Season of Septuagesima

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Season of Septuagesima



History of Septuagesima 

Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)

The Season of Septuagesima comprises the three weeks immediately preceding Lent. It forms one of the principal divisions of the Liturgical Year, and is itself divided into three parts, each part corresponding to a week: the first is called Septuagesima; the second, Sexagesima; the third, Quinquagesima.

All three are named from their numerical reference to Lent, which, in the language of the Church, is called Quadragesima, — that is, Forty, — because the great Feast of Easter is prepared for by the holy exercises of Forty Days. The words Quinquagesima, Sexagesima, and Septuagesima, tell us of the same great Solemnity as looming in the distance, and as being the great object towards which the Church would have us now begin to turn all our thoughts, and desires, and devotion.

Now, the Feast of Easter must be prepared for by a forty-days’ recollectedness and penance. Those forty-days are one of the principal Seasons of the Liturgical Year, and one of the most powerful means employed by the Church for exciting in the hearts of her children the spirit of their Christian Vocation. It is of the utmost importance, that such a Season of grace should produce its work in our souls, — the renovation of the whole spiritual life. The Church, therefore, has instituted a preparation for the holy time of Lent. She gives us the three weeks of Septuagesima, during which she withdraws us, as much as may be, from the noisy distractions of the world, in order that our hearts may be the more readily impressed by the solemn warning she is to give us, at the commencement of Lent, by marking our foreheads with ashes.

This prelude to the holy season of Lent was not known in the early ages of Christianity: its institution would seem to have originated in the Greek Church. The practice of this Church being never to fast on Saturdays, the number of fasting-days in Lent, besides the six Sundays of Lent, (on which, by universal custom, the Faithful never fasted,) there were also the six Saturdays, which the Greeks would never allow to be observed as days of fasting: so that their Lent was short, by twelve days, of the Forty spent by our Saviour in the Desert. To make up the deficiency, they were obliged to begin their Lent so many days earlier, as we will show in our next Volume.

The Church of Rome had no such motive for anticipating the season of those privations, which belong to Lent; for, from the earliest antiquity, she kept the Saturdays of Lent, (and as often, during the rest of the year, as circumstances might require,) as fasting days. At the close of the 6th century, St. Gregory the Great, alludes, in one of his Homilies,
to the fast of Lent being less than Forty Days, owing to the Sundays which come during that holy season. ” There are,” he says, “from this Day (the first Sunday of Lent) to the joyous Feast of Easter, six Weeks, that is, forty- two days. As we do not fast on the six Sundays, there are but thirty-six fasting days; * * * which we offer to God as the tithe of our year.” (from 16th Homily on the Gospels).

It was, therefore, after the pontificate of St. Gregory, that the last four days of Quinquagesima Week, were added to Lent, in order that the number of Fasting Days might be exactly Forty. As early, however, as the 9th century, the custom of beginning Lent on Ash Wednesday was of obligation in the whole Latin Church. All the manuscript copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary, which bear that date, call this Wednesday the In capite jejunii, that is to say, the beginning of the fast; and Amalarius, who gives us every detail of the Liturgy of the 9th century, tells us, that it was, even then, the rule to begin the Fast four days before the first Sunday of Lent. We find the practice confirmed by two Councils, held in that century. (Meaux, and Soissons) But, out of respect for the form of Divine Service drawn up by St. Gregory, the Church does not make any important change in the Office of these four days. Up to the Vespers of Saturday, when alone she begins the Lenten rite, she observes the rubrics prescribed for Quinquagesima Week.

Peter of Blois, who lived in the 12th century, tells us what was the practice in his days. He says: “All Religious begin the Fast of Lent at Septuagesima; the Greeks, at Sexagesima; the Clergy, at Quinquagesima; and the rest of Christians, who form, the Church militant on earth, begin their Lent on the Wednesday following Quinquagesima.” (Sermon xiii) The secular Clergy, as we learn from these words, were bound to begin the Lenten Fast somewhat before the laity; though it was only by two days, that is, on Monday, as we gather from the Life of St. Ulric, Bishop of Augsburg, written in the 10th century. The Council of Clermont, in 1095, at which Pope Urban the Second presided, has a decree sanctioning the obligation of the Clergy beginning abstinence from flesh-meat at Quinquagesima. This Sunday was called, indeed, Dominica carnis privii, and Camis privium Sacerdotum, that is, Priests’ Carnival Sunday — but the term is to be understood in the sense of the announcement being made, on that Sunday, of the abstinence having to begin on the following day. We shall find, further on, that a like usage was observed in the Greek Church, on the three Sundays preceding Lent. This law, which obliged the Clergy to these two additional days of abstinence, was in force in the 13th century, as we learn from a Council held at Angers, which threatens with suspension all Priests who neglect to begin Lent on the Monday of Quinquagesima Week.

