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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
In Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea and its derivative, Chaucer's Second Nun's Tale, crowns of lilies and roses are brought by an angel to the future martyrs Cecilia and her husband after she has converted him to Christianity and continence. The usual symbolism of the flowers has been settled by Messrs. Holthausen and Lowes as being chastity and martyrdom; and Mr. Emerson found the earliest occurrence, so far, of them and their symbolism in an authentic work of St. Ambrose. But there was no ground for asserting the original source to be here. Nor is it the Proper Preface for St. Cecilia's day in the Ambrosian missal, from which both legends make a long quotation; the Proper Preface merely reflects some earlier version of the legend, and its date can hardly be determined. Nor in the gospel of pseudo-Matthew (or “Liber de ortu B. Mariae et infantia Salvatoris”), which has been suggested as “probably the source of the whole medieval conception of the symbolism of the two crowns of martyrdom and virginity.” The righteous Abel is here said (cap. vii) to have received two crowns. But not to mention the fact that they are not of flowers, while one crown is for his virginity, the other is not for his own innocent death (though later so misunderstood) but for his acceptable offering to God. Further, this pseudo-gospel seems to be not older than the eighth or ninth century, and this detail is not found in its main source, the “Protevangelium of James.” The early metaphorical examples collected from Sts. Cyprian and Jerome by Miss R. D. Cornelius are mentioned later.
1 See “Chaucer and the Legenda Aurea,” to appear shortly in Mod. Lang. Notes.
2 PMLA, XLI, 253-5, and p. 177 below. The mention of “Ambrose's” preface in the two legends does not show that the occurrence of the symbolism in his genuine works is the source of all later occurrences, as Emerson seemed to think. The two matters are unconnected.
3 Mr. Millett Henshaw happily has printed the liturgical passage (Mod. Philol., XXVI, 15-6). This passage was pointed out in 1891 by Holthausen (Archiv f. d. Stud. d. neu. Spr. u. Lit. LXXXVII, 269), as well as by Professor Francis James Child in one of his fertile obiter dicta, but has been generally overlooked. Holthausen also indicated the symbolism of the flowers. The word “preface” used by Jacobus and Chaucer strangely enough has not been recognized by Skeat, Emerson, the editors of the New English Dictionary or practically anyone, as the liturgical term for that part of the eucharistic office between the Secreta and the Canon; in more restricted use, of course, the part beginning “Vere dignum et justum est” and ending at the Sanctus is the common preface, in which on some festivals a proper preface is inserted. In the Roman rite there are relatively few of these, and none for St. Cecilia's day, but the Ambrosian follows earlier usage in supplying a proper preface on all festivals for which there are proper gospels, etc. Besides, Mr. Henshaw's source, the preface is in Laderchi (Jacobus Laderchius), S. Cœeiliœ v. et m. acta (Rome, 1723), I, 156; D. Bartolini, Atti del martirio della . . . S. Cecilia (Rome, 1867), p. 184; besides various editions of the Ambrosian missal, e.g., those of Milan, 1515 (f. 4vo), and 1522 (f. 4vo).
4 Mod. Lang. Notes, XLI, 317-8. See Tischendorf, Evangelio, apocrypha (Lipsiae, 1853), p. 64.
5 M. R. James, Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford, 1924), p. 70. It was formerly dated earlier.
6 In R. A. Lipsius and M. Bonnet, Acta apostolorum apocrypha (Lipsiae, 1891), I, 1-22. There are also sixteenth-century editions, and there are summaries in Lipsius' Quellen d. röm. Petrus-sage (Kiel, 1872), pp. 113 ff, and Apokryphen Apostelgeschichte (Braunschweig, 1883-90), II, pt. i, pp. 91-3, 118. I give the opening words, “Post multimoda et multifaria uiae uitaeque salutaris documenta”, in order to avert the confusion and ambiguity so common in discussions of the less familiar early texts. This work may have been altered from a Greek original, to which the Greek version given by Lipsius (pp. 78-102) was at least closely related; this latter contains the part of the story where the crowns occur in pseudo-Linus and so does a cognate Latin version, with no word about them. The indications are therefore that they appeared first in pseudo-Linus.
