Saint Peter
Saint Peter known as Simon Peter, Simon, or Cephas, according to the New Testament, was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, leaders of the early Christian Great Church. Pope Gregory I called him the "Prince of the Apostles". According to Catholic teaching, Jesus promised Peter in the "Rock of My Church" dialogue in Matthew 16:18 a special position in the Church, he is traditionally counted as the first Bishop of Rome—or pope—and by Eastern Christian tradition as the first Patriarch of Antioch. The ancient Christian churches all venerate Peter as a major saint and as the founder of the Church of Antioch and the Roman Church, but differ in their attitudes regarding the authority of his present-day successors; the New Testament indicates that Peter's father's name was John and was from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee or Gaulanitis. His brother Andrew was an apostle. According to New Testament accounts, Peter was one of twelve apostles chosen by Jesus from his first disciples.
A fisherman, he played a leadership role and was with Jesus during events witnessed by only a few apostles, such as the Transfiguration. According to the gospels, Peter confessed Jesus as the Messiah, was part of Jesus's inner circle, thrice denied Jesus and wept bitterly once he realised his deed, preached on the day of Pentecost. According to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome under Emperor Nero, it is traditionally held that he was crucified upside down at his own request, since he saw himself unworthy to be crucified in the same way as Jesus. Tradition holds, his remains are said to be those contained in the underground Confessio of St. Peter's Basilica, where Pope Paul VI announced in 1968 the excavated discovery of a first-century Roman cemetery; every 29 June since 1736, a statue of Saint Peter in St. Peter's Basilica is adorned with papal tiara, ring of the fisherman, papal vestments, as part of the celebration of the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. According to Catholic doctrine, the direct papal successor to Saint Peter is the incumbent pope Pope Francis.
Two general epistles in the New Testament are ascribed to Peter, but modern scholars reject the Petrine authorship of both. The Gospel of Mark was traditionally thought to show the influence of Peter's preaching and eyewitness memories. Several other books bearing his name—the Acts of Peter, Gospel of Peter, Preaching of Peter, Apocalypse of Peter, Judgment of Peter—are considered by Christian denominations as apocryphal, are thus not included in their Bible canons. Peter's original name, as indicated in the New Testament, was "Simon" or "Simeon"; the Simon/Simeon variation has been explained as reflecting "the well-known custom among Jews at the time of giving the name of a famous patriarch or personage of the Old Testament to a male child along with a similar sounding Greek/Roman name". He was given the name כֵּיפָא in Aramaic, rendered in Greek as Κηφᾶς, whence Latin and English Cephas; the precise meaning of the Aramaic word is disputed, some saying that its usual meaning is "rock" or "crag", others saying that it means rather "stone" and in its application by Jesus to Simon, "precious stone" or "jewel", but most scholars agree that as a proper name it denotes a rough or tough character.
Both meanings, "stone" and "rock", are indicated in dictionaries of Syriac. Catholic theologian Rudolf Pesch argues that the Aramaic cepha means "stone, clump, clew" and that "rock" is only a connotation; the combined name Σίμων Πέτρος appears 19 times in the New Testament. In some Syriac documents he is called, in Simon Cephas. Peter's life story is told in the four canonical gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, New Testament letters, the non-canonical Gospel of the Hebrews and other Early Church accounts of his life and death. In the New Testament, he is among the first of the disciples called during Jesus' ministry. Peter became the first listed apostle ordained by Jesus in the early church. Peter was a fisherman in Bethsaida, he was named son of Jonah or John. The three Synoptic Gospels recount how Peter's mother-in-law was healed by Jesus at their home in Capernaum. 1 Cor. 9:5 has been taken to imply that he was married. In the Synoptic Gospels, Peter was a fisherman along with his brother and the sons of Zebedee and John.
