November 24, 1946prev home
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The Evening
The Martyrs and their conquests.
I saw a place which, on account of the type of architecture and the people there, greatly reminded me of the Tullianum in the vision of the death of little Castulus.261 It also reminded me of other Roman sites, like the cells at the circuses, where I saw the Christians grouped together shortly before being thrown to the lions. But this was neither the former nor the latter. The walls displayed the usual heavy square stones superimposed, one upon the other. The light was scanty and gloomy, as if filtering through slits and getting mixed with the uncertain luminosity of a little oil flame which was insufficient to illuminate the environment. Undoubtedly, the place was also a jail, and a jail for Christians, but, unlike the other places I had seen, this dark, dismal environment was not entirely closed off by gates and walls. In one corner there was a wide corridor starting from the large room and leading to some unknown destination. The corridor, slightly curved as if forming part of a big ellipse, also contained the usual quadrangular stones and was poorly illuminated by a little flame. The place was empty. On the floor, though - which seemed to be made of granite and where big stones serving as seats were scattered - there were some garments.
A muffled noise, like a stormy sea heard far from the shore, was coming from an unknown point. It was sometimes softer or louder. It almost sounded like a rumble, perhaps from the effect of the curved walls, which must have picked it up and amplified it, as with an echo. It was a strange noise. Sometimes it struck me as produced by sea waves or a big waterfall, and sometimes I seemed to hear it as being made up of human voices and thought it was a howling crowd; at other times there were nonhuman sounds and the other noise ceased, bursting out more loudly afterwards.... Now a shuffling of steps, of many steps, was coming from the elliptical corridor, which became brightly illuminated, as if other lights were being brought there, and, along with the noise of the steps, the subdued moaning of suffering creatures....
Then the tremendous scene appeared. Preceded by two colossal men of considerable age, bearded, half-naked, and bearing lit torches, there came forward a group of bleeding creatures - in part held up, in part holding up others, and in part even being carried. I said “creatures.” But the expression is not appropriate. Those lacerated, mutilated, opened bodies; those faces with cheeks marked by atrocious wounds which had torn their mouths to pieces as far as their ears or cloven a cheek to the point of displaying their teeth set in their jaws, or removed an eye, which was dangling outside of its socket, deprived of the now inexistent eyelid, or entirely missing, as if through a barbarous ablation; those heads without any covering as if a cruel device had scalped them no longer possessed the appearance of creatures. They were a macabre sight, like a nightmare, like a mad dream.... They were a witness to the fact that the beast is hidden in man and it is ready to appear and give vent to its instincts, taking advantage of every pretext that can justify savagery. Here the pretext was religion and reasons of state. The Christians were enemies of Rome and the god Caesar; they offended the gods; the Christians should thus be tortured. And they were. What a spectacle! Men, women, the elderly, children, and young girls were there pell-mell, waiting to die from wounds or a new martyrdom.
And yet, except for the unconscious lament of those rendered senseless by the seriousness of their wounds, no voice of affliction was heard. Those who had led them withdrew, leaving them to their fate, and then the less wounded were seen to help the most seriously harmed, and those with the slightest capacity to went to bend over the dying. Those unable to remained upright and dragged themselves on their knees or crawled on the ground, seeking their dearest ones or those they knew were physically and perhaps spiritually the weakest. And those still able to use their hands sought to provide assistance to the naked shapes, covering them again with the garments on the ground or arranging the members of the languishing in positions which did not offend modesty and extending some shreds of clothing over them. And some women placed the dying children, weeping with pain and fear, on their laps, and perhaps they were not theirs. Others dragged themselves over to the young women covered only by their loosely-hanging long hair and tried to dress their virginal bodies once more in the white robes lying on the ground. And the robes became impregnated with blood, and the smell of blood pervaded the air in the environment, getting mixed with the heavy smoke of the oil lamp. And imperceptible merciful, holy dialogues were interwoven.