7 Antwerp, 1709, vol. XXIV (June, vol. V), p. 399. Harnack, Geschichte d. altchristl. Litt. bis Eusebius (Leipzig, 1893-1904), II, i, 553 ff; ii, 170 ff, regards the so-called Gnostic Acts of Peter as merely “vulgär-christlich” with Docetic tendencies.
8 Acta apostolorum apocrypha, cap. xii, Lipsius and Bonnet, I, 15; cf. Lipsius, Apokryphen Apostelgeschichte, II, pt. I, p. 92; and Quellen d. röm. Petrus-sage, p. 115. Lipsius (Quellen, 121) thought the rose and lily garlands characteristic examples of Gnostic taste, but gave no proof and was certainly mistaken.
9 A possibility has been recognized that St. Cecilia was really a Sicilian of the late second century, not a Roman of the early third (G. B. de Rossi, Roma sotterranea, Rome, 1864-7, II, 147 ff; Laderchi, op. cit., I, 137 ff), but her legend is certainly Roman, and she has always been among the relatively few saints commemorated in the canon of the Roman mass. Pseudo-Linus is certainly Roman; cf. C. Schmidt, Die alten Petrusakten, in von Gebhardt and Harnack's Texte u. Untersuchungen zur Gesch. d. altchr. Lit., XXIV, i, 145 (Leipzig, 1903).
10 Ps.-L., cap. XII; Leg. Aur., p. 773; S.N.T. 220-31, 243-59, 300-1, 354-6.
11 This is not the place to discuss the origin and history of the legend, which have not been thoroughly established. On the earliest versions see Laderchi, op. cit., the most important of all works on the subject; G. B. de Rossi, op. cit., II, xxxii ff; Acta SS, April, II, 203-11 (Sts Valerianus, etc.; the Acta have not yet reached Cecilia, whose day is 22 Nov.); C. Narbey, Supplément aux Acta SS. (Paris, 1899-1912), II, 279-90 (the second volume is out of print and excessively scarce; it contains an early version which seems to lack some of the above points, being damaged); Ælfric's Lives of Saints (ed. Skeat, EETS, OS, 114, 1881-1900), II, 356-76; Surius, Historiae seu vitae sanctorum (Turin, 1875-80, 12 vols., tr. from the Greek of Simeon Metaphrastes), XI, 638-55; Antonio Bosio, Historia passionis B. Cœciliœ (Rome, 1600), pp. 4 ff. The Cecilia legend is probably reflected in all the earliest sacramentaries, but details are explicit first in the so-called Gregorian Sacramentary (Laderchi, I. 172), which is perhaps not earlier than the eighth century.
12 De Rossi, XL ff, who quotes others; Narbey, II, 280 ff.
13 Ernst Lucius, Anfänge d. Heiligenkults (Tübingen, 1904), 91 ff. It might be added that the stress on Cecilia's genteel family reflects the gratification of the Christians at the improved social standing of their religion; though many saints' lives, later and perhaps earlier, show this last infirmity of pious mind.
