HISTORY of the CHRISTIAN CHURCH*
CHAPTER VII:
THE CHURCH IN THE CATACOMBS.
§ 82. Literature.
Comp. the works quoted in ch. VI., especially Garrucci (6 vols.), and the Table of Illustrations at the end of this volume.
I. Older works. By Bosio (Roma Sotterranea, Rom. 1632; abridged edition by P. Giovanni Severani da S. Severino, Rom. 1710, very rare); Boldetti (1720); Bottari (1737); D’AGINCOURT (1825); Röstell (1830); Marchi (1844); Maitland (The Church in the Catacombs, Lond. 1847); Louis Perret (Catacombes de Rome, etc. Paris, 1853 sqq. 5 vols., with 325 splendid plates, but with a text that is of little value, and superseded).
II. More recent works.
*Giovanni Battista de Rossi (the chief authority on the Catacombs): La Roma Sotterranea Cristiana descritta et illustrata, publ. by order of Pope Pio Nono, Roma (cromolitografia Pontificia), Tom. I. 1864, Tom. II. 1867, Tom. III. 1877, in 3 vols. fol. with two additional vols. of plates and inscriptions. A fourth volume is expected. Comp. his articles in the bimonthly "Bulletino di archeologia Cristiana," Rom. 1863 sqq., and several smaller essays. Roller calls De Rossi "le fouilleur le mieux qualifié fervent catholique, mais critique sérieux."
*J. Spencer Northcote (Canon of Birmingham) and W. R. Brownlow (Canon of Plymouth): Roma Sotteranea. London (Longmans, Green & Co., 1869; second edition, "rewritten and greatly enlarged," 1879, 2 vols. The first vol. contains the History, the second, Christian Art. This work gives the substance of the investigations of Commendatore De Rossi by his consent, together with a large number of chromo-lithographic plates and wood-engravings, with special reference to the cemetery of San Callisto. The vol. on Inscriptions is separate, see below.
F. X. Kraus (R.C.), Roma Sotterranea. Die Röm. Katakomben. Freiburg. i. B. (1873), second ed. 1879. Based upon De Rossi and the first ed. of Northcote & Brownlow.
D. de Richemont: Les catacombes de Rome. Paris, 1870.
Wharton B. Marriott, B.S.F.S.A. (Ch. of England): The Testimony of the Catacombs and of other Monuments of Christian Art from the second to the eighteenth century, concerning questions of Doctrine now disputed in the Church. London, 1870 (223 pages with illustrations). Discusses the monuments referring to the cultus of the Virgin Mary, the supremacy of the Pope, and the state after death.
F. Becker: Roms Altchristliche Cömeterien. Leipzig, 1874.
W. H. Withrow (Methodist): The Catacombs of Rome and their Testimony relative to Primitive Christianity. New York (Nelson & Phillips), 1874. Polemical against Romanism. The author says (Pref., p. 6): "The testimony of the catacombs exhibits, more strikingly than any other evidence, the immense contrast between primitive Christianity and modern Romanism."
John P. Lundy (Episc.): Monumental Christianity: or the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church as Witnesses and Teachers of the one Catholic Faith and Practice. New York, 1876. New ed. enlarged, 1882, 453 pages, richly illustrated.
*John Henry Parker (Episc.): The Archaeology of Rome. Oxford and London, 1877. Parts ix. and x.: Tombs in and near Rome, and Sculpture; Part XII: The Catacombs. A standard work, with the best illustrations.
*Theophile Roller (Protest.): Les Catacombes de Rome. Histoire de l’art et des croyances religieuses pendant les premiers siècles du Christianisme. Paris, 1879–1881, 2 vols. fol, 720 pages text and 100 excellent plates en hétiogravure, and many illustrations and inscriptions. The author resided several years at Naples and Rome as Reformed pastor.
M. Armellini (R.C.): Le Catacombe Romane descritte. Roma, 1880 (A popular extract from De Rossi, 437 pages). By the same the more important work: Il Cimiterio di S. Agnese sulla via Nomentana. Rom. 1880.
Dean Stanley: The Roman Catacombs, in his "Christian Institutions." Lond. and N. York, 1881 (pp. 272–295).
Victor Schultze (Lutheran): Archaeologische Studien ueber altchristliche Monumente. Mit 26 Holzschnitten. Wien, 1880; Die Katakomben. Die altchristlichen Grabstätten. Ihre Geschichte und ihre Monumente (with 52 illustrations). Leipzig, 1882 (342 pages); Die Katakomben von San Gennaro dei Poveri in Neapel. Jena, 1877. Also the pamphlet: Der theolog. Ertrag der Katakombenforschung. Leipz. 1882 (30 pages). The last pamphlet is against Harnack’s review, who charged Schultze with overrating the gain of the catacomb-investigations (see the "Theol. Literaturzeitung," 1882.)
Bishop W. J. Kip: The Catacombs of Rome as illustrating the Church of the First Three Centuries. N. York, 1853, 6th ed., 1887(212pages).
K. Rönneke: Rom’s christliche Katakomben. Leipzig, 1886.
Comp. also Edmund Venables in Smith and Cheetham, I. 294–317; Heinrich Merz in Herzog, VII. 559–568; Theod. Mommsen on the Roman Catac. in "The Contemp. Review." vol. XVII. 160–175 (April to July, 1871); the relevant articles in the Archaeol. Dicts. of Martigny and Kraus, and the Archaeology of Bennett (1888).
III. Christian Inscriptions in the catacombs and other old monuments.
*Commendatore J. B. de Rossi: Inscriptiones Christiana Urbis Romae septimo seculo antiquiores. Romae, 1861 (XXIII. and 619 pages). Another vol. is expected. The chief work in this department. Many inscriptions also in his Roma Sott. and "Bulletino."
Edward Le Blant: Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule anterieures au VIIIme siècle. Paris, 1856 and 1865, 2 vols. By the same: Manuel d’Epigraphie chrétienne. Paris, 1869.
John McCaul: Christian Epitaphs of the First Six Centuries. Toronto, 1869. Greek and Latin, especially from Rome.
F. Becker: Die Inschriften der römischen Cömeterien. Leipzig, 1878.
*J. Spencer Northcote (R.C. Canon of Birmingham): Epitaphs of the Catacombs or Christian Inscriptions in Rome during the First Four Centuries. Lond., 1878 (196 pages).
G. T. Stokes on Greek and Latin Christian Inscriptions; two articles in the "Contemporary Review" for 1880 and 1881.
V. Schultze discusses the Inscriptions in the fifth section of his work Die Katakomben (1882), pp. 235–274, and gives the literature.
The Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum by Böckh, and Kirchhoff, and the Corpus Inscriptionium Lat, edited for the Berlin Academy by, Th. Mommsen and others, 1863 sqq. (not yet completed), contain also Christian Inscriptions. Prof. E. Hübner has added those of Spain (1871) and Britain (1873). G. Petrie has collected the Christian Inscriptions in the Irish language, ed. by Stokes. Dublin, 1870 sqq. Comp. the art. "Inscriptions," in Smith and Cheetham, I. 841.