“Are you suffering a lot, my daughter?” asked an old man with his skull stripped of its skin, which was hanging from the nape of his neck, like a cap which had fallen off; he could not see because as eyes he had only two bleeding wounds, which he turned towards a woman who must have been a glowing bride, but who was now only a heap of blood and was clasping to her open chest - with the only arm that could still do so, in a desperate gesture of love - her little son, who was sucking his mother’s blood instead of the milk which could no longer flow down from her lacerated breasts.
“No, my father.... The Lord is helping me.... If Severus would only come, at least.... The child... is not crying.... Maybe he’s not wounded.... I feel he is seeking my breast.... Am I badly wounded? I no longer feel one hand and cannot... cannot look because I have no more strength to see.... Life... is escaping with my blood.... Am I covered, my father...?”
“I don’t know, daughter. I no longer have eyes....”
Beyond there was a woman crawling on her belly over the ground as if she were a snake. Through an opening at the base of her ribs her lungs could be seen breathing. “Do you still hear me, Christine?” he asked, bending over a naked girl, without wounds, but with the color of death on her face. A crown of roses was still on her brow over her loose dark hair. She was semiconscious.
But she roused herself at her mother’s voice and caress and drew together her strength to say, “Mother....” The voice was a murmur. “Mother! The snake... clutched me so tightly... that I can’t... hug you any more.... But the snake... doesn’t matter.... The shame.... I was naked.... They were all looking at me.... Mother... am I still a virgin even if... even if the men... saw me... like that...? Am I still pleasing to Jesus...?”
“You are dressed in your martyrdom, my daughter. I tell you: you are more pleasing to Him than before....”
“Yes ...but...cover me, Mother.... I would not like to be seen any more.... A robe for mercy’s sake....”
“Don’t get upset, my darling.... Here you are. Mother is placing herself here and concealing you.... I cannot look for a dress for you any more... because... I’m dying.... All praise for Je - ” And the women threw herself over her daughter’s body with a great gush of blood and, after a moan, remained motionless. Dead? Certainly at the point of her final breaths.
“My mother is dying.... Hasn’t any priest survived to give her peace...?” asked the girl, forcing her voice.
“I am still alive. If you carry me...,” said an old man whose belly was completely open from a corner....
“Who can take Cletus to Christine and Clementine?” several people asked.
“Maybe I can, since I’ve got good hands and am still strong. But I would have to be led because the lion tore out my eyes,” said a dark, tall, sturdy young man.
“I’ll help you to walk, O Decimus,” replied a young who was slightly wounded, one of those least harmed.
“My brother and I will help you to carry Cletus,” two robust fellows in the flower of manhood, also only slightly wounded, said.
“May God reward all of you,” said the old priest with his belly torn open as they transported him cautiously. And once laid down beside the martyred woman, he prayed over her, and, in agony as he was, he still managed to commend to God the soul of a man who, with his legs stripped of flesh, was bleeding to death at his side. And he asked the blind man who had brought him if he knew anything about Quirinus.
“He died at my side. The panther opened his throat at the start. “
“The beasts act quickly at the beginning. Then they get sated and just play,” said a young man slowly bleeding to death not far away.
“Too many Christians for too few beasts,” remarked an old man who with a piece of cloth was plugging the wound which had opened his side without damaging his heart.
“They do it deliberately. To enjoy a new spectacle later. They are certainly thinking about it now...,” observed a man holding up his left forearm - nearly torn off by the bite of a beast - with his right hand.
A shudder ran through the Christians.
The young Christine moaned, “Not the snakes! It’s too horrible!”
“It’s true. It crawled over me, licking my face with its clammy tongue.... Oh, I preferred the blow of the claw that opened my chest but killed the snake to its chilliness. Oh!” And a woman raised her wavering, bloodied hands to her face.
“And yet you are old. The snake was reserved for the virgins.”
“They satirized our mysteries. First Eve seduced by the serpent, then the early days of the world: all the animals.”
“That’s it. The pantomime of the earthly Paradise.... The director of the Circus was rewarded for it,” said a young man.
“The snakes, after crushing many of the women, hurled themselves on us until they opened to the beasts and there was combat.”
