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Title: A visit to the Roman catacombs
Author: James Spencer Northcote
Release date: October 21, 2023 [eBook #71927]
Language: English
Original publication: London: S. Anselms's Society, 1891
Credits: deaurider and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A VISIT TO THE ROMAN CATACOMBS ***
A VISIT TO THE ROMAN CATACOMBS.
A VISIT
TO THE
ROMAN CATACOMBS.
BY
REV. J. SPENCER NORTHCOTE, D.D.
PROVOST OF BIRMINGHAM.
LONDON: S. ANSELM’S SOCIETY,
9 AGAR STREET, CHARING CROSS.
1891.
[_All rights reserved._]
PREFACE.
My study of the Roman Catacombs began in 1846. Two years later I
published a series of letters upon the subject in the _Rambler_, and the
substance of these, with some additions and corrections, was collected
into a small volume in 1856. This was translated both into French and
German, and a second English edition was published in 1859.
But in 1864 and 1867 the first two volumes of De Rossi’s great work
appeared; and these not only added indefinitely to our knowledge of
particulars about the Catacombs, but also effected a complete revolution
in the view to be taken of their history, and laid a new basis for the
future study of them. Formerly, it had been taken for granted that the
Christians had had recourse to this mode of burying their dead, only for
the sake of the opportunities of secrecy which it afforded, and it was a
difficult question for Christian archæologists to solve how it had been
possible to carry on a work of such magnitude, under the very eyes (as it
were) of the Pagan authorities, without detection. De Rossi set aside
these speculations, and proved that there was no necessity for the early
Christians to take exceptional precautions with reference to the burial
of their dead, since many of the customs of their Pagan neighbours in
this matter were such as they might themselves make use of, and, under
ordinary circumstances, their cemeteries were adequately protected by the
law.
Henceforward, the manual of 1859 was not only incomplete, it had also
been demonstrated to be incorrect. In 1869, therefore, a much larger
volume was published by Rev. W. R. Brownlow and myself, founded upon the
new discoveries. This also was favourably received by the public; the
first English edition was soon exhausted, and translations were made both
in France and Germany. A second and enlarged edition is now in course of
preparation, which will embody the most interesting and important parts
of De Rossi’s third volume, which has only just appeared. Meanwhile,
however, there is need of a short manual, which shall be a safe guide to
those who only desire to become acquainted with the leading features of
the subject, according to the present condition of our knowledge of it;
and with this view I have compiled the following pages, at a time when
ill health has necessitated the suspension of more arduous labours. They
do not pretend to give a complete account either of the past history or
present condition of the Catacombs, but merely a correct outline of the
whole, so that those who would pursue the study further shall, at least,
have nothing to unlearn.
I have called the volume “A visit to the Roman Catacombs,” because it
describes the principal objects of interest which are to be seen in the
visit now usually paid by educated travellers to the Catacomb of St.
Callixtus. To this, however, I have prefixed half a dozen chapters, which
make, in fact, three-fourths of the whole work, and in which I have
condensed the information which every visitor ought to have before he
descends into these subterranean crypts. Unless he has some general idea
of what the Catacombs really are, how they came to be made, when and how
they were used, and what they contain, he will derive but little pleasure
or profit from what he sees in them. I hope, therefore, that this volume
will not only be a valuable guide to those who are able to visit the
Catacombs, but also a useful introduction to the whole subject for all
classes. Those who desire to study it more profoundly must have recourse
to De Rossi’s learned volumes, or to the English abridgment of them.
ST. DOMINIC’S, STONE, _September 1877_.
_P.S._—Any profits derived from the sale of this book will be sent to
Commendatore de Rossi to promote the work of excavation, which languishes
for want of funds. At more than one spot in the Catacombs, the Commission
of Sacred Archæology, of which De Rossi is Secretary, has the strongest
reason for believing in the existence of historic monuments of great
value, and it is most desirable that these monuments should be recovered,
whilst we have amongst us so competent an interpreter of them. But
funds are wanting. The late Monsignor de Merode was a most munificent
benefactor to this work, and his death has been an irreparable loss.
Smaller contributions, however, will be thankfully received; and through
the kindness of friends, or by means of my own public lectures, I have
been able to send two or three hundred pounds within the last few years.
Any further sums that may be intrusted to me for the same purpose will be
at once forwarded to Rome.
J. S. N.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
Part I.
CHAPTER I.
ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS.
St. Jerome’s description of the Catacombs—More detailed
description of their galleries, chambers, and tombs; their
depth, extent, and number—They were not deserted sandpits
or quarries, but made expressly to be places of burial for
Christians—This shown to have been rendered easy by the
Roman laws and practice about burial—Pagan burial-clubs in
Rome—Perfect freedom and safety of the Christian cemeteries in
the beginning 1
CHAPTER II.
THEIR HISTORY DURING THE AGES OF PERSECUTION.
Earliest places of Christian worship in Rome—Their position
before the law—Edict of Valerian against assemblies in
the Catacombs—Disobedience and consequent martyrdom of
St. Sixtus—Extension of the Catacombs—Changes in their
architectural forms—The _fossors_ and their clerical
character—Stories of martyrs belonging to this period—St.
Hippolytus and others—SS. Chrysanthus and Daria—St.
Tharsicius—St. Agnes and St. Emerentiana 26
CHAPTER III.
THEIR HISTORY FROM A.D. 310 TO A.D. 850.
Gradual disuse of burial in the Catacombs—Other cemeteries not
subterranean—Purchase of graves, especially near the tombs
of saints—Basilicas built over some of these—Work of Pope
Damasus and of Furius Dionysius Filocalus—Burials ceased in the
Catacombs in 410—Injuries inflicted by the Goths—Restorations
by subsequent Popes—Fresh injuries by the Lombards—Consequent
translations of the bodies of the Saints, and gradual neglect
of the Catacombs—Those only were visited to which churches
or monasteries were attached, especially the cemetery _ad
Catacumbas_, which has now given its name to the rest 41
CHAPTER IV.