§ 83. Origin and History of the Catacomb.
The Catacombs of Rome and other cities open a new chapter of Church history, which has recently been dug up from the bowels of the earth. Their discovery was a revelation to the world as instructive and important as the discovery of the long lost cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, and of Nineveh and Babylon. Eusebius says nothing about them; the ancient Fathers scarcely allude to them, except Jerome and Prudentius, and even they give us no idea of their extent and importance. Hence the historians till quite recently have passed them by in silence.516 But since the great discoveries of Commendatore De Rossi and other archaeologists they can no longer be ignored. They confirm, illustrate, and supplement our previous knowledge derived from the more important literary remains.
The name of the Catacombs is of uncertain origin, but is equivalent to subterranean cemeteries or resting-places for the dead.517 First used of the Christian cemeteries in the neighborhood of Rome, it was afterwards applied to those of Naples, Malta, Sicily, Alexandria, Paris, and other cities.
It was formerly supposed that the Roman Catacombs were originally sand-pits (arenariae) or stone-quarries (lapidicinae), excavated by the heathen for building material, and occasionally used as receptacles for the vilest corpses of slaves and criminals.518 But this view is now abandoned on account of the difference of construction and of the soil. A few of the catacombs, however, about five out of thirty, are more or less closely connected with abandoned sand-pits.519
The catacombs, therefore, with a few exceptions, are of Christian origin, and were excavated for the express purpose of Christian burial. Their enormous extent, and the mixture of heathen with Christian symbols and inscriptions, might suggest that they were used by heathen also; but this is excluded by the fact of the mutual aversion of Christians and idolaters to associate in life and in death. The mythological features are few, and adapted to Christian ideas.520
Another erroneous opinion, once generally entertained, regarded the catacombs as places of refuge from heathen persecution. But the immense labor required could not have escaped the attention of the police. They were, on the contrary, the result of toleration. The Roman government, although (like all despotic governments) jealous of secret societies, was quite liberal towards the burial clubs, mostly of the poorer classes, or associations for securing, by regular contributions, decent interment with religious ceremonies.521 Only the worst criminals, traitors, suicides, and those struck down by lightning (touched by the gods) were left unburied. The pious care of the dead is an instinct of human nature, and is found among all nations. Death is a mighty leveler of distinctions and preacher of toleration and charity; even despots bow before it, and are reminded of their own vanity; even hard hearts are moved by it to pity and to tears. "De mortuis nihil nisi bonum."
The Christians enjoyed probably from the beginning the privilege of common cemeteries, like the Jews, even without an express enactment. Galienus restored them after their temporary confiscation during the persecution of Valerian (260).522
Being mostly of Jewish and Oriental descent, the Roman Christians naturally followed the Oriental custom of cutting their tombs in rocks, and constructing galleries. Hence the close resemblance of the Jewish and Christian cemeteries in Rome.523 The ancient Greeks and Romans under the empire were in the habit of burning the corpses (crematio) for sanitary reasons, but burial in the earth (humatio), outside of the city near the public roads, or on hills, or in natural grottos, was the older custom; the rich had their own sepulchres (sepulcra).
In their catacombs the Christians could assemble for worship and take refuge in times of persecution. Very rarely they were pursued in these silent retreats. Once only it is reported that the Christians were shut up by the heathen in a cemetery and smothered to death.
Most of the catacombs were constructed during the first three centuries, a few may be traced almost to the apostolic age.524 After Constantine, when the temporal condition of the Christians improved, and they could bury their dead without any disturbance in the open air, the cemeteries were located above ground, especially above the catacombs, and around the basilicas; or on other land purchased or donated for the purpose. Some catacombs owe their origin to individuals or private families, who granted the use of their own grounds for the burial of their brethren; others belonged to churches. The Christians wrote on the graves appropriate epitaphs and consoling thoughts, and painted on the walls their favorite symbols. At funerals they turned these dark and cheerless abodes into chapels; under the dim light of the terra-cotta lamps they committed dust to dust, ashes to ashes, and amidst the shadows of death they inhaled the breath of the resurrection and life everlasting. But it is an error to suppose that the catacombs served as the usual places of worship in times of persecution; for such a purpose they were entirely unfitted; even the largest could accommodate, at most, only twenty or thirty persons within convenient distance.525
The devotional use of the catacombs began in the Nicene age, and greatly stimulated the worship of martyrs and saints. When they ceased to be used for burial they became resorts of pious pilgrims. Little chapels were built for the celebration of the memory of the martyrs. St. Jerome relates,526 how, while a school-boy, about a.d. 350, he used to go with his companions every Sunday to the graves of the apostles and martyrs in the crypts at Rome, "where in subterranean depths the visitor passes to and fro between the bodies of the entombed on both walls, and where all is so dark, that the prophecy here finds its fulfillment: The living go down into Hades.527 Here and there a ray from above, not falling in through a window, but only pressing in through a crevice, softens the gloom; as you go onward, it fades away, and in the darkness of night which surrounds you, that verse of Virgil comes to your mind:
"Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent."528
The poet Prudentius also, in the beginning of the fifth century, several times speaks of these burial places, and the devotions held within them.529
Pope Damasus (366–384) showed his zeal in repairing and decorating the catacombs, and erecting new stair-cases for the convenience of pilgrims. His successors kept up the interest, but by repeated repairs introduced great confusion into the chronology of the works of art.
The barbarian invasions of Alaric (410), Genseric (455), Ricimer (472), Vitiges (537), Totila (546), and the Lombards (754), turned Rome into a heap of ruins and destroyed many valuable treasures of classical and Christian antiquity. But the pious barbarism of relic hunters did much greater damage. The tombs of real and imaginary saints were rifled, and cartloads of dead men’s bones were translated to the Pantheon and churches and chapels for more convenient worship. In this way the catacombs gradually lost all interest, and passed into decay and complete oblivion for more than six centuries.
In the sixteenth century the catacombs were rediscovered, and opened an interesting field for antiquarian research. The first discovery was made May 31, 1578, by some laborers in a vineyard on the Via Salaria, who were digging pozzolana, and came on an old subterranean cemetery, ornamented with Christian paintings, Greek and Latin inscriptions and sculptured sarcophagi. "In that day," says De Rossi, "was born the name and the knowledge of Roma Sotterranea." One of the first and principal explorers was Antonio Bosio, "the Columbus of this subterranean world." His researches were published after his death (Roma, 1632). Filippo Neri, Carlo Borromeo, and other restorers of Romanism spent, like St. Jerome of old, whole nights in prayer amid these ruins of the age of martyrs. But Protestant divines discredited these discoveries as inventions of Romish divines seeking in heathen sand-pits for Christian saints who never lived, and Christian martyrs who never died.530
In the present century the discovery and investigation of the catacombs has taken a new start, and is now an important department of Christian archaeology. The dogmatic and sectarian treatment has given way to a scientific method with the sole aim to ascertain the truth. The acknowledged pioneer in this subterranean region of ancient church history is the Cavalier John Baptist de Rossi, a devout, yet liberal Roman Catholic. His monumental Italian work (Roma Sotterranea, 1864–1877) has been made accessible in judicious condensations to French, German, and English readers by Allard (1871), Kraus (1873 and 1879), Northcote & Brownlow (1869 and 1879). Other writers, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, are constantly adding to our stores of information. Great progress has been made in the chronology and the interpretation of the pictures in the catacombs.
