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THE CATACOMBS OF ROME.

THE

CATACOMBS OF ROME,

AND

Their Testimony Relative to Primitive Christianity.

BY THE REV.

W. H. WITHROW, M.A.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.

London:

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXXXVIII.

Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Ld. Printers, London and Aylesbury.

PREFACE.

The present work, it is hoped, will supply a want long felt in the literature of the Catacombs. That literature, it is true, is very voluminous; but it is for the most part locked up in rare and costly folios in foreign languages, and inaccessible to the general reader. Recent discoveries have refuted some of the theories and corrected many of the statements of previous books in English on this subject; and the present volume is the only one in which the latest results of exploration are fully given, and interpreted from a Protestant point of view.

The writer has endeavored to illustrate the subject by frequent pagan sepulchral inscriptions, and by citations from the writings of the Fathers, which often throw much light on the condition of early Christian society. The value of the work is greatly enhanced, it is thought, by the addition of many hundreds of early Christian inscriptions carefully translated, a very large proportion of which have never before appeared in English. Those only who have given some attention to epigraphical studies can conceive the difficulty of this part of the work. The defacements of time, and frequently the original imperfection of the inscriptions and the ignorance of their writers,

demand the utmost carefulness to avoid errors of interpretation. The writer has been fortunate in being assisted by the veteran scholarship of the Rev. Dr. McCaul, well known in both Europe and America as one of the highest living authorities in epigraphical science, under whose critical revision most of the translations have passed. Through the enterprise of the publishers this work is more copiously illustrated, from original and other sources, than any other work on the subject in the language; thus giving more correct and vivid impressions of the unfamiliar scenes and objects delineated than is possible by any mere verbal description. References are given, in the foot-notes, to the principal authorities quoted, but specific acknowledgment should here be made of the author’s indebtedness to the Cavaliere De Rossi’s Roma Sotterranea and Inscriptiones Christianæ, by far the most important works on this fascinating but difficult subject.

Believing that the testimony of the Catacombs exhibits, more strikingly than any other evidence, the immense contrast between primitive Christianity and modern Romanism, the author thinks no apology necessary for the somewhat polemical character of portions of this book which illustrate that fact. He trusts that it will be found a contribution of some value to the historical defense of the truth against the corruptions and innovations of Popish error.

BOOK FIRST.

STRUCTURE AND HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS.

CHAPTER I.

STRUCTURE OF THE CATACOMBS.

“Among the cultivated grounds not far from the city of Rome,” says the Christian poet Prudentius, “lies a deep crypt, with dark recesses. A descending path, with winding steps, leads through the dim turnings, and the daylight, entering by the mouth of the cavern, somewhat illumines the first part of the way. But the darkness grows deeper as we advance, till we meet with openings, cut in the roof of the passages, admitting light from above. On all sides spreads the densely-woven labyrinth of paths, branching into caverned chapels and sepulchral halls; and throughout the subterranean maze, through frequent openings, penetrates the light.”[1]

Fig. 1.—Entrance to the Catacomb of St. Priscilla.

This description of the Catacombs in the fourth century is equally applicable to their general appearance in the nineteenth. Their main features are unchanged, although time and decay have greatly impaired their structure and defaced their beauty. These Christian cemeteries are situated chiefly near the great roads leading from the city, and, for the most part, within a circle of three miles from the walls. From this circumstance they have been compared to the “encampment of a Christian host besieging Pagan Rome, and driving inward its mines and trenches with an assurance of

final victory.” The openings of the Catacombs are scattered over the Campagna, whose mournful desolation surrounds the city; often among the mouldering mausolea that rise, like stranded wrecks, above the rolling sea of verdure of the tomb-abounding plain.[2] On every side are tombs—tombs above and tombs below—the graves of contending races, the sepulchres of vanished generations: “Piena di sepoltura è la Campagna.”[3]

How marvelous that beneath the remains of a proud pagan civilization exist the early monuments of that power before which the myths of paganism faded away as the spectres of darkness before the rising sun, and by which the religion and institutions of Rome were entirely changed.[4] Beneath the ruined palaces and temples, the crumbling tombs and dismantled villas, of the august mistress of the world, we find the most interesting relics of early Christianity on the face of the earth. In traversing these tangled labyrinths we are brought face to face with the primitive ages; we are present at the worship of the infant Church; we observe its rites; we study its institutions; we witness the deep emotions of the first believers as they commit their dead, often

their martyred dead, to their last long resting-place; we decipher the touching record of their sorrow, of the holy hopes by which they were sustained, of “their faith triumphant o’er their fears,” and of their assurance of the resurrection of the dead and the life everlasting. We read in the testimony of the Catacombs the confession of faith of the early Christians, sometimes accompanied by the records of their persecution, the symbols of their martyrdom, and even the very instruments of their torture. For in these halls of silence and gloom slumbers the dust of many of the martyrs and confessors, who sealed their testimony with their blood during the sanguinary ages of persecution; of many of the early bishops and pastors of the Church, who shepherded the flock of Christ amid the dangers of those troublous times; of many who heard the words of life from teachers who lived in or near the apostolic age, perhaps from the lips of the apostles themselves. Indeed, if we would accept ancient tradition, we would even believe that the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul were laid to rest in those hallowed crypts—a true terra sancta, inferior in sacred interest only to that rock-hewn sepulchre consecrated evermore by the body of Our Lord. These reflections will lend to the study of the Catacombs an interest of the highest and intensest character.

It is impossible to discover with exactness the extent of this vast necropolis on account of the number and intricacy of its tangled passages. That extent has been greatly exaggerated, however, by the monkish ciceroni, who guide visitors through these subterranean labyrinths.[5] There are some forty-two of these cemeteries

in all now known, many of which are only partially accessible. Signor Michele De Rossi, from an accurate survey of the Catacomb of Callixtus, computes the entire length of all the passages to be eight hundred and seventy-six thousand mètres, or five hundred and eighty-seven geographical miles, equal to the entire length of Italy, from Ætna’s fires to the Alpine snows.

The entrance to the abandoned Catacomb is sometimes a low-browed aperture like a fox’s burrow, almost concealed by long and tangled grass, and overshadowed by the melancholy cypress or gray-leaved ilex. Sometimes an ancient arch can be discerned, as at the Catacomb of St. Priscilla,[6] or the remains of the chamber for the celebration of the festivals of the martyrs, as at the entrance of the Cemetery of St. Domitilla. In a few instances it is through the crypts of an ancient basilica, as at St. Sebastian, and sometimes a little shrine or oratory covers the descent, as at St. Agnes,[7] St. Helena,[8] and St. Cyriaca. In all cases there is a stairway, often long and steep, crumbling with time and worn with the feet of pious generations. The following illustration shows the entrance to the Catacomb of St. Prætextatus on the Appian Way, trodden in the primitive ages by the early martyrs and confessors, or perhaps by the armed soldiery of the oppressors, hunting to earth the persecuted flock of Christ. Here, too, in mediæval times, the

martial clang of the armed knight may have awaked unwonted echoes among the hollow arches, or the gliding footstep of the sandaled monk scarce disturbed the silence as he passed. In later times pilgrims from every land have visited, with pious reverence or idle curiosity, this early shrine of the Christian faith.

Fig. 2.—Entrance to St. Prætextatus.

The Catacombs are excavated in the volcanic rock which abounds in the neighborhood of Rome. It is a granulated, grayish breccia, or tufa, as it is called, of a coarse, loose texture, easily cut with a knife, and bearing still the marks of the mattocks with which it was dug. In the firmer volcanic rock of Naples the excavations are larger and loftier than those of Rome; but the latter, although they have less of apparent majesty, have more of funereal mystery. The Catacombs consist essentially of two parts—corridors and chambers, or cubicula. The corridors are long, narrow and intricate passages,

forming a complete underground net-work. They are for the most part straight, and intersect each other at approximate right angles. The accompanying map of part of the Catacomb of Callixtus will indicate the general plan of these subterranean galleries.

Fig. 3.—Part of Catacomb of Callixtus.

Fig. 4.—Gallery with Tombs.

The main corridors vary from three to five feet in width, but the lateral passages are much narrower, often

affording room for but one person to pass. They will average about eight feet in height, though in some places as low as five or six, and in others, under peculiar circumstances, reaching to twelve or fifteen feet. The ceiling is generally vaulted, though sometimes flat; and the floor, though for the most part level, has occasionally a slight incline, or even a few steps, caused by the junction of areas of different levels, as hereafter explained. The walls are generally of the naked tufa, though sometimes plastered; and where they have given way are occasionally strengthened with masonry. At the corners of these passages there are frequently niches, in

which lamps were placed, without which, indeed, the Catacombs must have been an impenetrable labyrinth. Cardinal Wiseman recounts a touching legend of a young girl who was employed as a guide to the places of worship in the Catacombs because, on account of her blindness, their sombre avenues were as familiar to her accustomed feet as the streets of Rome to others.

Both sides of the corridors are thickly lined with loculi or graves, which have somewhat the appearance of berths in a ship, or of the shelves in a grocer’s shop; but the contents are the bones and ashes of the dead, and for labels we have their epitaphs. [Figure 4] will illustrate the general character of these galleries and loculi.

The following engraving, after a sketch by Maitland, shows a gallery wider and more rudely excavated. On the right hand is seen a passage blocked up with stones, as was frequently done, to prevent accident. The daylight is seen pouring in at the further end of the gallery, as described by Prudentius,[9] and rendering visible the rifled graves.

Fig. 5.—Interior of Corridor.

It is evident that the principle followed in the formation of these galleries and loculi was the securing of the greatest amount of space for graves with the least excavation. Hence the passages are made as narrow as possible. The graves are also as close together as the friable nature of the tufa will permit, and are made to suit the shape of the body, narrow at the feet, broader at the shoulders, and often with a semi-circular excavation for the head, so as to avoid any superfluous removal of tufa. Sometimes the loculi were made large enough to hold two, three, or even four bodies, which were often

placed with the head of one toward the feet of the other, in order to economize space. These were called bisomi, trisomi, and quadrisomi, respectively. The graves were apparently made as required, probably with the corpse lying beside them, as some unexcavated spaces have been observed traced in outline with chalk or paint upon the walls. Almost every inch of available space is occupied, and sometimes, though rarely, graves are

dug in the floor. The loculi are of all sizes, from that of the infant of an hour to that of an adult man. But here, as in every place of burial, the vast preponderance of children’s graves is striking. How many blighted buds there are for every full-blown flower or ripened fruit!

Sometimes the loculi were excavated with mathematical precision. An example occurs in the Cemetery of St. Cyriaca, where at one end of a gallery is a tier of eight small graves for infants, then eight, somewhat larger, for children from about seven to twelve, then seven more, apparently for adult females, and lastly, a tier of six for full-grown men, occupying the entire height of the wall. Generally, however, a less regular arrangement was observed, and the graves of the young and old were intermixed, without any definite order.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to compute the number of graves in these vast cemeteries. Some seventy thousand have been counted, but they are a mere fraction of the whole, as only a small part of this great necropolis has been explored. From lengthened observation Father Marchi estimates the average number of graves to be ten, five on each side, for every seven feet of gallery. Upon this basis he computed the entire number in the Catacombs to be seven millions! The more accurate estimate of their extent made by Sig. Michele De Rossi would allow room for nearly four millions of graves, or, more exactly, about three million eight hundred and thirty-one thousand.[10] This seems

almost incredible; but we know that for at least three hundred years, or for ten generations, the entire Christian population of Rome was buried here. And that population, as we shall see, was, even at an early period, of considerable size. In the time of persecution, too, the Christians were hurried to the tomb in crowds. In this silent city of the dead we are surrounded by a “mighty cloud of witnesses,” “a multitude which no man can number,” whose names, unrecorded on earth, are written in the Book of Life. For every one who walks the streets of Rome to-day are hundreds of its former inhabitants calmly sleeping in this vast encampment of death around its walls—“each in his narrow cell forever laid.”[11] Till the archangel awake them they slumber. “It is scarcely known,” says Prudentius, “how full Rome is of buried saints—how richly her soil abounds in holy sepulchres.”

These graves were once all hermetically sealed by slabs of marble, or tiles of terra cotta. The former were generally of one piece, which fitted into a groove or mortice cut in the rock at the grave’s mouth, and were securely cemented to their places, as, indeed, was absolutely necessary, from the open character of the galleries in which the graves were placed. Sometimes fragments of heathen tombstones or altars were used for this purpose. The tiles were generally smaller, two or three being required for an adult grave. They were arranged in panels, and were cemented with plaster, on which a name or symbol was often rudely scratched with a trowel while soft, as in the following illustration. Most

of these slabs and tiles have disappeared, and many of the graves have long been rifled of their contents. In others may still be seen the mouldering skeleton of what was once man in his strength, woman in her beauty, or a child in its innocence and glee. The annexed engraving exhibits two graves, one of which is partially open, exposing the skeleton which has reposed on its rocky bed for probably over fifteen centuries.

Fig. 6.—Loculi—Open and Closed.

If these bones be touched they will generally crumble into a white, flaky powder. D’Agincourt copied a tomb ([Fig. 7]) in which this “dry dust of death" still retained the outline of a human skeleton. Verily, “Pulvis et umbra sumus.” Sometimes, however, possibly from some constitutional peculiarity, the bones remain quite firm notwithstanding the lapse of so many centuries. De

Rossi states that he has assisted at the removal of a body from the Catacombs to a church two miles distant without the displacement of a single bone.[12] The age of the deceased and the nature of the ground also affect the condition in which the remains are found. Of the bodies of children nothing but dust remains. Where the pozzolana is damp, the bones are often well preserved; and where water has infiltrated, a partial petrifaction sometimes occurs.[13] Campana describes the opening of a hermetically sealed sarcophagus, which revealed the undisturbed body clad in funeral robes, and wearing the ornaments of life; but while he gazed it suddenly dissolved to dust before his eyes. Sometimes the sarcophagus was placed behind a perforated slab of marble, as shown in the following example, given by Maitland. The lower part of the slab is broken.

Fig. 7.—Valeria Sleeps in Peace.

Fig. 8.—Arcosolium with Perforated Slab.

The other essential constituent of the Catacombs, besides the galleries already described, consists of the cubicula.[14] These are chambers excavated in the tufa on either side of

the galleries, with which they communicate by doors, as seen in [Fig. 4]. These often bear the character of family vaults, and are lined with graves, like the corridors without. They are generally square or rectangular, but sometimes octagonal or circular. They were probably used as mortuary chapels, for the celebration of funeral service, and for the administration of the eucharist near the tombs of the martyrs on the anniversaries of their death. They were too small to be used for regular worship, except perhaps in time of persecution. They are often not more than eight or ten feet square. Even the so-called “Papal Crypt,” a chamber of peculiar sanctity, is only eleven by fourteen

feet; and that of St. Cecilia adjoining it, one of a large size, is less than twenty feet square. Even the largest would not accommodate more than a few dozen persons. These chambers are generally facing one another on opposite sides of a gallery, as in the annexed plan of two cubicula in the Catacomb of Callixtus.

Fig. 9.—Plan of Double Chamber.

It is thought that in the celebration of worship one of these chambers was designed for men and the other for women. Sometimes separate passages to the chapels and distinct entrances to the Catacombs seem intended to facilitate this separation of the sexes. Sometimes three, or even as many as five, cubicula, as in one example in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, were placed on the same

axial line, and formed one continuous suite of chambers. The accompanying section of what is known as “The Chapel of Two Halls,” in the Catacomb of St. Prætextatus, illustrates this: A is the main gallery, D a large cubiculum known as “The Women’s Hall,” to the right, and to the left B, a hexagonal vaulted room with a smaller chamber, C, opening from it. The length of the entire range from G to F, according to the accurate measurement of M. Perret, is twenty-three and a half mètres, or nearly seventy-seven feet. The larger engraving ([Fig. 11]) gives a perspective view looking toward the left of the hexagonal chamber, (D. [Fig. 10],) and the smaller one, C, opening from it. By means of these connected chambers the Christians were enabled in times of persecution to assemble for worship in these “dens and caves of the earth,” surrounded by the slumbering bodies of the holy dead.

Fig. 10.—Section of Gallery and Cubicula.

Fig 11.—Perspective of Lower Chamber in Fig. 9.

Fig. 12.—Vaulted Chamber with Columns.

The cubicula had vaulted roofs, and were sometimes plastered or cased with marble and paved with tiles, or, though rarely, with mosaic. These, however, were generally additions of later date than the original construction, as were also the semi-detached columns in the angles, with stucco capitals and bases, as indicated in [Fig. 9], and shown more clearly in the following engraving, which is a perspective view of the lower chamber

in [Fig. 9]. The walls and ceiling were often covered with fresco paintings, frequently of elegant design, to be hereafter described.[15] Sometimes, as in some examples in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, tufa or marble seats are ranged around the chamber, and chairs are hewn out of the solid rock.[16] These chambers were used probably for the instruction of catechumens. Occasionally the cubiculum terminates in a semicircular recess, as in the upper chamber in [Fig. 9]. These probably gave rise to the apse in early Christian architecture, of which a good example is found in the Church of St. Clement, one of the most ancient Christian edifices in Rome. Niches and shelves for lamps, an absolute necessity in the perpetual darkness that there reigns, frequently occur, such as may be seen in Italian houses to-day. Without the least authority, some Roman Catholic writers have described

these as closets for priestly vestments and shelves for pictures.

Fig. 13.—Cubiculum with Arcosolia.

A peculiar form of grave common in these chambers, as well as in the galleries, is that known as the arcosolium, or arched tomb. It consists of a recess in the wall, having a grave, often double or triple, excavated in the tufa, or built with masonry, like a solid sarcophagus, and closed with a marble slab. These are seen in the plan, [Fig. 9], in the section, [Fig. 10], at G and E in [Fig. 15], and in perspective in [Figs. 11] and [12]. Sometimes the recess is rectangular instead of arched, and is then called by De Rossi sepolcro a mensa, or table tomb. Sometimes the arch was segmental, especially when constructed of masonry.[17] An example of both sorts is seen in the accompanying engraving of a cubiculum in the Catacomb of St. Prætextatus. The narrow door into the corridor is also seen, and the stucco capitals and bases of the columns. In course of time these arcosolia were

used as altars for the celebration of the eucharist, and eventually grave abuses arose from the superstitious veneration paid to the relics of the martyr or confessor interred therein. Frequently, also, the back of this arched recess was pierced with graves of a later date, often directly through a painting,[18] in order to obtain a resting place near the bodies of the saints.

Fig. 14.—Section of the Catacomb of Callixtus.

Hitherto only one level of the Catacombs has been described, but frequently “beneath this depth there is a lower deep,” or even three or four tiers of galleries, excavated as the upper ones became filled with graves. Thus there are sometimes as many as five stories, or piani, as they are called, one beneath the other. These are carefully maintained horizontal, to avoid breaking through the floor of the one above or the roof of the one below, the danger of which would be very great if the strict level were departed from. For the same reason the different piani were generally separated by a thick stratum of solid tufa. The relative position of these levels is shown by the following engraving, reduced from De Rossi. It represents a section of the Crypt of St. Lucina, a part of the Cemetery of Callixtus. The dark colored stratum, marked I in the margin, is entirely made up of the débris of ancient monuments, buildings, and other materials accumulated in the course of ages in this place to the depth of eight feet. It has completely buried the ancient roads, except where excavated, as shown in the engraving. The next stratum, II, is of solid grayish tufa. In this the first level or piano, φ, is excavated. It is not more than twenty feet below the surface, and in many places only half that depth. Consequently its area is comparatively limited, because if extended it would have run out into the

open air, from the sloping of the ground in which it is dug. The next stratum, III, is softer and more easily worked, and therefore is that in which are found the most important and extensive piani of galleries. The cross sections P and X, and the longitudinal section υ, will show how the lower surface of the more solid stratum above was made the ceiling of these galleries, in order to lessen the danger of its falling. At B will be observed the employment of masonry to strengthen the

crumbling walls of the friable tufa. The descent of a few steps, some of which have been worn away, will also be noticed at U. At IV a more rocky stratum is found, called tufa lithoide, below which the ancient fossors[19] had to go to find suitable material for the excavation of the third piano. This was found in stratum V, in which are two piani at different levels. The lower one is not vertically beneath that here represented above it, but at some little distance. It is here shown, to exhibit at one view a section of all the stories of this Catacomb. The upper piano, g, consists of low and narrow galleries, but the lower one, marked Γ Γ Γ, seventy-one feet beneath the surface of the ground, is of great extent. Several of the loculi, it will be perceived, are built of masonry, in consequence of the crumbling nature of the soil. The three large arcosolia will also be observed. The floor of this piano rests on a somewhat firmer stratum, in which is still another level of galleries, Ω Ω Ω, ten feet lower down. This lower level is generally subject to inundation by water, in consequence of the periodical rising of the adjacent Almone, the level of which is shown at a depth of one hundred and four feet, and that of the Tiber at one hundred and thirty-one feet, below the surface.

To secure immunity from dampness, which would accelerate decomposition and corrupt the atmosphere, the Catacombs were generally excavated in high ground in the undulating hills around the city, never crossing the intervening depressions or valleys. There is, therefore, no connection between the different cemeteries except where they happen to be contiguous, nor, as has been asserted, with the churches of Rome. Where a

Catacomb has been excavated in low ground, as in the exceptional case of that of Castulo on the Via Labicana, the water has rendered it completely inaccessible.

Access to these different piani is gained by stairways, which are sometimes covered with tile or marble, or built with masonry, or by shafts. The awful silence and almost palpable darkness of these deepest dungeons is absolutely appalling. They are fitly described by the epithet applied by Dante to the realms of eternal gloom: loco d’ogni luce muto—a spot mute of all light. Here death reigns supreme. Not even so much as a lizard or a bat has penetrated these obscure recesses. Nought but skulls and skeletons, dust and ashes, are on every side. The air is impure and deadly, and difficult to breathe. “The cursed dew of the dungeon’s damp” distills from the walls, and a sense of oppression, like the patriarch’s “horror of great darkness,” broods over the scene.

Fig. 15.—Section of Cubicula with Luminare.

The Catacombs were ventilated and partially lighted by numerous openings variously called spiragli, or breathing-holes, and luminari, or light-holes. They were also probably used for the removal of the excavated material from those parts remote from the entrance. They were even more necessary for the admission of air than of light. Were it not for these the number of burning lamps, the multitude of dead bodies, no matter how carefully the loculi were cemented, and the opening of bisomi, or double graves, for interments, would create an insupportable atmosphere. They were generally in the line of junction between two cubicula, a branch of the luminare entering each chamber, as shown in the accompanying section of a portion of the Catacomb of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter. Sometimes, indeed, four, or even more, cubicula were ventilated and partially lighted by the same shaft. De Rossi mentions one luminare in

the recently discovered Cemetery of St. Balbina, which is not square but hexagonal, or nearly so, and which divides into eight branches, illumining as many separate chambers or galleries. Sometimes a funnel-shaped luminare reaches to the lowest piano; but from the faint rays that feebly struggle to those gloomy depths there comes “no light, but rather darkness visible.” In the upper levels, however, some cubicula are well lighted by large openings. The brilliant Italian sunshine to-day lights up the pictured figures on the wall as it must have illumined with its strong Rembrandt light the fair brow of the Christian maiden, the silvery hair of the venerable pastor, or the calm face of the holy dead waiting for interment in those early centuries so long ago. These luminari are often two feet square at the top, and wider as they descend; sometimes they are cylindrical in shape, as in the Catacomb of St. Helena.[20] The external

openings, often concealed by grass and weeds, are very numerous throughout the Campagna near the city, and are often dangerous to the unwary rider. In almost every vineyard between the Pincian and Salarian roads they may be found, and through them an entrance into the Catacombs may frequently be effected. After the persecution had ceased, and there was no longer need for concealment, their number was increased, and they were made of a larger size, and frequently lined with masonry, or plastered and frescoed. In the Catacombs of St. Agnes and of Callixtus are several in a very good state of preservation.

We have already seen the contemporary account of the Catacombs by Prudentius, in the fourth century. Jerome also describes their appearance at the same period in words which are almost equally applicable to-day. “When I was a boy, being educated at Rome,” he says, “I used every Sunday, in company with others of my own age and tastes, to visit the sepulchres of the apostles and martyrs, and to go into the crypts dug in the heart of the earth. The walls on either side are lined with bodies of the dead, and so intense is the darkness as to seemingly fulfill the words of the prophet, ‘They go down alive to Hades.’ Here and there is light let in to mitigate the gloom. As we advance the words of the poet are brought to mind: ‘Horror on all sides; the very silence fills the soul with dread.’”[21]

It must not be supposed that the features above described

are always perfectly exhibited. They are often obscured and obliterated by the lapse of time, and by earthquakes, inundations, and other destructive agencies of nature. The stairways are often broken and interrupted, and the corridors blocked up by the falling in of the roof, where it has been carried too near the surface, or by the crumbling of the walls, and sometimes apparently by design during the age of persecution. The rains of a thousand winters have washed tons of earth down the luminari, destroyed the symmetry of the openings, and completely filled the galleries with débris. The natural dampness of the situation, and the smoke of the lamps of the early worshipers, or the torches of more recent visitors, and sometimes incrustations of nitre, have impaired or destroyed the beauty of many of the paintings. The hand of the spoiler has in many cases completed the work of devastation. The rifled graves and broken tablets show where piety or superstition has removed the relics of the dead, or where idle curiosity has wantonly mutilated their monuments.

The present extent of the Catacombs is the result, not of primary intention, but of the contact of separate areas of comparatively limited original size, and the inosculation, as it were, of their distinct galleries. This is apparent from the fact that this contact and junction sometimes take place between areas of different levels, causing a break in their horizontal continuity, like the “faults” or dislocations common in geological strata. Sometimes, too, this junction between two adjacent areas takes place through a tier of graves, and evidently formed no part of the original design. These separate areas were originally, as we shall see in the [following chapter], private burial places in the vineyards of wealthy Christian converts, and were early

made available for the interment of the poorer members of the infant Church. In accordance with a common Roman usage the ground thus set apart for the purpose of sepulture was placed under the protection of the law, and was accurately defined, to secure it from trespass or violation. While the protection of the law was enjoyed, the excavations were strictly confined within the limits of these areas, and lower piani were dug rather than transgress the boundary. But when that protection was withdrawn the galleries were horizontally extended, often for the purpose of facilitating escape, and connections were made with adjacent areas, till the whole became an intricate labyrinth of passages and chambers. These areas are still further distinguished by certain peculiarities in the inscriptions, cubicula, and paintings, and were greatly modified by subsequent constructions.

It has till recently been thought that the Catacombs were originally excavations made by the Romans for the extraction of sand and other building material, and afterward adopted by the Christians as places of refuge, and eventually of sepulture and worship. This opinion was founded on a few misunderstood classical allusions and statements in ancient ecclesiastial writers, and on a misinterpretation of certain accidental features of the Catacombs themselves. It was held, nevertheless, by such eminent authorities as Baronius, Severano, Aringhi, Bottari, D’Agincourt, and Raoul-Rochette. Padre Marchi first rejected this theory of construction, and the brothers De Rossi have completely refuted it. An examination of the material in which these sand pits and stone quarries and the Catacombs were respectively excavated, as well as of their structural differences, will show their entirely distinct character.

The surface of the Campagna, especially of that part

occupied by the Catacombs, is almost exclusively of volcanic origin. The most ancient and lowest stratum of this igneous formation is a compact conglomerate known as tufa lithoide. It was extensively quarried for building, and the massive blocks of the Cloaca Maxima and the ancient wall of Romulus attest the durability of its character. Upon this rest stratified beds of volcanic ashes, pumice, and scoria, often consolidated with water, but of a substance much less firm than that of the tufa lithoide, and called tufa granolare. In insulated beds, rarely of considerable extent, in this latter formation, occurs another material, known as pozzolana. It consists of volcanic ashes deposited on dry land, and still existing in an unconsolidated condition. This is the material of the celebrated Roman cement, which holds together to this day the massy structures of ancient Rome. It was conveyed for building purposes as far as Constantinople, and the pier on the Tiber from which it was shipped is still called the Porto di Pozzolana. It is in these latter deposits exclusively that the arenaria, or sand pits, are found. The tufa granolare is too firm, and contains too large a proportion of earth, to use as sand, and is yet too friable for building purposes. Yet it is in this material, entirely worthless for any economic use, that the Catacombs are almost exclusively excavated; while the tufa lithoide and the pozzolana are both carefully avoided where possible, the one as too hard and the other as too soft for purposes of Christian sepulture. Sometimes, indeed, as at the cemeteries of St. Pontianus and St. Valentinus, for special reasons, Catacombs were excavated in less suitable material; but still the substance removed—a shelly marl—was economically useless, and the galleries had to be supported by solid masonry. The tufa granolare, on the

contrary, was admirably adapted for the construction of these subterranean cemeteries. It could be easily dug with a mattock, yet was firm enough to be hollowed into loculi and chambers; and its porous character made the chambers dry and wholesome for purposes of assembly, which was of the utmost importance in view of the vast number of bodies interred in these recesses.

The differences of structure between the quarries or arenaria and the Catacombs are no less striking. To this day, the vast grottoes from which the material for the building of the Coliseum was hewn, most probably by the Jewish prisoners of Titus, may still be seen on the Cœlian hill. It is said that in those gloomy vaults were kept the fierce Numidian lions and leopards whose conflicts with the Christian martyrs furnished the savage pastime of the Roman amphitheatre. But nothing can less resemble the narrow and winding passages of the Catacombs than those tremendous caverns.

Nor is there any greater resemblance in the excavations of the arenaria. These are large and lofty vaults, from sixteen to twenty feet wide, the arch of which often springs directly from the floor, so as to give the largest amount of sand with the least labour of excavation. The object was to remove as much material as possible; hence there was often only enough left to support the roof. The spacious passages of the arenaria run in curved lines, avoiding sharp angles, so as to allow the free passage of the carts which carried away the excavated sand. In the Catacombs, on the contrary, as little material as possible was removed; hence the galleries are generally not more than three, or sometimes only two, feet wide, and run for the most part in straight lines, often crossing each other at quite acute angles, so that only very narrow carts can be used in

cleaning out the accumulated débris of centuries—a very tedious process, which greatly increases the cost of exploration. The walls, moreover, are always vertical, and the roof sometimes quite flat, or only slightly arched. The wide difference in the principle of construction is obvious. The great object in the Catacombs has been to obtain the maximum of wall-surface, for the interment of the dead in the loculi with which the galleries are lined throughout, with the minimum of excavation. The structural difference will at once be seen by comparing the irregular windings of the small arenarium represented in the upper part of [Figs. 3] and [26] with the straight and symmetrical galleries of the adjacent Catacomb. Connected with the Catacomb of St. Agnes is an extensive arenarium, whose spacious, grotto-like appearance is very different from that of the narrow sepulchral galleries beneath. In the floor of this arenarium is a square shaft leading to the Catacomb, in which Dr. Northcote conjectures there was formerly a windlass for removing the excavated material. There are also footholes, for climbing the sides of the shaft, cut in the solid tufa, perhaps as a means of escape in the time of persecution. This arenarium, which was probably worked out and abandoned long before its connection with the Catacomb, may have been employed as a masked entrance to its crypts, when the more public one could not be safely used. Its spacious vaults may also have been a receptacle for the broken tufa removed from the galleries beneath.

Fig. 16.—Gallery in St. Hermes.

Many of these arenaria may be observed excavated in the hill-sides near Rome; but except when incidentally forming part of a Catacomb, they have never been found to contain a single grave. Indeed, in consequence of the utter unfitness of the pozzolana for the

purposes of Christian sepulture, the intrusion of a deposit of that material into the area of a Catacomb prevented the extension or necessitated the diversion of its galleries. Moreover, where the attempt has been made to convert an arenarium into a Christian cemetery, the changes which have been made show conclusively its original unfitness for the latter purpose. The accompanying section of a gallery in the Catacomb of St. Hermes will exhibit the structural additions necessary to adopt an arenarium for Christian sepulture. The sides of the semi-eliptical vault had to be built up with brick-work, leaving only a narrow passage in the middle. The loculi were spaces left in the masonry, in which the mouldering skeletons may still be seen. The openings were closed with slabs in the usual manner, as shown in the elevation, ([Fig. 17],) except at the top, where they cover the grave obliquely, like the roof of a house. The vault is often arched with brick-work, and at the

intersection of the galleries has sometimes to be supported by a solid pier of masonry. In part of an ancient arenarium converted into a cemetery in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla similar constructions may be seen. The long walls and numerous pillars of brick-work concealing and sustaining the tufa, and the irregular windings of the passages, show at once the vast difference between the arenarium and the Catacomb, and the immense labour and expense required to convert the former into the latter.

Fig. 17.—Part of Wall of Gallery in St. Hermes.

It has been urged in objection to this theory, that the difficulty of secretly disposing of at least a hundred millions of cubic feet of refuse material taken from the Catacombs must have been exceedingly great, unless it could be removed under cover of employment for some economic purpose. It will be shown, however, that secrecy was not always necessary, as has been assumed, but that, on the contrary, the Christian right of sepulture was for a long time legally recognized by the Pagan Emperors; and that the Catacombs continued to be publicly used for a considerable time after the establishment of Christianity on the throne of the Cæsars. During the exacerbations of persecution there is evidence that the excavated material was deposited in the galeries already filled with graves, or, as we have seen, in the spacious vaults of adjacent arenaria. If the Catacombs were merely excavations for sand or stone, as has been asserted, we ought to find many of their narrow galleries destitute of tombs, and many of the arenaria containing them; whereas every yard of the former is occupied with graves, and not a single grave is found in the latter, nor do they contain a single example of a mural painting or inscription. The conclusion is irresistible that the Catacombs proper were created exclusively

for the purpose of Christian burial, and in no case were of Pagan construction.

The erroneous theory here combated has arisen, as we have said, chiefly from certain classical allusions to the arenaria, and from passages in the ancient ecclesiastical records describing the burial places of the martyrs, as in cryptis arenariis, in arenario, or ad arenas. Some of these localities, however, have been identified beyond question, and found to consist merely of a sandy kind of rock, and not at all of the true pozzolana. In others a vein of pozzolana does actually occur in the Catacombs, or they are connected with ancient arenaria, as at St. Agnes and at Calixtus. In the other instances the localities are either yet unrecognized, or the expression merely implies that the cemetery was near the sand pits—juxta arenarium, or in loco qui dicitur ad Arenas.

