A visit to the Roman catacombs

by J. Spencer Northcote

At the first beginning of the Church in Rome, the Christians had, of course, met together only in private houses, “under cover of that great liberty which invested with a sort of sacred independence the Roman household;” but as their numbers increased, this could not have sufficed. Very early in the third century, therefore, and probably even much earlier, there were places of public Christian worship within the city; and it seems certain that the faithful were allowed also to assemble (at least under ordinary circumstances) in the public areæ of their cemeteries up to the middle of the same century. The language of Tertullian, complaining that the heathen “had become acquainted with their days of meeting, and that hence they were continually besieged, betrayed, and caught unawares in their most secret congregations,” suggests rather the idea of meetings in subterranean hiding-places than of public assemblies. But he also tells us that some congregations used to purchase immunity to themselves by payment of tribute to the Government, and that for this purpose they were enrolled on the police registers, where, as he takes care to remind them, they found themselves in anything but respectable company. These, of course, must have had public places of meeting; but under what title they can have met, unless it was that of burial-clubs, such as were described in our last chapter, it is not easy to conjecture. They could not be enrolled merely as professors of the Christian faith; for ever since the first persecution by Nero, the Roman Government had persistently refused to give any legal recognition to “the new superstition.” For a while, indeed, the Jews and Christians had been regarded as professing the same religion, and this was a great gain to the Christians, for there had been a decree of Cæsar that the Jews throughout the whole Roman Empire should be allowed to keep their ancient customs without let or hindrance. The Jews themselves soon vigorously denounced their supposed co-religionists, and when Christianity had once established its independence of Judaism, it fell under the ban of an illicit religion. Thenceforward, though the Christians were not always being persecuted, they were always liable to persecution, so that even when it was forbidden to accuse them, yet, if they were brought before justice and acknowledged themselves Christians, it was forbidden to absolve them. This was the state of things under the reign of Aurelian and Commodus, in the latter half of the second century, when we read of a certain senator, named Apollonius, that he was accused of Christianity, and pleading guilty to the charge, was beheaded, while yet the man who had informed against him was condemned to death also, but by the more cruel and ignominious method of breaking on the wheel. The beautiful story of St. Cecilia, too, belongs (it is now ascertained) to some more active period of persecution about this same time. The story need not be repeated here, but one of its details is worth referring to, as it probably gives a true picture of what was happening not unfrequently in those days, viz., that some of the clergy lay hid in the Catacombs, and inquirers after the truth were conducted by trusty guides to their retreat. We must not suppose, however, that any large number of the faithful ever took refuge there for any length of time; indeed, such a thing would have been physically impossible. The Christians assembled there for purposes of worship when the public exercise of their religion was interfered with; and then this secrecy, thus cruelly forced upon them, was cast in their teeth, and they were called “a skulking, darkness-loving people.”

At length, in the year 253, Valerian published a decree whereby he sought to close against them even this subterranean retreat; he forbade them “either to hold assemblies or to enter those places which they call their cemeteries.” The edict was, of course, disobeyed, and Pope Sixtus II., with some of his deacons, was surprised and martyred in the Catacomb of Pretextatus. This Catacomb was situated in a vineyard on the opposite side of the road from the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, and perhaps it had been selected as the place of meeting because it was less known to the public than that chief of Christian cemeteries. The secret, however, had been betrayed, and (as we learn from an inscription by Pope Damasus) the Holy Pontiff was apprehended whilst in the midst of a religious function. The faithful who were present vied with one another in offering themselves to martyrdom, in his company at least, if not in his stead, but only the deacons obtained the coveted privilege. The Bishop himself was led before the tribunal, condemned, and then brought back to the scene of his “crime,” where he received the crown of martyrdom either in his pontifical chair itself, or at least so near to it that it was sprinkled by his blood. The charge on which he was condemned was distinctly this, “that he had set at nought the commands of Valerian.” But in the following year these commands were revoked, and during the next fifty or sixty years the Catacombs come before us in successive periods of Church history as enjoying good or evil fortune according to the varying fortunes of the Church herself, of which they became a chief battle-field. If Valerian interdicted them, Gallienus, his son, restored them; and thus they were tolerated and forbidden, forbidden and tolerated again, according to the will of the Government, until at last, before the end of the century, they were confiscated altogether.

