Page:The life of St. Cecilia from ms. Ashmole 43 and ms. Cotton Tiberius E. VII (IA lifeofstceciliaf00ceci).pdf/17



From the long list of saints and martyrs whose acts are celebrated by the Western Church, there is separable a group of Roman virgin martyrs. To this group, with St. Agnes, St. Agatha, and St. Lucy (the two latter being undoubtedly of Sicilian origin), St. Cecilia belongs. St. Cecilia is also frequently associated in the modern mind with the Greek St. Katherine, probably through the intensifying and relating of the emblematic idea, which gave to St. Katherine the province of literature and philosophy, as it made St. Cecilia the patroness of sacred music.

The attempt to reach conclusions concerning the historic St. Cecilia is one full of difficulties, although the veneration paid to the saint may be traced with considerable ease to a very early period. The Roman church regularly interweaves the significant features of the legend into the celebration of the canonical hours on November 22 and April 14, and the legend is also quite generally included in the collections of Saints' Lives produced in the monasteries of the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries.

From the medieval legends comes the following account of St. Cecilia:

St. Cecilia was a maiden of noble blood— ingenua, nobilis, clarissima, who lived in Rome under the prefecture of Almachius, and the spiritual rule of Pope Urban I. Although she had been baptized and had lived a Christian from her infancy, she is given in marriage to a rich young pagan named Valerian. St. Cecilia, consecrated to God and to virginity by a secret vow, withdraws from her friends on the night of the marriage feast, and, in communion and prayer to God, hears heavenly music to which she responds, singing in her heart, in corde decantabat that she may be preserved in her purity.

Valerian though skeptical as to the heavenly visitants which Cecilia alleges to have seen, and toward the Christian faith in general, is at last persuaded by her to rise from his bed and go by night for instruction and advice to Pope Urban, who lives in hiding among the Roman catacombs. Valerian's faith is confirmed during his interview with the Pope by a vision of an old man who bears the roll of the Gospel in his hand and explains 2