ON ST. CYRILLA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR, CALLED THE DAUGHTER OF THE EMPEROR DECIUS, AT ROME,
AROUND THE YEAR CCLVIII.
CRITICAL COLLECTION.
Cyrilla, virgin and martyr, at Rome (S.)
BY V. D. B.
Sole §. The cemetery of St. Hippolytus on the left of the Tiburtine road. The deeds of St. Cyrilla not known except from the fabulous Acts of St. Lawrence. The translation of the Relics in the eighth century.
Not far from the church of St. Mary Major, to the east, the gate of St. Lawrence or Tiburtine gate lies open: [Of St. Cyrilla, who is called the daughter of the emperor Decius and whose tomb was still visited in the cemetery of St. Hippolytus in the seventh century,] called by the one name, because through it one goes to the church of St. Lawrence outside the walls; by the other, because the Tiburtine road is paved through it. There St. Cyrilla calls us today, whose celebrity was once very great; inasmuch as men, misled by excessive veneration, made her the daughter of the emperor Decius. Let us follow first of all the author of the Roman Itinerary, which after others the distinguished Roman archaeologist John Baptist Rossi published with the highest diligence from the codex of Salzburg, and by which the condition of the places is marked in the pontificate of Honorius I, who held the chair of St. Peter from the year 625 to the year 638 Roma sotterranea cristiana, volume I, page 144.. This pious pilgrim, then, after visiting the church of St. Agnes on the Nomentan road, following the course of the sun, continues thus Ibid. page 178.: Afterwards you leave that road and you will come to St. Hippolytus the martyr, who rests under the earth in a chamber, and Concordia his woman, martyr, before the doors; in another chamber St. Triphonia, queen and martyr, and Cyrilla her daughter and martyr, whom Meditus Decius killed, wife and daughter, and St. Genisius the martyr. Afterwards, namely when you have crossed the Tiburtine road, you will come to the church of St. Lawrence; so that the cemetery of St. Hippolytus was on the left of the Tiburtine road, that of St. Lawrence on the right. The writer of the book on the Holy Places took the contrary route, whose Epitome, edited with new care and no less zeal according to two codices of Salzburg and one of Würzburg, we likewise owe to the Rossi mentioned: from which Epitome we learn how the sacred buildings were disposed partly before the beginning, partly after the beginning of the seventh century Ibid. page 145.. Near the same Tiburtine road, says this second pilgrim Ibid. page 178., is the greater church of St. Lawrence… From there to the North, up on the hill, is the basilica of St. Hippolytus, where he himself lies with his whole family, XVIII martyrs. There is the prison in which Lawrence was. There is Triphonia, wife of Caesar Decius, and Cyrilla, his daughter: between the two Concordia and St. Genesus, and many martyrs are there. He who around the middle of the seventh century wrote the Notice of the gates, roads and churches around the city of Rome Ibid. page 146., which Notice William of Malmesbury alone preserved for the good of the republic of letters, seems not to go around Rome, but to go out from each gate and to follow the roads as lines sent out from the center of the city. The sixth gate, he says Ibid. page 179., and the Tiburtine road, which is now called of St. Lawrence. Next to this road lies St. Lawrence in his church; … and there not far away Hippolytus or the basilica of St. Hippolytus, where he himself rests with his family, that is XVIII . And there rest blessed Triphonia, wife of Decius, and her daughter Cirilla, and Concordia her nurse, that is of St. Hippolytus.
