Cataract

CATARACT. - Latin feminine formation from the Greek masculine κατὰρράκτης. It properly means a river waterfall and in particular that of the Nile, whence the well-known verse of Ps. 41:8: abyssus abyssum invocat in voce cataractarum tuarum. From this it came to be used for a dam, a barrier made to produce a waterfall, as in Gen. 7:11: cataractae caeli apertae sunt (for the flood). By similitude it then came to mean in usage any kind of portcullis, of a door, castle, etc., then a closure or grille of another type barring an exit or a passage.

This must be the sense to be referred to the double c. mentioned by the legates of Hormisdas as existing at the tomb of St. Peter in a letter written to that Pope from Constantinople on 29 June 519: «si beatitudini vestrae videtur, sanctuaria apostolorum Petri et Pauli [that is, relics] secundum morem ei [that is, to Justinian] largiri praecipite, et si fieri potest ad secundam cataractam ipsa sanctuaria deponere vestrum est deliberare » (A. Thiel, Epist. Roman. pontificum a s. Hilario ad Pelagium II, Braunsberg 1867-68, p. 873). Pope Vigilius also mentions a c. at the altar of the church of St. Peter in Constantinople (letter in PL 69, 55).

It has been believed that the double c. meant a double window, but this is not correct, because there are no certain examples of c. in the sense of window. Others have proposed to see in it two small doors or grilles placed vertically one above the other, both beneath the level of the Constantinian altar, but this conception too has proved erroneous from the recent excavations. One can say only that these c. were enclosures that prevented approaching too closely the relics of the Apostle placed within and beneath the altar. The usage is better explained by what St. Gregory of Tours hints at (even though he reports it with every exaggeration): « Sepulcrum (s. Petri) sub altari collocatum valde rarum habetur. Sed qui orare desiderat, reseratis cancellis quibus locus ille ambitur, accedit super sepulcrum et sic fenestella parvula patefacta, immisso introrsum capite, quae necessitas promit efflagitat » (In gloria martyrum, 27: MGH, Scriptores meroving., I, p. 504).

Antonio Ferrua