The Gospel of John depicts Peter fishing after the resurrection of Jesus, in the story of the Catch of 153 fish. In Matthew and Mark, Jesus called Simon and his brother Andrew to be "fishers of men". A Franciscan church is built upon the traditional site of Apostle Peter's house. In Luke, Simon Peter owns the boat that Jesus uses to preach to the multitudes who were pressing on him at the shore of Lake Gennesaret. Jesu
Hippolytus of Rome
Hippolytus was one of the most important second-third century Christian theologians, whose provenance and corpus remain elusive to scholars and historians. Suggested communities include Palestine, Anatolia and regions of the mideast; the best historians of literature in the ancient church, including Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome confess they cannot name where Hippolytus the biblical commentator and theologian served in leadership. They did not possess evidence of his community. Photios I of Constantinople describes him in his Bibliotheca as a disciple of Irenaeus, said to be a disciple of Polycarp, from the context of this passage it is supposed that he suggested that Hippolytus so styled himself; this assertion is doubtful. One older theory asserts he came into conflict with the popes of his time and seems to have headed a schismatic group as a rival to the Bishop of Rome, thus becoming an Antipope. In this view, he opposed the Roman Popes who softened the penitential system to accommodate the large number of new pagan converts.
However, he was reconciled to the Church. Starting in the fourth century, various legends arose about him, identifying him as a priest of the Novatianist schism or as a soldier converted by Saint Lawrence, he has been confused with another martyr of the same name. Pope Pius IV identifies him as "Saint Hippolytus, Bishop of Pontus", martyred in the reign of Severus Alexander through his inscription on a statue found at the Church of Saint Lawrence in Rome and kept at the Vatican as photographed and published in Brunsen. Little is known for certain about his community of origin. One Victorian theory suggested that as a presbyter of the church at Rome under Pope Zephyrinus, Hippolytus was distinguished for his learning and eloquence, it was at this time that Origen a young man, heard him preach. In this view, Hippolytus accused Pope Zephyrinus of modalism, the heresy which held that the names Father and Son are different names for the same subject. Hippolytus championed the Logos doctrine of the Greek apologists, most notably Justin Martyr, which distinguished the Father from the Logos.
An ethical conservative, he was scandalized when Pope Callixtus I extended absolution to Christians who had committed grave sins, such as adultery. Some suggest Hippolytus. At this time, he seems to have allowed himself to be elected as a rival Bishop of Rome, continued to attack Pope Urban I and Pope Pontian. G. Salmon suggests. Allen Brent sees the development of Roman house-churches into something akin to Greek philosophical schools gathered around a compelling teacher. Under this view: during the persecution at the time of Emperor Maximinus Thrax and Pontian were exiled together in 235 to Sardinia dying in the mines, it is quite probable that, before his death there, he was reconciled to the other party at Rome, under Pope Fabian, his body and that of Pontian were brought to Rome. The so-called Chronography of 354 reports that on August 13 in 236, the two bodies were interred in Rome, that of Hippolytus in a cemetery on the Via Tiburtina, his funeral being conducted by Justin the Confessor.
This document indicates that, by about 255, Hippolytus was considered a martyr and gives him the rank of a priest, not of a bishop, an indication that before his death the schismatic was received again into the Church. The name Hippolytus appears in various hagiographical and martyrological sources of the early churches; the facts about the life of the writer Hippolytus, as opposed to other celebrated Christians who bore the name Hippolytus, were lost in the West partly because he wrote in Hellenic Greek. Pope Damasus I dedicated to a Hippolytus one of his famous epigrams, referring to a priest of the Novatianist schism, a view forwarded by Prudentius in the 5th century in his "Passion of St Hippolytus". In the Passionals of the 7th and 8th centuries he is represented as a soldier converted by Saint Lawrence, a legend that long survived in the Roman Breviary, he was confused with a martyr of the same name, buried in Portus, of which city he was believed to have been a bishop, put to death by drowning in a deep well.
According to Prudentius' account, a martyr Hippolytus was dragged to death by wild horses, a striking parallel to the story of the mythological Hippolytus, dragged to death by wild horses at Athens. He described the subterranean tomb of the saint and states that he saw there a picture representing Hippolytus' execution, he confirms August 13 as the date on which a Hippolytus was celebrated but this again refers to the convert of Lawrence, as preserved in the Menaion of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The latter account led to a Hippolytus being considered the patron saint of horses. During the Middle Ages, sick horses were brought to St Ippolyts, England, where a church is dedicated to him. Controversy surrounds the corpus of the writer Hippolytus. In the Victorian Era, scholars claimed his principal work to be the Refutation of all Heresies. Of its ten books, Book I was the most important, it was printed among the works of Origen. Books II and III are lost, Books IV–X were found, without the name of the author, in a monastery of Mount Athos in 1842.
