Chapter 21

S. ALFIO

I was back in Catania before the 9th of May and began talking about S. Alfio in the Teatro Machiavelli. One of the actors whose name is Volpes, the one who did the listening father in the play about Rosina and the good young man, is employed by day in the cathedral, his department being the brass-work; he is therefore something of a hagiologist. He was going on business to Lentini, which is situated to the south of Catania on the way to Siracusa, it is the place where the three saintly brothers were martyred, and there he bought for me a book--_Storia dei Martiri e della Chiesa di Lentini_, by Sebastiano Pisano Baudo (Lentini: Giuseppe Saluta, 1898)--from which I have collected particulars for this story of the Life of S. Alfio.

Towards the end of the first half of the third century after Christ, at Prefetta in Gascony, the wealthy and noble Prince Vitale lived a life of singular piety, united in matrimony to Benedetta di Locusta. Heaven had blessed them with three sons, Alfio born in 230, Filiberto born one year and eight months later and Cirino born one year and four months later again. Prefetta was not only in Gascony, it was also in Aquitaine, and, notwithstanding this, it was in Spain and also in the Abruzzi, which is a region of Italy between Naples and Taranto, if I understand correctly. Owing to its unsettled habits geographers do not mark it on the maps, but they and the historians are agreed that it certainly existed, and perhaps it exists still, if only in a Castellinarian sense. The interesting point is that it was the birthplace of S. Alfio.

The noble and saintly Benedetta, having been brought up in the school of sacrifice, ardently desired to die for the faith. Her husband placed no obstacle in her way. She obtained an interview with the prefect, abused his gods and awaited the sentence which took the form of decapitation.

Prince Vitale after the death of his wife was free to consecrate himself to the education of his three sons. I expected to find that he had them taught medicine, surgery and chemistry, but there is not a word about any of these subjects. Evodio di Bisanzio, flying from country to country to avoid the persecution of Massimino, happened upon Prefetta; he was welcomed by Vitale, who appointed him tutor of his boys. Evodio was learned in the sacred sciences, the Greek fables and how to live rightly. These were the subjects which he taught to his pupils. Alfio copied out the Books of the Prophets, Filiberto the Gospels and Cirino the Letters of S. Paul and the Acts of the Apostles. Thus they developed a manly spirit, angelic habits and an intelligence, a piety, a devotion which are the rare gifts of a few privileged souls.

Onesimo was their next tutor, a man of deep learning and a fervent missionary who came to Prefetta with a following of thirteen or fourteen disciples and boarded and lodged with Prince Vitale. He was more the kind of tutor Vitale wanted for his boys. Onesimo had no sympathy with flying from persecution; he took the view that it was not enough to copy the sacred Books, his pupils must know how to sacrifice their frail bodies for the glory of the Cross. He instructed them in the practical work of martyrdom.

In the year 249, Decio ascended the imperial throne and issued an edict against the Christians. Vitale and Onesimo heard of it and welcomed this opportunity for the three brothers who swore on the ashes of their mother that they would profit by it. They did not have to wait long. Nigellione, the imperial minister, came to execute the decree. Onesimo and his pupils, in spite of tortures, professed their unalterable faith in the Cross and were sent to Rome together with fourteen other Christians. Vitale, being thus freed from all family responsibilities, exiled himself with his friends and awaited his end in a sacred retreat so retired that our author does not specify it.

In Rome, Onesimo and his band of Christians suffered tortures. While in prison S. Peter and S. Paul appeared to them, healed their wounds, exhorted them to persevere and promised ultimate victory. On the seventh day they were taken before Valeriano, the imperial minister. Failing, as Nigellione had failed, to shake their faith, he sent them with a letter to Diomede, Prince of Pozzuoli, telling him that if he could not win the captives over from their new faith he was to put to death Onesimo and the fourteen disciples by means of fierce tortures, and to send Alfio, Filiberto and Cirino into Sicily to be dealt with according to instructions contained in another letter addressed to the crafty Tertullo, Governor of Sicily, at Lentini.

Diomede carried out his instructions. The Christians all refused to sacrifice to the false gods. Onesimo died in consequence of an unusually large stone being placed upon his chest, the fourteen disciples were decapitated and Alfio, Filiberto and Cirino were handed over to fifty soldiers under Captain Silvano, a man of a proud and cruel nature, and taken in a ship to Messina.

The voyage occupied three days; they reposed in Messina for two hours and then, chained together and barefooted, proceeded to Taormina, where Tertullo happened to be hunting for Christians, and to him Captain Silvano delivered the letter from Valeriano. Tertullo's instructions were to make the most of his attractive appearance and his agreeable manners and by means of cajolery to persuade the three holy brethren to sacrifice to the gods of Rome; in case of failure he was to cause them to suffer many and various tortures and then to deprive them of their lives.