THEIR LOSS AND RECOVERY.
Catacombs lost sight of for 700 years, accidentally recovered
in 1578—Labours and scientific method of Bosio imperfectly
followed by his successors—Revival of interest in the subject
through Father Marchi, S.J.—Commendatore G. B. de Rossi 51
CHAPTER V.
THEIR PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE.
Primitive Christian art almost a new subject of Christian
archæology—Most of the paintings in the Catacombs, and the
best of them, belong to the first four centuries—Resemblance
between the most ancient specimens and cotemporary works
of Pagan art—Pagan forms of ornamentation freely used, but
Christian subjects—The Good Shepherd—Peculiarities in the
mode of treatment—Symbolical character of early Christian
art; examples, the anchor, lamb, dove, fish—Typical
representations of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist, followed
by the Resurrection, in the Sacramental chapels of St.
Callixtus—Biblical subjects, Noe, Jonas, &c.—Representations
of Christ and His Apostles, and of His Holy Mother—Three
successive periods in the development of Christian painting
before the age of Constantine—Characteristics of each—Sculpture
not so freely used by Christians at first—Subjects carved on
sarcophagi 61
CHAPTER VI.
THEIR INSCRIPTIONS.
Number and importance of ancient Christian
inscriptions—Destruction of very many of them—Preservation
of others by the Popes—Points of resemblance to Pagan
epitaphs—Points of difference—Absence of any token of
social distinctions—Birth of Christian epigraphy—Active
love its chief characteristic—Prayer for the dead—Prayer
to the Saints—Examples—Other characteristics of later
epitaphs—Age—Date of death—Unmeaning titles of praise—Words
used to denote death, _in pace_, _contra votum_, &c. 108
Part II.
CHAPTER I.
THE PAPAL CRYPT.
Entrance to the Cemetery of St. Callixtus—Cemetery
above ground—_Graffiti_ at entrance of the Papal
Crypt—Original epitaphs of several of the Popes of the third
century—Inscription by Pope Damasus explained 125
CHAPTER II.
THE CRYPT OF ST. CECILIA.
Ancient notices of burial of St. Cecilia near the
Popes—Discovery of the crypt—Description of its
ornamentation—Refutation of the claim of the Catacomb at St.
Sebastian’s to be considered the burial-place of St. Cecilia 139
CHAPTER III.
THE CRYPT OF ST. EUSEBIUS.
Precautions taken by Pope Damasus and others to guide pilgrims
to the particular tomb they wished to visit—Copy of the epitaph
in honour of St. Eusebius—Fragments of the original set up by
Damasus—Important historical revelation to be gathered from
it—Discipline of the Church in regard to the _lapsi_—Title of
martyr given to Eusebius—Translation of his body 150
CHAPTER IV.
THE TOMB OF ST. CORNELIUS.
St. Cornelius buried in another Catacomb—Objects of interest
to be seen _en route_—The family vault of the Deacon Severus
at end of third century—Paintings of the Good Shepherd,
accompanied by two of His Apostles and several sheep—Of Moses
taking off his shoe, striking the rock, &c.—Tomb of St.
Cornelius, and its epitaph—Inscriptions above and below it
of Popes Damasus and Siricius—Figures of SS. Cornelius and
Cyprian; of SS. Sixtus II. and Optatus—Very ancient paintings
in two adjacent chambers—Conclusion 157
_ROMA SOTTERRANEA._
Part First.
CHAPTER I.
THE ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS.
The great St. Jerome, writing about 1500 years ago, tells us that when
he was a schoolboy in Rome, he used to go every Sunday, in company with
other boys of his own age and tastes, to visit the tombs of the apostles
and martyrs, and to go down into the crypts excavated there in the bowels
of the earth. “As you enter,” he says, “you find the walls on either side
full of the bodies of the dead, and the whole place is so dark, that one
seems almost to realise the fulfilment of those words of the prophet,
‘Let them go down alive into Hades.’ Here and there a little light
admitted from above suffices to give a momentary relief to the horror of
the darkness; but, as you go forward, you find yourself again plunged
into the utter blackness of night, and the words of the poet come
unbidden to your mind, ‘The very silence fills the soul with dread.’”
Anybody who has frequented the Roman Catacombs will recognise the justice
of this description; and if he is as familiar with Virgil and with the
Psalms of David as St. Jerome was, he may have used something like the
same language to describe his own impressions. But we are writing for
those who have never seen the Catacombs at all, and we must therefore
enter into more minute particulars.
Let us first try to get a general idea of what the Catacombs are. And
for this purpose let us transport ourselves in imagination to the city
of Rome, and having been led out some two or three miles (more or less)
almost on any of the fourteen great consular roads which went forth from
the old centre of the world to its most distant provinces, let us go
down, either by some modern staircase or through some accidental fissure
in the soil, into the bowels of the earth. At the depth of fifteen or
twenty feet we shall probably find ourselves landed in a dark narrow
gallery, something like what is here represented—a gallery about three
feet wide, and perhaps seven or eight feet high, cut out of the living
rock, and its walls on either side pierced with a number of horizontal
shelves, one above the other, like the shelves of a bookcase. We need
hardly be told that each of these shelves once contained a dead body, and
had then been shut up by long tiles or slabs of marble, securely fastened
by cement, and inscribed perhaps with the name of the deceased or with
some Christian emblem. Probably some grave still uninjured may lie within
our sight, or we may see bones and ashes in some of the graves that are
open.
[Illustration: _Gallery with Tombs._]
If we step forward and enter one of the doorways to be found on either
side, it will introduce us to a small chamber, twelve or fourteen feet
square perhaps. If there is nothing but graves cut in the walls of this
chamber, just as in the galleries, we may safely conjecture that it
was only a family vault. But if we find a bench hewn out of the rock
all round the room, together with a chair (or perhaps two) similarly
excavated, we can hardly be wrong in supposing that the room was once
used as a place of assembly, whether for purposes of public psalmody or
of religious instruction. Or, if the principal tomb in the chamber be
shaped like an altar, if two or three chambers open out of one another,
and if one of these have an absidal termination, with a chair at the end
and a low seat running round the sides, such as may still be seen in some
of the old basilicas above ground for the accommodation of the bishop and
clergy, no one can justly accuse us of rashness if we suspect that we
stand in a place that was provided for the celebration of the Christian
mysteries in days of persecution.