“They sprinkled oil on us, and the snakes fled from us as prey for food.... What will become of us now? I’m thinking of the nakedness...,” moaned a young woman hardly more than a girl. “Help me, Lord! My heart is wavering....”
“I trust in Him....”
“I would like Severus to come, for the child....”
“Is your son alive?” asked a very young woman weeping over what had been her son and was now a formless fistful of flesh: a little trunk, just a trunk, with no head or members.
“He is alive and unwounded. I put him behind my back. The beast clawed me. And yours?”
“His little head with slight curls, his little heavenly eyes, his little cheeks, hands like flowers, and tiny feet barely learning to walk are now in the belly of a lioness.... Ah, she was female and surely knows what it is to be a mother and had no mercy on me...!”
“I want Mommy! I want Mommy! She was left with Father over there on the ground.... And I feel bad. Mommy would make my tummy get better…!” A child aged six or seven whose abdominal wall had been clearly ripped open by a bite or clawing and who was quickly nearing death was weeping.
“You will now go to Mommy. Your brothers, the angels of heaven, will take you there, little Linus. Don’t cry this way....” A young woman, sitting down at his side, comforted him and caressed him with her less wounded hand. But the child was suffering on the hard floor and trembling, and the woman, helped by a man, took him onto her knees and held him there and rocked him to sleep that way.
“Where is your father?” Cletus asked the two brothers who had carried him together to the blinded man.
“He became food for the lion. Right before our eyes. While the beast was already biting the nape of his neck, he said, ‘Persevere.’ He said no more because his head was torn off....”
“Now he is speaking from Heaven. Blessed Crispianus!”
“Blessed brothers! Pray for us.”
“For the final struggle!”
“For final perseverance.”
“Out of love for our brothers and sisters.”
“Do not fear. Already perfect in love, to the point where the Lord wanted them in the first martyrdom, they are now most perfect because they are alive in Heaven and know and reflect the Perfection of the Most High Lord. Their remains, which we left in the arena, are just remains. Like the clothes they took away from us. But they are in Heaven. Their remains are lifeless. But they are alive. Alive and active. They are with us. Do not fear. Do not be concerned about how you will die. Jesus said, ‘Do not be concerned about earthly things. Your Father knows what you need.’ He knows your will and your resistance. He knows everything and will help you. A little more patience, O brothers and sisters. And then there will be peace. Heaven is conquered with patience and violence. Patience in pain. Violence towards our human fears. Crush them. It is the hellish Enemy’s trap to tear you away from the Life of Heaven. Reject fears. Open your hearts to complete trust. Say, ‘Our Father who is in the Heavens will give us our daily bread of fortitude because He knows we want his Kingdom and are dying for it, forgiving our enemies.’ No, I said a sinful word. There are no enemies for Christians. Those torturing us are our friends, like those loving us. Indeed, they are our friends twice over, for they are of use to us on earth to witness to our faith and dress us in the nuptial robe for the eternal banquet. Let us pray for our friends. For these friends of ours who do not know how much we love them. Oh, at this moment we are truly like Christ because we love our neighbors to the point of dying for them! We love. Oh, exactly! We have learned what it is to be gods. For Love is God, and those who love are like God, true children of God. In keeping with the Gospel, we love not those from whom we expect joys and remuneration, but those who strike us and strip us of life itself. We love with Christ, saying, ‘Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.’ With Christ we say, ‘It is right to carry out the sacrifice because we have come to carry it out and want it to be carried out.’ With Christ we say to the survivors,
‘Now you are grieving. But your sorrow will be turned into joy when you understand we are in Heaven. From Heaven we will bring you the peace in which we dwell.’ With Christ we say, ‘When we have gone away, we shall send the Paraclete to carry out his mysterious works in the hearts of those who did not understand us and persecuted us because they did not understand us.’ With Christ we entrust our spirit not to men, but to the Father so that He will support it with his love in the new trial. Amen.’ Old Cletus, with his belly torn open, dying, spoke with such a strong, secure voice that a healthy man could not equal it. He transfused his heroic spirit into everyone, to the point where a gentle song rose from those tortured creatures....
