Silvia

ON ST. SILVIA, MOTHER OF ST. GREGORY THE GREAT,

SIXTH CENTURY.

Silvia, mother of St. Gregory the Great. (S.)

BY G. V. H.

Among the holy women whom the Apostle proclaimed were to be saved by the generation of children, St. Silvia, St. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory the Great, holds a chief place. The cult of this most holy woman, very ancient, but in the course of the centuries almost buried in oblivion, Clement VIII, Roman Pontiff, restored, the name of St. Silvia being brought into the Roman Martyrology at the 3rd day of the month of November: At Rome, of St. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory, Pope [See note l at the 3rd of the nones of November in the edition of the Roman Martyrology printed at the Vatican press in the year 1630.]. Castellano noted in the Universal Martyrology At the 3rd of November. that the elogium of St. Silvia was inserted at this place on account of the concourse of the people to the monastery of St. Gregory on the preceding day, on the Commemoration of all the faithful departed.

[2] outstanding in glory among holy women, Among women illustrious and exceptional in the praise of Christian life St. Silvia stands out like the moon among the lesser fires. For she was great in both family and riches, great also by her most excellent marriage with Gordian, but much greater by outstanding holiness of morals; and at length, having educated to every virtue her son, an incomparable man, the great Gregory, we do not hesitate to call her the greatest among the holy women illustrious for the immaculate bed of matrimony and the ornaments of widowed life. It is to be regretted that by none of the ancients was the life of this most holy woman committed to the monuments of letters. Therefore we are forced to fish out here and there the scattered remains of the memory of St. Silvia.

[3] born of most illustrious family, Paul the Deacon begins the Life of St. Gregory the Great from his parents, writing thus: Gregory, born in this city of Rome, of his father Gordian and his mother Silvia, drew his origin not only from an eminent senatorial lineage, but also a religious one Migne, Patrologia Latina, volume LXXV, column 41.. John the Deacon begins the Life of the same St. Gregory in this way Ibid., column 63.: Gregory, a Roman by family, a philosopher by art, son of Gordian, a most illustrious man, and of blessed Silvia, presided over the Roman see for thirteen years, six months, ten days, in the times of the Augusti Tiberius, Maurice and Phocas. He, sprung from a senatorial stock, drew a genealogy as most noble as it was most religious. Paul and John agree, then, in asserting the nobility and virtue of St. Gregory's parents, namely Gordian and Silvia. Then they bring forward arguments of both prerogatives on Gordian's side, but on St. Silvia's side nothing. Since both authors pass over in silence Silvia's forebears, kindred and relatives, one may think that they were unknown to them. Therefore some could be of the opinion that St. Silvia was not born at Rome and perhaps not sprung from Roman blood. Silvia seems to have had a sister named Pateria, who was reduced to poverty. For Gregory, writing to Anthemius the subdeacon Letters, book I, 39 (Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVII, column 493).: I wish, he says, that as soon as you have received the present order, you should offer to the lady Pateria, my aunt, for the shoe-money of the boys forty solidi and four hundred modii of wheat. For thia is a maternal aunt, although it is also taken for a paternal aunt; like our tante, which signifies the sister of both father and mother. But Gregory says elsewhere that his father had three sisters, whom he designates by name. And therefore Pateria seems not to have been a fourth sister of Gordian, but a sister of St. Silvia.