[Illustration: _Arcosolium, or altar-shaped tomb._]
[Illustration: _Part of Catacomb of St. Agnes._]
If we were sufficiently bold to leave the gallery which we first entered,
and to pursue our way further into the interior, we should soon lose
ourselves in some such labyrinth as is here represented. This diagram is
a true map of a small portion (perhaps not more than an eighth) of a
catacomb on the Via Nomentana, commonly known by the name of St. Agnes.
It is about 230 yards long by 180 in width; yet if all the galleries in
this small section of a catacomb were stretched out in one continuous
line, they would make very nearly two English miles in length. And then
we must remember that in almost all these subterranean cemeteries the
same thing is repeated on two or three different levels—in some of them
even on five levels. In the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, on the Via Appia,
we can descend by a succession of staircases to five different _stories_,
so to speak; and perhaps the excavators might have made even a sixth and
a seventh had they not by this time come to the level of water, where any
galleries they might dig would soon have become mere subterranean canals.
[Illustration: _Section of the Cemetery of St. Callixtus._]
But we have not even yet finished our tale of wonder. One such
excavation as this would have been a remarkable work, and its history
would have deserved examination. But in the hills round Rome there are
forty or fifty such, of various sizes indeed, and each having its own
name and history, but all evidently inspired by the same idea and forming
part of the same general plan. What was this plan? For what purpose
were these labyrinths of long narrow galleries and small chambers so
laboriously excavated?
To this question their very form seems to supply the only possible
answer. They were made to bury the dead. This is undeniably the first
and principal use to which they were put. It is no less certain that
this was also the object for which they were designed. Time was, indeed,
when learned men shrank from this conclusion, and suggested, that though
unquestionably they were used as burial-places, yet perhaps this was
only an afterthought, and that they may have been originally designed
for something else. The building of Rome, it was said, must have
required vast quantities of stone and of sand to make cement; perhaps,
therefore, in the Roman Catacombs we have only lit upon a certain number
of exhausted, or rather deserted, sandpits and quarries, which later
generations availed themselves of, for economy’s sake, as places of
burial.
[Illustration: _Plan of Arenaria at St. Agnes’._]
This theory sounds very plausible at a distance from the places
themselves; but on closer examination on the spot there are found
fatal objections to it. One is, that they happen not to be excavated
either in sand or in stone, but precisely in a rock of intermediate
consistency, too solid to be used as sand, too soft and friable to be
used as building-stone; and perhaps this might be allowed to stand as a
peremptory refutation of the theory in question. But we will add another
argument, not less simple or less conclusive, drawn from the different
forms of the two kinds of excavation. Compare the subjoined plan with
that which has been give before on page 5. These two excavations occur in
the same place. They overlie one another on the Via Nomentana, and they
are here drawn on precisely the same scale. Could they be mistaken one
for the other? Do they look like parts of the same plan? One represents
the long, narrow, straight streets or galleries and occasional chambers
of a catacomb; the other, the broad, tortuous, and irregular excavations
of a sandpit. The makers of both had each a definite object in their
work, but these objects were distinct from, and even opposed to, one
another; and hence the two systems have distinct, and even contrary,
characteristics. The only point in common between them is, that both
were carried on underground, and both wished to disturb as little as
possible the superficial soil. But the quarryman aimed at taking out
as much of the material as he could, and with the least trouble; whilst
the Christian _fossor_ desired to extract as little of the material as
was consistent with his object of providing hundreds or thousands of
graves. Hence we find in the sandpit broad roads, admitting the use of
horses or carts, and these roads well rounded off at the corners for the
facility of passing to and fro; whereas the paths of the cemetery cross
one another at right angles, that so every part of their walls may be
available for purposes of sepulture, whilst they are so narrow that two
men can scarcely walk abreast in them. Moreover, in the sandpits the
roof is arched, and the vault of the arch springs from the very ground;
whereas in the catacombs the walls of the galleries are made strictly
perpendicular, in order that horizontal shelves, capable of supporting
the bodies of the dead, might be safely cut in them, and the tiles that
shut them in might have adequate support. In a word, the two kinds of
excavation could hardly be mistaken for one another. A catacomb could
only be made to look like a sandpit or quarry by first destroying all
the graves, widening the paths, and rounding their angles; in a word,
by destroying every characteristic of a catacomb; and a sandpit could
be turned into a cemetery resembling the Catacombs, only by setting up
such a quantity of masonry as must needs remain to tell its own tale.
There are actual examples of this metamorphose to be found in three or
four places of the Catacombs; and here is the representation of one of
them, from the Catacomb of St. Hermes, on the Via Salara. What an amount
of labour and expense was necessary to effect the change, and, after
all, with a result how clumsy and unsatisfactory as compared with those
places which were excavated directly and primarily for the purpose of
burial!—so unsatisfactory, indeed, that presently the Christians left off
prosecuting the work even here where they had begun it. Though immense
spaces of the sandpit still remained unoccupied, they chose rather
to excavate after their own fashion in the virgin rock below. We may
conclude, then, without a shadow of doubt, that those excavations which
we call the Roman Catacombs were made solely for the sake of burying the
dead.
[Illustration: _Sections of Gallery in St. Hermes._]
But by whom? and to bury what dead? We answer, and again without
hesitation—By Christians, and only to bury Christians. And if it is
asked on what authority this statement is made, we might point to the
thousands of Christian inscriptions that have been found in them, and to
the utter absence of evidence in favour of any other account of them. Our
readers, however, would probably insist that it was impossible for the
early Christians, a small and persecuted body, going about stealthily and
in disguise, as it were, among the Pagan multitude, to have executed so
vast a work.
