A visit to the Roman catacombs

by J. Spencer Northcote

There is one objection, however, to our argument which cannot be passed over in silence—it will doubtless have already suggested itself to some of our readers. They will have called to mind the testimony of St. Paul, that not many mighty, not many noble, were among the first disciples of the faith, and therefore that what was possible for a Flavius Clemens, a Domitilla, or a Cecilia, was nevertheless quite beyond the reach of the humbler and more numerous part of the Christian community. Most true; but there is abundant evidence to show that burial of the dead was considered one of the highest works of Christian charity, in which the rich accounted it a duty and a pleasure to aid the poor. Moreover, where the work was not done by wealthy individuals, it might easily have been done by means of an association of numbers, and this too would have been protected by the law.

Under the laws of the old Roman Republic, there was scarcely any limit to the exercise of the right of association among its citizens; but from the days of Julius Cæsar private clubs or corporations (collegia) were looked upon with grave suspicion, and the right of meeting was but sparingly granted by the Senate or the Emperor. We have a notable example of this suspicion in the refusal by the Emperor Trajan of a petition from his friend and trusted official, Pliny. Pliny had asked for leave to form in one of the towns of his province a body of firemen, 150 in number, and assured his imperial master that he would be careful in his selection of men, and vigilant over their conduct. But Trajan peremptorily refused, on the plea of political mischief, which (he said) experience showed to be the ordinary fruit even of associations apparently most harmless. One important exception, however, was made to this policy of stern repression. It was permitted to the poorer classes to form clubs for the purpose of providing for the expenses of their burial, and they were allowed to meet once a month to pay their contributions, and to make the necessary regulations for the management of their affairs with a view to the attainment of this object. An immense number of most curious and interesting monuments still survive, showing how largely the Roman poor availed themselves of this privilege in the second and third centuries of our era, and what sound practical sense they exhibited in establishing the laws and conditions of membership in these burial-clubs. It is a most tempting field, upon which, however, we must not dwell at any length. We can only call attention to the language of Tertullian in a work especially addressed to the Roman Government, and in which, using almost the very words of the law on the subject of these clubs, he explains how Christians on a certain day of the month make voluntary contributions for certain benevolent purposes, of which he specifies the burial of the dead as one.

We cannot doubt, therefore, that as some of the Roman Catacombs may have been the private work, and even remained the private property, of individuals or families, so others, possibly from the first, certainly as early as the end of the second century, belonged to the Christian community collectively, and were administered for the general good by duly-appointed officers. The earliest instance of this, of which any written evidence has come down to us, is the cemetery of which we have already spoken on the Via Appia, and which was intrusted by Pope Zephyrinus to the care of his archdeacon, Callixtus, whose name it has ever since retained. A monument may yet be seen in it showing how, a century later, this same cemetery still remained under the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, and was administered by his deacon; for this was the arrangement made. The bishops were the legal possessors of the cemeteries, churches, and other religious places; but it was well understood, and the very language of the imperial decrees often acknowledges, that they really belonged to the whole body of the Christians, and not to any private individual; and the deacons acted as the quæstores, or representatives and agents of the body.

It was not necessary that the Christians should obtain any special leave to form a collegium, nor seek for any special privileges. The ordinary liberties of every Roman citizen were sufficient for their purpose. Most of the Pagan burial-clubs indeed had, or pretended to have, a certain religious character, being usually placed under the invocation of some one or other of the gods. But this was not an essential condition of their existence. It was not necessary, therefore, that the Christians should put forward any religious profession at all, nor even take the name of a collegium. They might have retained, and probably did retain, their own favourite and characteristic name of Fratres; and, provided the ostensible motive of their association was to provide the means of burial for their members, they might have held meetings and possessed property with impunity. In this way a sort of practical modus vivendi was established for them under the reign of the more just and merciful Emperors. The religious character of their meetings, though well known, might yet be winked at, so that they were tolerated, just as many Egyptian, Greek, and Asiatic religious confraternities (erani, or thiasi), were not interfered with so long as they gave no umbrage to the Government; and the laws which forbade the profession of the Christian religion were at those times restricted in their application to individual cases of accusation as they arose, just as we know that Trajan at least had enjoined. Nevertheless, those laws still remained; and when the hour of persecution came, the charge of practising a religio illicita could be insisted upon, and all Christian meetings forbidden.

