The story of S. Cecilia is not without beauty and merit. There
was in the city of Rome a virgin named Cecilia, who was given in
marriage to a youth named Valerian. She wore sackcloth next to
her skin, and fasted, and invoked the saints and angels and
virgins, beseeching them to guard her virginity. And she said to
her husband, "I will tell you a secret if you will swear not to
reveal it to anyone." And when he swore, she added, "There is an
angel who watches me, and wards off from me any who would touch
me." He said, "Dearest, if this be true, show me the angel."
"That can only be if you will believe in one God, and be
baptized."
She sent him to Pope S. Urban (223-230), who baptized him; and
when he returned, he saw Cecilia praying in her chamber, and an
angel by her with flaming wings, holding two crowns of roses and
lilies, which he placed on their heads, and then vanished.
Shortly after, Tibertius, the brother of Valerian, entered, and
wondered at the fragrance and beauty of the flowers at that
season of the year.
When he heard the story of how they had obtained these crowns,
he also consented to be baptized. After their baptism the two
brothers devoted themselves to burying the martyrs slain daily
by the prefect of the city, Turcius Almachius. [There was no
prefect of that name.] They were arrested and brought before the
prefect, and when they refused to sacrifice to the gods were
executed with the sword.
In the meantime, S. Cecilia, by preaching had converted four
hundred persons, whom Pope Urban forthwith baptized. Then
Cecilia was arrested, and condemned to be suffocated in the
baths. She was shut in for a night and a day, and the fires were
heaped up, and made to glow and roar their utmost, but Cecilia
did not even break out into perspiration through the heat. When
Almachius heard this he sent an executioner to cut off her head
in the bath. The man struck thrice without being able to sever
the head from the trunk. He left her bleeding, and she lived
three days. Crowds came to her, and collected her blood with
napkins and sponges, whilst she preached to them or prayed. At
the end of that period she died, and was buried by Pope Urban
and his deacons.
Alexander Severus, who was emperor when Urban was Pope, did not
persecute the Church, though it is possible some Christians may
have suffered in his reign. Herodian says that no person was
condemned during the reign of Alexander, except according to the
usual course of the law and by judges of the strictest
integrity. A few Christians may have suffered, but there can
have been no furious persecutions, such as is described in the
Acts as waged by the apocryphal prefect, Turcius Almachius.
Urbanus was the prefect of the city, and Ulpian, who had much
influence at the beginning of Alexander's reign as principal
secretary of the emperor and commander of the Pretorian Guards,
is thought to have encouraged persecution. Usuardus makes
Cecilia suffer under Commodus. Molanus transfers the martyrdom
to the reign of Marcus Aurelius. But it is idle to expect to
extract history from romance.
In 1599 Cardinal Paul Emilius Sfondrati, nephew of Pope Gregory
XIV, rebuilt the church of S. Cecilia.
St. Cecilia is regarded as the patroness of music [because of
the story that she heard heavenly music in her heart when she
was married], and is represented in art with an organ or
organ-pipes in her hand.
From The Lives of the Saints by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, M.A.,
published in 1914 in Edinburgh. |