The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 7, May, 1858 by Various
page 107 of 278 (38%)
page 107 of 278 (38%)
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addressed, but said, _Domine, quo vadis?_--"O Lord, whither goest
thou?" The Saviour, looking at him as he had looked but once before, replied, _Venio Romam iterum crucifigi_,--"I come to Rome to be crucified a second time"; and thereupon disappeared. Peter turned, reëntered the gate, and shortly after was crucified for his Lord's sake. His body, it is said, was laid away in a grave on the Vatican Hill, where his great church was afterwards built. And here we come upon another legend, which takes us out again on the Appian Way, to the place where now stands the Church of St. Sebastian. St. Gregory the Great relates in one of his letters, that, not long after St. Peter and St. Paul had suffered martyrdom, some Christians came from the East to Rome to find the bodies of these their countrymen, which they desired to carry back with them to their own land. They so far succeeded as to gain possession of the bodies, and to carry them as far as the second milestone on the Appian Way. Here they paused, and when they attempted to carry the bodies farther, so great a storm of thunder and lightning arose, that they were terrified, and did not venture to repeat their attempt. By this time, also, the Romans had become aware of the carrying off of the sacred bodies, and, coming out from the city, recovered possession of them. One of the old pictures on the wall of the portico of the ancient basilica of St. Peter's preserved a somewhat different version of the legend, representing the Romans as falling violently upon the Oriental robbers, and compelling them, with a storm of blows, to yield up the possession of the relics they were carrying away by stealth. But the legend went on further to state, that, on the spot where they thus had regained the bodies of their saints, the Romans made a deep hole in the ground, and laid them away within it very secretly. Here for |
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