II
Of somewhat less weight than the testimony of the “Itineraries” or “Pilgrim Guide” books, but still of great importance as throwing a strong sidelight upon the evidence we have massed together on the subject of the large numbers of the martyrs and confessors of Rome interred in the Catacombs, are the Monza “Catalogue” and “Labels” once attached to the little phials of oil brought to Theodelinda from the sacred shrines of Rome.
We have elsewhere briefly described this curious and absolutely authentic relic.117 Theodelinda asked for relics from the shrines of the Cemeteries (Catacombs) of Rome; Pope Gregory the Great in the last years of the sixth century sent to her a little of the oil from the lamps which in his days were ever kept burning before each of the shrines in question.
The original “Catalogue” (Notitia) of these oils, and the “Labels” (Pittacia) once attached to the phials which held the oils, are preserved in the Cathedral of Monza.
The “Catalogue” (or Notitia) is preceded by the following words:
“Nōt. de olea scōrum (sanctorum) martyrum qui Romæ in corpore requiescunt—id est,” etc. Here follows the List of Martyrs from whose shrines a little of the oil (contained in the lamps always burning before them) was taken.
In several instances, notably after such names as S. Agnes, S. Cecilia, SS. Felix and Philippus and S. Cornelius, occur the following expressions:—
“Et aliaram multarum Martyrum”—“et multa millia scorum”—(sanctorum) “et alii Sci (Sancti), id est CCLXII.”... “in unum locum et alii CXXII. et alii Sci XLVI.”—“et aliorum multi scor” (sanctorum).
In other words, the “Catalogue” and the “Labels” on the phials relate how the sacred oil was taken from lamps burning before the graves (the shrines) of S. Agnes and of “many other martyrs buried close by”; of S. Cornelius and “of many thousands of saints” resting in the immediate neighbourhood of his tomb; of S. Philippus and of “many other saints sleeping near his shrine,” etc.
In three instances the exact numbers of the nameless martyrs are given, viz.: 262, 122, and 46. The expression “many thousands” which occurs in this venerable memorial of the reverent feeling of Christians of the sixth century towards the noble and devoted confessors of the Faith, is of course an exaggerated one; it may even be termed a rhetorical expression; but it bears its undoubted testimony to the deeply rooted belief of Christians who lived in the centuries which immediately followed the Peace of the Church, that in this sacred City of the Roman dead an enormous number of martyrs was buried, besides those whose names and stories were, as it were, household words in every land where Jesus Christ was adored.