Let us now briefly sum up what has been said, and see what light it throws on the origin of the Roman Catacombs. It has been shown that the habits of Pagan Rome about burials and burial-grounds, during the first centuries of the Christian era, unconsciously, yet most effectively, shielded the work of the infant Church. The extensive area so frequently attached to the monuments of the wealthy; the house or chamber built upon it; the assignment of property for its support to chosen friends, with the infliction of fines in case of neglect; the inalienability of any land which had once been used for purposes of burial; the power of admitting friends and excluding strangers by the mere will of the testator; the right of combination, or making clubs to secure and maintain such burial-places by means of monthly contributions; the habit of visiting the monument, and of eating and drinking there in solemn memory of the departed;—all these facts or principles, guaranteed by Roman law and practice as the privilege of every citizen, were of admirable convenience to the makers and frequenters of the Christian Catacombs. They furnished a real legal screen for the protection of the Christian Society in a matter that was very near their hearts. If a number of Christians were seen wending their way to this or that cemetery, and entering its adjacent cella, they would be to Pagan eyes only the members of a burial-club, or the relations, friends, and dependants of some great family going out to the appointed place to celebrate the birthday or some other anniversary of a deceased benefactor; and if disposed to give evasive answers to inconvenient questions, some perhaps might have even dared to say that such was indeed their errand. It would be noticed, of course, that they did not use the funeral pile; but they could not be molested on this account, since custom only, and not law, prescribed its use. To these objectors they might answer boldly with Minucius Felix, “We follow the better and more ancient custom of burial!” Again, the Pagans might grumble, but they could hardly punish, for neglecting to sprinkle roses or violets on the sepulchres of the dead. But as to the main external features of the case, we repeat that what the Pagans ordinarily did in the way of providing burial-places for their dead was very much the same as what the Christians desired to do; and under the screen of this resemblance the Roman Catacombs began.

CHAPTER II.
THEIR HISTORY DURING THE AGES OF PERSECUTION.

How long the Roman Christians were allowed to bury their dead where they pleased, and to visit their tombs in peace, we can hardly say. In Africa there had been a popular outcry against the Christian cemeteries, and a demand for their destruction, in the beginning of the third century; and the same thing may have happened in Rome also at the same or even at an earlier date. The first certain record, however, of any legal interference with the Roman Catacombs belongs to a period fifty years later, by which time they must have been both numerous and extensive; it must also have been very notorious where they were situated. We have seen how public the entrance was to the Catacomb of St. Domitilla in the first century, and there is no reason to suppose that this was an exception to the general rule. The Cœmeterium Ostrianum, on the Via Nomentana, was as old, and probably as well known, for it was the place where St. Peter had baptized; the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, too, of the noble family of Pudens, on the Via Salara, and several others.

We read of St. Anacletus, who was Bishop of Rome about A.D. 160, that he built some sort of monument over the tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican, and his predecessors and some few of his successors till the end of the century were buried in this same place, juxta corpus Beati Petri, as the old records have it. Around the tomb of St. Paul, also, on the Via Ostiensis, a cemetery was formed, of which a few monuments still remain, bearing dates of the first decade of the second century. Hence a priest, writing in that same century, calls these tombs of the Apostles “the trophies,” or triumphal monuments, “of those who had laid the foundation of the Church in Rome.” About a hundred years later we read of St. Fabian—Pope A.D. 236-250—that “he caused numerous buildings to be constructed throughout the cemeteries.” And this expression seems to imply that the cemeteries were no longer private property (as several of them undoubtedly were at the first), but belonged to the Church in her corporate capacity, and were administered, therefore, under the superintendence of her rulers. We have contemporary evidence that this was the condition of a cemetery on the Via Appia from the beginning of the third century, Pope Zephyrinus having set over it his chief deacon, Callixtus; and the obvious advantages of such an arrangement may have led to its general, if not universal, adoption. At any rate, we cannot doubt that “the numerous buildings he caused to be constructed throughout the cemeteries” were either oratories for public worship, or chambers for the celebration of the agapæ, which he caused to be built after the fashion of the scholæ of the Pagan burial-clubs, in the areæ of cemeteries which had not had them before; and we can easily understand how this increased provision of places for assembly had been rendered necessary by the rapid multiplication of the faithful during the long peace which the Church had enjoyed since the reign of Caracalla.