Page:The Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, Volume 1, 1854.djvu/201

 On the Martyrdom and Commemorations of St Hippolytus. 191 That ancient Feretory perished in the Revolution, but the sculp- ture of a martyr dragged by two horses still perpetuates on the face of the altar the old religion of the spot. Again the Ides of August became, as they had been centu- ries before, a festival of no common order. To keep the day of St Hippolytus in the reign of the wise king Robert, the con- course to St Denys was immense : all monks absent on abbey- business returned, the provosts resident at a distance were expected to appear; no affairs however urgent prevented even the attendance of the king himself. Sceptre in hand, in a pre- cious cope of silk, worn only on that great occasion, he took his place among the choir, and by his earnest demeanour, by the sweetness of his voice, and the joy expressed upon his counte- nance, quickened the devotion of the whole assembly 10. The relics of St Hippolytus having left their old repose, we wonder not that at Rome the glory departed from the old festival of the Ides of August ; so that we read " his worship had so gone down that now he was scarce known in the city," and Baronius tells us " that he heard there were still some traces among the vineyards of the place where the church had been." from Rome to St Denis : he relates how paused to ask "whose relics it contain- they halted at St Medard first and then ed ?" " Those of St Hippolytus" was at Soissons, and how they extinguished the answer. "I don't believe it! I a pestilence at either place. He says don't believe it ! Non credo! Non credo!" they were given by Leo III. to Charle- replied the infallible authority. u The magne, placed by the latter at Leberaw, bones of St Hippolytus have never been and after his death removed to St Denis removed from the Holy City." But St by Fulrad his nephew. (Martyrol. Aug. Hippolytus, whose dry bones apparently 13 et supplem.). His account is taken had as little reverence for the spiritual (according to Dupin) from a worthless progeny of Zephyrinus and Callistus as MS. of the 14th century. It will be the ancient Bishop's tongue and pen had enough to observe that there is no where manifested towards those saints them- else the least hint of the relics touring selves, was so very angry that he rum- to Soissons ; that they certainly never bled his bones inside the reliquary with were at Leberaw ; that Fulrad died 18 a noise like thunder ut rugitus toni- years before Charlemagne and was no trui putaretur. To what lengths he manner of kin to him. might have gone if rattling had not 10 Duchesne. Hist. Franc. Scriptores sufficed, we dare not conjecture. But torn. IV. p. 146. De rebus Roberti Regis. the Pope falling on his knees exclaimed We may add the following story as in- in terror " I believe, my lord Hippo- dicative of the veneration which this lytus, I believe, pray be quiet!" "Credo, shrine was wont to receive. When Pope Domine Hippolyte, credo ; jam quiesce." Alexander III. visited Paris in 1 159, he And he built an altar of marble there to made the round of the chapels of St appease the disquieted saint. Denys : on the threshold of one he