And yet the work is only begun. More than one half of ancient Christian cemeteries are waiting for future exploration. De Rossi treats chiefly of one group of Roman catacombs, that of Callistus. The catacombs in Naples, Syracuse, Girgenti, Melos, Alexandria, Cyrene, are very imperfectly known; still others in the ancient apostolic churches may yet be discovered, and furnish results as important for church history as the discoveries of Ilium, Mycenae, and Olympia for that of classical Greece.
§ 84. Description of the Catacombs.
The Roman catacombs are long and narrow passages or galleries and cross-galleries excavated in the bowels of the earth in the hills outside and around the city, for the burial of the dead. They are dark and gloomy, with only an occasional ray of light from above. The galleries have two or more stories, all filled with tombs, and form an intricate net-work or subterranean labyrinth. Small compartments (loculi) were cut out like shelves in the perpendicular walls for the reception of the dead, and rectangular chambers (cubicula) for families, or distinguished martyrs. They were closed with a slab of marble or tile. The more wealthy were laid in sarcophagi. The ceiling is flat, sometimes slightly arched. Space was economized so as to leave room usually only for a single person; the average width of the passages being 2½ to 3 feet. This economy may be traced to the poverty of the early Christians, and also to their strong sense of community in life and in death. The little oratories with altars and episcopal chairs cut in the tufa are probably of later construction, and could accommodate only a few persons at a time. They were suited for funeral services and private devotion, but not for public worship.
The galleries were originally small, but gradually extended to enormous length. Their combined extent is counted by hundreds of miles, and the number of graves by millions.531
The oldest and best known of the Roman cemeteries is that of St. Sebastian, originally called Ad Catacumbas, on the Appian road, a little over two miles south of the city walls. It was once, it is said, the temporary resting-place of the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul, before their removal to the basilicas named after them; also of forty-six bishops of Rome, and of a large number of martyrs.
The immense cemetery of Pope Callistus (218–223) on the Via Appia consisted originally of several small and independent burial grounds (called Lucinae, Zephyrini, Callisti, Hippoliti). It has been thoroughly investigated by De Rossi. The most ancient part is called after Lucina, and measures 100 Roman feet in breadth by 180 feet in length. The whole group bears the name of Callistus, probably because his predecessor, Zephyrinus "set him over the cemetery" (of the church of Rome).532 He was then a deacon. He stands high in the estimation of the Roman church, but the account given of him by Hippolytus is quite unfavorable. He was certainly a remarkable man, who rose from slavery to the highest dignity of the church.
The cemetery of Domitilla (named in the fourth century St. Petronillae, Nerei et Achillei) is on the Via Ardeatina, and its origin is traced back to Flavia Domitilla, grand-daughter or great-grand-daughter of Vespasian. She was banished by Domitian (about a.d. 95) to the island of Pontia "for professing Christ."533 Her chamberlains (eunuchi cubicularii), Nerus and Achilleus, according to an uncertain tradition, were baptized by St. Peter, suffered martyrdom, and were buried in a farm belonging to their mistress. In another part of this cemetery De Rossi discovered the broken columns of a subterranean chapel and a small chamber with a fresco on the wall, which represents an elderly matron named "Veneranda," and a young lady, called in the inscription "Petronilla martyr," and pointing to the Holy Scriptures in a chest by her side, as the proofs of her faith. The former apparently introduces the latter into Paradise.534 The name naturally suggests the legendary daughter of St. Peter.535 But Roman divines, reluctant to admit that the first pope had any children (though his marriage is beyond a doubt from the record of the Gospels), understand Petronilla to be a spiritual daughter, as Mark was a spiritual son, of the apostle (1 Pet. 5:13), and make her the daughter of some Roman Petronius or Petro connected with the family of Domitilla.
Other ancient catacombs are those of Pruetextatus, Priscilla (St. Silvestri and St. Marcelli), Basilla (S. Hermetis, Basillae, Proti, et Hyacinthi), Maximus, St. Hippolytus, St. Laurentius, St. Peter and Marcellinus, St. Agnes, and the Ostrianum (Ad Nymphas Petri, or Fons Petri, where Peter is said to have baptized from a natural well). De Rossi gives a list of forty-two greater or lesser cemeteries, including isolated tombs of martyrs, in and near Rome, which date from the first four centuries, and are mentioned in ancient records.536
The furniture of the catacombs is instructive and interesting, but most of it has been removed to churches and museums, and must be studied outside. Articles of ornament, rings, seals, bracelets, neck-laces, mirrors, tooth-picks, ear-picks, buckles, brooches, rare coins, innumerable lamps of clay (terra-cotta), or of bronze, even of silver and amber, all sorts of tools, and in the case of children a variety of playthings were inclosed with the dead. Many of these articles are carved with the monogram of Christ, or other Christian symbols. (The lamps in Jewish cemeteries bear generally a picture of the golden candlestick).
A great number of flasks and cups also, with or without ornamentation, are found, mostly outside of the graves, and fastened to the grave-lids. These were formerly supposed to have been receptacles for tears, or, from the red, dried sediment in them, for the blood of martyrs. But later archaeologists consider them drinking vessels used in the agapae and oblations. A superstitious habit prevailed in the fourth century, although condemned by a council of Carthage (397), to give to the dead the eucharistic wine, or to put a cup with the consecrated wine in the grave.537
The instruments of torture which the fertile imagination of credulous people had discovered, and which were made to prove that almost every Christian buried in the catacombs was a martyr, are simply implements of handicraft. The instinct of nature prompts the bereaved to deposit in the graves of their kindred and friends those things which were constantly used by them. The idea prevailed also to a large extent that the future life was a continuation of the occupations and amusements of the present, but free from sin and imperfection.
On opening the graves the skeleton appears frequently even now very well preserved, sometimes in dazzling whiteness, as covered with a glistening glory; but falls into dust at the touch.
§ 85. Pictures and Sculptures.
The most important remains of the catacombs are the pictures, sculptures, and epitaphs.