First, let me say—though the remark hardly comes here in its proper
place, yet, as it may help to dissipate a prejudice, let me anticipate
a little and say—that the work in its full magnitude, such as we have
been describing it, was the work (to speak roughly) of three centuries
of labour. There is evidence that the Catacombs were used as Christian
cemeteries even before the end of the first century, and they certainly
continued to be so used, more or less, up to the first decade of the
fifth. Among the inscriptions found in them is one of the year of our
Lord 72; there are others of 107, 110, and so on, down to 410; so that
the whole period of their use includes almost a century of the Church’s
peace, as well as all the time of her persecution.
However, here as elsewhere the difficulty is not about the end of the
work, but about its beginning. How was it possible that the Christians
in the first and second centuries could have executed any part of the
great work we have described? How could they have made a beginning? how
carried it on? Was it a work done in violation of the law, and therefore
in secret? or was it public and notorious, and such as their Pagan
neighbours, enemies though they were, could not legitimately interfere
with? The answers to these questions are to be sought in learned volumes
of old Roman law, and in hundreds of Latin Pagan inscriptions, which,
however, cannot be transferred to these pages. For our present purpose
their contents may be thus briefly summarised.
It was the common practice of Roman gentlemen and ladies of wealth to
make in their wills very minute provisions for their tombs, and for
certain rites and ceremonies to be performed at their tombs after death.
They ordinarily set apart some portion of a field or garden near the high
road, accurately measured off with so many feet of frontage and so many
feet into the field behind; and in the middle of this plot they ordered a
monument to be erected—often a chamber of considerable dimensions, with
an altar of stone or of fine marble in which their bones or ashes should
be laid, and benches of the same material, with cushions and all else
that was necessary for the convenience of guests, whom they invited to
come and partake here of a feast in their memory, both on the anniversary
of their death and on several other occasions. The cost of the tomb
was often specified in the will, and recorded on the epitaph; and the
expenses of the feasts were met partly by contributions from dependants
of the deceased who were intended to partake of it, partly by the rent
of certain houses or gardens, or by the interest of moneys bequeathed
by the deceased himself or by others for this purpose. The execution of
this part of the will was commonly intrusted to some one or more faithful
freedmen, who had a direct interest in its fulfilment; and heavy fines
were inflicted on the heirs in case of neglect.
The motive of these testamentary dispositions is obvious; they were
made in the vain hope that by these means the name and memory of the
deceased might not utterly perish. And the Roman law did all that it
could to secure the realisation of so natural a wish; it fenced every
place of burial round about with divers safeguards, and punished its
violation with the severest penalties. First of all, the burial of a
single corpse (or the deposit of the little urn of ashes if the body had
been burnt) sufficed to impart a sort of religious character to the spot
where these remains had been laid for their last resting-place, provided
the burial had been made with the consent of the owner of the soil.
Henceforth that place no longer belonged to the category of ordinary
landed property, but became subject to new and peculiar laws of its own.
It did not pass by will as part of the inheritance; no prescriptive right
had any power to alienate it; if at any time some undutiful descendant
should secretly obliterate all visible tokens of its use as a place
of burial, and fraudulently effect a sale of the property as though
it were common land, the law would interfere to annul the contract as
soon as it was discovered, no matter after what lapse of time; it would
oblige the purchaser to surrender his purchase, and the vendor or his
heirs to make restitution of the purchase-money, together with interest
at a very high rate; and the money thus forfeited was devoted to some
public use of beneficence. Even this penalty, severe as it is, fell
short of what the law prescribed in the case of those who had themselves
violated a sepulchre. This was accounted so heinous a crime, that it was
punished by banishment or perpetual labour in the mines, according to the
condition in life of the offender; and the acts of violation subject to
this penalty were such as these:—the breaking open of a sepulchre, the
intrusion into it of a stranger’s corpse, _i.e._, of one not belonging to
the family, or not included in the list of those to whom the concession
was made by the original testator, the carrying away of any stone,
pillar, or statue, or even the erasure of an epitaph.
This was the common law of the land in Imperial Rome; and the most
remarkable thing about it is this, that, except in times of civil war
and great public commotion, it protected the tombs, not only of the rich
and noble, but of those whom the law despised or even execrated, such as
slaves and criminals. It was specially enacted that the bodies of public
malefactors, who had suffered death at the hands of the executioner,
were to be given up on the petition of their friends, to be buried where
they pleased; and when once this had been done, the tomb fell under the
guardianship of the Pontifices as effectually as any other tomb. Of
course, there was occasionally exceptional legislation on this subject,
as, for instance, with reference to some of the Christian martyrs; but
these exceptions were rare, and prompted by special reasons; they do not
invalidate the general truth of the statements which have been made, nor
of the conclusion which may legitimately be drawn from them; viz., that
at the very time when the Roman law was most severe against Christianity
as a religion, aiming at nothing short of its extinction, this same
law would, nevertheless, have extended its protection to Christian
cemeteries, if there were any.
And how should there not have been? For Christians died like other folk,
and had need to be buried; and what was to hinder some wealthy “brother”
from giving up some portion of a field of his, in as public a situation
as he pleased—indeed, the nearer to the high road, the more closely
would it be in accordance with the practice of his Pagan neighbours—and
allowing his Christian brethren to be buried there? He might confine the
use of it, if he would, to members of his own family, or he might make
it common to all the faithful, or he might fix whatever other limits he
pleased to its use. He might also build on the ground some house or
chamber, or conspicuous monument; he might assign as much land as he
chose all round it for its support; and underneath this house and land
the work of excavation might proceed without let or hindrance; there
was no need of concealment, and there is no proof that at the first
commencement of the Church any concealment was attempted.