“Where is my wife?” asked a voice from the corridor, interrupting the song.
“Severus! My husband! The child is alive! I saved him for you! But you have come just in time... for I am dying. Take him, take our Marcellinus!”
The man came forward, bent over, embraced his dying wife, and took the child from her trembling hand. And the two mouths, which had loved each other in holy fashion, joined one last time in a single kiss placed on the innocent little head.
“Cletus.... Bless me.... I am dying....” The woman really seemed to have halted life until the arrival of her husband. She now sank into a death rattle in the arms of her husband, to whom she murmured, “Go, go... for the child’s sake... to Puden –” Death cut off her words....
“Peace be with Anitia,” said Cletus.
“Peace!” responded all.
The husband gazed at her, lying at his feet, bloodless, lacerated.... Tears fell from his eyes upon the face of the dead woman. He then said, “Remember me, O my faithful wife...!” He then turned to his elderly father-in-law: “I will take her to Titus’ vineyard. Caius and Sostenutus are here outside with the stretcher.”
“Will they let you go through?”
“Yes. Those with relatives among the living will have burial....”
“With money?”
“With money... and without it, too. Anyone who wants to can come to gather the dead and say good-bye to the living. They thus hope that the sight of the martyrs will weaken those who are still free and convince them not to become Christians, and they hope our words... will weaken you. Those without relatives will go to be slaughtered.... But our deacons will look for their remains during the night....”
“Are they perhaps preparing a new martyrdom?”
“Yes, that is why they let the relatives through, and for this reason, too, the martyrs will be buried at night. They will be busy with the spectacle....”
“At such a late hour? What sort of spectacle at night?”
“Yes, what spectacle?” ,
“The stake. When it’s completely dark....”
“The stake...! Oh...!”
“For those who hope in the Lord the flames will be like the sweet dew of the dawn. Remember the young men Daniel speaks about.262 They went singing amidst the flames. The flame is beautiful! It purifies and dresses in light. The filthy beasts do not. The slippery serpents do not. The indecent stares at the bodies of the virgins do not. The flame! If there is a remnant of sin in you, let there be the flame of the stake, like the fire of Purgatory. A brief purgatory and then, dressed in light, we go to God. To God – Light - we shall go! Fortify your hearts. They sought to be light for the pagan world. Let the fires of the stake be the beginning of the Light we shall give to this world of darkness,” Cletus continued.
There are heavy, hobnailed footfalls in the corridor. “Decimus, are you still alive?” asked two soldiers appearing in the room.
“Yes, companions. Alive. And to speak to you about God. Come. Because I cannot come to you, because I’ll never see the light again.”
“Unfortunate!” the two said.
“No. Fortunate. I am happy. I no longer see the horrible things in the world. The allurements of the flesh and of gold can no longer tempt me by entering through my eyes. In the darkness of temporary blindness I am already seeing the Light. I see God...!”
“But don’t you know that in a short while you will be burned? Don’t you know that because we love you we asked to see you, to have you escape if you were still alive?”
“Escape? Do you hate me so much that you want to take Heaven away from me? You weren’t like that in the thousand battles we fought side by side for the Emperor. We then spurred each other on to be heroes. And now you, while I fight for an Eternal Emperor, immense in his Power, advise me to be base? The stake? And wouldn’t I have willingly died amidst the flames during the assaults on an enemy city, provided I could serve the Emperor and Rome - a man, like me, and a city which exists today and is gone tomorrow? And now that I’m assaulting the most authentic Enemy to serve God and the Eternal City, where I will reign with my Lord, do you want me to fear the flames?”
The two soldiers looked at each other in astonishment.
