Commentaria in Isaiam
Hear the burial of St. Paula from St. Jerome: “St. Paula, a most noble Roman widow, when she heard her Spouse calling her to death: Arise, make haste, my love, my dove, my beautiful one, for winter is now past, the rain is over and gone, answered thus: The flowers have appeared in our land, the time of pruning is come. And: I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. From this time there was no wailing, no lamentation, as is wont to be among men of the world; but swarms of voices chanted psalms in diverse tongues: and being carried by the hands of Bishops, who put their necks under the bier, while other Pontiffs carried torches and tapers before it, and others led the choirs of singers, she was laid in the midst of the church of the cave of the Saviour.” But hear the pomp of the funeral: “The whole crowd of the cities of Palestine assembled at her funeral. What monk hiding in a cell in the desert was kept away? What virgin did the secrecy of her chamber conceal? They thought it sacrilege not to have paid the last office to such a woman. Widows and poor people, like Dorcas, showed the garments she had given them. The whole multitude of the needy cried out that they had lost a mother and nurse. And, what is wonderful, paleness had not changed her face: but a certain dignity and gravity so filled her countenance that you would have thought her not dead, but sleeping. The Psalms in order resounded in Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Syriac; not only for three days, until she was laid beneath the church and near the cave of the Lord, but through the whole week, all who had come thinking it their own funeral, and shedding their own tears. The venerable virgin her daughter Eustochium, like one weaned upon her mother, could not be drawn from her parent, kissed her eyes, clung to her face, embraced her whole body, and wished to be buried with her mother.”
While the great Daniel the Stylite was giving up his last breath, the chief of the bishops was present, who was Euphemius, with others, for his departure; present also was Rais, a most faithful woman, and a man possessed by a demon, who was going to the column: who, crying out, openly signified the coming of the Saints to the Saint, and called them by their names; and he made mention of the Angels of those who had assembled. Then he added that at the third hour of that day Daniel would depart to the Lord, and the unclean spirit would be driven out from its long dwelling. Both came to pass in their time. And she who was called Rais before magnificently prepared the things that pertained to the burial: and having brought many artisans, and ordered a tomb to be made in the lower part of the column, up to the top, she placed on each side of the tomb men who bore torches and held lamps in their hands, and sang what is wont to be sung at a departure. These things then were done, and the unclean demon was driven out, having torn many a man, says the author of the Life of St. Daniel.
St. Gallus, deacon of the Arverni and afterwards Bishop, seeing many miracles done at the tomb of St. Amabilis, built for him at the front of the church a vault of excellent workmanship, and under it an altar, and there solemnly translated his sacred body, with the clergy chanting psalms, and the people carrying tapers and lamps, as his Life has it.
James Meyer relates, Annals of Flanders, book 3, that in the year of the Lord 1062, when a certain man was found dead of hunger near Aldenburg, and was being buried, the priest forbade the bells to be rung because the man was unknown; but behold, to the astonishment of all, those bells miraculously sounded of themselves.
Third, wild beasts have buried or guarded the bodies of Saints. So when St. Antony wished to bury St. Paul, two lions, weeping and digging the earth with their feet, prepared a grave for him.
So a lion dug the earth with its feet and made the pit in which Zosimas buried the body of St. Mary of Egypt. Moreover Zosimas found her body dead with this inscription on the ground: “Bury, Abba Zosimas, the poor body of Mary, give back to the earth what is its own, and add dust to dust, and pray the Lord for me.” So her Life has it, April 2.
The body of the Martyr St. Anastasius in Persia, in the year of the Lord 627, dogs kept unharmed, which the faithful afterwards buried magnificently in the monastery of the Martyr St. Sergius. So his Life has it, and from it Baronius.
The body of St. Stanislaus, Bishop of Cracow and Martyr, slain by King Boleslaus, having been cast to the wild beasts, eagles of unusual size defended from dogs and birds.