I. Pictures. These have already been described in the preceding chapter. They are painted al fresco on the wall and ceiling, and represent Christian symbols, scenes of Bible history, and allegorical conceptions of the Saviour. A few are in pure classic style, and betray an early origin when Greek art still flourished in Rome; but most of them belong to the period of decay. Prominence is given to pictures of the Good Shepherd, and those biblical stories which exhibit the conquest of faith and the hope of the resurrection. The mixed character of some of the Christian frescos may be explained partly from the employment of heathen artists by Christian patrons, partly from old reminiscences. The Etrurians and Greeks were in the habit of painting their tombs, and Christian Greeks early saw the value of pictorial language as a means of instruction. In technical skill the Christian art is inferior to the heathen, but its subjects are higher, and its meaning is deeper.
II. The works of sculpture are mostly found on sarcophagi. Many of them are collected in the Lateran Museum. Few of them date from the ante-Nicene age.538 They represent in relief the same subjects as the wall-pictures, as far as they could be worked in stone or marble, especially the resurrection of Lazarus, Daniel among the lions, Moses smiting the rock, the sacrifice of Isaac.
Among the oldest Christian sarcophagi are those of St. Helena, the mother of Constantine (d. 328), and of Constantia, his daughter (d. 354), both of red porphyry, and preserved in the Vatican Museum. The sculpture on the former probably represents the triumphal entry of Constantine into Rome after his victory over Maxentius; the sculpture on the latter, the cultivation of the vine, probably with a symbolical meaning.539
The richest and finest of all the Christian sarcophagi is that of Junius Bassus, Prefect of Rome, a.d. 359, and five times Consul, in the crypt of St. Peter’s in the Vatican.540 It was found in the Vatican cemetery (1595). It is made of Parian marble in Corinthian style. The subjects represented in the upper part are the sacrifice of Abraham, the capture of St. Peter, Christ seated between Peter and Paul, the capture of Christ, and Pilate washing his hands; in the lower part are the temptation of Adam and Eve, suffering Job, Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem, Daniel among the lions, and the capture of St. Paul.
§ 86. Epitaphs.
"Rudely written, but each letter
Full of hope, and yet of heart-break,
Full of all the
tender pathos of the Here
and the Hereafter."
To perpetuate, by means of sepulchral inscriptions, the memory of relatives and friends, and to record the sentiments of love and esteem, of grief and hope, in the face of death and eternity, is a custom common to all civilized ages and nations. These epitaphs are limited by space, and often provoke rather than satisfy curiosity, but contain nevertheless in poetry or prose a vast amount of biographical and historical information. Many a grave-yard is a broken record of the church to which it belongs.
The Catacombs abound in such monumental inscriptions, Greek and Latin, or strangely mixed (Latin words in Greek characters), often rudely written, badly spelt, mutilated, and almost illegible, with and without symbolical figures. The classical languages were then in a process of decay, like classical eloquence and art, and the great majority of Christians were poor and illiterate people. One name only is given in the earlier epitaphs, sometimes the age, and the day of burial, but not the date of birth.
More than fifteen thousand epitaphs have been collected, classified, and explained by De Rossi from the first six centuries in Rome alone, and their number is constantly increasing. Benedict XIV. founded, in 1750, a Christian Museum, and devoted a hill in the Vatican to the collection of ancient sarcophagi. Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. patronized it. In this Lapidarian Gallery the costly pagan and the simple Christian inscriptions and sarcophagi confront each other on opposite walls, and present a striking contrast. Another important collection is in the Kircherian Museum, in the Roman College, another in the Christian Museum of the University of Berlin.541 The entire field of ancient epigraphy, heathen and Christian in Italy and other countries, has been made accessible by the industry and learning of Gruter, Muratori, Marchi, De Rossi, Le Blant, Böckh, Kirchhoff, Orelli, Mommsen, Henzen, Hübner, Waddington, McCaul.
The most difficult part of this branch of archaeology is the chronology (the oldest inscriptions being mostly undated).542 Their chief interest for the church historian is their religion, as far as it may be inferred from a few words.
The key-note of the Christian epitaphs, as compared with the heathen, is struck by Paul in his words of comfort to the Thessalonians, that they should not sorrow like the heathen who have no hope, but remember that, as Jesus rose from the dead, so God will raise them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus.
Hence, while the heathen epitaphs rarely express a belief in immortality, but often describe death as an eternal sleep, the grave as a final home, and are pervaded by a tone of sadness, the Christian epitaphs are hopeful and cheerful. The farewell on earth is followed by a welcome from heaven. Death is but a short sleep; the soul is with Christ and lives in God, the body waits for a joyful resurrection: this is the sum and substance of the theology of Christian epitaphs. The symbol of Christ (Ichthys) is often placed at the beginning or end to show the ground of this hope. Again and again we find the brief, but significant words: "in peace;"543 "he" or "she sleeps in peace;"544 "live in God," or "in Christ;" "live forever."545 "He rests well." "God quicken thy spirit." "Weep not, my child; death is not eternal." "Alexander is not dead, but lives above the stars, and his body rests in this tomb."546 "Here Gordian, the courier from Gaul, strangled for the faith, with his whole family, rests in peace. The maid servant, Theophila, erected this."547
At the same time stereotyped heathen epitaphs continued to be used but of course not in a polytheistic sense), as "sacred to the funeral gods," or "to the departed spirits."548 The laudatory epithets of heathen epitaphs are rare,549 but simple terms of natural affection very frequent, as "My sweetest child;" "Innocent little lamb;" "My dearest husband;" "My dearest wife;" "My innocent dove;" "My well-deserving father," or "mother."550 A. and B. "lived together" (for 15, 20, 30, 50, or even 60 years) "without any complaint or quarrel, without taking or giving offence."551 Such commemoration of conjugal happiness and commendations of female virtues, as modesty, chastity, prudence, diligence, frequently occur also on pagan monuments, and prove that there were many exceptions to the corruption of Roman society, as painted by Juvenal and the satirists.
Some epitaphs contain a request to the dead in heaven to pray for the living on earth.552 At a later period we find requests for intercession in behalf of the departed when once, chiefly through the influence of Pope Gregory I., purgatory became an article of general belief in the Western church.553 But the overwhelming testimony of the oldest Christian epitaphs is that the pious dead are already in the enjoyment of peace, and this accords with the Saviour’s promise to the penitent thief, and with St. Paul’s desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.554 Take but this example: "Prima, thou livest in the glory of God, and in the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ."555
Notes.
I. Selection of Roman Epitaphs.
The following selection of brief epitaphs in the Roman catacombs is taken from De Rossi, and Northcote, who give facsimiles of the original Latin and Greek. Comp. also the photographic plates in Roller, vol. I. Nos. X, XXXI, XXXII, and XXXIII; and vol. II. Nos. LXI, LXII, LXV, and LXVI.
1. To dear Cyriacus, sweetest son. Mayest thou live in the Holy Spirit.
2. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. To Pastor, a good and innocent son, who lived 4 years, 5 months and 26 days. Vitalis and Marcellina, his parents.
3. In eternal sleep (somno aeternali). Aurelius Gemellus, who lived ... years and 8 months and 18 days. His mother made this for her dearest well-deserving son. In peace. I commend [to thee], Bassilla, the innocence of Gemellus.
