The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1896-10-09
FOUNDING OF ST. PETERS.
A Little Oratory Built Over the Apostles
Tomb.

- oNS~OAy 49,
Tomb.
In the deep Mamertine prison, be-
hind the Tabulary of the Forum, it was
customary to put to death only political
INSIDERS, and their bodies were then
thrown down the Gemonian steps.
''Vixerunt," said Cicero, grimly, when
Catiline anG his fellow-conspirators lay
there dead; and perhaps the sword that
was to fall upon his own neck was even
then forged. The prison is still intact.
The blood of Catiline, of VercingetoriX,
and of Sejanus is on the rocky floor.
Men say that st. Peter was imprisoned
here. But because he was not of high
degree Nero's eXecutioners led him out
and across the Forum and over the Sub
lician bridge up to the heights of jan
iculus. He was then very old and
weak. SO that he could not carry his
cross, as condemned men were made to
do. When they had climbed more than
halfway up the height, seeing that he
could not walk much farther, they
crucified him. He said that he was not
worthy to suffer as the Lord had
suffered, and begged them to plant his
cross with the head downward in the
deep yellow sand. The executioners did
so. The Christians who had followed
were not many, and they stood apart,
weeping.
When he was dead, after much tor
ment, and the sentinel soldier had gone
away, they took the holy body, and
carried it along the hillside, and buried
it at night close against the long wall
of Nero's circus, on the north side, near
the place where they buried the martyrs
killed daily by Nero's wild beasts and in
other cruel ways. They marked the
spot, and went there often to pray.
After that, within two years, Nero fell
and perished miserably, scarcely able
to take his own life in order to escape
being beaten to death in the Forum. In
little more than a year there were four
emperors in Rome. Galba, Otho and
Eitellius followed one another quickly;
then came Vespasian, and then Titus,
with his wars in Palestine, and then
Domitian. At last, nearly 30 years
after the apostle had died on the Janicu-
1us, there was a bishop called Anacletus,
who had been ordained priest by St.
Peter himself.
The times being quieter then. this An
acletus built little oratory, very
small chapel, in which three or four
persons could kneel and pray over the
grave. An that was the beginning of
St. Peters church. But Anacletus died
a martyr too, and the bishops after him
all perished in the same way up to Euty-
chianus, whose name meaps something
like "the fortunate one" in barbarous
Greek-Latin, and who was indeed
fortunate, for he died a natural death.
But in the meantime certain Greeks
had tried to steal the holy body, so that
the Roman Christians carried it away
for 10 months to the catacombs of st.
Sebastian, after which they brought it
back again and laid it in it's place. And
again after that, when the new circus
was built by Elagabalus, they took it
once more to the same catacombs,
where it remained in safety for long
time.
Now came Constantine, in love with
tianity best, and made a famous edict
in Milan. And it is said that he laid the
deep foundations of the old church of
st. Peters, which afterward stood more
than 100 years. He built it over the
little oratory of Anacletus, whose chapel
stood where the saints body had lain,
under the nearest left-hand pillar of
the canopy that covers the high altar as
you go up from the door. Constan-
tines church was found on the south
side, within the lines of Nero's circus,
outside of it on the north side, and
parallel with its length. Most churches
are built with the aspe to the east, but
Constantine's, like the present basilica,
looked west, because from time i'm
memorable the bishop of Rome, when
consecrating, stood on the farther side
of the altar from the people, facing
them over It,. And the church was con-
secrated by Pope Sylvester l., in the
year 326.-Marion Crawford, In Century.