DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12665#0206
190
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
as having belonged to one of the innocents massa*
cred by the order of Herod. Near the door of the
chapel we descended a flight of stone steps, and
then a second, until we came to an excavation in
the solid rock, and, following a passage to the right,
came to a little chapel, with an altar, dedicated to
Joseph, the husband of Mary. At the end of this
passage was a large chamber, called the school of
St. Jerome, where that great Catholic saint wrote
his version of the Bible, the celebrated Vulgate.
Passing out through the door of this chamber, on
the right is the tomb of the saint; and directly op-
posite are the tombs of Santa Paula and another
whose name I have forgotten ; very good ladies, no
doubt; but who they were, or why they were bu-
ried in that holy place, I did not understand ; al-
though they must have died in the odour of sanc-
tity, as their bodies have since been removed to
the papal city. Returning into the first passage,
and advancing a few steps, on the left is an altar
over the pit into which the bodies of the murdered
innocents were thrown. Under the altar is a re-
cess with an iron grating, opening into the pit, or
rather vault, below. By the light of a torch, I
gazed long and earnestly within, but could see
nothing that gave confirmation to the story. Over
the altar was a rude painting, representing the
massacred infants held up by their heels, with their
throats cut, and their bowels gushing out; the an-
guish of the mothers, and all the necessary and
fearful accompaniments of such a scene. A few
INCIDENTS OF TRAVEL.
as having belonged to one of the innocents massa*
cred by the order of Herod. Near the door of the
chapel we descended a flight of stone steps, and
then a second, until we came to an excavation in
the solid rock, and, following a passage to the right,
came to a little chapel, with an altar, dedicated to
Joseph, the husband of Mary. At the end of this
passage was a large chamber, called the school of
St. Jerome, where that great Catholic saint wrote
his version of the Bible, the celebrated Vulgate.
Passing out through the door of this chamber, on
the right is the tomb of the saint; and directly op-
posite are the tombs of Santa Paula and another
whose name I have forgotten ; very good ladies, no
doubt; but who they were, or why they were bu-
ried in that holy place, I did not understand ; al-
though they must have died in the odour of sanc-
tity, as their bodies have since been removed to
the papal city. Returning into the first passage,
and advancing a few steps, on the left is an altar
over the pit into which the bodies of the murdered
innocents were thrown. Under the altar is a re-
cess with an iron grating, opening into the pit, or
rather vault, below. By the light of a torch, I
gazed long and earnestly within, but could see
nothing that gave confirmation to the story. Over
the altar was a rude painting, representing the
massacred infants held up by their heels, with their
throats cut, and their bowels gushing out; the an-
guish of the mothers, and all the necessary and
fearful accompaniments of such a scene. A few