The mere technical description of the Catacombs, however, gives no idea of the thrilling interest felt in traversing their long-drawn corridors and vaulted halls. As the pilgrim to this shrine of the primitive faith visits these chambers of silence and gloom, accompanied by a serge-clad, sandaled monk,[22] he seems like the Tuscan poet wandering through the realms of darkness with his shadowy guide.

“Ora sen’ va per un segreto calle
Tra l’ muro della terra.”[23]

His footsteps echo strangely down the distant passages and hollow vaults, dying gradually away in the solemn stillness of this valley of the shadow of death. The

graves yawn weirdly as he passes, torch in hand. The flame struggles feebly with the thickening darkness, vaguely revealing the unfleshed skeletons on either side, till its redness fades to sickly white, like that fioco lume,[24] that pale light, by which Dante saw the crowding ghosts upon the shores of Acheron. Deep mysterious shadows crouch around, and the dim perspective, lined with the sepuchral niches of the silent community of the dead, stretch on in an apparently unending vista. The very air seems oppressive and stifling, and laden with the dry dust of death. The vast extent and population of this great necropolis overwhelm the imagination, and bring to mind Petrarch’s melancholy line—

“Piena di morti tutta la campagna.”[25]

Almost appalling in its awe and solemnity is the sudden transition from the busy city of the living to the silent city of the dead; from the golden glory of the Italian sunlight to the funereal gloom of these sombre vaults. The sacred influence of the place subdues the soul to tender emotions. The fading pictures on the walls and the pious epitaphs of the departed breathe on every side an atmosphere of faith and hope, and awaken a sense of spiritual kinship that overleaps the intervening centuries. We speak with bated breath and in whispered tones, and thought is busy with the past. It is impossible not to feel strangely moved while gazing on the crumbling relics of mortality committed ages ago, with pious care and many tears, to their last, long rest.

“It seems as if we had the sleepers known.”[26]

We see the mother, the while her heart is wrung with anguish, laying on its stony bed—rude couch for such a tender thing—the little form that she had cherished in her warm embrace. We behold the persecuted flock following, it may be, the mangled remains of the faithful pastor and valiant martyr for the truth, which at the risk of their lives they have stealthily gathered at dead of night. With holy hymns,[27] broken by their sobs, they commit his mutilated body to the grave, where after life’s long toil he sleepeth well. We hear the Christian chant, the funeral plaint, the pleading tones of prayer, and the words of holy consolation and of lofty hope with which the dead in Christ are laid to rest. A moment, and—the spell is broken, the past has vanished, and stern reality becomes again a presence. Ruin and desolation and decay are all around.

The exploration of these worse than Dædalian labyrinths is not unattended with danger. That intrepid investigator, Bosio, was several times well nigh lost in their mysterious depths. That disaster really happened to M. Roberts, a young French artist, whose adventure has been wrought into an exciting scene in Hans Andersen’s tale, “The Improvisatore,” and forms an episode in the Abbé de Lille’s poem, “L’Imagination.” Inspired by the enthusiasm of his profession, he attempted to explore one of the Catacombs, with nothing but a torch and a thread for a guide. As he wandered on through gallery and chamber, he became so absorbed in his study that, unawares, the thread slipped from his hand. On discovering his loss he tried, but in vain, to recover the clew. Presently his torch went out, and he was left in utter darkness, imprisoned in a living grave, surrounded by the relics of mortality. The silence was oppressive.

He shouted, but the hollow echoes mocked his voice. Weary with fruitless efforts to escape his dread imprisonment he threw himself in despair upon the earth, when, lo, something familiar touched his hand. Could he believe it? it was indeed the long lost clew by which alone he could obtain deliverance from this awful labyrinth. Carefully following the precious thread he reached at last the open air,

And never Tiber, rippling through the meads,

Made music half so sweet among its reeds;

And never had the earth such rich perfume,

As when from him it chased the odor of the tomb.[28]

Still more terrible in its wildness is an incident narrated by MacFarlane.[29] In the year 1798, after the return to Rome of the Republican army under Berthier, a party of French officers, atheistic disciples of Voltaire and Rousseau, and hardened by the orgies of the Revolution, visited the Catacombs. They caroused in the sepulchral crypts, and sang their bacchanalian songs among the Christian dead. They rifled the graves and committed sacrilege at the tombs of the saints. One of the number, a reckless young cavalry officer, “who feared not God nor devil, for he believed in neither,” resolved to explore the remoter galleries. He was speedily lost, and was abandoned by his companions. His excited imagination heightened the natural horrors of the scene. The grim and ghastly skeletons seemed an army of accusing spectres. Down the long corridors the wind mysteriously whispered, rising in inarticulate moanings and woeful sighs, as of souls in pain. The tones of the neighbouring convent bell, echoing through the stony

vaults, sounded loud and awful as the knell of doom. Groping blindly in the dark, he touched nothing but rocky walls or mouldering bones, that sent a thrill of horror through his frame. Though but a thin roof separated him from the bright sunshine and free air, he seemed condemned to living burial. His philosophical skepticism failed him in this hour of peril. He could no longer scoff at death as “un sommeil éternel.” The palimpsest of memory recalled with intensest vividness the Christian teachings of his childhood. His soul became filled and penetrated with a solemn awe. His physical powers gave way beneath the intensity of his emotion. He was rescued the next day, but was long ill. He rose from his bed an altered man. His life was thenceforth serious and devout. When killed in battle in Calabria seven years after, a copy of the Gospels was found next to his heart.

Even as late as 1837 a party of students with their professor, numbering in all some sixteen, or, as some say, nearly thirty, entered the Catacombs on a holiday excursion, to investigate their antiquities, but became entangled amid their intricacies. Diligent search was made, but no trace of them was ever found. In some silent crypt or darksome corridor they were slowly overtaken by the same torturing fate as that of Ugolino and his sons in the Hunger Tower of Pisa.[30] The passage by which they entered has been walled up, but the mystery of their fate will never be dispelled till the secrets of the grave shall be revealed.

[1]

Haud procul extremo culta ad pomœria vallo,
Mersa latebrosis crypta patet foveis...—Peristephanon, iv.

The origin of the word Catacombs is exceedingly obscure. Father Marchi derives it from κατὰ, down, and τύμβος, a tomb; or from κατὰ and κοιμάω, to sleep. Mommsen thinks it comes from κατὰ and cumbo, part of decumbo, to lie down. According to Schneider (Lex. Græk.) it is derived from κατὰ and κύμβη, a boat or canoe, from the resemblance of a sarcophagus to that object. The more probable derivation seems to the present writer to be from κατὰ and κύμβος, a hollow, as if descriptive of a subterranean excavation. The name was first given in the sixth century to a limited area beneath the Church of St. Sebastian: “Locus qui dicitur catacumbas.”—S. Greg., Opp., tom. ii, ep. 30. It was afterward generically applied to all subterranean places of sepulture. The earliest writers who mention those of Rome call them cryptæ, or crypts, or cæmeteria—whence our word cemetery, literally, sleeping places, from κοιμάω, to slumber. Similar excavations have been found in Syria, Asia Minor, Cyprus, Crete, the Ægean Isles, Greece, Sicily, Naples, Malta, and France.

[2] These great roads for miles are lined with the sepulchral monuments of Rome’s mighty dead, majestic even in decay. But only the wealthy could be entombed in those stately mausolea, or be wrapped in those “marble cerements.” For the mass of the population columbaria were provided, in whose narrow niches, like the compartments of a dove-cote—whence the name—the terra cotta urns containing their ashes were placed, sometimes to the number of six thousand in a single columbarium. They also contain sometimes the urns of the great.

[3] Ariosto, Orlando Furioso.

[4] Aringhi, in the elegant Latin ode prefixed to his great work, exclaims, “Sub Roma Romam quærito”—Beneath Rome I seek the true Rome.

[5] Even so accurate and philosophical a writer as the late Professor Silliman reports on their authority that the Catacombs extend twenty miles, to the port of Ostia, in one direction, and to Albano, twelve miles, in another. Visit to Europe, vol. i, p. 329. This is impossible, as will be shown, on account of the undulation of the ground, and the limited area of the volcanic tufa in which alone they can be excavated. The number of distinct Catacombs has also been magnified to sixty; and Father Marchi estimated the aggregate length of passages to be nine hundred miles.

[6] [Fig. 1].

[7] [Fig. 30].

[8] [Fig. 29].

[9]

Primas namque fores summo tenus intrat hiatu
Illustratque dies limina vestibuli.—Peristephanon, ii.

[10] In the single crypt of St. Lucina, one hundred feet by one hundred and eighty, De Rossi counted over seven hundred loculi, and estimated that nearly twice as many were destroyed, giving a total of two thousand graves in this area. The same space, with our mode of interment, would not accommodate over half the number, even though placed as close together as possible, without any room for passages.

[11] Compare Bryant’s Thanatopsis:

“All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.”

[12] Rom. Sott., ii, 127.

[13] D’Agincourt, Histoire de l’art par les Monumens, i, 20.

[14] Literally, little sleeping chambers, from cubo, I lie down. The same name was also given to the cells for meditation and prayer attached to the Church of Nola. Paulin., ep. 12, ad Sever.

[15] [Book II].

[16] See [Fig. 130] and context, where the entire subject is discussed.

[17] See in the Cemetery of St. Helena, [Fig. 29].

[18] As in [Fig. 12], and more strikingly in [Fig. 76].

[19] An organized body of diggers, by whom the Catacombs were excavated. See [Book III, chap. iv.]

[20] See [Fig. 29].

[21] “Dum essem Romæ puer, et liberalibus studiis erudirer, solebam cum cæteris ejusdem ætatis et propositi, diebus Dominicis sepulchra apostolorum et martyrum circuire, crebròque cryptas ingredi, quæ in terrarum profunda defossæ, ex utraque parte ingredientium per parietes corpora sepultorum, ... ‘Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent.’”—Hieron. in Ezech., Cap. xl.

[22] Unfortunately for Protestant visitors most of the Catacombs are open for inspection only on Sunday, when the work of exploration is suspended.

[23]

“And now through narrow, gloomy paths we go,

’Tween walls of earth and tombs.”—Inferno.

[24] “Com’io discerno per lo fioco lume.”—Inferno.

[25] “Full of the dead this far extending field.”

[26] Childe Harold, iv, 104.

[27] Hymnos et psalmos decantans.—Hieron., Vit. Pauli.

[28] From “L’Imagination,” by Abbé de Lille, MacFarlane’s translation.

[29] Catacombs of Rome. London, 1852. P. 94, et seq.

[30] Inferno, Canto xxxiii, vv. 21-75.

CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS.

It is highly probable that the first Roman Catacombs were excavated by the Jews.[31] Many Hebrew captives graced the triumph of Pompey after his Syrian conquests, B. C. 62. The Jewish population increased by further voluntary accessions. They soon swarmed in that Trans-Tiberine region which formed the ancient Ghetto of Rome. They made many proselytes from paganism to the worship of the true God, and thus, to use the language of Seneca, “The conquered gave laws to their conquerors.”[32]

All the national customs and prejudices of the Jews were opposed to the Roman practice of burning the dead, which Tacitus asserts they never observed;[33] and they clung with tenacity to their hereditary mode of sepulture. Wherever they have dwelt they have left traces

of subterranean burial. The hills of Judea are honeycombed with sepulchral caves and galleries. Similar excavations have been found in the Jewish settlements of Asia Minor, the Ægean Isles, Sicily, and Southern Italy.[34] So also in Rome they sought to be separated in death, as in life, from the Gentiles among whom they dwelt. They had their Catacombs apart, in which not a single Christian or pagan inscription has been found. Bosio describes one such Catacomb, which he discovered on Monte Verde, which was much more ancient than the Christian Catacomb of St. Pontianus in the same vicinity. It was of very rude construction, and contained not a single Christian monument, but numerous slabs bearing the seven-branched Jewish candlestick, and one inscription on which the word ϹΥΝΑΓΩΓ—Synagogue—was legible.[35] It was situated near that Trans-Tiberine quarter of the city inhabited at the period of the Christian era by the numerous Jewish population of Rome. It cannot now, however, be identified, having been obliterated or concealed by the changes of the last two centuries. Maitland gives the following Jewish inscription from a MS. collection in Rome. The figure to the left may be a horn for replenishing the lamp with oil. The letters at the right are probably intended for the Hebrew word שָׁלוֹם, Shalom, or Peace, so common in its classical equivalent upon Christian tombs. The palm branch is a Pagan as well as Jewish and Christian symbol of victory. The central figure is a rude representation

of the seven-branched candlestick which appears also in bass-relief on the Arch of Titus at Rome.

“Here lies Faustina. In Peace.”

Fig. 18.—Slab from Jewish Catacomb.

In the year 1859 another Jewish Catacomb was discovered in the Vigna Randanini, on the Appian Way, about two miles from Rome. It has been minutely described by Padre Garrucci.[36] In this the graves and sarcophagi are sunk in the floor as well as in the walls. They are closed with terra cotta or marble slabs, and are otherwise similar to those of the Christian Catacombs. It contains several vaulted chambers, one of which has some very remarkable paintings of the seven-branched candlestick on the roof and walls. The same figure is frequently scratched on the mortar with which the graves are closed. The dove and olive branch and the palm are also frequently repeated. Although nearly two hundred inscriptions have been discovered, not one of either pagan or Christian character has been met with.

The names are sometimes strikingly Jewish in form, and where the epitaphs refer to the station of the deceased

it is always to officers of the synagogue, as ΑΡΚΟΝΤΕϹ, rulers, ΓΡΑΜΜΑΤΕΙϹ, scribes. The following examples are from the Kircherian Museum:

ΩΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΕ ϹΑΛΩ[ΜΗ] ΘΥΓΑΤΗΡ ΓΑΔΙΑ ΠΑΤΡΟϹ ϹΥΝΑΓΩΓΗϹ ΑΙΒΡΕΩΝ ΕΒΙΩϹΕΝ ΜΑ ΕΝ ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ΚΟΙΜΗϹΙϹ ΑΥΤΗϹ. Here lies Salome, daughter of Gadia, Father of the Synagogue of the Hebrews. She lived forty-one years. Her sleep is in peace. ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΕ ΚΥΝΤΙΑΝΟϹ ΓΕΡΟΥϹΙΑΡΧΗϹ ϹΥΝΑΓΩΓΗϹ ΤΗϹ ΑΥΓΥϹΤΗϹΙΩΝ. Here lies Quintianus, Gerousiarch (that is, Chief Elder) of the Synagogue of the Augustenses. ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΑΙ ΝΕΙΚΟΔΗΜΟϹ HΟ ΑΡΧΩΝ ϹΙΒΟΥΡΗϹΙΩΝ ΚΑΙ ΠΑϹΙ ΦΕΙΛΗΤΟϹ ΑΙΤΩΝ Λ ΗΜΕΡ ΜΒ ΘΑΡΙ ΑΒΛΑΒΙ ΝΕΩΤΕΡΕ ΟΥΔΕΙϹ ΑΘΑΝΑΤΟϹ. Here lies Nicodemus, ruler of the Severenses, and beloved of all; (aged) thirty years, forty-two days. Be of good cheer, O inoffensive young man! no one is exempt from death.

This inscription will recall another “ruler of the Synagogue” of the same name. Many of the sleepers in this Jewish Cemetery were evidently, from their names,[37] Greek or Latin proselytes. Sometimes, indeed, this is expressly asserted, as in the following:

Mannacivs sorori Crysidi dvlcissime proselyte.—Mannacius to his sweetest sister Chrysis, a proselyte.

It may be assumed that this Catacomb was exclusively Jewish, and we know, from the testimony of Juvenal[38] and others, that numbers of the Jews inhabited the adjacent part of Rome, about the Porta Capena and the valley of Egeria. It is not, however, certain whether it is the original type, or a later imitation, of the Christian cemetery. But the Jewish population must have had extra-mural places of sepulture before the Christian era; and it is probable that the early Jewish

converts to Christianity may have merely continued a mode of burial already in vogue, substituting the emblems of their newly adopted faith for those which they had forsaken; or, rather—for we find that they frequently retained certain Jewish symbols, as the dove, olive branch, and palm—supplementing them with the emblems of Christianity. De Rossi has expressed the opinion that the earliest mode of Christian burial was in sarcophagi, as in the Jewish cemetery above described.

The date of the planting of Christianity in Rome is uncertain. Probably some of the “strangers of Rome” who witnessed the miracle of the Pentecost, or, perhaps, the Gentile converts of the “Italian band” of Cornelius, brought the new evangel to their native city.[39] But certain it is that as early as A. D. 58 the faith of the

Roman Church was “spoken of throughout the whole world.” “Christianity,” says Tertullian, “grew up under the shadow of the Jewish religion, to which it was regarded as akin, and about the lawfulness of which there was no question;”[40] and it doubtless adopted the burial usages of Judaism.

But even without the example of the Jews the Roman Christians would naturally revolt from the pagan custom of burning the dead, with its accompanying idolatrous usages,[41] and would prefer burial, after the manner of their Lord. They showed a tender care for the remains of the dead, under a vivid impression of the communion of saints and the resurrection of the body. They seemed to regard the sepulchre as “God’s cabinet or shrine, where he pleases to lay up the precious relics of his dear saints until the jubilee of glory.”[42] Even the Jews designated the grave as Beth-ha-haim, the “house of the living,” rather than the house of the dead. It is probable, therefore, that the origin of the Christian Catacombs dates from the death of the first Roman believer in Christ.

Many of the Catacombs were probably begun as

private sepulchres for single families; indeed, some such tombs have been discovered in the vicinity of Rome, which never extended beyond a single chamber. They were excavated in the gardens or vineyards of the wealthy converts to Christianity, in imitation of that rock-hewn sepulchre consecrated by the body of Christ. The following inscription, which may still be seen in the most ancient part of the Catacombs of Sts. Nereus and Achilles, seem to refer to such a family tomb. Another inscription, found in the Catacomb of St. Nicomedes, restricts the use of the sepulchre to the original owner, and those of his dependents who belong to his religion—AT [AD] RELIGIONEM PERTINENTES MEAM.

M. Antonius Res[ti]tutus made [this] hypogeum for himself and his [relatives] who believe in the Lord.[43]

The names of many of the burial crypts commemorate these original owners. Among others those of Lucina, Priscilla, and Domitilla are considered to belong to the First Century, and the two former to the times of the Apostles. Some of these may have been originally designed, or afterwards opened, for the reception of the poor belonging to the Church; and thus the Catacombs would be indefinitely extended till they attained their present dimensions. Tertullian

expressly declares that the provision made for the poor included that for their burial—egenis humandis.[44]

There is reason to believe that, even from the very first, the Christian Church at Rome contained not a few who were of noble blood and of high rank. In one of the apostolic epistles Paul conveys the salutation of Pudens, a Roman Senator, of Linus, reputed the first Roman bishop, and of Claudia, daughter of a British king;[45] and we know that even in the Golden House of Nero, the scene of that colossal orgy whose record pollutes the pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, were disciples of the crucified Nazarene. In remarkable confirmation of this fact is the discovery in the recent explorations of the ruins of the Imperial Palace of several Christian memorials, including one of those lamps adorned with evangelical symbols, so common in the Catacombs. Much of the evidence on this subject has been lost by the zealous destruction of ecclesiastical records during the terrible Diocletian persecution; but from inscriptions in the Catacombs, and from the incidental allusions

of early writers, we learn that persons of the highest position, and even members of the Imperial family, were associated with the Christians in life and in death. Some of the noblest names of Rome occur in funeral epitaphs in some of the most ancient galleries of the Catacombs. There is evidence that even during the first century some who stood near the throne became converts to Christianity, and even died as martyrs for the faith.[46]

But doubtless the preservation and advancement of true religion was better secured amid the dark recesses of the Catacombs, during the fiery persecutions that befel the Church, than it would have been in the sunshine of imperial favour, in an age and court unparalleled for their corruptions. The sad decline of Christianity after the accession of Constantine makes it a matter of congratulation that in the earlier ages it was kept pure by the wholesome breezes of adversity.

The new religion, notwithstanding all the efforts that were made for its suppression, rapidly spread, even in the high places of the earth. “We are but of yesterday,” writes Tertullian at the close of the second century, “yet we fill every city, town, and island of the empire. We abound in the very camps and castles, in the council chamber and the palace, in the senate

and the forum; only your temples and theatres are left.”[47]

It is evident from an examination of the earliest Catacombs that they were not the offspring of fear on the part of the Christians. There was no attempt at secrecy in their construction. They were, like the pagan tombs, situated on the high roads entering the city. Their entrances were frequently protected and adorned by elegant structures of masonry, such as that which is still visible at the Catacomb of St. Domitilla on the Via Ardeatina;[48] and their internal decorations and frescoes, which in the most ancient examples are of classic taste and beauty, were manifestly not executed by stealth and in haste, but in security and at leisure.

There was, in classic times, a sacred character attached to all places set apart for the purposes of sepulture. They enjoyed the especial protection of the law, and were invested with a sort of religious sanctity.[49] This protection was asserted in many successive edicts, and the heaviest penalties were inflicted on the violators of tombs, as guilty of sacrilege.[50] Reverence for the sepulchres of the dead was regarded by the ancient mind as a religious virtue; and the neglect of the ancestral tomb even involved disability for municipal office.[51]

Being situated along the public highway, these pagan tombs were liable to various pollutions, to which numerous inscriptions refer. Hence the frequent CAVE VIATOR—“Traveller, beware!”—so common in classic epitaphs. The SCRIPTOR PARCE HOC OPVS—“Writer, spare this work”—sometimes met with, is, as Kenrick well remarks,[52] not the address of an author to a critic, but of a relative of the deceased, entreating the wall-scribbler not to disfigure a tomb. Electioneering notices were sometimes written upon these wayside monuments—a practice which is deprecated in the following: CANDIDATVS FIAT HONORATVS ET TV FELIX SCRIPTOR SI HIC NON SCRIPSERIS—“May your candidate be honoured and yourself happy, O writer, if you write not on this tomb!” INSCRIPTOR, ROGO TE VT TRANSEAS MONVMENTVM—“Inscriber, I pray you pass by this monument.”

As these sepulchral areas, often of considerable extent, were taken from the fields in the vicinity of a great city, where the land was very valuable for the purpose of tillage, they were in continual danger of invasion from the cupidity of the heirs or of adjacent land-owners, but for this legal protection. On many of the cippi, or funereal monuments, which line the public roads in the vicinity of Rome, the extent of these areas is set forth. Some of them are quite small, as is indicated in the following inscription: TERRENVM SACRATVM LONGVM P[EDES] · X · LAT · P[EDES] · X · FODERE NOLI · NE SACRILEGIVM COMMITTAS[52a]—“A consecrated plot of earth, ten feet long and ten feet broad. Do not dig here, lest you commit sacrilege.”

More generally the size of the area is expressed, as

in the following: IN FRONTE P[EDES] · IX IN AGRO P[EDES] · X; that is, “Frontage on the road, nine feet; depth in the field, ten feet.” This area, small as it is, was designed for several families. The limited space occupied by the cinerary urns rendered this quite possible. Frequently, however, the size was much larger. An area one hundred and twenty-five feet square would be of very moderate extent. Horace mentions one one thousand feet by three hundred,[53] and sometimes they greatly exceed this, as one on the Via Labicana, five hundred by eighteen hundred feet, or over twenty English acres. There were also frequently exhedræ, or seats by the wayside, for passers-by, who were sometimes exhorted to pause and read the inscription, or to pour a libation for the dead, as in the following: SISTE VIATOR TV QVI VIA FLAMINIA TRANSIS, RESTA AC RELEGE—“Stop, traveller, who passest by on the Flaminian Way; pause and read, and read again!” MISCE BIBE DA MIHI—“Mix, drink, and give to me.” VIATORES SALVETE ET VALETE—“Travellers, hail and farewell.”

These burial plots were incapable of alienation or transfer from the families for whom they were originally set apart; who are sometimes enumerated in the inscription, or more generally expressed by the formulæ, SIBI SVISQVE FECIT, SIBI ET POSTERIS SVIS, or with the addition, LIBERTIS LIBERTABVSQVE POSTERISQVE, that is, “He made this for himself and his family,” or “for himself and his descendants;” also “for his freedmen and freedwomen and their descendants.” Sometimes this limitation is plainly asserted to be, VT NE VNQVAM

DE NOMINE FAMILIAE NOSTRAE HOC MONVMENTVM EXEAT—“That this monument may not go out of the name of our family.” The cupidity of the inheritor of the estate is especially guarded against by the ever-recurring formula, H · M · H · N · S ·, that is, Hoc monumentum hæredem non sequitur—“This monument descends not to the heir.” Sometimes within a stately mausoleum reposed in solitary magnificence the dust of a single individual, who in sullen exclusiveness declares in his epitaph that he has no associate even in the grave, or that he made his tomb for himself alone—IN HOC MONVMENTO SOCIVM HABEO NVLLVM, or, HOC SOLO SIBI FECIT.

The violation of the monument is earnestly deprecated in numerous inscriptions in some such terms as these: ROGO PER DEOS SVPEROS INFEROSQVE NE VELITIS OSSA MEA VIOLARE—“I beseech you, by the supernal and infernal gods, that you do not violate my bones.” Sometimes this petition is accompanied by an imprecation of divine vengeance if it should be neglected, as, QVI VIOLAVERIT DEOS SENTIAT IRATOS—“May he feel the wrath of the gods[54] who shall have violated [this tomb.]” Another invokes the fearful curse, QVISQVIS HOC SVSTVLERIT AVT LAESERIT VLTIMVS SVORVM MORIATVR[55]—“Whoever shall take away or injure this [tomb] let him die the last of his race.”

From a distrust of posterity many erected their monuments during their life-time, and wrote their own epitaphs, leaving only a space for the age. This is sometimes expressed by the words, SIBI VIVVS FECIT, or, SE VIVO, SE VIVIS, or even by such solecisms as ME VIVVS, or SE VIVVS. The following records the strange fact of the erection of a funereal monument by one living person to

another: SEMIRAMIAE LICINIAE QVAM LOCO FILIAE DILIGO OB MERITA EIVS VIVVS VIVAE FECI—“To Semiramia Licinia, whom I love in place of my daughter: on account of her merits, alive, I made this to her alive.”

These classic usages have been thus detailed because traces of their influence may be observed in many practices adopted by the primitive Christians, and because they furnish an explanation of those remarkable immunities and privileges which the Catacombs so long enjoyed. These latter were constructed in separate and limited areas, in like manner as the pagan sepulchres. De Rossi has given a map of the Catacomb of Callixtus, in which these areas are accurately defined. They vary in size and shape, that of the crypt of St. Lucina being one hundred feet in fronte and one hundred and eighty in agro, that of St. Cecilia two hundred and fifty feet in fronte and one hundred in agro, and others still larger. By the very tenor of the law these areas enjoyed the same protection as those of the pagan sepulchres, of which protection it required a special edict to deprive them. Even when Christianity fell under the ban of persecution that freedom of sepulture was not at first interfered with. Having wreaked his cruel rage upon the living body, the pagan magistrate at least did not deny right of burial to the martyr’s mutilated remains. A beneficent Roman law declared that the bodies even of those who died by the hand of the public executioner might be given up to any who asked for them.[56] So that even the sentence of outlawry against the Christians did not affect the bodies of the dead. Indeed, we know from ecclesiastical history that frequently the faithful received the remains of the martyrs

and gave them Christian burial. It was not till the third century, when the pagan opposition to Christianity became intense and bitter, that the persecutors waged war upon the dead. Although both Diocletian and Maximian confirmed the decree just cited, it often happened that, in order that the Christians might not have even the melancholy consolation of gathering up the martyrs’ bones, and honouring the remains of their fallen heroes, those sacred relics were denied the rites of sepulture which were freely accorded to the body of the vilest malefactor.

These areas, Christian as well as pagan, were under the guardianship of the Roman Pontifices, who, although pagans, were actually confirmed in their authority by the Christian Emperor Constans. In consequence of this protection the Christians were enabled to conduct their worship and celebrate their agapæ in the oratories or other buildings erected over the Catacombs, the ruins of which are still to be seen at the Catacombs of St. Domitilla and Sts. Nereus and Achilles, and which to the popular apprehension would seem to correspond to the pagan structures for the celebration of funeral banquets. Even when oppressed and persecuted above ground, they found a sanctuary beneath its surface, and were permitted by the ignorance or indifference of their foes to worship God among the holy dead. So long as their sepulchral areas were uninvaded the Christians scrupulously abstained from extending their excavations beyond their respective limits, digging lower piani instead, when insatiate death demanded room for still more graves. But when the ruthless persecutor pursued them even beneath the earth, they felt at liberty to transcend those limits and burrow in any direction for safety or escape.

The Christian inscriptions often strongly deprecate

the violation of the graves to which they are attached, in like manner as we have seen in pagan epitaphs, and against this crime the Fathers intensely inveigh. Sometimes the petition assumes a most solemn character, as this: [ADIVRO] VOS PER C[H]RISTVM, NE MIHI AB ALIQVO VIOLENTIAM [sic] FIAT ET NE SEPVLCRVM MEVM VIOLETVR—“[I conjure] you by Christ that no violence be offered me by any one, and that my sepulchre may not be violated.” Still more awful in its adjuration is the following: CONIVRO VOS PER TREMENDVM DIEM IVDICII VT HANC SEPVLTVRAM NVLLI VIOLENT[57]—“I conjure you by the dreadful day of judgment that no one violate this sepulchre.”

Sometimes a most terrible imprecation is expressed, as in the following:

MALE · PEREAT · INSEPVLTVS
IACEAT · NON · RESVRGAT
CVM · IVDA · PARTEM · HABEAT
SI · QVIS · SEPVLCHRVM · HVNC · VIOLAVERIT—

If any one shall violate this sepulchre,
Let him perish miserably and remain unburied;
Let him lie down and not rise again,
Let him have his portion with Judas.[58]

....[EMI]GRAVIT AD XPM
....SEPVLCRVM VIOLARE
....SIT ALIENVS A REGNO DEI.

... Has departed to Christ. [If any one dare] to violate this sepulchre, let him ... and be far from the kingdom of God.[59]

It is probable that this dread of the violation of the grave arose, in part at least, from the fear that the dispersion of the remains might impede the resurrection of the body; and also from that natural aversion to the disturbance of the slumbering dust, so passionately expressed on the tombstone of England’s greatest dramatist.[60]

We sometimes find also the announcement upon Christian as well as upon pagan tombs, that they have been prepared while the tenants were yet alive, as in the following: LOCVS BASILIONIS SE BIBO FECIT—“The place of Basilio, he made it when alive;” SABINI BISOMVM SE BIBVM FECIT SIBI IN CEMETERIVM BALBINAE IN CRYPTA NOBA [sic]—“The bisomus of Sabinus, he made it for himself during his life-time, in the cemetery of Balbina, in the new crypt.” As Sabinus could only occupy one half of this, the other half was probably intended for his wife. Observe in the following the beautiful euphemism for the grave. It is calmly chosen as the last long home,

as the “house appointed for all living.” (Fig. 19.[61])

Fig. 19.—Epitaph from Lapidarian Gallery.[61]

But there was another and still more remarkable resemblance between the funeral usages of the pagans and Christians than any yet mentioned, and one which greatly contributed to the freedom of action and security of the latter. There is abundant monumental and other evidence of the existence in Rome, in the time of the later Republic and of the Empire, of certain funeral confraternities—collegia, as they were called—much like the modern burial clubs. A remarkable inscription of the time of Hadrian, A. D. 103, found at Lavigna, nineteen miles from Rome, on the Appian Way, gives an insight into their constitution and objects. With much legal tautology it sets forth the privilege of this collegium of the worshippers of Diana and the new divinity Antinous appointed by a decree of the Roman Senate and people, to assemble, convene, and have an association for the burial of the dead.[62] The members

of this confraternity were to pay for that purpose a hundred sesterces at entrance, besides an amphora of good wine, and five ases a month thereafter,[63] all of which was forfeited by the non-payment of the monthly dues. Three hundred sesterces were expended on the funeral, fifty of which were to be distributed at the cremation of the body. If a member died at a distance from Rome three of the confraternity were sent to fetch the body. Even if they failed to obtain it the funeral rites were duly paid to an effigy of the deceased. There was also provision made for the members dining together on anniversary and other occasions according to rules duly prescribed by the collegium.

The names of very many of these collegia have been preserved, each of which consisted of the members of a similar profession or handicraft. Thus we have the Collegium Medicorum, the association of the physicians; Aurificum, of the gold-workers; Tignariorum, of the carpenters; Dendrophororum, of the wood-fellers; Pellionariorum, of the furriers; Nautarum, of the sailors; Pabulariorum, of the forage merchants; Aurigariorum, of the charioteers; and Utriculariorum, of the bargemen.[64]

They were frequently also connected by the bond of nationality or of common religious observance, as Collegium Germanorum, the association of the Germans; Pastophororum, of the priests of Isis; Serapidis et Isidis, of Serapis and Isis; Æsculapii et Hygeiæ, of Æsculapius and Hygeia.[65] Sometimes they were Cultores Veneris, Jovis, Herculis, worshippers of Venus, Jupiter, Hercules, or, as we have seen, of Diana and Antinous.