This usage, however, soon became obsolete; and in the 15th century, the secular Clergy, and even the Monks themselves, began the Lenten Fast, like the rest of the Faithful, on Ash Wednesday.

There can be no doubt, but that the original motive for this anticipation, — which, after several modifications, was limited to the four days immediately preceding Lent, — was to remove from the Greeks the pretext of taking scandal at the Latins, who did not fast a full Forty days. Ratramnus, in his Controversy with the Greeks, clearly implies it. But the Latin Church did not think it necessary to carry her condescension further, by imitating the Greek ante-lenten usages, which originated, as we have already said, in the eastern custom of not fasting on Saturdays. (The Gallic an Liturgy had retained several usages of the Oriental Churches, to which it owed, in part, its origin: hence, it was not without some difficulty, that the custom of abstaining and fasting on Saturdays was introduced into Gaul. Until such time as the Churches of that country had adopted the Roman custom, in that point of discipline, they were necessitated to anticipate the Fast of Lent. The first Council of Orleans, held in the early part of the 6th century, enjoins the Faithful to observe, before Easter, Quadragesima, (as the Latins call Lent,) and not Quinquagesima, in order, says the Council, that unity of custom may be maintained. Towards the close of the same century, the fourth Council held in the same City, repeals the same prohibition, and explains the intentions of the making such an enactment, by ordering that the Saturdays during Lent should be observed as days of fasting. Previously to this, that is, in the years 511 and 541, the first and second Councils of Orange had combated the same abuse, by also forbidding the imposing on. the Faithful the obligation of commencing the Fast at Quinquagesima. The introduction of the Roman Liturgy into France, which was brought about by the zeal of Pepin and Charlemagne, finally established, in that country, the custom of keeping the Saturday as a day of penance; and, as we have just seen, the beginning Lent on Quinquagesima was not observed excepting by the Clergy. In the 13th century, the only Church in the Patriarchate of the West, which began Lent earlier than the Church of Rome, was that of Poland: its Lent opened on the Monday of Septuagesima, which was owing to the rites of the Greek Church being so much used in Poland. The custom was abolished, even for that country, by Pope Innocent the fourth, in the year 1248. – Cap. Hi duo. De consec. Dist. 1.)

Thus it was, that the Roman Church, by this anticipation of Lent by Four days, gave the exact number of Forty Days to the holy Season, which she had instituted in imitation of the Forty Days spent by our Saviour in the Desert. Whilst faithful to her ancient practice of looking on the Saturday as a day appropriate for penitential exercises, she gladly borrowed from the Greek Church the custom of preparing for Lent, by giving to the Liturgy of the three preceding weeks a tone of holy mournfulness. Even as early as the beginning of the 9th century, as we learn from Amalarius, the Alleluia and Gloria in excelsis Avere suspended in the Septuagesima Offices. The Monks conformed to the custom, although the Rule of St. Benedict prescribed otherwise. Finally, in the second half of the 11th century, Pope Alexander the Second enacted, that the total suspension of the Alleluia should be everywhere observed, beginning with the Vespers of the Saturday preceding Septuagesima Sunday. This Pope was but renewing a rule already sanctioned, in that same century, by Pope Leo the Ninth, and which was inserted in the body of Canon Law.

Thus was the present important period of the Liturgical Year, after various changes, established in the Cycle of the Church. It has been there upwards of a thousand years. Its name, Septuagesima (Seventy), expresses, as we have already remarked, a numerical relation to Quadragesima (the Forty Days); although, in reality, there are not seventy but
only sixty-three days from Septuagesima Sunday to Easter. We will speak of the mystery of the name, in the following Chapter. The first Sunday of Lent being called Quadragesima (Forty), each of the three previous Sundays has a name expressive of an additional ten: the nearest to Lent, Quinquagesima (Fifty); the middle one, Sexagesima (Sixty); the third, Septuagesima (Seventy).