More than two centuries had now elapsed since the Catacombs were begun, and they had attained a degree of development far beyond anything that could have been anticipated. Divers modifications also had been gradually introduced in the execution of the work, and of these it will be worth while to give some account. We will take the cemetery of St. Callixtus as a specimen; for although in almost every Catacomb there is some difference in detail from the rest, caused either by some local peculiarity, or by the mere taste or caprice of those who made it, yet, in outline at least, the process of development must have been the same in all. It seems to have been something of this kind. At first a plot of ground in some suitable situation was either given by its Christian proprietor, or acquired by purchase, and secured by all necessary legal formalities—probably also enclosed by a wall or other fence—as a place of burial. A plan of excavation was then determined upon, and the work begun. Whilst as yet the fossors had had no experience of the consistency of the material in which they were to labour, and whilst they imagined themselves to be providing for the burial only of a few, they would naturally work freely and without much regard to economy of space. But as time went on the necessity for economy would become apparent; then they had recourse to various devices for securing it. They lowered the floors both of the vaults and galleries, so that they might receive more tiers of graves. They made the galleries somewhat narrower than before, and closer to one another. At the angles of their intersection, where the friability of the rock would not admit of full-sized graves being cut, they made smaller graves for infants, that the space might not be wasted. They did the same also even in the shelves of rock which had been left as a necessary support between the several tiers of graves. Everywhere unnecessary labour was spared; no more soil was removed than was absolutely necessary for the purpose required. The graves were made wider at the head and shoulders, and narrower at the feet; and if two bodies were to be buried in a double grave (locus bisomus), the soil was excavated only in exact proportion, the feet of the one being generally laid by the head of the other.

These expedients, however, could not materially enlarge the space available for graves, and the fossors were driven to excavate another flat (so to speak) either above or below the first. And here they were enabled more easily to provide chambers in which the faithful could assemble in time of persecution. The first subterranean chambers had been made small and plain, and rectangular in shape—mere family vaults apparently; but in the second and third floors we find them both more numerous, more spacious, and in a greater variety of forms, furnished also with luminaria, or shafts communicating with the surface of the ground, whereby light and air could be supplied to those who were assembled below. Some of them were decorated with cornices, columns, pilasters, brackets and chairs, hewn out of the solid rock. To the period of persecution belong also those galleries which connect parts of the more important cemeteries with the sandpits in their immediate neighbourhood—connections which were both studiously concealed, and, in some instances at least, designedly rendered dangerous to the use of strangers.

Diogenes the Fossor.

Other features in the development of the architecture of the Catacombs must be passed over, as they cannot be appreciated except by means of a personal examination on the spot, or with the aid of more abundant plans and drawings than our present limits will allow. We must not, however, omit to say a few words about the noble band of workmen by whom these stupendous excavations were being made. We learn something about them even from the Catacombs themselves. Here and there, among the decorations of some of the vaults, may be seen the figures of men armed with pickaxes and lamps, and other instruments necessary for subterranean excavation, and several epitaphs have preserved to us the official title of these men: they were called fossores, or diggers. Their work must have been extremely laborious, and hence, in the imperial laws of the fourth and fifth centuries, they appear under a name derived from this circumstance. They are there called copiatæ, or labourers par excellence; but in all the inscriptions hitherto discovered in the Catacombs, they never have any other name than fossores, or fossarii. Their life must also have been one of continual danger and self-sacrifice. It was no mere venal service which they rendered to the Church, but a work of real devotedness. Moreover, they were necessarily in the confidence of the Church’s rulers; they knew the exact place of burial of each martyr and confessor, the times and places appointed for the celebration of the holy mysteries, and so forth. We are not surprised, therefore, to hear, on the authority of St. Jerome, that they were reckoned among the clerics; and although they are not mentioned in the list of the Roman clergy sent to St. Cyprian about A.D. 240, we find them enumerated in an official document of the first decade of the fourth century, where they follow immediately after the bishop, priests, deacons, and sub-deacons. In the list furnished to St. Cyprian, it is probable that they are included among the ostiarii, with whose duties their own must have been in part identical as long as the Christians continued to worship in the Catacombs. However, be this as it may, there can be no doubt that during the earliest ages of the Church the fossors were supported, like the rest of her ministers, by the voluntary gifts of the faithful; and the whole work of the Catacombs was carried on by means of the mutual spontaneous liberality of the whole body of Christians, not by any fixed tax exacted for each grave that was required.