E. Miller published them in 1851 under the title Philosophumena, attributing them to Origen of Alexandria. Recent scholarship prefers to treat the text as the work of an unknown author of Roman o
Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition
The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition is a 29-volume reference work, an edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. It was developed during the encyclopaedia's transition from a British to an American publication; some of its articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time. This edition of the encyclopedia, containing 40,000 entries, is now in the public domain, many of its articles have been used as a basis for articles in Wikipedia. However, the outdated nature of some of its content makes its use as a source for modern scholarship problematic; some articles have special value and interest to modern scholars as cultural artifacts of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The 1911 eleventh edition was assembled with the management of American publisher Horace Everett Hooper. Hugh Chisholm, who had edited the previous edition, was appointed editor in chief, with Walter Alison Phillips as his principal assistant editor. Hooper bought the rights to the 25-volume 9th edition and persuaded the British newspaper The Times to issue its reprint, with eleven additional volumes as the tenth edition, published in 1902.
Hooper's association with The Times ceased in 1909, he negotiated with the Cambridge University Press to publish the 29-volume eleventh edition. Though it is perceived as a quintessentially British work, the eleventh edition had substantial American influences, not only in the increased amount of American and Canadian content, but in the efforts made to make it more popular. American marketing methods assisted sales; some 14% of the contributors were from North America, a New York office was established to coordinate their work. The initials of the encyclopedia's contributors appear at the end of selected articles or at the end of a section in the case of longer articles, such as that on China, a key is given in each volume to these initials; some articles were written by the best-known scholars of the time, such as Edmund Gosse, J. B. Bury, Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Muir, Peter Kropotkin, T. H. Huxley, James Hopwood Jeans and William Michael Rossetti. Among the lesser-known contributors were some who would become distinguished, such as Ernest Rutherford and Bertrand Russell.
Many articles were carried over from some with minimal updating. Some of the book-length articles were divided into smaller parts for easier reference, yet others much abridged; the best-known authors contributed only a single article or part of an article. Most of the work was done by British Museum scholars and other scholars; the 1911 edition was the first edition of the encyclopædia to include more than just a handful of female contributors, with 34 women contributing articles to the edition. The eleventh edition introduced a number of changes of the format of the Britannica, it was the first to be published complete, instead of the previous method of volumes being released as they were ready. The print type was subject to continual updating until publication, it was the first edition of Britannica to be issued with a comprehensive index volume in, added a categorical index, where like topics were listed. It was the first not to include long treatise-length articles. Though the overall length of the work was about the same as that of its predecessor, the number of articles had increased from 17,000 to 40,000.
It was the first edition of Britannica to include biographies of living people. Sixteen maps of the famous 9th edition of Stielers Handatlas were translated to English, converted to Imperial units, printed in Gotha, Germany by Justus Perthes and became part this edition. Editions only included Perthes' great maps as low quality reproductions. According to Coleman and Simmons, the content of the encyclopedia was distributed as follows: Hooper sold the rights to Sears Roebuck of Chicago in 1920, completing the Britannica's transition to becoming a American publication. In 1922, an additional three volumes, were published, covering the events of the intervening years, including World War I. These, together with a reprint of the eleventh edition, formed the twelfth edition of the work. A similar thirteenth edition, consisting of three volumes plus a reprint of the twelfth edition, was published in 1926, so the twelfth and thirteenth editions were related to the eleventh edition and shared much of the same content.
However, it became apparent that a more thorough update of the work was required. The fourteenth edition, published in 1929, was revised, with much text eliminated or abridged to make room for new topics; the eleventh edition was the basis of every version of the Encyclopædia Britannica until the new fifteenth edition was published in 1974, using modern information presentation. The eleventh edition's articles are still of value and interest to modern readers and scholars as a cultural artifact: the British Empire was at its maximum, imperialism was unchallenged, much of the world was still ruled by monarchs, the tragedy of the modern world wars was still in the future, they are an invaluable resource for topics omitted from modern encyclopedias for biography and the history of science and technology. As a literary text, the encyclopedia has value as an example of early 20th-century prose. For example, it employs literary devices, such as pathetic fallacy, which are not as common in modern reference texts.
