The catacomb dives at once, generally by a steep flight of steps, below the stratum of loose and friable sand,[87] into that where it is indurated to the hardness of a tender, but consistent rock; on the surface of which every stroke of the pickaxe is yet distinctly traceable. When you have reached this depth you are in the first story of the cemetery, for you descend again by stairs to the second and third below, all constructed on the same principle.
A catacomb may be divided into three parts, its passages or streets, its chambers or squares, and its churches. The passages are long, narrow galleries, cut with tolerable regularity, so that the roof and floor are at right angles with the sides, often so narrow as scarcely to allow two persons to go abreast. They sometimes run quite straight to a great length; but they are crossed by others, and these again by others, so as to form a complete labyrinth, or net-work, of subterranean corridors. To be lost among them would easily be fatal.
But these passages are not constructed, as the name would imply, merely to lead to something else. They are themselves the catacomb or cemetery. Their walls, as well as the sides of the staircases, are honeycombed with graves, that is, with rows of excavations, large and small, of sufficient length to admit a human body, from a child to a full-grown man, laid with its side to the gallery. Sometimes there are as many as fourteen, sometimes as few as three or four, of these rows, one above the other. They are evidently so made to measure, that it is probable the body was lying by the side of the grave, while this was being dug.
When the corpse, wrapped up, as we heard from Diogenes, was laid in its narrow cell, the front was hermetically closed either by a marble slab, or more frequently by several broad tiles, put edgeways in a groove or mortice, cut for them in the rock, and cemented all round. The inscription was cut upon the marble, or scratched in the wet mortar. Thousands of the former sort have been collected, and may be seen in museums and churches; many of the latter have been copied and published; but by far the greater number of tombs are anonymous, and have no record upon them. And now the reader may reasonably ask, through what period does the interment in the catacombs range, and how are its limits determined. We will try to content him, as briefly as possible.
A loculus, closed.
There is no evidence of the Christians having ever buried any where, anteriorily to the construction of catacombs. Two principles as old as Christianity regulate this mode of burial. The first is, the manner of Christ’s entombment. He was laid in a grave in a cavern, wrapped up in linen, embalmed with spices; and a stone, sealed up, closed His sepulchre. As St. Paul so often proposes Him for the model of our resurrection, and speaks of our being buried with Him in baptism, it was natural for His disciples to wish to be buried after His example, so as to be ready to rise with Him.
This lying in wait for resurrection was the second thought that guided the formation of these cemeteries. Every expression connected with them alluded to the rising again. The word to bury is unknown in Christian inscriptions. “Deposited in peace,” “the deposition of ——,” are the expressions used: that is, the dead are but left there for a time, till called for again, as a pledge, or precious thing, intrusted to faithful, but temporary, keeping. The very name of cemetery suggests that it is only a place where many lie, as in a dormitory, slumbering for a while; till dawn come, and the trumpet’s sound awake them. Hence the grave is only called “the place,” or more technically, “the small home,”[88] of the dead in Christ.
These two ideas, which are combined in the planning of the catacombs, were not later insertions into the Christian system, but must have been more vivid in its earlier times. They inspired abhorrence of the pagan custom of burning the dead; nor have we a hint that this mode was, at any time, adopted by Christians.
But ample proof is to be found in the catacombs themselves, of their early origin. The style of paintings, yet remaining, belongs to a period of still flourishing art. Their symbols, and the symbolical taste itself, are characteristic of a very ancient period. For this peculiar taste declined, as time went on. Although inscriptions with dates are rare, yet out of ten thousand collected, and about to be published, by the learned and sagacious Cavalier De Rossi, about three hundred are found bearing consular dates, through every period, from the early emperors to the middle of the fourth