These associations were often favoured with especial privileges, immunities, and rights, like those of incorporation, such as the holding of territorial property. De Rossi has shown, by ample citations, that the emperors, who were always opposed to associations among the citizens, made a special exemption in favour of these funeral clubs.[66]

By conformity to the constitution of these corporations the Christian church had peculiar facilities for the burial of its dead, and even for the celebration of religious worship. Indeed, it has been suggested, and is highly probable, that it was under the cover of these funeral associations that toleration was conceded, first to the sepulchres, then to the churches. Tertullian describes the practice of the Christian community in the second century as follows: “Every one offers a small contribution on a certain day of the month, or when he chooses, and as he is able, for no one is compelled; it is a voluntary offering. This is our common fund for piety; for it is not expended in feasting and drinking and in wanton excesses, but in feeding and burying the poor, in supporting orphans, aged persons, and such as are shipwrecked, or such as languish in mines, in exile, or in prison.”[67] Thus the Ecclesia Fratrum, the “Congregation of the Brethren,” who restored the funeral monument described on page [fifty-six],[68] suggests the pagan college of the Fratres

Arvales; and the Cultor Verbi, or worshipper of the Divine Word, in the same inscription, would seem to the heathen magistrate analogous to the Cultores Jovis or Cultores Dianæ of the pagan collegia. Indeed, it is difficult to decide from the names of some of these associations whether they were Christian or pagan. Thus we read of the Collegium convictorum qui una epulo vesci solent—“The fraternity of table-companions who are accustomed to feast together.” De Rossi suggests that there may be here a covert reference to a Christian community, and probably to the celebration of the Agape or of the Eucharist.[69] Another is the Collegium quod est in domo Sergiæ Paulinæ—“The association which is in the house of Sergia Paulina.” This possibly may have been a Christian community, like “the church which was in the house” of Priscilla and Aquila.[70]

That the primitive Christians availed themselves of the privileges granted to the funeral associations, is confirmed by a discovery made by De Rossi in the Cemetery of St. Domitilla in the year 1865, and already referred to. At the entrance was found a chamber, with stone seats like the schola, or place of meeting of the pagan tombs where the religious confraternity celebrated the funeral banquet of the deceased. Here the Christians celebrated instead the Agape, or Feast of Charity, and the Natalitia, or anniversary of the martyrs who were buried there, just as the pagan associations commemorated the anniversaries of their deceased patrons.

The ancient privileges of these collegia were confirmed by an edict of Septimius Severus about the year A. D. 200. It is a curious coincidence that precisely at this time Zephyrinus, bishop of Rome, appointed Callixtus

to be “guardian of the cemetery,” as well as head of the clergy.[71] In order to secure to the funeral association the protection of the law it was necessary that one of its members should be appointed agent or “syndic,” by whom its business should be transacted, and in whose name its property should be held.[72] Thus Callixtus became the syndic of the public cemetery of the church, which still bears his name. De Rossi conjectures that this was the first cemetery set apart for the use of the whole Christian community. Hence it was taken under the care of the ecclesiastical authorities, and became, as we shall see hereafter, the burying-place of the Roman bishops, and the especial property of the church.[73]

We will now trace briefly the history of those persecutions which glutted the Catacombs with victims, and at times drove the church for sanctuary to their deepest recesses. We have seen that Christianity grew up under the protection accorded to Judaism as one of the tolerated religions of Rome. But this toleration did not long continue. In Rome as well as elsewhere the new creed was doomed to a baptism of blood. The causes of this persecution are not far to seek. The Christian doctrine spread rapidly, and early excited the jealousy of the Roman authorities by its numerous converts from the national faith, many of whom were of exalted rank. These carefully refrained from the idolatrous adulation by which the servile mob were wont to express

their loyalty to the imperial monster who aspired to be a god. Hence they were accused of disaffection, of treason.[74] They were the enemies of Cæsar, and of the Roman people.[75] They were supposed to exert a malign influence on the course of nature. If it did not rain the Christians were to blame.[76] “If the Tiber overflows its banks,” says Tertullian, “or the Nile does not; if there be drought or earthquakes, famine or pestilence, the cry is raised, ‘The Christians to the lions!’”[77] If the pecking of the sacred chickens or the entrails of the sacrificial victims gave unfavourable omens, it was attributed to the counter spell of “the atheists.” At Rome, as well as at Ephesus and Philippi, the selfish fears of the shrine and image makers, whose “craft was in danger,” and the hostility of the priests and dependents on the idol-worship, inspired or intensified the opposition to Christianity, as did also the jealousy of the Jews, who regarded with especial hostility the believers in the lowly Nazarene, whom their fathers with wicked hands had crucified and slain.[78]

The terrible conflagration which destroyed the greater part of the city during the reign of Nero was made the excuse for the first outburst of persecution against the Christian community. By public rumour this deed was

attributed to Nero himself. “To put an end to to this report,” says Tacitus, “he laid the guilt, and inflicted the most cruel punishment, upon these men, who, already branded with infamy, were called by the vulgar, Christians.... Their sufferings at their executions,” he adds, “were aggravated by insult and mockery; for some were sewn up in the skins of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs; some were crucified, and some, wrapped in garments of pitch, were burned as torches to illumine the night.”[79]

During this persecution St. Paul fell a victim, A. D. 64. He was beheaded “without the gate,” on the Ostian Way, and weeping friends took up his bleeding corpse and laid it, according to tradition, in one of the most ancient crypts of an adjoining Catacomb, where Eusebius asserts that his tomb could be seen in his day.[80]

From this time Christianity was exposed to outbursts of heathen rage, and express decrees were published against it.[81] No longer sharing the protection of Judaism, it fell under the ban of the empire. At times the rage of persecution slumbered, and again it burst forth with inextinguishable fury. But, like the typical bush that “flourished unconsumed in fire,” the Christian faith but grew and spread the more. Yet the sword ever impended

over the church. Sometimes its stroke was for a time deferred, when the little flock took courage and rejoiced; but often it fell with crushing weight, smiting the shepherds and scattering the sheep. One of these periods of rest extended from the time of the Neronian persecution till near the end of the century, when Domitian, “a second Nero,”[82] stretched forth his hand again to vex the saints. During the short reign of the “justice-loving Nerva” the Christians again enjoyed repose, so that Lactantius even asserts that they were restored to all their former privileges.

To the first century De Rossi refers the construction of at least three or four of the Catacombs. These are, (1) the Cemetery of Priscilla, excavated, according to an ancient tradition, in the property of the Roman Senator Pudens, mentioned by St. Paul, and in which, it is said, were interred his daughters Pudentiana and Praxides; (2) the Catacomb of Domitilla, the grandniece of the Emperor Domitian, in which she herself was buried, together with her chamberlains Nereus and Achilles, who were beheaded for their steadfastness in the Christian faith; (3) the Crypt of Lucina, afterwards part of the Catacomb of Callixtus, in which some of the most ancient inscriptions have been found. De Rossi conjectures that this lady is the same as the Pomponia Græcina before mentioned, the wife of Plautius, the conqueror of Britain. (4) De Rossi is also of the opinion that he has discovered another, and the oldest of all the Catacombs, dating from the very times of the apostles themselves, in that known as the Fons Petri, or the Cemetery of the Font of Peter, in which tradition asserts that he himself baptized. The classical style of the architecture, frescoes, and graceful stucco wreaths and

garlands, and the character of the inscriptions, all point to a very ancient period, before art had degenerated, and before long-continued persecution had banished Christianity into seclusion and poverty.

The law of Trajan against secret assemblies, synchronous with the opening of the second century, gave a new occasion of persecuting the Church. With such severity was this done that, according to Pliny, the deserted temples became again frequented, and their neglected rites revived.[83]

The Emperor Hadrian is described by his contemporaries as diligently practising the Roman rites, and despising all foreign religions.[84] Although he restrained the tumultuous attacks of the populace upon the Christians, he nevertheless favoured their legal prosecution.[85]

The following epitaph given by Maitland commemorates a martyrdom of this reign. The last sentence seems to imply that it was erected in a time of actual persecution; but no dated example of the monogram which accompanies it appears before the time of Constantine. The inscription was probably written long

after the death of Marius, or the monogram may have been added by a later hand:

In Christ. In the time of the Emperor Hadrian, Marius, a young military officer, who had lived long enough, when, with his blood, he gave up his life for Christ. At length he rested in peace. The well-deserving set up this with tears and in fear, on the 6th, Ides of December.

In this reign also suffered Alexander, bishop of Rome, whose tomb has been found on the Nomentan Way, together with Eventius and Theodulus, a presbyter and deacon.

Under the humane and equitable Antoninus Pius,[86] Christianity seems to have enjoyed a partial toleration, although the edict of Trajan was still unrevoked. Yet several outbreaks of popular fury against the Christians took place, and in the very first year of his reign Telesphorus, the bishop of the church at Rome, suffered martyrdom.[87]

One of the strangest phenomena in history is the persecution of the primitive church by the philosophical emperor Marcus Aurelius,[88] whose “Meditations” seem almost like the writings of an apostle in their praise of virtue, yearning for abstract perfection, and contempt of pomp and pleasure. Nevertheless, he was one of the most systematic and heartless of all the oppressors of the Christian faith—a faith so much loftier than even

his high philosophy, and yet having so much akin. With the cool acerbity of a stoic, he resolved to exterminate the obnoxious doctrines. An active inquisition for the Christians was set on foot, and the odious system of domestic espionage, which even Trajan had forbidden, was encouraged. Shameless informers, greedy for gain, fed their rapacity on the confiscated spoils of the believers, whom they plundered, says Melito, by day and by night. Though gentle to other classes of offenders, and even to rebels, Aurelius exceeded in barbarity the most ruthless of his predecessors in the refinements of torture, by rack and scourge, by fire and stake, employed to enforce the recantation of the Christians; and every year of his long reign was polluted with innocent blood.

From Gaul to Asia Minor raged the storm of persecution. The earthquakes, floods, and famine, the wars and pestilence, that wasted the empire, were visited upon the hapless Christians, who were immolated in hecatombs as the causes of these dire calamities. From the crowded amphitheatre of Smyrna ascended, as in a chariot of fire, the soul of the apostolic bishop Polycarp. The arrowy Rhone ran red with martyrs’ blood. The names of the venerable Pothinus, of the youthful Blandina and Ponticus, and of the valiant Symphorianus, will be memories of thrilling power and pathos to the end of time. At Rome the persecution selected some of its noblest victims. Justin, the Christian philosopher, finding in the Gospels a loftier lore than in the teachings of Zeno or Aristotle, of Pythagoras or Plato, became the foremost of the goodly phalanx of apologists and defenders of the faith, and sealed his testimony with his blood. With six of his companions he was brought before the prefect for refusing obedience to the imperial

decree. “We are Christians,” they said, “and sacrifice not to idols.” They were forthwith scourged and beheaded, and devout men bore them to their burial, doubtless in these very Catacombs, where their undiscovered remains may yet lie. In this reign also suffered the seven sons of St. Felicitas—the tomb of one of whom De Rossi believes he has found—and St. Cecilia and her companions, to be hereafter mentioned.[89]

The legend of the Thundering Legion, supported as it is by the medals and the column of Antoninus, commemorates, indeed, the deliverance of the Roman army by a timely shower; but the Emperor ascribed that deliverance not to the prayers of the Christians, but to his own appeal to the heathen gods,[90] and there is no evidence that he ever relaxed the severity of the persecution.

The ferocity of the brutal Commodus[91] was tempered by the influence of his concubine, Marcia, and Christianity spread among the highest ranks; but persecution

did not entirely cease. Apollonius, a senator of the empire, was put to death at Rome, and we read of numerous martyrdoms elsewhere. A Christian inscription commemorates an officer of Commodus, and Procurator of the Imperial household, who was “received to God”—RECEPTVS AD DEVM—A. D. 217.[92]

On the death of this emperor the persecution raged with such violence that, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, many martyrs were burned, crucified, and beheaded every day.[93] Non licet esse vos—“It is not lawful for you to exist”—was the stern edict of extermination pronounced against the saints.

Christianity had little favour to expect from a military despot like Septimius Severus, whose dying counsel to his successor expressed the principle of his government—“Be generous to the soldiers and trample on all besides.”

The revived accusations against the new faith called forth the bold defence, or rather defiance, of Tertullian, one of the noblest monuments of the primitive ages. In this reign the sanctity of the Christian cemeteries was first violated, and that not at Rome but in Africa, where the persecution was most virulent. “The mob assails us with stones and flames with the frenzy of bacchanals,” says Tertullian; “They do not even spare the Christian dead, but tear them from the rest of the tomb, from the asylum of death, cut them in pieces, and rend them asunder.”[94]

After the cessation of this persecution the Church enjoyed a period of unwonted rest. Although under the ignoble Heliogabalus the sensual Asiatic worship of Baal was introduced to Rome, and human sacrifice was even offered to this Eastern Moloch,[95] yet the religion of peace and purity shared the toleration accorded to the most obscene and cruel rites. The just and amiable Alexander Severus inaugurated a new era for Christianity,[96] to which he was favourably disposed, probably through the influence of his mother, Mammæa, who had enjoyed at Antioch the instruction of Origen.[97] He used frequently to quote with approval the Golden Rule of Our Lord, and caused it to be inscribed on his palace walls, and also ceded to the Christians a piece of public ground for the erection of a church.[98] But Alexander was only a religious eclectic, honouring what he thought best in the current systems of belief. Of this reign is the epitaph of Urban, bishop of Rome,

which has been found in the so-called “Papal Crypt,” bearing his name and the initial letter of his title—ΟΥΡΒΑΝΟϹ Ε....

The accession of the Thracian savage, Maximin, A. D. 235, was the signal for a fresh outburst of persecution. To have been favoured by Severus was sufficient to incur the hate of his murderer. His rage was especially directed against the chief pastors of the flock of Christ. Pontianus, the Roman bishop, was exiled to Sardinia, and there slain. Antherus, his successor in this dangerous dignity, for his zeal in preserving the records of the martyrs himself suffered martyrdom a few weeks after his accession, and was laid in that narrow chamber destined to receive so many of Rome’s early bishops, where a slab bearing his name and title—ΑΝΤΕΡΩϹ · ΕΠΙ—has been found. In this reign also suffered the celebrated Hippolytus, bishop of Pontus, and author of the “Philosophoumena.”

Under Gordian and Philip a respite was again granted to the persecuted church. The latter, indeed, is claimed by Eusebius as a Christian; but his character and conduct are inconsistent with such a supposition.

A violent reaction took place on the accession of Decius, whose name became an object of execration to mankind.[99] He resolved to entirely crush and extirpate Christianity, whose bishops and churches began to rival the pontiffs and temples of the gods of Rome. At his instigation a persecution of unprecedented virulence raged like an epidemic throughout the empire. The imperial edicts enforced conformity to the pagan ritual under penalty of the most horrible tortures. This unwonted

severity produced the first great apostasy of the primitive church; and many of the less stable converts procured exemption from martyrdom by sacrificing to the gods, burning incense on their altars, or purchasing certificates of indulgence from the heathen magistrate.[100]

“Pale and trembling, and more like sacrificial victims than those about to sacrifice,” says an eye-witness, “some approached the heathen shrines; but others, firm and blessed pillars of the Lord, witnessed a good confession unto death.”[101] The bishops of the church, who, as the leaders of Christ’s sacramental host, bore gallantly the battle’s brunt, were naturally the earliest victims of the tyrant’s rage. Accordingly, at the very outbreak of the Decian slaughter, the venerable Fabian, head of the Roman church, perished by decapitation; and the Catacombs were glutted with a host of unknown martyrs. In the very chamber in the Cemetery of Callixtus to which his mutilated corpse was borne, may still be seen the Bishop’s epitaph—ΦΑΒΙΑΝΟϹ · ΕΠΙ—with the monogram of his martyrdom, the conjoined letters ΜΤΡ, added probably by a later hand. The church seemed

paralyzed with fear, and for sixteen months no successor was elected. But, undismayed by the tragic fate of Fabian, Cornelius, allied with some of the noblest families of Rome, became the leader of the forlorn hope of Christianity against all the power of the empire. After a year’s episcopate he was first banished and then beheaded under Gallus, a worthy successor in persecution of Decius. Through the archæological researches of De Rossi have been recovered, first his epitaph—CORNELIVS · MARTYR · EP—and then his tomb, with a Damasine inscription, in one of the most interesting crypts of the Catacombs. Lucius, his successor, in six months shared his fate, and was buried in the chamber consecrated by the dust of so many martyr-bishops, where his brief epitaph—ΛΟΥΚΙϹ—is still legible.

Valerian,[102] who revived in his own person the ancient office of Censor, was at first so favourable toward the Christians that his house, says Dionysius of Alexandria, was filled with pious persons, and was, indeed, a congregation[103] of the Lord. This favour was doubtless the result of the Censor’s approval of Christian influence on public morals.[104] In the latter part of his reign, however, the Emperor passed under the dominion of the most abject superstition. Through the influence of Macrianus, a pagan bigot learned in the dark lore of Egypt, he became addicted to magic arts, and is said to have sought the auguries of the empire in the entrails of human victims.[105] The most relentless decrees were launched against the Christian church. The bishops, priests, and deacons were forthwith to be put to the sword; all others were to share the same fate, or to be

punished by exile and fetters.[106] The holding of assemblies, or even entering the Christian cemeteries, was strictly prohibited A. D. 257.[107] By this unwonted invasion of the immemorial sanctity of the sepulchre the Christians were forbidden even these last refuges from persecution.

Among the most illustrious victims of Valerian whose bodies lie in the lowly Catacombs, but whose names live for evermore, were Stephen I. and Sixtus II., bishops of the persecuted church, and a number of distinguished ecclesiastics, as well as many laymen of noble rank.[108]

Stephen, as the head of the Christian community, was especially obnoxious to heathen rage. According to the Acts of his martyrdom he sought concealment in these sepulchral crypts,[109] where he was secretly visited by the faithful, and where he administered the sacraments. He was traced by the Roman soldiers to his subterranean chapel, but, awed by the mysterious rites, they allowed him to conclude the service in which he was engaged. He was then beheaded, with several of his adherents,[110] and buried in the Catacomb.

Sixtus, the successor of Stephen, within a year received the martyr’s crown. Like another Daniel setting at defiance the emperor’s decree, he was leading the devotions of the persecuted flock in the Catacomb of Prætextatus, probably because it was less known than the public cemetery of Callixtus, when he was apprehended by the fierce soldiery, who had tracked his footsteps thither. He was hurried away to summary judgment, brought back to the place of his offence, and there beheaded, sprinkling with his blood the walls of the chamber. With him were also executed four of his deacons,[111] the monuments of two of whom, Agapetus and Felicissimus, De Rossi discovered in the very Catacomb in which they suffered. Sixtus himself was buried in the “Bishops’ Tomb” in the Callixtan Cemetery, where the following inscription, fragments of which have been found in the débris, was afterward set up by Damasus:

TEMPORE QVO GLADIVS SECVIT PIA VISCERA MATRIS

HIC POSITVS RECTOR COELESTIA IVSSA DOCEBAM

ADVENIVNT SVBITO RAPIVNT QVI FORTE SEDENTEM

MILITIBVS MISSIS POPVLI TVNC COLLA DEDERE

MOX SIBI COGNOVIT SENIOR QVIS TOLLERE VELLET

PALMAM SEQVE SVVMQVE CAPVT PRIOR OBTVLIT IPSE

IMPATIENS FERITAS POSSET NE LAEDERE QVEMQVAM

OSTENDIT CHRISTVS REDDIT QVI PRAEMIA VITAE

PASTORIS MERITVM NVMERVM GREGIS IPSE TVETVR

At the time when the sword pierced the tender heart of the Mother [church,] I, the ruler buried here, was teaching the laws of heaven. Suddenly came [the enemy,] who seized me sitting as I was. Then the people presented their necks to the soldiers sent against me. Soon the old man saw who sought to bear away the palm, and was the first to offer himself and his own head, that impatient rage might injure no one else. Christ who bestows the rewards of life, manifests the merit of the pastor: he himself defends the flock.[112]

Thus seven bishops of the church at Rome fell in succession by the hand of the headsman, five of them in the space of eight years—heroic athletes of Christ who, at the very seat of paganism, as in a mighty theatre of God, bore the brunt of persecution, and, conquering even in death, received the martyr’s crown and palm.

The accession of Gallienus[113] restored peace to the church. His decree granting complete religious toleration, the restoration of confiscated ecclesiastical property, and permission to “recover what they called their cemeteries,”[114] won the gratitude of his Christian subjects. His character, however, by no means justified the epithet of “holy and pious emperor” bestowed by Dionysius of Alexandria.[115] This was the first formal recognition of Christianity as a religio licita, or legalized faith, and for forty years the church enjoyed comparative repose; at

least such repose as was possible while twenty rival emperors—fantastic things “that likeness of a kingly crown had on”—struggled for the supremacy, and harried the land with their mutual devastations. During this period, Felix, the bishop of the Roman church, who, according to the Liber Pontificalis, was exceedingly diligent in honouring the martyrs of the Catacombs, became himself a conscript of that noble army, and was beheaded, in accordance with an imperial decree, as was also Agapetus, a Christian of noble rank.

The mild and amiable Tacitus[116] ruled over a turbulent people only six months. His brother Florian retained the purple only half that time. Probus, “the just,” whose name, says his epitaph, expressed his character,[117] fell by the hands of his own tumultuous legionaries. The sensual and abominable Carinus displayed the extravagancies of Heliogabalus, aggravated by the cruelty of Domitian. In his reign died Eutychianus, whose epitaph and title—ΕΥΤΥΧΙΑΝΟϹ ΕΠΙϹ—have been found in the “Papal Crypt” of Callixtus.[118]

Christianity was destined to undergo a final ordeal

before it should ascend the throne of the Cæsars. The church must pass once more through the purifying flames of persecution before it was fit to be entrusted with the reins of empire. The long peace and temporal prosperity had fostered pride and luxury, and relaxed the morals of the Christian community. Schisms and feuds destroyed the unity of the faith, and the bishops had begun to aspire to temporal power, and to assert an unwarranted authority. “Prelates inveighed against prelates,” says Eusebius, “and people rose against people, assailing each other with words as with darts and spears.”[119] The blasts of adversity were necessary to winnow the spurious and false away, and to leave the tried and true behind. From the fatal slumber of religious apathy into which the church was falling it was to be rudely awakened. Its former afflictions sank into insignificance compared with this great tribulation, which was pre-eminently called The Persecution by the historian of the times.[120]

The close of the third century witnessed the strange spectacle of the government of the Roman world by a group of men who had climbed to the giddy height of power from the lowest stations in life. Diocletian, originally a slave, or at least the son of a slave, reduced the haughty aristocracy of Rome to a condition of oriental servility. Maximian, a Pannonian peasant, betrayed the savageness of his nature by his bloodthirsty cruelty. Galerius, an Illyrian herdsman, but exhibited more conspicuously upon the throne of empire the native barbarity of his character. Constantius was of nobler birth than any of his colleagues, and he alone adorned his lofty station by dignity, justice, and clemency. The world groaned under the oppression of its

cruel masters. So exhausting were their exactions that none remained to tax, says Lactantius,[121] but the beggars.

The early years of the reign of Diocletian were characterized for the most part by principles of religious toleration. Indeed, his wife and daughter, the empresses Prisca and Valeria, favoured, if they did not adopt, the Christian faith, and some of the first officers of the imperial household belonged to the now powerful sect.[122] But even during this period the Christians were not free from danger. Caius, the Roman bishop, is said to have lived for eight years in the Catacombs on account of the persecution, and at last underwent martyrdom in the year A. D. 296.[123] Marcus and Marcelianus, two Roman Christians of noble rank, who have given their name to one of the Catacombs, suffered about this time. Others, especially in the army, where the ancient faith had firmest hold, and where, indeed, Eusebius says, the persecution began,[124] endured martyrdom as the valiant soldiers of Christ. The storm, of which these events were the precursors, at length burst with fury on the Christians in the year 303. A series of cruel edicts, written, says Eusebius, with a dagger’s point,[125] were fulminated for the extirpation of the Christian name.[126]

They were framed with malignant ingenuity, so as to leave no chance of escape save in open apostasy. All ecclesiastical property was confiscated. The churches were razed to the ground, and the sacred scriptures burned with fire.[127] All assemblies for worship were prohibited on pain of death. The clergy of every order were zealously sought out, and thrust into dungeons designed for the worst of felons.[128] The whole Christian community was outlawed, degraded from every secular office, deprived of the rights of citizenship, and exposed to the punishment of the vilest slaves. With intensifying violence edict followed edict, like successive strokes of thunder in a raging storm. A universal and relentless proscription of the Christian name took place. The truculent monster Galerius, of whom his Christian subjects said, that he never supped without human blood,[129] proposed that all who refused to sacrifice to the gods should be burned alive; and the fiendish ingenuity of the persecutors was exhausted in devising fresh tortures for their victims.

In Italy, and especially at Rome, the work of destruction was eagerly carried on by Maximian, an implacable enemy of the Christians; and after his death by the abominable voluptuary Maxentius, in whom the twin passions of cruelty and lust struggled for the mastery.

These monsters of iniquity revelled in a carnival of blood, and glutted the Catacombs with victims, some of the most illustrious of whom will shortly be mentioned. On the retirement of Diocletian, satiated with slaughter and weary with the cares of state, to his retreat at Salonica, Galerius continued the persecution with increased zeal. It was the expiring effort of paganism, the death throes of its mortal agony. But the Christian religion, like the trodden grass that ranker grows, flourished still in spite of the oppression it endured. Like the rosemary and thyme, which the more they are bruised give out the richer perfume, it breathed forth the odours of sanctity which are fragrant in the world to-day. Though the frail and the fickle fell off in the blast of adversity, the staunch and true remained; and from the martyr’s blood, more prolific than the fabled dragon’s teeth, a new host of Christian heroes rose, contending for the martyr’s starry and unwithering crown.

But the period of deliverance was at hand. Smitten by the power of that God whose titles and attributes he had usurped, the wretched Galerius, amid the agonies of a loathsome disease, implored the intercessions of the Christians whom he had so ruthlessly proscribed. With sublimest magnanimity the church exhibited the nobility of a Gospel revenge, and obeyed the injunction of its divine Master to pray for those who persecuted and despitefully used it. From the dying couch of the remorseful monarch came an abject apology for his cruel deeds; and, in late atonement for his crime, a decree of amplest recognition of Christianity, and restoration of the right to worship God. Like the trump of jubilee, the edict of deliverance pealed through the land. It penetrated the gloomy dungeon, the darksome mine,

the catacomb’s dim labyrinth; and from their sombre depths vast processions of the “noble wrestlers of religion”[130] thronged to the long forsaken churches with grateful songs of praise to God.

But this treacherous calm was soon to be again broken. The superstitious tyrant Maximin endeavoured to revive the dying paganism, and to renew the persecution. He paid Christianity the high compliment of attempting a complete organization of the heathen priesthood on the model of the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and restored the ancient worship with unwonted pomp. He prohibited the assemblies in the cemeteries, and reiterated the edict of extermination against the Christians.[131] But the loathsome death of this brutal voluptuary soon delivered the church from the most implacable of its foes. From the distant island of Britain—that ultimate far Thule of the empire—had arrived the Cæsar who should enthrone the new faith on the seat of its persecutors, and establish it as the religion of the state,[132] an event more perilous to its purity and spiritual power than the direst oppression it had ever endured. Constantine having overcome the enemies of Christianity, who were also his own, became its protector, more, it is easy to believe, either from conviction of its truth or from policy than on account of the alleged miraculous vision of the cross of Christ, the presage of a bloody

victory.[133] He issued at Milan, A. D. 313, that decree of full and unlimited toleration[134] which became thenceforth the charter of the church’s liberties.[135]

The sufferings of the more illustrious victims of persecution are alone recorded in history, which is silent concerning the great army of unknown martyrs, whose names are recorded only in the Book of Life. The bishops of the church were ever the first to feel the tyrants’ rage. The episcopal chair was often but the stepping-stone to the scaffold. Yet faithful shepherds were not wanting to lead the flock of Christ, and to testify their devotion to their trust by the sacrifice of their lives. We have seen how Caius suffered even before the final outbreak of persecution. Marcellinus, his successor, incurred the resentment of the tyrant Maxentius, was degraded to the office of groom of the public stables, where the horses of the circus were kept, and soon sank beneath the weight of his miseries and those of the church.[136] Marcellus, sometimes confounded with Marcellinus, paid the penalty of exile for his firmness in maintaining the ecclesiastical discipline against those who apostatized from the faith in those times of fiery trial. This event is recorded in the Damasine inscription:

VERIDICVS RECTOR LAPSOS QVIA CRIMINA FLERE

PRAEDIXIT MISERIS FVIT OMNIBVS HOSTIS AMARVS

HINC FVROR HINC ODIVM SEQVITVR DISCORDIA LITES

SEDITIO CAEDES SOLVVNTVR FOEDERA PACIS

CRIMEN OB ALTERIVS CHRISTVM QVI IN PACE NEGAVIT

FINIBVS EXPVLSVS PATRIAE EST FERITATE TYRANNI

HAEC BREVITER DAMASVS VOLVIT COMPERTA REFERRE

MARCELLI VT POPVLVS MERITVM COGNOSCERE POSSET.[137]

The truth-speaking ruler, because he preached that the lapsed should weep for their crimes, was bitterly hated by all those unhappy ones. Hence fury, hence hatred followed, discord, contentions, sedition, and slaughter; and the bonds of peace were ruptured. For the crime of another, who in a time of peace had denied Christ, he was expelled the shores of his country by the cruelty of the tyrant. These things Damasus having learned, was desirous to relate briefly, that the people might recognize the merit of Marcellus.

Neither Marcellus nor Marcellinus was buried in the Catacomb of Callixtus—which, as Diocletian had confiscated all the public cemeteries, was inaccessible to the Christians—but in the private crypt of the Christian matron Priscilla, on the Salarian Way. Eusebius, the successor of Marcellus, was also banished on account of the controversy concerning the “lapsed.” New light has recently been thrown on this subject by De Rossi’s discovery, in the tomb of the bishop, of the following Damasine inscription in a fragmentary condition:

HERACLIVS VETVIT LABSOS [sic] PECCATA DOLERE

EVSEBIVS MISEROS DOCVIT SVA CRIMINA FLERE

SCINDITVR [IN] PARTES POPVLOS GLISCENTE FVRORE

SEDITIO CAEDES BELLVM DISCORDIA LITES

EXTEMPLO PARITER PVLSI FERITATE TYRANNI

INTEGRA CVM RECTOR SERVARET FOEDERA PACIS

PERTVLIT EXILIVM DOMINO SVB IVDICE LAETVS

LITORE TRINACRIO MVNDVM VITAMQ · RELIQUIT.

Heraclius forbade the lapsed to grieve for their sins. Eusebius taught those unhappy ones to weep for their crimes. The people were rent in parties, and with increasing fury began sedition, slaughter, fighting, discord, and strife. Straightway both were banished by the cruelty of the tyrant, although the ruler was preserving the bonds of peace inviolate. He bore his exile with joy, looking to the Lord as his Judge, and on the Trinacrian shore gave up the world and his life.

The Heraclius mentioned in the inscription is probably the heretical leader referred to in the epitaph of Marcellus, previously given. No reference to this event occurs in any of the ecclesiastical writers, and this

inscription, says Dr. Northcote, is the recovery of a lost chapter in the history of the church.[138] The remains of Eusebius were brought from Sicily, the place of his exile, by his successor, Melchiades, and interred in the Catacomb of Callixtus, but not with the other bishops, the approaches to whose tomb were blocked up with earth, probably to prevent its violation by the enemies of the faith. Melchiades, with whom the long succession of Rome’s martyr bishops comes to a close, was the last of his order who was buried in the Catacombs, and De Rossi conjectures that he has discovered in the Cemetery of Callixtus his tomb, and the very sarcophagus in which he lay.[139]

One of the most illustrious of the lay martyrs of the Diocletian persecution was the gallant young soldier Sebastian, who has given his name to one of the most ancient basilicas of Rome and to the adjacent Catacomb, and Adauctus, a treasurer of the imperial palace. In the Damasine epitaph of the latter occur the fine lines:

INTEMERATA FIDE CONTEMPTO PRINCIPE MVNDI
CONFESSVS XRM CAELESTIA REGNA PETISTI.[140]

With unfaltering faith, despising the lord of the world, having confessed Christ, thou didst seek the celestial realms.

Several of the Christian cemeteries receive their designation from the martyrs of this period, among others those of Saints Agnes, Peter, and Marcellinus, of Pancratius, Generosa, Zeno, Soteris, and Quattro Incoronati, notice of whom will be more appropriate in the accounts of their respective sepulchres. History has also preserved the names of many other valiant confessors, who proved faithful even unto death amid the fiery trials and cruel mockings and scourgings to which they were exposed. Among these may be mentioned Cosmo and Damian, two holy brothers of Cilicia, who practised in Rome with great skill the healing art, from pure love to God and to their fellow-men, refusing to receive aught for their services;[141] Simplicius and Faustinus, who were drowned in the Tiber by the tyrant’s orders, and their martyred sister Beatrice, whose tombs and epitaphs De Rossi believes he has recovered.[142] Most of the legends, however, of what may be called the Romish mythology are disfigured by absurd and superstitious additions; and the martyrs themselves have become the objects of idolatrous veneration far alien from the spirit of that primitive Christianity for which they died.[143]

The following inscriptions from the Catacombs are the only records of the victims of persecution whose names they bear.

Fig. 21.—Lannus, the martyr of Christ, rests here. He suffered under Diocletian. For his successors also.

Primitius in peace, after many torments, a most valiant martyr. He lived thirty-eight years, more or less. [His wife] raised this to her dearest husband, the well-deserving.

HIC GORDIANVS GALLIAE NVNCIVS
IVGVLATVS PRO FIDE CVM FAMILIA TOTA
QVIESCVNT IN PACE
THEOPHILA ANCILLA FECIT.

Here lies Gordianus, deputy of Gaul, who was executed for the faith, with all his family: they rest in peace. Theophila, a handmaid, set up this.[144]

The history of the Catacombs is inextricably interwoven with that of Christianity. Their very structure reflects the character of the times in which they were made. The absence of constraint or concealment, and the superior construction and ornamentation of those belonging to the earliest times, indicate the comparative security of the church before it had awakened the jealousy or fear of the Roman emperors. Their immense extension and crowded galleries testify to the rapid increase of the Christian community. The altered character which they gradually assumed, the obstructed passages, the masked entrances, devious windings, and devices for concealment or escape, and the rudely scratched inscriptions and uncouth paintings, betray the sense of fear and the kindling rage of persecution which pursued the hunted Christians to these subterraneous sanctuaries of the faith. Their greater magnificence and more ornate structure, the costly mosaics, the marble stairways, and richly carved sarcophagi of the later ages, tell of the enthronement of Christianity on the seat of the Cæsars, and of the homage paid to the relics and shrines of the saints and martyrs. And their debased architecture, barbarous paintings, and progressive ruin during the later years of their history indicate the gradual eclipse of art, and their final abandonment. We must therefore carefully determine at least the proximate date of any particular feature if we would correctly interpret its significance.