In 1917, using the pseudonym of S. S. Van Dine, the US art critic and author Willard Huntington Wright published Misinforming a Nation, a 200+
Papal renunciation
A papal renunciation occurs when the reigning pope of the Catholic Church voluntarily steps down from his position. As the reign of the pope has conventionally been from election until death, papal renunciation is an uncommon event. Before the 21st century, only five popes unambiguously resigned with historical certainty, all between the 10th and 15th centuries. Additionally, there are disputed claims of four popes having resigned, dating from the 3rd to the 11th centuries. Additionally, a few popes during the saeculum obscurum were "deposed", meaning driven from office by force; the history and canonical question here is complicated. The development of canon law has been in favor of papal supremacy, leaving no recourse to the removal of a pope involuntarily; the most recent pope to resign was Benedict XVI, who vacated the Holy See on 28 February 2013 at 19:00 UTC. He was the first pope to do so since Gregory XII in 1415. Despite its common usage in discussion of papal renunciations, the term abdication is not used in the official documents of the church for renunciation by a pope.
In the Catholic Church, in the Latin Rite, the official laws on all matters are codified in the Latin edition of the 1983 Code of Canon Law which regulates papal renunciations in Canon 332 §2, where it states:Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex muneri suo renuntiet, ad validitatem requiritur ut renuntiatio libere fiat et rite manifestetur, non vero ut a quopiam acceptetur. Which in English, would be:If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is required for validity that the resignation is made and properly manifested but not that it is accepted by anyone; this corresponds to Canon 221 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which in Latin is: Si contingat ut Romanus Pontifex renuntiet, ad eiusdem renuntiationis validitatem non est necessaria Cardinalium aliorumve acceptatio. And in English, would be:If it happens that the Roman Pontiff resigns his office, it is not required for validity that the resignation is accepted by the Cardinals or by anyone else. Both the 1983 Code and the 1917 Code make explicit that there is no particular individual or body of people to whom the pope must manifest his renunciation.
This addresses a concern raised in earlier centuries by 18th-century canonist Lucius Ferraris, who held that the College of Cardinals or at least its Dean must be informed, since the cardinals must be certain that the pope has renounced the dignity before they can validly proceed to elect a successor. In 1996, Pope John Paul II, in his Apostolic Constitution Universi Dominici gregis, anticipated the possibility of resignation when he specified that the procedures he set out in that document should be observed "even if the vacancy of the Apostolic See should occur as a result of the resignation of the Supreme Pontiff"; the Catholic Encyclopedia notes the obscure renunciations of Pontian and Marcellinus, the postulated renunciation of Liberius, that one catalogue of popes lists John XVIII as resigning office in 1009 and finishing his life as a monk. During the saeculum obscurum several popes were "deposed" or coerced into renunciation by political and military force. John X is considered to have been deposed by some, but he seems to have died in prison before his successor Leo VI was elected anyway.
As another example, consider the story of John XII, Leo VIII, Benedict V. John XII had been invalidly deposed by the Emperor Otto in 963. Leo VIII was set up as an antipope by Otto at this time. However, John XII won back his rightful place in 964; when John XII died in 964, Benedict V was elected. However, Otto wanted Leo VIII put back on the papal throne and, using military might, forced Benedict to abdicate that same summer. Leo VIII is considered the legitimate pope until his death in 965, thus having been both an antipope and a valid pope. Benedict V never again attempted to claim the papacy, did not contest the election of John XIII after Leo VIII, so his abdication is considered valid though some treated him as the valid pope until his death; the first unquestionable papal renunciation is that of Benedict IX in 1045. Benedict had previously been deposed by Sylvester III in 1044, though he returned to take up the office again the next year, the Vatican considers Sylvester III to have been a legitimate pope in the intervening months.