4. Lady Bassilla [= Saint Bassilla], we, Crescentius and Micina, commend to thee our daughter Crescen [tina], who lived 10 months and ... days.
5. Matronata Matrona, who lived a year and 52 days. Pray for thy parents.
6. Anatolius made this for his well-deserving son, who lived 7 years, 7 months and 20 days. May thy spirit rest well in God. Pray for thy sister.
7. Regina, mayest thou live in the Lord Jesus (vivas in Domino Jesu).
8. To my good and sweetest husband Castorinus, who lived 61 years, 5 months and 10 days; well-deserving. His wife made this. Live in God!
9. Amerimnus to his dearest, well-deserving wife, Rufina. May God refresh thy spirit.
10. Sweet Faustina, mayest thou live in God.
11. Refresh, O God, the soul of ....
12. Bolosa, may God refresh thee, who lived 31 years; died on the 19th of September. In Christ.
13. Peace to thy soul, Oxycholis.
14. Agape, thou shalt live forever.
15. In Christ. To Paulinus, a neophyte. In peace. Who lived 8 years.
16. Thy spirit in peace, Filmena.
17. In Christ. Aestonia, a virgin; a foreigner, who lived 41 years and 8 days. She departed from the body on the 26th of February.
18. Victorina in peace and in Christ.
19. Dafnen, a widow, who whilst she lived burdened the church in nothing.
20. To Leopardus, a neophyte, who lived 3 years, 11 months. Buried on the 24th of March. In peace.
21. To Felix, their well-deserving son, who lived 23 years and 10 days; who went out of the world a virgin and a neophyte. In peace. His parents made this. Buried on the 2d of August.
22. Lucilianus to Bacius Valerius, who lived 9 years, 8 [months], 22 days. A catechumen.
23. Septimius Praetextatus Caecilianus, servant of God, who has led a worthy life. If I have served Thee [O Lord], I have not repented, and I will give thanks to Thy name. He gave up his soul to God (at the age of) thirty-three years and six months. [In the crypt of St. Cecilia in St. Callisto. Probably a member of some noble family, the third name is mutilated. De Rossi assigns this epitaph to the beginning of the third century.]
24. Cornelius. Martyr. Ep. [iscopus].
II. The Autun Inscription.
This Greek inscription was discovered a.d. 1839 in the cemetery Saint Pierre l’Estrier near Autun (Augustodunum, the ancient capital of Gallia Aeduensis), first made known by Cardinal Pitra, and thoroughly discussed by learned archaeologists of different countries. See the Spicilegium Solesmense (ed. by Pitra), vols. I.-III., Raf. Garrucci, Monuments d’ epigraphie ancienne, Paris 1856, 1857; P. Lenormant, Mémoire sur l’ inscription d’ Autun, Paris 1855; H. B. Marriott, The Testimony of the Catacombs, Lond. 1870, pp. 113–188. The Jesuit fathers Secchi and Garrucci find in it conclusive evidence of transubstantiation and purgatory, but Marriott takes pains to refute them. Comp. also Schultze, Katak. p. 118. The Ichthys-symbol figures prominently in the inscription, and betrays an early origin, but archaeologists differ: Pitra, Garrucci and others assign it to a.d. 160–202; Kirchhoff, Marriott, and Schultze, with greater probability, to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century, Lenormant and Le Blant to the fifth or sixth. De Rossi observes that the characters are not so old as the ideas which they express. The inscription has some gaps which must be filled out by conjecture. It is a memorial of Pectorius to his parents and friends, in two parts; the first six lines are an acrostic (Ichthys), and contain words of the dead (probably the mother); in the second part the son speaks. The first seems to be older. Schultze conjectures that it is an old Christian hymn. The inscription begins with jIcquvo" a [ujranivou a{g] ion [or perhaps qei'on] gevno", and concludes with mnhvseo Pektorivou, who prepared the monument for his parents. The following is the translation (partly conjectural) of Marriott (l.c. 118):
’Offspring of the heavenly Ichthys, see that a heart of holy reverence be thine, now that from Divine waters thou hast received, while yet among mortals, a fount of life that is to immortality. Quicken thy soul, beloved one, with ever-flowing waters of wealth-giving wisdom, and receive the honey-sweet food of the Saviour of the saints. Eat with a longing hunger, holding Ichthys in thine hands.’
’To Ichthys ... Come nigh unto me, my Lord [and] Saviour [be thou my Guide] I entreat Thee, Thou Light of them for whom the hour of death is past.’
’Aschandius, my Father, dear unto mine heart, and thou [sweet Mother, and all] that are mine ... remember Pectorius.’
§ 87. Lessons of the Catacombs.
The catacombs represent the subterranean Christianity of the ante-Nicene age. They reveal the Christian life in the face of death and eternity. Their vast extent, their solemn darkness, their labyrinthine mystery, their rude epitaphs, pictures, and sculptures, their relics of handicrafts worship, and martyrdom give us a lively and impressive idea of the social and domestic condition, the poverty and humility, the devotional spirit, the trials and sufferings, the faith and hope of the Christians from the death of the apostles to the conversion of Constantine. A modern visitor descending alive into this region of the dead, receives the same impression as St. Jerome more than fifteen centuries ago: he is overcome by the solemn darkness, the terrible silence, and the sacred associations; only the darkness is deeper, and the tombs are emptied of their treasures. "He who is thoroughly steeped in the imagery of the catacombs," says Dean Stanley, not without rhetorical exaggeration, "will be nearer to the thoughts of the early church than he who has learned by heart the most elaborate treatise even of Tertullian or of Origen."556
The discovery of this subterranean necropolis has been made unduly subservient to polemical and apologetic purposes both by Roman Catholic and Protestant writers. The former seek and find in it monumental arguments for the worship of saints, images, and relics, for the cultus of the Virgin Mary, the primacy of Peter, the seven sacraments, the real presence, even for transubstantiation, and purgatory; while the latter see there the evidence of apostolic simplicity of life and worship, and an illustration of Paul’s saying that God chose the foolish, the weak, and the despised things of the world to put to shame them that are wise and strong and mighty.557
A full solution of the controversial questions would depend upon the chronology of the monuments and inscriptions, but this is exceedingly uncertain. The most eminent archaeologists hold widely differing opinions. John Baptist de Rossi of Rome, the greatest authority on the Roman Catholic side, traces some paintings and epitaphs in the crypts of St. Lucina and St. Domitilia back even to the close of the first century or the beginning of the second. On the other hand, J. H. Parker, of Oxford, an equally eminent archaeologist, maintains that fully three-fourths of the fresco-paintings belong to the latest restorations of the eighth and ninth centuries, and that "of the remaining fourth a considerable number are of the sixth century." He also asserts that in the catacomb pictures "there are no religious subjects before the time of Constantine," that "during the fourth and fifth centuries they are entirely confined to Scriptural subjects," and that there is "not a figure of a saint or martyr before the sixth century, and very few before the eighth, when they became abundant."558 Renan assigns the earliest pictures of the catacombs to the fourth century, very few (in Domitilla) to the third.559 Theodore Mommsen deems De Rossi’s argument for the early date of the Coemeterium Domitillae before a.d. 95 inconclusive, and traces it rather to the times of Hadrian and Pius than to those of the Flavian emperors.560
But in any case it is unreasonable to seek in the catacombs for a complete creed any more than in a modern grave-yard. All we can expect there is the popular elements of eschatology, or the sentiments concerning death and eternity, with incidental traces of the private and social life of those times. Heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian cemeteries have their characteristic peculiarities, yet all have many things in common which are inseparable from human nature. Roman Catholic cemeteries are easily recognized by crosses, crucifixes, and reference to purgatory and prayers for the dead; Protestant cemeteries by the frequency of Scripture passages in the epitaphs, and the expressions of hope and joy in prospect of the immediate transition of the pious dead to the presence of Christ. The catacombs have a character of their own, which distinguishes them from Roman Catholic as well as Protestant cemeteries.
