"Where God wills, the order of nature yields" ~ St. John Chrysostom on Christmas

Adoration of the Child by Gerard van Honthorst, ca. AD 1620.

In celebration of the feast of the birth of Jesus, here are some snippets from one of the Christmas homilies of Saint John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople in late Roman times. This homily was originally given in Greek in the late fourth or early fifth century AD. The translation was done by Maria Anne Dahlin in 2012 and made available here along with several other Chrysostom sermons on Archive.org.

These excerpts beautifully capture St. John's exuberance regarding the Nativity, a feast held in the greatest reverence because: "the event which occurred upon it, was of all events the most stupendous....That being God, [Jesus] should have condescended to become man, and should have endured to humble himself to a degree surpassing human understanding, is of all miracles the most awful and astonishing." [Walter, On Saint Philogonius, p. 198]

This particular homily is entitled: In Natalem Christi Diem -- On the Day of Christ's Birth. In it, you can get some sense of why St. John was given the epithet "the Golden-Tongued" by his contemporaries. Enjoy!

"I see a new and amazing mystery. My ears resound to the shepherds—not playing a plain song, but singing a heavenly hymn. The angels sing, the archangels harmonize, the cherubim sing hymns, the seraphim give praise, all are celebrating God seen on earth, and man in heaven. He who is above is now below because of stewardship and the one below is above because of the love for man. Today Bethlehem is a type of heaven, receiving the hymning of angels in place of the stars. In place of the sun, making room for the true sun of righteousness. And do not ask how, for where God wills, the order of nature yields. For He willed, He was able, He came down, He saved. All things meet together in God. Today he who is, is born, and he who is, becomes what he was not. For, being God, he became man without setting aside his divinity. For he did not become man by putting off divinity, nor again did he become God by advancing from man, but being the word, through impassibility, he became flesh, while remaining unchangeable by nature.... 

"Because everyone is dancing around, I also want to skip, I want to dance, I want to celebrate. But I dance, not striking the lyre, not waving a bough, not having a flute, not kindling a fire, but, in place of the musical instruments I carry the swaddling-clothes of Christ. For this is my hope, this is my life, this is my salvation, this is my flute, this is my lyre. This is why I go bearing these, because when I speak of the strength in them, I am taking strength with the message I say. Glory to God in the highest. With the shepherds, also, peace on earth, goodwill to men. Today the one who was inexplicably begotten of the Father was born of a virgin. I can not explain it, but he, as begetter, knows. According to nature he was begotten before eternity by the Father. But today, again, he was born according to nature, in this way the grace of the Holy Spirit is established.... 

"Come then, let us feast, come let us celebrate. For the guest is the way of the feast, the paradox also is the word of the begetting. For today the bond is loosed at last, the devil is disfigured, demons flee, death is loosed, the garden is opened, the curse is done away with, sin is put out of the way, the wanderer has gone astray, the truth has returned, the word of piety is spread and runs everywhere. The citizenship above is planted in the earth, angels have fellowship with men, and men speak with angels without fear. Why? Because God came to earth and man into heaven..."

Again, many thanks to Maria Anne Dahlin for making the words of St. John Chrysostom come alive again for a modern audience after 1,600 years! Click here to read the rest of this sermon and others.

"Rome, thou art punished now for having put Varro in command while Fabius still lived."

The Death of Aemelius Paulus by John Trumbull (1743). Click to enlarge.

The second day of August marks the darkest day in ancient Roman history. On that day, in 216 BC, the Roman legions under Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paulus were utterly crushed by the smaller army of Hannibal, grand general of Carthage, at Cannae in southern Italy.

The Battle of Cannae, one of the epochal battles of ancient history, was the climax of a series of victories won by Hannibal during his bold campaign in Italy. The Romans suffered over 40,000 killed out of an original force of about 80,000, with thousands more captured and turned to desertion. The consul Aemilius Paulus was also killed, and the scale of the disaster was so great that a panic ensued in Rome.

The most famous account of the battle is probably that of Titus Livius (Livy) written about 200 years after the fact. More contemporary is the account of the Greek historian, Polybius, written in the 2nd century BC, which was very likely Livy's main source for the battle.

Polybius explained how the Roman army followed Hannibal, who had taken the Roman supply depot of Cannae in Apulia, about 200 miles from Rome. The ground around Cannae is a broad flat plain, perfect for deploying Hannibal's superior cavalry forces. Recognizing his disadvantage, the consul Aemilius Paulus recommended a strategy of shadow and delay. Sadly, these types of tactics, made famous by the previous consul Fabius Maximus Cunctator (The Delayer), were in disrepute. The Romans demanded action—a decisive victory over the invaders—and Paulus's colleague as consul, Varro, would give it to them.

Polybius describes the discord between the two consuls, as Paulus resists the urge to battle, while Varro is irked by the inaction:

[Hannibal] drew out his men along the bank of the river [Aufidus], and showed that he was eager to give the enemy battle. But Aemilius, dissatisfied with his position, and seeing that the Carthaginians would soon be obliged to shift their quarters for the sake of supplies, kept quiet in his camps, strengthening both with extra guards. After waiting a considerable time, when no one came out to attack him, Hannibal put the rest of the army into camp again, but sent out his Numidian horse to attack the enemy's water parties from the lesser camp. These horsemen riding right up to the lines and preventing the watering, Gaius Terentius [Varro] became more than ever inflamed with the desire of fighting, and the soldiers were eager for a battle, and chafed at the delay. For there is nothing more intolerable to mankind than suspense; when a thing is once decided, men can but endure whatever out of the catalogue of evils it is their misfortune to undergo.

