The Early Christians in Rome

by H. D. M. Spence-Jones

2. The Martyrology of S. Jerome—a compilation dating from about the middle of the sixth century, but certainly containing memoranda of an earlier date.

3. The (so-called) Liber Pontificalis—a generally reliable and most interesting work, the earlier portion of which has been largely used throughout Western Christendom, certainly since the sixth century. The first part of this work contains biographical notices of the Bishops of Rome from the days of S. Peter to the times of Pope Nicholas, A.D. 807. The earliest redaction of the first Papal notices in the Liber Pontificalis which has come down to us was made towards the end of the fifth century, or in the first years of the sixth. But it is evidently based on records of a much older date preserved in the Roman Church.

4. But what De Rossi found most valuable for the purposes of his great work was a group of writings known as Itineraries of Pilgrims. These were founded on handbooks composed for the use of devout pilgrims from Britain, Gaul, Spain, Germany, and Switzerland,—men and women who were desirous to see and to pay their devotions at the celebrated shrines of Rome.

Some five at least of these precious Pilgrim Itineraries or Guide-Books to the more celebrated shrines or places where martyrs were interred in the vast Roman City of the Dead have come down to us. They have proved of the highest value to De Rossi in his exploration work. The first perhaps in value of these is contained in the works of William of Malmesbury, which treat of the doings of the Crusaders in Rome. William of Malmesbury wrote in the year of grace 1095. But the Itinerary section in question speaks of the martyr saints as though they were still resting in their Catacomb graves, although we know that they had been translated into churches in the city about three centuries earlier. This clearly shows that the “Itinerary” section had been written several centuries before the writer William of Malmesbury lived and copied it into his work.

Other Pilgrim Itineraries have been found in famous monastic libraries, such as in the libraries of Einsiedeln and Salzburg. These may be roughly dated about the middle of the seventh century,—that is, before the days of the Pontificate of Paul I, A.D. 757, and Paschal I, A.D. 817, when the wholesale translation of the remains of the martyrs from the Catacombs to the securer shelter of the city churches took place. These were therefore written in a period when the traditions connected with the historic crypts and their venerated contents were all comparatively fresh and vivid.

In the same category with the Pilgrim Itineraries which the great Roman scholar has found so helpful in his Catacomb researches must be placed the celebrated papyrus preserved in the Cathedral of Monza. This is a contemporary catalogue or list of the sacred oils sent by Pope Gregory the Great (A.D. 590–604) to Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards. The Lombard Queen sent a special messenger, one Abbot John, to Pope Gregory the Great asking him for relics of the saints buried in the Catacombs. At that period no portions of the sacred bodies were allowed to be removed, even at the request of so powerful a petitioner as Theodelinda; but as a substitute the Pope sent a little of the oil which fed the lamps which were ever kept burning before the tombs or shrines of the saints in question.

Each phial containing the oil was carefully ticketed or labelled, and a list of these tickets or labels was written on this Monza papyrus. Some sixty or seventy saints’ shrines are specially enumerated, besides about eight places mentioned before which oils were kept burning, before tombs which contained a crowd of unnamed saints and martyrs.

This Monza catalogue of the sacred oils De Rossi carefully compared with the topographical notices in the Pilgrim Itineraries above referred to. It was of great service to the scholar explorer in discovering and identifying many of the principal sanctuaries of the Catacombs.

Another and quite a different material for his investigations De Rossi found amidst the desolate Catacombs themselves: he noticed that certain unmistakable indications ever marked the near neighbourhood of some historic crypt.

1. The existence above ground of more or less ruined basilicas of various dimensions,—in some cases showing the remains of a considerable building, in others of a comparatively small edifice as of a chapel or an oratory. Such a ruined building evidently pointed to there being beneath the soil, at times deep down, an historic crypt of importance. Such a small basilica or oratory had no doubt been built after the Peace of the Church in the middle or latter years of the fourth or in the fifth century, when pilgrimage to the shrines of the saints and martyrs had become the fashion. It was intended to accommodate the ever-growing crowds who came often from distant countries to pray near and to venerate the saints and martyrs whose remains lay buried in the crypt immediately beneath.