We have now completed our sketch of the outward history of the Catacombs during the ages of persecution. We have noted the vicissitudes of their fortunes at various times, traced the gradual process of their architectural development, and paid our tribute of admiration to the men who made them. Would that it were also possible to add a faithful abstract of the chronicles of these venerable sanctuaries during those eventful years! Many must have been the tender and stirring scenes of which they were the witnesses; but, alas! of most of these all written memorial has perished. Even of those which have reached us, the narrative has generally been corrupted by later embellishments, so that there are very few which rest on sufficiently authentic evidence to justify their introduction in this place. The following, however, are exceptions to this remark, and are too precious to be omitted.

Our first story belongs to the Pontificate of St. Stephen, and therefore to the year 256 or thereabouts. We gather it partly from the Acts of the Martyrs, and partly from the inscriptions which were set up at their tombs before those Acts were written, or certainly before that particular edition of the Acts was written which alone is now extant. The incidents of the story are these:—A wealthy Greek family, consisting of a gentleman and his wife and two children, and his brother, set sail for Italy. They were overtaken in their voyage by a storm, during which they made a vow to Pluto, and finally they reached their destination in safety. During their stay in Rome the brother (Hippolytus) renounced idolatry, and became a convert to the Christian faith, whereupon he devoted himself to the laborious and heroic work of a fossor. This probably happened during an interval when the Catacombs were under the ban of the Government, for we read that the scene of his labours was an arenarium or sandpit, and that he lived as well as worked in it. Certainly, the conditions of life would have been much more tolerable in a sandpit than in a proper Catacomb; and we have seen that, during times of persecution, a connection was often made between the cemeteries and any adjacent sandpit, in order to facilitate the means of entrance and of exit for the poor hunted Christians. The fact of Hippolytus leading a solitary life in the sandpit is mentioned as though it were a singularity, as, indeed, we should have expected it to be; and it is added, that his niece and nephew, aged nine and thirteen, used to visit and bring him food there, until at length, at the suggestion of Stephen, Hippolytus detained them one day, and so drew their parents to seek them in his hiding-place, where they were eventually converted by means of a miracle which they witnessed. Then, after being duly instructed and baptized, they distributed their wealth to the poor; and having all received the crown of martyrdom, they were buried in the same arenarium in which they had been wont to assemble during life. It was the arenarium connected with the third story of the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, to which a grand staircase was once made straight down from the surface of the soil, for the convenience of the numerous pilgrims who came to do honour to Hippolytus, Adrias and Paulina, Neo and Maria. The staircase has been rediscovered, but the extremely friable nature of the soil has hitherto baffled every attempt thoroughly to explore the sandpit.

It has been already told how this Catacomb of St. Callixtus was, as it were, consecrated by the blood of St. Sixtus II., St. Stephen’s successor. About thirty years later, during the Pontificate of St. Caius, who himself had to lie hid in a catacomb for several years, we read of a number of the faithful who were seen entering a cemetery on the Via Salara to visit the tombs of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria; how, by order of the Emperor (Numerian), the entrance was at once closed, and a vast mound of sand and stones heaped up in front, that so they might all be buried alive, even as the martyrs they had come to venerate. St. Gregory of Tours tells us, that when the tombs of these martyrs were rediscovered after the ages of persecution had ceased, there were found with them not only the relics of those worshippers who had been thus cruelly put to death—skeletons of men, women, and children lying on the floor—but also the silver cruets which they had taken down with them for the celebration of the sacred mysteries; and De Rossi holds out hopes that some traces of this precious sanctuary may be restored even to our own generation. For we know that Pope Damasus (by whom it was discovered) abstained from making any of those changes whereby he sometimes decorated the martyrs’ tombs, but contented himself with setting up an historical inscription, and opening a window in the adjacent wall or rock, that all might see, without disturbing, a monument so unique and touching; and this was still visible in St. Gregory’s days in the sixth century.