The last and most terrible persecution of the church before its final triumph left abundant evidence of its violence and lengthened duration in the changes which contemporaneously took place in the Catacombs. God prepared a place for his saints, and hid them in the clefts of the rock as in the hollow of his hand. When the public observance of Christianity was proscribed by law the believers withdrew from the light of day, and in the inmost and darkest recesses of these subterranean crypts, by the graves of their martyred dead, enjoyed the consolation of religious worship, and broke the bread and drank the wine in memory of their dying Lord.[145]

But after the decree of Valerian which forbade the entering or holding any assemblies in the Christian cemeteries, even these retreats were not safe, and the last sanctuaries of the faith were unscrupulously invaded. Persecution relentlessly followed the Christians through the labyrinthine windings of the Catacombs, and violated the sepulchres of the sainted dead by sacrilegious tumult and bloodshed. Sometimes the heathen soldiery, fearing to pursue their victims into these unknown passages, blocked up the entrance to prevent their escape; and many were thus buried alive and perished of hunger in these chambers of gloom.[146]

An entire change in the construction of the Catacombs now took place. They became obviously designed for purposes of safety and concealment. The new galleries were less wide and lofty, and the loculi more crowded on account of the greater difficulty of

removing the excavated material. At this time, too, many of the lower piani were made for additional graves and greater secrecy. The main entrances were blocked up and the stairways demolished. Sometimes entire galleries were filled with earth, the removal of which is the chief obstacle to modern exploration, or were built up with masonry to obstruct pursuit; and means of escape were provided, in case of forcible invasion of these retreats. A striking example of this occurs in the Catacomb of Callixtus. The ancient stairway was partially destroyed, the entrance completely obstructed, and some of the galleries walled up. Narrow passages for escape were made connecting with an adjacent arenarium, and a very narrow secret stairway constructed from the roof of the latter to the surface of the ground, as shown in the section [above], which stairway could only be reached by a movable ladder connecting it with the floor.[147]

Fig. 22.—Secret stairway into Arenarium.

It is impossible that the mass of the Christian community, or even any considerable proportion of it, could ever have taken refuge in these subterraneous crypts. Their vast extent and the number of chambers would indeed permit a great multitude to remain concealed for a time in their depths; but the difficulty of procuring a regular supply of food, the confined atmosphere, and the probable exhalation of noxious gases from the graves—especially on the opening of a bisomus, or double tomb, for its second inmate—seem insuperable obstacles. As it was the religious leaders of the Christian community who were especially obnoxious to those in power, they would be the most likely to seek concealment in the Catacombs, not from inferiority of courage, but, like the afterward martyred Cyprian, that they might the better guide and govern the persecuted church. Hence the examples before given of bishops and other ecclesiastics lying hidden, some for years, in these depths, and visited by the faithful for instruction or for the celebration of worship.[148] There is evidence, however, that during the exacerbations of persecution private Christians sought safety in these recesses, and, burrowing in their depths, evaded the pursuit of their enemies. Tertullian speaks of “a lady, unaccustomed to privation, trembling in a vault, apprehensive of the capture of her maid, upon whom she depends for her daily food.” The heads of Christian families, and those most obnoxious to the pagan authorities, would be especially likely to leave the fellowship of the living in order to live in security among the dead. Father Marchi conjectures that supplies of

grain were laid up for the maintenance of the hidden fugitives, and De Rossi describes certain crypts in the Catacomb of Callixtus which were probably employed for storing corn or wine in time of persecution. Frequent wells occur, amply sufficient for the supply of water; and the multitude of lamps which have been found would dispel the darkness, while their sudden extinction would prove the best concealment from attack by their enemies.[149] Hence the Christians were stigmatized as a skulking, darkness-loving race,[150] who fled the light of day to burrow like moles in the earth.

These worse than Dædalian labyrinths were admirably adapted for eluding pursuit. Familiar with their intricacies, and following a well-known clew, the Christian could plunge fearlessly into the darkness, where his pursuer would soon be inextricably lost. Perchance the sound of Christian worship, and the softened cadence of the confessors’ hymn, stealing through the distant corridors, may have fallen with strange awe on the souls of the rude soldiery stealthily approaching their prey; and, perhaps, not unfrequently with a saving and sanctifying power. But sometimes, tracked by the sleuth-hounds of persecution, or betrayed by some wretched apostate consumed by a Judas-greed of gold, the Christians were surprised at their devotions, and their refuge became their sepulchre. Such was the tragic fate of Stephen, slain even while ministering at the altar; such the event described by Gregory of Tours, when a hecatomb of victims were immolated at once by heathen hate; such the peril which wrung from a stricken heart the cry, not of anger but of grief, Tempora infausta, quibus

inter sacra et vota ne in cavernis quidem salvari possimus!—“O sad times in which, among sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, we are not safe!” It requires no great effort of imagination to conceive the dangers and escapes which must have been frequent episodes in the heroic lives of the early soldiers of the cross.

In the Catacombs more safely than elsewhere could the Christians celebrate the ordinances of religion, often under cover of the rites of sepulture, which might even yet be sacred in the eyes of their enemies. And next to their funeral purposes this seems to have been their chief use. For this many of their principal chambers and chapels were excavated, supplied with seats, ventilated by luminari, and adorned with biblical or symbolical paintings. With what emotions must the primitive believers have held their solemn worship and heard the words of life, surrounded by the dead in Christ! With what power would come the promise of the resurrection of the body, amid the crumbling relics of mortality! How fervent their prayers for their companions in tribulation, when they themselves stood in jeopardy every hour! Their holy ambition was to witness a good confession even unto death. They burned to emulate the zeal of the martyrs of the faith, the plumeless heroes of a nobler chivalry than that of arms, the Christian athletes who won in the bloody conflicts of the arena, or amid the fiery tortures of the stake, not a crown of laurel or of bay, but a crown of life, starry and unwithering, that can never pass away. Their humble graves are grander monuments than the trophied tombs of Rome’s proud conquerors upon the Appian Way. Lightly may we tread beside their ashes; reverently may we mention their names. Though the bodily presence of those conscripts of the tomb—the forlorn

hope of the army of Christianity—no longer walked among men, their intrepid spirit animated the heart of each member of that little community of persecuted Christians, “of whom the world was not worthy; who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth, ... being destitute, afflicted, tormented.”[151]

It is impossible to arrive at even an approximate estimate of the number of victims of the early persecutions. That number has sometimes, no doubt, been greatly exaggerated. It has also, in defiance of the testimony of contemporary history, been unreasonably minified.[152] Tacitus asserts that under Nero a great multitude[153] were convicted and punished. Pliny says the temples were almost deserted[154] through this contagious superstition. Juvenal, Martial, and other classical authors, notice the extraordinary sufferings of the Christians. Cyprian, in the middle of the third century, says, “It is impossible to number the martyrs of Christ.”[155] Eusebius, an eye-witness of the last persecution, states that innumerable multitudes suffered during its prevalence. After describing their excruciating tortures, he adds:

“And all these things were doing not for a few days, but for a series of whole years. At one time ten or more, then twenty, again thirty or even sixty, and sometimes a hundred men, with their wives and children, were slain in one day.”[156] He also describes the destruction of a Christian town, with all its inhabitants, by fire.[157] Lactantius, also a contemporary witness, tells us that the Christians were often surrounded on all sides and burnt together.[158]

It is very remarkable that so few martyrs’ epitaphs have been found in the Catacombs, not more than five or six altogether, and some of these are not of unquestioned genuineness. But this may be attributed to the humility and modesty of the early Christians, who shrank from claiming for the sufferers for the truth the august title of martyr, which they restricted to the one faithful and true witness, Jesus Christ. “We,” said the victims of persecution at Lyons, “are only mean and humble confessors.”

There do occur, it is true, certain inscriptions of a memorial character and of later date than the time of the persecution, some of which commemorate a large number of martyrs, but they are of little or no historic value. Such is the inscription to three thousand martyrs in the Catacomb of Priscilla, already given,[159] and the following from the Callixtan Catacomb: MARCELLA ET CHRISTI MARTYRES CCCCL—“Marcella and four hundred and fifty martyrs in Christ.” Ancient itineraries speak of eighty, or even eight hundred, martyrs buried in one spot in the Catacombs; and Prudentius

declares that he saw the remains of some sixty in a single grave.[160] But surpassing all the others in exaggeration is an inscription in the church of St. Sebastian commemorating one hundred and seventy-four thousand holy martyrs, and forty-six bishops, also martyrs, said to be interred in the neighbouring Catacomb. Another ancient tradition asserts that twelve thousand Christians, who were employed in building the Baths of Diocletian, were buried in the Catacomb of St. Zeno.[161] Piazza asserts that two hundred and eighty-five Christians were put to death in two days, under the Emperor Claudius II., A. D. 268, and that more than two thousand were executed for refusing to sacrifice to the image of the sun. Indeed, some Roman archæologists discern in every palm branch or cup, which are so frequently found in the Catacombs, irrefragable evidence of the martyr’s tomb.[162]

Such atrocious cruelty and lavish destruction of life

as these traditions, even if exaggerated, imply, seem incredible; but the pages of the contemporary historians, Eusebius and Lactantius, give too minute and circumstantial accounts of the persecutions of which they were eye-witnesses to allow us to adopt the complacent theory of Gibbon, that the sufferings of the Christians were comparatively few and insignificant. “We ourselves have seen,” says the bishop of Cæsarea, “crowds of persons, some beheaded, others burned alive, in a single day, so that the murderous weapons were blunted and broken to pieces, and the executioners, wearied with slaughter, were obliged to give over the work of blood.[163] ... They constantly vied with each other,” he continues, “in inventing new tortures, as if there were prizes offered to him who should contrive the greatest cruelties.”[164] Men whose only crime was their religion were scourged with iron wires or with plumbatæ, that is, chains laden with bronze balls, specimens of which have been found in the martyrs’ graves, till the flesh hung in shreds, and even the bones were broken; they were bound in chains of red-hot iron, and roasted over fires so slow that they lingered for hours, or even days, in their mortal agony; their flesh

was scraped from the very bone with ragged shells, or lacerated with burning pincers, iron hooks, and instruments with horrid teeth or claws, examples of which have been found in the Catacombs;[165] molten metal and plates of red-hot brass were applied to the naked body till it became one indistinguishable wound; and mingled salt and vinegar or unslaked lime were rubbed upon the quivering flesh, torn and bleeding from the rack or scourge—tortures more inhuman than savage Indian ever wreaked upon his mortal foe. Men were condemned by the score and hundred to labour in the mines, with the sinews of one leg severed, with one eye scooped out and the socket seared with red-hot iron. Chaste matrons and tender virgins were given over—worse fate a thousand-fold than death—to dens of shame and the gladiators’ lust, and subjected to nameless indignities, too horrible for words to utter.[166] And all these intense sufferings were endured often with joy and exultation, for the love of a divine Master, when a single word, a grain of incense cast upon the heathen altar, would have released the victims from their agonies.

No lapse of time, and no recoil from the idolatrous homage paid in after ages to the martyr’s relics, should impair in our hearts the profound and rational reverence with which we bend before his tomb.

We are left, however, for the most part, without authentic record of the tragic scenes of Christian martyrdom. The primitive church, indeed, treasured up these memories of moral heroism as her most precious legacy to after times. Clement of Rome, it is said, appointed notaries to search out the acts of the martyrs;[167] and, as we have seen, Fabian suffered death for his zeal in preserving these records.[168] But these precious documents for the most part perished in the Diocletian persecution, although fragments were probably incorporated with the later martyrologies. The earlier Acts are the more authentic, and the more simple in character. Those of later date become more and more florid in style, and are overladen with the incredible and impossible, till their historic value is entirely destroyed, except when they are corroborated by collateral testimony, or by the monumental evidence of the Catacombs. Prudentius, attracted to Rome by the fame of these repositories of the martyrs’ ashes, wrote a treatise[169] on their sufferings, in which his fervid imagination and rhetorical style found amplest indulgence. Later writers still further embellished and exaggerated the original Acts, till the wildest stories of ancient mythology, or mediæval legend, were surpassed by the monkish martyrologists.

This “holy romance,” as Gibbon contemptuously calls it, becomes little else than a record of the most astounding miracles, the most horrible tortures, and of more than human endurance.[170] It minutely describes the conflict between the Christian and his heathen persecutor: hinc martyr, illinc carnifex—here the martyr, there the executioner. The one wreaks his rage upon his victim, the other exhibits a stoical endurance of suffering rivaling that of the American savage at the funeral stake, or else an insensibility to pain that lessens the merit of his acts. “It is cooked, turn and eat,”[171] says St. Lawrence, broiling on a gridiron. He feels no pain from the vinegar and salt rubbed on his bleeding wounds. “Salt me the more, that I may be incorruptible,” says Tarachus to his torturer. He continues to speak after his tongue is torn out by the roots. The lacerations of the ungulæ assume to the excited imagination the form of the name of Christ.[172] Divine odours breathe from the body, which shines like gold amid the flames that refuse to kindle upon it. A voice from heaven hails the invincible conqueror, and his soul in the form of a dove ascends to the skies.[173] The undying instincts

of nature are flagrantly violated in some of the Acts. A mother rebukes her child for begging a cup of water while suffering under the rods of the lictors; and while it is beheaded before her eyes she, alone unmoved, sings a versicle of thanksgiving.[174] Often the martyr endeavours to exasperate with taunts and defiance the heathen magistrate, who gnashes his teeth and rolls his eyes in impotent rage.[175] “Be dumb, wretch! O serpent of darkest mind, a curse be upon thee!” exclaims St. Boniface to his executioner. Vincentius menaces his judge with the fiery fate of the bottomless pit.[176] These Acts of the Martyrs were appointed to be read in the churches,[177] till they were prohibited by the Council of Trullo, A. D. 706.

The enthusiasm for martyrdom prevailed, at times, almost like an epidemic. It was one of the most remarkable features of the ages of persecution. Notwithstanding the terrific tortures to which they were exposed, the fiercer the tempest of heathen rage the higher and brighter burned the zeal of the Christian heroes. Age after age summoned the soldiers of Christ to the conflict whose

highest guerdon was death. They bound persecution as a wreath about their brows, and exulted in the “glorious infamy” of suffering for their Lord. The brand of shame became the badge of highest honour. Besides the joys of heaven they won imperishable fame on earth; and the memory of a humble slave was often haloed with a glory surpassing that of a Curtius or Horatius. The meanest hind was ennobled by the accolade of martyrdom to the loftiest peerage of the skies. His consecration of suffering was elevated to a sacrament, and called the baptism of fire or of blood.

Burning to obtain the prize, the impetuous candidates for death often pressed with eager haste to seize the palm of victory and the martyr’s crown. They trod with joy the fiery path to glory, and went as gladly to the stake as to a marriage feast. “Their fetters,” says Eusebius, “seemed like the golden ornaments of a bride.”[178] They desired martyrdom more ardently than men afterward sought a bishopric.[179] They exulted amid their keenest pangs that they were counted worthy to suffer for their divine Master. “Let the ungulæ tear us,” exclaims Tertullian,[180] “the crosses bear our weight, the flames envelope us, the sword divide our throats, the wild beasts spring upon us; the very posture of prayer is a preparation for every punishment.” “These things,” says St. Basil, “so far from being a terror, are rather a pleasure and a recreation to us.”[181] “The tyrants were armed,” says St. Chrysostom, “and the martyrs naked;

yet they that were naked got the victory, and they that carried arms were vanquished.”[182] Strong in the assurance of immortality, they bade defiance to the sword.

Though weak in body they seemed clothed with vicarious strength, and confident that though “counted as sheep for the slaughter,” naught could separate them from the love of Christ. Wrapped in their fiery vesture and shroud of flame, they yet exulted in their glorious victory. While the leaden hail fell on the mangled frame, and the eyes filmed with the shadows of death, the spirit was enbraved by the beatific vision of the opening heaven, and above the roar of the mob fell sweetly on the inner sense the assurance of eternal life. “No group, indeed, of Oceanides was there to console the Christian Prometheus; yet to his upturned eye countless angels were visible—their anthem swept solemnly to his ear—and the odours of an opening paradise filled the air. Though the dull ear of sense heard nothing, he could listen to the invisible Coryphæus as he invited him to heaven and promised him an eternal crown.”[183] The names of the “great army of martyrs,” though forgotten by men, are written in the Book of Life. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.”

There is a record, traced on high,
That shall endure eternally;
The angel standing by God’s throne
Treasures there each word and groan;
And not the martyr’s speech alone,

But every wound is there depicted,
With every circumstance of pain—
The crimson stream, the gash inflicted—
And not a drop is shed in vain.[184]

This spirit of martyrdom was a new principle in society. It had no classical counterpart.[185] Socrates and Seneca suffered with fortitude, but not with faith. The loftiest pagan philosophy dwindled into insignificance before the sublimity of Christian hope. This looked beyond the shadows of time and the sordid cares of earth to the grandeur of the Infinite and the Eternal. The heroic deaths of the believers exhibited a spiritual power mightier than the primal instincts of nature, the love of wife or child, or even of life itself. Like a solemn voice falling on the dull ear of mankind, these holy examples urged the inquiry, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” And that voice awakened an echo in full many a heart. The martyrs made more converts by their deaths than in their lives. “Kill us, rack us, condemn us, grind us to powder,” exclaims the intrepid Christian Apologist; “our numbers increase in proportion as you mow us down.”[186] The earth was drunk with the blood of the saints, but still they multiplied and grew, gloriously illustrating the perennial truth—Sanguis martyrum semen ecclesiæ.[187]

Christianity, after long repression, became at length triumphant. The church on the conversion of Constantine emerged from the concealment of the Catacombs to the sunshine of imperial favour. The legend of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus strikingly illustrates the wondrous transformation of society. These Christian brothers, taking shelter in a cave during the Decian persecution, awoke, according to the legend, after a slumber of over a century, to find Christianity everywhere dominant, and a Christian emperor on the throne of the Cæsars.[188] The doctrines of Christ, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated the world.[189] With choirs and hymns, in cities and villages, in the highways and markets, the praises of the Almighty were sung.[190] The enemies of God were as though they had not been.[191]

The Lord brought up the vine of Christianity from a far land, and cast out the heathen, and planted and watered it, till it twined round the sceptre of the Cæsars, wreathed the columns of the Capitol, and filled the whole land. The heathen fanes were deserted, the gods discrowned, and the pagan flamen no longer offered sacrifice to the Capitoline Jove. Rome, which had dragged so many conquered divinities in triumph at its chariot wheels, at length yielded to a mightier than all the gods of Olympus. The old faiths faded from the firmament of human thought as the stars of midnight at the dawn of day. The banished deities forsook their ancient seats. They walked no longer in the vale of Tempe or in the grove of Daphne.[192] The naiads bathed not in Scamander’s stream nor Simois, nor the nereids in the waters of the bright Ægean Sea. The nymphs and dryads ceased to haunt the sylvan solitudes. The oreads walked no more in light on Ida’s lofty top.

O ye vain false gods of Hellas!
Ye are vanished evermore!

Long before the recognition of Christianity as the religion of the empire its influence had been felt permeating the entire community. Amid the disintegration of society it was the sole conservative element—the salt which preserved it from corruption. In the midst of anarchy and confusion a community was being organized on a principle previously unknown in the

heathen world, ruling not by terror but by love; by moral power, not by physical force; inspired by lofty faith amid a world of unbelief, and cultivating moral purity amid the reeking abominations of a sensual age.

Yet this mighty energy thus at work eluded the notice, or excited only the disdain, of some of the keenest observers and greatest thinkers the world has seen. Classical literature contains only a few short notices of that religion which was transforming the age. A galaxy of philosophers and historians, gazing mournfully at the seething mass of moral putrefaction around them, and profoundly conscious of its apparently cureless evil, treated as contemptible the most powerful moral agent in the world—that regenerative principle which was to reorganize society on a higher type than ever was known before.[193] The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation, and paganism seemed entirely unconscious of its impending doom.

But this wonderful influence, which accomplished so much, seemed at length strangely to lose its power, and did not fulfil the regenerative work which it began. It failed to check the degeneracy of the age or to avert the dissolution of the empire. The many crimes of that colossal orgy cried to heaven for vengeance. The taint was too inveterate to be eradicated; the evil was immedicable; Rome was already effete and moribund. It was weighed in the balance and found wanting. Therefore the inexorable penalty, which evermore follows wrong, as a shadow its substance, was suffered to descend. An awful Nemesis, like an avenging Fate,

overtook the great and wicked city in its pride and guilt; and the mystical Babylon of the West, reeking with sensuality, idolatry, and blood, soon beheld the Goths at her gates, and the Huns within her walls.[194]

[31] A deal of fanciful theory has been indulged in as to the origin of the Catacombs. They have been attributed to a pre-historic race of Troglodytes, who loathed the light of day, and burrowed like moles in the earth. MacFarlane has an eloquent apostrophe to the old Etrurians, by whom he imagined they were excavated twelve hundred years before the Christian era. We have seen also how they were erroneously attributed to the pagan Romans.

[32] Victoribus victi leges dederunt. On the Tiber, the Tigris, and the Nile, this saying was strikingly verified. Yet Judaism is an essentially conservative, not an aggressive, religion. It was unadapted for such wide-spread conquests as those of Christianity, or even of Mohammedism. The ancient mould of thought, having served its purpose, was broken. Judaism may be said to have died in giving birth to Christianity.

[33] Hist., v, 5.

[34] In 1853 a Jewish Catacomb was discovered at Venosa, in Southern Italy, containing one gallery seven feet high and four hundred feet long. In 1854 another was discovered at Oria, with many Hebrew symbols and inscriptions. There were many Jews in Apulia and Calabria.

[35] In eo quippe haud ulla, ut in reliquis, Christianæ religionis indicia et signa apparebant—Bosio, Rom. Sott., 142.

[36] Cimitero degli Antichi Ebrei Scoperto recentemente in Vigna Randanini, illustrato da Raffaele Garrucci. 8vo. Roma, 1862.

[37] See [Fig. 18].

[38]

Nunc sacri fontis nimus, et delubra locantur
Judæis.—Sat., iii, 13.

[39] It is incredible that the Apostle Peter had any share in planting the Roman Church. If he had, Paul would not, as he does, utterly ignore his labours. “Only Luke is with me,” writes St. Paul, just before his death; yet he and Peter are feigned to have suffered on the same day. The story of St. Peter’s twenty-five years’ episcopate at Rome is too absurd to require disproof. The very minuteness of detail in the legends of St. Peter is their own refutation. In vain are we shown the chair in which tradition asserts that he sat, the font at which he baptized, the cell in which he was confined, the fountain which sprang up in its floor, the pillar to which he was bound, the chains which he wore, the impression made by his head in the wall and by his knees in the stony pavement, the scene of his crucifixion, the very hole in which the foot of the cross was placed, and the tomb in which his body is said to lie; they all fail to carry conviction to any mind in which superstition has not destroyed the critical faculty. The mighty fane which rises sublimely in the heart of Rome in honour of the Galilean fisherman, like the religious system of which it is the visible exponent, is founded on a shadowy tradition, opposed alike to the testimony of Scripture, the evidence of history, and the deductions of reason. The question whether Peter ever was in Rome has recently been publicly discussed under the very shadow of the Vatican. Verily, Tempora mutantur.

[40] Nos quoque ut Judaicæ religionis propinquos, sub umbraculum insignissimæ religionis certé licitæ.—Ad Nat., i, 11.

[41] Execrantur rogos, et damnant ignium sepulturas.—Minuc. Felix, Octav., ii, 451. Tertullian declared it to be a symbol of the fires of hell. Possibly, also, the expense and publicity inseparable from the practice of cremation made it a matter of necessity for the early Christians to adopt the less costly and more private mode of subterranean interment. Merivale, indeed, asserts that the early Roman Christians burned their dead, (vi, 444,) and adduces in support of this strange theory only the pagan dedication D. M., found on some Christian tombs. As will be shown, ([Book III, i,]) these letters were part of a common epigraphic formula, and give no warrant for this startling statement.

[42] Bishop Hall.

[43] It would appear from this inscription that some of the family of Restitutus were still pagans, and were buried apart from the rest. The early Christians regarded it as unlawful to commingle the heathen and believers in common burial. St. Cyprian makes it a capital charge against the heretical Bishop of Asturia, that he “buried his children in profane sepulchres and in the midst of strangers.” See also Ruth i, 17. Compare Cic., de Leg., ii, 22, and de Off., lib. ii.

[44] Apol. xxxix. The following inscription, recently discovered in the ruins of Cæsarea, a Roman town in Africa, attests the provision made by wealthy Christians for the burial of their poorer neighbours:

AREAM AT [AD] SEPVLCHRA CVLTOR VERBI CONTVLIT

ET CELLAM STRVXIT SVIS CVNCTIS SVMPTIBVS

ECCLESIÆ SANCTÆ HANC RELIQVIT MEMORIAM,

SALVETE FRATRES PVRO CORDE ET SIMPLICI

EVELPIVS VOS SATOS SANCTO SPIRITV.

ECCLESIA FRATRVM HVNC RESTITVIT TITVLVM....

A worshipper of the Word has given this area for sepulchres, and has built a vault at his own cost; he left this memorial to the Holy Church. Hail, brethren! with a pure and simple heart, Euelpius [salutes] you, born of the Holy Spirit.

The congregation of the brethren replaced this inscription....

[45] 2 Tim. iv, 21. Suet., Vit. Ner., c. 28, 29; Tac., Ann., xv, 37. See also Dio., lxiii, 13.

[46] E.g. Flavia Domitilla, the niece of Domitian, and her husband, Clemens. Their children had been adopted by the Emperor, and designated as his successors. So near came Christianity to grasping the sceptre of the Cæsars in the first century. Dio Cass., Hist., lxvii, 13. Suet. in Domit., xv. The niece of Domitilla, also of the same name, suffered exile for the faith, A. D. 97. She gave the land for the Catacomb which still bears her name.

Marcia, Mammæa, the mother of Alex. Severus, the Emperor Philip, and Prisca and Valeria, the wife and daughter of the arch-persecutor Diocletian, either embraced or greatly favoured Christianity.

[47] Apol., c. 37.

[48] [Transcriber’s note: Footnote missing in the original.]

[49] Religiosum locum unusquisque sua voluntate facit, dum mortuum infert in locum suum. Marcian. Digest., i, 8, 6, § 4.

[50] Cod. Justin., lib. ix, tit. 19, de Sepulchro Violato, leg. 1, 5; Cod. Theod., lib. ix, tit. 17. Proximum sacrilegio majores semper habuerunt. So the poet exclaims:

Res ea sacra, miser; noli mea tangere fata:
Sacrilegae bustis abstinuere manus.—

“Touch not my monument, thou wretch; it is a sacred thing: even sacrilegious hands refrain from the violation of graves.”

[51] Xen., Mem., ii, 2, § 13.

[52] Roman Sepulchral Inscriptions, p. 9, London, 1858.

[52a] [Transcriber’s Note: Footnote missing in the original.]

[53]

Mille pedes in fronte, trecentos cippus in agrum

Hic dabat; heredes monumentum ne sequeretur.

Hor., I Sat., viii, 12.

[54] Literally, “the angry gods.”

[55] Reinesius.

[56] Corpora animadversorum quibuslibet petentibus ad sepulturam danda sunt. Digest., xlviii, 24, 2.

[57] Both of these are given by Dr. McCaul in his Christian Epitaphs of the First Six Centuries, an admirable little volume, my indebtedness to which will be [elsewhere] acknowledged. He also quotes the following from Henzen’s Inscr. Lat. Select. Col., No. 6371: PETO A BOBIS [VOBIS] FRATRES BONI PER VNVM DEVM NE QVIS VI TITVLO MOLESTET POST MORTEM—“I beseech you, good brothers, by the one God, that no one by force injure this inscription after my death.”

[58] Aringhi, lib. iv, c. xxvii.

[59] Sometimes an anathema was invoked upon the disturber of the grave, as in the following interesting example, found in the island of Salamis, and quoted by Dr. McCaul from Kirchoff, Corpus Inscript. Græc., No. 9303: Οἶκος αἰώνιος Ἀγάθωνος ἀναγνώστου καὶ Εὐφημίας ἐν δυσὶ θήκαις ἰδίᾳ ἑκάστῳ ἡμῶν. Εἰ δέ τις τῶν ἰδίων ἢ ἕτερός τις τολμήσῃ σῶμα καταθέσθαι ἐνταῦθα παρὲξ τῶν δύω ἡμῶν, λόγον δῴη τῷ θεῷ καὶ ἀνάθεμα ἤτω μαραναθάν—“The everlasting dwelling of Agatho, a reader, and Euphemia, in two graves, one for each of us separately. If any one of our relatives, or any one else, shall presume to bury a body here beside us two, may he give an account of it to God, and may he be anathema maranatha.”

[60] It is remarkable that Shakespeare’s epitaph should present almost as uncouth a specimen of epigraphy as any of the barbarous inscriptions of the Catacombs. See the following copy:

Good Friend for Iesus SAKE forbeare
To diGG T-E Dust EncloAsed HERe
Blest be T-E Man TY spares T-es Stones
And curst be He TY moves my Bones.

[61] Maitland reads thus: IN CHRISTO. MARTYRIVS VIXIT ANNOS XCI PLVS MINVS ELEXIT DOMVM VIVVS. IN PACE.—“In Christ. Martyrius lived ninety-one years, more or less. He chose a home during his life-time. In peace.”

[62] Collegium salutare Dianæ et Antinoi, constitutum ex Senatus Populique Romani decreto, quibus coire, convenire, collegiumque habere liceat. Qui stipem menstruam conferre volent in funera, in id collegium coeant, neque sub specie ejus collegii nisi semel in mense coeant, conferendi causa unde defuncti sepeliantur.

[63] The sesterce, or sestertius, was about 2d·5 farthings, the as about 3d·4 farthings. The amphora held about six gallons.

[64] Muratori, tom. ii, classis vii, Collegia Varia.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Trajan regarded with suspicion even fire brigades and charitable societies, (Pliny, X Epis. 43 et 94,) and forbade the assemblies of the Christians, but permitted the monthly contribution of the clubs—Permittitur tenuioribus stipem menstruam conferre. Digest., xlvii, 22, 1.

[67] Modicam unusquisque stipem menstrua die, vel quum velit, et si modo velit, et si modo possit, apponit: nam nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert.... Nam inde non epulis ... sed egenis alendis humandisque ... etc. Tert., Apol., c. 39.

[68] See [first] footnote.

[69] Bullettino, 1864, 62.

[70] Rom. xvi, 5, 3.

[71] Philosophoumena, ix, 11.

[72] Actorem sive syndicum, per quem, quod communiter agi fierique oporteat, agatur, fiat.—Digest., iii, 4, 1, § 1.

[73] E veramente che almeno fino dal secolo terzo i fideli abbiano possiduto cemeteri a nome commune, e che il loro possesso sia stato riconosciuto dagl’imperatori, è cosa impossibile a negare.—De Rossi, Rom. Sott., tom. i, p. 103.

[74] The dreaded crimen majestatis.

[75] Hostes Cæsarum, hostes populi Romani.

[76] Non pluit Deus, duc ad Christianos.—Aug., Civ. Dei, ii, 3.

[77] Si Tiberis ascendit in mœnia, si Nilus non ascendit in arva, si cœlum stetit, si terra movit, si fames, si lues, statim, “Christianos ad leones.”—Apol., x. “But I pray you,” he adds, “were misfortunes unknown before Tiberius? The true God was not worshipped when Hannibal conquered at Cannæ, or the Gauls filled the city.”

[78] Eusebius describes their activity in bringing wood and straw from the shops and baths for the burning of Polycarp. Eccl. Hist., iv, 15.

[79] Ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdedit reos et quæsitissimis pœnis affecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Christianos appellabat.... Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarum tergis contecti laniatu canum interierint, aut crucibus affixi, aut flammandi atque, ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur.—Ann., xv, 44.

[80] A telegraphic despatch from Rome of date January 16, 1873, announces that the Pope claims to have discovered the bodies of the apostles Philip and James. Highly improbable, and of no practical importance if true. Not the bones of the saints buried centuries ago, but the spirit which animated them and the principles for which they died, are the true sources of the church’s power.

[81] Sulpic. Sever., Hist., ii, 41.

[82] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., iii, 17. A. D. 93-96.

[83] Prope jam desolata templa cœpisse celebrari; et sacra solennia diu intermissa repeti.—Epis. ad Traj. Among the most distinguished sufferers during this persecution was Clement, third bishop of Rome, exiled to Pontus, and, it is said, cast into the sea, A. D. 103; also the venerable Ignatius, bishop of the church at Antioch, linked by tradition with the Saviour himself, as one of the children whom he took in his arms and blessed. Condemned by Trajan to exposure to wild beasts in the amphitheatre at Rome, a passion for martyrdom possessed his soul. “Suffer me to be the food of the wild beasts,” he exclaimed, “by whom I shall attain unto God. For I am the wheat of God; and I shall be ground by the teeth of wild beasts that I may become the pure bread of Christ.”—Epis. ad Romanos, §§ 4, 5.

[84] Sacra Romana diligentissimè curavit, peregrina contempsit.—Spartian. in Hadrian. A. D. 117-138.

[85] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., iv, 9. Jus. Mar., Apol., i, 68, 69.

[86] A. D. 138-161.

[87] Irenæus, iii, 3, § 3.

[88] A. D. 161-180.

[89] The following inscription, referring to the Antonine period, is given by Maitland, (page 40,) as from the Catacomb of Callixtus. Although it seems to imply the actual prevalence of persecution, it is evidently, even if genuine, of later date than the time alleged. The presence of the sacred monogram, as well as the somewhat florid and pleonastic style, indicate an origin not anterior to the age of Constantine, when it became the fashion with outward pharisaism to adorn the sepulchres of the martyrs, although the truths for which they died were often treated with neglect:

Fig. 20.—Reputed Martyr Symbol.

ALEXANDER MORTVVS NON EST SED VIVIT SVPER ASTRA ET CORPVS IN HOC TVMVLO QVIESCIT. VITAM EXPLEVIT SVB ANTONINO IMP QVI VBI MVLTVM BENEFITII ANTEVENIRE PRAEVIDERET PRO GRATIA ODIVM REDDIDIT. GENVA ENIM FLECTENS VERO DEO SACRIFICATVRVS AD SVPPLICIA DVCITVR. O TEMPORA INFAVSTA QVIBVS INTER SACRA ET VOTA NE IN CAVERNIS QVIDEM SALVARI POSSIMVS. QVID MISERIVS VITA SED QVID MISERIVS IN MORTE CVM AB AMICIS ET PARENTIBVS SEPELIRI NEQVEANT TANDEM IN COELO CORVSCANT. PARVM VIXIT QVI VIXIT IN. X. TEM.

