CAPSA. – From the Greek χάψα, properly a chest for books; it could also be called scrinium; usually circular and made of wood; if very small, capsella, and if made of bronze, cista. In the passio of the Scillitan martyrs of 17 July A.D. 180, the judge Saturninus asks: «quae sunt res in capsa vestra?» (cf. BHL, 7527). Wilpert recognized a representation of a c. for books in a painting from the cemetery of Praetextatus dating from the second half of the fourth century, which he completed (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 178, 3 and p. 215, fig. 19).
C. was also the name given to the small receptacle containing the elements intended for the celebration of the Eucharist: capsa cum sanctis apertas (but V. PISSIDE). Archaeologists have given the name capsellae to the numerous reliquaries of wood, ivory, terracotta, stone, and silver found in altars and containing relics.
Such, for example, are the reliquaries of Brescia, Grado, etc., and that of Egyptian workmanship from the first half of the sixth century, originating from the Sancta Sanctorum and now in the Museo Sacro of the Vatican Library (C. R. Morey, Gli oggetti di avorio e di osso del museo Sacro Vaticano, Città del Vaticano 1936, p. 58, n. A. 59). Typical is the reliquary illustrated by G. B. De Rossi, found in the small basilica of Ain Zirara, 8 km from Ain-Beida in Numidia, between Tebessa and Constantine. It is made of silver and is elliptical in shape; on the lid is depicted a martyr holding in his hands a jeweled laurel crown; above, the divine hand emerges from the clouds and is about to place the crown upon the Saint’s head. At the martyr’s feet emerge the four rivers of paradise, while two torches burn at the sides. On the exterior faces of the c., on one side, eight sheep emerging from the two cities proceed toward the center, where the divine Lamb stands, behind which is the Latin cross. On the other side, the Signum Christi stands above a rock; beneath it flow the four rivers, to which two stags hasten to drink (G. B. De Rossi, La capsella argentea africana offerta al sommo Pontefice Leone XIII dell'e.mo card. Lavigerie arcivescovo di Cartagine, Roma 1889).
The reliquaries found at Henchir-Akhrib in Numidia can be dated to between 580 and 581 (S. Gsell, Chapelle chrétienne d'Henchir-Akhrib, in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 23 [1903], pp. 3-25).
Africa has yielded a great many such capsellae, which are true reliquaries. Indeed, on the humble terracotta reliquary found in the territory of ancient Lamasba in Numidia, near the present-day indigenous village of Kşar-Belczma in Algeria, the inscription reads: in isto vaso congregabuntur membra Christi (J. Gage, Eglise et reliquaire d'Afrique, in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 44 [1927], pp. 103-18).