THE WORLD'S GREATEST SECRET
John Mathias Haffert
table of contents
CHAPTER FIVE
DISCOVERY
Guarded in the caves of
Palestine and in the subterranean cemeteries of Rome, the sacred rite of the
Blessed Sacrament (which made Christians literally blood Brothers had been
found hidden in symbols. Paul said it made them "Of one body, all
partaking of one bread." But who, except the initiated, could know the
meaning of these powerful words - let alone the symbols of them? Thus,
excavations unearthing Peter's tomb revealed rarities much more intriguing
than the scribblings of some ancient pilgrims. Experts who had been studying
such enigmas throughout the Mediterranean area from Athens to Rome, from
Alexandria to Palestine, worked impatiently to decipher the symbols, which
were an effort at concealment. But tradition (word-of-mouth knowledge,
cherished and passed on intact for at least two generations) was eventually
recorded by early Church writers. These documents provided the initial bit of
knowledge that Peter was buried in the general area where they found his tomb.
2 However clear were some of
the references to Peter in /the Vatican catacombs (e.g., PE, PET, or simply
Petrus), one particular symbol baffled them, although it had been showing up
in excavation after excavation for a hundred and fifty years. It usually
appeared on tombs, and usually, too, next to the symbol for Christ. Also, it
later appeared in rings, domestic objects and it was often impressed on Roman
documents of the fourth and fifth centuries. It too was at last proven to be a
symbol for Peter: a P and an E combined in such a way as to form a key. Dr. M.
Guarducci writes: "With the discovery of the symbol's meaning, we now
have an idea of the immense popularity enjoyed by Peter during the early
centuries of Christianity...."' Also, it would seem to indicate his
importance in the minds of Christians as their spiritual leader, and as the
first purely human head of the Church. It was so commonly used that it
eventually became the symbol for Rome itself. It was found on an epigraph
commemorating the restoration of the Coliseum and on coins throughout the
Roman world after the first centuries. Popular though this symbol was, it was
less popular than some others, especially those in the other catacombs.
Recurring over and over with more frequency than any others are the symbols of
Christ, Mary and above all the Eucharist.* One symbol for Christ was an X
(first letter of "Christos " in Greek) or an X with a P superimposed
on it (second letter of "Christos," which is equivalent in sound to
the English R). Yet another was an X with a T 'M. Guarducci, The Tomb of St.
Peter, 1960, P. through its center, representing Christ and the Cross.
3 The symbol for Mary was
sometimes just a simple M, sometimes an M on which an A was superimposed.
Paradoxically, this second symbol for Mary was not only clearer to the
initiated, but it was less clear to the outsider. Symbols for the Eucharist
were multiple: a fish; loaves surmounted by a fish; a bunch of grapes or a
vine; a cup often resembling a large vase. These symbols found around Peter's
tomb make his burial place different from most found in the catacombs. The
other tombs bear engravings or "graffiti" dealing with death and
salvation. The graffiti on Peter's tomb, like those on the walls surrounding
an altar table and on the walls of the underground passages and rooms, were
hiding something as well as telling something, and here it was that the symbol
of the Eucharist dominated. Obviously the Eucharist was the treasure prized
and reverenced by Peter and his contemporaries, and it was the sine qua non of
their religious rites. Substantiating the cryptography and symbols are many
pictures found in the catacombs. Cryptography is for experts. Pictures are for
everybody, or at least for everybody who has ever been exposed to
Christianity's secret. Naturally the ancient pagans would not have understood
even the pictures. What pagan would suspect that a cup of wine and a loaf of
bread, the most ordinary and basic of foodstuffs, signified a religious
mystery* as deep as the one proclaimed by Christ on that hill by Capernaum?
What pagan would ever suspect that a fish served with a few loaves of bread
signified a great miracle*; or that a vine symbolized the heart of Christian
ritual; or that a woman holding a child with the sun behind her signified the
coming of God to His earth as man?
4 These are the very
pictures found not only near Peter's tomb but in the miles and miles of
catacombs* being dug out in our own day under and around the walls of Rome.
One well-preserved fresco was painted within the lifetime of persons directly
instructed by Peter and Paul. It was found in the catacombs of the famous
Roman martyr Priscilla who is mentioned by Paul in his Second Epistle to
Timothy. Like most of the other pictures from apostolic times, it does not
depict baptism or the resurrection, nor a message about faith and good works.
It shows seven people reclining at table, eating bread and drinking wine (see
p. 52). The number seven, as we know, is a favorite one in the Bible and it
stands for an uncertain quantity. The same number of people, seven, are found
in other "Supper-of the Lord" scenes elsewhere in the catacombs. In
this particular picture in the catacomb of St. Priscilla, one of the seven
persons is a woman. In the place of honor is the person who is breaking the
bread. In front of him on a table is a single, two-handled cup. A fresco
painted about the year 190 was found in another catacomb, St. Calixtus'. Again
there are seven banqueters breaking bread, but what would appear unusual in
this picture, perhaps even to the pagan, are twelve immense baskets in the
foreground, standing higher than the table and filled to overflowing with
bread. There is something very joyful about this scene. It is in a
subterranean chapel where the pitiful remains of hundreds of martyred
Christians have been gathered from the debris of the arena. Yet the aspect of
the primitive figures in the fading fresco is of a group celebrating at a
great banquet.