In 1045, having regained the papacy for a few months, in order to rid the church of the scandalous Benedict, Gregory VI gave Benedict "valuable possessions" to resign the papacy in his favour. Gregory himself resigned in 1046 because the arrangement he had entered into with Benedict could have been considered simony. Gregory was followed by Clement II, when Clement died, Benedict IX returned to be elected to the papacy for a third time, only to resign yet again before dying in a monastery, he thus reigned as pope for three non-consecutive terms, resigned three separate times. A well-known renunciation of a pope is that of Celestine V, in 1294. After only five months of pontificate, he issued a solemn decree declaring it permissible for a pope to resign, did so himself, he lived two more years as a hermit and priso
Catacomb of Callixtus
The Catacomb of Callixtus is one of the Catacombs of Rome on the Appian Way, most notable for containing the Crypt of the Popes, which once contained the tombs of several popes from the 2nd to 4th centuries. The Catacomb is believed to have been created by future Pope Callixtus I a deacon of Rome, under the direction of Pope Zephyrinus, enlarging pre-existing early Christian hypogea. Callixtus himself was entombed in the Catacomb of Calepodius on the Aurelian Way; the crypt fell into disuse and decay as the relics it contained were translated from the catacombs to the various churches of Rome. The Catacomb and Crypt were rediscovered in 1854 by the pioneering Italian archaeologist Giovanni Battista de Rossi; the catacomb forms part of an ancient funerary complex, the Complesso Callistiano, that occupies thirty hectares. The boundaries of this are taken as being the Via Appia Antica, the Via Ardeatina and the Vicolo delle Sette Chiese; the area of the catacomb proper is about fifteen hectares, it goes down for five levels.
A rough estimate puts the length of passageways at about twenty kilometres, the occupancy at about half a million bodies. This catacomb's most ancient parts are the crypt of Lucina, the region of the Popes and the region of Saint Cecilia, where some of the most sacred memories of the place are preserved. A modern staircase, on the site of an ancient one, was built by Pope Damasus I, giving access to the region of the Popes, in, to be found the Crypt of the Popes, where nine pontiffs and eight representatives of the ecclesiastical hierarchy had been buried - along its walls are the original Greek inscriptions for the pontiffs Pontian, Fabian, Lucius I and Eutychian. In the far wall Pope Sixtus II was buried, after he was killed during the persecution of Valerian. In the adjoining crypt is the grave of Saint Cecilia, whose relics were removed by Pope Paschal I in 821: the early 9th-century frescoes on the walls represent Saint Cecilia praying, the bust of the Redeemer and Pope Urban I. A short distance away, an arcade dating to the end of the 2nd century gives access to the cubicula of the sacraments, with their frescoes from the first half of the 3rd century hinting at baptism, the Eucharist and the resurrection of the flesh.
In the region of Saints Gaius and Eusebius are some crypts set apart, opposite each other, with the tombs of Pope Gaius and Pope Eusebius, who died in Sicily where he had been exiled by Maxentius and whose body was translated to Rome during the pontificate of Militiades. Along "passage O" north of the Crypt of the Popes are, in succession, the crypt of the martyrs Calogerus and Parthenius and the double cubiculum of Severus, which contains a rhythmic inscription in which a bishop of Rome is first called pope and first professes belief in the final resurrection. In a region further from there, the so-called "Crypt of Lucina", is the burial of Pope Cornelius, whose tomb still has its original inscription giving him the title of martyr and, on its sides, splendid paintings with figures in 7th and 8th century Byzantine style representing popes Sixtus II and Cornelius and the African bishops Cyprian and Ottatus. In a nearby cubiculum are some of the most ancient burials, after AD 175, with Roman frescoes of the Good Shepherd and orantes and two fish with a basket of loaves behind it, a symbol of the Eucharist.
At its peak, the fifteen hectare site would have held the remains of sixteen popes and fifty martyrs. Nine of those popes were buried in the Crypt of the Popes itself, to which Pope Damasus I built a staircase in the 4th century. Among the discovered Greek language inscriptions are those associated with: Pope Pontian, Pope Anterus, Pope Fabian, Pope Lucius I, Pope Eutychian. A more lengthy inscription to Pope Sixtus II by Furius Dionisius Filocalus has been discovered. Outside the Crypt of the Popes, the region of Saints Gaius and Eusebius is so named for the facing tombs of Pope Gaius and Pope Eusebius. In another region, there is a tomb attributed to Pope Cornelius, bearing the inscription "CORNELIVS MARTYR" attributed to Filocalus. A plaque placed by Pope Sixtus III lists the following popes: Sixtus II, Cornelius, Pontianus, Gaius, Melchiades, Urban I, Anterus, a list not including any 2nd century tombs; the Crypt of the Popes filled up in the 4th century, causing other popes to be buried in related catacombs, such as the Catacomb of Priscilla, the Catacomb of Balbina, the Catacomb of C
Pope Clement I
Pope Clement I known as Saint Clement of Rome, is listed by Irenaeus and Tertullian as Bishop of Rome, holding office from 88 to his death in 99. He is considered to be the first Apostolic Father of the Church, one of the three chief ones together with Polycarp and Ignatius of Antioch. Few details are known about Clement's life. Clement was said to have been consecrated by Saint Peter, he is known to have been a leading member of the church in Rome in the late 1st century. Early church lists place him as the third bishop of Rome after Saint Peter; the Liber Pontificalis states that Clement died in Greece in the third year of Emperor Trajan's reign, or 101 AD. Clement's only genuine extant writing is his letter to the church at Corinth in response to a dispute in which certain presbyters of the Corinthian church had been deposed, he asserted the authority of the presbyters as rulers of the church on the ground that the Apostles had appointed such. His letter, one of the oldest extant Christian documents outside the New Testament, was read in church, along with other epistles, some of which became part of the Christian canon.
