"I SEE a place which, from its construction and many people, reminds me of the Tullianum² in the Vision of the death of little Castulo.³ It reminds me also of other Roman places, like the cells of the Circuses where I have seen Christians jammed together, ready to be thrown to the lions. But this place is neither the one nor the other. The walls are overlaid with the usual robust square rocks. The light is dim and sad, as if it filtered through some holes, mixing with the uncertain luminosity of a little oil-flame, insufficient to brighten the surroundings.

This place is certainly ever a prison -- and a prison for Christians, but with differences from other places that I have seen: these gloomy and sad surroundings are not all enclosed by doors and walls. In one corner it has a wide corridor which starts from the large room and goes -- who knows where? This corridor, a little curved as if it made part of a large ellipse, also has the usual squared rocks and is badly lighted by a little flame. The place is empty. However, on the ground -- a ground which seems to be of granite strewn with large stones to make seats, there are some garments.

From I know not where, comes a muffled noise like that of a sea in a storm, heard far off shore. Sometimes it is more feeble; sometimes stronger. It has almost a roar, perhaps from the effect of the curved walls which must gather it and amplify it like an echo. It is a strange noise. Sometimes it seems to be made by waves of the sea or by a great cascade of waters. Sometimes I seem to hear it made by human voices and I think it is a crowd that shouts. At other times it makes inhuman sounds during which the other sound is suspended, thereafter exploding again more loudly.... And now a shuffling of footsteps -- many footsteps -- comes from the elliptical corridor which is vividly illuminated as if other lamps have been brought there; and with the noise of the footsteps, a feeble moan from suffering creatures....

Then...behold, a frightful scene: preceded by two colossal men -- elderly, bearded, half-naked and armed with lighted torches -- there advances a group of bloody creatures, some of them supported, some supporting others, and some out-right carried. I said 'creatures.' But I said it badly. Those bodies: tortured, mutilated, exposed; those faces with cheeks marked with atrocious wounds that have torn their mouth all the way to the ear, or split the cheek to the extent of showing the teeth fixed in the jaw, or dug out an eye which dangles out of its socket deprived of its eyelid, now non-existent, or the eye completely missing as if barbarously removed; heads stripped of their scalp as if some cruel contrivance had scalped them -- these bodies no longer have any appearance of creatures. They are a vision macabre as a nightmare, like a mad dream. They are bear witness that in man hides a wild beast, and it is ready to appear and vent its instincts, profiting from any pretext that justifies its beastliness. Here, the pretext is the religion and the right of the state. The Christians are enemies of Rome and of the divine Caesar. They are offenders of the gods: therefore let the Christians be tortured. --And they are. What a spectacle! Men, women, old men, little children, young girls are there pell-mell, waiting to die from their wounds or from some new torture.

And yet, apart from the unconscious moaning of those who have been rendered senseless by the gravity of their wounds, not one voice of regret is heard. The men who led them there, withdraw, leaving them to their lot; and then one sees that those less wounded seek to help those more gravely wounded, but are themselves hardly able to go and bend over the dying. Whoever cannot do so standing up, drags himself on his knees or crawls on the ground seeking the person dearest to him, or the one whom he knows more feeble of flesh and, perhaps, of spirit. And whoever can still use their hands, seek to give help to the naked forms, covering them with garments that were on the ground, or else gathering in the limbs of those who are fast sinking, into postures that do not offend modesty, while stretching over them some edge of a garment. And some women gather into their lap dying babies, perhaps not their own, but who are crying with pain and fear. Others drag themselves near young girls who are covered only with their disheveled hair, and seek to clothe again these virginal forms with the white garments found on the ground. The garments are soaked with blood, and the smell of blood saturates the air of the surroundings, mixing with the heavy smoke of the oil lamp, while subdued dialogues, pitiful and holy, intermingle.

'Do you suffer much, my daughter?'

--asks an old man with his skull stripped of its skin which hangs on the nape of his neck like a fallen hood, and which he cannot see because for eyes he has nothing more than two bloody holes. These he turns toward a woman who would have been a blossoming bride, but who is now only a mass of blood, clasping, in a desperate gesture of love with her one arm which can still do so, her little son who sucks his mother's blood in place of the milk which can no longer descend from her torn breasts.

