I

But the great glory of Arles in which St. Trophimus participates (for his connection with it has left an ineffaceable impress of his own on all its beauty) is the vast Pagan or Pagan and Christian cemetery of "les Aliscamps." For acres upon acres the earth is honeycombed with graves. As you look to-day at the railway cutting which runs right through the old burial-ground you see many graves laid open by the spade and pickaxe revealing the sarcophagi within, and yet in spite of this and of the profanation of so much of the holy place by railway, workshops, high-road, and canal, as you enter the long avenue of trees and see many of the old monuments still standing, it is quite possible to understand and to feel something of that earlier beauty and sacred association which made it for so many centuries the favourite restingplace of Christians.

For here one of the sweetest and best of all old Christian legends - the legend of the Genouillade, a legend that may yet carry a useful lesson to many Churchmen of to-day-came into being, and the mind which fashioned it or the eyes which saw the vision in "les Aliscamps" belonged to St. Trophimus.

Les Aliscamps, or the Elysian fields, had been already a Pagan cemetery long before St. Trophimus came to Arles. You can still see the old Roman sarcophagi both of this period and of later times, many carved with loving inscriptions, and with the usual invocation to the gods (D.M.), showing the Pagan belief of those who buried them; and when St. Trophimus came and gathered round him early Christian converts, it soon became an important matter to decide whether these should be buried among their relatives and friends in the old Pagan cemetery or seek for some special and

Recent enlargements of the railway cuttings and station have destroyed many of the graves which used to lie open for inspection.

AT ARLES

distinctive place of burial. It was not an easy question to decide, for no people perhaps thought so much of the sacredness of the lifeless clay which had once been a temple of the Holy Spirit, and no people sacrificed more to secure for this a Christian, safe, and quiet resting-place than did the very earliest Christians.

And, as St. Trophimus paced the cemetery through the summer night considering what it was right and best to do, we are told that a light shone in the darkness and Christ Himself appeared to him. Kneeling among the tombs, as if identifying Himself with those whose bodies were resting underneath the soil, the Saviour was seen by St. Trophimus to raise His hands and to solemnly bless the Pagan burial-place.

Henceforth no doubt was felt as to the reality of this heavenly consecration. On the spot where our Saviour knelt St. Trophimus erected an altar, and from that time "les Aliscamps" became the coveted burial-place of all Christians.

Whether this is the record of an actual vision or the poetical way in which the Greek described to Greeks the light which God had given him, there can be no doubt of the result. Christian tombs lie side by side with Pagan, and tradition tells us that so eager were many Christians for burial here that-something like the body of Elaine, which was sent down the river to the court of King Arthur in the Arthurian legends-bodies of saints from distant countries came floating down the Rhone in funeral barges, seeking for reception in the holy ground which Christ had consecrated.

The altar chapel of the Genouillade, or kneeling Saviour, now stands hard by the Marseilles road at some distance from the preserved part of the cemetery,

while in the latter we find the ruins of the Church of St. Honorat (built on the site of the Pagan temple of Jupiter), with the oratory of St. Trophimus leading from it. This, when originally built by St. Trophimus, is said to have been dedicated by him to the Virgin Mother of our Lord, who at that time was still living at Ephesus. The chapel is said to have borne the following inscription :

"Sacellum dedicatum

Dei paræ ad huc viventi.”1

St. Trophimus is reported to have died at Arles on November 28, A.D. 94, and after a temporary occupation of the See by St. Denis he was succeeded by Regulus.

The succession after Regulus is uncertain. Owing to a short series of careless, and finally heretical, bishops, the names of these have been purposely omitted from the records of the See. The chief of these bishops was the "proud and froward Marcianus" (see Appendix F), who was probably deposed towards the latter end of the third century, and was succeeded by Marinus.

Four miles from Arles, at Montmajeur, is still shown the hermitage of St. Trophimus-a series of four little chambers near the chapel of St. Pierre. This sufficed him for his daily needs, and catechumens and penitents are supposed to have come here for instruction and counsel.

First there is a cell, or chamber of waiting, and as you enter this two early Christian graves are seen, cut in the solid rock. Beyond this are two small chambers called

The third historical Council of Arles in 453 is said to have been held in the church of St. Marie Majeure. Did this church take the place of the original oratory? To the south of this are found the remains of the chapel of St. Madeleine, dating from the Roman period.