[2] [her condition and deeds are not known except from the fabulous Acts of St. Lawrence,] Although, then, it is determined so nearly in what place the cemetery of St. Hippolytus was situated, it has never hitherto been explored. At the end of the last century diggers came upon it and drew from there an inscription, placed very near to the church of St. Hippolytus; but at that time the Roman curators of the underground cemeteries were so sluggish that no one, not even Gaetano Marini himself, betook himself there to inspect the crypt Ibid. page 61.. There was hope, however, that the tombs and inscriptions of SS. Tryphonia and Cyrilla would be found, although the bodies had long since been taken away. Of which matter the utility would have been so much the greater, as the condition and deeds of these heavenly citizens have hitherto been less known. Marchi narrates Monumenti delle arte primitive, pages 77 and 78. that he penetrated through the cemetery of St. Cyriaca or St. Lawrence into the cemetery of St. Hippolytus, the entrance of which still appears on the slope of the hill; but he did not preserve the memory of what he saw, and, unless he was deceived, I do not understand the ardent desires and complaints of Rossi concerning the negligence of Marini in not going to the uncovered crypt of St. Hippolytus the martyr. For what Marini formerly did not explore, Rossi himself could now explore with much greater utility. It seems, then, that no one has hitherto gone to the original crypts of St. Hippolytus, St. Tryphonia, St. Cyrilla and of very many other martyrs, to so much the greater detriment, because what is related of them, as has already been noted in St. Tryphonia at the 18th day of this month, was taken from the Passion of St. Lawrence, which is rather a cycle of popular narratives on the principal holy martyrs buried in the cemeteries of the Tiburtine Road than a history of so many illustrious champions of Christ. For it teems with errors and fables, as was shown both at the 10th day of August in the Commentary on St. Lawrence and at the 18th day of October in the Commentary on St. Tryphonia. And in this latter it was singularly demonstrated that St. Tryphonia was by no means the wife of the emperor Messius Decius or of either of his sons, and that accordingly her daughter Cyrilla was not of such noble blood; but that the name of Tryphonia is rather a servile one. Which things I would not wish to go over again, holding it enough to have sent the reader to that place. Since the time at which those things were written, Rossi has indeed discussed excellently many things [Roma Sotterr. volume I, page 309 and following. Compare Bullettino di archeologia cristiana, 1865, page 17 and following and 1866, page 23 and following.] concerning the most noble Roman families, of which some men, and many more women, professed the Christian religion long before the peace of the church; but nothing seems able to be gathered from this by which it would appear that St. Cyrilla and her mother Tryphonia are to be reckoned among the empresses.
[3] from which a portion on the conversion of St. Cyrilla, Yet we cannot altogether pass over what was commonly related of St. Cyrilla in the sixth or seventh century. If, then, credit could be given to the writer of the Acts of St. Lawrence, Decius, after accomplishing the murder of St. Lawrence, was seized for three days by a demon; which was the occasion of the conversion of SS. Tryphonia and Cyrilla. And a great lamentation arising in the palace, he says In Surius, De probatis SS. Vitis, August, page 99, edit. 1618., Tryphonia the wife of Decius, a cruel pagan, seeing Decius tormented by a demon, ordered all the saints who had been shut up to be released. In the same hour Decius died. And his wife came to Blessed Justin the presbyter, and with the daughter of Decius, Cyrilla, she threw herself with tears at his feet, begging that they might be baptized. Blessed Justin the presbyter received them with joy, and enjoined on them a fast for seven days. When the seventh day was completed, he baptized them: which thing was made known throughout the whole world. On the next day Tryphonia, praying, gave up her spirit, and Blessed Justin the presbyter buried her body in that crypt in which St. Hippolytus was interred, on the fifteenth day before the kalends of November. From that day Blessed Justin searched out accurately wherever the bodies of the saints had been hidden, and promised a reward to the soldiers. And the soldiers, hearing that Tryphonia the wife of Decius, with her daughter Cyrilla, had given in her name to Christ, came to the number of forty-six to Blessed Justin the presbyter with their wives, and prostrating themselves at his feet asked to be baptized.