'No, my father.... The Lord helps me.... If Severus would at least come... The baby.... He does not cry...; perhaps he is not wounded... I feel that he seeks my breast... Are there many wounds? I cannot feel my hand anymore and I cannot...I cannot look because I have not the strength to see anymore... My life escapes with my blood.... Am I covered, my father?'...

'I do not know, daughter. I have no more eyes...'

Further on is a woman who crawls on her belly on the ground as if she were a serpent. Through a slash at the base of her ribs can be seen her breathing lungs. 'Do you still hear me, Christiana?' she says, bending over a naked little girl without wounds, but with the color of death on her face. A crown of roses is still on her forehead over her black, dishevelled hair. She is half-conscious.

But she shakes herself at her mother's voice and caress, and gathers up her strength again to say:

'Mama....' The voice is but a breath, a whisper. 'Mama! The serpent...squeezed me so...that I cannot...embrace you anymore... But the serpent...is nothing... The shame... I was naked... All looked at me... Mama...am I still a virgin even if...even if the men...saw me...thus?... Am I still pleasing to Jesus?...'

'You are clothed with your martyrdom, my daughter. I say it to you: you are more pleasing to Him than before....'

'Yes...but...cover me, Mama... I do not want to be seen anymore... A garment out of pity....'

'Do not excite yourself, my joy... Behold: your mama puts herself here and hides you... I cannot seek a garment for you anymore...because...I die... Praise be to Je....'

And the woman throws herself over the body of her daughter with a great gush of blood, and after a groan, remains motionless. Dead? Surely with her last breaths.

'My mother dies... Has no priest lived to give her peace?...'

--says the little girl, raising her voice.

'I still live. If you carry me...,'

--says an old man from a corner, his belly completely opened.

'Who can carry Cletus to Christina and Clementina?' say different ones.

'Perhaps I can, because I have my good hands and I am still strong. But I must be led. because the lion has taken away my eyes,' says a brown young man, tall and strong.

'I will help you to walk, O Decimus,'

--answers a young lad, only slightly wounded, one of those less injured.

'And I and my brother will help you carry Cletus,'

--say two robust men in the flower of their manhood, they too but slightly wounded.

'God reward you all,'

--says the old disemboweled priest, while they transport him with precaution.

And having laid him down so that he is near the martyred woman, he prays over her and, dying as he is, still finds a way of recommending this soul to a man who, clawed on his legs, bleeds to death from his side. And Cletus asks of the blind man who had carried him if he knows anything of Quirinus.

'He died at my side. The panther opened his throat first of all.'

'The beasts act quickly at the beginning. Then they are full and merely play,' says a young lad a little farther off who bleeds slowly.

'Too many Christians for too few beasts,'

--comments an old man who, with a rag, stuffs his wound which has opened his side without injuring his heart.

'They do it deliberately, so as then to enjoy a new show. Certainly they are devising it now...,'

--observes a man who, with his right hand, supports his left forearm as though it was detached by the snap of a beast.

A shudder shakes the Christians. The little girl, Christina, groans:

'The serpents! No! It's too horrible!'

'It is true. It had crawled on me, licking my face with its slimy tongue... Oh! I preferred the blow of the claw which had opened my breast but had killed the serpent, rather than the cold of the serpent. Oh!'

--and a woman brings her trembling and bloody hand to her face.

'And yet, you are an old woman. The serpent was reserved for the virgins.'

'They had made a satire of our misery. First Eve, seduced by the serpent, then the first days of the world: all the animals.'

'Yes. A pantomime of the earthly Paradise... The director of the Circus had been rewarded for it,' says a young man.

'The serpents, after having crushed many, were thrown on us while they opened up to the beasts, and there was a fight.'

'They smeared us with that oil and the serpents shunned us as prey for their food... What will there be for us now? I think of the nakedness...,'

--groans one, little more than a young girl.

'Help me, Lord! My heart wavers!...'

'I trust in Him....'

'I want Severus to come, for the baby....'

'He is alive, your son?'

