Cæcilianus

“ Could Cæcilianus leave himself to be tried and judged by these men, when he had such others before whom, if his case were argued, he could most easily prove his innocence? He could not have left himself in their hands even had he been a stranger recently ordained over the Church at Carthage, and consequently not aware of the power in perverting the minds of men, either worthless or unwise, which was then possessed by a certain Lucilla, a very wealthy woman, whom he had offended when he was a deacon, by rebuking her in the exercise of church discipline ”

“ Each bears in its bosom the record of the first Roman converts; each is rich in frescoes and inscriptions; each bears testimony to the fact that from the beginning the Roman Christians counted among them many of patrician and senatorial rank; we meet with the names of the Aurelii, Caecilii, Maximi Caecilii, of Praetextatus Caecilianus and Pomponius Grecinus, and of Cornelius, the first bishop to belong to a Roman gens, in the catacomb of Callistus ”

“ They decided in favour of the validity of the consecration of Cæcilianus; and a similar verdict was given by a council held at Arles, by direction of the Emperor, in the following year. The party of Majorinus then appealed to the personal judgment of the Emperor, which [Pg x] was likewise given against them, not without strong expressions of his anger at their pertinacity. This was followed by severe laws directed against their schism; but so far from crushing them, the attack seemed only to increase their enthusiasm and develope their resources. ”

“ At his baptism he assumed the name of his friend Cæcilius, and devoted himself, with all the energies of an ardent and vigorous mind, to the study and practice of Christianity.
His ordination and his elevation to the episcopate rapidly followed his conversion. With some resistance on his own part, and not without great objections on the part of older presbyters, who saw themselves superseded by his promotion, the popular urgency constrained him to accept the office of Bishop of Carthage (a.d. 248) , which he held until his martyrdom (a.d. 258) . ”

“ The whole nation of the Sicilians is present, and complains of this. They fly for protection to my good faith, which they have proved and long known; they entreat assistance for themselves from you and from the laws of the Roman people through my instrumentality; they desire me to be their defender in these their calamities; they desire me to be the avenger of their injuries, the advocate of their rights, and the pleader of their whole cause. 12Will you, O Quintus Caecilius, say this, that I have not approached the cause at the request of the Sicilians? ”

“ Secundus and the Numidian bishops answered by excommunicating him and his party, and ordaining as bishop the reader Majorinus, a member of Lucilla's household.
The church of N. Africa now became a prey to schism. The party of Caecilian broke off from that of Majorinus, and the Christian world was scandalized by fulminations, excommunications, invectives, charges, and countercharges. Both parties confidently anticipated the support of the state; but Constantine, now emperor of this part of the Roman world, took the side of the Caecilianists. ”

“ Acquaintances and friends met there, discussed the news, expressed surprise at the slow arrival of the post from Rome, one of the chief stations for news being placed at Verulam, talked gossip and scandal, as is the custom with unoccupied women of every rank and every nation, in that time, as in our own.
Cæcilia was accounted beautiful, and a person of distinction. She was one of the leaders of fashion, and her cosmetics and perfumes were the admiration of her friends, and the envy of her enemies.
Perhaps the word “enemy” is too strong a word to use. ”

“ Well, what am I to do? Could I turn Cilicia into an Aetolia or a Macedonia? Let me tell you this, that with an army such as mine, and in a place like this, such a big business was impossible. You shall have it all en abrégé; as you agreed in your last letter to take it. You know about my arrival at Ephesus, for you have congratulated me on my enthusiastic reception on that day, which gave me as much pleasure as anything ever did in my life. ”

“ If you are near Macedonia, there is Philippi....Crossing to Asia, you get Ephesus....Close to Italy you have Rome, from which comes to us (in Africa) our authority,” etc. I abridge, but do not alter the sense. [25] Here, then, we find what Cyprian was writing about. The schismatics, on this principle, had rushed to the nearest apostolic See, viz., that of the Imperial City. Cyprian recognises his claims on its bishop; Rome being the source of his own ordination, and the matrix of the Carthaginian church. ”