On the contrary, the tendency of all modern discoveries has been in the
opposite direction. Now that we have learnt to distinguish one part
of a cemetery from another, and to trace the several periods of their
excavation in chronological order, it has been made clear that each
several part was originally a separate _area_ as well defined as that
of any Pagan monument, and its limits, like theirs, were determined by
the course of the adjacent road, and walls of enclosure built for the
purpose. We find, for example, that what is now called the Catacomb of
St. Callixtus, is made up of eight or ten such _areæ_, each with its own
staircase, and its own system of excavation, conducted with order and
economy. The _area_ that was first used here for purposes of Christian
burial measured 250 Roman feet by 100, and its galleries were reached by
two staircases, entering boldly from the surface, within sight of all
passers-by along the Appian Way, and going straight to their point. By
and by, a second _area_ was added of the same dimensions; and in process
of time, a third, 150 feet by 125; a fourth, of the same dimensions, and
so on.
[Illustration: _Entrance to a most Ancient Christian Sepulchre at Tor
Marancia._]
The internal arrangements of some of these _areæ_ have undergone so much
change in the course of centuries, that it is no longer possible to
recover the precise form of their original entrances. But what is not
found in one place is found in another; and one of the recent discoveries
has been the entrance to a famous catacomb on the Via Ardeatina, not
far from the cemetery of which we have just been speaking It is cut in
the side of a hill close to the highway and has a front of very fine
brickwork, with a cornice of terra-cotta, and the usual space for an
inscription, which has now unfortunately perished. The sepulchre to
which it introduces us is ornamented with Christian paintings of a
very classical character; and it may be considered as proved that it
once belonged to the Flavian family,—that imperial family which gave
Vespasian to the throne, and (as we learn even from Pagan authors) gave
a martyr and several confessors to the Christian Church. The cemetery
was begun in the days of Domitian, _i.e._, towards the end of the first
century, and it is known by the name of his relative, St. Domitilla,
on whose property (there is good reason to believe) it was excavated.
The entrance is flanked on either side by a chamber, built of brick
subsequently to the excavation of the subterranean sepulchre. The larger
of these chambers, with the bench running all the way round it, was
evidently the place of meeting for those whose duty or privilege it was
to assemble here on the appointed anniversaries to do honour to the
deceased; the smaller space, on the left, with its well and cistern,
and fragments of a staircase, was no less obviously occupied by the
dwelling-house of the _custode_, or guardian of the monument.
We have said that the inscription has perished, but we can see where
it once was, and we can supply a specimen of such an inscription from
other catacombs; _e.g._, it might have been simply SEPULCRUM FLAVIORUM,
like the EUTYCHIORUM lately discovered in the Catacomb of St. Callixtus,
or it might have been longer and more explicit, like the inscription
found in the cemetery of St. Nicomedes, found a few years ago on the
other side of Rome. Not far from the entrance of this cemetery there
lay a stone which declared to whom the monument belonged, viz., to one
Valerius Mercurius and Julitta (who was probably his wife); then another
gentleman is named, and one or two ladies, and finally their freedmen
and freedwomen; but this important condition is added, AD RELIGIONEM
PERTINENTES MEAM,—“if they belong to my religion.” It is true there is
no Christian emblem on this stone to declare the faith of the writer,
but the cemetery in which it is found is undeniably Christian; and among
the thousands or tens of thousands of Pagan inscriptions that have come
down to us, we do not find one that contains the remarkable expression I
have quoted. Indeed, it is doubtful whether it would have had any meaning
to Pagan ears; but a Christian or a Jew would have understood it well.
And it reminds us of another very ancient inscription which may yet be
seen in the Catacomb of St. Domitilla, where it served to appropriate a
particular chamber as the family vault of its owner. The inscription runs
in this wise:—“M. Aurelius Restutus made this subterranean chamber for
himself and those of his family who believe in the Lord.”
Our limited space will not allow us to produce further evidence of the
liberty and publicity of the Christian cemeteries in their beginning;
but further evidence ought not to be required, since there is really
none whatever on the other side. It cannot be shown that the Roman
Government ever interfered with the Catacombs before the middle of the
third century, and not even then with reference to their original and
more ordinary use as places of burial, but rather to a later but very
important use to which they were then being put—as places of assembly and
religious worship.
There is one objection, however, to our argument which cannot be passed
over in silence—it will doubtless have already suggested itself to some
of our readers. They will have called to mind the testimony of St. Paul,
that not many mighty, not many noble, were among the first disciples of
the faith, and therefore that what was possible for a Flavius Clemens,
a Domitilla, or a Cecilia, was nevertheless quite beyond the reach of
the humbler and more numerous part of the Christian community. Most
true; but there is abundant evidence to show that burial of the dead was
considered one of the highest works of Christian charity, in which the
rich accounted it a duty and a pleasure to aid the poor. Moreover, where
the work was not done by wealthy individuals, it might easily have been
done by means of an association of numbers, and this too would have been
protected by the law.
Under the laws of the old Roman Republic, there was scarcely any limit
to the exercise of the right of association among its citizens; but from
the days of Julius Cæsar private clubs or corporations (_collegia_)
were looked upon with grave suspicion, and the right of meeting was
but sparingly granted by the Senate or the Emperor. We have a notable
example of this suspicion in the refusal by the Emperor Trajan of a
petition from his friend and trusted official, Pliny. Pliny had asked
for leave to form in one of the towns of his province a body of firemen,
150 in number, and assured his imperial master that he would be careful
in his selection of men, and vigilant over their conduct. But Trajan
peremptorily refused, on the plea of political mischief, which (he
said) experience showed to be the ordinary fruit even of associations
apparently most harmless. One important exception, however, was made
to this policy of stern repression. It was permitted to the poorer
classes to form clubs for the purpose of providing for the expenses of
their burial, and they were allowed to meet once a month to pay their
contributions, and to make the necessary regulations for the management
of their affairs with a view to the attainment of this object. An immense
number of most curious and interesting monuments still survive, showing
how largely the Roman poor availed themselves of this privilege in the
second and third centuries of our era, and what sound practical sense
they exhibited in establishing the laws and conditions of membership in
these burial-clubs. It is a most tempting field, upon which, however, we
must not dwell at any length. We can only call attention to the language
of Tertullian in a work especially addressed to the Roman Government, and
in which, using almost the very words of the law on the subject of these
clubs, he explains how Christians on a certain day of the month make
voluntary contributions for certain benevolent purposes, of which he
specifies the burial of the dead as one.