--asks a very young mother who weeps over what was her son, and what is now only a formless handful of flesh: a little trunk -- only a trunk, without head, without limbs.

'His little head of light curls, his little eyes like Heaven, his little cheeks, his little hands like flowers, his small feet which had just learned to walk, are now in the belly of a lioness... Ah! that she was a woman and certainly knows what it is to be a mother, and did not know how to have pity on me!'

'I want my mama! I want my mama! She stayed with my father there on the ground.... And I'm sick. My mama would heal my belly!...'

--cries a child of six, seven years, for whom a bite or a blow has cleanly opened his abdominal wall, and he is dying quickly.

'Now you will go to Mama. The angels of Heaven, your little brothers, will bring you there, little Linus. Don't cry so...,'

--comforts a young girl seated at his side and caressing him with her less wounded hand. But the child suffers on the hard pavement and trembles, and the young girl, helped by a man, takes him on her knees and supports him and rocks him thus.

'Your father, where is he?'

--asks the priest, Cletus, of the two brothers who had carried him along with the blind man.

'He became food for the lion. Under our eyes. While the beasts were already biting his neck he said: "Persevere." He did not say any more because he had his head detached...'

'Now he talks of Heaven. Blessed Crispiniano!'

'Blessed brothers! Pray for us.'

'For the last struggle!'

'For final perseverance.'

'For love of the brothers.'

'Do not fear. They, already perfect in love -- so much so that the Lord wanted them in the first martyrdom -- are now most perfect because living in Heaven, and they know and reflect the Perfection of the most High Lord. Their remains which they have left in the arena, are only remains. Like garments which they have taken off. But they are in Heaven. Their remains are inert. But they are alive. Active and alive. They are with us. Do not fear. Have no preoccupation about how you will die. Jesus has said it: "Do not be preoccupied with the things of the earth. Your Father knows of what you have need." He knows your will and your endurance. He knows all and He will help you. A little patience still, O brothers. And then, afterward, is peace. Heaven is conquered with patience and with violence. Patience in sorrow. Violence toward our fears of men. Slash fears to pieces. It is a plot of the infernal Enemy to snatch you from the Life of Heaven. Repel those fears. Open your heart to absolute confidence. Say: "Our Father, Who is in Heaven will give us our daily bread of strength because He knows that we want His Kingdom and we die for It, forgiving our enemies." --No. I have said a sinful word. They are not enemies for Christians. Whoever tortures us is our friend, as one who loves us. He is rather a double friend to us. Because he serves us on earth to witness our faith, and clothes us with the wedding garment for the eternal banquet. Let us pray for our enemies. For these, our friends, who do not know how much we love them. Oh! Truly in this moment we are like Christ because we love our neighbor to the point of dying for him. Let us love one another. Oh! Word! We have learned what it is to be gods. Because Love is God, and who loves is like God, is truly a son of God. Let us love evangelically, not those from whom we expect joys and compensations, but those who strike us and despoil us even of life. Let us love with Christ saying: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Let us say with Christ: "It is just that the sacrifice be accomplished, because we have come to accomplish it and we want it to be accomplished." Let us with Christ say to the survivors: "Now you are sorrowful. But your sorrow will be changed into joy when you will know us in Heaven. We will bring to you from Heaven that peace in which we will be." Let us say with Christ: "When we shall have gone There, we will send the Paraclete to accomplish His mysterious works in the hearts of those who have not understood us and who have persecuted us because they did not understand us." With Christ let us entrust our spirit, not to men, but to the Father, so that He may support it with His Love in the new trial. Amen.'

The old Cletus, disemboweled, dying, has spoken with a voice louder and surer than a healthy man would have had. And he has transfused his heroic spirit into all. So much so, that a sweet song is raised from those tortured creatures....

'Where is my wife?'

--asks a voice from the corridor, interrupting the song.

'Severus! My husband! The baby is alive! I saved him for you! But you arrive in time, because I die. Take -- take our Marcellinus!'

The man comes forward, bends over, embraces his dying wife, gathers the baby with trembling hand from her, and the two mouths which have holily loved each other, unite a last time in a single kiss placed on the innocent little head.