“ She married the emperor Claudius, who, wearied with her misconduct, cited her to appear before him and reply to the accusations which were brought against her, on which she attempted to destroy herself, but failing to do so, was slain by one of the tribunes who had been sent to summon her.
Metel ́li. The surname of the family of the Cæcilii at Rome, the most noted of whom are—a general who defeated the Achæans, took Thebes, and invaded Macedonia; Quintus Cæcilius, rendered famous by his successes against Jugurtha, the king of Numidia ”

“ CECILIA, SAINT, in the Catholic Church the patron saint of music and of the blind. Her festival falls on the 22nd of November. It was long supposed that she was a noble lady of Rome 594 who, with her husband and other friends whom she had converted, suffered martyrdom, c. 230, under the emperor Alexander Severus. The researches of de Rossi, however (Rom. sott. ii. 147) , go to confirm the statement of Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers (d. 600) , that she perished in Sicily under Marcus Aurelius between 176 and 180. ”

“ This particular humble way to greatness is now out of fashion, but yet every ambitious person is still in some sort a Roman candidate. He must feast and bribe, and attend and flatter, and adore many beasts, though not the beast with many heads. Catiline, who was so proud that he could not content himself with a less power than Sylla's, was yet so humble for the attaining of it, as to make himself the most contemptible of all servants, to be a public bawd for all the young gentlemen of Rome whose hot lusts, and courages, and heads, he thought he might make use of. ”

“ His only hope was in Caius Antonius; who being in age the middle one between his two brothers, rivalled both of them in vices. He hastened away as if he were being driven away by the senate into Macedonia, not as if he were prohibited from proceeding thither. What a storm, O ye immortal gods! what a conflagration! what a devastation! what a pestilence to Greece would that man have been, if incredible and godlike virtue had not checked the enterprise and audacity of that frantic man. What promptness was there in Brutus's conduct! what prudence! what valour! ”

“ An active and unscrupulous man like Catiline, once possessed of the consulship, would have been able to help forward the long-cherished schemes of the party, and if at the same time he could have found means to shake off the burden of his debts and to provide for himself in the future, he might easily have been induced to confine his operations within the limits prescribed by his more sober coadjutors. Crassus and Cæsar could have kept Catiline quiet by flinging him a rich province to worry, just as Cicero converted Catiline's associate Caius Antonius by the gift of Macedonia. ”

“ Ingenious as he is, he will plead against me as if he were aware that his own ability is to same extent put on its trial. 45But as for you, O Caecilius, I think that I see already how he will play with you, how he will bandy you about; how often he will give you power and option of choosing which alternative you please,—whether a thing were done or not, whether a thing be true or false; and whichever side you take will be contrary to your interest. What a heat you will be in, what bewilderment! what darkness, O ye immortal gods! will overwhelm the man, free from malice as he is. ”

“ He engaged too, in war, so far as to give a defeat to the banditti who infested Mount Amanus, for which he was saluted by his army Imperator. To Caecilius, the orator, who asked him to send him some panthers from Cilicia, to be exhibited on the theater at Rome, he wrote, in commendation of his own actions, that there were no panthers in Cilicia, for they were all fled to Caria, in anger that in so general a peace they had become the sole objects of attack. On leaving his province, he touched at Rhodes, and tarried for some length of time at Athens, longing much to renew his old studies. ”

“ If you dare to say that which Caius Verres, whose enemy you are pretending to be, wishes especially to be believed,—that the Sicilians did not make this request to me,—you will in the first place be supporting the cause of your enemy, against whom it is considered that no vague presumption, but that an actual decision has been come to, in the fact that has become notorious, that all the Sicilians have begged for me as their advocate against his injuries. ”