14 Early fifth century, Carl Schmidt, op. cit., 145. Apparently about the third quarter of the fourth century, Theodor Zahn, Gesch. des neutestamentl. Kanons, II, 838, 845-6 (Erlangen and Leipzig, 1890). Cf. also A. Harnack, Gesch. d. altchristl. Litt. I, 132 f (Leipzig, 1893). Lipsius (Quellen d. röm. Petrussage, pp. 119, 134, Apokr. Apostelgesch. II, i, 111) believed that Biblical passages in the work show use of the Vulgate; unless one accepts his view that this is due to revision, pseudo-Linus then could not be earlier than the fifth century,—400-550 (ibid., 113). Later apparently he changed his view, but on dubious grounds, to third or fourth century (Acta apost. apocr., vol. I, pp. xi, xvii, and cf. xc). Pseudo-Linus is certainly later than the Council of Nicæa, and perhaps than that of Constantinople (A.D. 381), for a passage in cap. xiii is a cento of phrases found in their creeds. The Constantinopolitan creed is suggested especially, but there is doubt how well it was known in the West before the mid-fifth century at any rate, and the only phrase here peculiar to it (“ante omnia sæcula”) is found in Greek in earlier and less official creeds. The Credo was less familiar then than now, not being a part of the mass till after this time, long after in the West. The above passage, presumably, was absent from the possible Greek original, just as that about the crowns was, being absent from the cognate Greek and Latin versions of the Acts of Peter given by Lipsius.
15 The extraordinary vitality of early Christianity was connected with two great new ideas, which really worked and lived. The first is the idea of the resurrection, the second is a root-and-branch asceticism.
16 On all this see J. Köchling's excellent De coronarum apud antiguos vi atque usu (Religionsgesch. Versuche u. Vorarb., XIV, 2; Giessen, 1914); Hastings, Encycl. of Relig. and Ethics, IV, 336-45 (articles by J. A. MacCulloch and G. F. Hill); S. Blondel, Recherches sur les couronnes de fleurs (Paris, 1876); Ernst Lucius's admirable Anfänge d. Heiligenkults (cited above); T. Mamachi, Costumi dei primitivi cristiani (Florence, 1853), I, 225-6; Carlo Pasquali's (“Paschalius”) Coronae (Leyden, 1671). This last odd collection of near-sighted learning has little or nothing of lily and rose crowns for virginity and martyrdom, but much of crowns in general for these and other virtues, and of symbolical lilies and roses.
17 Apologia, I, 9, 24 (Patroligiae Græcae, VI, col. 340 and 365); cf. Arnobius, Adversus gentes (written about 303), Patr. lat. V, col. 1262 (cf. also 1074); and other writers cited later.
18 Octavius, cap. XII and XXXVIII; P. L. III, col. 272 and 356.
19 P. L. II, 77, 98-100. On soldiers' garlands, and their pagan significance, see A. Bigelmair's excellent Beteiligung der Christen am öffentl. Leben (Munich, 1902), pp. 169-70; cf. also 233-6. Wearing garlands implied honor to the several gods with whom the several plants were associated. The fathers in lighter vein ridicule flower-crowns as unnatural, as placed where the wearers cannot smell them, as having none of the supposed cooling influence; but this was merely seeking worldly reasons for an unworldly prejudice. Stringent souls shunned things associated with what they disapproved of, like meat sacrificed to idols in the first century and claret in the twentieth.
20 P. L., I, 492-3.
21 Paedagogus, II, 8 (P. G., VIII, col. 477 and 484).
22 Liber de lapsis, cap. II (P. L. TV, 466).
23 Unless “coronari in morte” means figuratively “to be regarded as a martyr” (Epist. LII, in P. L. vol III, col. 785); cf. Commodian, below.
24 Patr. Lat., IV, 355, 467, 622, 653-4. Cf. also Lactantius, De mortibus persecutorum, cap. xvi. (P. L. VII, 219); St. Chrysostom, Patr. Graecae, V. 281. With Commodian (about the middle of the third century), “in agone coronari” means to gain the honor of martyrdom (Instructiones, II, 20, 3; in Vienna Corpus XV, 1887). So also Irenaeus, Firmicus Maternus, Athanasius and others.
25 P. L. IV. 249-50. A good deal of the above is borrowed, sometimes word for word, in a sermon later variously attributed to Augustine, Bede, Alcuin and others. Miss R. D. Cornelius cites the above passage from Cyprian, and that below from Jerome, and precedes me in indicating Cyprian as the earliest authority (PMLA, XLII. 1055-7). See especially I Cor. ix, 25, II Tim. iv, 8, I Peter v, 4, for scriptural precedent.