[4] whether by fatherland a Sicilian There are those who suppose that the blessed woman was by family a Sicilian. For Gregory, when, by the death of his parents long since, he had free power of disposing of his affairs, as Paul the Deacon says Volume cited, column 43., or rather when bereft of his father, as John the Deacon writes Volume cited, column 63., built six monasteries in Sicily [Paul the Deacon, ibid.; John the Deacon, ibid., and Gregory of Tours, History, book X, chapter 1.] and besides a seventh within the walls of the city of Rome Ibid.. To these monasteries he assigned so much from the revenues of his estates as could suffice for the daily food of those staying there Paul the Deacon, ibid.. Now they say that the Sicilian monasteries were enriched from Gregory's maternal goods, and from that they conclude that St. Silvia was by family a Sicilian. In Rocco Pirri [Sicilia Sacra, Church of Syracuse, at the year 553 (edition of Pieter van der Aa, column 582).] I read: St. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory the Great, Pope, who departed this life about the year 558 on the 12th of March, Ottavio Gaetani reported in the Sicilian martyrology: and with five arguments he doubts in his Idea, fol. 25, whether Silvia was a Sicilian (he conjectures, that is, that Silvia was a Sicilian). First, from a report that came down to him from M. Tommaso Pallavicino, associate of the Master of the sacred Palace, through Vincenzo Bonincontro, bishop of Agrigento and theologian of Pope Paul V. Secondly, from the piety of Pope Gregory the Great towards the Sicilian saints, drawn surely from a Sicilian mother: for he brought Agatha and Lucy, Sicilian virgins and martyrs, into the canon of the Mass, as St. Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne, reports; he purified and consecrated the basilica of St. Agatha in the Suburra, and a shrine of St. Lucy in the basilica of St. Peter. Thirdly, the affection of the same St. Gregory towards Sicily, which you may easily recognize from his letters. Fourthly, Gregory built six monasteries in Sicily before entering on the pontificate, two of them at Syracuse, and endowed them with the fields and estates which he had in the island; and perhaps those goods were the dowry of a Sicilian mother. Fifthly, in the same age other Sicilian women were married to Roman men, as Faustina to Tertullus, father of the martyr Placidus, Elpis to Severinus Boethius, a most illustrious man and martyr. So perhaps Silvia too was given in marriage to Gordian. You affirm that these are conjectures. I know, but sometimes truth is pressed out by conjectures. So Gaetani. And again Rocco Pirri in his own name, in the little work on the Abbeys of Sicily Book IV, part II (in the work just cited, column 1300).: First: he built six monasteries… Second: he built them in Sicily. In what region of it, that is? Where he held the whole patrimony, there he built them all. But in the parts of Palermo he held all the goods of his mother Silvia and the buildings or praetorian palace; therefore they were built there. Although Fr. Ottavio Gaetani of the Society of Jesus, a man illustrious with every kind of virtue and acknowledged learning, by five reasons conjectures that the same St. Silvia * and from the two monasteries built and endowed under St. Gregory at Syracuse, was his fellow citizen of Syracuse, how much more certainly and evidently can we elucidate from her estates existing at Palermo that she was by birth of Palermo? These two Sicilians, then, Ottavio Gaetani and Rocco Pirri, on account of the reasons or conjectures brought forward, are of the opinion that St. Silvia was a Sicilian. But that cause cannot be settled by conjectures.

[5] or Roman Alberto Cassio in the book which he wrote On the courses of the waters of the city of Rome Corso delle acque, etc., at Rome 1755., in the second part, treating of the life of St. Silvia, rises up in opposition, and contends that St. Silvia was a Roman. This author, while studiously inquiring into the aqueducts of the city of Rome, found that four aqueducts go through the lands and estates of St. Silvia, and thus, as if out of gratitude, he wrote commentaries on the same saint, to vindicate the birth, family and fatherland of St. Silvia, mother of the great Gregory. Moreover the author lamented that the donations made by St. Silvia and St. Gregory had been given over to oblivion; and finally the devotion of the peoples, who had held St. Silvia as the mistress of their lands, was an incentive for the author to write. Among which peoples he enumerates the inhabitants of the castle of Faustinianum, which is believed to have been built from the ruins of the town of Sassola; who, when they had to migrate from there, gave the name of Gregory to the castle they built: and it has been handed down that on the brow of a nearby mountain a church was built in honour of St. Silvia. Whence up to the present day (1755) it is called the mountain of St. Silvia. These inhabitants frequently give their daughters the name of Silvia.