[4] [her confession, passion and burial is recited here. She seems to have died in the year 258.] Then Blessed Justin, having gathered all the clergy, inquired who was to be put in the place of Blessed Sixtus and ordained. And they ordained the venerable man Dionysius, and Maximus, bishop of Ostia, consecrated him. And Justin the presbyter offered him for baptism forty-six soldiers, and they were baptized by him in the name of the Holy Trinity. Hearing these things, the prince Claudius ordered Cyrilla, daughter of Caesar Decius, and the soldiers to be seized, and led to sacrifice to demons. But they all, despising his precept, also laughed at him. He ordered them therefore to be taken into custody, and Cyrilla to be brought before him; and he said to her: "Has it so seemed good to you to neglect the precepts and custom of your most illustrious parents and your royal upbringing?" Cyrilla answered: "I am a Christian, a handmaid of Christ, and I spit out the demons which will bring you to eternal punishments, doomed to perish with them." Claudius said: "Assent to us and sacrifice to the gods, and marry a husband who answers to your birth." Cyrilla answered: "I have already married a husband who taught me true wisdom, namely the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom I have been given once for all." Claudius, boiling with anger, commanded that her throat be cut. And when she had been killed with the sword, he wished her body to be left in the street for the dogs. But Blessed Justin the presbyter gathered her body, and buried it with her mother, where he had already before placed the body of Blessed Lawrence (rather of Hippolytus), on the fifth day before the kalends of November. To which things I will observe these few points: that St. Justin, who buried so many martyrs, was made presbyter by St. Sixtus, who did not obtain the supreme pontificate before the year 257, at least six years after the death of Decius; and that in the year 258, in which St. Lawrence martyrdom
underwent, Valerian, not Claudius, was emperor, and that the same Valerian was not at Rome, but in the East, and therefore that St. Cyrilla, who underwent death a little after St. Lawrence, was condemned to capital punishment not by the emperor, but by the prefect of the City or another magistrate Compare Acta SS. volume VIII of October, page 119..
[5] The praises of St. Cyrilla in the martyrologies drawn from the same Acts. From this scrap of the Acts of St. Lawrence, then, was drawn what is read here and there in the martyrologies of St. Cyrilla at the 28th day of October. There went before the rest the Venerable Bede, whose Martyrology Papebroch published at the head of volume II of March, and the Little Roman Martyrology, published by Rosweyde and again by Giorgi. In this latter this announcement is read today: At Rome, of Cyrilla, daughter of Caesar Decius. The Venerable Bede wished to be more copious: At Rome, he says, of St. Cyrilla, daughter of Caesar Decius, who under the prince Claudius had her throat cut and was killed with the sword, and was buried by Justin the presbyter with her mother next to St. Hippolytus. Ado of Vienne and Rabanus Maurus followed Bede, with no change made; similarly Usuard, except that for the sake of brevity he omitted: And buried, etc.; the Martyrology of Fulda, published by Giorgi, cut away in addition had her throat cut and. Wandelbert does not depart from this, using bound speech:
Here shines Cyrilla, born of Caesar Decius, a virgin
In blessed spirit, to whom Decius was hardly a parent.
Finally, to omit other calendars of lesser name, Baronius in the Roman Martyrology, striking out the paternity of Decius, proposed this: At Rome, of St. Cyrilla, virgin, daughter of St. Tryphonia, who under the prince Claudius had her throat cut for Christ.
[6] [Around the middle of the eighth century St. Paul I, pope, transfers her relics to the church of St. Martin in the Hills.] In the annotations Baronius adds that the bodies of St. Cyrilla and of other holy women were translated by Sergius the Younger to the title of Equitius; which title was called both of Silvester and of Equitius, and also the monastery of St. Silvester, or of SS. Stephen and Silvester in the Campus Martius, then of St. Silvester and St. Martin, and finally of St. Martin in the Hills; where from the thirteenth century the Carmelites have offered sacred rites. But in the Commentary on St. Tryphonia it was shown that the venerable bodies were dug up from the ground by St. Paul I, pope, between the years 757 and 761, both because the cemeteries lay neglected, and because the Lombards, laying waste the Roman suburbs, were carrying off the bodies of the saints from them by theft Ibid. pages 322 and 325.. What was discussed there of the relics of St. Tryphonia pertains also to the remains of St. Cyrilla; and it does not seem it should be repeated in this place. On the marble tablet of St. Silvester Acta SS. volume VIII of October, pages 322 and 325., broken, but probably restored from a parchment writing, one reads: MENSE. OCT. D. XIII. N. SCÆ CYRILLÆ V. ET M. IN THE MONTH OF OCT. DAY XIII. N. OF ST. [CYRILLA V. AND M.] Nowhere else does the natal day of St. Cyrilla occur on the 13th day of October; so that the restorers seem to have erred.
Annotations* lege Messius read Messius
* al. XXVIII. otherwise XXVIII.