There occur in the Catacombs frequent examples of acclamations addressed to the departed, expressive of a desire for their happiness and peace. These acclamations have been quoted by Romanist writers as indicating a belief in the doctrine of purgatory, and in the efficacy of prayers on behalf of the dead. The importance of this subject will justify its careful examination. Many of the examples quoted by Roman controversialists are not precatory at all, but simply declarative.[720] But there are others in which the expression assumes a distinctively optative form. Some
of these may be of comparatively late date, as the graffiti, or inscriptions of pilgrims near the more celebrated shrines, of which we have seen examples at the so-called “papal crypt.” But others are unquestionably part of the original epitaphs. We find, for instance, such expressions as VIVAS—“May you live;” VIVAS IN DEO, ΖΗϹ ΕΝ ΘΕΩ—“May you live in God;” VIVAS IN ETERNVM—“May you live forever;” ETERNA TIBI LVX—“Eternal light to thee;” ESTOTE IN PACE—“Be in peace;” VIVAS INTER SANCTOS—“May you live among the holy ones;” VIVAS IN NOMINE XTI—“May you live, in the name of Christ;” ΖΗϹΗϹ (sic) ΙΝ ΔΕΟ ΧΡΙϹΤΟ—“May you live in God Christ;” VIVAS IN DOMINO ZEZV—“May you live in the Lord Jesus;” VIVAS VINCAS—“May you live, may you conquer;” DORMITIO TVA INTER DICAEIS, (ΔΙΚΑΙΟΙϹ)—“May your sleep be among the just;” DEVS TIBI REFRIGERET—SPIRITVM TVVM REFRIGERET—“God refresh thee, refresh thy spirit;” ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ϹΟΙ—“Peace to thee;” ΕΝ ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ΣΟΥ ΤΟ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ—“In peace be thy spirit;” Ο ΘΕΟϹ ΑΝΑΠΑΥϹΗ ΤΗΝ ΨΥΧΗΝ ΕΝ ϹΚΗΝΑΙϹ ΑΓΙΩΝ—“God give thy soul rest in the tents of the holy.” These, it will be perceived, are not intercessions for the dead, but mere apostrophes addressed to them, as is apparent in the following: ΖΩΤΙΚΕ ΖΗϹΑΙϹΕΝ (sic) ΚΥΡΙΩ ΘΑΡΡΙ, (sic)—“Zoticus, mayest thou live in the Lord. Be of good cheer.” They were no more prayers for the souls of the departed than is Byron’s verse, “Bright be the place of thy rest.”
But the wish sometimes takes the form of a prayer for the beloved one, as ΜΝΗϹΘΗϹ ΙΗϹΟΥϹ Ο ΚΥΡΙΟϹ ΤΕΚΝΟΝ ΕΜ ...—“Remember, O Lord Jesus, our child;” ΔΕΟΥϹ ΧΡΙϹΤΟΥϹ ΟΜΝΙΠΟΤΕϹ ϹΠΙΡΙΤ ... ΤΟΥ ΡΕΦ.ΙΓΕΡΕ ΙΝ ☧, (Latin in Greek
characters,)—“May the Almighty God Christ refresh thy spirit in Christ.” ΝΗΜΝΗΘΗ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ Ω ΘΕΟϹ ΙϹΤΟΥϹ ΑΓΝΑϹ (sic)—“Remember him, O God, among thy lambs;” ΜΝΗϹΘΗΤΙ ΚΥΡΙΕ ΤΗϹ ΚΟΙΜΗϹΕΩϹ ΤΗϹ ΔΟΥΛΗϹ ϹΟΥ ΑΝΑΠΑΥϹΟΝ ΤΗΝ ΨΥΧΗΝ ΤΟΥ ΔΟΥΛΟΥ ϹΟΥ ΕΝ ΤΟ ΦΩΤΙΝΩ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΑΝΑΨΥΞΕΩϹ ΕΙϹ ΚΟΛΠΟΝ ΑΒΡΑΑΜ,—“Remember, O God, the sleep of thy servant; give rest to the soul of thy servant in the light, in the refreshment in Abraham’s bosom:” DOMINE NE ADVMBRETVR SPIRITVS—“O Lord! let not (this) soul be brought into darkness;” ΜΝΗϹΘΗ ΑΥΤΟΥ Ο ΘΕΟϹ ΕΙϹ ΤΟΥϹ ΑΙΩΝΑϹ—“May God remember him forever.”[721]
These intense expressions of affection of the ardent Italian nature[722] that would fain follow the loved object—“though lost to sight to memory dear”—beyond the barrier of the tomb, are surely a slight foundation on which to build the vast system of mercenary masses for the dead. And yet they are the only evidences that keen Roman controversialists can adduce from these Christian inscriptions of the first six centuries.[723] And, be it remembered, these inscriptions were not a formulated and authoritative creed framed by learned theologians, but the untutored utterances of humble peasants, many of whom were recent converts from paganism
