1.“Pagus” signified “village.” The term “pagan” was first applied to the dwellers in rural districts, who, from the remoteness of their surroundings, were tardier in hearing of and embracing Christianity than the inhabitants of the cities.

2.“A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”

3.Constantinople and Jerusalem were added in after times to the list, but only attained this honour by the consent of the reigning Pontiff.

4.St. Ambrose, Sermo contra Auxentium, No. 13; Hegesipp., lib. III; S. Greg. Magn. in Psalm IV, PenitentiÆ.

5.Cardinal Pole, after much research, came to the conclusion that the site chosen for the Church of “Domine Quo Vadis” was a mistaken one, and erected a tiny circular chapel at another crossroad which he believed had witnessed the mysterious encounter. This chapel is a humble little building, only a few feet in diameter. St. Peter’s question is inscribed over the door.

6.St. Clement was soon exiled to the Chersonesus, where he remained for several years before his martyrdom there, and St. Linus during his absence filled his place in Rome till the death of St. Clement and his own succession to the Pontificate. Hence, many historians call Linus the immediate successor of St. Peter. St. Clement occupied the Papal Chair for 9 years, 6 months and 6 days, and, whereas modern lay historians give the length of St. Linus’ reign as one year, he reigned in reality for 11 years, 2 months and 23 days. The confusion of the various Roman calendars at the time of the birth of our Lord gave rise to the errors in the calculation of that event and others following it. Our own accepted date is on that account some years removed from the true one.

7.Taken from the epistle of St. Denis the Areopagite to Timothy, in which he narrates the incident and records the Apostles’ words.

8.Dom GuÉranger.

9.See “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”

10.Until the year 844 the Popes had continued to bear their own names after being elected to the Throne, but when the choice fell on a holy and humble man called Peter, he refused to keep the name of the Prince of the Apostles and chose for himself that of Sergivs—a renunciation which instituted the custom, followed ever since, of the Pope’s selecting a new name on his accession.

11.St. Novatus—apparently a brother or cousin of Pudens.

12.This translation of Pastor’s narrative is the one used by Augustus J. Hare in his “Walks in Rome.”

13.She is often called “Eudoscia,” by historians, and was also named “AthenaÏs,” being the daughter of a famous rhetorician of Athens.

14.See “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands.”

15.“Argumentosa”—that which is proven.

16.This hypothesis appears to me more reasonable than the one usually put forward, viz: That Cecilia’s inscription was destroyed by the Goths. They destroyed many such inscriptions, with the tombs that bore them, but the resting-place of St. Cecilia when discovered showed no marks of violence and answered precisely to the contemporary description of it.

17.It is amusing to note in this connection the statement in Baedeker’s guidebook for Rome, p. 422: “St. Cecilia in Trastevere—originally a dwelling house, which was converted into a Church by Urban I., who was misled by the erroneous tradition that St. Cecilia had once occupied it.” The italics are my own. Such ignorance of history requires no comment.

18.The coffin is four feet, three inches long, thirteen inches broad, and seventeen inches high.

19.Augustus Hare.

20.Every Cardinal takes his title from one or other of the ancient Churches—hence the term “Titular Cardinal of St. Cecilia,” “of St. Clement,” etc., etc.

21.The Acts of St. Cecilia have always been considered among the most absolutely authentic of those preserved by the Church, and every circumstance connected with the finding of her body, both by Paschal and Sfondrato, bears them out. Tillesnaut, the lying Jansenist historian so dear to heretic students, and who seems to have had a particularly malevolent hatred for St. Cecilia, has made a ludicrous attempt to prove—if such arguments could be called by that name—that St. Cecilia was not a Roman, and as we know her never existed. He supports this amazing theory on one line many times re-copied by ignorant scribes, of the poet Fortunatus, who speaks of “St. Cecilia” as having suffered in “Sicilia.” The Church knows of no Sicilian martyr of that name, but there was one in Sardinia, a name which one of Fortunatus’ copyists apparently mistook for “Sicilia.”

22.Galerius, on his deathbed, by the so-called “Edict of Sardis,” disavowed his errors and proclaimed liberty for the Christians, but the war against them was still carried on both by the usurping Emperors who were Constantine’s rivals, and by the hatred of the still powerful pagan Governors.

23.These words are always quoted in Latin and so I transcribe them, but in reality they appeared in the Greek tongue.

24.There is a mediÆval legend that Constantine had been advised by the pagan priests to cure his leprosy by bathing in the blood of three thousand children, and that he was about to immolate that number for the purpose, when, his pity being aroused by the despair of their mothers, he forbade the sacrifice. That this is a pure invention is patent, for Constantine was a just and merciful man, even before his conversion, and, when he came to Rome, was familiar with the tenets of Christianity and well disposed to embrace them.

25.Tighe Hopkins: “The Man in the Iron Mask.” Hurst & Blackett, Publishers, London, 1901.

26.Hopkins, p. 196 et seq.

27.Baron: The celebrated French playwright and actor (1653-1729).

28.“The Venetian Republic,” Vol. 4, p. 525.