[6] uncertain. The Massa Apollonia, whose head is the town of Empulum. This Massa Apollonia Gregory, with his mother Silvia consenting, gave to the monastery of Subiaco. But the inhabitants of this castle, forgetful both of Gregory and of his mother Silvia, have not even erected a church in their honour. The inhabitants of Pisciano, Guadagnolo, Poli, all hold what were once the estates of St. Silvia; but they seem forgetful of Silvia. The places enumerated belonged to St. Eustace, martyr, according to the author just cited; for Silvia was of the same Anician family. Empulum, given as a gift by St. Silvia to the monks of Subiaco, destroyed by the people of Tivoli and rebuilt under the name Madama, speaks thus by prosopopoeia in Pietro Ciossi (a noble man of those who, when Empulum had been destroyed, had passed over into the new castle called Sant'Angelo Madama): Me the Lady Sylvia, great parent of Gregory, gave as a gift to the Monks of St. Scholastica. These things we have excerpted from the commentaries on St. Silvia of the said author Work cited, part 2, chapters 1, 2.; whose credit we of course leave with the author. But these are fitting replies to the Sicilians who are of the opinion that from the estates of Saints Silvia or Gregory the fatherland of St. Silvia is determined. We simply confess that the fatherland of St. Silvia can no longer be defined by us with every certainty.

[7] Of what house she was born is uncertain; Of the nobility of St. Silvia's birth there is no controversy. But of what house she was born history does not report. According to Alberto Cassio Ibid., chapter 5. St. Silvia's father was Flavius Anicius Probinus, on the authority of Maurolycus. If this were true, St. Gregory would descend through his father and through his mother from the Anician family; which would have to be demonstrated by suitable arguments. Those who think so, Paul and John

the Deacons, writers of the Life of St. Gregory, being silent on the family of St. Silvia, can easily explain. For when they display the glory of the paternal family tree, they have praised the maternal along with it. Both praise Pope Felix among the ancestors of blessed Gregory, although John the Deacon erroneously put IV for St. Felix III. And Gordian, the father of St. Gregory, was, as common opinion has it, of the illustrious family of the Anicii.

[8] likewise uncertain the year of her birth, In what year St. Silvia was born none of the ancients has handed down in writing. We shall try therefore to investigate that year, as far as we may. In the Life of St. Gregory furnished from his writings, which the Maurist Fathers prefixed to their edition of the works of Gregory the Great Patrologia Latina, volume LXXV, column 246., Gregory's birth is referred to the year 540, not by certain arguments, but by probable reason. Nothing, therefore, forbids establishing the year of Gregory's birth earlier or later than that, especially if nothing contradicts the reason brought forward by the Maurists, or it is even more in conformity with it. — There exists, however, a tradition which, if it speaks the truth, excludes the year 540. Rocco Pirri, treating of the six monasteries built in Sicily by St. Gregory, reports that St. Benedict was at Rome in the year 531, and that in that year, greeted by blessed Silvia, then pregnant, he foretold to her the future life of the infant she was bearing. Bucelinus records the same tradition more than once in his Annals, but assigns the event to the year 541. I render the event in the words of Bucelinus: At that very time, meeting him as he stayed for some time at Rome, blessed Sylvia, the most excellent wife of Anicius Gordian, then pregnant with a son truly great, was most lovingly addressed and marvellously refreshed by the great Benedict, and was instructed by him in a prophetic spirit about the birth, name and office of the infant she bore in her womb, Gregory, Great in all things, she herself being great in holiness of life and, with her husband, to be reckoned among the chief founders of the first monasteries of the Order by her outstanding liberality to the Archmonasteries of Subiaco no less than of Cassino. If these things are true (which I can neither prove nor have found proved by others, but asserted as if handed from hand to hand), Gregory was not born in the year 540, for Benedict is said to have seen Silvia pregnant in the year 541; but he was born either in the year 541 or 542, according to Bucelinus. According to the form of the tradition which reached Rocco Pirri, Gregory was not born in the year 540, but either in the year 531 or 532, for in the year 531 Benedict is said to have been at Rome and to have uttered to the pregnant mother the prophecy about Gregory. It is difficult to determine which year you should choose, since all are uncertain.