As the season of Septuagesima depends upon the time of the Easter celebration, it comes sooner or later, according to the changes of that great Feast. The 18th of January and the 22nd of February are called the Septuagesima Keys, because the Sunday, which is called Septuagesima, cannot be earlier in the year, than the first, nor later than the second, of these two days.

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Season of Septuagesima
Taken from The Liturgical Year by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875)

Mystery of Septuagesima

The Season, upon which we are now entering, is expressive of several profound mysteries. But these mysteries belong not only to the three weeks, which are preparatory to Lent; they continue throughout the whole period of time, which separates us from the great Feast of Easter.

The number seven is the basis of all these mysteries. We have already seen how the Holy Church came to introduce the season of Septuagesima into her Calendar. Let us now meditate on the doctrine hid under the symbols of her Liturgy. And first, let us listen to St. Augustine, who thus gives us the clue to the whole of our Season’s mysteries. “There are two times,” says the Holy Doctor: “one which is now, and is spent in the temptations and tribulations of this life; the other which shall be then, and shall be spent in eternal security and joy. In figure of these, we celebrate two periods: the time ‘before Easter,’ and the time ‘ after Easter.’ That which is ‘ before Easter,’ signifies the sorrow of this present life; that which is ‘after Easter’ the blessedness of our future state. Hence it is, that we spend the first in fasting and prayer; and in the second, we give up our fasting, and give ourselves to praise.” (Enarrations; Psalm clviii).

The Church, the interpreter of the Sacred Scriptures, often speaks to us of two places, which correspond with these two times of St. Augustine.

These two places are Babylon and Jerusalem. Babylon is the image of this world of sin, in the midst whereof the Christian has to spend his years of probation; Jerusalem is the heavenly country, where he is to repose after all his trials. The people of Israel, whose whole history is bat one great type of the human race, was banished from Jerusalem and kept in bondage in Babylon.

Now, this captivity, which kept the Israelites exiles from Sion, lasted seventy years; and it is to express this mystery, as Alcuin, Amalarius, Ivo of Chartres, and all the great Liturgists tell us, that the Church fixed the number of Seventy for the days of expiation. It is true, there are but sixty-three days between Septuagesima and Easter; but the Church, according to the style so continually used in the Sacred Scriptures, uses the round number instead of the literal and precise one.

The duration of the world itself, according to the ancient Christian tradition, is divided into seven ages. The human race must pass through seven Ages before the dawning of the Day of eternal life. The first Age included the time from the creation of Adam to Noah; the second begins with Noah and the renovation of the earth by the Deluge, and ends with the vocation of Abraham; the third opens with this first formation of God’s chosen people, and continues as far as Moses, through whom God gave the Law; the fourth consists of the period between Moses and David, in whom the house of Juda received the kingly power; the fifth is formed of the years, which passed between David’s reign and the captivity of Babylon, inclusively; the sixth dates from the return of the Jews to Jerusalem, and takes us on as far as the Birth of our Saviour. Then, finally, comes the seventh Age; it starts with the rising of this merciful Redeemer, the Sun of Justice, and is to continue till the dread coming of the Judge of the living and the dead. These are the Seven great divisions of Time; after which, Eternity.

In order to console us in the midst of the combats, which so thickly beset our path, the Church, — like a beacon shining amidst the darkness of this our earthly abode, — shows us another Seven, which is to succeed the one we are now preparing to pass through. After the Septuagesima of mourning, we shall have the bright Easter with its Seven weeks of gladness, foreshadowing the happiness and bliss of Heaven. After having fasted with our Jesus, and suffered with him, the day will come when we shall rise together with him, and our hearts shall follow him to the highest heavens, and then after a brief interval, we shall feel descending upon us the Holy Ghost, with his Seven Gifts. The celebration of all these wondrous joys will take us Seven weeks, as the great Liturgists observe in their interpretation of the Rites of the Church: — the seven joyous weeks from Easter to Pentecost will not be too long for the future glad Mysteries, which, after all, will be but figures of a still gladder future, the future of eternity.