“In Christ. Alexander is not dead, but lives above the stars, and his body rests in this tomb. He ended his life under the Emperor Antonine, who, foreseeing that great benefit would result from his services, returned evil for good. For while on his knees and about to sacrifice to the true God, he was led away to execution. O sad times! in which, among sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns we are not safe. What can be more wretched than such a life? and what than such a death? when they cannot be buried by their friends and relations—at length they sparkle in heaven. He has scarcely lived who has lived in Christian times.”

Maitland renders the concluding letters, IN. X. TEM, by “In Christianis temporibus.” The furnace seems to indicate that the martyr suffered death by fire, or, possibly, by immersion in boiling oil—a mode of punishment which St. John is said to have undergone, but without receiving any harm.

Another still more apocryphal inscription is given by Maitland, (page 65.) It is probably of the fifth century. The Pudentiana referred to is said to have spent her patrimony in relieving the poor and burying the martyrs.

HOC EST COEMETERIVM PRISCILLAE
IN QVO EXISTVNT CORPORA TRIVM MILLIVM MARTYRVM
MARTYRIO PER ANTONINUM IMPERATOREM
AFFECTORVM QVOS S. PVDENTIANA
FECIT IN HOC SVO VENERABILI TEMPLO SEPELIRI.

“This is the Cemetery of Priscilla, in which are the bodies of three thousand martyrs, who suffered under the Emperor Antonine, whom St. Pudentiana caused to be buried in this her own place of worship.”—Aicher, Hortus Inscriptionum. More authentic relics of this reign are the large tiles with which part of the Catacomb of Callixtus is paved. They all bear the words, OPVS DOLIARE EX PRAEDIIS DOMINI N ET FIGL NOVIS, which, according to Marini, is the stamp of the imperial manufactory of Marcus Aurelius.

[90] “Hanc dextram ad te Jupiter, tendo, quae nullius unquam sanguinam fudit,” is the form of prayer given by Claudian. Euseb., v, 5.

[91] A. D. 180-193.

[92] See [chap. ii], book iii.

[93] Strom., lib. ii, A. D. 193.

[94] Apol., 37. Sicut sub Hilariano præside, cum de areis sepulturarum nostrarum adclamâssent, areæ non sint.—Ad Scap., c. iii. A. D. 203.

No more pathetic episode is contained in the whole range of the Martyrology than that of the youthful mother, Perpetua, who suffered at Carthage under Severus. Few can read unmoved the acts of her martyrdom, which bear the stamp of authenticity in their perfectly natural and unexaggerated tone, and the absence of miracle. Young—she was only twenty-two—beautiful, of noble family, and dearly loved, her heathen father entreated her to pity his gray hairs, her mother’s tears, her helpless babe. But her faith proved triumphant over even the yearnings of natural affection; and, wan and faint from recent childbirth pangs, she was led, with Felicitas, her companion, into the crowded amphitheatre, and exposed to the cruel horns of infuriate beasts. Amid the agonies of death, more conscious of her wounded modesty than of her pain, with a gesture of dignity she drew her disheveled robe about her person. She seemed rapt in ecstasy till by a merciful stroke of the gladiator she was released from her suffering, and exchanged the dust and blood of the arena, and the shouts of the ribald mob, for the songs of the redeemed, and the beatific vision of the Lord she loved.

[95] Cædit et humanas hostias.—Lamprid., Heliogabalus.

[96] A. D. 222.

[97] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vi, 21.

[98] The site, according to tradition, of St. Maria in Trastevere.

[99] A. D. 250-253. Execrabile animal Decius, qui vexaret ecclesiam.—Lactan., de Mort. Persec., c. 3, 4. He would rather tolerate, he said, a rival for his throne, than a bishop in Rome. Cypr., Ep. 53.

[100] Called respectively Sacrificati, Thurificati, and Libellatici, of whom the first were esteemed the most guilty. The indignant rhetoric of Cyprian expresses his holy horror at this vile apostasy: “They made haste to give their souls the mortal wound.... That altar where he was about to die—was it not his funeral pile? Should he not have fled, as from his coffin or his grave, from that devil’s altar, when he saw it smoke and fume with stinking smell?... Thou thyself wast the sacrificial victim. Thou didst sacrifice thy salvation, and burn thy faith and hope in these abominable fires”—Nonne ara illa, quo moriturus accessit, rogus illi fuit? Nonne diaboli altare quod fœtore tætro fumare et redolere conspexerat, velut funus et bustum vitæ suæ horrere ac fugere debebat?... Ipse ad aram hostia, victima ipse venisti. Immolâsti illic salutem tuam, spem tuam, fidem tuam, funestis illis ignibus concremâsti.—De Lapsis, p. 124.

[101] Dionysius of Alexandria, in Euseb., vi, 41.

[102] A. D. 254-259.

[103] Ἐκκλησία, Euseb., vii, 10.

[104] Milman, Hist. of Christianity, Am. ed., Book II., chap. vii.

[105] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vii, 10.

[106] Ut episcopi et presbyteri et diacones incontinenter animadvertantur, ... capite quoque mulctentur.—Cypr., ep. 72, ad Successum.

[107] Οὐδαμῶς ἔξέσται ὑμῖν ἢ συνόδους ποιεῖσθαι ἢ εἰς τὰ καλούμενα κοιμητήρια εἰσιέναι—Dionys., in Euseb., vii, 11. Jussum est, ut nulla conciliabula faciant, neque cœmeteria ingrediantur.—Pontius, Passio Cypriani.

[108] In Africa, Cyprian, the intrepid bishop of Carthage, after a stormy episcopate, obtained the crown of martyrdom. On receiving the sentence condemning him to death, he exclaimed, “God be thanked!” and went as joyous to his fate as to a marriage feast.—Pontius, Passio Cypr.

[109] “Vitam solitariam agebat in cryptis.” Of St. Urban it is similarly said, “Solebat in sacrorum martyrum monumenta.”—Acts of Cecilia.

[110] Baronius: Ann., tom. iii, p. 76. Among his companions in death was Hippolytus, a Roman convert, of whom a beautiful legend is recorded. His pagan relatives, entrusted with the secret of his retreat, supplied his wants by means of their children, a boy and girl of ten and thirteen years. He one day detained the children in the hope that their parents would seek them, and thus have the opportunity of religious instruction from the good bishop. His plan succeeded, and eventually they with their children were baptized and suffered martyrdom together! Baron., Ann., iii, 69. Even though unauthentic, this story is a type, doubtless, of many incidents which occurred in the strange social relations of the church in the Catacombs.

[111] Xistum in cimiterio animadversum sciatis ... et cum eo diaconos quatuor.—Cypr., Epis., lxxx, ad Successum.

[112] Another martyr whose Acts, although disfigured with some grotesque and exaggerated circumstances, contain elements of great beauty, was Lawrence, a deacon of the bishop Sixtus. Esteeming it no sacrilege, but rather the highest consecration of the property of the church, he distributed it in alms among the suffering Christians. Being commanded to surrender to the emperor the confiscated ecclesiastical treasure, he presented to the commissioner a number of aged and impotent poor, saying, “These are the treasures of the church.” After incredible tortures, which form the subject of many a picture of Roman Catholic art, he is said to have been roasted to death over a slow fire. Ambros., Officin., i, 41.

[113] A. D. 259.

[114] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., viii, 13.

[115] Ib., viii, 23.

[116] A. D. 275.

[117] Probus et vere probus situs est. Obiit A. D. 283.

[118] Gregory of Tours, writing in the sixth century, asserts that under Numerian, the brother and contemporary of Carinus, Chrysanthus and Daria suffered martyrdom in a Catacomb on the Via Salaria. A number of the faithful being observed to visit their tombs, the emperor ordered the entrance to be built up and covered with a heap of sand and stones, that they might be buried alive in common martyrdom. When their remains were discovered by Damasus, in the fourth century, he refrained from removing them, and simply made an opening from an adjacent gallery, that pilgrims to the early shrines of the faith might behold, without disturbing it, this “Christian Pompeii.” Gregory asserts that these interesting relics were still to be seen in his day—the skeletons of men, women, and children lying on the floor, and even the silver vessels (urcei argentei) which they used.

[119] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., viii, 1.

[120] Ibid.

[121] De Mort. Persec., c. xxiii.

[122] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., viii, 1.

[123] Caius ... fugiens persecutionem Diocletiani in cryptis habitando, martyrio coronatur.—Lib. Pontif.; cf. Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vii, 32.

[124] Ἐκ τῶν ἐν στρατείαις ἀδελφῶν καταρχομένου τοῦ διωγμοῦ.—Hist. Eccles., viii, 1.

[125] Vita Const., ii, 54.

[126] The following inscription, found in Spain, and given by Gruter, seems designed as the funeral monument of dead and buried Christianity. But though apparently destroyed, like its divine Author, instinct with immortality it rose triumphant over all its foes.

DIOCLETIAN · CAES · AUG · GALERIO · IN ORIENTE · ADOPT · SVPERSTITIONE CHRIST · VBIQ · DELETA ET CVLTV DEOR · PROPAGATO.

“To Diocletian, Cæsar Augustus, having adopted Galerius in the East, the Christian superstition being every-where destroyed, and the worship of the gods extended.”

[127] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., viii, 2. The effects of the persecution were felt even in Britain. (Gildas, de Excid. Britan., in Bingham, viii, 1.) Alban was the first British martyr at a somewhat earlier date.

[128] “The dungeons destined for murderers,” says Eusebius, “were filled with bishops, presbyters, deacons, readers, and exorcists, so that there was no room left for those condemned for crime.”—Hist. Eccles.

[129] Nec unquam sine cruore humano cœnabat.—Lactan., de Mort. Persec.

[130] Date of Edict, April 30, A. D. 311. Euseb., Hist. Eccles., ix, 1.

[131] Eusebius gives the edict, taken from a brazen tablet at Tyre, in which the Emperor speaks of “the votaries of an execrable vanity, like a funeral pile long disregarded and smothered, again rising in mighty flames and rekindling the extinguished brands.” Hist. Eccles., ix, 9.

[132] The courtly panegyrist of Constantine gratefully speaks of him as a “light and deliverer arising in the dense and impenetrable darkness of a gloomy night.” Euseb., Hist. Eccles., x, 8.

[133] Eusebius compares the victory of the Milvian Bridge to that of Moses and the Israelites over Pharaoh and his hosts. Hist. Eccles. ix, 9.

[134] Daremus et Christianis et omnibus liberam potestatem sequendi religionem quam quisque voluisset—“We give to the Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow whatever mode of worship they may wish.”—Decree of Milan, preserved in Lactantius, de Mort. Persec., and in Euseb., Hist. Eccles., x, 5.

[135] In the violent deaths or loathsome diseases of many of their persecutors the Christians recognized the retributive judgments of the Almighty, which were considered so remarkable as to occasion the special treatise de Mortibus Persecutorum, attributed to the pen of Lactantius. Nero died ignominiously by his own hand. Domitian was assassinated. During the reign of Aurelius war, famine, and pestilence wasted the land. Decius perished miserably in a marsh, and his body became the prey of the prowling jackal and unclean buzzard. Valerian, captured by the Persians, after having served as a footstool to his haughty foe, is said to have been flayed alive and his skin stuffed with straw. Aurelian was slain by the hand of a trusted servant, and Carinus by the dagger of a husband whom he had irreparably wronged. Diocletian, having languished for years the prey of painful maladies, which even affected his reason, it is said committed suicide. Galerius, like those rivals in bloodshed and persecution, Herod and Philip II., became an object of loathing and abhorrence, being “eaten of worms” while yet alive. Maximian fell by the hand of the public executioner; and Maxentius, in the hour of defeat, was smothered in the ooze of the Tiber beneath the walls of his capital. Severus opened his own veins and bled to death. The first Maximin was murdered; the second, a fugitive and an exile, committed suicide by poison, and, according to Eusebius, was so consumed by internal torments that “his body became the tomb of his soul.” Licinius, the last of the persecutors, was slain by his ferocious soldiery, and his name, by a decree of the Senate, forever branded with infamy. Thus with indignities and tortures, often surpassing those they inflicted on their Christian subjects, perished the enemies of the church of God, as if pursued by a divine retribution no less inexorable than the avenging Nemesis of the pagan mythology. See Lactantius, de Mort. Persec., passim; Euseb., Hist. Eccles., viii, 17; ix, 9, 10; Tertul., Ad. Scap., c. 3.

[136] The church of St. Marcello, in the Corso, commemorates the scene of his indignities. There is reason to believe that each church or titulus within the city had its own cemetery without the walls, over which the presbyter of the title had jurisdiction. Marcellinus, as bishop, had charge of the ecclesiastical Cemetery of Callixtus, as appears from a contemporary inscription.

[137] Gruter, Inscrip., p. 1172, No. 3.

[138] Rom. Sott., p. 172.

[139] There is a pleasing tradition recorded of Sylvester, the successor of Melchiades, to the effect that, having fled, on account of the persecution, to the caverns of Mount Soracte, the Emperor Constantine sent for him to receive religious instruction. Seeing the soldiers approach, as he thought to lead him to martyrdom, Sylvester exclaimed, “Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation,” but was in a few days installed as bishop of Rome in the imperial palace of the Lateran. Soracte, once sacred to Apollo and the Muses, but now to Christ and the saints, is known, in commemoration of this event, as Monte San Silvestro.

[140] Gruter, p. 1171, No. 8.

[141] Their names and piety are commemorated by two churches in Rome. Eusebius also records with approbation the story of the Christian matron Sophronia, wife of the Prefect of Rome, who committed suicide to escape the polluting embraces of the tyrant Maxentius. Hist. Eccles., viii, 14.

[142] Bullettino, January, 1869.

[143] The following satirical remarks of De Brosses, a Romanist writer, concerning the supply of relics from the Catacomb of St. Agnes, will indicate how unauthentic are these objects of veneration: “Vous pourriez voir ici la capitale des Catacombes de toute la chrétienté. Les martyrs, les confesseurs, et les vierges, y fourmillent de tous côtés. Quand on se fait besoin de quelques reliques en pays étranger, le Pape n’a qu’à descendre ici et crier, Qui de vous autres veut aller être saint en Pologne? Alors s’il se trouve quelque mort de bonne volonté il se lève et s’en va.”

[144] From the Catacomb of St. Agnes. The ancient Martyrology records the conversion of a Roman nobleman of this name in the time of Julian, together with that of his wife and fifty-three members of his household, and his subsequent martyrdom and burial in the Catacombs. It is probable that Theophila had learned in Gaul to write Latin, though only in those singular Greek characters which, as Julius Cæsar informs us, were used in that country, and that, after the death of the whole family, she employed some equally unlettered stone-mason to engrave this remarkable inscription.

[145] De Rossi gives several dated inscriptions of the reign of Diocletian, (Nos. 16 to 28,) thus absolutely identifying the age of those portions of the Catacombs.

[146] In Hawthorne’s “Marble Faun” there is a fantastic legend of “The Spectre of the Catacombs,” the ghost of an apostate betrayer of the Christians, which still haunts the scene of its hateful perfidy.

[147] See plan of this arenarium and stairway in chap. v, [fig. 26].

[148] In A. D. 359 Liberius, bishop of Rome, lay hid for a year in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, till the death of the Arian Constantius; and in A. D. 418 Boniface I. in the Catacomb of St. Felicitas, during the usurpation of the antipope Eulalius.

[149] The similar excavations of Quesnel, in France, were long inhabited by both human beings and cattle.

[150] Latebrosa et lucifugax natio.—Minuc. Felix.

[151] Compare the following spirited lines of Bernis:

“La terre avait gémi sous le fer des tyrans;

Elle cachait encore des martyrs expirans,

Qui dans les noirs détours des grottes reculées

Dérobaient aux bourreaux leurs têtes mutilées.”

Poëme de la Religion Vengée, chap. viii.

[152] See especially Dodwell’s learned but unsatisfactory Essay, De Paucitate Martyrum, and Gibbon’s laboured extenuation of the severity of the persecutors.

[153] Ingens multitudo.—Ann., xv.

[154] Jam desolata templa.—Epis., 97, lib. x.

[155] Exuberante copia virtutis et fidei numerari non possunt martyres Christi.—Lib. de Exhort. Martyr., c. xi.

[156] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., viii, 9.

[157] Ibid., viii, 11.

[158] Universum populum cum ipso pariter conventiculo concremavit. Lactan., Instit. Divin., v, 11: Gregatim amburebantur.—Ibid.

[159] [Page 78].

[160]

Sexaginta illic defossas mole sub una
Reliquias memini me didicisse hominum.—Peristeph., xi.

[161] The story of the martyrdom of ten thousand Christians on Mount Ararat, under Trajan, and of the massacre of the Thundering Legion, consisting of six thousand Christians, by Maximian, are fictions of later date. In the Church of St. Gerion at Cologne are many reputed relics, chiefly heads, of these last. The legendary tendency to exaggeration in numbers seems irresistible. In commemorating the slaughter of the Innocents the Greek Church canonized fourteen thousand martyrs. Another notion, derived from Rev. xiv, 3, swelled the number to a hundred and forty-four thousand. The absurd story of the eleven thousand martyrs of Cologne is probably founded on a mistaken rendering of the inscription VRSVLA · ET · XI · MM · VV, interpreted, Ursula and eleven thousand virgins, instead of eleven virgin martyrs.—Maitland, p. 163. A Romish legend, of course exaggerated, says seventy thousand Christians suffered martyrdom in the Coliseum.

[162] In Rock’s Hierurgia, a Romanist work, is an account of a Catacomb at Nipi, near Rome, in which are said to be thirty-eight martyr tombs, the epitaph of one of whom plainly asserts his death by decapitation: MARTYRIO CORONATVS CAPITE TRVNCATVS IACET—“Crowned with martyrdom, having been beheaded ... lies here.”

The beautiful terseness of the following would seem to indicate their genuineness: “Paulus was put to death in tortures, in order that he might live in eternal bliss.”

“Clementia, tortured, dead, sleeps; will rise.”

From the following, found on a cup attached to a tomb, it would seem that the martyr was first compelled to drink poison, which proving ineffectual, he was dispatched by the sword: “The deadly draught dared not present to Constans the crown, which the steel was permitted to offer.”

[163] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., viii, 9.

[164] Ibid., viii, 12.

[165] Called ungulæ, from their resemblance to the claws of a beast of prey.

[166] See examples of the above named tortures in Eusebius’s Hist. Eccles., v, 2; vi, 41; viii, 14; The Martyrs of Palestine, viii; and Lactantius, passim.

On the 22d of April, 1823, says Cardinal Wiseman, a grave in the Catacombs was opened, and, beside the white and polished bones of a youth of eighteen, whose epitaph it bore, was found the skeleton of a boy of twelve or thirteen, charred and blackened chiefly about the upper part. This was probably the remains of a youthful martyr hastily interred in another’s grave, to come to light after the lapse of fifteen centuries.

Prudentius describes the martyr Hippolytus as torn limb from limb:

Cernere erat ruptis compagibus ordine nullo,
Membra per incertos sparsa jacere situs.

[167] Lib. Pontif., c. iv. These notaries were called by the Greeks ὀξυγράφοι or ταχυγράφοι, that is, short-hand writers. Eusebius says they reported the extemporaneous discourses of Origen. Hist. Eccles., vi, 36.

[168] Hic fecit sex vel septem subdiaconos, qui septem notariis imminerent ut gesta martyrum fideliter colligerent.—Lib. Pontif.

[169] The Peristephanon—“Concerning the [martyrs’] crowns.”

[170] In the thirteenth century many of the stories were collected in the Legenda Aurea by Jacques de Voragine, an archbishop of Genoa. After the discovery of printing the press teemed with this legendary literature, Flowers of the Saints, Acts of the Martyrs, etc., embellished with numerous engravings, representing with horrible minuteness the Dantean tortures on which the monkish mind loved to expatiate.

[171] Assatum est: versa et manduca.

[172]

—Latus ungula virgineum
Pulsat utrimque, et ad ossa secat,
Eulalia numerante notas.
Scriberis ecce! mihi Domine;
Quàm juvat hos apices legere.—Peristeph., Hymn ix.

[173] See martyrdom of Polycarp, Euseb., Hist. Eccles., iv. 15.

[174]

At sola mater hisce lamentis caret,
Soli sereno frons renidet gaudio.—Prudent., Peristeph.

[175]

His persecutor saucius
Pallet, rubescit, æstuat,
Insana torquens lumina.
Spumasque frendens egerit.—Ibid., Hymn ii.

[176]

Bitumen et mixtum pice
Imo implicabunt Tartaro.—Ibid.

[177] Hence called legends, a word which has in consequence come to signify the incredible or fictitious. Upon a mere verbal mistake was founded the account by the mediæval writers of a most formidable weapon called the catomus, which name gave rise to the verbs catomare and catomizare, to express its use. It was at length discovered that catomus was but the Latin form of the Greek adverbial phrase κατ’ ὤμων, signifying, “upon the shoulders.” (Maitland, p. 167.)

[178] Hist. Eccles., v, 1.

[179] Multique avidius tum martyria gloriosis mortibus quærebant quam nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetunt.—Sulpio. Sever., Hist., lib. ii.

[180] Apol., c. 30.

[181] Gregory Nazianzen. Orat. de Laud. Basil. See also the striking language of Ignatius. (Euseb., Hist. Eccles., iii, 36.)

[182] Chrys. Hom. 74, de Martyr.

[183] Kip, p. 88—from Maitland, p. 146. Sometimes the ardour for martyrdom rose into a passion, or indeed an epidemic. Eusebius says, (Hist. Eccles., viii, 6,) that in Nicomedia “Men and women with a certain divine and inexpressible alacrity rushed into the fire.”

[184]

Inscripta Christo pagina immortalis est,
Excepit adstans angelus coram Deo.
Et quæ locutus martyr, et quæ pertulit:
Nec verbum solùm disserentis condidit,
Omnis notata est sanguinis dimensio,
Quæ vis doloris, quive segmenti modus:
Guttam cruoris ille nullam perdidit.—Peristeph.

[185] The pagans called the martyrs βιαθάνατοι, or self-murderers.

[186] Tertul., Apol., c. 50.

[187] As early as the middle of the second century Justin Martyr says, “There is not a nation, Greek or Barbarian, or of any other name, even of those that wander in tribes or live in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgiving are not offered to the Father and Creator of the universe in the name of the crucified Jesus.” The decree of Maximin states that almost all men had abandoned the worship of the gods and joined the Christian sect: Σχεδὸν ἅπαντας ἀνθρώπους, καταλειφθείσης τῆς τῶν θεῶν θρησκείας, τῷ ἔθνει τῶν Χριστιανῶν συμμεμιχότας. Euseb., Hist. Eccles., ix, 9. Lucianus of Antioch says that before the last persecution the greater part of the world, including whole cities, had yielded allegiance to the truth—Pars pæne mundi jam major huic veritati adstipulatur; urbes integrae; etc.—Trans. of Euseb. by Rufinus.

[188] Even the sanguine imagination of Tertullian cannot conceive the possibility of this event. “Sed et Cæsares credidissent super Christo,” he exclaims, “si aut Cæsares non essent seculo necessario, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Cæsares.”—Apol., c. 21.

[189] Οἷά τις ἡλίου βολή.—Euseb., Hist. Eccles., ii, 3.

[190] Ibid., ix, 1; x, 9.

[191] Ibid., x, 4. Literally, “They are no more because they never were.” In his eloquent oration on the renovation of the cathedral of Tyre Eusebius applies, with remarkable elegance and propriety, the promises of Scripture concerning the restoration of the exiled Jews from Babylon and the final establishment of the church of God (Psa. lxxx; xcviii; Isa. lii; liv) to the condition of Christianity in his day. The above citations are given almost in his very words.

[192] A few years after the death of Constantine the Emperor Julian found at this celebrated shrine of Apollo, on the festival of the god, instead of the hecatombs of oxen and the crowds of worshippers which he expected, only a single goose, and a pale and solitary priest in the decayed and deserted temple.—Gibbon, ii, 448, Am. ed.

[193] See a thoughtful essay on this topic in Froude’s Short Studies on Great Subjects, First Series.

[194] The church itself experienced many corruptions before the date of Constantine. Among the recent converts from paganism a crop of heresies sprang up. “When the sacred choir of the Apostles,” says Hegesippus, (apud Euseb., iii, 32,) “had passed away, then the combinations of impious error arose by the fraud and delusion of false teachers.” The schisms of Marcian and Novatian, Valentine and Montanus, early rent the Christian community. The exclusive ecclesiasticism of Cyprian, the episcopal assumptions of Victor, and the secular ambition and rapacity of Paul of Samosata, were portents of the spirit which afterward bore such bitter fruit. That pride and luxury had begun to invade the simplicity of primitive times, which, when the church basked in the sunshine of imperial favour, so completely withered its spiritual power.

CHAPTER III.

THE DISUSE AND ABANDONMENT OF THE CATACOMBS.

From the period of the Edict of Milan, A. D. 313, a new era opens in the history of the Catacombs. Christianity, emerging from those gloomy recesses where she had so long hidden in darkness, walked boldly in the light of day. She laid aside her lowly garb, put on the trappings of imperial state, and at length, unhappily, exchanged her primitive simplicity for worldly power and splendour. But therein was her danger. The shadow of that power shed a upas influence over the church. The unhallowed union between the bride of heaven and a sinful world gave birth to corruption and religious error. Pampered when subservient to the policy of the Cæsars, she soon became its willing instrument, and stained her snowy robes by complicity with imperial vice. Christianity became at length “a truth grown false,” and men, to use the fine figure of D’Aubigné, forsaking the precious perfume of faith, bowed down before the empty vessel that had contained it.

The influence of Constantine seems to have been fraught with more of evil than of good to the new religion that he espoused. He appears to have adopted the Christian name from expediency rather than from conviction, and, stained with the kindred blood of wife and son and nephew, ill deserves the title of Saint, bestowed in fulsome adulation by a venal church. Even the priests of the false gods, aghast with horror at his crimes, exclaimed, “There is no expiation for deeds

like these.” He used both pagans and Christians, both orthodox and heretics, as instruments for his political purposes. His object seems to have been rather to raise and strengthen a hierarchy of ecclesiastical supporters than to assist the cause of truth; and he imposed on the organization of the Greek and Latin churches that monarchical and secular character which they have ever since retained.[195]

The transfer of the seat of empire from the Tiber to the Bosphorus left Christianity to develop itself at Rome less trammelled by imperial influence; and, perhaps, in a less corrupt form than in the East. After the edict of toleration, the places of worship which had been closed or destroyed during the persecution were opened, or rebuilt with a magnificence rivalling that of the ancient temples. But the Catacombs still continued invested with a deep and pathetic interest, as the cradle of the faith, the refuge of the church during the storm of

calamity, and the sepulchre of the saints and martyrs. Hence numerous basilicas or oratories were erected over or near the entrances of the ancient cemeteries in honour of the holy dead.

On the full recognition of Christianity the necessity for subterranean sepulture ceased; hence it fell gradually into disuse, and was superseded by burial in or near the now numerous basilicas. Even the Roman bishops were no longer interred in the so-called Papal Crypt, but in churches above ground; and this example was soon generally followed. “The inscriptions with consular dates,” says Dr. Northcote, “probably furnish us with a sufficiently accurate guide to the relative proportions of the two modes of burial. From A. D. 338 to A. D. 360 two out of three burials appear to have taken place in the subterranean portion of the cemeteries, while from A. D. 364 to A. D. 369 the proportions are equal. During the next two years hardly any notices of burials above ground appear, but after that subterranean crypts fell rapidly into disuse.”[196]

It is a remarkable circumstance, here indicated, that in the years A. D. 370 and 371 a sudden and general return to subterranean sepulture took place. This change has been very satisfactorily explained by the contemporary history of the Catacombs. Great injury had already been inflicted on these ancient sepulchres by the practice which had become prevalent of erecting basilicas, more or less sumptuous, over the tombs of the illustrious martyrs of the age of persecution.[197] As the ecclesiastical authorities shrank from disturbing their

remains it became the custom to excavate the ground down to the level of their graves. As these were often in the lower levels of the Catacombs, hundreds of graves were sometimes destroyed in these excavations and constructions.[198] Damasus, bishop of Rome from A. D. 358 to A. D. 384, who was indefatigable in his efforts to protect and, where possible, to restore the Catacombs, endeavoured to prevent this wholesale destruction of these sacred crypts. He explored many of the galleries, which, to preserve inviolate the martyrs’ graves, had been blocked up with earth and stones during the period of persecution. He cleared out[199] and enlarged the passages leading to the more distinguished tombs, and constructed ample flights of stairs for the accommodation of the numerous pilgrims to these sacred shrines. He lined many of the chambers with marble slabs, constructed shafts for the admission of light and air, and supported the crumbling walls and galleries, where necessary, with piers and arches of solid masonry. He also composed numerous metrical inscriptions in honour of the martyrs, which were engraved on marble in a singularly elegant character. There are few of the Catacombs in which traces of his restorations or adornments are not to be found.

The piety or superstition of the wealthy converts to Christianity led them to enlarge the subterranean chapels and martyr-tombs, and to decorate them with

costly marbles, frescoes, mosaics, stucco ornaments, and vaulted roofs. The contemporary tombs and monuments were also on a scale of magnificence before unknown; and the inscriptions assumed a florid and inflated character far different from the simplicity of the primitive ages. The architecture and paintings also indicate, with the increase of wealth and luxury, the decline and fatal eclipse of art.

To the period of Damasus belongs the description, by Prudentius, of the shrine of Hippolytus, part of which has been already quoted.[200] “That little chapel,” he continues, “which contains the cast-off garments of his soul, is bright with solid silver. Wealthy hands have put up glistening tablets, smooth and bright as a concave mirror; and, not content with overlaying the entrance with Parian marble, they have lavished large sums of money on the ornamentation of the work.” It was during the period of the labours of Damasus that the revived interest in the Catacombs was so strikingly manifested by the sudden return to the subterranean mode of burial, and that many of the tombs and chapels received their most elaborate adornment.[201]

The perversion of a natural instinct, beautiful and praiseworthy in itself, became the root of much evil in after times. Our hearts are irresistibly drawn toward

the place where lie the remains of the dear departed in the last long sleep of death. Although we know that only the slumbering dust is there, we love to meditate above their graves, and seem there to hold closer communion with their spirits than elsewhere. Especially would the early Christians be drawn to the tombs of their fathers in the faith, many of whom were also their fathers in the flesh, whose saintly patience or glorious martyrdom had hallowed their memory for evermore. They would naturally be led to adorn and beautify their sepulchres, and in pious devotion to meditate and pray beside their honoured remains. This innocent, and even laudable, practice gradually, and perhaps inevitably, led to abuses. The admiration of the martyr’s faith and patience and heroic spirit gradually intensified into superstitious veneration for his body, blood, bones, ashes, clothes, staff, or any personal relic. Judaism regarded the touching of aught connected with the dead as involving a ceremonial pollution; but Christian ideas invested even the crumbling dust of the martyrs with especial sanctity.

The first clear evidence that we have of this feeling is in the case of Ignatius, who suffered under Trajan, A. D. 107. Perhaps from a fear that superstitious reverence might be paid to his remains, he prayed that the wild beasts might become his sepulchre, so that nothing of him might be left.[202] His desire was only partly fulfilled, for “the larger and harder bones remained, which were carried to Antioch and kept as an inestimable treasure left to the Church by the grace which was in the martyr.”[203] Eusebius speaks of the charred remains of Polycarp as “more precious than the richest

jewels, and more tried than gold.”[204] The martyrs blood was esteemed a talisman of especial power. A sponge saturated therewith was sometimes worn as a sacred relic, and it may be as a supernatural amulet, by their friends or relatives. Prudentius describes the spectators of the martyrdom of St. Vincent as dipping their clothes in his blood, that they might keep it as a sort of palladium for successive generations:

Crowds haste the linen vest to stain
With gore distilled from martyr’s vein,
And thus a holy safeguard place
At home, to shield the future race.[205]

In the account of the death of Hippolytus, he describes the gathering of his mangled limbs with a minuteness too revolting for the poetry even of martyrology.[206] With a refinement of cruelty, the persecutors of Gaul cast the remains of the martyrs of Vienne to the dogs, and guarded their lifeless bodies for days, in order to deprive the Christians of the melancholy satisfaction of paying the last sad rites of burial to any fragments that remained.[207]

The primitive Christians justly discriminated between the reverence due to the martyrs and the adoration to be rendered only to the Supreme Being. “We worship Christ as the Son of God,” says the church of Smyrna, “but the martyrs we deservedly love as the disciples and imitators of Our Lord.”[208] “We do not build temples

to our martyrs as gods,” says Augustine, “but only memorials of them as dead men whose spirits live with God; nor do we erect altars or sacrifice to our martyrs, but to the only God, both theirs and ours.”[209] But the enthusiastic feelings of the people at length failed to make this proper distinction, and many even of the theological writers of the day, not foreseeing the disastrous consequences to which the practice would lead, were carried away with the popular current.

One form which this veneration took was that of festivals in honour of the martyrs. “By a noble metaphor,” says Milman,[210] “the day of their death was considered that of their birth to immortality.”[211] The church of Smyrna celebrated the anniversary of their martyred bishop’s passion “with joy and gladness as his natal day.”[212] Tertullian asserts that the practice has the authority of apostolic tradition.[213] These festivals were at first kept with religious solemnity, accompanied by the celebration of the eucharist, often in the rock-hewn chambers of the Catacombs, where a thin tile separated the dead in Christ from the devout worshippers who commemorated the passion of their common Lord. During the ages of persecution this was a rite of deep and touching significance. Frequently his partaking of that feast was the recipient’s own consecration to the martyr’s death. But after the peace of the church it often degenerated into a scene of excess and vulgar revelry, more like the pagan banquets for the dead than a Christian solemnity. Indeed, they were avowedly employed in

ignoble appeal to the baser appetites, as counter-attractions to the pagan feasts, to induce the poor to attend the festivals of the church.[214] This degradation of an originally praiseworthy practice, and the intensifying and abject superstition to which it led, provoked the taunts of the heathen and the censure of the more devout and thoughtful Christians. The philosophic Julian recoiled from the adoration of relics as from pollution. Another pagan writer contrasts the veneration of obscure martyrs’ names, hateful to the gods and to men,[215] with the refined and poetic cultus of Minerva and Jupiter.[216] Vigilantius, the Spanish presbyter, strongly condemns the “ashes worshippers and idolaters;” while, on the other hand, Jerome magnifies the sanctity of these relics, “around which,” he says, “the souls of the martyrs are constantly hovering to hear the prayers of the supplicant.” After in vain trying to restrain their abuses and excesses, the ecclesiastical authorities were at length compelled to suppress these festivals.