Tertullo concocted a scheme worthy of the devil. No sooner were the youths brought into his presence than he assumed the appearance of an affectionate father, embraced them and inquired sympathetically about their parents and their home. On their telling him they were Christians he endeavoured, with apparent kindness, to turn them from a faith which had brought them nothing but suffering. He promised that if they would sacrifice to the gods of Rome they should enjoy the pleasures of a court life. But there was none of the _Paris vaut bien une Messe_ about the sons of the saintly Benedetta. They spurned his promises and continued to declare themselves firm believers in the true Cross. Tertullo, defeated and angry, thereupon showed himself in his true colours; he dropped the affectionate parent and ordered the brothers to be tortured. He then sent them with Captain Mercurio and a squadron of forty soldiers to Lentini to await his return to that city.

At Mascali they were fatigued, especially Filiberto, who almost succumbed. They prayed to the Omnipotent and, before they had risen from their knees, the azure heavens became obscured, the wind blew, the thunder roared, the lightning flashed and there was a great rain. The forty soldiers fell upon their faces, frightened nearly to death, and in the tempest onward came a venerable man, believed by all who saw him to be S. Andrea. This personage restored the youths; whereupon the rain ceased, the clouds dispersed, the heavens smiled again and the forty soldiers rose from the ground declaring that the God worshipped by their prisoners must be more powerful than they had supposed.

In those days the usual road from Taormina to Lentini passed along by the seashore, but Captain Mercurio took the three brothers by an inland route passing through Trecastagni, perhaps because the road by the shore was encumbered with lava from an eruption of Etna which occurred in the year 251 or 252. When I came to this I thought of Diodorus Siculus and the second Punic war, but I repressed the suspicion that the compiler of the story was consciously borrowing a bit of local colour in order to get S. Alfio to Trecastagni in a picturesque manner.

It was the end of August or the beginning of September in the year 252 when the three saints reached Trecastagni. Here they sat on a rock which diversified the uniformity of the landscape, partook of food and reposed. Exhilarated by a laughing sky of rarest beauty, the holy brethren unloosed their tongues and sang hymns of joy and praise to the Lord for that he had given them the strength and spirit to face their anticipated martyrdom. On the spot where they reposed now stands the parish church of Trecastagni.

The three saints proceeded to Catania, where they passed an uncomfortable night singing hymns in an obscure prison, and at daybreak were taken on towards Lentini. The river Simeto was in flood owing to the recent abundant rain, which is perhaps a reference to the storm at Mascali; as soon as the saints put their feet in the stream it shrank and they passed over. Eight of the soldiers attempted to follow in their footsteps, but a sudden rush of water engulfed them together with their horses; this danger caused the remaining thirty-two soldiers to stay where they were, and they patiently waited four days till they were fetched by their comrades who, I suppose, had got over the river and employed the time in drying their uniforms and recovering from their wetting, but at first I feared they had been drowned.

Eight hundred paces to the north of Lentini the glorious brothers met a young man of the Jewish religion who had eaten nothing for a month. Captain Mercurio, having seen and been much touched by the portents performed by his prisoners during the journey, begged them to restore the youth. Immediately, with no assistance from anyone, the saints broke the ropes that bound them, prayed to heaven, approached the sufferer, infused new life into his exhausted frame and restored him to perfect health. The youth and his parents confessed their faith in the Nazarene, Captain Mercurio also declared himself converted and twenty of the soldiers, dismounting from their horses, threw their arms on the ground and prayed to be bound with chains since they now abhorred the false pagan gods and intended for the future to worship only the God of the three brothers.

They entered Lentini on Wednesday the 3rd of September, 252, their hands bound behind them, their heads uncovered and their feet bare, presenting to the emotional crowd an appearance of great nobility. They were put in prison with the twenty converted soldiers, tortured and starved; but a venerable man girdled with grace and celestial light miraculously brought food to them, embraced them and blessed them, their wounds were healed, their strength was restored, their courage was reinforced. Their tortures were increased after this, and so it went on till the 10th of May, 253, when S. Alfio was killed by having his tongue pulled out, S. Filiberto was burnt on a gridiron and S. Cirino was boiled in pitch and bitumen.

Eight years later, in June, 261, Vitale in his retirement was cheered by a visit from Neofito and Aquila, who brought to him, as tokens of the martyrdom of his three sons, the mantle of Alfio, the girdle of Filiberto and the veil of Cirino, saturated with blood.

The geographers write Trecastagne on the maps as though the village took its name from Three Chestnut Trees, but the learned say it should be Trecastagni--Tre Casti Agni, that is Three Chaste Lambs, after the three saints who rested on the site of the parish church. Their memory is perpetuated also at Mascali, Catania and Lentini. And they are adored at Aci-reale, Pedara and at other places on the eastern slopes, whence the faithful come to their shrine at Trecastagne on the 10th of May.