Their most characteristic symbols and pictures are the Good Shepherd, the Fish, and the Vine. These symbols almost wholly disappeared after the fourth century, but to the mind of the early Christians they vividly expressed, in childlike simplicity, what is essential to Christians of all creeds, the idea of Christ and his salvation, as the only comfort in life and in death. The Shepherd, whether from the Sabine or the Galilean hills, suggested the recovery of the lost sheep, the tender care and protection, the green pasture and fresh fountain, the sacrifice of life: in a word, the whole picture of a Saviour.561 The popularity of this picture enables us to understand the immense popularity of the Pastor of Hermas, a religious allegory which was written in Rome about the middle of the second century, and read in many churches till the fourth as a part of the New Testament (as in the Sinaitic Codex). The Fish expressed the same idea of salvation, under a different form, but only to those who were familiar with the Greek (the anagrammatic meaning of Ichthys) and associated the fish with daily food and the baptismal water of regeneration. The Vine again sets forth the vital union of the believer with Christ and the vital communion of all believers among themselves.
Another prominent feature of the catacombs is their hopeful and joyful eschatology. They proclaim in symbols and words a certain conviction of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, rooted and grounded in a living union with Christ in this world.562 These glorious hopes comforted and strengthened the early Christians in a time of poverty, trial, and persecution. This character stands in striking contrast with the preceding and contemporary gloom of paganism, for which the future world was a blank, and with the succeeding gloom of the mediaeval eschatology which presented the future world to the most serious Christians as a continuation of penal sufferings. This is the chief, we may say, the only doctrinal, lesson of the catacombs.
On some other points they incidentally shed new light, especially on the spread of Christianity and the origin of Christian art. Their immense extent implies that Christianity was numerically much stronger in heathen Rome than was generally supposed.563 Their numerous decorations prove conclusively, either that the primitive Christian aversion to pictures and sculptures, inherited from the Jews, was not so general nor so long continued as might be inferred from some passages of ante-Nicene writers, or, what is more likely, that the popular love for art inherited from the Greeks and Romans was little affected by the theologians, and ultimately prevailed over the scruples of theorizers.
The first discovery of the catacombs was a surprise to the Christian world, and gave birth to wild fancies about the incalculable number of martyrs, the terrors of persecution, the subterranean assemblies of the early Christians, as if they lived and died, by necessity or preference, in darkness beneath the earth. A closer investigation has dispelled the romance, and deepened the reality.
There is no contradiction between the religion of the ante-Nicene monuments and the religion of the ante-Nicene literature. They supplement and illustrate each other. Both exhibit to us neither the mediaeval Catholic nor the modern Protestant, but the post-apostolic Christianity of confessors and martyrs, simple, humble, unpretending, unlearned, unworldly, strong in death and in the hope of a blissful resurrection; free from the distinctive dogmas and usages of later times; yet with that strong love for symbolism, mysticism, asceticism, and popular superstitions which we find in the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.
* Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1997. This material has been carefully compared, corrected¸ and emended (according to the 1910 edition of Charles Scribner's Sons) by The Electronic Bible Society, Dallas, TX, 1998.
516 Mosheim and Gibbon in the last century, and even Neander, Gieseler, andBaur, in our age, ignore the very existence of the catacombs, except that Gieseler quotes the well-known passage of Jerome. But Dean Milman, in his History of Christianity, Hase, Kurtz, Kraus, and others, in their manuals, take brief notice of them.
517 katakuvmbion, catacumba, also (in some MSS.) catatumba. Various derivations: 1) From katav (down from, downwards, as in katabaivnw, katavkeimai, katapevmpw), and tuvmbo" (compare the late Latin tumba, the French tombe, tombeau, and the English tomb, grave), i.e. a tomb down in the earth, as distinct from tombs on the surface. This corresponds best to the thing itself. 2) From katav and koimavw (to sleep), which would make it equivalent to koimhthvrion, dormitorium, sleeping place. 3) From katav and kuvmbh (the hollow of a vessel) or (cup), kumbivon (a small cup, Lat. cymbium), which would simply give us the idea of a hollow place. So Venables in Smith and Cheetham. Very unlikely. 4) A hybrid term from katav and the Latin decumbo, to lie down, to recline. So Marchi, and Northcote and Brownlow (I. 263). The word first occurs in a Christian calendar of the third or fourth century (in Catacumbas), and in a letter of Gregory I. to the Empress Constantia, towards the end of the sixth century (Epp. III. 30), with a special local application to San Sebastian. The earlier writers use the terms koimhthvria, coemeteria (whence our cemetery), also cryptae, crypts
518 So Aringhi, Baronius; Severano, Bottari, Boldetti, and all writers prior to Marchi, and his pupils, the two brothers De Rossi, who turned the current of opinion. See Northcote and Br. I. 377 sqq.
519 The sand-pits and stone-quarries were made wide enough for a horse and cart, and are cut in the tufa litoide and pozzolana pura, which furnish the best building material in Rome; while the catacombs have generally very narrow passages, run in straight lines, often cross each other at sharp angles, and are excavated in the tufa granulare, which is too soft for building-stone, and too much mixed with earth to be used for cement, but easily worked, and adapted for the construction of galleries and chambers. See Northcote and Br. I. 376-390. The exceptions are also stated by these authors. J. H. Parker has discovered loculi for Christian burial in the recesses of a deserted sand-pit.
520 See the remarks of Northcote and Br. I. 276 against J. H. Parker, who asserts the mixed use of the catacombs for heathens and Christians."