[9] which is approached. This, however, is the only indication that can point to the year in which St. Silvia was born. For one may suppose that according to the customs of those times she married Gordian in the first flower of puberty. Suppose she married in her sixteenth year of age, and you will have the birth year of blessed Silvia, if you follow Rocco Pirri, as 515 or 516 (for being pregnant in the year 531, she gave birth either in that year or the following one); if you follow Bucelinus or the Maurist author of the Life, the birth year of blessed Silvia is the year 525, 526 or 524 (according to the different year in which Gregory is thought to have been born, namely 541 or 542 or 540). We have had to suppose for reaching this reckoning both that Gregory was the first-born, and that he was conceived in the first year of marriage, neither of which history reports; and besides we have supposed that Silvia married in her sixteenth year of age, which likewise no history says. — Let the reader take in good part the attempt of one searching out hidden truth; which, though it is not established to have been found, yet we cannot have strayed far from it, as is clear from the reason that led the Maurist to establish the year of Gregory's birth. For Gregory died in the year 604, certainly not a very old man, and he says that there happened in his time what took place in the year 446. According to the Maurist author that event fell in the infancy of Gregory; according to the narrative of Rocco Pirri it must have fallen in the youth of the same Gregory. Anything more certain about the year of St. Silvia's birth I cannot determine.

[10] St. Silvia educates her sons outstandingly. Of the childhood of our Saint nothing is known; nor of her youth, apart from her marriage. That she ordered her life in the holiest way, and trained her son in the holiest morals, is clear. As could be expected from so great a mother, she procured also a holy nurse for her son Gregory; in whose memory Gregory as pontiff afterwards took delight. For he writes to the Patrician lady Rusticiana Book IV, letter 46 (Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVII, column 720).: That lady my nurse, whom you commend to me by letter, I altogether cherish and wish to be burdened in nothing. One may truly say with the author of the Life of St. Gregory furnished from his writings: Since the education of little ones is the chief province of mothers, according to Paul (I Timothy V, 10), not undeservedly do we conjecture that St. Silvia vigorously discharged her office towards her Gregory and his brother, and diligently fulfilled all the parts of a Christian mother in training him. For that Gregory had a brother can scarcely be called in doubt, for in several letters he speaks of him. Thus to Peter the subdeacon Book I, letter 44 (Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVII, column 504).: We give thanks to your solicitude, because about the case of my brother I instructed you that you ought to have sent back his silver. To Theodore, curator or certainly archdeacon of Ravenna Book IX, letter 98 (Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVII, column 1023).: But if that is all, we shall have our glorious brother, or one of the bishops … subscribe. To Leontius, ex-consul Book X, letter 51 (Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVII, column 1106).: Which from our glorious brother Palatinus the Patrician, etc. On the monastery of St. Hermas, which was built by our brother Book XIV, letter 2.. Gregory of Tours seems to indicate this brother History, book X, chapter 1.: But the prefect of the city of Rome, his brother, anticipated the messenger. From the remembrance of his pious mother and pious nurse St. Gregory seems to have written to Theoctista Book VII, letter 26., treating of the education of children, those golden words, saying: The words of those who nurse will be either milk, if they are good, or poison, if they are bad.

[11] As a widow she lives most holily. Bereft of her husband Gordian, Silvia outstandingly displayed the character of a holy widow, bidding farewell to the world and wholly given over to works of piety. Worthy of the exceptional family of the Anicii, she was worthy that there should be said to her those things which Jerome had written to the virgin Demetrias, daughter of Anicius Olybrius: First in nobility and riches in the Roman world … since it belongs to your family both to have and to trample on riches Numbers 1 and 14 (Patrologia Latina, volume XXII, columns 1107, 1118).. She can be believed, as we have seen above from Alberto Cassio, to have given many things through herself, and many through her son, to monasteries, churches and the poor of Christ. That Silvia bade farewell to the world is certain; it can be doubted only whether with her husband still living or after his death. In what year Gordian departed this life we are taught by the testimony of none of the ancients. But since Gregory converted the paternal house into a monastery in the year 573, with no mention made of his father, one may with much right suppose that Gordian had then died, and hence that Silvia was a widow.

