A Lamp with a representation of the Good Shepherd, found at Ostium prior to the third century. From Roller’s “Catacombes.”
Torquatus was somewhat reassured by this account of the lamps—those little earthen ones, evidently made on purpose for the catacombs, of which so many are there found. But not content, he kept as good count as he could of the turns, as they went; and now with one excuse, and now with another, he constantly stopped, and scrutinized particular spots and corners. But Severus had a lynx’s eye upon him, and allowed nothing to escape his attention.
At last they entered a doorway, and found themselves in a square chamber, richly adorned with paintings.
“What do you call this?” asked Tiburtius.
“It is one of the many crypts, or cubicula,[101] which abound in our cemeteries,” answered Diogenes; “sometimes they are merely family sepultures, but generally they contain the tomb of some martyr, on whose anniversary we meet here. See that tomb opposite us, which, though flush with the wall, is arched over. That becomes, on such an occasion, the altar whereon the Divine mysteries are celebrated. You are of course aware of the custom of so performing them.”
Cubiculum or Crypt, as found in the Catacombs.
“Perhaps my two friends,” interposed Pancratius, “so recently baptized, may not have heard it; but I know it well. It is surely one of the glorious privileges of martyrdom, to have the Lord’s sacred Body and precious Blood offered upon one’s ashes, and to repose thus under the very feet of God.[102] But let us see well the paintings all over this crypt.”
The Last Supper. From a picture in the Cemetery of St. Callistus.