Having heard these sweet whisperings of hope, let us now bravely face the realities brought before us by our dear Mother the Church. We are sojourners upon this earth; we are exiles and captives in Babylon, that city which plots our ruin. If we love our country, — if we long to return to it, — we must be proof against the lying allurements of this strange land, and refuse the cup she proffers us, and with which she maddens so many of our fellow captives. She invites us to join in her feasts and her songs; but we must unstring our harps, and hang them on the willows that grow on her river’s bank, till the signal be given for our return to Jerusalem. (Psalm 115) She will ask us to sing’ to her the melodies of our dear Sion: but, how shall we, who are so far from home, have heart to sing the Song of the Lord in a strange Land ? (Psalm 136) No, — there must be no sign that we are content to be in bondage, or we shall deserve to be slaves for ever.

These are the sentiments wherewith the Church would inspire us, during the penitential Season, which we are now beginning. She wishes us to reflect on the dangers that beset us, — dangers which arise from our own selves, and from creatures. During the rest of the year, she loves to hear us chant the song of heaven, the sweet Alleluia! — but now, she bids us close our lips to this word of joy, because we are in Babylon. We are ‘pilgrims absent from our Lord; (2 Cor 5:6) — let us keep our glad hymn for the day of his return. We are sinners, and have but too often held fellowship with the world of God’s enemies ; let us become purified by repentance, for it is “written, that Praise is unseemly in the mouth of a sinner. (Ecclesiasticus 15:9)

The leading feature, then, of Septuagesima is the total suspension of the Alleluia, which is not to be again heard upon the earth, until the arrival of that happy day, when, having suffered death with our Jesus, and having been buried together with him, we shall rise again with him to a new life. (Col 2:12)

The sweet Hymn of the Angels, Gloria in excelsis Deo, which we have sung every Sunday since the Birth of our Saviour in Bethlehem, is also taken from us ; it is only on the Feasts of the Saints, which may be kept during the week, that we shall be allowed to repeat it. The night Office of the Sunday is to lose, also, from now till Easter, its magnificent Ambrosian Hymn, the Te Deum; and at the end of the Holy Sacrifice, the Deacon will no longer dismiss the Faithful with his solemn Ite, Missa est, but will simply invite them to continue their prayers in silence, and bless the Lord, the God of mercy, who bears with us, notwithstanding all our sins.

After the Gradual of the Mass, instead of the thrice repeated Alleluia, “which prepared our hearts to listen to the voice of God in the Holy Gospel, we shall hear but a mournful and protracted chant, called, on that account, the Tract.

That the eye, too, may teach us, that the Season we are entering on, is one of mourning, the Church will vest her Ministers, (both on Sundays and the days during the week, which are not Feasts of Saints,) in the sombre Purple. Until Ash Wednesday, however, she permits the Deacon to wear his dalmatic, and the Subdeacon his tunic ; but from that day
forward, they must lay aside these vestments of joy, for Lent will then have begun, and our holy Mother will inspire us with the deep spirit of penance, by suppressing everything of that glad pomp, which she loves, at other seasons, to bring into the Sanctuary of her God.

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Season of Septuagesima

Practice During Septuagesima 

The joys of Christmastide seem to have fled far from us. The forty days of gladness brought us by the Birth of our Emmanuel are gone. The atmosphere of holy Church has grown overcast, and we are warned that the gloom is still to thicken. Have we, then, for ever lost Him, we so anxiously and longingly sighed after, during the four slow weeks of our Advent? Has our divine Sun of Justice, that rose so brightly in Bethlehem, now stopped his course, and left our guilty earth?

Not so. The Son of God, the Child of Mary, has not left us. The Word was made Flesh in order that he might dwell among us. A glory, far greater than that of his Birth, when Angels sang their hymns, awaits him, and we are to share it with him. Only, he must win this new and greater glory by strange countless sufferings ; he must purchase it by a most cruel and ignominious death: and we, if we would have our share in the triumph of his Resurrection, must follow him in the Way of the Cross, all wet with the Tears and the Blood he shed for us.