521 This view is supported by Professor Mommsen, the Roman historian, who says (in "Contemporary Review," vol. xxvii. p. 168): "Associations of poor people who clubbed together for the burial of their members were not only tolerated but supported by the imperial government, which otherwise was very strict against associations. From this point of view, therefore, there was no legal impediment to the acquisition of these properties. Christian associations have from the very beginning paid great attention to their burials; it was considered the duty of the wealthier members to provide for the burial of the poor, and St. Ambrose still allowed churches to sell their communion plate, in order to enlarge the cemeteries of the faithful. The catacombs show what could be achieved by such means at Rome. Even if their fabulous dimensions are reduced to their right measure, they form an immense work, without beauty and ornament, despising in architecture and inscription not only pomp and empty phraseology, but even nicety and correctness, avoiding the splendor and grandeur as well as the tinsel and vanity of the life of the great town that was hurrying and throbbing above, the true commentary of the words of Christ-’My kingdom is not of this world.’
522 Euseb. H. E. VII. 13: 1, ta; tw'n kaloumevnwn koimhthrivwn ajpolambavnein ejpitrevpwn cwriva.
523 Roller says (in Lichtenberger’s Encycl. des Sc. Rel. II. 685)."Les juifs ensevelissaient dans le roc. A Rome ils ont creusé de grandes catacombes presque identique à celles des chrétiens. Ceux-ci ont été leurs imitateurs. Les Etrusques se servaient aussi de grottes; mais ils ne les reliaient point par des galeries illimitées." Dean Stanley (l.c. p. 274): "The Catacombs are the standing monuments of the Oriental and Jewish character, even of Western Christianity. The fact that they are the counterparts of the rock-hewn tombs of Palestine, and yet more closely of the Jewish cemeteries in the neighborhood of Rome, corresponds to the fact that the early Roman Church was not a Latin but an Eastern community, speaking Greek and following the usages of Syria. And again, the ease with which the Roman Christians had recourse to these cemeteries is an indication of the impartiality of the Roman law, which extended (as De Rossi has well pointed out) to this despised sect the same protection in regard to burial, even during the times of persecution, that was accorded to the highest in the land. They thus bear witness, to the unconscious fostering care of the Imperial Government over the infant church. They are thus monuments, not so much of the persecution as of the toleration which the Christians received at the hands of the Roman Empire."
524 De Rossi (as quoted by Northcote and Brownlow I. 112): "Precisely in those cemeteries to which history or tradition assigns apostolic origin, I see, in the light of the most searching archaeological criticism, the cradle both of Christian subterranean sepulchres, of Christian art, and of Christian inscriptions; there I had memorials of persons who appear to belong to the times of the Flavii and of Trajan; and finally I discover precise dates of those times."
525 Schultze (Die Katak., p. 73 and 83) maintains in opposition to Marchi, that the catacombs were nothing but burial place, and used only for the burial service, and that the little chapels (ecclesiolae) were either private sepulchral chambers or post-Constantinian structures.
526 Com. in Ez. 40.
527 He refers to such passages as Ps. 55:15; Num. 16:33.
528 Aen. II. 755:
"Horror on every side, and terrible even the silence."
Or in German:
"Grauen rings um mich her, und schreckvoll selber die Stille."
529 Peristeph. XI. 153 sqq
530 E. g. Bishop Burnet (who visited the catacombs in 1685): Letters from Italy and Switzerland in 1685 and 1686. He believed that the catacombs were the common burial places of the ancient heathen. G. S. Cyprian (1699), J. Basnage (1699), and Peter Zorn (1703), wrote on the subject in polemical interest against Rome.
531 I hesitate to state the figures. Roman archaeologists, as Marchi, J. B. de Rossi and his brother Michael de R. (a practical mathematician), Martigny and others estimate the length of the Roman catacombs variously at from 350 to 900 miles, or as "more than the whole length of Italy" (Northcote and Brownlow, I. 2). Allowance is made for from four to seven millions of graves! It seems incredible that there should have been so many Christians in Rome in four centuries, even if we include the numerous strangers. All such estimates are purely conjectural. See Smith and Cheetham, I. 301. Smyth (l.c. p. 15) quotes Rawlinson as saying that 7,000,000 of graves in 400 years’ time gives an average population of from 500,000 to 700,000. Total population of Rome, 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 at the beginning of the empire.
532 This is so stated by Hippolytus, Philosoph. IX. 11. Zephyrinus was buried there contrary to the custom of burying the popes in St. Peter’s crypt in the Vatican. Callistus was hurled from a window in Trastevere, and hastily removed to the nearest cemetery on the Via Aurelia. The whole report of Hippolytus about Callistus is discredited by Northcote and Brownlow (I. 497 sqq.), but without good reason.
533 Eusebius, H. E. III. 18. De Rossi distinguishes two Christian Domitillas, and defends this view against Mommsen See "Bulletino," 1875, pp. 69-77, and Mommsen, Corp. Inscript. Lat., Tom. VI. p. 172, as quoted by Northcote and Br. I. 86. See also Mommsen in "The Contemp. Review," XVII. 169 sq. Lightfoot. Philippians, p. 22, and S. Clement of R., 257.
534 See the picture in Northcote and Br. I. 182, and on the whole subject of Petronilla, pp. 122, 176-186.
535 Acta Sanct. Maii, III. 11.
536 See also the list in N. and Br. I. pp. xx-xxi, and in Smith and Cheetham, I. 315.
537 The curious controversy about these blood-stained phials is not yet closed. Chemical experiments have led to no decided results. The Congregation of Rites and Relics decided, in 1668, that the phiolae cruentae or ampullae sanguinolentaewere blood-vessels of martyrs, and Pius IX. confirmed the decision in 1863. It was opposed by distinguished Roman scholars (Mabillon, Tillemont, Muratori, the Jesuit Père de Buck (De phialis rubricatis, Brussels, 1855), but defended again, though cautiously and to a very limited extent by De Rossi (III. 602), Northcote and Brownlow (II. 330-343), and by F. X. Kraus (Die Blutampullen der Röm. Katakomben, 1868, and Ueber den gegenw. Stand der Frage nach dem Inhalt und der Bedeutung der röm. Blutampullen, 1872). Comp. also Schultze: Die sogen. Blutgläser der Röm. Kat. (1880), and Die Katakomben (1882, pp. 226-232). Roller thinks that the phials contained probably perfumery, or perhaps eucharistic wine.
538 Renan dates the oldest sculptures from the end of the third century: "Les sarcophages sculptés, représentant des scènes sacrées, apparaissent vers la fin du IIIe siècle. Comme les peintures chrétiennes, ils ne s’écartent guère, sauf pour le sujet, des habitudes de l’art païen du méme temps." (Marc Auréle, p. 546). Comp. also Schultze, Die Katak. 165-186, and especially the IXth part of John Henry Parker’s great work, which treats on the Tombs in and near Rome, 1877.
539 See photographs of both in Parker, Part IX, Nos. 209 and 210, and pp. 41 and 42.
540 See a photograph in Parker, l.c., Plate XIII; also in Lundy, Monum. Christianity, p. 112.
541 Under the care of Professor Piper (a pupil of Neander), who even before De Rossi introduced a scientific knowledge of the sepulchral monuments and inscriptions. Comp. his "Monumental Theology," and his essay "Ueber den kirchenhistorischen Gewinn aus Inschriften, in the Jahrbücher f. D. Theologie," 1875.
