Saint Fabiola in Fiction, in History, in Portraiture

To say that Fabiola is a minor saint may well be an overstatement. For most English-speaking persons, she is completely unknown and unheard of. The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, purportedly the standard one-volume work in the field of hagiography, does not include her among its 1,500 entries because that work presents only English saints. It first includes those of English origin who died abroad and those of foreign origin who died in England. Second, it lists saints in whose honor churches have been dedicated, who have been commemorated in place-names, or who are venerated in the calendars of the Sarum Rite, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Roman Church as revised in 1969. Third, it names saints whose biographies are important to understanding more fully the lives of other saints. Fabiola meets none of these requirements.

After lying in historical disregard for centuries, however, Fabiola entered public awareness with the publication in 1854 of Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Wiseman's novel Fabiola. The semi-historical fiction is set in pagan Rome in the years following a.d. 302 during which Maximian ruled as emperor.

Maximian was a barbarian of the lowest extraction, endowed with little more than brute strength. He had no sense of justice or feeling of humanity and had never ceased to oppress, persecute, and slay whoever stood in his way. This tyrant struck terror into the hearts of all who beheld him—all, that is, but the Christians. This fact alone would have made him hate even the name "Christian," but joined to his naturally unrestrained vileness, it further dictated that all Christians should be hunted with unrelenting savageness and perseverance until there was a complete extermination, a wholesale butchery of the believers—from their leaders to the most lowly of persons.

Fabiola's heritage differed markedly from Maximian's barbarianism. Her father Fabius had amassed great wealth that left her wanting nothing and fostered her immense self-indulgence. She was proud, haughty, and irritable, exacting humble homage from all who approached her. At the same time, she had been afforded excellent teachers to hone a superior intellect, and she read much, particularly in what are called "profound" books, and so was knowledgeable about the pagan philosophers and the sensual Epicureanism fashionable in Rome at the time. Her intellectual curiosity, however, did not prompt her to investigate the Christianity that she had despised for its apparent lowness and vulgarity. Her Christian cousin Agnes, just before she died, characterized Fabiola's early anti-Christian prejudices: "You abhorred us as followers of the most ridiculous superstitions, as perpetrators of the most odious abominations. You despised us as being unintellectual, uneducated, unphilosophical, and unreasonable. . . . The Christian name was only an object of hatred in your generous mind."¹ As for the pagan religion with its gods, its fables, and its idolatry, Fabiola also intellectually scorned it although practically she followed it. Because of Maximian's eradication edict, Christians practiced their faith in secret, giving no public indication of their being followers of the Faith. Still, for those in daily contact with them, their calmness of demeanor, sweetness of tone in discourse, quickness to smile, and cheerful eagerness to do work betrayed a character that was immediately recognizable even though exasperatingly unexplainable. And for Fabiola the three persons who most noticeably demonstrated these qualities were Syra, her slave; Agnes, her cousin; and Sebastian, captain of the praetorian guards.

Syra's calm assurance and unabashed honesty at first drew Fabiola's ire, even to the point of her severely gashing Syra's arm with the stiletto that she kept at hand to punish or vent anger on her slaves. Agnes, who had witnessed this entire scene, asked to buy the slave girl. Fabiola reluctantly agreed, but when Agnes presented the idea to Syra she asked to remain with Fabiola to have more opportunity to convert her to Christianity. Syra's continued presence and generous service showed Fabiola a genuine and disinterested love that she had never seen before.

Agnes, a young girl of marriageable age, always dressed in snow-white...