The reverence paid to the relics of the martyrs had two remarkable and contrary effects. Having led in the first place to the adornment of their sepulchres, it ultimately caused their destruction and spoliation. In consequence of this feeling it became an object of ambition to share the resting-place of those who had been so holy in life and so glorious in death. Hence new graves were often excavated in the back of the arcosolia, cutting

through the beautiful frescoes with which they were adorned, and mutilating or destroying the paintings.[217] The cubicula were also defaced, their symmetry injured, and their construction endangered by similar imprudent excavations.

Numerous inscriptions inform us that many persons secured this privilege during their lives, as the following examples: IN CRYPTA NOBA RETRO SANCTOS EMERVM SE VIVAS BALERA ET SABINA (sic)—“In the new crypt behind the saints: Valeria and Sabina bought it for themselves while living.” ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΠΑΥΛΕΙΝΑ ΚΕΙΤΑΙ ΜΑΚΑΡΩ ΕΝ ΧΩΡΩ—“Here lies Paulina in the place of the blessed.” Another inscription of the period of Damasus tells of one who was buried “within the thresholds of the saints, a thing which many desire and few obtain.”[218] Sometimes the name of the saint or martyr is mentioned, as in one which records the purchase of a grave, “at the tomb of Hippolytus, above the arcosolium,”[219] and another at that of Cornelius.[220] So also the tomb of Cecilia was separated from that of one of the primitive bishops by scarcely an inch of rock. Great injury was thus done to the Catacombs by the indiscreet devotion of those who observed this practice. Many pilgrims to the graves of the martyrs, deriving, they thought, a spiritual benefit from proximity to their sacred dust, took up their abode in little cells beside their graves while alive, and shared their sepulchres in death. In answer to the inquiry of his friend Paulinus of Nola, whether it was a profit to the soul that the body should be

buried near the shrine of some saint,[221] Augustine wrote a special treatise[222] in justification of the practice; although how the martyrs help men, he confesses, is a question beyond his understanding. We have already seen the very strong opinion entertained on this subject by Jerome, the contemporary of Augustine. More in accordance with reason and scripture is the sentiment contained in the epitaph of the archdeacon Sabinus, lately found at San Lorenzo:

NIL IVVAT IMMO GRAVAT TVMVLIS HAERERE PIORVM
SANCTORVM MERITIS OPTIMA VITA PROPE EST
CORPORE NON OPVS EST ANIMA TENDAMVS AD ILLOS
QVAE BENE SALVA POTEST CORPORE ESSE SALVS.[223]

It nothing helps, but rather hinders, to stick close to the tombs of the saints; a good life is the best approach to their merits. Not with the body but with the soul must we draw nigh to them; when that is well saved it may prove the salvation of the body also.

Even Damasus, who, if any ought, might claim sepulture with the sainted dead, shrank from disturbing their remains, and was buried in a tomb above the Catacomb of Callixtus. Of the subterranean crypt he says:

HIC FATEOR DAMASVS VOLVI MEA CONDERE MEMBRA
SED TIMVI SANCTOS CINERES VEXARE PIORVM.

Here I, Damasus, confess I wished to lay my limbs, but I feared to vex the holy ashes of the saints.

The desire for communion with the holy dead continued throughout successive generations. Multitudes of pilgrims still visited the shrines of the martyrs, and, after the wont of travellers, left traces of their presence in the numerous graffiti which are written on the walls. Some of these are names of classical form, as Leo, Felix,

Maximus, Theophilus; others, written in less accessible places, are of later date and of foreign character, Spanish, British, or German, as Ildebrand, Ethelred, Lupo, Bonizo, Joannes. The names are frequently accompanied with the letters Pb., or Presb., the indication of the ecclesiastical grade of the writer.

Many of the loftiest dignitaries in church and state, popes and prelates, princes and nobles, kings and queens, and even some illustrious wearers of the imperial purple, continued to be brought, often from afar, throughout the period of the Middle Ages, to lie in death as near as possible to the hallowed dust of the early martyrs and confessors of the faith. Among them were some stained with blood, who hoped to expiate their crimes by their religious austerities, and to enter paradise through the intercession of the saints near whose remains their bones were laid. Several petty kings of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, some expelled by their subjects or rivals, others flying from the post of duty, muttered their prayers and counted their beads in the crypts of the Catacombs, and were buried in their vicinity. The following are a few of the more illustrious, taken from the list of the Abbé Gaume:[224] Popes Leo I., Gregory I., II., and III., Leo XI.; the Emperor Honorius and Mary his wife, Valentinian and Otho II.; Cedwalla, king of the West-Saxons; Conrad, king of the Mercians; Offa and Ina, Saxon kings, with Eldiburga, wife of the latter; the Empress Agnes, Queen Charlotte of Cyprus, and the Countess Matilda, who so enriched the papal see by her donations. These were buried, not in the Catacombs, but in the basilicas erected over

them, which were considered to share their sanctity. Thus, as St. Chrysostom remarks, referring to the tradition concerning the sepulchres of St. Peter and St. Paul, kings laid aside their crowns at the tombs of the fisherman and the tentmaker.[225]

During the latter part of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century the management of the Catacombs seems to have been no longer in the hands of the ecclesiastical authorities, but under the control of the fossors,[226] with whom the bargain for interment was made by the friends of the deceased. Numerous inscriptions occur in which this bargain is recorded, together with the names of the buyers and sellers, and sometimes those of the witnesses to the contract, and even the price that was paid, as in the following examples: COSTAT NOS EMISSE IANVARIVM ET BRITIAM LOCVM ANTE DOMNA EMERITA A FOSSORIBVS BVRDONE ET MICINMO ET MVSCO RATIONE AVRI SOLIDVM VN SEMES (sic)—“It is unquestionable that we, Januarius and Britia, bought a place in front of [the tomb of] Lady Emerita[227] from the fossors Burdo, Micinus, and Muscus, for the consideration of one solidus and a half of gold”—(about $7.) EMPTVM LOCVM A BARTIMISTVM VISOMVM HOC EST ET PRETIVM DATVM A FOSSORE HILARO ID EST FOLN ... PRESENTIA SEVERI FOSS. ET LAVRENT—“The place bought by Bartimistus, that is, a bisomus; and the price paid to the fossor Hilarus, 1400 folles, (about $5 65,) in the presence of the fossors Severus and Laurence.” The fossors also probably prepared and engraved the funeral slabs, as seems to be implied in the following:

LOCV MARMARORI (sic) QVODRISOMVM—“A quadruple tomb [bought] of the stonecutter.”[228]

In the following illustration from the Catacomb of Callixtus the fossor is seen standing in a cubiculum lined with graves, and surrounded by the implements of his labour. On his shoulder is the mattock with which he dug the friable tufa, and in his hand the lamp with the spike by which it was fastened to the rock while he worked. At his feet lie the compasses for marking out the loculi, and over his head we read the simple epitaph,

“Diogenes the fossor, buried in peace on the eighth before the calends of October.”

Fig. 23.—Diogenes the Fossor.

The accompanying engraving from Aringhi shows the fossor actively engaged in excavating the vaulted gallery by the light of the lamp suspended near him. The marks made by the mattocks, in the manner here shown, may be seen in the walls of the passages as plainly as though the fossor had but just ceased his labours.

Fig. 24.—The Fossor at Work.

After a brief return to subterranean burial in the time of Damasus the practice fell rapidly into disuse, and after A. D. 410 scarcely a single certain example can be found. In that fatal year the blast of the Gothic trumpet, startling the ear of midnight[229] in the streets of Rome, proclaimed its capture by the hosts of the stern Alaric. Amid the social and civil commotions that accompanied the breaking up of the empire, there was neither time nor means to adorn the sepulchres of the saints, and the Catacombs fell into inevitable neglect and decay. Of this year not a single sepulchral inscription remains, a striking indication of the anarchy and confusion prevailing, when even the customary honours were not paid to the dead.

Like a mighty deluge sweeping away and overwhelming the art and civilization of the South, came the invasion of the barbarous hordes of the North; yet like a deluge fertilizing and enriching the soil, and leaving germs of future fruitfulness behind. Having conquered the world with its arms and corrupted it with its vices, the mighty fabric of the Roman empire lost internal strength and cohesion, and began to crumble to pieces. The secret causes of its dissolution had long been stealthily at work, and its fall at last was utter and complete. Thrice in the space of three years (A. D. 408, 409, 410) Rome was besieged by the hosts of Alaric, and, in vain purchasing respite by a costly ransom, she was at last given up as a prey to the bold, eager, and greedy savagery of the North. The pillage of the world, accumulated during a thousand years of conquest, left, however, little pretext for violating the resting-places of the dead. As the rude soldiery gloated with hungry eyes on the lavish gold and silver, the precious jewels and sumptuous vestments on every side, they recked little for mere works of art, and many a porphyry vase and priceless statue was wantonly shivered by barbarian battle-axe. Nevertheless, the conqueror respected the basilicas of the apostles and the sacred vessels of their shrines, declaring that he made not war upon the saints.[230]

But succeeding conquerors were less scrupulous or more rapacious. Five times in the course of the fifth century, and as often in the sixth, the Eternal City, “that was almighty named,” was besieged by her implacable foes. The churches were plundered of the massy plate and other treasures, and even the dim crypts

of the Catacombs echoed the clanging tread of the armed soldiery as with sacrilegious hands they stripped the shrines of the saints of their costly adorning, and rifled the graves of the dead in search for hidden treasure.[231] Each successive invasion to which Rome was exposed renewed these scenes of desecration and robbery. The Huns, the Goths, the Lombards, and, later, the Normans and Saracens, were rivals in spoliation and destruction.

During the intervals of peace the Roman pontiffs endeavoured to restore the Catacombs and re-adorn the martyr shrines, which were still the objects of pious veneration. They were also used during the barbarian invasions, as during the pagan persecutions, as places of refuge. Boniface I., having been for some time concealed in the Catacomb of Felicitas, afterwards elaborately ornamented it. Symmachus and Vigilius were also especially diligent in their care for the Catacombs. The latter restored many of the Damasine epitaphs which had been destroyed.[232] We read also of popes of

the sixth and two following centuries restoring the cemeteries and making provision for the celebration of the martyrs’ festivals at their subterranean shrines. The sculpture and frescoes of the period of course exhibited the depraved taste and debased execution of the times.

A new element of destruction came now into play. This was the wholesale translation of the bodies of the saints from the Catacombs to the churches of the city, in order to save them from profanation by Astolphus and his sacrilegious Lombards. These pious robbers ransacked and systematically despoiled the ancient cemeteries, and carried off the relics of the martyrs. Pope Stephen III. thereupon published a letter from St. Peter himself menacing with eternal damnation the violators of these hallowed tombs. These spiritual terrors, however, were found insufficient to protect the sacred relics. The work of translation was resumed, and Pope Paul I. records the removal in A. D. 761 of the bodies of over a hundred “martyrs, confessors, and virgins of Christ, with hymns and spiritual songs, into the city of Rome.” He complains also of the neglect into which the Catacombs had fallen. Their deeper recesses were given up to owls and bats, and nearer the entrance the prowling fox or jackal found a covert. There, too, the Campagnian shepherds frequently folded their flocks, and “converted the sacred places into stables and dunghills.” They became, also, the lurking places of thieves and debtors, outlaws and bandits, who took refuge in their tangled labyrinths.

We have observed the practice in the fourth century of building churches over the martyrs’ tombs. The natural reverence for their remains soon passed into a superstitious veneration and belief in their miraculous efficacy. Even such acute minds as those of Origen,

Chrysostom, and Ambrose seem infected with this superstition.[233] It soon became considered essential to the consecration of a church that it should be hallowed by some holy relics. These were placed not only on the altar, but in the sides of portals, to be kissed by the devout on entering.[234] The furnishing of these relics became a gainful trade. St. Augustine complains of certain vagabond monks who went about selling relics of the martyrs, if indeed martyrs they were.[235] In consequence of this practice a Theodosian law of the year A. D. 386 forbids the removal of any body that was buried, or the tearing asunder or sale of the remains of a martyr.[236] In consequence of the number of spurious relics, the fourth Council of Carthage, in A. D. 401, prohibited the use of any whose genuineness could not be authenticated.[237] Martin of Tours narrates how he discovered, by summoning the ghost of a so-called martyr, that the revered relics were only those of a common thief.[238] The Empress Constantina wrote to Gregory

the Great, at the end of the sixth century, for the head of St. Paul, in order to consecrate a new church. He replied that he could not divide the bodies of the saints, and declared that the danger of invading their tombs was sometimes even fatal.[239] But this pious reverence gave place to a more mercenary spirit, and the trade in relics became a traffic of infamy and disgrace. Not only were the bodies of the so-called martyrs torn asunder and their limbs sold to diverse and distant places, but with sacrilegious fraud the relics of favourite saints were multiplied till as many different cities claimed to have their only true and genuine heads, arms, or bodies, as contended for the honour of being the birth-place of Homer.[240]

These relics were endowed in popular apprehension with most miraculous powers. They emitted a delightful fragrance that ravished the senses. A fleshless skull declared the name and martyrdom of its owner. The bones of St. Lawrence moved in their grave to make room for those of another saint. The liquefaction of a martyr’s blood may still be witnessed by the faithful on the anniversary of St. Januarius at Naples.[241] If we may credit numerous traditions, these wonder-working

human remains healed the sick,[242] raised the dead, and, more difficult still, converted heretics to the true faith. Nay, the mere contact with the brandea or handkerchief from the martyr’s tomb, the filings of his chains, or the oil from the lamp before his shrine, communicated spiritual as well as physical benefit. These sacred relics possessed a talismanic power to protect from evil. They were borne into battle to avert the hurtling death and to blunt the edge of the sword. They were affixed to towers as a safeguard against the thunderbolt.[243] They were inlaid in the crowns and regalia of kings,[244] and worn in rings and amulets as prophylactics against poison or disease, and they lent an awful sanctity to the oath taken upon the altar.[245]

The slender historical evidence on which idolatrous homage is paid to these relics is seen in the case of the

so-called “Saint Theodosia of Amiens.” Her epitaph, found in a Catacomb near the Salarian Way, reads as follows:

AVRELIAE THEVDOSIAE
BENIGNISSIMAE ET
INCOMPARABILI FEMINAE
AVRELIVS OPTATVS
CONIVGI INNOCENTISSIMAE
NAT · AMBIANA.

Aurelius Optatus to his most innocent wife Aurelia Theudosia, a most gracious and incomparable woman, by nation an Ambian.

The Congregation of Relics decided that Theudosia was both a saint and martyr, and a native of Amiens. Her remains were solemnly conveyed to that city, and on the 12th of October, 1833, they were received with the utmost magnificence by no less than twenty-eight mitred prelates and fifteen hundred other ecclesiastics, placed in a gorgeous shrine, and honoured as in ancient times they honoured a tutelar goddess. Cardinal Wiseman preached on the occasion, and compared the removal of her remains to her native place to that of the patriarch Joseph’s bones from Egypt to Canaan; and Bishop Salinis commended the homage of her relics

“because the martyrs are, after Jesus Christ, also Christs to open heaven to mankind.”[246]

By this practice of the translation of relics Rome broke the chain of positive evidence, and destroyed the tender and pathetic associations connected with the remains of the sainted dead. The martyr’s tomb, in its original position and undisturbed, is an object of intensest interest; but removed to some distant church or abbey and redecorated with florid adornment or theatrical finery, his alleged relics provoke only skepticism or contempt. Indeed, so little attempt at probability is there in the names given to these relics that a Romanist writer, the Abbé Barbier de Montault, confesses that the greater part of the bodies found in the Catacombs wanting proper names have received,

when they were exposed to public veneration, names at haphazard, which have only a vague or general signification, as Felix, Fortunatus, Victor.[247]

We return from this digression to the mediæval history of the Catacombs. The efforts of Stephen III., Adrian I., and Leo III., in the eighth and ninth centuries, to restore their ancient honour and magnificence, were unavailing. The tombs of the saints were continually being abandoned and destroyed. The translation of the sacred relics was renewed with increased energy. Pope Paschal I. was the most zealous agent in the prosecution of this work. An inscription in the church of St. Prassede, which he built for their reception, records the translation thither of 2,300 bodies in a single day, July 20, A. D. 817. Successive popes continued to remove cartloads of relics from the Catacombs in order to enhance the dignity or sanctity of the churches which they built or restored, and as an evidence of their own pious zeal. At this period, probably, the multitude of relics were borne to the Pantheon, since known as St. Maria ad Martyres—

Shrine of all saints and temple of all gods
From Jove to Jesus.[248]

These perpetual spoliations of the Christian cemeteries led to the rapid destruction of many of their galleries and chambers, and to their final abandonment like a worked-out mine—a mine, too, which had been the source of greater riches to the church than treasures of silver or gold. In the removal of the relics of the martyrs the principal motive for the protection or adornment of the Catacombs was taken away, and during the gathering darkness of the Middle Ages they speedily passed out of the knowledge of mankind. In a few of those in the immediate vicinity of some church or monastery a subterranean chapel was still kept open, and an occasional mass was celebrated on the presumed anniversary of the martyr whose name was associated, often erroneously, therewith; or some zealous and adventurous pilgrim might even penetrate their obscure recesses. But a blight had fallen on the once beautiful Campagna. Desolation, pestilence, and death brooded over the deserted plain. Through the natural dilapidations of time, and the spoliations of Saracens, Normans, and Greeks, who successively invaded Italy and wasted the country with fire and sword, the basilicas and oratories of the Byzantine period crumbled to decay or were destroyed, and the monasteries were deserted; their cowled and sandaled occupants, long the sole custodians of the Catacombs, taking refuge within the city walls. The rains of a thousand autumns and the frosts of as many winters caused the crumbling of the luminari, the falling in of the roofs, and ruin of the galleries. The knowledge of the past was lost in the gathering gloom of the dark ages, so that in an enumeration of the Roman Catacombs in the fourteenth century only three are mentioned, and these were connected

with some church. In the fifteenth century but one, that of Sebastian, was known.

Yet there is evidence that some of the galleries were accessible, and were used for dark and sinister purposes, in keeping with their gloomy and desolate character. During the lawless period from the eleventh to the fifteenth century, when faction and civil war and anarchy laid waste the country, and even the classic mausolea above ground were converted into armed fortresses, these gloomy vaults became the rendezvous of insurgents and conspirators, who feared no betrayal of their bloody secrets by the silent sleepers in their narrow cells. In their dark recesses were concocted those “treasons, stratagems, and spoils” that desolated the land. Frequently armed bands of the retainers of hostile houses—the Montagues and Capulets of the day—met in these subterranean battle-grounds, and the war-cry of Guelph and Ghibelline, of Colonna and Orsini, rang through the hollow corridors, disturbing the quiet of the graves. Bloodshed and cruelty often desecrated the spot sacred to religion and the ashes of the sainted dead. Petrarch thus describes these unhallowed uses of the Catacombs:

They are become like robbers’ caves,
So that only the good are denied entrance;
And among altars and saintly statues
Every cruel enterprise is planned.[249]

During the period of the “Babylonish Captivity,” when the Papal See was removed from the banks of the Tiber

to those of the Rhone—from the protection of the fortress of St. Angelo to the castled heights of Avignon—the decay of every thing pertaining to the church in Italy was precipitated. The city of Rome, which depended for its prosperity entirely upon its ecclesiastical pomps and pageants, became impoverished and almost deserted. The Campagna changed to a wilderness, and the entrances to the Catacombs were choked with rubbish or overgrown with tangled thickets and gigantic weeds. Many of these entrances were also walled up by the civic authorities to prevent their becoming the resort of robbers, and for the safety of the inhabitants.

During the short and tumultuous career of that strange reformer, Colonna di Rienzi, (1347-1354,) some of the hidden crypts are mentioned as the scene of the plots and counterplots of that troublous time; and, like the sewers and Catacombs of Paris during the Revolution, and the cloacæ of Rome in time of proscription and civil war, they became places of refuge and concealment. On the eve of his massacre Rienzi was urged to seek safety in those ancient sanctuaries of the persecuted church, but he replied, as Nero is said to have done thirteen centuries before, that he would not bury himself alive.[250]

With the exception of these rare allusions there is little mention of the Catacombs in the chronicles of the Middle Ages, and they became in course of time virtually unknown. They were not, however, entirely unvisited. The cemetery of Sebastian was never quite forgotten, but was always open to pilgrims; and even in the

darkest period there seem to have been some who, inspired by devotion or curiosity, penetrated the most accessible crypts, and left inscribed upon the walls the date of their visit. Thus, in one place we find a record of a bishop of Pisa and his companions who visited the Catacombs early in the fourteenth century. Another graffito, with the names of three persons and the date A. D. 1321, reads thus: “Gather together, O Christians, in these caverns, to read the holy books, to sing hymns in honour of the saints and martyrs who, having died in the Lord, lie buried here; to sing psalms for those who are now dying in the faith. There is light in this darkness. There is music in these tombs.”[251]

On one of the graves were found a small silver-gilt coronet, with the date A. D. 1340, and a palm leaf worked in silver. In another crypt are written six names—German, in Latinized form—with a cross after each, and beneath, the date A. D. 1397.[252] They were probably a company of German priests on a pilgrimage to the Eternal City and its sacred shrines. In two or three cubicula in the Catacomb of Callixtus are graffiti recording the visits of certain Franciscan friars in the fifteenth century. Brother Lawrence of Sicily, over date January 17, 1451, records that with twenty others he had come to visit the holy place.[253] In 1467 some Scottish pilgrims,[254] and two years after an abbot of St. Sebastian, with a large party,[255] left records of their visits to this Catacomb. The names of Pomponio Leto and other literati of the Roman Academy have also been found in several of the crypts. These men, however,

although the avowed lovers of antiquity,[256] were enthusiastic only in the pursuit of heathen learning, and justly merited the reproach of being more pagan than Christian. With the exception of such infrequent and transient visits, it would appear that this priceless treasury of Christian archæology and legacy of the primitive church to the present age was completely forgotten till it was revealed to the eyes of a wondering world by the explorations of the sixteenth and following century.

[195] Zosimus. His profession of Christianity provoked the scorn of the apostate Julian.—Ibid.

Scott compares him to a prodigal who strips an aged parent of the ornaments of her youth in order to decorate a flaunting paramour. But New Rome shared the decline of the mother city, as a graft taken from an old tree partakes of the decay of the parent stem. As the ancient liberties died out, the gorgeous but degrading despotisms of the East usurped their place. The emperors assumed the style and titles of gods. The most unmanly adulation was at length lavished on the slave or herdsman elevated by capricious fortune to the throne of the world. At the time of the princess Anna Comnena this degradation seems to have reached its nadir. “Your Eternity” was the blasphemous epithet of the ephemeral puppet flaunting for a moment in the livery of infamy. “If I may speak and live,” whispered with bated breath the titled slave—Prospathaire, or Acolyte—who stood nearest the throne, shading his eyes with his hands, as if overpowered by the effulgence of the imperial countenance. The rude Latin Crusaders made short work of these lofty titles and this solemn etiquette.

[196] Roma Sotterranea, pp. 95, 96. During the lifetime of Constantine subterraneous sepultures seem to have been generally prevalent.

[197] These were called martyria or memoriæ. See Euseb., Vit. Const., iii, 48.

[198] The effects of this practice are apparent at S. Agnese fuori le Mura, erected over the tomb of the virgin martyr, and at San Lorenzo, where the galleries of the Catacomb of Cyriaca have been exposed and in part destroyed.

[199] In extending the Catacombs for the purpose of burial it was sometimes found easier to cut new galleries at a higher level, using the bed of earth in the old as the floor of the new. Sometimes the new galleries cut right through the loculi of the old.

[200] Chap. i, [p. 11]. To the same period belongs the description of the Catacombs by Jerome, quoted on [page 36]. Jerome at one time acted as secretary to Damasus.

[201] St. Ambrose, about this time, censures the constructing of costly sepulchres, as if they were to be the receptacle of the soul instead of the body.—Frustra struunt homines pretiosa sepulchra, quasi ea animæ, nec solius corporis, receptacula essent.—De Bono Mortis.

Basil urges men to prepare their funeral by works of piety while they live. “For what need have you,” he asks, “of a sumptuous monument, or a costly entombing?”—Hom. in Divites.

[202] Ignat., Ep. ad Rom., § iv. Euseb., Hist. Eccles., iii, 36.

[203] Acts of Martyrdom, § xii.

[204] Hist. Eccles., iv, 15.

[205]

Plerique vestem linteam
Stillante tingunt sanguine,
Tutamen ut sacrum suis
Domi reservent posteris.—Peristeph., v.

[206]

Hic humeros, truncasque manus et brachia, et ulnas,
Et genua, et crurum fragmina nuda legit.—Ibid., iv.

[207] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., v, 1.

[208] Ibid., iv, 15.

[209] Nos martyribus nostris non templa sicut diis, sed memorias sicut hominibus mortuis, quorum apud Deum vivant spiritus, fabricamus; nec ibi erigimus altaria, in quibus sacrificemus martyribus, sed uni Deo et martyrum et nostro.—De. Civ. Dei, xxii, 10.

[210] Hist. of Christianity, book iv, c. 2.

[211] Hence called Natalitia, Γενέθλια.

[212] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., iv, 15.

[213] De Coron. Mil., c. ii.

[214] Diesque festos, post eos, quos relinquebant, alienos in honorem sanctorum martyrum vel non simili sacrilegio, quamvis simili luxu celebrantur.—Augustin., Epis. xxix. See also Boldetti, Osservazioni sopra i cimiteri dei SS. Martiri, p. 46.

[215] Diisque hominibusque odiosa nomina.—Aug., Epis., xvi.

[216] Ibid.

[217] See [Figs. 12] and [76].

[218] “Intra limina sanctorum, quod multi cupiunt et rari accipiunt.”

[219] “At Ippolytu super arcosoliu,” (sic.)

[220] “Ad Santum Cornelium.” See also the epitaph on [p. 132.]

[221] “Apud sancti alicujus memoriam.”

[222] De Curâ pro Mortuis Gerendâ, written about A. D. 421.

[223] Bullettino, 1864, 33.

[224] Les Trois Romes, tom. iv, p. 39. Aringhi gives a similar list in his chapter, De imperatoribus ac regibus, qui apud Vaticanum sepulturæ traditi sunt.—Roma Subterranea, lib. ii, c. 9.

[225] Chrys., Quod Christus sit Deus. See legend, [p. 186].

[226] From fodere, fossum, to dig.

[227] Saint Emerita suffered martyrdom during the Valerian persecution.

[228] Jerome strongly censures the making merchandise of the resting-places of the dead—Quì sepulchra venditant, et non coguntur ut accepiant pretium, sed a nolentibus etiam extorquent.—Quæst. Heb. in Gen. xxiii.

[229] “Nocte Moab capta est, nocte cecidit murus ejus!” exclaims Jerome.—Ad Principiam.

[230] Gibbon, iii, 283. Am. Ed.

[231] The following lines by Pope Vigilius, A. D. 537, describe this event:

Dum peritura Getæ posuissent castra sub urbem,

Moverunt sanctis bella nefanda prius,

Totaque sacrilego verterunt corde sepulcra,

Martyribus quondam rite sacrata piis.

“Whilst the Goths had placed their camp, soon to perish, before the city, they first waged unhallowed war against the saints, and with sacrilegious mind destroyed whole sepulchres once solemnly consecrated to the pious martyrs.”

During the fifth and sixth centuries cemeteries were opened within the walls in consequence of the peril of venturing beyond the gates.

[232]

DIRVTA VIGILIVS NAM POSTHAEC PAPA GEMISCENS

HOSTIBVS EXPVLSIS OMNE NOVAVIT OPVS.—Inscr. in Lateran.

“Pope Vigilius, afterwards lamenting the demolished monuments, renewed the entire work after the expulsion of the enemy.”

[233] These Fathers quoted such passages as 2 Kings xiii, 21; Eccles. xlviii, 13, 14; xlix, 10-15; Acts v, 15, and xix, 11, in proof of the efficacy of relics.

[234] Hence in the celebration of the mass the priest kisses the altar and invokes pardon “by the relics of the saints that are there.”—See Missal. Optatus tells of a lady who used to kiss the relics of he knew not what martyr, if martyr it were, before communion.—Ante spiritualem cibum et potum, os nescio cujus martyris, si tamen martyris, libare dicebatur.—Oper., lib. i.

[235] Membra martyrum, si tamen martyrum, venditant.—Aug., de Oper. Monach.

[236] Humatum corpus nemo ad alium locum transferat; nemo martyrem distrahat, nemo mercetur.—Cod. Theod., De Sepulchris Violatis, leg. 7.

[237] Omnino nulla memoria martyrum probabiliter acceptetur nisi aut ibi corpus, aut aliquæ certe reliquæ sint.—Conc. Carth., v, Can. 14.

[238] Sulpitii Severi, Vita Martini, cap. viii. Julian recoiled from relic worship as from the stench of dead men’s bones. He compared the churches to whited sepulchres full of rottenness and of all uncleanness.

[239] Greg. Max., Epis. iv.

[240] At the time of the Reformation the reputed fragments of the true cross, it is said, would have freighted a large ship. The relics of the saints were hawked about the country from house to house by pedlers who farmed their sale, paying a percentage to the church or abbey to which they belonged. D’Aubigné’s Hist. Ref., i., c. 3.

[241] On one occasion the blood refused to liquefy, on account, said the priests, of the malign influence of the French. The French general sent word that unless the miracle took place within an hour his cannon should blow the church about their ears. The blood liquefied immediately.

[242] The affidavit of its subject attests the miraculous cure, probably of hysteria or hypochondria, recently wrought by a relic from the Catacombs at the Hôtel Dieu in Montreal, Canada.

[243] A nail of the true cross, says Gregory of Tours, thrown into the Adriatic by Queen Radegunda, made it thenceforth one of the safest seas to navigate instead of one of the stormiest.—De Gloria Martyrum. Of another, Constantine made a bit for his horse.

[244] The Iron Crown of Lombardy the Roman Congregation of Relics has declared to be a sacred talisman, being made of a nail of the Crucifixion, although the first authentic mention of it occurs in the midnight of the dark ages, A. D. 888. From the time of Charles V. no sovereign ventured to wear this sacred crown till Napoleon, seeking to consecrate his usurped authority, with his own hand placed it on his head at Milan, A. D. 1805, with the vaunting words, “God hath given it me; let him take heed who touches it.”—Dieu me l’a donnée; gare à qui la touche. It was carried off from the cathedral of Monza by the Austrians in 1859.

[245] On marble tablets in the Church of St. Prassede, in Rome, is an enumeration of its precious treasures, among which are a tooth of St. Peter and one of St. Paul, part of the chemise of the Virgin Mary—de camisia beatæ Mariæ Virginis, part of Christ’s girdle—de cingulo D. N. Jesu Christi, part of Moses’ rod, some of the earth on which Christ prayed, also of the reed and sponge, three spines of the crown of thorns, part of the towel with which he washed his disciples’ feet, part of the swaddling clothes—pannis—in which he was wrapped at his nativity, and part of the seamless robe—de veste inconsutili. The whole of this robe was formerly exhibited at Trêves, where the deluded votaries of this Christian idolatry invoked its intercession in the formula, “Holy Coat, pray for us!” In the year 1854, in the official “Gazette of Vienna,” it was announced that the tooth of St. Peter, given by Pius IX. to the Emperor of Austria, would be for four days exposed to the sight and homage of the faithful. Before the Reformation these relics were still more puerile and absurd, and calculated to provoke a smile or sneer as the humourist or the cynic predominated in the observer. At the Church of All Saints at Wittemberg, says D’Aubigné, were shown a fragment of Noah’s ark, some soot from the furnace of the Three Hebrew Children, and nineteen thousand other relics. At Schaffhausen was exhibited the breath of St. Joseph that Nicodemus had received in his glove. At Wurtemberg might be seen a feather plucked from the wing of the archangel Michael. (Hist. Ref., i, c. 3.) Heywood, in his interlude of “The Four P’s,” one of whom was a Pardoner, among his “relykes,” enumerates “Of All-hallowes (that is, All-Saints) the blessed jaw-bone,” the great toe of the Trinity, and others in which is a still stranger mixture of absurdity and blasphemy. (See “Inquiry into the Origin of the Reformation,” by the present writer, in Evangel. Repos., London, Eng., Feb., 1865.) Augustine says the dung-heap on which Job sat was still visited in his day! In St. Peter’s at Rome is exhibited a coin said to be one of the thirty pieces of gold (?) for which Judas betrayed his Master. They were made, according to the legend, by Terah, Abraham’s father, who was a famous artificer under King Nimrod. They were the price of the field of Ephron, and also the coins with which Joseph was bought, and with which his brethren purchased corn in Egypt. Despite the anachronism, Moses is said to have given them as a dowry to the Queen of Sheba, who presented them to Solomon. Nebuchadnezzar, it is alleged, carried them away, and the Magi brought them back as an offering to Christ. Finally Mary cast them into the treasury of the Temple, whence the priests gave them to Judas for his perfidy. (See Bingham, xiv, 4, § 18.)

The stone upon which the sovereigns of England are crowned is, according to a venerable tradition, that which formed Jacob’s pillow at Bethel.

In the cathedral of Genoa is deposited the wonderful cup known in history as the Holy Grail, which in times of yore was the object of so many knightly quests, and more recently the subject of so many stately epics. It was a vessel composed of a single emerald originally, (so runs the legend,) the marvellous cup wherewith Joseph divined—the cup put into the mouth of Benjamin’s sack. It was also the mystical cup of wisdom of Solomon, and, at length, that out of which Christ partook of the Last Supper. Hence its name, San Greal, that is, sanguis realis, the real blood. Joseph of Arimathea brought it to Britain, but it mysteriously disappeared in consequence of the laxness of the times. How it came to Genoa does not clearly appear. From the time of Wolfram von Eschenbach, a minnesinger of the thirteenth century, down to Tennyson and Lowell, this has been a favourite subject of poetry. See an article on the legend, by the writer, in Harper’s Weekly, Feb. 5, 1870.