5 Now the pagan might well
ask, what kind of banquet is this where the guests seem to be eating only
bread and have but one cup of wine for all? Elsewhere in the catacombs the
bread is shown with incisions in the form of a cross. One picture found in a
catacomb near the Via Appia Antica shows a much more complete account of the
Eucharist in a threefold image. In the center Christ is performing the miracle
of the multiplication. Then He is shown in the right with His hand raised in a
gesture of blessing or thanks or of speechmaking, while in the folds of His
cloak are five loaves marked with a cross. On the left section of the picture
is shown the Samaritan woman drawing water from Jacob's well, the woman to
whom Christ promised to give "living water." Any Christian can
understand the picture. The center panel, that of the prefiguring miracle,
proved Christ's claim to be God, and so it also proved that He could do the
humanly impossible: give Himself as food to His followers. The bread marked
with a cross depicted the "holy bread" of His Eucharistic Body by
which He did in fact give Himself to His followers; and the raised hand is a
gesture of blessing as He speaks the words of transubstantiation. Finally, the
Samaritan woman who was an adulterous sinner when she first met Christ could,
because she repented, receive from Him the "living /'-water" which
is "for the remission of sins." Few of the early Christian murals
contain, as this one does, three sections. In fact, the most commonly seen
picture is very simple: it is that of a fish. Sometimes the fish is surmounted
by a basket of bread, and sometimes also a glass of red wine is depicted
inside the basket and both bread and wine stand over a fish.
6 The fish has a double
significance. Obviously it reaper sents the miracle of the multiplication / as
well as the "food from heaven" which Christ promised the next day,
the food which was Himself, His body and blood. Also, the letters of the Greek
word for fish, icthys, are the initial letters in that language for
"'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior" Jesus is Theou Uios Soter). I 1
10 1 This most famous ac:r.osti C of the early Christian era 0 Christians,
Christ Himself, interchangeably symbolized and Christ in the Sacrament of the
Eucharist through which Christians and Christ unite in a special way. The
epitaph of Bishop Abercious of Hieropolis in Phrygia can serve as a sort of
synopsis of the Christian secret.' He went to Rome about ninety years after
Peter's death at a time when the persecutions had already taken heavy toll
although the worst was yet to come. The authenticity of his ancient epitaph
was confirmed by the findings of an English traveler named Ramsey, who found
an inscribed slab in Phrygia dated A.D. 216, which verified the older text of
the epitaph of Abercius. The significance of the words was recognized by
scholars. Later research revealed continuing fragments of the same epitaph
which had been built into the walls of the public baths in Phrygia. They
filled out the complete message which Abercius, for the benefit of posterity,
had ordered cut into the stone which was to go above his tomb.' The message
begins: Let the brother who shall understand pray for Abercius. " Thus,
announcing that he was about to record Christian secrets in a manner only
Christians could understand, he wrote: "I am by name Abercius, disciple
of the Holy Shepherd' Who feeds flocks of sheep on the mountains and plains,
Who has great eyes that see everywhere.
7 This
Shepherd taught me that the book of life is worthy of belief. And to Rome He
sent me to contemplate Majesty and to see a Queen, golden-robed and golden
-sandaled'; there also I saw people bearing a shining mark.'" Later he
continues: "Faith everywhere led me forward and everywhere provided as my
food a fish I of exceeding great size and perfection which a Holy Virgin drew
with her hands from a fountain and ever gives this to its friends to eat, wine
of great virtue, mingled with bread." Scholars declare that a mystic or a
theologian of today might have difficulty in expressing so much of the
doctrine of the Eucharist in so few words, though it might be expressed in
less veiled terms. Without secrecy the words could read: "Faith showed me
that everywhere I went I received Jesus Christ, Son of God and Savior, to whom
the holy virgin Mary had given flesh and blood, and now gives Him to me in the
form of wine of great virtue served with bread." "These
writings," the epitaph concludes, "l, Abercius, having been a
witness thereto, have told to be written here. Verily, I am passing through my
seventy second year."
8 If Abercius' epitaph seems
a little abtrusive or even farfetched to those of us who are neither scholars
nor archeological experts, we can turn to other inscriptions. They are legion.
In one of the catacombs is found an inscription written by Pope Damasus on the
tomb of a young man who was killed while carrying Eucharistic bread. He
refused to reveal to those who stopped him what it was he had on his person.
His name was Tarcisius and his feast day is kept by the Church on August 15.
The inscription on his tomb reads: "Carrying the Sacrament of Christ, he
chose rather to suffer death than to betray the heavenly Body to the raging
dogs." Tradition tells us that he was only a boy and that a pagan mob,
alerted to the fact that he was carrying the "secret" of the
Christians to a co-religionist, tortured him to know what it was. Since they
found only "bread" on his person, the boy preferred to die letting
them think it was mere bread rather than risk desecration of the Eucharist as
the real Body of Christ. Ours is a blessed age in which these facts of early
Christianity are finally brought to light. They reveal what was once
considered the secret of secrets, the transcendent Eucharistic doctrine.
Together with the infusion of the Holy Spirit, this was the life principle of
the Christian Church, or the Mystical Body of Christ, by which Christians
"may be made one" as the Savior said to His Father, "as You ...
are in Me, and I in You." but even as the world in general was not
prepared to asp, such a secret after the miracle of the loaves and fishes,
would the world be ready to grasp it when the secret began to leak into
general knowledge? To what extent would it remain secret even down to the
twentieth century when finally Vatican Council 11 would remove the word
"Secret"?
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