15. Our Saviour before Pilate.
16. St.Peter taken to prison.
These last six subjects are only represented on tombs.[216]
The class of paintings shown as Liturgical are less definite than these. In the Catacombs of Calixtus several obscure paintings are shown (in cubicula anterior to the middle of the third century), which are said to have reference to the sacrament of baptism. Pictures of the paralytic carrying his bed are identified by some Roman Catholic authorities with the sacrament of penance. (!) Bosio believed that in the Catacomb of Sta. Priscilla he had found paintings which illustrated the sacrament of ordination. Representations undoubtedly exist which illustrate the agape or love-feast of the primitive Church.
On the opposite side of the Via Appia from St. Calixtus (generally entered from the road leading to S. Urbano) is the Catacomb of St. Pretextatus, interesting as being the known burial-place of several martyrs. A large crypt was discovered here in 1857, built with solid masonry and lined with Greek marble.
"The workmanship points to early date, and specimens of pagan architecture in the same neighbourhood enable us to fix the middle of the latter half of the second century (A.D. 175) as a very probable date for its erection. The Acts of the Saints explain to us why it was built with bricks, and not hewn out of the rock—viz. because the Christian who made it (Sta. Marmenia) had caused it to be excavated immediately below her own house; and now that we see it, we understand the precise meaning of the words used by the itineraries describing it—viz. 'a large cavern, most firmly built.' The vault of the chapel is most elaborately painted, in a style by no means inferior to the best classical productions of the age. It is divided into four bands of wreaths, one of roses, another of corn-sheaves, a third of vine-leaves and grapes (and in all these, birds are introduced visiting their young in nests), and the last or highest, of leaves of laurel or the bay-tree. Of course these severally represent the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The last is a well-known figure or symbol of death; and probably the laurel, as the token of victory, was intended to represent the new and Christian idea of the everlasting reward of a blessed immortality. Below these bands is another border, more indistinct, in which reapers are gathering in the corn; and at the back of the arch is a rural scene, of which the central figure is the Good Shepherd carrying a sheep upon his shoulders. This, however, has been destroyed by graves pierced through the wall and the rock behind it, from the eager desire to bury the dead of a later generation as near as possible to the tombs of the martyrs. As De Rossi proceeded to examine these graves in detail, he could hardly believe his eyes when he read around the edge of one of them these words and fragments of words:—Mi Refrigeri Januarius Agatopos Felicissim Martyres—'Januarius, Agapetus, Felicissimus, martyrs, refresh the soul of....' The words had been scratched upon the mortar while it was yet fresh, fifteen centuries ago, as the prayer of some bereaved relative for the soul of him whom they were burying here, and now they revealed to the antiquarian of the nineteenth century the secret he was in quest of—viz. the place of burial of the saints whose aid is here invoked; for the numerous examples to be seen in other cemeteries warrant us in concluding that the bodies of the saints, to whose intercession the soul of the deceased is here recommended, were at the time of his burial lying at no great distance."—Roma Sotterranea.
The St. Januarius buried here was the eldest of the seven sons of St. Felicitas, martyred July 10, A.D. 162. St. Agapitus and St. Felicissimus were deacons of Pope Sixtus II., who were martyred together with him and St. Pretextatus[217] in this very catacomb, because Sixtus II. "had set at nought the commands of the Emperor Valerian."[218]
A mutilated inscription of St. Damasus, in the Catacomb of Calixtus, near the tomb of Cornelius, thus records the death of this pope:
"Tempore quo gladius secuit pia visura Matris
Hic positus rector cælestia jussa docebam;
Adveniunt subito, rapiunt qui forte sedentem;
Militibus missis, populi tunc colla dedere.
Mox sibi cognovit senior quis tollere vellet
Palmam seque suumque caput prior obtulit ipse,
Impatiens feritas posset ne lædere quemquam.
Ostendit Christus reddit qui præmia vitæ
Pastoris meritum, numerum gregis ipse tuetur."
"At the time when the sword pierced the heart of our Mother (Church), I, its ruler, buried here, was teaching the things of heaven. Suddenly they came, they seized me seated as I was;—the soldiers being sent in, the people gave their necks (to the slaughter). Soon the old man saw who was willing to bear away the palm from himself, and was the first to offer himself and his own head, fearing lest the blow should fall on any one else. Christ who awards the rewards of life recognises the merit of the pastor, he himself is preserving the number of his flock."
An adjoining crypt, considered to date from A.D. 130, is believed to be the burial-place of St. Quirinus.