[246] As recently as the year 1870 the alleged relics of a newly discovered St. Aureliana, a virgin martyr of the third century, who is supposed to have been a member of the family of the Roman emperor Aurelian, were transferred, with many religious ceremonies, from the Catacombs to Cincinnati, in the United States. In the Roman Catholic cathedral at Buffalo, N. Y., is a slab from the Catacombs with the inscription, DP · PEREGRINVS XII KAL · MARTIAS Q · VIXIT · M · —“Peregrinus, buried the twelfth day before the calends of March, who lived ... months.” He was, therefore, an infant; yet he is claimed to be a martyr, and a wax figure of an adult man with gaping wounds exhibits the alleged mode of his death. At its feet is placed what is said to be a phial of the martyr’s blood. In the same church are also what is described as “a large piece of the true cross on which trickled the sacred blood of Christ,” and “particles of the bones of Saints Peter and Paul and of many other holy martyrs.”

Maitland quotes an account from Mabillon of the reverence paid to a certain St. Viar, founded on the discovery of a stone bearing the letters S · VIAR. This was, however, found to be a fragment of the inscription PRAEFECTVS · VIARVM—“Curator of the Ways.” There is absolutely no warrant whatever for such assumptions as these. There is not in the whole range of Christian epigraphy a single contemporary inscription of unquestioned genuineness which can lead to the identification of the remains, name, and date of a primitive martyr.

[247] Le plupart des corps saints trouvés dans les Catacombes manquant de noms propre, ont reçu lorsqu’on les a exposés à la vénération publique, des noms de circonstance, qui n’ont qu’une signification vague; comme Felix, Fortunatus, Victor.—Année Liturgique à Rome, p. 151.

[248] Childe Harold. Boniface IV. is said to have previously transferred twenty-eight cartloads of relics from the Catacombs to this place. He thus, as we read in barbaric verse on his epitaph in the crypt of St. Peter’s, purified the shrine of all the demons, and dedicated it to all the saints:

“—Templa ...
Delubra cunctorum fuerant quæ demonorum (sic)
Hic expurgavit sanctis cunctisque dicavit.”

[249]

Quasi spelunca di ladron son fatti,
Tal ch’à buon solamente uscio si chiude;
E tra le altari, e tra statue ignude,
Ogni impressa crudel par che si tratti.

Canzone xi.

[250] This ancient use of the Catacombs has not been forgotten in modern times. That intrepid pontiff, Pius VII., rather than yield to the demands of the first Napoleon, threatened to retire to those gloomy recesses which had sheltered so many of the primitive bishops.

[251] MacFarlane, p. 36.

[252] Ibid., 49, 50.

[253] “Fuit hic ad visitandum sanctum locum istum.”

[254] “Quidem Scoti hic fuerunt.”

[255] “Cum magnâ cometivâ.”

[256] “Unanimes antiquitatis amatores.”

CHAPTER IV.

THE REDISCOVERY AND EXPLORATION OF THE CATACOMBS.

It would seem that the rediscovery of the Catacombs was providentially reserved to a period especially adapted for their profitable study. In the fullness of time, when the great Reformation was emancipating the minds of men from the trammels of superstition, and long-venerated beliefs and usages were being compared with the still older primitive faith and practice, this marvellous testimony of the purity, simplicity, and piety of the early church was unveiled. These Christian evidences, which have no parallel save in the sacred scriptures themselves, after having been sealed up during the dark ages of ignorance and superstition, were brought to light in a period of intellectual quickening and revived classical learning, which stimulated the minds of men to the study of the past and to the rescue from oblivion of the priceless remains of antiquity. The newly-invented printing-press and the engraver’s burin preserved the record of much that has since perished; and Roman archæologists, seeking in the monuments of antiquity for corroboration of papal doctrine and practice, brought to light the disproof of their existence in the early ages of the church. A rejection of this testimony would invalidate all monumental evidence, whether sacred or secular, concerning the past.

The rediscovery of this subterranean city took place

in the year 1578. Some labourers digging pozzolana in a vineyard on the Salarian Way came suddenly upon an ancient cemetery,[257] with its paintings, inscriptions, sarcophagi, and graves. The event produced a profound sensation in Rome. The city was amazed, says Baronius, who himself examined and described the newly-discovered Catacomb, at finding beneath her suburbs long-concealed Christian colonies.[258] These ancient shrines became again favourite places of devotion. Here, among others, St. Charles Borromeo and St. Philip Neri spent whole nights in prayer.

The earliest systematic explorers of the Catacombs were Alfonso Ciacconio, a Spanish priest, and Philip de Winghe and Jean l’Heureux,[259] two Flemish laymen. The voluminous MSS. and drawings of the two former, however, were never published, and they lie buried in those vast cemeteries of literature, the libraries of Rome, Naples, Brussels, and Paris. The valuable MS. of l’Heureux, the result of twenty years’ labour, although ready for publication, and even licensed for printing, in 1605, remained unprinted for two centuries and a half, when it was given to the public by Padre Garrucci under the appropriate title of Hagioglypta.[260] Such a lengthened period between licensing and publication is probably unparalleled in literary history.

To Antonio Bosio, a native of Malta and an advocate by profession, belongs the honour of first unveiling to the astonished gaze of Europe the wonders of this vast city of the dead. He has well been called the Columbus of this subterranean world. Inspired and sustained by a lofty enthusiasm, he spent six and thirty years groping among those gloomy corridors, deciphering the half-effaced inscriptions, and making drawings of the remains of early Christian art. So habituated did he become to this troglodytic existence that the Cimmerian gloom of the Catacombs was more grateful to his eyes than the light of day, which dazzled and almost blinded him. His labours were prodigious, and often both severe and perilous. He had frequently to force a passage with his own hands through the accumulated rubbish of centuries, and was constantly in danger, in the zeal of exploration, of being lost in the windings of the galleries, from which danger he had some narrow escapes. In his great work he describes himself as rushing along with breathless haste, the desire with which he burned adding wings to his weary feet. Again he is creeping serpent-wise through the low and crumbling passages, consoling himself for the difficulty and discomfort by the thought that this lowly attitude befitted the humble and reverent spirit in which a place consecrated by such memories ought to be approached. But he was rewarded for all his toil by the discovery of “pictures bright with the colours of yesterday, and characters still sharp and angular from the primeval graving tool.”

The elder D’Israeli has cited Bosio as an illustrious example of the enthusiasm of genius. “Taking with him a hermit’s meal for the week,” he remarks, “this new Pliny often descended into the bowels of the earth by lamp-light, clearing away the sand and ruins till

some tomb broke forth or some inscription became legible, tracing the mouldering sculpture and catching the fading picture. Thrown back into the primitive ages of Christianity amidst the local impressions, the historian of the Christian Catacombs collected the memorials of an age and of a race which were hidden beneath the earth.”[261]

The literary industry of this pioneer explorer was immense. He carefully examined all the Latin, Greek, and Oriental Fathers; all the ecclesiastical records, canons, and decrees of councils; the lives of the saints, the acts of the martyrs—everything, in fact, which could illustrate the history of the Catacombs and of the early church. The result of these labours is seen in the bulky MS. volumes, of many thousand pages, written with his own hand, which are still extant in the Oratorian Library at Rome. He was not permitted to see the publication of his great work, in which was disclosed to the world the wonderful terra incognita lying so long hidden beneath the busy life of the Eternal City, but died while writing the last chapter. It was too valuable a contribution to Christian archæology, however, to remain unpublished, and it was given to the world, under the appropriate title of “Subterranean Rome,”[262] in the year 1632, or five years after its author’s death.

This book contains an admirable topographical account of each cemetery which he had explored, taking in order the great consular roads leading from the city. Bosio’s attempted identification of the cemeteries and

principal tombs and shrines described in the ancient ecclesiastical records is not always sufficiently accurate. He is rather uncritical and confused in his arrangement, although honest and, in matters of personal observation, exact. His work is of great value as giving an account of many crypts and monuments, and copies of many paintings which have perished through the decay or vandalism of the last two hundred years, or whose position has been forgotten. Among these is the Jewish Cemetery before mentioned, of which no evidence is extant save Bosio’s description. His name, written in his own peculiarly bold style, is met with in many of the newly opened galleries of the Catacombs, showing that he had previously explored those parts since filled with earth.

Many objects of priceless value have been lost since Bosio’s day by the desultory and unsystematic excavations of private and independent explorers. These were conducted, not upon a system of enlightened archæological research, but upon mere caprice; and were guided too often by a superstitious zeal for the identification and translation of the relics of the saints, or by the more sordid motive of trafficking in their remains, or of pillaging the gold and silver with which some of the more illustrious shrines were still adorned. In this quest many paintings, sculptures, and inscriptions were destroyed or defaced of which no record has been preserved. After the year 1688 the excavations were pursued under pontifical supervision, though often neglected through indifference or embarrassed by want of funds.

In 1651 a Latin translation of Bosio’s great work[263]

was published by Padre Aringhi, a learned Oratorian priest, who added numerous important discoveries of his own. This book has been largely consulted in the preparation of these pages, collated, of course, with more recent and more accurate explorers.

The Catacombs were now frequently visited by travellers, who have left a record of their impressions in their published works. Among these were two distinguished Englishmen, John Evelyn and Bishop Burnet. The sturdy Protestantism of the latter, rejecting the unwarranted inferences drawn by the Roman archæologists from this testimony of the primitive ages, was betrayed into an unjust skepticism as to the character of that testimony. He does not scruple to affirm that “those burying places that are graced with the pompous title of Catacombs are no other than the puticoli mentioned by Festus Pompeius, where the meanest sort of the Roman slaves were laid,” and that they did not come into the possession of the Christians till the fourth or fifth century.[264] A more careful or more candid examination of those early evidences of Christianity would have shown him the error of this statement, in which he has been followed by Misson, a French Protestant, and by some other writers.

In 1681 Bertoli published an interesting work on the sepulchral lamps of the Catacombs[265] with numerous illustrations; but a more valuable contribution to the literature of this subject was a collection of Christian

epitaphs[266] by Raphael Fabretti, for many years custodian of these sacred crypts, who prevented the wholesale destruction of the inscriptions by their careless removal. The learned Benedictine, Mabillon, personally examined the evidences of the Catacombs, and wrote a treatise concerning the reverence of the unknown saints.[267] This led to the publication, under the patronage of Clement XI., of a theological and apologetic, rather than scientific, treatise on the cemeteries of the holy martyrs and early Christians of Rome,[268] by Marc Antonio Boldetti, the successor, for thirty years, of Fabretti, as custode of the Catacombs. But in his case, as in that of several other Roman archæologists, theological zeal was allied with antiquarian enthusiasm, and sometimes impaired or destroyed the value of his researches.

Gruter’s vast collection of ancient inscriptions,[269] published early in the century, and more especially that of Muratori,[270] were valuable contributions to Christian epigraphy. The learned Jesuit, Marangoni, prepared the material of a systematic work on the topographical principle of Bosio, when the labour of nearly a score of years was destroyed by fire. “It seems,” says De Rossi, recording the event, “that the literary history of the Catacombs is but an Iliad of disaster and irreparable losses.”

The next name of distinction that we meet in connection with this subject is that of Bottari, equally versed in profane and sacred antiquities. His great work on

the sculpture and paintings of the Catacombs[271] was issued from the Vatican press, under the patronage of Clement XII., during the years 1737-1754. Other archæologists, among whom we may enumerate Buonarrotti, Mamachi,[272] Marini, Lupi, Zaccaria,[273] Danzetta,[274] Olivieri, Borgia, and others, illustrated the subject in various works during the eighteenth century. The establishment of the Christian Museum in the Vatican by Benedict XIV. greatly facilitated the study of these antiquities. The taste for archæological research, however, even among ecclesiastics, was principally confined to the remains of pagan antiquity; and amid the many museums of Rome only one was devoted to the Christian monuments of the primitive ages, of which such vast treasures lay buried in the earth.

During the present century important contributions have been made to the literature of the Catacombs by D’Agincourt,[275] Röstell,[276] Raoul-Rochette,[277] the Abbés

Gaume[278] and Gerbet,[279] Bishop Munter,[280] Cardinal Mai,[281] and especially Padres Marchi[282] and Garrucci.

Cardinal Wiseman, in his beautiful tale of Fabiola,[283] attempts to rehabilitate the primitive ages in the garb of modern Romanism. He brings together from widely different periods the legends and traditions, often based on very scanty evidence, which are most favourable to the claims of ultramontanism, and thus completely destroys the historic value of the work, rendering it in essence, as it is in form, a mere romance.

The most magnificent contribution to the literature of the Catacombs, at least in point of artistic excellence and costliness, is the superb work of M. Perret,[284] in six huge folio volumes, with some five hundred coloured drawings, two thirds of which were never before copied, and as many fac-simile inscriptions. It was prepared under the direction of the French Academy of Inscriptions, and by a vote of the Legislative Assembly of the French Republic of 1851 a grant of one hundred and eighty thousand francs was given to defray the cost. No

expense was spared in its production. An able corps of artists and architects were employed for several years in the undertaking. The galleries and cubicula are represented in elaborate drawings, plans, and sections, and many of the frescoes are copied full size. In these latter, however, the artists have injudiciously endeavoured to reproduce the original force, colour, and expression, instead of giving fac-similes of the faded, and often half-obliterated, paintings. Many of the pictures have, therefore, a pre-Raphaelite beauty, which destroys their value as accurate representations of the art of the Catacombs. It is to be regretted that the letter-press which accompanies these plates is not more worthy of the general magnificence of this splendid work. “It is strung together,” says the writer already quoted,[285] “without discrimination or critical research, and conveys a very inaccurate notion of the results which scientific inquiry, as opposed to mere ecclesiastical tradition, has now reached.” We have rarely ventured to make a statement on its authority unless corroborated by more authentic testimony, but many of its accurate drawings of subterranean architecture enhance the value of these pages.

All previous explorers, however, are left far behind by the invaluable labours of the Cavaliere De Rossi, the present custode of the Catacombs, and head of the Roman archæological commission. His profound knowledge of Christian antiquities, his unchallenged candour and honesty of statement, his patience and ingenuity in exploration, his scientific method, accurate observation,

and careful deductions, place him far beyond any of his predecessors in this fascinating but difficult field of inquiry. While, however, his statements of facts may always be relied upon, his theoretical conclusions must sometimes be received with caution, in consequence of that seemingly inevitable tendency in Roman Catholic writers to discover ancient evidences in favour of their modern belief and practice where they can be found by no one else.

The Catacombs are now placed under the jurisdiction of the Roman Cardinal Vicar, assisted by a commission of sacred archæology appointed by the present pontiff. As far as the comparatively limited means at their command will allow, they zealously prosecute the excavation and exploration of this subterranean Rome with a systematic method which has already been attended with remarkable success, and which promises the most happy results in the future. From its crumbling ruins, paintings, decorations, and inscriptions of different ages, De Rossi reconstructs its history, often with the greatest minuteness and fidelity. His Roma Sotterranea[286] contains a general history of the Catacombs on the principle adopted in this volume, and a particular analysis of that of Callixtus, embodying his most important discoveries. The learned author is also publishing a complete collection of all the Christian inscriptions of the first seven centuries found in the vicinity of Rome. The first volume[287] contains all those with consular dates, which

are invaluable as fixing the chronology of the Catacombs and as evidences of doctrine, showing its gradual corruption in later times. De Rossi also edits a bimonthly journal—the Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana—in which the new discoveries are announced.

Dr. Maitland has the honour of being the first English writer on this subject, with the exception of the incidental allusions of travellers like Evelyn and Burnet. His admirable volume on the “Church in the Catacombs” is one of great interest, but having been written thirty years ago is quite out of date; and the recent discoveries of De Rossi and others have shown some of its conclusions, especially on the origin of the Catacombs, to be erroneous. His chapters on religious art and symbolism are of permanent value, and the theological bearing of these Christian evidences has been discussed with great candour and moderation.

In 1852 Mr. MacFarlane published a small volume giving a popular account of the Catacombs, making no reference, however, to their doctrinal teachings. “I have,” he says, “carefully avoided controversy.” The Rev. J. W. Burgon’s “Letters from Rome” contain some valuable chapters on this subject. The Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D., a Roman Catholic clergyman, published in 1857 a compendious “Account of the Burial-places of the Early Christians in Rome,” compiled chiefly from Padre Marchi, whose strongly Romanist views he fully adopted. In conjunction with the Rev. W. R. Brownlow, M.A., he published in 1869

the results of De Rossi’s labours in a condensed form, with reduced copies of many of his plates. With the same reserve as in the case of his former volume, this is a valuable contribution to the literature of this subject.[288] More recently the Rev. W. B. Marriott, B.D., has written a work entitled “The Testimony of the Catacombs,” consisting of three monographs illustrating the development of the cultus of Mary, the gradual encroachments of the papal see, as indicated in Christian art, and a critical analysis of the celebrated Autun inscription.

In America, the Right Rev. Wm. Ingraham Kip, D.D., published in 1853 a little book of a popular character, giving an account of the Catacombs, chiefly from Maitland, MacFarlane, and Aringhi. The authorities on which it is based, however, have since been superseded, and some of the views which they held disproved by recent discovery.

The only remaining work to be mentioned as illustrating this subject is an admirable volume on Christian epigraphy[289] by the Rev. John McCaul, LL.D. The learned author’s expansions, interpretations, and emendations of the frequently elliptical, obscure, and ungrammatical inscriptions of the Catacombs and other early Christian cemeteries, and the reconstruction from

a few mutilated fragments of important historic evidence, seem to the uninitiated more a sort of divination than a process of reasoning.[290]

[257] The Catacomb of St. Priscilla.

[258] Ipsamet urbs obstupuit, cum abditas in suis suburbiis se novit habere civitatis Christianorum colonias.—Ann. Eccl., ann. 130. It is singular that in the very year of their rediscovery Onophrius Pavinius, an Augustinian friar, published an account of the Christian cemeteries entirely from the ancient documents of the church. Only three of them were then accessible, those of Sebastian, Lawrence, and Valentine.

[259] Grecised into Joannes Macarius.

[260] Paris, 1856.

[261] Essay on the Literary Character. Eng. ed., p. 144.

[262] Roma Sotteranea, opera postuma di Antonio Bosio composta disposta ed accresciuta da Giovanni di Severano, Sacerdote della Congregazione dell’Oratorio. Roma, 1632.

MacFarlane and Kip are in error as to the period of Bosio’s labours, antedating them about thirty years.

[263] Roma Subterranea novissima post Ant. Bosium et Joan. Severanum. Romæ, 1651. Two vols. fol. It is said that there are only two copies of this work in America. Aringhi’s version, being in Latin, is better known out of Italy than the Italian treatises of Bosio, Boldetti, or Bottari.

[264] “Letters from Italy in 1685 and 1686.” Rotterdam. Pp. 209.

[265] Li antichi lucerni sepolcrali figurante raccolte dale cave sotterranea e grotte di Roma. Roma, 1681.

[266] Inscriptionum antiquarum quæ in ædibus paternis asservantur etc. Romæ, 1702.

[267] De Cultu Sanctorum Ignotorum.

[268] Osservazioni sopra i cemeteri dei SS. Martiri ed antichi cristiani di Roma. Roma, 1720.

[269] Inscriptiones Antiquæ. Amstelodami, 1707.

[270] Novus Thesaurus Veterum Inscriptionum. Mediolani, 1739.

[271] Sculture e Pitture Sacre estratte dai Cimeteri di Roma. Roma.

[272] His Originum et Antiquitatum Christianorum, Roma, 1749-51, treats especially on the sarcophagi of the Catacombs.

[273] This celebrated Jesuit projected a work “On the Use of Ancient Christian Inscriptions in Theology.” See Migne, Cursus Completus Theolog., vol. v, pp. 309, etc.

[274] Danzetta continued Zaccaria’s plan. His work, which he called Theologia Lapidaria, left unfinished, was undertaken by Geatano Marini, who spent many years collecting materials to embrace the first ten centuries. He was interrupted by the French Revolution, and his thirty-one volumes of MS. in the Vatican are an unfinished monument of his learning and industry.

[275] In L’Histoire de L’Art par les Monumens. Six vols. fol. Paris. D’Agincourt came to Rome intending to spend six months in the study of this subject, but its fascination so grew upon him that it occupied the remaining fifty years of his life.

[276] In Bunsen’s Beschreibung der Stadt Rom. Stuttgard, 1830.

[277] Mémoire sur les antiquités Chrétiennes des Catacombes. (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr., XIII.) See also Tableau des Catacombes.

[278] In Les Trois Romes.

[279] Esquisse de Rome Chrétienne.

[280] Sinnbilder und Kunstvorstellungen der Alten Christen. Altona.

[281] Veterum Scriptorum Nova Collectio. Roma, 1831.

[282] Monumenti delle Arti Cristiane Primitive nella Metropoli del Cristianesimo. Roma, 1844. The political troubles of the year 1848 prevented its completion. The theological zeal of this writer, however, has in many cases biassed his judgment. “In every page of his work,” says a critic in the Edinburgh Review, (January, 1859, Am. ed. ccxxi, p. 48,) “an exuberant desire to find evidence in support of the later Romish doctrine among these records of the primitive church predominates over every other consideration.”

[283] London, 1857.

[284] Les Catacombes de Rome, par Louis Perret. Six vols., fol. Paris, 1852-57. This book costs in the United States $600. Only three copies are known to be in America. One of these is a gift from the late emperor of the French to the parliamentary library of Canada.

[285] Edinburgh Review, January, 1859, p. 48. De Rossi speaks with tenderness of this superb edition—la grandiza edizione—which, in spite of its defects—mal grado i suoi difetti—is a valuable contribution to the literature of the Catacombs.

[286] Roma Sotterranea Cristiana. Roma, 1864-67. Four vols. fol., two of text and two of plates, which are of great fidelity. The text is from the Vatican press. The plates bear the imprint Venezia.

[287] Inscriptiones Christianæ Urbis Romæ Septimo Sæculo Antiquiores. Romæ. One vol. fol., 1857-61. It is dedicated to the present pope, “Another Damasus, who has brought to light the monuments of the martyrs ... overwhelmed with ruin.”—“Pio IX., Pont. Max. alteri Damaso, qui monumenta martyrum,... ruinis obstructa in lucem revocat.” Both of these works, which embody the result of the most recent explorations, have been laid under tribute in the preparation of these pages. Several of the illustrations are from the same sources.

[288] Roma Sotterranea. London, 1869. 8vo., pp. 414. It sells in New York for about $16 00.

[289] “Christian Epitaphs of the First Six Centuries,” by the Rev. John McCaul, LL.D., President of University College, Toronto. Toronto and London, 1869. Dr. McCaul was previously well known to the archæological world by his learned volume on Brittanno-Romano Inscriptions, a work which has elicited the commendations of the highest critical authorities in Europe. The writer of these pages has been greatly assisted by his veteran scholarship and critical revision of the text.

[290] Among the smaller treatises on the Catacombs, and separate articles in the encyclopædias and journals of higher literature, may be mentioned the following, most of which have been consulted in the preparation of these pages: Remusat, Musée Chrétien de Rome; Revue des Deux Mondes, Juin 15, 1863; Revue Chrétienne, Mai, 1864; Jehan, Dict. des Origin. du Christ., pp. 212, 89; Martigny, Dict. des Antiq. Chrét., p. 106; Bouix, Théologie des Catacombes, Arras, 1864; Piper, Mythologie und Symbolik der Christlichen Kunst, Weimar, pp. 184, 51, and Die Graben Schriften der Altenten Christen in Evang. Kallendar 1855, p. 27, 1827, p. 37; Edin. Rev., January, 1859, and July, 1864; Contemp. Rev., September, 1866, and May, 1872; Monumental Theology, by Prof. Bennett, in Meth. Quar. Rev., January and April, 1871; M’Clintock and Strong, Cyclopædia, in verbo. In the History of Sacred Art in Italy, by C. L. Hemans, son of the poetess, are two interesting chapters on the Catacombs, and valuable notes of ancient art, passim. Seymour’s Mornings with the Jesuits has some interesting paragraphs on this subject, as has also Prof. Silliman’s Visit to Europe. The Rev. Wm. Arthur, M.A., has an able Exeter Hall lecture on the Catacombs. In Murray’s Hand-Book of Rome, ed. of 1867, is some interesting information on this topic. In Harper’s Mag., April, 1865, is a popular article by Prof. Greene, U. S. Consul at Rome. In Schaff’s Ch. Hist., 1, § 93; Killen’s Anc. Ch., pp. 348-351; Stanley’s Eastern Churches, and Milman, passim, are interesting references to the subject. In Westcrop’s Hand-Book of Archæology, London, 1867, and in the Dict. Épig. Chrétienne, Paris, 1852, are valuable contributions on the epigraphy of the Catacombs. Didron’s Iconographie Chrétienne, Paris, 1841; Lord Lindsay’s Hist. of Art, London, 1847; Lübke’s History of Art, London, 1869; Mrs. Jameson’s Sacred Art, Tyrwhitt’s Christian Art and Symbolism, and Hare’s Walks About Rome, have also been laid under contribution.

CHAPTER V.

THE PRINCIPAL CATACOMBS OF ROME.

Before leaving this division of our subject we will take a rapid survey of the more remarkable of that vast system of Christian cemeteries that engirdles the city of Rome. It will be more convenient to notice them in topographical order, beginning with those on the Appian Way, and sweeping around the city to the north-west, over the great roads on the borders of which the Catacombs are chiefly situated. The ground near these roads is honeycombed with sepulchral excavations, to which there are said to be six hundred entrances scattered over the Campagna. Bosio found them in almost every vineyard near the Salarian Way. In some of these the peasants keep their wine, although their fears prevent them from venturing far from the mouth; and sometimes villas fall in through the subsidence of the soil.

The various groups of crypts have been known by different names at different periods, or even at the same period; and it is sometimes difficult or impossible to disentangle the conflicting accounts, and to identify the cemeteries to which the ancient names were applied. The original records—the martyrologies and the Liber Pontificalis[291]—are sometimes utterly unreliable, and the

very existence of the saints and martyrs whose lives are recorded is often exceedingly apocryphal; and even if their traditions are in the main correct, it is in many cases doubtful if they are buried in the Catacombs which bear their names. Frequently, however, these traditions are confirmed by inscriptions and other monumental evidence, which establish beyond doubt the identity of the Catacomb, as in the case of that of Callixtus and others which we shall notice.

Fig. 25.—Tombs on Appian Way.

Southeastward from the ancient Porta Capena of the city of Rome stretches the celebrated Appian Way, the most remarkable of those vast arteries of commerce along which flowed to the most distant provinces the vital currents from the great heart of the empire. This “Queen of Roads,”[292] as it was proudly called, was lined on either side by the stately tombs in which reposed the

ashes of the mighty dead.[293] “The history of Christian Rome,” says Padre Marchi,[294] “gives to this same road titles of glory incomparably more solid, just, and indisputable. We are forced to acknowledge it as the queen of Christian roads by reason of the greater number and extent of its cemeteries, and still more by the greater number and celebrity of its martyrs.” Under the present pontiff this historic highway has been excavated and opened for travel as far as Albano; and one may now traverse that avenue of tombs on the very causeway on which Horace and Virgil, Augustus and Mæcenas, Cicero and Seneca, must often have entered Rome. But it is invested with a profounder interest as the way by which the great Apostle of the Gentiles approached the city, “an ambassador in bonds,” to preach the gospel in Rome also, and to finish his testimony by a glorious martyrdom. By this very road also, according to an ancient tradition, his body was stealthily conveyed by night and deposited in an adjacent Catacomb; and here wended many a mourning procession

bearing to those lowly crypts the remains of Rome’s early bishops, martyrs, and confessors.

The ancient Porta Capena, with the dripping aqueduct above it,[295] have disappeared, and the fountain of Egeria, trampled by cattle, is no longer the haunt of nymph or naiad. Passing through the modern Sebastian gate and crossing the classic Almo, the traveller reaches at a short distance the little church of Domine quo vadis, with which is connected one of the most beautiful legends of the martyrology.[296]

About a mile and three quarters from the city he comes to Vigna Animendola, on the doorway leading to which is a marble tablet with the words CŒMETERIVM S. CALLIXTI. Beneath this vineyard lies the celebrated Catacomb of Callixtus, of which we propose to enter into a somewhat detailed description, as it will give

greater definiteness to the general conceptions already received, and will serve as a typical example of the origin and history of the Catacombs in general.

In the year 1849 De Rossi found in a cellar in this vineyard a broken marble slab with the mutilated inscription ELIVS · MARTYR, and at the beginning the upper part of the letters RN. He immediately conjectured that this was a fragment of the tombstone of Cornelius, a Roman bishop of the third century, whose sepulchre would probably be found not far off. At his persuasion the pope purchased the vineyard, and the archæological commission began the work of excavation. They were rewarded by some of the most remarkable discoveries which have yet been made.

The cemetery is situated between the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina, which are connected by narrow cross-roads. De Rossi has prepared a map of the principal part of it, divided into fifteen rectilinear and generally rectangular areas. The dimensions of these areas are not fractional but round numbers, as 100, 125, 150, and 250 feet, which cannot be the result of accident, and, with other evidences, indicate that they were, like similar pagan sepulchral areas, originally so many separate places of burial. When brought under the ecclesiastical control of Callixtus, about A. D. 200, they probably received one common name, became structurally united, and were used as a public cemetery of the church.

The first of these areas which we reach on entering the vineyard is that known as the crypt of St. Lucina. It has a frontage of one hundred feet on the Via Appia, and an extension in agro of two hundred and thirty feet. The limits of this area are exactly defined by the presence of a small pagan hypogæum on each side, which the

Christians dared not undermine. In the centre, near the road, is a massive monument, shown in the section of this crypt, [Fig. 14], which De Rossi conjectures to have been a Christian mausoleum,[297] quoting Tertullian[298] as a witness that they had monumenta et mausolea at a very early period.[299] This is more probable from the fact that the property belonged to the noble Roman family of the Cæcilii, with which Cicero was connected, many of whose tombs were found in the neighbourhood. This probably explains its vicinity to the stately mausoleum of Cæcilia Metella. The names of many Cæcilii and other noble Roman families are also found on epitaphs in this crypt. This was unquestionably one of the most ancient areas of the Catacombs.

In this area, in 1852, the remaining portion of the epitaph of Cornelius was found at the foot of the tomb to which it evidently belonged, in a gallery of unusual width.

This tomb is flanked by pilasters covered with fine white stucco, and a mutilated inscription in the well-known manner of Damasus commemorates its adornment by that pontiff. Numerous graffiti indicate that this was a favourite shrine. Faded frescoes of Cornelius, Cyprian, and two other bishops, wearing the stole, tonsure, and nimbus, are attributed by De Rossi to the ninth century. Beside the tomb is a short column of masonry, covered with stucco, which probably sustained an altar or the vase of oil in which tapers were anciently burned before the shrines of the martyrs;[300] indeed, the

fragments of such a vase have been found among the rubbish of the tomb. Among the relics sent by Gregory the Great to Queen Theodelinda, according to the list still extant in the cathedral of Monza, said to be in the handwriting of that pope, is one ex oleo S. Cornelii, which must have come from this spot.

When the area of Lucina became crowded with tombs another of the same size was opened about a hundred yards off. It contains the celebrated “Papal Crypt,” the tomb of St. Cecilia, and other monuments of the greatest interest. We will give a somewhat detailed account of the construction and successive changes of this area, following the skilful analysis of De Rossi, who has given accurate plans, sections, and measurements of the whole. It extended, as is shown by the dotted lines in the accompanying plan, two hundred and fifty feet along the narrow cross-road marked M N, and one hundred feet in agro. This would, in the first place, be secured as a burial-ground by the Christian owner with the proper legal forms, which, we have seen, protected the places of sepulture from invasion or disturbance till the times of the later persecution. Openings were then made from the surface at A and B, and stairways constructed reaching to a depth of thirty-nine feet. These stairways were partly lined with brick-work, but were chiefly cut in the solid tufa. The walls were coated with fine stucco, white and firm—an evidence of antiquity—and ornamented with bands of a bright red pigment. The original steps were covered with marble, but they were afterwards restored with masonry. The upper part, indicated by dotted lines, is destroyed to the depth of ten feet, and there is evidence of the complete obstruction of the passage, doubtless during time of persecution. The stairway B

has been used as a wine store, and is obstructed by a wall and a smaller transverse stairway.

Fig. 26.—Part of Cemetery of Callixtus.

An ambulacrum or gallery was first excavated around the sides of the area, and several cross passages, as D, E, F, G, H, I, constructed. The walls are thickly lined with graves, and in places the floor has been lowered to give room for still more loculi. At D, C, the fossors finding the wall to crumble, had to strengthen it with masonry, and to desist from lowering the floor of the

gallery. Hence the latter is not level, but has, in places, steps which have been worn to an inclined plane. The increasing demand for graves led to the formation of the cubicula A₁ to A₆, as well as others in the interior of the area. Many of these are decorated with frescoes, and A₃ is known as the Capella dei Sacramenti, or Chapel of the Sacrament, on account of its so-called liturgical paintings. A₄ has a coloured marble floor of symmetrical design, and A₆ has a large sepolcro a mensa lined with marble and flanked with marble pilasters. The iron bars which supported the table tomb may still be seen. There are many Greek as well as Latin inscriptions in these galleries, and some of the tiles which close the loculi bear the stamp of the emperors M. Aurelius and Commodus, which fixes the date of this area. Some of the passages are entirely paved with such tiles. Numerous niches for lamps also occur. At F a well was excavated which still contains water. It is furnished with foot-holes, that a man might descend in order to clean it out. This is common in other wells in the Catacombs.