The grave maternal voice of the Church will soon be heard, inviting us to the Lenten penance; but she wishes us to prepare for this laborious baptism, by employing these three weeks in considering the deep wounds caused in our souls by sin. True, — the beauty and loveliness of the Little Child, born to us in Bethlehem, are great beyond measure; but our souls are so needy, that they require other lessons than those He gave us of humility and simplicity.

Our Jesus is the Victim of the divine justice, and he has now attained the fulness of his age; the altar, on which he is to be slain, is ready: and since it is for us that he is to be sacrificed, we should at once set ourselves to consider, what are the debts we have contracted towards that infinite Justice, which is about to punish the Innocent One instead of us the guilty.

The mystery of a God becoming Incarnate for the love of his creature, has opened to us the path of the Illuminative Way; but we have not yet seen the brightest of its Light. Let not our hearts be troubled; the divine wonders we witnessed at Bethlehem are to be surpassed by those that are to grace the day of our Jesus’ Triumph: but, that our eye may contemplate these future mysteries, it must be purified by courageously looking into the deep abyss of our own personal miseries. God will grant us his divine light for the discovery; and if we come to know ourselves, to understand the grievousness of original sin, to see the malice of our own sins, and to comprehend, at least in some degree, the infinite mercy of God towards us, — we shall be prepared for the holy expiations of Lent, and for the ineffable joys of Easter.

The Season, then, of Septuagesima is one of most serious thought. Perhaps we could not better show the sentiments, wherewith the Church would have her children to be filled at this period of her year, than by quoting a few words from the eloquent exhortation, given to his people, at the beginning of Septuagesima, by the celebrated Ivo of Chartres. He spoke thus to the Faithful of the 11th century (from the 12th Sermon for Septuagesima):

“We know, says the Apostle, that every creature groaneth, and travaileth in pain even till now: and not only it, but ourselves, also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:22-23) The creature here spoken of is the soul, that has been regenerated, from the corruption of sin, unto the likeness of God: she groaneth within herself, at seeing herself made subject to vanity; she, like one that travaileth, is filled with pain, and is devoured by an anxious longing to be in that country, which is still so far off. It was this travail and pain that the Psalmist was suffering, when he exclaimed: Wo is one, that my sojourning is prolonged! (Psalm 119) Nay, that Apostle, who was one of the first members of the Church, and had received the Holy Spirit, longed to have, in all its reality, that adoption of the sons of God, which he  already had in hope; and he, too, thus exclaimed in his pain: I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. (Philippians 1:23) … During these days, therefore, we must do what we do at all seasons of the Year, — only, we must do it more earnestly and fervently: we must sigh and weep after our country, from which we were exiled in consequence of having indulged in sinful pleasures; we must redouble our efforts in order to regain it by compunction and weeping of heart. … Let us now shed tears in the way, that we may afterwards be glad in our country. Let us now so run the race of this present life, that we may make sure of the prize of the supernal vocation. (Philippians 3:14) Let us not be like imprudent wayfarers, forgetting our country, and preferring our banishment to our home. Let us not become like those senseless invalids, who feel not their ailments, and seek no remedy. We despair of a sick man, who will not be persuaded that he is in danger. No: let us run to our Lord, the Physician of eternal salvation. Let us show him our wounds, and cry out to him with all our earnestness: Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am weak: heal me, for my bones are troubled. (Psalm 6:3) Then, will he forgive us our iniquities, heal us of our infirmities, and satisfy our desire with good things.” (Psalm 102:3, 5)

From all this it is evident, that the Christian, who would spend Septuagesima according to the spirit of the Church, must make war upon that false security, that self-satisfaction, which are so common to effeminate and tepid souls, and produce spiritual barrenness. It is well for them, if these delusions do not insensibly lead them to the absolute loss of the true Christian spirit. He that thinks himself dispensed from that continual watchfulness, which is so strongly inculcated by our Divine Master, (Mark 13:37) is already in the enemy’s power. He that feels no need of combat and of struggle in order to persevere and make progress in virtue, (unless he have been honoured with a privilege, which is both rare and dangerous), should fear that he is not even on the road to that Kingdom of God, which is only to be won by violence. (Matthew 11:12) He that forgets the sins, which God’s mercy has forgiven him, should fear his being the victim of a dangerous delusion. (Ecclesiasticus 5:5) Let us, during these days, which we are going to devote to the honest unflinching contemplation of our miseries, give glory to our God, and derive, from the knowledge of ourselves, fresh motives of confidence in Him, who, in spite of all our wretchedness and sin, humbled himself so low as to become one of us, in order that he might exalt us even to union with Himself.

