CHAPTER IX.

THE Festival of the Epiphany seems to be one much honored here, indeed quite as much so as that of the Nativity. The Churches are all thronged, and the day is celebrated by their most splendid services. The Pope himself performs High Mass in the Sistine Chapel, but as we had already witnessed that service in St. Peter's, we preferred being present at one which takes place only on this single day in the course of the year.

Among the dignified ecclesiastics residing in Rome, are many foreign Bishops, such as the Greek, Armenian, &c. They are to be seen in grand ceremonies, forming a part of the processions, and by the variety of their costumes adding to the splendor of the pageant. A few days before, in a long conversation with an ecclesiastic of the Church of Rome, I endeavored to discover the precise position of the Greek Bishop, with whom I found he was intimate. He admitted that the Bishop had no jurisdiction at the East-no fixed Diocese but said that his duty was to ordain the Greek missionaries sent to those parts from Rome. "Is his authority acknowledged by the Greek Church?" I inquired. "Yes," said he "by the Catholic portion of that Church, but not by the schismatics." I saw of course that he meant by "the Catholic portion," the few Romish missionaries scattered through the East, and by "the schismatics," the great body of that Church; and therefore said "Then, to put it in plain language, he is looked upon by the Greek Church in the East,

as Bishop Hughes is regarded by our Church in New York, we acknowledging the jurisdiction of another Bishop?" He looked at me for a moment with a smile, and then replied— "Exactly."

In truth, these foreign Bishops with dioceses which they have never perhaps seen, are merely retained here as parts of the pageants of the Church. They appear at the Court of Rome as the spiritual heads of millions in the East, who entirely disown their authority and have no connection with them, but at the same time with the many strangers here they strengthen the idea of the perfect Catholicity of this Church. They give the appearance of a visible unity extending through the world, which in reality has no existence.

In the Via Babuino stands a church, which, daily as I passed it, attracted my attention, from the fact that it seemed always to be closed. While every other Church in Rome has its doors open for any transient worshipper who may wish to offer his devotions, morning, noon-tide, or evening, this was the solitary exception. Week days, and Festivals, and even Sundays passed, and still it was entirely deserted. We now, however, found an explanation of the mystery. It is the Church of St. Athanasius, subject to the jurisdiction of the Greek Bishop, and as there is no one to attend it, is only open on a single day in the year. This is on the Festival of the Epiphany, when High Mass is performed according to the Ritual of the Greek Church. We saw it announced in the Diario di Roma, and having determined to avail ourselves of what might be the only opportunity which would ever occur of witnessing this service, we repaired at an early hour to the Church. It is quite small, without any thing in the architecture or paintings to attract attention, and from being so little opened, had the damp and chilly feeling of a vault. The congregation seemed to be composed almost entirely of English, drawn like ourselves by curiosity.

The Greek Bishop entered with a procession, and the choir at once commenced their anthem. He is not more than forty-five years of age, with a coal-black beard covering his breast, and has one of the most noble voices I have.ever heard. The costumes were all different from those of the Roman Church-the Greek cross instead of the Latin was embroidered on every part-the features and long beards of the attending priests plainly showed their Eastern originand every thing united to give the service a peculiarly Oriental appearance. The Bishop himself came in clothed in purple, and after being escorted to his seat, robes of white and gold were brought, and his attendants commenced arraying him in them. This process occupied nearly half an hour. Whenever he took part in the service, a priest knelt before him with a large open volume, bound in white and gold, from which he chanted his part.

The service was much longer than the Mass of the Roman Church, but composed of the same kind of ceremonies -kneeling-crossing-chanting-the waving of censersand processions of lights. There is, however, an evident significancy and meaning in some of the ceremonies, which requires but little explanation to be understood even by a careless spectator. For example, the Bishop frequently held up before the people, branches of lights, that in his right hand containing three, and that in his left, two. This has been adopted to express their faith in the doctrine of the Trinity; heresies on this subject being those by which the Greek Church has been most troubled. The three lights signify the Three Persons in the Trinity; and the two lights, the Two distinct Natures of our Lord. The High Altar was behind a screen, the part immediately in front of it being open. At the consecration of the elements, when the Bishop was standing before the altar, this was closed by a curtain, and for some time his voice only was indistinctly heard, while he himself was unseen. This is a custom which has

been for ages adopted in the Greek Church. It was at first commenced as a measure of precaution, because the rite of Baptism had been exposed to public ridicule on the stage, and they wished to guard that of the Eucharist from a similar profanation. They considered, too, that such mystery was conformable to the nature of this solemn Institution, and therefore concealed the priest from public view, and environed him, as the high-priest of old when he entered the Holy of Holies, with the awful solitude of the sanctuary.*

Upon the whole, as a mere matter of taste and splendor, I prefer the Greek Ritual to the Latin. It is certainly in some parts more imposing than any thing we have seen in the Mass of the Roman Church. A living writer-whose opinion, however, must be taken with some allowance, on account of his overweening admiration of Rome-thus contrasts the two services. "Two observable characteristics of the Greek ritual, are its very dramatic nature and its humility. Its dramatic, one might almost say over-dramatic, disposition may be seen particularly in the ceremonies of the Holy week, compared with those at Rome. Its humility, in the forms of Baptism, receiving confessions, and absolving penitents.

Without presuming to criticise the Liturgies of the two Churches, it may be allowable to note, that while the Greek ritual of the Eucharist is more dramatic, so to speak, than the Roman, it is scarcely so magnificent in its tone, or so rich in mystical expositions, neither does it exhibit that quickness at catching expressions of Scripture, and representing them in devotional gestures, which is so marvellous in the rubrics of the Roman Missal."†

The great service of the day however was in the church of S. Maria d'Ara Cœli. This is a strange looking building on the Capitoline Hill, erected on the foundation of the old Roman temple of Jupiter Feretrius, in which the Spolia Opi

*Eustace Classical Tour, vol. ii. p. 40.

+ F. W. Faber.

ma were deposited. The ascent to it is by one hundred and twenty-four steps of Grecian marble taken from an ancient temple of Romulus, near the Porta Salaria. They were constructed in 1348, the expense being defrayed by the alms of the faithful after the great plague which Boccacio has so admirably described as afflicting Florence in that year. The age of the Church itself is unknown, although all agree in ascribing to it an antiquity not lower than the sixth century. Upon entering, your first impression is, that it is composed of an assemblage of fragments. The materials have indeed been plundered indiscriminately from every ancient building within reach, and of the twenty-two large columns which separate the nave from the side aisles, no two are alike. Some are of Egytian granite, and some of marble-some white and some black-two are Corinthian pillars elegantly fluted, and the rest are plain. The capitals too are all different, and as none of the pillars were originally of the same length, it was of course necessary to raise them on pedestals of various heights. The grotesque effect produced by this variety may be imagined. On one of the pillars is the inscription in antique letters-A CUBICULO AUGUSTORUM-which would seem to prove, that the Church was built with the spoils of the palace of the Cæsars. The pavement formed of mosaic of the most rare and precious marbles, is uneven with age, and the sculptured images of knights and Bishops who sleep beneath are rapidly disappearing under the tread of the thousands who pass over their resting place. My principal interest in this building however arose from its connection with Gibbon, whose fascinating narrative must so often recur to the mind while dwelling in "the Eternal City." It was in this Church-as he himself tells us-"on the 15th of October, 1764, as he sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing Vespers, that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the city first started to his mind."