or Judaism, in which religions such expressions were a customary sepulchral formula. The accompanying examples indicate the prevalence of this practice in pagan epigraphy: AVE or HAVE VALE—“Hail, farewell;” DI TIBI BENEFACIANT—“May the gods be good to thee;” OSSA TVA BENE QVIESCANT—“May thy bones rest well;” SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS—“May the earth be light upon thee;” ΧΑΙΡΕ ΕΥΠΛΟΕΙ—ΕΥΔΡΟΜΕΙ—“Rejoice, a safe voyage, a prosperous journey;” ΕΥΨΥΧΕΙ ΚΥΡΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΔΩΗ ϹΟΙ ΟϹΙΡΙϹ ΤΟ ΨΥΧΡΟΝ ΥΔΩΡ—“Be of good cheer, O lady, and to thee Osiris give to quaff the cooling water;”[724] ΕΝ ΜΥΡΟΙϹ ϹΟΙ ΤΕΚΝΟΝ Η ΨΥΧΗ—“In precious odours be thy soul, my child;” HIC MANES PLACIDA NOCTE QVIESCANT ET SVPER IN NIDO MARATHONIA CANTET AEDON—“Here may the manes rest throughout the placid night, and above thee in her nest may the Marathonian nightingale sing;” BENE VALEAS MATER ROGAT TE VT ME AD TE RECIPIAS VALE—“Farewell, thy mother prays, O take me to thyself again, farewell.”[725] In the Jewish epitaphs these acclamations are much more common than in the Christian inscriptions. The following is an example: MARCIA BONA IVDEA DORMITIO IN BONIS—“Marcia, a good Jewess, thy sleep be among the good.” On many modern Hebrew tombstones are the words, “Let his soul be bound up in the bundle of life.”
Small wonder, therefore, that those Christian converts who had been brought up in pagan or Jewish superstition should retain traces of this ancient custom so congenial to the sympathies of the human heart, unprescient as they were of the baneful results to which it would lead. Their freedom of language had not yet been restricted, as Bishop Kip remarks, to the cold
rules of ordinary logic by the fear of deadly heresy. We know, indeed, from the testimony of the Fathers, that mention of the dead was frequently made in the prayers of the church. These prayers, however, were often thanksgivings—εὐχὴ εὐχαριστήριος—for those who were asleep in Christ, or commemorations of their virtues for the improvement of the living.[726] Many of the Fathers vigorously protest against the idea that the dead can be benefitted by any prayers on their behalf, and strongly assert their changeless state in the other world.[727] The notion, however, of the efficacy of these prayers gradually crept into the church; but that they were not conceived to procure remission from purgatorial flames is evident from the fact that, even at a comparatively late period, they were offered on behalf of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and saints, and even of the Virgin Mary herself, who were all believed to be in the immediate presence of God. At length even this tremendous error found entrance into the church, and gave into the hands of a mercenary hierarchy the keys of heaven and hell.
But in the testimony of the Catacombs is no trace of that torturing doctrine which hangs the heart on tenter-hooks of dread suspense, and wrings from the lacerated affections a dole to a hireling priesthood for
the exercise of their ghostly functions in delivering the souls of the departed from burning flame. There is no hint in their cheerful art and pious epitaphs of the Dantean horrors, the worse than Sisyphean toil, and torments more dire than those of Tantalus, under the intense conception of which for centuries the heart of Christendom was wrung. No; the early church believed the pious dead already to enjoy the ampler life, the more ethereal air, and sweet beatitude of paradise.[728]