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The Station Churches of Septuagesima

NLM | January 9, 2020

The institution of the three Sundays before Lent, Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, is attributed to Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who reigned from 590 to 604. The plague which killed his predecessor, St Pelagius II, and lead to his election, was only one in a long series of disasters that befell the city of Rome and the Italian peninsula in the course of the sixth century. Constant warfare between the Goths, the Lombards and the Byzantines had brought to ruins much of the former Capital of the World, which in Gregory’s time was also largely abandoned. In the year 546, the Gothic king Totila had expelled most of the inhabitants from the city; small numbers of people returned, but the city would not be properly re-populated for centuries. The introit of the first of these Sundays, Septuagesima, reflects the turbulent and mournful age in which it was composed: “The groans of death have surrounded me, the pains of death have surrounded me, and in my tribulation I called upon the Lord, and he heard my voice from His holy temple.” The theme of calling upon the Lord in a time of tribulation is repeated frequently though the Masses of these Sundays.

The station churches of this pre-Lenten period comprise a series of visits to the tombs of the major patrons of Rome, invoking their aid and protection for the beleaguered city. On Septuagesima, the station is kept at the church of Saint-Lawrence-outside-the-Walls, built over the tomb of the famous deacon and martyr. On Sexagesima, the station is at Saint-Paul’s-outside-the-Walls, and on Quinquagesima at Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, both of which have the tombs of the Apostles for whom they are named under the main altar. On the following Sunday, the first of Lent, the station is at the cathedral of Rome, the Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior, commonly called Saint John in the Lateran. The stations of the pre-Lenten period therefore repeat those of the Easter octave in reverse order: Saint John on the Easter vigil, Saint Peter on Easter Monday, Saint Paul on Tuesday and Saint Lawrence on Wednesday. The station at Mary Major for the feast of the Purification, which often falls within the season of Septuagesima, corresponds to the same stational observance on Easter Sunday.

The epistles of the three Masses are chosen in reference to the station churches. On Septuagesima, St Paul compares the Christian life to the athletic contests of the ancient Romans: “but they contend for a corruptible crown, we for an incorruptible one.” (1 Cor. 9, 24 – 10, 5) From the earliest times, the martyrs have been called the ‘athletae – champions or combatants’ of Christ par excellence, and the word ‘athleta’ is used in countless liturgical Offices. The symbol of victory in the Roman athletic stadium, the palm branch, is still used as a symbol of martyrdom; this epistle is therefore fittingly read at the tomb of St Lawrence. Over the course of Lent, stations will be kept at four different churches dedicated to this most renowned among Rome’s many martyrs; a great many other churches and chapels, including the private chapel of the Papal household, were dedicated to him in the Middle Ages.

The entrance to the tomb of Saint Lawrence at San Lorenzo fuori le Mura

The epistle of Sexagesima is the longest Sunday epistle of the year. (2 Cor. 11, 19 – 12, 9) The collect of this Mass is one of two in the temporal cycle that refer to the Saint in whose honor the stational church is dedicated; it may have been borrowed from a group of collects originally used on the Commemoration of Saint Paul on June 30th, also celebrated with a station at his church. At the tomb of Saint Paul, the Church reads his lengthy apologia for his works as an Apostle, in which he recalls the sufferings he has undergone in his mission to proclaim the Gospel. In the Ambrosian rite, this same epistle is read on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul on June 29th; the church of Milan seems to have borrowed this reading from the Mass of Sexagesima.

