Flavius Agricola.52 Flavius, whose image reclined full length with a wine cup on the lid, advised through an inscription:
Mix the wine, drink deep, wreathed in flowers, and do not refuse to pleasure pretty girls. When death comes, earth and fire devour all.53
The priests and workmen, horrified by the discovery of a pagan libertine rather than a saint beneath the basilica’s main altar, immediately dumped portions of the sarcophagus into the Tiber, sealed the site, and kept the inscription secret in the Vatican Library. This was, after all, the notorious era of the “fig leaf campaign,” when nude portions of Michelangelo’s The Last Judgment were painted over or covered and fig leaves painted over ancient Roman statues in the Vatican.
Periodic later excavations likewise found pagan graves rather than saints, suggesting the horrifying possibility that the great seat of Christianity rested not on the tomb of saints, but on the graves of pagans. As mentioned earlier, Protestant leaders such as Luther questioned whether Peter had ever come to Rome at all.54 They denounced as frauds the great basilica and the papacy itself, which claimed to be descended from Peter.
In 1939, the long sleep of two millennia was about to end. In February of that year, at his specific request, Pope Pius XI was buried in grottos under the altar of St. Peter’s, alongside Emperor Otto II of Germany, King James III of England,55 Queen Christina of Sweden,56 and many other popes and kings. The Church determined not only to honor his wish to be buried in the grottos, but also to surround the grave with a chapel.
Because the grottos had low ceilings, it was decided to lower the floor to create the chapel. Digging almost immediately uncovered beneath the floor shockingly beautiful, brightly colored, and vivid mortuary murals of cranes, flowers, dolphins, pygmies, and even Venus rising from the sea.57 After first finding the elaborate tomb of a consul’s daughter, the diggers came upon the grave of a young and clearly beloved Christian woman named Aemilia Gorgania.58 She had been a twenty-eight-year-old wife, famous in Rome around A.D. 150 for her beauty and innocence. She was surrounded by Christian inscriptions including one in early Latin reading, “Dormit in pace” (“rests in peace”)59 together with a drawing of a woman drawing water from a well (a familiar early Christian motif for the refreshment of heaven, which also represented the story of the Samaritan woman — Christ’s unlikely first messenger to a Samaritan village). Next to her were the words “sweet souled Gorgania.” In a short time, other astounding discoveries of bejeweled Romans and tombs were made in the Necropolis. The work was halted and Pius XII informed of the discoveries.
Pius XII now confronted a difficult decision — namely, whether to continue to excavate under the foundations, possibly proving once and for all that Peter was not buried there, or to cease the digging as in 1626, treating the excavation as if it never happened and sealing any records in the Vatican Library. Pius XII made the incredibly brave decision to pursue the excavation. Unlike the excavators in 1626, Pius XII chose to pursue the truth. The search for the Apostle had begun, in the dark, early days of World War II. It would not end for nearly seventy-five years.
Chapter Six
Pius’s Gamble
The history of human institutions is a record of ephemeral lives, often with violent ends. The Golden Age of Athens, which gave birth to our greatest sculptures, as well as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, ended in the bloodbath of Syracuse and the Peloponnesian Wars in less than one hundred years. The long reign of Rome and the most long-lasting of Chinese and Egyptian Dynasties never reached or barely survived one thousand years. In the entire history of man, only two human institutions approach continuous existence and succession for more than two thousand years: the Japanese Imperial Succession and the papacy.
To approximately 1.2 billion human beings today, the pope is both supreme in all matters relating to the Church and infallible when, as pope, he promulgates teaching on matters involving faith and morals. Why is Rome the “headquarters” for Catholicism? On first impression, it seems an unlikely choice. Its first and most significant contact with Christianity was the criminal condemnation and crucifixion of Christ by a Roman procurator. Rome has, at best, slight biblical connections — a letter from Saint Paul to the small Roman church, an account of Paul’s beheading there by Nero, and allusions to Rome as an evil Babylon. Moreover, in Christianity’s early years, Rome butchered Christians without mercy.
Ephesus, Antioch, or especially Jerusalem would seem to have a far better historical claim to be the capital of Christianity. Except for Peter. Fundamental to the legitimacy of the pope is the belief that Peter was made head of the Church by Christ, who gave him the keys to the kingdom of heaven: “And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Mt 16:18–19).
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