'Cletus... Bless me... I die...'

It seems that the woman had just held on to life until the arrival of her husband. Now she falls into a death rattle between the arms of her husband to whom she whispers:

"Go, go...for the baby...to Puden...' Death cuts off the word....

'Peace to Anicia,' says Cletus.

'Peace!' all answer.

Her husband contemplates her stretched at his feet, bloody, torn.... Some tears fall from his eyes on the face of the dead woman. Then he says:

'Remember me, O my faithful wife!...' He turns to his old father-in-law: 'I will carry her into the vineyard of Titus. Caius and Sostenutus are here outside with the stretcher.'

'Are they going to pass there?'

'Yes. Whoever still has relatives among the living will have buried...'

'With money?'

'With money...and even without it. Each one who wishes can come to gather their dead and greet the living. Thus they hope that the sight of the martyrs will weaken those who are still free and persuade them not to become Christians, and they hope that our words...may weaken you. Whoever has no relatives will go to the cemetery...But our deacons will seek the remains at night....'

'Is a new martyrdom being prepared, perhaps?'

'Yes. For this reason they make the relatives pass by and this is also why the martyrs must be buried at night. They will be occupied with the show...'

'At so late an hour? What ever show at night?

'Yes! What show?!'

'The pyre. When it is completely night...'

'The pyre!... Oh!...' ...

'For those who hope in the Lord, the flames will be as the sweet dew of the dawn. Remember the youths of whom Daniel speaks.⁴ They went about singing amid the flames. The flame is beautiful! It purifies and clothes with light. Not the unclean beasts. Not the slippery serpents. Not the immodest looks at the bodies of the virgins. The flame! If there is a remnant of sin in us, the flame of the pyre is for us like the fire of Purgatory. A short Purgatory and then, clothed with light, we go to God. To God: to Light, we shall go! Fortify your hearts. Let them want to be light for the pagan world. Let the fires of the pyre be the beginning of the light which we will give to this world of darkness,' says Cletus again.

Some heavy, iron-clad steps in the corridor...

'Decimus, are you still alive?'

--ask two soldiers appearing in the room.

'Yes, companions. I am alive. And to talk to you of God. Come. Because I cannot come to you, since I will never see the light anymore.'

'Unhappy man!' the two say.

'No. Happy. I am happy. No more do I see the ugliness of the world. The flattering enticements of the flesh and of gold cannot tempt me anymore by entering into my pupils. In the darkness of a temporary blindness I already see the Light. I see God!....'

'But don't you know that in a little while you will be burned? Don't you know that because we love you we had asked to see you? to help you escape if you were still alive?'

'Escape?! Do you so hate me as to want to take Heaven away from me?! You were not that way in the thousands of battles which we endured side by side for the emperor. Then we spurred one another on to be heroes. And now, while I am fighting for an Eternal Emperor, immense in His Power, now you counsel me to cowardice?! The pyre?-- But would I not willingly have died amid the flames during the assaults on an enemy city, even to serve the emperor, a man like me, and Rome? and a city which is today and tomorrow is no more? And now that I make an assault on the truest Enemy in order to serve God and the Eternal City where I will reign with my Lord, you want me to fear the flames?'

The two soldiers are amazed. Cletus speaks anew:

'The martyr is the only hero. His heroism is eternal. His heroism is holy. He harms no one with his heroism. He does not emulate the arid stoicism of the stoics. Nor the cruel, for their useless and atrocious violence. He takes no treasures. He usurps no powers. He gives. He gives of himself: his riches.., his strength..., his life.... He is the generous one who despoils himself of all in order to give. Imitate him. You, supine servants of a cruel man who sends you to give death and to find death, come: pass over to Life, to serving Life, to serving God. When the intoxication of battle has fallen away, when the signal imposes silence in the field, have you ever perhaps felt the joy which you sense is in your companion? No. But rather weariness, nostalgia, fear of death, nausea from blood and violence.... But here...look! Here one dies and sings! Here one dies and smiles! Because we will not die but will live. We will not know death but Life: the Lord Jesus.'