542 De Rossi traces some up to the first century, but Renan (Marc-Auréle, p. 536) maintains: "Les inscriptions chrétiennes des catacombes ne remontent qu’ au commencement du IIIesiècle."
543 In pace; ejn eijrhvnh. Frequent also in the Jewish cemeteries (shalom).
544 Dormit in pace; requiescit in pace; in pace Domini; koima'tai ejn eijrhvnh.The pagan formula "depositus" also occurs, but with an altered meaning: a precious treasure intrusted to faithful keeping for a short time.
545 Vivas, orvive in Deo; vivas in aeternum; vivas inter sanctos. Contrast with these the pagan declamations: Sit tibi terra levis; Ossa tua bene quiescant Ave; Vale.
546 This inscription in the cemetery of Callistus dates from the time of persecution, probably in the third century, and alludes to it in these words: "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-still at the end they shine like stars in heaven (tandem in caelo corruscant)." See Maitland, The Church in the Cat., second ed. p. 40.
547 This inscription is in Latin words, but in Greek uncial letters. See Perret, II. 152, and Aringhi, p. 387.
548 D. M. or D. M. S. =Dis Manibus sacrum (others explain: Deo Magno or Maximo);memoriae aeterrae, etc. See Schultze, p. 250 sq. Sometimes the monogram of Christ is inserted before S, and then the meaning may be Deo Magno Christo Sacrum, or Christo Salvatori. So Northcote, p. 99, who refers to Tit. 2:13.
549 More frequent in those after the middle of the fourth century, as inconparabilis, mirae sapientiae or innocentiae, rarissimi exempli, eximiae bonitatis.
550 Dulcis, dulcissimus, ordulcissima, carus, orcara, carissimus, optimus, incomparabilis, famulus Dei, puella Deo placita,ajgaqov", a{gio" , qeosebhv", semnov", etc.
551 Sine ulla querela, sine ulla contumelia, sine laesione animi, sine ulla offensa, sine jurgio, sine lite motesta, etc.
552 "Pete, or roga, ora, pro nobis, pro parentibus, pro conjuge, pro filiis, pro sorore." These petitions are comparatively rare among the thousands of undated inscriptions before Constantine, and mostly confined to members of the family. The Autun inscription (probably from the fourth century) ends with the petition of Pectorius to his departed parents, to think of him as often as they look upon Christ. See Marriott, p. 185.
553 Dr. McCaul, of Toronto (as quoted in Smith and Cheetham, 1. 856) says: I recollect but two examples in Christian epitaphs of the first six centuries of the address to the reader for his prayers, so common in mediaeval times."
554 Luke 23:43; Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:8.
555 Prima, vives in gloria Dei et in pace Domini nostri."Scratched in the mortar round a grave in the cemetery of Thraso, in Rome, quoted by Northcote, p. 89. He also quotes Paulinus of Nola, who represents a whole host of saints going forth from heaven to receive the soul of St. Felix as soon as it had left the body, and conducting it in triumph before the throne of God. A distinction, however was made by Tertullian and other fathers between Paradise or Abraham’s bosom, whither the pious go, and heaven proper. Comp. Roller’s discussion of the idea of refrigerium which often meets us in the epitaphs, Les Catacombes, I. 225 sqq.
556 Study of Ecclesiastical History, prefixed to his Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, p. 59.
557 The apologetic interest for Romanism is represented by Marchi, De Rossi, Garrucci, Le Blant., D. de Richemond, Armellini, Bertoli, Maurus, Wolter (Die röm. Katakomben und die Sakramente der kath. Kirche, 1866), Martigny (Dictionaire, etc., 1877), A. Kuhn (1877), Northcote and Brownlow (1879), F. X. Kraus (Real=Encykl. der christl. Alterthümer, 1880 sqq.), Diepolder (1882), and among periodicals, by De Rossi’s Bulletino, theCiviltà Cattolica, the Revue de l’art chrétien, and the Revue archéologique. Among the Protestant writers on the catacombs are Piper, Parker, Maitland, Lundy, Withrow, Becker, Stanley, Schultze, Heinrici, and Roller. See among others: Heinrici, Zur Deutung der Bildwerke altchristlicher Grabstätten, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1882, p. 720-743, and especially Piper, Monumentale Theologie.
558 Catacombs, Pref. p. xi. The writer of the article Catacombs in the "Encycl. Brit." v. 214 (ninth ed.), is of the same opinion: "It is tolerably certain that the existing frescos are restorations of the eighth, or even a later century, from which the character of the earlier work can only very imperfectly be discovered." He then refers to Parker’s invaluable photographs taken in the catacombs by magnesian light, and condemns, with Milman, the finished drawings in Perret’s costly work as worthless to the historian, who wants truth and fidelity.
559 Marc-Auréle, p. 543.
560 "Contemp. Rev." for May, 1871, p. 170.
561 Stanley, 1.c., p. 283: "What was the popular Religion of the first Christians? It was, in one word, the Religion of the Good Shepherd. The kindness, the courage, the grace, the love, the beauty of the Good Shepherd was to them, if we may so say, Prayer Book and Articles, Creeds and Canons, all in one. They looked on that figure, and it conveyed to them all that they wanted. As ages passed on, the Good Shepherd faded away from the mind of the Christian world, and other emblems of the Christian faith have taken his place. Instead of the gracious and gentle Pastor, there came the Omnipotent Judge or the Crucified Sufferer, or the Infant in His Mother’s arms, or the Master in His Parting Supper, or the figures of innumerable saints and angels, or the elaborate expositions of the various forms of theological controversy."
562 See the concluding chapter in the work of Roller, II. 347 sqq. Raoul-Rochette characterizes the art of the Catacombs as "unsystème d’illusions consolantes." Schultze sees in the sepulchral symbols chiefly Auferstehungsgedanken and Auferstehungshoffnungen. Heinrici dissents from him by extending the symbolism to the present life as a life of hope in Christ. "Nicht der Gedanke an die Auferstehung des Fleisches für sich, sondern die christliche Hoffnung überhaupt, wie sie aus der sicheren Lebensgemeinschaft mit Christus erblüht und Leben wie Sterben des Gläubigen beherrscht, bedingt die Wahl der religiös bedeutsamen Bilder. Sie sind nicht Symbole der einstigen Auferstehung, sondern des unverlierbaren Heilsbesitzes in Christus." ("Studien und Krit." 1842, p. 729).
563 Theodore Mommsen (in "The Contemp. Rev." for May, 1871, p. 167): The enormous space occupied by the burial vaults of Christian Rome, in their extent not surpassed even by the system of cloacae or sewers of Republican Rome, is certainly the work of that community which St. Paul addressed in his Epistle to the Romans—a living witness of its immense development corresponding to the importance of the capital."