Читать книгу Crises in the History of the Papacy. Lives and Legacy of the Most Influential Popes Who Shaped the Development & History of Church онлайн

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Such is the tale of woe of the priests Faustinus and Marcellinus, and there is no doubt whatever that for months the most savage encounters desecrated the chapels and Catacombs of Rome. As to whether Damasus was or was not elected in his Church of St. Lawrence in the city before the election of Ursicinus the authorities are not agreed; and it must be left to the decision of the reader whether those who secured his triumph were really a hired mob of gladiators and diggers or a troop of pious and indignant admirers. Jerome, whose modern biographer, Amédée Thierry,32 plausibly contends that he was studying in Rome at the time, expressly says that the followers of his patron Damasus were the aggressors, and that many men and women were slain. Rufinus is more favourable to the cause of Damasus, but he admits that the churches were "filled with blood."

The Emperor seems not to have been convinced by the report of the triumphant faction, and in the following year he permitted Ursicinus and his followers to return to Rome. But the trouble was renewed, and the Anti-Pope was again banished. His obstinate admirers then met in the Catacombs, and another fierce and fatal fight occurred in the cemetery of St. Agnes, where the servants of Damasus surprised them. It is clear that Damasus had the support of the wealthy and the favour of the pagan officials, but his rival must have controlled a very large, if not the larger, part of the people. The forces engaged, and the growth of the Christian body, may be estimated from the fact that, as Ammianus says, the Prefect Viventius was compelled to retire to the suburbs. He was promptly replaced, in the attempt to control the rioters, by the ruthless and impartial Maximinus, the Prefect of the Food-distribution; and clerics and laymen were indiscriminately put to the torture and punished. At length, in 368, one of the last of the sober old Roman patricians, Prætextatus, became Prefect, and put an end to the riots. The reflections of Prætextatus and Symmachus and other cultivated pagans are not recorded, but we are told by St. Jerome that, when Damasus endeavoured to convert the Prefect, he mischievously replied: "Make me Bishop of Rome and I will be a Christian."