We cannot doubt, therefore, that as some of the Roman Catacombs may
have been the private work, and even remained the private property, of
individuals or families, so others, possibly from the first, certainly
as early as the end of the second century, belonged to the Christian
community collectively, and were administered for the general good
by duly-appointed officers. The earliest instance of this, of which
any written evidence has come down to us, is the cemetery of which we
have already spoken on the Via Appia, and which was intrusted by Pope
Zephyrinus to the care of his archdeacon, Callixtus, whose name it has
ever since retained. A monument may yet be seen in it showing how, a
century later, this same cemetery still remained under the immediate
jurisdiction of the Pope, and was administered by his deacon; for
this was the arrangement made. The bishops were the legal possessors
of the cemeteries, churches, and other religious places; but it was
well understood, and the very language of the imperial decrees often
acknowledges, that they really belonged to the whole body of the
Christians, and not to any private individual; and the deacons acted as
the _quæstores_, or representatives and agents of the body.
It was not necessary that the Christians should obtain any special leave
to form a _collegium_, nor seek for any special privileges. The ordinary
liberties of every Roman citizen were sufficient for their purpose. Most
of the Pagan burial-clubs indeed had, or pretended to have, a certain
religious character, being usually placed under the invocation of some
one or other of the gods. But this was not an essential condition of
their existence. It was not necessary, therefore, that the Christians
should put forward any religious profession at all, nor even take the
name of a _collegium_. They might have retained, and probably did
retain, their own favourite and characteristic name of _Fratres_; and,
provided the ostensible motive of their association was to provide the
means of burial for their members, they might have held meetings and
possessed property with impunity. In this way a sort of practical _modus
vivendi_ was established for them under the reign of the more just and
merciful Emperors. The religious character of their meetings, though
well known, might yet be winked at, so that they were tolerated, just as
many Egyptian, Greek, and Asiatic religious confraternities (_erani_,
or _thiasi_), were not interfered with so long as they gave no umbrage
to the Government; and the laws which forbade the profession of the
Christian religion were at those times restricted in their application to
individual cases of accusation as they arose, just as we know that Trajan
at least had enjoined. Nevertheless, those laws still remained; and
when the hour of persecution came, the charge of practising a _religio
illicita_ could be insisted upon, and all Christian meetings forbidden.
Let us now briefly sum up what has been said, and see what light it
throws on the origin of the Roman Catacombs. It has been shown that
the habits of Pagan Rome about burials and burial-grounds, during
the first centuries of the Christian era, unconsciously, yet most
effectively, shielded the work of the infant Church. The extensive _area_
so frequently attached to the monuments of the wealthy; the house or
chamber built upon it; the assignment of property for its support to
chosen friends, with the infliction of fines in case of neglect; the
inalienability of any land which had once been used for purposes of
burial; the power of admitting friends and excluding strangers by the
mere will of the testator; the right of combination, or making clubs to
secure and maintain such burial-places by means of monthly contributions;
the habit of visiting the monument, and of eating and drinking there in
solemn memory of the departed;—all these facts or principles, guaranteed
by Roman law and practice as the privilege of every citizen, were of
admirable convenience to the makers and frequenters of the Christian
Catacombs. They furnished a real legal screen for the protection of
the Christian Society in a matter that was very near their hearts. If
a number of Christians were seen wending their way to this or that
cemetery, and entering its adjacent _cella_, they would be to Pagan
eyes only the members of a burial-club, or the relations, friends,
and dependants of some great family going out to the appointed place
to celebrate the birthday or some other anniversary of a deceased
benefactor; and if disposed to give evasive answers to inconvenient
questions, some perhaps might have even dared to say that such was
indeed their errand. It would be noticed, of course, that they did not
use the funeral pile; but they could not be molested on this account,
since custom only, and not law, prescribed its use. To these objectors
they might answer boldly with Minucius Felix, “We follow the better and
more ancient custom of burial!” Again, the Pagans might grumble, but
they could hardly punish, for neglecting to sprinkle roses or violets
on the sepulchres of the dead. But as to the main external features of
the case, we repeat that what the Pagans ordinarily did in the way of
providing burial-places for their dead was very much the same as what the
Christians desired to do; and under the screen of this resemblance the
Roman Catacombs began.
CHAPTER II.
THEIR HISTORY DURING THE AGES OF PERSECUTION.
How long the Roman Christians were allowed to bury their dead where they
pleased, and to visit their tombs in peace, we can hardly say. In Africa
there had been a popular outcry against the Christian cemeteries, and
a demand for their destruction, in the beginning of the third century;
and the same thing may have happened in Rome also at the same or even
at an earlier date. The first certain record, however, of any legal
interference with the Roman Catacombs belongs to a period fifty years
later, by which time they must have been both numerous and extensive; it
must also have been very notorious where they were situated. We have seen
how public the entrance was to the Catacomb of St. Domitilla in the first
century, and there is no reason to suppose that this was an exception to
the general rule. The Cœmeterium Ostrianum, on the Via Nomentana, was as
old, and probably as well known, for it was the place where St. Peter
had baptized; the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, too, of the noble family of
Pudens, on the Via Salara, and several others.
We read of St. Anacletus, who was Bishop of Rome about A.D. 160,
that he built some sort of monument over the tomb of St. Peter on the
Vatican, and his predecessors and some few of his successors till the
end of the century were buried in this same place, _juxta corpus Beati
Petri_, as the old records have it. Around the tomb of St. Paul, also,
on the Via Ostiensis, a cemetery was formed, of which a few monuments
still remain, bearing dates of the first decade of the second century.