Those two brawny men who had come at the beginning with the torches, enter again. With them are two other men, pompously clothed. The torches smoke, held aloft by the two. The others who are with them bend over to look at the bodies...

'Dead... This man also.... And the woman is dying.... The boy is already cold. The old man will die in a short time.... This girl?... The serpent crushed her ribs. Observe, there is a rosy froth already on her lips...,' they note among themselves.

'I would say...let's let them die here.'

'No. The game is already set. The Circus is newly filled....'

'But the others from the prisons will suffice.'

'Too few! Procolus has not known how to regulate these groups. Too few for the lions! Too few for the pyres...!'

'That is so.... What to do?'

'Wait.'

A man is brought into the middle of the room and says:

'Whoever of you is less wounded stand up.'

--Some twenty persons rise.

'Can all of you walk? Can you move your feet?'

'We can.'

'You are blind,' they say to Decimus.

'I can be guided. Do not deprive me of the pyre, since I think that is what you are thinking of,' says Decimus.

'Of that indeed. And you want the pyre?'

'I ask it as a favor. I am a faithful soldier. Look at the scars of my limbs. As a reward of my long, faithful service to the emperor, give me the pyre.'

'If you love the emperor so much, why do you betray him?'

'I betray neither the emperor nor the empire, because I do not commit acts against their welfare. But I serve the true God Who is the Man-God and the Only One worthy of being served even to the death.'

'O Cassian, with such hearts the torments are in vain, I tell you. We only cover ourselves with cruelty to no purpose,...' says a Circus attendant to his companion.

'Perhaps that is true. But the divine Caesar....'

'Let's go. You who walk: get out of here! Wait for us near the exit. We will give you new garments.'

The martyrs say good-bye to those who remain. A young lad kneels to be blessed by his mother. A girl with her own blood puts a cross, as if it were a chrism, on the forehead of her mother who leaves her to mount the pyre. Decimus embraces his two fellow-soldiers. An old man kisses his dying daughter and starts off securely. All in front of the exit have the priest, Cletus, bless them.... The steps of those who are to die fall away down the corridor.

'Both of you still remain here?'

--ask the attendants of the two soldiers.

'Yes. Let us remain.'

'For what reasons? It's...dangerous. These corrupt our faithful citizens.'

The two soldiers shrug their shoulders.

The attendants go off while some grave-diggers enter with stretchers to carry the dead away. There is a little confusion because, with the grave-diggers, are also the relatives of the dead and the dying. And there are tears between these relatives and those who are but half-alive. The two soldiers profit from the confusion to say to a boy:

'Feign death. We will carry you to safety.'

'Would you betray the emperor by putting yourselves in safety while he has confidence in you for his glory?'

'Certainly not, boy!'

'And neither do I betray my God Who died for me on the Cross.'

The two soldiers, slightly amazed, ask one another:

'But who gives them such strength?'

And then, with an elbow leaning on the wall to support their head, they continue observing meditatively.

The attendants return with slaves and stretchers. They say:

'You are still few for the pyre. Let those less wounded at least sit up.'

The less wounded!... Some more, some less, they are all dying. And they cannot sit up anymore. But their voices entreat:

'Me! Me! Provided that you carry me....' --Eleven others are selected...

'You blessed!' 'Pray for me, Mary!' 'To God, Placid!' 'Remember me, O Mother!' 'My Son, call my soul quickly!' 'My Husband, let dying be sweet to you!....'

The goodbyes criss-cross.... The stretchers are taken away.

'Let us support the martyrs with our prayer. Let us offer for them the double pain of limbs and heart, that we see ourselves excluded from martyrdom. Our Father....'

Cletus, who is frightfully livid and is dying, gathers his strength to say the Pater.⁵

A man enters panting. He sees the two soldiers. He stops. He restrains the shout he already had on his lips.

'You can speak, man. We will not betray you. We, soldiers of Rome, ask to be soldiers of Christ.'

'The blood of the martyrs fertilizes the sod!' exclaims Cletus. And addressing the new arrival, he asks: 'Do you have the Mysteries⁶?'

'Yes. I was able to give Them to the others a moment before they were brought into the arena. Behold!'

