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Fabiola or The Church of the Catacombs

by: Cardinal Nicholas Patrick Wiseman

Publication date: 2012-01-12

Usage: CC0 1.0 Universal

Topics: librivox, audiobook, fiction, martryrs, Christian, Catholic, persecution

Language: English

LibriVox recording of FABIOLA OR THE CHURCH OF THE CATACOMBS, by CARDINAL NICHOLAS PATRICK WISEMAN. Read by Maria Therese.

This historical novel is set in Rome in the early 4th century AD, during the time of the cruel persecution of Christians under the Emperor Diocletian The heroine of the book is Fabiola, a young pagan beauty from a noble Roman family. Fabiola seems to have everything, including a superior education in the philosophers, yet under the surface, she is not content with her life. One day, in a fit of rage, she attacks and wounds her slave girl Syra, who is a secret Christian. The proud, spoiled Roman girl is humbled by Syra's humility, maturity and devotion to her in this situation, and a slow transformation begins.

Woven into this fictitious story are a number of martyrdom accounts of real-life Christian saints, including Saint Agnes, Saint Tarcisius and Saint Sebastian.

Cardinal Wiseman wrote Fabiola in part as an answer to the vigorously anti-Catholic book Hypatia by Charles Kingsley. The novel was mainly aimed at the embattled Catholic minority in England, who had recently emerged from a half-illegal status. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia)

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Addeddate: 2012-01-12 04:14:32

Boxid: OL100020108

Call number: 5787

External-identifier: urn:storj:bucket:jvrrslrv7u4ubxymktudgzt3hnpq:fabiola_mt_librivox

Identifier: fabiola_mt_librivox

Ocr: ABBYY FineReader 11.0 (Extended OCR)

Ocr_converted: abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.11

Ocr_module_version: 0.0.14

Pdf_module_version: 0.0.17

Ppi: 600

Run time: 13:29:26

Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text

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Reviewer: TwinkieToes - - May 23, 2022
Subject: Good story, bad history

I enjoyed the story and the dramatization of the early church. It's a compelling work, showing how the earliest Christians stood up to severe persecution, not shrinking from death.

I did not enjoy the torturous insertions of Roman Catholic doctrines that were not established until centuries later (the sinlessness of Mary, praying to the saints rather than to God himself, the use of images in worship, etc.) It grated against my Protestant nerves. But the author was a strong Catholic, so it was to be expected that he'd promote his own sect so forcefully.

Thank you to Maria Therese for taking on this book! It was worth the listen.

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