Hence a priest, writing in that same century, calls these tombs of the
Apostles “the trophies,” or triumphal monuments, “of those who had laid
the foundation of the Church in Rome.” About a hundred years later we
read of St. Fabian—Pope A.D. 236-250—that “he caused numerous buildings
to be constructed throughout the cemeteries.” And this expression seems
to imply that the cemeteries were no longer private property (as several
of them undoubtedly were at the first), but belonged to the Church in
her corporate capacity, and were administered, therefore, under the
superintendence of her rulers. We have contemporary evidence that this
was the condition of a cemetery on the Via Appia from the beginning of
the third century, Pope Zephyrinus having set over it his chief deacon,
Callixtus; and the obvious advantages of such an arrangement may have
led to its general, if not universal, adoption. At any rate, we cannot
doubt that “the numerous buildings he caused to be constructed throughout
the cemeteries” were either oratories for public worship, or chambers
for the celebration of the _agapæ_, which he caused to be built after
the fashion of the _scholæ_ of the Pagan burial-clubs, in the _areæ_ of
cemeteries which had not had them before; and we can easily understand
how this increased provision of places for assembly had been rendered
necessary by the rapid multiplication of the faithful during the long
peace which the Church had enjoyed since the reign of Caracalla.
At the first beginning of the Church in Rome, the Christians had, of
course, met together only in private houses, “under cover of that
great liberty which invested with a sort of sacred independence the
Roman household;” but as their numbers increased, this could not have
sufficed. Very early in the third century, therefore, and probably even
much earlier, there were places of public Christian worship within
the city; and it seems certain that the faithful were allowed also to
assemble (at least under ordinary circumstances) in the public _areæ_
of their cemeteries up to the middle of the same century. The language
of Tertullian, complaining that the heathen “had become acquainted with
their days of meeting, and that hence they were continually besieged,
betrayed, and caught unawares in their most secret congregations,”
suggests rather the idea of meetings in subterranean hiding-places than
of public assemblies. But he also tells us that some congregations
used to purchase immunity to themselves by payment of tribute to the
Government, and that for this purpose they were enrolled on the police
registers, where, as he takes care to remind them, they found themselves
in anything but respectable company. These, of course, must have had
public places of meeting; but under what title they can have met, unless
it was that of burial-clubs, such as were described in our last chapter,
it is not easy to conjecture. They could not be enrolled merely as
professors of the Christian faith; for ever since the first persecution
by Nero, the Roman Government had persistently refused to give any legal
recognition to “the new superstition.” For a while, indeed, the Jews
and Christians had been regarded as professing the same religion, and
this was a great gain to the Christians, for there had been a decree
of Cæsar that the Jews throughout the whole Roman Empire should be
allowed to keep their ancient customs without let or hindrance. The Jews
themselves soon vigorously denounced their supposed co-religionists,
and when Christianity had once established its independence of Judaism,
it fell under the ban of an illicit religion. Thenceforward, though the
Christians were not always being persecuted, they were always liable to
persecution, so that even when it was forbidden to accuse them, yet, if
they were brought before justice and acknowledged themselves Christians,
it was forbidden to absolve them. This was the state of things under the
reign of Aurelian and Commodus, in the latter half of the second century,
when we read of a certain senator, named Apollonius, that he was accused
of Christianity, and pleading guilty to the charge, was beheaded, while
yet the man who had informed against him was condemned to death also, but
by the more cruel and ignominious method of breaking on the wheel. The
beautiful story of St. Cecilia, too, belongs (it is now ascertained) to
some more active period of persecution about this same time. The story
need not be repeated here, but one of its details is worth referring
to, as it probably gives a true picture of what was happening not
unfrequently in those days, viz., that some of the clergy lay hid in the
Catacombs, and inquirers after the truth were conducted by trusty guides
to their retreat. We must not suppose, however, that any large number
of the faithful ever took refuge there for any length of time; indeed,
such a thing would have been physically impossible. The Christians
assembled there for purposes of worship when the public exercise of their
religion was interfered with; and then this secrecy, thus cruelly forced
upon them, was cast in their teeth, and they were called “a skulking,
darkness-loving people.”
At length, in the year 253, Valerian published a decree whereby he sought
to close against them even this subterranean retreat; he forbade them
“either to hold assemblies or to enter those places which they call their
cemeteries.” The edict was, of course, disobeyed, and Pope Sixtus II.,
with some of his deacons, was surprised and martyred in the Catacomb of
Pretextatus. This Catacomb was situated in a vineyard on the opposite
side of the road from the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, and perhaps it had
been selected as the place of meeting because it was less known to the
public than that chief of Christian cemeteries. The secret, however, had
been betrayed, and (as we learn from an inscription by Pope Damasus)
the Holy Pontiff was apprehended whilst in the midst of a religious
function. The faithful who were present vied with one another in offering
themselves to martyrdom, in his company at least, if not in his stead,
but only the deacons obtained the coveted privilege. The Bishop himself
was led before the tribunal, condemned, and then brought back to the
scene of his “crime,” where he received the crown of martyrdom either
in his pontifical chair itself, or at least so near to it that it
was sprinkled by his blood. The charge on which he was condemned was
distinctly this, “that he had set at nought the commands of Valerian.”
But in the following year these commands were revoked, and during the
next fifty or sixty years the Catacombs come before us in successive
periods of Church history as enjoying good or evil fortune according to
the varying fortunes of the Church herself, of which they became a chief
battle-field. If Valerian interdicted them, Gallienus, his son, restored
them; and thus they were tolerated and forbidden, forbidden and tolerated
again, according to the will of the Government, until at last, before the
end of the century, they were confiscated altogether.
More than two centuries had now elapsed since the Catacombs were begun,
and they had attained a degree of development far beyond anything
that could have been anticipated. Divers modifications also had been
gradually introduced in the execution of the work, and of these it will
be worth while to give some account. We will take the cemetery of St.
Callixtus as a specimen; for although in almost every Catacomb there is
some difference in detail from the rest, caused either by some local
peculiarity, or by the mere taste or caprice of those who made it, yet,
in outline at least, the process of development must have been the same
in all. It seems to have been something of this kind. At first a plot
of ground in some suitable situation was either given by its Christian
proprietor, or acquired by purchase, and secured by all necessary legal
formalities—probably also enclosed by a wall or other fence—as a place
of burial. A plan of excavation was then determined upon, and the
work begun. Whilst as yet the _fossors_ had had no experience of the
consistency of the material in which they were to labour, and whilst they
imagined themselves to be providing for the burial only of a few, they
would naturally work freely and without much regard to economy of space.