Again, the sepulchre of the Martyrs was the altar; for since the Martyrs were sacrificed like a holocaust to God upon the altar, so they were buried beneath it, according to that of Apocalypse 6: “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held.” This was done first, that the Martyrs might be honoured in so sacred a place; second, that the bodies of the Martyrs might be an incentive of devotion and virtue to those who pray; third, that the Martyrs might offer their prayers before God and help them. Hence the altar was called the Sepulchre of the Martyr, the Martyrium, or the Confession. Hence again the church built over these sepulchres and altars of theirs was called a Martyrium. So in the Council of Chalcedon the Martyrium, that is, the Church, of St. Euphemia is so called. Thence every church was called a Martyrium, as the church of the Resurrection built at Jerusalem on Golgotha was called a Martyrium, says Cyril of Jerusalem, catechesis 14. See Baronius in the Martyrology, July 6. And this is the origin and cause why here at Rome in the Vatican, in the church of St. Paul, St. Lawrence, St. Sebastian, St. Cecilia, St. Susanna, and elsewhere everywhere in churches, we see steps and descents into crypts, or underground chapels. For in these crypts the Martyrs were properly buried: hence the crypt itself or sepulchre of the Martyr was called a Confession or Martyrium; over which afterwards they built an altar and a church, which was from that also called a Martyrium. And hence we understand what we read so often in the Lives of the Saints: “This saint was buried in the Confession of St. Lawrence, of St. Susanna, of St. Prisca,” and so on. For “in the confession” is the same as in the crypt or sepulchre. For the whole church was not called a Confession, but a Martyrium, as has been skillfully noted by Baronius.
Hear the wonderful burial of St. Lucian from his Life, and from Baronius, in the year of Christ 326. When the Martyr Lucian had been cast into the sea by order of the Emperor Maximian, with a great stone hung upon him, so that, submerged, he might nowhere appear, and his body might obtain no burial, the Martyr appearing in sleep to one Glycerius, his disciple, who was then staying in the region opposite Nicomedia, said to him: “You, as soon as you have risen in the morning, go to this place,” showing him a place on the shore; “for I will meet you there.” He, taking companions, came to the place that had been pointed out to him. There a huge dolphin was rising from the sea and making for the land. It bore a dead man stretched out as if lying on a bed. And as it drew near the shore, it was lifted up high by a wave, and cast the dead man on the land. And the dolphin at once expired. But when St. Helena, as she was most zealous for the holy Martyrs, learned all this, she resolved to adorn the triumph of the Martyr with a worthy trophy, and saw to it that a costly basilica was built over the place.
Baronius relates that in the year of Christ 878 a certain man, at the instigation of Photius, violating the sepulchre of the Patriarch St. Ignatius, whose rival Photius was, was struck dead. How irreverence toward the sepulchre of St. Equitius was punished St. Gregory relates, Dialogues, book 1, chapter 4.
Here at Rome is the sepulchre of Thomas de Vio, Cardinal Cajetan, who published subtle Commentaries on St. Thomas and on Sacred Scripture, illustrious for his humility: for he wished to be buried not in the church of the Friars Preachers, but before it, because he thought himself unworthy of such a church. I have often seen the sepulchral stone, inscribed simply with his name only: I have seen it and celebrated the humility of so great a man.
Finally, glorious are the sepulchres of the Saints which preserve their bodies, dead for many years, indeed centuries, still whole and incorrupt, with flesh and all their members. I saw at Trent the whole body of St. Simon, a boy slain by the Jews; and I saw at Bologna the whole body of St. Catherine of Bologna, seated in a chair. So here lately the whole body of St. Cecilia was found by Pope Clement VIII, which struck all with sacred awe and reverence; so that her church now rightly shines with marble and with many lamps always burning, and presents to those who enter the appearance of heaven. In like manner glorious here is the sepulchre of St. Agnes, as of St. Pudentiana, St. Praxedes, St. Felicitas, St. Susanna, St. Alexis, whose steps (beneath which he lay hidden in his father’s house) and the image of the Blessed Virgin which at Edessa disclosed his hiding place and holiness are shown in his marble church, and are celebrated with a wonderful concourse and veneration of men. Indeed the very crypts and catacombs, in which in the time of the persecuting Emperors the Christians hid and were buried, are now wondrously honoured by the faithful. One may see many prostrate, humbly kissing the very ground, the very pavements which they once trod, and sending sighs and groans up to heaven.