Ss Peter and Paul, by El Greco; 1590-1600

On Quinquagesima, although the station is at St Peter’s, the epistle is not taken from either of his Biblical letters; rather, the so-called Hymn of Charity from the first Epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians is read. (chapter 13) The Vatican is not only the site of Saint Peter’s tomb, but also of his death in the circus of Caligula, in the area on the south side of the Basilica. An ancient tradition tells us that Peter was crucified upside-down at his own request, saying to the Roman executioners that he was unworthy to die in precisely the same manner as the Lord, and wished his cross to be turned so that he might look towards Heaven. This happened in fulfillment of the words of Christ to Peter, “thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another will gird thee, and lead thee where thou wouldst not.” This prophecy was given just after Peter had three times answered the question “Simon, do you love me?” with the answer, “Lord, you know that I love you”, rendering a threefold confession for his threefold denial, as Saint Augustine says. At the place where the sacred relics of the Prince of the Apostles are kept and venerated, it is his fellow Apostle and co-founder of the Roman Church who speaks of the love of God, for the sake of which St. Peter embraced his martyrdom, a stone’s throw away from his tomb.

These same three Roman patron saints, Peter, Paul and Lawrence, were also essential to the transformation of the heart of pagan Rome into a Christian sacred space. The main street of the Roman Forum was called the Via Sacra, the Sacred Way, because it passes by several of the most ancient and notable temples. Close to the Capitoline Hill, from which the great temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus looked down over the city, it comes very close to the Mamertine Prison, where important prisoners awaited judgment and execution. In 141 A.D., the Emperor Antoninus Pius built a new and imposing temple on the Via Sacra about half way through the Forum, in honor of his recently deceased and divinized wife, Faustina; when Antoninus died in 161, he was in due course divinized himself, and added to his wife’s temple.

Saint Justin Martyr and other early Church fathers knew of the tradition that Simon Magus, who sought to buy the power of the Holy Spirit from St. Peter (Acts 8), was in Rome at the same time as the Eternal City’s founding Apostles. The apocryphal Acts of St Peter tell the story that Simon sought to win the Emperor Nero to his teachings, which he would prove to be true by flying off a tower built in the Forum specifically for this purpose. As he was lifted up into the air by the agency of demons, Peter and Paul knelt on the street and prayed to God, whereon Simon was dropped, and soon after died of his injuries.

The Fall of Simon Magus, by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1461-62

The legend goes on to say that the enraged Nero arrested Peter and Paul and threw them into the Mamertine prison before their execution. There they converted the two wardens, Processus and Martinian, in whose acts it is told that St Peter caused a well to spring up from the ground so that he could baptize them. The site has been venerated as the place of the
Apostles’ imprisonment for many centuries, and pilgrims can still visit it to this day; a plaque near the door lists the famous Roman prisoners, such as King Jugurtha of Numidia, who were killed there, the saints who suffered and died within its walls, and the later saints who have come to venerate the site. On the opposite end of the Via Sacra, Pope St. Paul I built an oratory dedicated to Peter and Paul, nicknamed ‘ubi cecidit magus – where the magician fell.’ This oratory contained as its principal relic the stone upon which St. Peter knelt to pray for the defeat of Simon Magus and the vindication of the Christian faith. The oratory was later demolished, but the stone itself is preserved in the nearby church of Santa Maria Nuova.

(Photo courtesy of J.P. Sonnen.)

Some of the numerous churches in Rome dedicated to Saint Lawrence are connected with the events of his martyrdom, such as San Lorenzo in Panisperna, which is venerated as the place where he was killed by being grilled over a fire. A tradition of uncertain origin claims that the great deacon-martyr was tried and sentenced to death on the steps of the temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina. Sometime in the seventh or eighth century, the central part of this temple was complete rebuilt and transformed into a church, called San Lorenzo in Miranda.

The church of San Lorenzo in Miranda, within the temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina.

The Mamertine, the Oratory of Ss. Peter and Paul, and San Lorenzo in Miranda are not the first Christian sites in the Roman Forum. Indeed, the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian fronts on the Via Sacra, and was dedicated in 527 A.D., less than twenty years before the depopulation of the city. However, Cosmas and Damian, although highly venerated throughout the Christian world, were Arabians, not Romans, and are depicted as such in their church. The later churches discussed here are particularly important, partly because they are on the Via Sacra, but much more so because they are dedicated to three Roman saints, honoring Peter and Paul on either end of the Forum, and Saint Lawrence right in the middle. Regardless of the truth or falsehood of the legends with which they are associated, by the end of the eighth century, the Sacred Way itself had become sacred to Christ, and to the memory of some of His most illustrious and most Roman ‘athletae’.

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A reminder ...