Cataract

CATARACTA. – A feminine Latin formation from the masculine Greek κατὰρράκτης. It properly means a river waterfall, and especially one on the Nile, hence the well-known verse of Ps. 41:8: abyssus abyssum invocat in voce cataractarum tuarum. It therefore came to be used for a dam, a barrier constructed to produce a cascade of water, as in Gen. 7:11: cataractae caeli apertae sunt (for the Flood). By analogy, it subsequently came in usage to mean any kind of portcullis, for a door, castle, etc., and then a barrier or grating of another kind that blocked an exit or passage.

This must be the sense attributed to the double c. mentioned by the legates of Hormisdas as existing at the tomb of s. Pietro 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 likewise mentions a c. at the altar of the church of S. Pietro in Constantinople (letter in PL 69, 55).

It has been thought that the double c. signified a double window, but this is incorrect, since there are no certain examples of c. in the sense of “window.” Another scholar proposed interpreting it as two small doors or gratings placed vertically one above the other, both beneath the level of the Constantinian altar; but this conception too has been disproved by recent excavations. It can only be said that these c. were barriers that prevented people from approaching too closely the relics of the Apostle, placed inside and beneath the altar. The usage is better explained by what s. Gregorio di Tours indicates (even if he reports it with considerable 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).

(from T.C.I., Through Italy, Puglie, Lucania and Calabria, VIII, Milano 1927)