These works were the first to affirm the apostolic authority of the clergy. A second epistle, 2 Clement, was attributed to Clement, although recent scholarship suggests it to be a homily by another author. In the legendary Clementine Literature, Clement is the intermediary through whom the apostles teach the church. According to tradition, Clement was imprisoned under the Emperor Trajan. Thereafter he was executed by being thrown into the sea. Clement is recognized as a saint in many Christian churches and is considered a patron saint of mariners, he is commemorated on 23 November in the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, the Lutheran Church. In Eastern Orthodox Christianity his feast is kept on 25 November; the Liber Pontificalis presents a list that makes Pope Linus the second in the line of bishops of Rome, with Peter as first. Tertullian considered Clement to be the immediate successor of Peter. In one of his works, Jerome listed Clement as "the fourth bishop of Rome after Peter", added that "most of the Latins think that Clement was second after the apostle".
Clement is put after Linus and Cletus/Anacletus in the earliest account, that of Irenaeus, followed by Eusebius of Caesarea. Early succession lists name Clement as the first, third successor of Saint Peter. However, the meaning of his inclusion in these lists has been controversial; some believe there were presbyter-bishops as early as the 1st century, but that there is no evidence for a monarchical episcopacy in Rome at such an early date. There is however, no evidence of a change occurring in ecclesiastical organization in the latter half of the 2nd century, which would indicate that a new or newly-monarchical episcopacy was establishing itself. Dionysius of Corinth and Irenaeus of Lyon both viewed Clement as a monarchial bishop who intervened in the dispute in the church of Corinth. Starting in the 3rd and 4th century, tradition has identified him as the Clement that Paul mentioned in Philippians 4:3, a fellow laborer in Christ. While in the mid-19th century it was customary to identify him as a freedman of Titus Flavius Clemens, consul with his cousin, the Emperor Domitian, this identification, which no ancient sources suggest, afterwards lost support.
The 2nd-century Shepherd of Hermas mentions a Clement whose office it was to communicate with other churches. A large congregation existed in Rome c. 58, when Paul wrote his Epistle to the Romans. Paul arrived in Rome c. 60. His Captivity Epistles, as well as Mark, Acts, 1 Peter were written here, according to many scholars. Paul and Peter were said to have been martyred there. Nero persecuted Roman Christians after Rome burned in 64, the congregation may have suffered further persecution under Domitian. Clement was the first of early Rome's most notable bishops; the Liber Pontificalis, which documents the reigns of popes, states that Clement had known Saint Peter. Clement is known for his epistle to the church in Corinth, in which he asserts the apostolic authority of the bishops/presbyters as rulers of the church; the epistle mentions episkopoi or presbyteroi as the upper class of minister, served by the deacons, since it does not mention himself, it gives no indication of the title or titles used for Clement in Rome.
According to apocryphal acta dating to the 4th century at earliest, Clement was banished from Rome to the Chersonesus during the reign of the Emperor Trajan and was set to work in a stone quarry. Finding on his arrival that the prisoners were suffering from lack of water, he knelt down in prayer. Looking up, he saw a lamb on a hill, went to where the lamb had stood and struck the ground with his pickaxe, releasing a gushing stream of clear water; this miracle resulted in the conversion of large numbers of the local pagans and his fellow prisoners to Christianity. As punishment, Saint Clement was martyred by being tied to an anchor and thrown from a boat into the Black Sea; the legend recounts that every year a miraculous ebbing of the sea revealed a divinely built shrine containing his bones. However, the oldest sources on Clement's life and Jerome, note nothing
Appian Way
The Appian Way is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy, its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius: Appia longarum... regina viarum "the Appian Way the queen of the long roads" The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312 BC during the Samnite Wars. The Appian Way was used as a main route for military supplies since its construction for that purpose in 312 B. C; the Appian Way was the first long road built to transport troops outside the smaller region of greater Rome. The few roads outside the early city were Etruscan and went to Etruria. By the late Republic, the Romans had expanded over most of Italy and were masters of road construction, their roads began at Rome, where the master itinerarium, or list of destinations along the roads, was located, extended to the borders of their domain — hence the expression, "All roads lead to Rome".