The soldiers, amazed, look at the purple pouch which the man takes from his bosom.

'Soldiers. You ask us where we find the strength. Behold the Strength! This is the Bread of the strong. This is God Who enters to live in us. This....'

'Quick! Quick, O Father! I die... Jesus...and I will die happy! A virgin, a martyr, and happy!'

--shouts Christina, panting in the spasms of suffocation.

Cletus hurries to break the Bread and give It to the young girl who recollects herself quietly, closing her eyes.

'For me also... and then...call the servants of the Circus. I want to die on the pyre...',

gurgles a boy with his shoulders torn to pieces and his cheek opened from his temple to his throat, which bleeds.

'You can swallow?'

'I can! I can!. I never moved nor ever spoke so as not to die...before the Eucharist. I hoped... Now...'

The priest gives him a little crumb of the consecrated Bread. And the boy seeks to swallow it. But he does not succeed. A soldier touched with pity bends down and supports his head while the other, having found in a corner an amphora or vase with a sip of water still in the bottom, seeks to help him swallow by pouring the water between his lips drop by drop.

Meanwhile Cletus breaks the Species and gives them to the ones nearest him. Then he entreats the soldiers to carry him in order to distribute the Eucharist to the dying. Then he has them bring him back where he was and says:

'Our Lord Jesus Christ reward you for your pity.'

The little boy who had a hard time swallowing the Species has some brief panting; he struggles.... A soldier moved with pity takes him between his arms. But as he does so, a spurt of blood gushes from the wound in his neck and bathes the soldier's shining corselet.

'Mama! Heaven...Lord...Jesus....' The little boy abandons himself.

'He has died... He smiles....'

'Peace to little Fabius!'

--says Cletus, who grows always more pale.

'Peace!' sigh the dying.

The two soldiers talk between themselves. Then one says:

'Priest of the true God, end your life while putting us into your army.'

'Not mine... Christ Jesus's... But...it cannot be... First...you need to be catechumens....'

'No. We know that in case of death baptism is given.'

'But you are...healthy...'. The old man pants....

'We are dying because.... With a God like yours Who makes you all so holy, why should we continue serving a corrupt man? We want the glory of God. Baptize us: Me -- Fabius, like the little martyr; and my companion: -- Decimus, like our glorious comrade. And then we will want the pyre. Of what profit the life of the world when one understands your Life?'

'There is no more water..., no liquid....'

Then Cletus makes a cup with his trembling hand, collects the blood which drips from his atrocious wound:

'Kneel down.... I baptize you, O Fabius, in the Names of the...Father...of the Son...of the Holy...Spirit... The Lord be with you both for Life...Eternal...Amen!'

The old priest has finished his mission, his suffering, his life.... He is dead....

The two soldiers look at him... They look for some time at those who are dying slowly, serenely..., smiling amid their agonies, rapt in Eucharistic ecstasy.

Come, Fabius. Let's not wait another moment. With such examples the way is sure! Let's go die for the Christ!'

And they run away swiftly down the corridor to meet martyrdom and glory.

In the room the groans become always slighter and fewer.... From the Circus the noise returns which was heard at the beginning. The crowd resumes its uproar awaiting the show....

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1. Maria Valtorta,  I Quaderni dal 1945 al 1950, Ed., Emilio Pisani, (CEV, 1985, Isola del Liri): 319 ff. [Though no dates are given for the era covered in this Vision, the Circus-setting indicates probably some time in the lst Century A.D. of the Church's infancy, either under the Roman Emperors Gaius (Caligula) Germanicus, or the Emperor Nero who succeeded him. Hence, the scenes depicted in this document possibly occurred sometime between 34-68 A.D. --Trans.]

2.  The dungeon of the State Prison at Rome. [I Quaderni Del 1944, Ed., Emilio Pisani, (CEV, Isola del Liri), 1985: 218.]

3.  The Vision and death of little Castulo occurs in Part II of this translation.

4.  Daniel 3:19-19.

5. "Pater": that is, the Lord's Prayer, the "Our Father."

6. "...the Mysteries": the ancient term in the early Church for the Eucharist [ --Trans.].