A visit to the Roman catacombs

by J. Spencer Northcote

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

	PAGE
[Part I.]
CHAPTER I. ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS.
St. Jerome’s description of the Catacombs—More detailed description of their galleries, chambers, and tombs; their depth, extent, and number—They were not deserted sandpits or quarries, but made expressly to be places of burial for Christians—This shown to have been rendered easy by the Roman laws and practice about burial—Pagan burial-clubs in Rome—Perfect freedom and safety of the Christian cemeteries in the beginning	[1]
CHAPTER II. THEIR HISTORY DURING THE AGES OF PERSECUTION.
Earliest places of Christian worship in Rome—Their position before the law—Edict of Valerian against assemblies in the Catacombs—Disobedience and consequent martyrdom of St. Sixtus—Extension of the Catacombs—Changes in their architectural forms—The fossors and their clerical character—Stories of martyrs belonging to this period—St. Hippolytus and others—SS. Chrysanthus and Daria—St. Tharsicius—St. Agnes and St. Emerentiana	[26]
CHAPTER III. THEIR HISTORY FROM A.D. 310 TO A.D. 850.
Gradual disuse of burial in the Catacombs—Other cemeteries not subterranean—Purchase of graves, especially near the tombs of saints—Basilicas built over some of these—Work of Pope Damasus and of Furius Dionysius Filocalus—Burials ceased in the Catacombs in 410—Injuries inflicted by the Goths—Restorations by subsequent Popes—Fresh injuries by the Lombards—Consequent translations of the bodies of the Saints, and gradual neglect of the Catacombs—Those only were visited to which churches or monasteries were attached, especially the cemetery ad Catacumbas, which has now given its name to the rest	[41]
CHAPTER IV. THEIR LOSS AND RECOVERY.
Catacombs lost sight of for 700 years, accidentally recovered in 1578—Labours and scientific method of Bosio imperfectly followed by his successors—Revival of interest in the subject through Father Marchi, S.J.—Commendatore G. B. de Rossi	[51]
CHAPTER V. THEIR PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE.
Primitive Christian art almost a new subject of Christian archæology—Most of the paintings in the Catacombs, and the best of them, belong to the first four centuries—Resemblance between the most ancient specimens and cotemporary works of Pagan art—Pagan forms of ornamentation freely used, but Christian subjects—The Good Shepherd—Peculiarities in the mode of treatment—Symbolical character of early Christian art; examples, the anchor, lamb, dove, fish—Typical representations of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, followed by the Resurrection, in the Sacramental chapels of St. Callixtus—Biblical subjects, Noe, Jonas, &c.—Representations of Christ and His Apostles, and of His Holy Mother—Three successive periods in the development of Christian painting before the age of Constantine—Characteristics of each—Sculpture not so freely used by Christians at first—Subjects carved on sarcophagi	[61]
CHAPTER VI. THEIR INSCRIPTIONS.
Number and importance of ancient Christian inscriptions—Destruction of very many of them—Preservation of others by the Popes—Points of resemblance to Pagan epitaphs—Points of difference—Absence of any token of social distinctions—Birth of Christian epigraphy—Active love its chief characteristic—Prayer for the dead—Prayer to the Saints—Examples—Other characteristics of later epitaphs—Age—Date of death—Unmeaning titles of praise—Words used to denote death, in pace, contra votum, &c.	[108]
[Part II.]
CHAPTER I. THE PAPAL CRYPT.
Entrance to the Cemetery of St. Callixtus—Cemetery above ground—Graffiti at entrance of the Papal Crypt—Original epitaphs of several of the Popes of the third century—Inscription by Pope Damasus explained	[125]
CHAPTER II. THE CRYPT OF ST. CECILIA.
Ancient notices of burial of St. Cecilia near the Popes—Discovery of the crypt—Description of its ornamentation—Refutation of the claim of the Catacomb at St. Sebastian’s to be considered the burial-place of St. Cecilia	[139]
CHAPTER III. THE CRYPT OF ST. EUSEBIUS.
Precautions taken by Pope Damasus and others to guide pilgrims to the particular tomb they wished to visit—Copy of the epitaph in honour of St. Eusebius—Fragments of the original set up by Damasus—Important historical revelation to be gathered from it—Discipline of the Church in regard to the lapsi—Title of martyr given to Eusebius—Translation of his body	[150]
CHAPTER IV. THE TOMB OF ST. CORNELIUS.
St. Cornelius buried in another Catacomb—Objects of interest to be seen en route—The family vault of the Deacon Severus at end of third century—Paintings of the Good Shepherd, accompanied by two of His Apostles and several sheep—Of Moses taking off his shoe, striking the rock, &c.—Tomb of St. Cornelius, and its epitaph—Inscriptions above and below it of Popes Damasus and Siricius—Figures of SS. Cornelius and Cyprian; of SS. Sixtus II. and Optatus—Very ancient paintings in two adjacent chambers—Conclusion	[157]

ROMA SOTTERRANEA.

Part First.

CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS.

The great St. Jerome, writing about 1500 years ago, tells us that when he was a schoolboy in Rome, he used to go every Sunday, in company with other boys of his own age and tastes, to visit the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, and to go down into the crypts excavated there in the bowels of the earth. “As you enter,” he says, “you find the walls on either side full of the bodies of the dead, and the whole place is so dark, that one seems almost to realise the fulfilment of those words of the prophet, ‘Let them go down alive into Hades.’ Here and there a little light admitted from above suffices to give a momentary relief to the horror of the darkness; but, as you go forward, you find yourself again plunged into the utter blackness of night, and the words of the poet come unbidden to your mind, ‘The very silence fills the soul with dread.’” Anybody who has frequented the Roman Catacombs will recognise the justice of this description; and if he is as familiar with Virgil and with the Psalms of David as St. Jerome was, he may have used something like the same language to describe his own impressions. But we are writing for those who have never seen the Catacombs at all, and we must therefore enter into more minute particulars.

Let us first try to get a general idea of what the Catacombs are. And for this purpose let us transport ourselves in imagination to the city of Rome, and having been led out some two or three miles (more or less) almost on any of the fourteen great consular roads which went forth from the old centre of the world to its most distant provinces, let us go down, either by some modern staircase or through some accidental fissure in the soil, into the bowels of the earth. At the depth of fifteen or twenty feet we shall probably find ourselves landed in a dark narrow gallery, something like what is here represented—a gallery about three feet wide, and perhaps seven or eight feet high, cut out of the living rock, and its walls on either side pierced with a number of horizontal shelves, one above the other, like the shelves of a bookcase. We need hardly be told that each of these shelves once contained a dead body, and had then been shut up by long tiles or slabs of marble, securely fastened by cement, and inscribed perhaps with the name of the deceased or with some Christian emblem. Probably some grave still uninjured may lie within our sight, or we may see bones and ashes in some of the graves that are open.