Romans had an affinity for the people of Campania, like themselves, traced their backgrounds to the Etruscans. The Samnite Wars were instigated by the Samnites when Rome attempted to ally itself with the city of Capua in Campania; the Italic speakers in Latium had long ago been incorporated into the Roman state. They were responsible for changing Rome from a Etruscan to a Italic state. Dense populations of sovereign Samnites remained in the mountains north of Capua, just north of the Greek city of Neapolis. Around 343 BC, Rome and Capua attempted to form a first step toward a closer unity; the Samnites reacted with military force. Between Capua and Rome lay the Pontine Marshes, a swamp infested with malaria. A tortuous coastal road wound between Ostia at the mouth of the Neapolis; the Via Latina followed its ancient and scarcely more accessible path along the foothills of Monti Laziali and Monti Lepini, which are visible towering over the former marsh. In the First Samnite War the Romans found they could not support or resupply troops in the field against the Samnites across the marsh.
A revolt of the Latin League drained their resources further. They settled with Samnium; the Romans were only biding their time. The first answer was the colonia, a "cultivation" of settlers from Rome, who would maintain a permanent base of operations; the Second Samnite War erupted when Rome attempted to place a colony at Cales in 334 and again at Fregellae in 328 on the other side of the marshes. The Samnites, now a major power after defeating the Greeks of Tarentum, occupied Neapolis to try to ensure its loyalty; the Neapolitans appealed to Rome, which expelled the Samnites from Neapolis. In 312 BC, Appius Claudius Caecus became, he was of the gens Claudia, who were patricians descended from the Sabines taken into the early Roman state. He had been given the name of the founding ancestor of the gens, he was a populist. A man of inner perspicacity, in the years of success he was said to have lost his outer vision and thus acquired the name caecus, "blind". Without waiting to be told what to do by the Senate, Appius Claudius began bold public works to address the supply problem.
An aqueduct secured the water supply of the city of Rome. By far the best known project was the road, which ran across the Pontine Marshes to the coast northwest of Naples, where it turned north to Capua. On it, any number of fresh troops could be sped to the theatre of operations, supplies could be moved en masse to Roman bases without hindrance by either enemy or terrain, it is no surprise that, after his term as censor, Appius Claudius became consul twice, subsequently held other offices, was a respected consultant to the state during his years. The road achieved its purpose; the outcome of the Second Samnite War was at last favorable to Rome. In a series of blows the Romans reversed their fortunes, bringing Etruria to the table in 311 BC, the year of their revolt, Samnium in 304; the road was the main factor that allowed them to concentrate their forces with sufficient rapidity and to keep them adequately supplied, wherein they became a formidable opponent. The main part of the Appian Way was started and finished in 312 BC.
The road began as a leveled dirt road upon which mortar were laid. Gravel was laid upon this, topped with tight fitting, interlocking stones to provide a flat surface; the historian Procopius said that the stones fit together so securely and that they appeared to have grown together rather than to have been fitted together. The road was cambered in the middle and had ditches on either side of the road which were protected by retaining walls; the road began in the Forum Romanum, passed through the Servian Wall at the porta Capena, went through a cutting in the clivus Martis, left the city. For this stretch of the road, the builders used the via Latina; the building of the Aurelian Wall centuries required the placing of another gate, the Porta Appia. Outside of Rome the new via Appia went through well-to-do suburbs along the via Norba, the ancient track to the Alban hills, where Norba was situated; the road at the time was a via a gravel road. The Romans built a high-quality road, with layers of cemented stone over a layer of small stones, drainage ditches on either side, low retaining walls on sunken portions, dirt pathways for sidewalks.
The via Appia is believed to have be
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). . Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). 