26 P. L., IV, 622.
27 P. G., XVIII, 159; in the Ante-Nicene Library (Edinburgh, 1869), p. 81.
28 XIV, 7-9, 119-20 and cf. 127.
29 Epistolae, CVIII, 31 (P. L., XXII, 905).
30 Lucius, op. cit., 75 ff, 106, 123, 291; Blondel, op. cit. pp. 94 ff.
31 Nat. Hist. XXI, 3-6; cf. also L. Friedländer, Sittengesch. Roms (Leipzig, 1919-21) II, 288, 306, 345, III, 324, etc.; Blondel, pp. 36 ff, 60, 95 ff. Anchises would strew lilies and crimson flowers for the soul of the young Marcellus (Æneid, VI, 883-4). Lilies and roses were favorites in the middle ages (A. Schultz, Das höfische Leben z. Zeit d. Minnesinger, Leipzig, 1889, I, 50), and always have been. “White as a lily, red as a rose” is the commonest of comparisons. There is nothing mysterious and technical about all this.
32 The passage cited by Emerson (see p. 169 above) is: “Ubi integritas, ubi castitas, ubi religio, ubi fida silentia secretorum, ubi claritas angelorum est, illic confessorum violae, lilia virginum, rosae martyrum sunt. Nec incongruum quisquam putet quod angelis lilia comparentur, cum lilium se Christus ipse memoraverit dicens: Ego flos campi, et lilium convallium (Cant. ii, 1). Et bene lilium Christus; quia ubi martyrum sanguis, ibi Christus,” etc. (Expositio evang. sec. Lucam, vii, 128, in his explanation of Luke xii, 27-8). This is the only pertinent passage.
33 The symbolism is not hard-and-fast. Tertullian speaks of the crown of martyrdom as white (De corona, cap. 1), and a correspondent of St. Augustine's associates roses with virginity (P. L. XXXIII, 694); Ambrose does the same, besides associating lilies with martyrdom and giving these flowers still other meanings. But Lowes showed thoroughly that later the symbolism became more fixed.
34 Early Christian iconography would probably illustrate the changing attitude. See A. N. Didron, Christian Iconography, I, 95 ff.
35 Another passage in Chaucer about two crowns has puzzled critics. Skeat fancied a reference to Cecilia's crowns by Pandarus in the Troilus (II, 1735), which was probably written about the same time or somewhat later. If so, there is a paradox. To adjure Criseyde in God's name, and in the virtue of the two crowns which glorify chastity and martyrdom, not to martyr Troilus by safeguarding at least her reputation for chastity borders on the ridiculous. No subtle theory about reassuring hints will save it. Pandarus is not addicted to this kind of paradox or impudence. His cue at this stage is to pretend to Criseyde that nothing is in view but honest mirth, though probably both of them knew better. Whether or not the reference is to the rose and lily crowns, we lack some essential part of its background. In the Cecilia legend the symbolism of the lilies and roses is no more emphasized than their being brought from heaven by an angel, and at an unlikely season for flowers (in Leg. Aur. and S. N. T.). Likewise at St. Dorothea's martyrdom an angel brings her roses and apples in February, as Mrs. M. DeP. Smith points out to me (Acta SS., Feb Vol. I, 780, 782); for St. Trypho lilies bloom in winter, at his martyrdom a crown with various flowers is miraculously put on his head, and at St. Nympha's baptism an angel crowns her with lilies and roses (conveying the symbolism; ib., Nov., IV, 356, 364, 380). Similarly in later legends of other saints. In the most celebrated of American miracles Juan Diego receives roses from the Virgin in December on the barren hill of Guadalupe, just outside the city of Mexico. The blooming garden in December in Boccaccio's Filocolo and Decameron doubtless owes something to saints' legends.