Having received command of the army on the following day, Varro promptly marched the legions out to fight. Polybius gives the following order of battle:

...Gaius Terentius got the army in motion from both the camps. Those from the larger camp he drew up in order of battle, as soon as he had got them across the river, and bringing up those of the smaller camp he placed them all in the same line, selecting the south as the aspect of the whole. The Roman horse he stationed on the right wing along the river, and their foot next them in the same line, placing the maniples, however, closer together than usual, and making the depth of each maniple several times greater than its front. The cavalry of the allies he stationed on the left wing, and the light-armed troops he placed slightly in advance of the whole army, which amounted with its allies to eighty thousand infantry and a little more than six thousand horse. 

At the same time Hannibal brought his Balearic slingers and spearmen across the river, and stationed them in advance of his main body; which he led out of their camp, and, getting them across the river at two spots, drew them up opposite the enemy. On his left wing, close to the river, he stationed the Iberian and Celtic horse opposite the Roman cavalry; and next to them half the Libyan heavy-armed foot; and next to them the Iberian and Celtic foot; next, the other half of the Libyans, and, on the right wing, the Numidian horse. Having now got them all into line he advanced with the central companies of the Iberians and Celts; and so arranged the other companies next these in regular gradations, that the whole line became crescent-shaped, diminishing in depth towards its extremities: his object being to have his Libyans as a reserve in the battle, and to commence the action with his Iberians and Celts.

The battle commences with skirmishes of the light troops on both sides, but develops quickly as the core Roman legionnaires aggressively advance into the Carthaginian center. Here is Polybius's account of Hannibal's famous pincer movement which led to the complete envelopment and destruction of the Roman army:

The legionaries took the place of the light-armed and closed with the enemy. For a short time the Iberian and Celtic lines stood their ground and fought gallantly. But, presently overpowered by the weight of the heavy-armed lines, they gave way and retired to the rear, thus breaking up the crescent. The Roman maniples followed with spirit, and easily cut their way through the enemy's line...

The Romans, however, going in pursuit of these troops, and hastily closing in towards the center and the part of the enemy which was giving ground, advanced so far, that the Libyan heavy-armed troops on either wing got on their flanks. Those on the right, facing to the left, charged from the right upon the Roman flank, while those who were on the left wing faced to the right, and, dressing by the left, charged their right flank, the exigency of the moment suggesting to them what they ought to do. Thus it came about, as Hannibal had planned, that the Romans were caught between two hostile lines of Libyans—thanks to their impetuous pursuit of the Celts.

Aemilius Paulus attempted to break the encirclement with a cavalry charge, but his forces were driven off by the heavy Carthaginian horse, and Paulus himself was killed. The result, for the encircled legions, was carnage:

As long as the Romans could keep an unbroken front, to turn first in one direction and then in another to meet the assaults of the enemy, they held out; but the outer files of the circle continually falling, and the circle becoming more and more contracted, they at last were all killed on the field—and among them Marcus Atilius and Gnaeus Servilius, the Consuls of the previous year, who had shown themselves brave men and worthy of Rome in the battle. While this struggle and carnage were going on, the Numidian horse were pursuing the fugitives, most of whom they cut down or hurled from their horses; but some few escaped into Venusia, among whom was Gaius Terentius, the Consul, who thus sought a flight, as disgraceful to himself, as his conduct in office had been disastrous to his country.

Hannibal Barca counting the
rings of the Roman knights killed 
at the Battle of Cannae, 
by Sébastien Slodtz (1704).

Writing in the 1st century AD, the Roman poet Silius Italicus (in his Punica) puts this lament into the mouth of Gaius Terentius Varro as he realizes the extent of the catastrophe:

“Rome, thou art punished now for having put Varro in command while Fabius still lived. But what means this divided mind, this change of fortune? Is it a trap laid for me by the Fates? I long to make an instant end of all things by taking my own life. But some god arrests my sword and keeps me alive that I may suffer even worse. Can I live and carry back to Rome these rods, broken and spattered with the blood of citizens? How shall I show my hated face through the towns of Italy? How shall I, a fugitive from battle, see Rome again? Hannibal himself could desire for me no more cruel punishment.”

In the face of this disastrous defeat, Hannibal expected the Romans to desire terms of peace. Though alarm and panic seized the city after the scale of the loss became known, the Romans quickly returned to steely resolve. Silius Italicus relates the Roman response:

But the senators and Fabius put sorrow in the background and turned quickly to other tasks. Slaves, chosen for their strength, were armed in haste….They were determined to bring, by any agency, the realm of Aeneas back to the land of the living, and to arm even bondsmen in defense of the Capitol….They took off from their own children the purple-bordered garment of boyhood and put armor on unaccustomed shoulders. Boys hid their faces behind the helmet, and were bidden to reach manhood in slaughter of the foe.

Likewise, when they were begged to ransom at an easy rate the multitude of Roman prisoners—and the number of petitioners rose to many thousands—they persisted, to the astonishment of Hannibal, in their refusal to redeem them. For they held it worse than any misdeed or any crime for an armed man to surrender….Such was the Rome in those days. And if it was fated that the Roman character should change when Carthage fell, would that Carthage were still standing!

As a result of the Roman defiance and determination to continue the fight, Hannibal was unable to follow up on his greatest victory. With the re-emergence of the Fabian strategy of delay, Hannibal found himself stymied in Italy, unable to properly besiege the city of Rome with the troops he had at hand. This gave the Romans time to recruit new legions, and make progress against Carthaginian strongholds and allies outside of Italy.