[12] She sends vegetables to St. Gregory her son. History has preserved very few deeds of Silvia's life; which follow here. John the Deacon narrates first (which I report in his words), when Gregory was then living as a monk in his monastery on the Clivus Scauri: In the inner recesses of this monastery the same man of almighty God, Gregory, was fed on raw vegetables by his mother Silvia, who was living at that time near the gate of blessed Paul, in the place called Cella Nova, where to this day there seems to be established an oratory dedicated to her name and the famous monastery of St. Babas (Sabas), confessor of Christ, whose praise is in the sixth and seventh Synods. St. Silvia sent vegetables to her son in a silver bowl; which Gregory on one occasion, all his coins having long since been given away, ordered to be given to a beggar coming back more than once for alms. Take the event from John the Deacon: “Asking his wardrobe-keeper again, if perhaps he had any vessel or garment, he heard that nothing at all remained except his mother's silver bowl, which was customarily sent filled with vegetables.” Then, made the more eager: “Then, he said, brother, carry this, that he who as a poor man seeks consolation may not go away sad.” So the supposed poor man, Gregory giving very gladly, joyfully embraced the bowl brought to him, no longer to return to seek suffrages but to confer them. For he was an angel of God. Let religious men learn from this example holy charity and to be generous towards the poor. For no flame consumes the goods of monasteries more sharply than sordid avarice. St. Silvia, then, was living at that time in Cella Nova, situated on the middle of the Aventine hill, in sight of the monastery of her son, which is one mile distant from there. Now the church of St. Sabas and the adjoining buildings belong to the German College of the Society of Jesus, whose students are accustomed to go there on appointed days for recreation.

[13] She is present at the dying of St. Tharsilla. A second event that history reports at which St. Silvia was present as a witness is reported by Silvia's son himself, Pope Gregory, in a homily which he delivered to the Roman people in the basilica of St. Clement the martyr [On the Gospels, book II, homily 38 (Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVI, columns 1200, 1201).], and again but more briefly in the Dialogues, book IV, chapter 16 Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVII, column 348., where he does not say that his mother was present. In the former place, then, Gregory, after saying that his father Gordian had three sisters: Tharsilla, Aemiliana and Gordiana, the two former fervent in the pursuit of holiness, the third more lukewarm in life, narrates thus the death of Tharsilla: On a certain night to my aunt Tharsilla, who among her sisters had grown up in the honour and height of holiness by the virtue of continual prayer, of zealous affliction, of singular abstinence, and a gravity of life worthy of veneration, as she herself narrated, there appeared in a vision my ancestor Felix, prelate of this Roman Church (St. Felix III), and showed her a mansion of perpetual brightness, saying: “Come, for I receive you in this mansion of light.” She, soon seized by a following fever, reached her last day. And as, when noble women and men are dying, many assemble to console their kin, at that same hour of her departure many men and women stood around her bed, among whom MY MOTHER TOO WAS PRESENT: when suddenly, looking upward, she saw Jesus coming, and with great attention began to cry out to those standing around, saying: “Withdraw, withdraw, Jesus is coming.” And as she was intent on him whom she saw, that holy soul from the flesh

was loosed; and at once so great a fragrance of marvellous odour was spread, that the very sweetness showed to all that the author of sweetness had come there.