Cletus spoke again, “The martyrs are the only heroes. Their heroism is eternal. Their heroism is holy. With their heroism they do not harm anyone. They do not emulate the Stoics, with arid forms of stoicism, or the cruel, with their useless, iniquitous acts of violence. He does not steal treasures. He does not usurp powers. They give. They give what is their own. Their wealth.... Their strength.... Their lives.... They are generous ones stripping themselves of everything in order to give. Imitate them. Supine servants of a cruel one who orders you to cause death and encounter death, pass over to Life, to serve Life and serve God. When the intoxication of battle has subsided, when the signal imposes silence on the field, have you ever felt the joy that you feel is in your companion? No. Weariness, nostalgia, the fear of death, and the nausea of blood and acts of violence.... Here... look! Here people die and sing. Here people die and smile. For we will not die, but live. We do not know Death, but Life, the Lord Jesus.”
Those two muscular fellows who had come at the beginning with torches entered again. Two other men, pompously dressed, are with them. The torches held aloft by the two were smoking. The others who were with them bent over to observe the bodies.... “Dead.... This one, too.... She is in agony.... The boy is already ice cold.... The old man will soon die.... This one...? The snake crushed her ribs. Look - there is already pink foam on her lips...,” they advised one another.
“I’d say... we should let them die here.”
“No. The game has already been scheduled. The Circus is filling up again....”
“The others from the jails would be enough.”
“Too few!” Proculus was unable to manage the masses. Too many to the lions. Too few for the stakes....”
“That’s the way it is.... What should we do?”
“Wait.” Someone stepped into the middle of the room and said, “Whoever among you is less wounded must stand up.”
About twenty people got up.
“Can you walk? Remain steady on your feet?”
“We can.”
“You’re blind,” they said to Decimus.
“I can be guided. Do not deprive me of the stake, since I imagine you’re thinking of this,” said Decimus.
“Of this. And do you want the stake?”
“I ask for it as a grace. I am a faithful soldier. Look at the scars on my limbs. As a reward for my long, faithful service to the Emperor, give me the stake.”
“If you love the Emperor so much, why are you betraying him?”
“I am not betraying either the Emperor or the Empire, for I am not performing acts against their well-being. But I serve the true God, who is the God-Man and the Only One worthy to be served to the point of death.”
“O Cassianus, with hearts like yours torments are useless. I am telling you so. We do nothing but cover ourselves with purposeless cruelty...,” said a superintendent of the Circus to his companion.
“Maybe it’s true. But the god Caesar....”
“And let it be! You that walk, come out of here! Wait for us alongside the exits. We’ll give you new clothes.”
The martyrs said good-bye to those remaining. A young man knelt down to be blessed by his mother. A girl with her blood appended a little cross, as if it were chrism, on the forehead of her mother, who was leaving her to go to the stake. Decimus embraced his two fellow soldiers. An old man kissed his dying daughter and set off securely. All of them had themselves blessed by the priest Cletus before going out.... The steps of those about to die drifted away in the corridor.
“Are you staying here?” the superintendents asked the two soldiers.
“Yes, we’re staying.”
“What for? It’s... dangerous. They corrupt faithful citizens.”
The two soldiers shrugged their shoulders.
The superintendents went off as gravediggers entered with stretchers to carry away the dead. There was some confusion because with the gravediggers there were also some relatives of the dead and the dying, and tears and farewells between them and those barely surviving. The two soldiers took advantage of it to say to a boy, “Pretend you’re dead. We’ll take you to safety.”
“Would you betray the Emperor by saving yourselves when he places trust in you for his glory?”
“Of course not, lad.”
“And neither do I betray my God, who died for me on the Cross.”
The two soldiers, literally amazed, asked each other, “But who gives them so much strength?” And then, with their elbows resting against the wall to hold up their heads, they remained observing pensively.
The superintendents came back with slaves and stretchers. They said, “There are still too few of you for the stake. The less wounded should at least sit up.”
The less wounded...! All of them were more or less in mortal agony. And they could no longer sit up. But the voices implored, “Me! Me! Provided you carry me....”
Another eleven were chosen....
“Blessed are you! Pray for me, Maria! Go to God, Placidus! Remember me, O Mother! My son, call my soul quickly! My husband, may dying be sweet for you...! The greetings crossed....
The stretchers were carried away.