“ We might then be led to suppose that it was in consequence of this grant made by Constantine solely to Cæcilian and the clergy under him that the Donatists decided to appeal to the emperor, his treatment of all who were opposed to Cæcilian showing them that he had heard reports of them by no means to their advantage, and thus impelling them to try and set themselves right in his eyes and in the eyes of the world by a public investigation of their cause. ”

“ Cilicia was a province of considerable extent, including, as it did, the south-eastern portion of Asia Minor, together with the island of Cyprus. The position of its governor was made more anxious by the neighborhood of Rome's most formidable neighbors, the Parthians, who but two years before had cut to pieces the army of Crassus. Two legions, numbering twelve thousand troops besides auxiliaries, were stationed in the province, having attached to them between two and three thousand cavalry. ”

“ The old capital of Cilicia is, of truth, a city of a wonderful historic past. But among all her proud memories those which have made her best known throughout the ages and which will endure the longest are not those of her abounding wealth and luxury, her superb monuments and palaces and temples, long in ruins; not those that clustered around her poets and philosophers and made her a favored sanctuary of the Muses; not those of her schools and gymnasia and her one-time eminence as the rival of Athens and Alexandria as the home of learning and culture ”

“ He lays the chief stress upon the unity of God and the absurdities of pagan polytheism and philosophy. There is no argument based upon the crucifixion or the resurrection of Christ, no argument that is strictly Christian. There is no appeal to faith or [Pg 246] to love, but only to reason, and the arguments are not drawn from the Bible, but from the works of pagan philosophers, especially Cicero’s De Natura Deorum and Seneca’s writings, or from the experiences of human life. When Octavius has finished, Cæcilius declares that he is convinced and the friends separate. ”

“ What a doleful life for the lovely maiden—a priestess—no marriage for her, no love, no freedom. I would rather be buried at once in one of the subterranean places they tell us so much of.”
“My daughter is of tender years,” said Cæcilia. “She will at present only be educated under the care of her father’s aunt—the noble Terentia Rufilla. The hall of the Vestals is no mean home. They have everything that is meet for the children of noble Romans. ”

“ It is a powerful story of the conspiracy of Catiline against the Roman republic in 63 B. C. The character of Catiline is portrayed with masterful strokes, while those of Lentulus, Cethegus, and other conspirators, are also well-done. Cicero, Cato, and the young Julius Caesar, also appear in a natural light, though of these three, only Cicero is made to play an important part. Scenes in the Senate and in the houses of the [78] nobility are life-like, yet not over-done. The author has succeeded admirably in portraying real men and women, their thoughts, desires and passions. ”

“ Some thirty-five other books of letters were known to antiquity, e.g. to Caesar, to Pompey, to Octavian and to his son Marcus.
The collection includes nearly one hundred letters written by other persons. Thus, the eighth Book ad Fam. consists entirely of letters from Caelius to Cicero when in Cilicia. When writing to Atticus Cicero frequently sent copies of letters which he had received. There is a great variety in the style not only of Cicero’s correspondents, but also of Cicero himself. Caelius writes in a breezy, school-boy style; the Latinity of Plancus is Ciceronian in character ”

“ But, without a divine revelation, reason only, as it were, casts a wishful glance over into another world.—It is matter of fact, that the wisest and best among the learned Greeks and Romans rather hoped, than believed, that there will be a future state—Cicero, the prince of Roman Eloquence, who was at once an orator, a moralist, a philosopher, and theologian, in one of his learned works, sums up all that the most celebrated philosophers of his own time, and earlier days, had said or written on the grand subject of the immortality of the soul. ”

“ There was a large gens of this name, famous and honourable, though plebeian; but rather remarkably, the feminine form has always been of more note than the masculine. As has been before said, Caia Cæcilia is said to have been the real name of Tanaquil, the model Roman matron, patroness of all other married dames; and who has not heard of the tomb of Cæcilia Metella? But the love and honour of the Roman ladies has passed on to another Cæcilia, a Christian of the days of Alexander Severus, a wife, though vowed to virginity, and a martyr singing hymns to the last. ”