The ever-pressing necessity for graves compelled the fossors at length to attempt the construction of galleries on a lower level. Accordingly we find a stairway, H, H₂, of thirty-four steps leading down from the gallery H. The rock, however, through which this stairway descends is no longer the firm tufa granolare of the upper level, but a very friable stratum of pozzolana, which made it necessary to protect the walls with brick-work. Finding this stratum of great depth, they excavated a horizontal passage, and a still further narrow experimental cleft, as it were, in search of firmer rock, but soon abandoned the attempt, failing to find any suitable for sepulture. The few graves they made had

to be built of brick-work; and in one of these was found a little terra cotta sarcophagus, containing the body of an infant. This shows the utter unfitness of the pozzolana beds in which the arenaria are excavated for the construction of the Catacombs. We have seen that about A. D. 200 Callixtus became the guardian of this cemetery, which seems to have then become the burial-place of the bishops of Rome instead of the crypts of the Vatican as previously. According to the Liber Pontificalis, out of eighteen bishops from Zephyrinus to Sylvester, that is, from A. D. 197 to A. D. 314, no less than thirteen were buried in this cemetery. This Callixtus was originally a slave, afterwards elevated to the highest ecclesiastical dignities, including the episcopate itself—a proof of the superiority of the church to all social distinctions. According to Hippolytus, the undoubted author of the recently discovered Philosophoumena, he reached that dignity by dishonourable means, by fraud and guile. He was at one time banished by the emperor to the mines of Sardinia for embezzling moneys intrusted to his care, and on his return lapsed into heresy bordering on pantheism, or at least was charged with that offence. But although the character of Callixtus shows the nascent corruptions of the church of Rome even early in the third century, it should not prejudice us against the cemetery called by his name. He himself is interred elsewhere,[301] and the holy confessors and martyrs who slumbered here have consecrated the place forever with their hallowed dust.

Toward the middle of the third century, as we have

seen, even the cemeteries themselves were not secure from invasion by the persecuting tyrants. When the protection of the law was withdrawn, the public stairways A and B, [Fig. 26], were blocked up and partially destroyed, new passages, B₂ and B₃, were opened into the adjacent arenarium for the entrance and escape of the Christians, and a very narrow and steep secret stairway, X₄, was constructed from the roof of the latter to the open air, requiring a ladder, which might be removed to cut off pursuit, or the assistance of friends for entrance or departure.[302] We have here an affecting instance of the perils to which the persecuted Christians were exposed when hunted through these gloomy crypts by their cruel pagan foes. The difference between the straight and narrow galleries of the Catacombs and the wide and unsymmetrical windings of the arenarium will be remarked. Connexions were also formed with adjacent areas at S, C₁, C₂, and B₁, sometimes breaking directly through the loculi and cubicula. The utmost economy of space was now observed, every available foot of wall being occupied; the inscriptions become more rude, indicating poverty and oppression; and the stucco or marble ornaments give place to rude carvings of the tufa itself into cornices, columns, and capitals. Some of the cubicula are made of larger size, as if for worship, sometimes six or eight-sided, and occasionally with apsidal recesses.

During the terrible period of the Diocletian persecution, when the cemeteries were confiscated by the heathen government, the Christians, in order to prevent the profanation of the more sacred sepulchres, and especially that of the bishops, filled up the principal galleries with earth at immense expense and labour. Much of

this still encumbers the passages and forms the chief obstacle to their exploration. On the cessation of the persecution some of these galleries leading to the principal crypts were cleared out by means of cylindrical shafts made for the purpose; and sometimes new galleries were excavated in the tufa above the old ones, the floor of which was formed of the consolidated earth in the former gallery. Where this earth has been removed the height of the two galleries is, in places, twenty feet, filled with graves to the top, the upper part being much narrower than the lower. The obstructions in the stairways A and B were also removed and the stairs renewed.

We have seen that Damasus was indefatigable in his restoration of the Catacombs. It might, therefore, be expected that this important area would give evidence of his labours. Such evidence is found in a broad stairway of fine masonry, not shown in [Fig. 26], made to accommodate the crowds of pilgrims who thronged to those sacred shrines, the “Papal Crypt” and tomb of St. Cecilia. This stairway was discovered by De Rossi in 1854, entirely blocked up with an immense mass of earth and rubbish, as were also the chambers to which it led. The removal of this was a work of great expense and labour. The vestibule, L, which we first enter, is constructed entirely of masonry, and is lighted by a large luminare. Its plastered walls are covered with graffiti, an indication that we are approaching a spot held in especial sanctity by the ancient church.[303]

These casual records of the generations of pilgrims who have visited the tombs of the primitive bishops, martyrs, and confessors, have proved in many

cases of great importance, and are, in the words of De Rossi, “the faithful echoes of history, and infallible guides through these subterranean labyrinths.” But they are sometimes also, as we shall see hereafter, indications of the corruption of doctrine, and of the nascent belief in human mediation between man and God.

It is somewhat of a disappointment to find, on entering this celebrated sanctuary, (L₁ in the plan,) that instead of being a veritable relic of the third or fourth century, most of the masonry is only a few years old. When an entrance was effected into it in 1854, which could only be done through the luminare, it was found in a ruinous condition, filled with earth, broken brick-work, and rubbish of every sort. When this was removed the vault gave way, and had to be almost entirely rebuilt and lined with masonry. The chamber itself is comparatively small, being only about eleven by fourteen feet. It has a barrel roof, and is lighted by a large luminare. The pavement was of marble, and covered graves made beneath it. On each side are eight large loculi, the lower row of which has spaces to contain sarcophagi. The walls were formerly lined with marble, and had semi-detached marble pillars, the bases of which still remain. At the end opposite the entrance is a large sepolcro a mensa, in front of which is a dais elevated two steps. In this dais are four sockets to receive the bases of as many short pillars which supported a marble table standing out from the wall, as unlike as possible to a modern Roman altar. The whole was surrounded by a low parapet of marble lattice work, fragments of which have been disinterred from the débris that encumbered the spot.

In this little chamber no less than eleven Roman

bishops of the third century are recorded to have been buried, and others in its immediate vicinity, when persecution or other reasons prevented their being laid in its sacred inclosure. As we have already seen,[304] De Rossi has recovered in the rubbish of this chamber what he conceives to be the original epitaphs of five of these bishops, and presumptive evidence of the presence of others. St. Sixtus, indeed, is frequently mentioned in the graffiti as he to whom especial reverence was here paid, and De Rossi found in this crypt fragments of his epitaph which we have previously given.[305] The following Damasine inscription was discovered by De Rossi among the débris of this chamber in one hundred and twenty fragments, and with great skill and learning reconstructed and restored to the wall.

HIC CONGESTA IACET QVAERIS SI TVRBA PIORVM

CORPORA SANCTORVM RETINENT VENERANDA SEPVLCHRA

SVBLIMES ANIMAS RAPVIT SIBI REGIA CAELI

HIC COMITES XYSTI PORTANT QVI EX HOSTE TROPAEA

HIC NVMERVS PROCERVM SERVAT QVI ALTARIA CHRISTI

HIC POSITVS LONGA VIXIT QVI IN PACE SACERDOS

HIC CONFESSORES SANCTI QVOS GRAECIA MISIT

HIC IVVENES PVERIQVE SENES CASTIQVE NEPOTES

QVIS MAGE VIRGINEVM PLACVIT RETINERE PVDOREM

HIC FATEOR DAMASVS VOLVI MEA CONDERE MEMBRA

SED CINERES TIMVI SANCTOS VEXARE PIORVM.

“Here, if you would know, lie heaped together a whole crowd of holy ones.

These honoured sepulchres inclose the bodies of the saints,

Their noble souls the palace of Heaven has taken to itself.

Here lie the companions of Xystus, who bear away the trophies from the enemy;

Here a number of elders, who guard the altars of Christ;

Here is buried the priest, who long lived in peace;

Here the holy confessors whom Greece sent us;

Here lie youths and boys, old men and their chaste offspring,

Who chose, as the better part, to keep their virgin chastity.

Here I, Damasus, confess I wished to lay my limbs,

But I feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints.”[306]

An ancient itinerary states that eighty, or, according to one account, eight hundred, martyrs are buried in this part of the Catacomb; and in the corner of this very crypt is a pit of remarkable depth, probably the polyandria, in which were “heaped together a whole crowd” of the victims of persecution.

Besides these restorations of Damasus, there is evidence of successive decorations of this celebrated shrine down to the period of Leo III., at the end of the eighth century. So great have been the changes thus caused that De Rossi confesses that it is impossible to say what was the original character of the chamber.

Adjoining the “Papal Crypt” is that of St. Cecilia, (O, [Fig. 26],) to which we pass from the former through a narrow doorway in the rock. This is one of the largest cubicula in the Catacombs, being nearly twenty feet square, and is flooded with light by a large luminare. The chamber, which gives evidence of having been greatly enlarged from its original dimensions, was once lined with marble and mosaic, as were also the sides of the doorway and the arch above. It has also been frequently adorned with paintings, a sure indication of its especial sanctity. Among these are a large head of Our Lord, of the Byzantine type, with a Greek nimbus, in a semicircular niche,

and a full-length figure of St. Urban in pontifical robes, with his name inscribed. Both of these, De Rossi thinks, belong to the tenth or eleventh century. Another picture, probably of the seventh century, of a richly attired Roman lady with jeweled bracelets and necklace, is conjectured to represent St. Cecilia. A large recess in the wall next to the “Papal Crypt” is thought to have held her sarcophagus. De Rossi and his English editors seem to accept substantially the Romish legend of this celebrated martyr. Protestant readers, however, will take the liberty of rejecting the miraculous part of the story as an invention of the fifth century, when the legend first appears.

St. Cecilia, virgin and martyr, according to her rather apocryphal Acts, was a maiden of noble rank—ingenua, nobilis, clarissima. She sang so sweetly that the angels descended to listen to her voice; and to her is ascribed the invention of the organ, which is therefore her attribute in art. She was betrothed to Valerian, a pagan of patrician rank, yet had vowed to be the spouse of Christ alone. She confessed her vow to Valerian on her marriage-day, and assured him that she was ever guarded by an angel of God, who would avenge its violation. He promised to respect her vow if he might behold her celestial visitant. She told him that his eyes must be first illumed by faith and purged with spiritual euphrasy by baptism, and sent him to St. Urban, then hiding in the Catacomb of Callixtus, who instructed and baptized him. On his return he found Cecilia praying, with an angel by her side who crowned her with immortal flowers—the lilies of purity and the roses of martyrdom. His brother Tiburtius came in, and, struck with the heavenly fragrance, for it was not the time of flowers, he also was converted and baptized. Refusing to

sacrifice to the pagan gods, the brothers both received the crown of martyrdom.[307]

Cecilia herself was reserved for a more glorious testimony. By order of the Roman prefect she was shut up in the caldarium, or chamber of the bath, in her own palace, which was heated to the point of suffocation. After a whole day and a night she was found unharmed. No sweat stood upon her brow, no lassitude oppressed her limbs. A lictor was sent to strike off her head. Three times the axe fell upon her tender neck, but, as the law forbade the infliction of more than three strokes, she was left alive though bathed in blood. For three days she lingered, testifying of the grace of God and turning many to the faith; and then, giving her goods to the poor and her house for a church forever, she sweetly fell asleep. Her body was placed in a cypress coffin—very unusual in the Catacombs, it is doubtful if a single example was ever discovered—and buried in the cemetery of Callixtus, “near the chapel of the popes.”

But miracles ceased not with her death. In the translation of the martyrs from the Catacombs by Pascal I., in 817, the remains of Cecilia were overlooked. The saint appeared to the pope in a vision and revealed the place of her burial.[308] He sought the spot, and found her body as fresh and perfect as when laid in the tomb five centuries before! He placed it in a marble sarcophagus under the high altar of the church of St. Cecilia, which he rebuilt upon the site of her palace.

In the year 1599, or nearly eight centuries later, Cardinal

Sfondrati, while restoring the church, discovered this ancient sarcophagus. It was opened in the presence of trustworthy witnesses, and there, say the ecclesiastical records of the time, vested in golden tissue, with linen clothes steeped with blood at the feet, besides remnants of silken drapery, lay the incorrupt and virgin form of St. Cecilia in the very attitude in which she died.[309]

It is difficult to know what proportion of truth this legend contains; but, like many other of the Romish traditions, the large admixture of fiction invalidates the claims of the whole. Its sweet and tender mysticism, however, lifts it out of the region of fact into that of poetry, and almost disarms hostile criticism.[310] The excessive praise of virginity indicates a comparatively late origin. On the festival of St. Cecilia, the 22d of November, her tomb is adorned with flowers and illumined with lamps, and mass is celebrated in her subterranean chapel by a richly appareled priest—strange contrast to the primitive worship with which alone she was acquainted. In a sarcophagus discovered near her

tomb were found the remains, it is assumed, of her husband Valerian and his brother Tiburtius, who had manifestly been beheaded; and also those of the prefect Maximus, who was converted by their martyrdom and was himself beaten to death by plumbatæ. The skull of the latter was found broken, as if by such a weapon, and its abundant hair matted with blood!

Other definite areas of this Catacomb have been recognized and their outlines defined. Indeed, Father Marchi asserts that this is “the colossal region of Roma Sotterranea, all the rest being only small or middling provinces.”[311] About a hundred yards from the “Papal Crypt” is the tomb of another celebrated martyr and bishop, St. Eusebius; the graffiti on the walls, the stairway, and the decorations of which attest the reverence in which it was held. While digging here in 1856, De Rossi found the important epitaph of Eusebius before given.[312]

Intimately connected with this are also the adjacent cemeteries of St. Soteris, a virgin martyr of the same family from which Ambrose was descended; and that of St. Balbina, of vast extent, in several piani, and on a scale of unusual grandeur. These are as yet only partially explored, and promise the richest results to future examination. That of St. Balbina has many double, and even quadruple, cubicula, and the largest and most regular group of subterranean chambers that have yet been discovered, all lighted by one large hexagonal shaft. They were evidently excavated for worship, not for sepulture. This Catacomb was enlarged and beautified by Mark, bishop of Rome, in A. D. 330, who was buried in a basilica erected over these tombs.

These several areas were at first all distinct properties,

and as carefully restricted within their respective limits as would be buildings above ground. When, however, the sepulchres of the Christians, no longer protected by law, were invaded by the persecutors, the different areas were connected by a vast and bewildering labyrinth of cross passages for the purpose of facilitating escape and of furnishing additional space for interment. As the areas, even when contiguous, were often at different levels, a good deal of ingenuity was exercised by the fossors in effecting a junction of the different galleries; though often they had to break through loculi and cubicula for that purpose. Thus the area we have described so fully is five feet lower than that which is adjacent on one side, which enables us to determine its exact limit.

We will now take a more rapid survey of the other principal Catacombs of Rome.

Nearly opposite the cemetery of Callixtus, on the Appian Way, is that of Prætextatus. One of the entrances, situated in the Vigna Molinari, is represented in [Fig. 2]. A well-worn stairway, trodden by the feet of pious generations, leads to subterranean galleries of considerable extent. It is celebrated as the scene of the martyrdom of St. Sixtus and his deacons, A. D. 259; and as the burial-place of two of them, Felicitas and Agapetus, commemorative epitaphs of whom have been found. Their tomb, accidentally discovered by some labourers in 1857, presents the unique example of a large square crypt, not hewn out of the rock but built of solid masonry, and formerly lined with marble. This is explained by the ancient record that the Christian matron Marmenia constructed their tomb immediately beneath her own house. A Damasine epitaph of Januarius, who suffered under Aurelius, A. D. 162, has also been found here. In this cemetery, too, occurs that suite of

chambers, with a hexagonal apartment, known as the chapel with two halls, represented in section and perspective in [Figs. 10] and [11].

Especial interest attaches to the Catacomb of St. Sebastian from the fact of its being the only one of which any knowledge was retained during the darkness of the Middle Ages. During that obscure period it was known in all the ancient documents as the Cœmeterium ad catacumbas, and has given their generic name to this vast system of subterranean sepulchres. Lying beneath the property of the Augustinian monks, it enjoyed religious protection in the rudest ages, and was open to the occasional pilgrims to the sacred places of the Eternal City. It is also that which is most frequently visited by modern travellers, being accessible without the special permission which must be obtained for exploring the other Catacombs. It is situated on the Appian Way, about two miles from the Sebastian gate. A stately basilica was erected over the entrance to the Catacomb, it is said in the time of Constantine. A part of the original building which yet remains is claimed to be still older, dating from the first century. With this possible exception, few traces of the ancient structure now exist, the present building having been erected in 1611 by Cardinal Scipio Borghese. The church is very rich in paintings, sculptures, and relics, among which are the reputed head of Callixtus, arm of St. Andrew, and body of St. Sebastian, the impressions of the Saviour’s feet in the stone from the Appian Way, and the very chair in which St. Stephen received the crown of martyrdom, and which was sprinkled with his blood!

This Catacomb takes its name from the Christian martyr Sebastian, who suffered during the Diocletian persecution. The story of his martyrdom is one of

great beauty; but, as is the case with most of these legends, its historic value is invalidated by the miraculous episodes of his history. According to the “Acts of St. Sebastian,” this young and gallant officer was a native of Narbonne, in Gaul, who held the high rank of commander of the prætorian guard of Diocletian and Maximian. His access to the emperors enabled him to offer a powerful protection to the persecuted Christians, which he did not fail to extend. Two of his fellow-soldiers, Marcus and Marcellinus, were about to recant their profession, when Sebastian exhorted them to steadfastness with such fervour as to nerve them for martyrdom and convert the judges and all present. For his own fidelity to the Christian faith he was transpierced with arrows and left for dead. He recovered, however, either through the pious care of the Christian matron Irene, or through the special grace of the Virgin. Undeterred by his recent experience, he presented himself before the emperor, upbraided him for his persecution of the Christians, and foretold his death. He was immediately seized by the command of the tyrant and beaten to death with clubs in the hippodrome of the palace, A. D. 286. His body was ignominiously thrown into the Cloaca Maxima, or main sewer of Rome, in order to deprive it of Christian burial. But the place where it lay being revealed in a dream, his remains were rescued from their loathsome and unconsecrated grave, and piously interred in the Catacomb which bears his name.

The indignities that he suffered have been more than compensated by the honours paid his relics. Over his tomb the high altar of the church blazes with lights and jewels, and a marble effigy of the saint pierced with arrows commemorates his martyrdom. The genius of

Berini, Guido, and the Caracci, has glorified his memory in deathless painting and in “animated bust.”[313]

Connected with the church is an irregular semi-subterranean building, where, tradition asserts, the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul for a time reposed. It would appear, according to the legend, that upon the martyrdom of these “princes of the apostles” the oriental Christians sent for their hallowed remains as belonging of right to them as their fellow-countrymen. Their bodies were conveyed thus far from their original sepulchres when a violent storm prevented the accomplishment of the sacrilegious act, and the Roman Christians re-interred the sacred relics in this chamber, where they remained, according to one account, a year and seven months, or, according to another, forty years.[314]

The present structure dates probably from the time of Liberius, in the middle of the fourth century. The indefatigable Damasus made a marble pavement—fecit platoniam—and seems to refer to the legend in the following rather unclassical metrical inscription:

HIC HABITASSE PRIVS SANCTOS COGNOSCERE DEBES

NOMINA QVISQVE PETRI PARITER PAVLIQVE REQVIRIS

DISCIPVLOS ORIENS MISIT QVOD SPONTE FATEMVR

SANGVINIS OB MERITVM CHRISTVMQVE PER ASTRA SEQVVTI

AETHERIOS PETIERE SINVS ET REGNA PIORVM

ROMA SVOS POTIVS MERVIT DEFENDERE CIVES

HAEC DAMASVS VESTRAS REFERAT NOVA SIDERA LAVDES.

“Here, you must know, that saints once dwelt. If you ask their

names, they were Peter and Paul. The East sent disciples, as we willingly acknowledge. The saints themselves had, by the merit of their bloodshedding, followed Christ to the stars, and sought the home of heaven and the kingdoms of the blest. Rome, however, obtained to defend her own citizens. These things may Damasus be allowed to record for your praise, O new stars of the heavenly host.”

Fig. 27.—Plan of Crypt of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

[Figs. 27] and [28] show the plan and perspective of the crypt. D is the chamber and E the subterranean vault. Around the wall are twelve arcosolia, in front of which runs a low stone seat. In the centre is an opening in the floor widening into a vaulted and frescoed marble tomb about six feet square and as many deep. Here, according to tradition, the two great apostles lay side by side in death; and to this spot was especially given for many centuries the name Catacumbæ.

A door out of the left aisle of the church leads to the Catacomb proper. This, having been so long open, has been despoiled of every object of interest, and nearly all the monuments and inscriptions have been removed

to the museums of the city. Though of considerable extent, it is not nearly as large as some others. Previous to De Rossi’s exploration of the Catacomb of Callixtus in 1854 it was confounded with that cemetery, but he has shown that opinion to be erroneous.

Fig. 28.—Crypt of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.

Nearly opposite the church of St. Sebastian is situated the Jewish Catacomb discovered in 1859 in the Vigna Randanini, and already in part described. The principal entrance is an open chamber, originally vaulted, with a floor of black and white mosaic and walls of masonry. A peculiarity in this cemetery is the number of deep graves in the floor capable of containing several bodies, and the number of sarcophagi, some of which are finely carved and gilt. The seven-branched candlestick frequently occurs on the walls and tombs. This Catacomb has been often rifled, and the galleries are strewn with marble fragments of its monuments.

Most of the inscriptions have been dug out of this débris and affixed to the adjacent walls. At the other entrance, on the Appian Way, are raised stone seats, intended, it is thought, as resting-places for the bearers of the dead.

Not far from this cemetery, but fronting on the Via Ardeatina, is one which De Rossi concludes upon very good evidence to be that of Domitilla, grand niece of the emperor Domitian, of whose banishment and probable martyrdom for the Christian faith we have already spoken. The entrance is an elegant structure of fine brickwork with a cornice of terra cotta, built in the slope of a rising ground and close by the roadside. Connected with the entrance are external chambers, in one of which is a well, which were designed, it is conjectured, for the custodian of the Catacomb, and for the holding of the religious services connected with the burial of the dead and the anniversaries of the martyrs. A spacious vestibule within contains recesses once occupied by several large sarcophagi, fragments of which still remain. The entire roof and walls are covered with the most exquisite arabesques and graceful landscapes, as well as biblical paintings, in the style of the best classic period. It is evidently the monument of a family of wealth and distinction.

Connected with this Catacomb is that of Nereus and Achilles, the chamberlains of Domitilla, who suffered martyrdom in the second century. A broad and handsome stairway leads down to the supposed tombs of the martyrs in the lower level of the Catacomb. To facilitate the visits of pilgrims to these shrines the galleries have been widened and lined with masonry, probably by John I., A. D. 523. There are two principal piani, in the lower of which is a large chamber

paved with marble and lighted by a luminare of unusual size, reaching to the surface of the ground. A large proportion of the inscriptions are Greek, or Latin in Greek characters, which circumstance refers the date of this Catacomb to a period when Greek was still regarded as a sort of sacred and official language of the church.

On the Via Labicana are several interesting Catacombs. About a mile and a half from the city is that of Peter and Marcellinus, the former a priest and the latter an exorcist of the time of Diocletian, who with other martyrs are said to be buried here. The entrance to the Catacomb is from a church built in the ruins of the ancient structure traditionally called the mausoleum of Helena.

This tradition has given its name to the interesting Catacomb of Helena discovered in 1838 in the Vigna del Grande, about a quarter of a mile further along the Via Labicana. It was evidently constructed after the peace of the church. The marble stairway, mosaic pavements, and elegant stucco ornaments betray an imperial magnificence impossible during the age of persecution, and which is found in no other Catacomb. The similarity of style and material to that of the contiguous tomb of Constantia, the sister of Helena, indicates a synchronous construction. The entrance to the Catacomb is by one of those brevissimæ ecclesiæ, or oratories for meditation and prayer, which were early erected near most of the cemeteries, now generally in ruins. As shown in the illustration, the descent is by an easy stairway and an inclined plane to a vaulted gallery with mosaic pavement, in which are arcosolia with brick arches. The galleries are of great width, and the luminari will be observed to be cylindrical in shape. One of these,

it will be seen, is choked with rubbish. The double entrance indicated is in accordance with the ancient usage, especially in subterranean assemblies, of separating the sexes. The same purpose is effected within the crypt by balustrades, and even by parallel galleries to the same chamber. This Catacomb is remarkable for the number of its luminari, arcosolia, cubicula, and mosaics. A variety of marble, glass, and terra cotta vases have also been found, as well as numerous coins and medals of the Constantinian period.

Fig. 29.—Section of Catacomb of Helena.

About three miles from Rome on this road, in the Vigna del Fiscale, is the Catacomb of i Santi Quatro, or Quatuor Coronati, the Four Crowned Ones, as they are called. They are said to have been Christian sculptors, who, for refusing to exercise their art in the service of idolatry, suffered martyrdom under Diocletian. Iron crowns, set with spikes, were forced upon their heads, and they were then scourged to death with plumbatæ. Ten miles from Rome in this same road is the Catacomb of St. Zoticus, also honoured as one of the primitive martyrs.

On the Via Tiburtina, about ten minutes’ walk from the Porta di San Lorenzo, is the Catacomb of St. Cyriaca, named after a Christian matron of noble family, who founded it in her own land in the year A. D. 258. During

the thirty-two years of her widowhood she employed her vast wealth in ministering to the necessities of the saints, and finally herself received the crown of martyrdom. Here it is said the body of St. Lawrence was first interred, and afterward removed to the neighbouring church, where it is still revered with devout superstition. The excavations made to insulate the ancient basilica of San Lorenzo, and to enlarge the cemetery at present in use, have laid open a number of galleries of this Catacomb, exposing the long hidden loculi and paintings to the light of day. The style of the ancient inscriptions and those of the modern necropolis, which, in accordance with a decree of the pope, are all in Latin, may be compared; not greatly to the advantage of the latter, notwithstanding the rigorous censorship they must first undergo. This Catacomb, with others, was explored and described by Bosio two centuries and a half ago. On the opposite side of the road is the cemetery of Hippolytus, commemorated in the verses of Prudentius in the fourth century.

About a mile and a quarter from the Porta Pia, on the Via Nomentana, is situated the Catacomb of St. Agnes. The legend of this saint is one of the most beautiful in the martyrology, and has been preserved with peculiar fulness of detail by St. Ambrose in his treatise de Virginibus. The youthful martyr was the daughter of rich and noble Roman parents, and is described in the Acts that bear her name as being of a sweet and tender beauty. Being sought in marriage by the son of the prefect of the city, she rejected his suit; declaring in a strain of impassioned eloquence her espousals to a bridegroom nobler, richer, and more beautiful far than any of earth, who had betrothed her by the ring of his faith, and would crown her with jewels to which earthly gifts

were dross—a bridegroom so fair that the sun and moon were ravished by his beauty, and so mighty that the angels were his servants.[315] She thus betrayed her attachment to the cause of Christ, and was forthwith put to the torture in order to compel her recantation of the faith. With touching naiveté the Acts relate that no fetters could be found small enough for her wrists. As the crowning ignominy to which her maiden modesty could be exposed, she was sent to the place of shame—ad locum turpitudinis; but her unshorn hair flowed in golden waves to her feet, forming a perfect veil, and the eyes of the gazers on her degradation were smitten with blindness. Having been first cast into the flames, which, it is said, played harmlessly about her, she was publicly beheaded in the amphitheatre, and overcoming the feebleness of her age and sex, thus received the crown of martyrdom at the tender age of thirteen, A. D. 303.[316]

She is frequently represented in art; sometimes, in allusion to her name, with a lamb as her attribute. Indeed, after Christ and the Apostles, no figure is more common.[317] The den of infamy in which she was exposed to shame became changed to the Christian sanctuary of S. Agnese in Piazza Navone, one of the most beautiful churches in Rome. A subterranean cell of peculiar sanctity is said to have been the scene of her degradation and deliverance. She was buried in a garden a mile from the city, and Constantia, the daughter of Constantine, having been healed at her tomb of a dangerous malady, that prince erected over her body the church of S. Agnese fuori le Mura, which is one of the least altered and most beautiful examples of the imperial basilicas. A long flight of stairs, whose walls are covered with inscriptions from the adjacent Catacombs, leads down to the church, which was constructed on a level with the reputed tomb of the saint.[318]

Many noble Roman families chose the place of their sepulture near the tomb of so illustrious a martyr. Constantia

herself was there interred, and soon after two other daughters of Constantine, Helena, the wife of Julian, and Constantina, the wife of Gallus. Having died, the former at Vienne in Gaul, the latter at the extremity of Bithynia, they were brought from the west and the east to rejoin their sister sleeping near this celebrated saint. This region became, in fact, the fashionable cemetery of the great during the fourth century; as is still evident from the superior regularity and spaciousness of the corridors, and the more laboured execution although inferior style of the paintings. Thus was formed in course of time the vast Catacomb of St. Agnes.

Fig. 30.—Entrance to the Catacomb of St. Agnes.

The entrance to the cemetery is situated in a delicious valley about a quarter of a mile from the church, in view of the storied hills which have been celebrated by Martial and Pliny, and near the ruins of a pagan temple. Behind are the gray walls and towers of Rome, and on every side spreads the solemn expanse of the Campagna.

All is graceful and picturesque in the landscape, “and it is not,” says Perret, “without a pious tenderness[319] that the charm of the place blends in the soul of the pilgrim to the shrine of the Christian heroine.” The stairs by which the descent is made date probably from the time of Constantine. The graves on either side of the somewhat spacious gallery have long been rifled of their contents. Several of these from their size were evidently designed for bisomi. The consular date, A. D. 336, on a tomb attests the age of this part of the Catacomb. One suite of chambers near the entrance, but in the lower and therefore more recently constructed piano, has received the title of the Basilica. The larger cubiculum has two tufa seats at the side, and one more elevated for the presiding presbyter. The altar, probably a small movable one of wood, if any at all, must have stood before the presbyter. On the opposite side of the gallery is a chamber, divided by columns and an arch, supposed to have been for the females of the assembly, or perhaps for the catechumens not yet admitted to the celebration of the eucharist. A connected series of five chambers has been found, and one cubiculum, called the scuole grande, will contain seventy or eighty persons. Much of the architecture, however, is debased, indicating the decline and eclipse of art in the fifth or sixth century. Another chamber is known as the Lady Chapel, or Crypt of the Virgin, on account of the so-called picture of the Madonna which it contains;[320] and a third as the Baptistery, from the presence of a spring of water, supposed to have been used in baptismal rites.

One feature of especial interest associated with this

cemetery is its connexion with an adjacent arenarium, or sand pit. This is situated near the basilica of St. Agnes, and overlies part of the Catacomb. It consists of a series of large and gloomy caverns utterly unlike the sepulchral crypts below. A stairway leads down to the Catacomb, and also a deep shaft with foot-holes cut in the rock for climbing. Probably this was the only way of escape in time of persecution. There is also apparent evidence of the existence of a windlass, by which the excavated tufa was raised, and either deposited in the arenarium or carted away. This cemetery has been carefully examined by Padre Marchi, who has published a plan of an area of about seven hundred by five hundred and fifty feet. The united length of the passages in this part is about two English miles. Yet Father Marchi says this area is only about one eighth of the whole Catacomb, the aggregate extent of whose streets would, therefore, be fifteen or sixteen miles.

Just without the Porta Pia on this Nomentan Way, is the little Catacomb of Nicodemus. At the third mile, we read in ancient records, was that of Ostrianus or Fons Petri, as it was called, from a tradition that Peter once baptized there. It has not, however, been satisfactorily identified. Nearly six miles from the city is the so-called Catacomb of Alexander, bishop of Rome A. D. 117-120, who, according to the Liber Pontificalis, suffered martyrdom by decapitation on this spot under the emperor Hadrian, together with the presbyter Eventius and the deacon Theodulus. Here were discovered in 1853, below the level of the Campagna, the ruins of an ancient basilica erected in honour of these martyrs. In the roofless structure was found a sarcophagus bearing the name of Alexander, and probably once containing his ashes. The graves here are less disturbed than

in the Catacombs nearer Rome. This cemetery was used for sepulture comparatively late, as the language of some of the inscriptions indicates a decided approximation to modern Italian. In 1857 the foundations of a large church, designed to include the whole of the ancient structure, were laid with great pomp by the present pontiff.

The Salarian Way is exceedingly rich in Christian cemeteries. Prominent among these is the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, one of the noblest monuments of the primitive church. It is of interest also as that whose accidental discovery in 1578 led to the unveiling of these vast treasuries of Christian antiquity. The entrance is beautifully situated amid embowering verdure, in the vineyard of the Irish college, about two miles from the Porta Salara.[321] Tradition asserts that this cemetery was dug in the property of the senator Pudens, mentioned by St. Paul; and a crypt called, from the language of its inscriptions, the Cappella Greca, is alleged to be the sepulchre of his daughters Pudentiana and Praxedes, and other members of that distinguished Christian family. If so, this is the most ancient Catacomb yet discovered. The classical style of the architecture, frescoes, graceful stucco reliefs, and garlands, and the character of the inscriptions, all point to a period before art became degraded and the church oppressed. Some of the galleries are exceedingly long and straight, and one is the most extensive yet discovered. Its principal crypt is remarkable as being regularly built of masonry, and without the usual loculi in the walls, being evidently designed for the reception of sarcophagi—another proof of its high antiquity. A portion of this cemetery has been constructed with great labour in an

ancient arenarium, and shows how unsuited these excavations were for the purposes of Christian sepulture. Long walls of solid masonry and numerous pillars of brick work have been built for supporting the roof and giving space for loculi. A large shaft for removing pozzolana has been transformed into a luminare by being bricked up to about half its original dimensions. Only one of the four piani in which the Catacomb is constructed being easily accessible, it has been but partially explored. The ancient records assert that Marcellinus and Marcellus, martyr-bishops of the church in the time of Diocletian, are buried here; also Crescentianus and Silvester; and we have already seen the memorial inscription of three thousand other martyrs, whose remains are said to hallow these sacred crypts.

On this same road are the Catacomb of St. Felicitas, with three piani of galleries much dilapidated; that of Thraso and Saturninus, of considerable extent but difficult of access; and the crypt of Chrysanthus and Daria, in which these martyrs were blocked up alive by command of the Emperor Numerian. On the old Salarian Way is the Catacomb of Hermes, who is said to have suffered in the time of Hadrian. It is partially constructed, as we have seen, in an arenarium, and contains the largest subterranean church yet found, with remarkable mosaics of Daniel and of the resurrection of Lazarus in the vaulting of the roof.