“Let us support the martyrs with our prayer. Let us offer the twofold pain of our members and our hearts, excluded from martyrdom because of them. Our Father....” Cletus, who was fearfully livid and dying, gathered up his strength to say the Our Father.
Someone entered, panting. He saw the two soldiers. He retroceded. He held back the cry about to burst from his mouth.
“You can speak, man. We won’t betray you. We, soldiers of Rome, ask to be soldiers of Christ.”
“The blood of the martyrs fertilizes the sod!” exclaimed Cletus. And, turning to the man who had just arrived, he asked, “Do you have the mysteries?”
“Yes, I was able to give them to the others a moment before they were taken into the arena. Here they are!”
The soldiers looked in amazement at the purple bag the man took out from close to his chest.
“Soldiers. You ask us where we find strength. Here is the strength! This is the Bread of the strong. This is God, who enters to live in us. This....”
“Quick! Quick, O Father! I am dying.... Jesus.... And I will die happy! Virgin, martyr, and happy!” cried out Christine, gasping in the agonies of suffocation.
Cletus hurried to break the bread and give it to the young woman, who became calmly recollected, closing her eyes.
“For me, too... and then... call the Circus servants. I want to die at the stake...,” gurgled a boy with his shoulders torn to pieces and his cheek open from his temple to his bleeding throat.
“Can you swallow?”
“I can! I can. I did not ever move or speak in order not to die... before the Eucharist. I hoped.... Now....”
The priest gave him a crumb of the consecrated Bread. And the boy tried to swallow. But he could not manage to. One soldier, feeling pity, bent over and held up his head while the other, having found an amphora in a corner with a drop of water in the bottom, tried to help him swallow, pouring the water drop by drop between his lips.
In the meantime Cletus broke the Sacred Species and gave them to those nearest him. He then asked the soldiers to carry him to distribute the Eucharist to the dying. He then had himself brought again to the place where he had been and said, “May Our Lord Jesus Christ reward you for your mercy.”
The little boy struggling to swallow the Eucharist briefly panted and twisted.... Moved by mercy, a soldier took him in his arms. But as he did so, a stream of blood issued from the wound in his neck and bathed his shining lorica. “Mommy! Heaven.... Lord.... Jesus....” The little body yielded.
“He is dead.... He is smiling....”
“Peace to little Fabius!” said Cletus, who was growing paler and paler.
“Peace!” sighed the dying.
The two soldiers spoke together. One then said, “Priest of the true God, end your life introducing us into your militia.”
“Not mine.... Jesus Christ’s.... But ...we cannot.... One...must first be a catechumen....”
“No. We know that in the event of death Baptism is given.”
“You are... healthy......” The old man gasped....
“We are dying because.... With a God like yours, who makes you so holy, why should anyone remain to serve a corrupt man? We want the glory of God. Baptize us: I, Fabius, like the little martyr, and my companion, Decimus, like our glorious fellow soldier. And then we will go to the stake. What good is life in the world when your Life has been understood?”
“There is no more water.... No liquid....” Cletus used his trembling hand as a cup and gathered the blood dripping from his atrocious wound: “Kneel down.... I baptize you, O Fabius, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.... I baptize you, O Decimus, in the name of the... Father... and of the Son... and of the Holy... Spirit.... The old priest had concluded his mission, his suffering, and his life.... He was dead....
The two soldiers looked at him.... They looked for some time at those who were slowly, serenely dying... smiling in the midst of agony, enraptured by the Eucharistic ecstasy. “Come, Fabius. Let’s not wait a moment longer. With such examples, the way is sure! Let us go and die for Christ!” And they speedily ran off down the corridor to encounter martyrdom and glory.
The moans in that place became weaker and weaker and less and less numerous.... The uproar which had been heard at the outset returned from the Circus. The crowd rumbled again, waiting for the spectacle.263
261 See the entry for January 29 in The Notebooks. 1944.
262 Daniel 3:19-90
263 We omit about seventeen handwritten pages containing Azariah’s commentaries on the Masses for the First Sunday in Advent (December 1, 1946), the Immaculate Conception, and the Second Sunday in Advent.