[14] She dies, in what year is uncertain. When this occurred cannot be known for certain. St. Silvia seems to have been still alive when Gregory narrated these things before the people; for he had said beforehand: For we do not tell of things done long before; but we record those of which witnesses exist and report that they were present at them. And since among the witnesses he clearly designates one alone, namely his mother, I should suppose that St. Silvia was then still alive. Gregory narrates the same story in almost the same words in the Dialogues, in the place cited, but he studiously cut off certain things. And that omission is most worthy of note. For it is customary with Gregory to cite witnesses of the things narrated; and in this place he studiously struck out the mention of witnesses. He calls to memory the homily from which we have excerpted what preceded, saying: What I recall having said of my aunt Tharsilla in the homilies on the gospel I shall repeat. Then he copies the event from the homily; but when he comes to that sentence in which he had made mention of his mother, he cut off those words among whom my mother too was present. Whence I reason thus. Gregory, when he delivered the homily, could adduce witnesses reporting the event (among whom Silvia, the Pontiff's mother, was best known to all), because they were then still living. Afterwards he is silent about the witnesses, silent about his mother. Why? I am of the opinion, because they had died, and therefore could no longer report the event. If my opinion is true, one may come close to the year of Silvia's death. For Gregory wrote the Dialogues in the year 593 or 594; for so I think it right to suppose with the Maurists [Preface to the books of Dialogues (Patrologia Latina, volume LXXVII, column 145).]. Gregory was ordained Pontiff on the 3rd of September in the year 590; he must, then, have delivered the cited homily between the years 590 and 594. Therefore, if Silvia was alive when the homily was delivered and had died when the Dialogues were published, which we have asserted by a reason not indeed wholly certain, but yet probable, the year of Silvia's death falls in that four-year period. Let us not unfittingly, then, assign the holy death of the most blessed woman to the year 592. Whence it follows according to our computation that St. Silvia lived seventy and some years, but did not reach eighty. This agrees well enough with the image of his holy mother that St. Gregory had painted. For it represents the face indeed of an old woman, but not a decrepit one.

[15] The image of St. Silvia That image of St. Silvia together with the image of Gordian in the atrium of the monastery of St. Andrew on the Clivus Scauri, painted by order of Gregory the Great, were still to be seen in the time of John the Deacon, who flourished about the year 870. The same John has described both images most minutely in the Life of St. Gregory the Great, book IV, n. 83 Patrologia Latina, volume LXXV, columns 229, 230., from which place we transcribe the following.

THE IMAGE OF ST. SILVIA PAINTED IN THE ATRIUM OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. ANDREW.

[16] In the atrium of this venerable monastery, by order of Gregory, next to the fountain-court two very ancient likenesses, skilfully painted, are seen to this day. In one of them blessed Peter the apostle is seen sitting, having taken with his right hand by the right hand likewise Gordian the regionarius, standing, namely the father of Gregory. The dress of this Gordian is a chasuble of chestnut colour, under the chasuble a dalmatic, having on his feet caligae; tall in stature, the face long, green eyes, a modest beard, thick hair, a grave countenance. In the other is painted Gregory's mother Silvia sitting, covered with a white veil turned from the right shoulder across to the left in such a way that she draws her hand under it as from a chasuble, and around the breast under the throat there appears a lower tunic of pseudo-milky colour, which flows down with a great fold over the feet; entirely marked with two bands after the likeness of dalmatics, but broader; full in stature, the face round indeed and white, but already wrinkled with age, which old age itself shows to have been most beautiful; with grey and large eyes, modest eyebrows, comely lips, a cheerful countenance, bearing on her head a matronly mitre clouded with the sheerness of gleaming brandeum; holding out two fingers of the right hand as wishing to fortify herself with the sign of the cross, and holding in her left an open psalter, in which this is written: My soul lives and will praise you, and your judgments will help me (Psalm CXVIII). And from the right elbow to the left, around the shoulders, a verse ascending is bent back, which runs thus: Gregory made this for Silvia his mother.

[17] The day of St. Silvia's death is uncertain; The day of her holy death also is not altogether certain. According to Fr. Ottavio Gaetani, whom we cited above, St. Silvia died on the 12th day of March; according to Inveges Palermo sacro, volume II, fol. 454.: St. Silvia at Rome flew away to heaven on the third day of November. According to the Maurists in the annotations on the works of St. Gregory Volume IV, book I, fol. 109., on the third day of November. Arthur in the Gynaeceum established the day of St. Silvia's death as the 5th of November. The same day Panciroli, in the book entitled: The Hidden Treasures of the city of Rome, region 9, title St. Sabas Tesori nascosti, fol. 682.. Baronius in the inscription we shall give below says that the anniversary memory of St. Silvia is celebrated on the fifth day of November. In the Roman martyrology the feast day of St. Silvia is celebrated on the third of the nones of November.

[18] and the place of her burial In what place the body of St. Silvia was buried I could not easily say with affirmation. Various authors have affirmed variously. Arthur in the Gynaeceum does not doubt that the sacred body of Silvia was buried in her own house, namely in Cella Nova, converted into an oratory united to the monastery and church of St. Sabas. That an oratory in that place was dedicated to the name of blessed Silvia, John the Deacon states in these explicit words Place cited. …: Gregory was fed on raw vegetables by his mother Silvia, who was living at that time near the gate of blessed Paul the apostle, in the place called Cella Nova, where to this day there seems to be established an oratory dedicated to her name and the famous monastery of St. Babas (Sabas), confessor of Christ, whose praise is in the sixth and seventh Synods. In the age of John (870), then, there was there an oratory of St. Silvia, distinct from the monastery of St. Babas (Sabas) built in the same place. But whether the blessed woman was buried in that same place, since the author is silent, one may doubt. Gallonio in the Lives of the Roman women Saints says Vite delle Sante Romane, fol. 259.: Now the body of St. Silvia is preserved in the church dedicated in the name of her son. Was she first buried near the same place or in the church? I would not dare to affirm.

[19] is under opinion. Carlo Piazza writes Emerologio sacro, November. that he found in the church of the Silvestrines called Santo Stefano “del Cacco” a fragment of the body of St. Silvia. But Alberto Cassio testifies Work cited, part II, chapter 25. that he went through the lists of relics of that church and did not find the name of St. Silvia, and that the Silvestrines, when questioned by him, replied that they knew nothing of relics of that Saint. The inhabitants too of the Castle of San Gregorio seem to have supposed that the body of St. Silvia lay hidden in their church Ibid.. I am of the opinion that St. Silvia was buried in the place where Gregory her son had the likeness of his mother painted; but in an uncertain matter I can assert nothing for certain.

[20] Her cult is ancient. The cult of St. Silvia is very ancient, since it is certain from John the Deacon that her oratory existed in the ninth century. He distinguishes the same Silvia with the title of blessed. That that oratory was by no means recently built is sufficiently perceived from the form of the sentence; for we say that those things exist to this day which have already borne some age. One may think that the public cult of the blessed woman took its beginning from the image painted by Gregory, which Baronius too indicates in the inscription to be read presently. — In our time too St. Silvia is venerated, especially in the church of St. Sabas, of which mention has been made more than once above. She is invoked by pregnant women to obtain a happy delivery. Yet I found there no signs of a tomb in which the sacred bones of Silvia might have rested. In the atrium of the church of St. Sabas I read the following inscription (in the year 1880):

THE CHURCH OF SAINTS SABAS AND ANDREW AT CELLA NOVA, WHERE ONCE WAS THE HOUSE, THEN THE ORATORY, OF ST. SILVIA, MOTHER OF ST. GREGORY, POPE, FROM WHICH HOUSE THE PIOUS MOTHER SENT TO THE CLIVUS SCAURI TO HER SON A BOWL OF VEGETABLES.

In the church of St. Gregory on the Caelian hill the following inscription is seen:

TO THE SACRED MEMORY OF ST. SILVIA, RESTORED. St. Silvia, mother of St. Gregory, was renowned for outstanding holiness: for while she was still living an angel proclaimed her blessed for her outstanding merits; and after her death the same St. Gregory dedicated a sacred image to her perpetual memory, and her name, ever distinguished with the title of holiness, has been propagated to posterity in public monuments, and her sacred relics have been venerated. A church also in her name at St. Sabas, in the place called Cella Nova, built in the City in ancient times, was frequented with the cult owed to saints; and Caesar Baronius, presbyter of Saints Nereus and Achilleus, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, judging it unworthy of Christian piety that, destroyed by the injury of time and buried in oblivion, it should so lie, took care to have it restored more suitably here in the sacred house of her son, where he placed her statue, adorned in the ancient fashion, and consecrated the altar, her relics being laid in it, on the 5th day of November, on which also her anniversary memory is solemnly celebrated: a plenary indulgence being granted on that day to those visiting the place. In the year of salvation 1604, in the 13th year of Pope Clement VIII.

* supply Siculam esse.