But as time went on the necessity for economy would become apparent; then
they had recourse to various devices for securing it. They lowered the
floors both of the vaults and galleries, so that they might receive more
tiers of graves. They made the galleries somewhat narrower than before,
and closer to one another. At the angles of their intersection, where
the friability of the rock would not admit of full-sized graves being
cut, they made smaller graves for infants, that the space might not be
wasted. They did the same also even in the shelves of rock which had
been left as a necessary support between the several tiers of graves.
Everywhere unnecessary labour was spared; no more soil was removed than
was absolutely necessary for the purpose required. The graves were
made wider at the head and shoulders, and narrower at the feet; and if
two bodies were to be buried in a double grave (_locus bisomus_), the
soil was excavated only in exact proportion, the feet of the one being
generally laid by the head of the other.
These expedients, however, could not materially enlarge the space
available for graves, and the _fossors_ were driven to excavate another
flat (so to speak) either above or below the first. And here they were
enabled more easily to provide chambers in which the faithful could
assemble in time of persecution. The first subterranean chambers had
been made small and plain, and rectangular in shape—mere family vaults
apparently; but in the second and third floors we find them both more
numerous, more spacious, and in a greater variety of forms, furnished
also with _luminaria_, or shafts communicating with the surface of
the ground, whereby light and air could be supplied to those who were
assembled below. Some of them were decorated with cornices, columns,
pilasters, brackets and chairs, hewn out of the solid rock. To the
period of persecution belong also those galleries which connect parts
of the more important cemeteries with the sandpits in their immediate
neighbourhood—connections which were both studiously concealed, and, in
some instances at least, designedly rendered dangerous to the use of
strangers.
[Illustration: _Diogenes the Fossor._]
Other features in the development of the architecture of the Catacombs
must be passed over, as they cannot be appreciated except by means of a
personal examination on the spot, or with the aid of more abundant plans
and drawings than our present limits will allow. We must not, however,
omit to say a few words about the noble band of workmen by whom these
stupendous excavations were being made. We learn something about them
even from the Catacombs themselves. Here and there, among the decorations
of some of the vaults, may be seen the figures of men armed with pickaxes
and lamps, and other instruments necessary for subterranean excavation,
and several epitaphs have preserved to us the official title of these
men: they were called _fossores_, or diggers. Their work must have been
extremely laborious, and hence, in the imperial laws of the fourth and
fifth centuries, they appear under a name derived from this circumstance.
They are there called _copiatæ_, or labourers _par excellence_; but in
all the inscriptions hitherto discovered in the Catacombs, they never
have any other name than _fossores_, or _fossarii_. Their life must
also have been one of continual danger and self-sacrifice. It was no
mere venal service which they rendered to the Church, but a work of
real devotedness. Moreover, they were necessarily in the confidence of
the Church’s rulers; they knew the exact place of burial of each martyr
and confessor, the times and places appointed for the celebration of
the holy mysteries, and so forth. We are not surprised, therefore, to
hear, on the authority of St. Jerome, that they were reckoned among the
_clerics_; and although they are not mentioned in the list of the Roman
clergy sent to St. Cyprian about A.D. 240, we find them enumerated in an
official document of the first decade of the fourth century, where they
follow immediately after the bishop, priests, deacons, and sub-deacons.
In the list furnished to St. Cyprian, it is probable that they are
included among the _ostiarii_, with whose duties their own must have
been in part identical as long as the Christians continued to worship in
the Catacombs. However, be this as it may, there can be no doubt that
during the earliest ages of the Church the _fossors_ were supported, like
the rest of her ministers, by the voluntary gifts of the faithful; and
the whole work of the Catacombs was carried on by means of the mutual
spontaneous liberality of the whole body of Christians, not by any fixed
tax exacted for each grave that was required.
We have now completed our sketch of the outward history of the Catacombs
during the ages of persecution. We have noted the vicissitudes of
their fortunes at various times, traced the gradual process of their
architectural development, and paid our tribute of admiration to the
men who made them. Would that it were also possible to add a faithful
abstract of the chronicles of these venerable sanctuaries during those
eventful years! Many must have been the tender and stirring scenes of
which they were the witnesses; but, alas! of most of these all written
memorial has perished. Even of those which have reached us, the narrative
has generally been corrupted by later embellishments, so that there are
very few which rest on sufficiently authentic evidence to justify their
introduction in this place. The following, however, are exceptions to
this remark, and are too precious to be omitted.
Our first story belongs to the Pontificate of St. Stephen, and therefore
to the year 256 or thereabouts. We gather it partly from the Acts of the
Martyrs, and partly from the inscriptions which were set up at their
tombs before those Acts were written, or certainly before that particular
edition of the Acts was written which alone is now extant. The incidents
of the story are these:—A wealthy Greek family, consisting of a gentleman
and his wife and two children, and his brother, set sail for Italy.
They were overtaken in their voyage by a storm, during which they made
a vow to Pluto, and finally they reached their destination in safety.
During their stay in Rome the brother (Hippolytus) renounced idolatry,
and became a convert to the Christian faith, whereupon he devoted
himself to the laborious and heroic work of a _fossor_. This probably
happened during an interval when the Catacombs were under the ban of the
Government, for we read that the scene of his labours was an _arenarium_
or sandpit, and that he lived as well as worked in it. Certainly, the
conditions of life would have been much more tolerable in a sandpit than
in a proper Catacomb; and we have seen that, during times of persecution,
a connection was often made between the cemeteries and any adjacent
sandpit, in order to facilitate the means of entrance and of exit for
the poor hunted Christians. The fact of Hippolytus leading a solitary
life in the sandpit is mentioned as though it were a singularity, as,
indeed, we should have expected it to be; and it is added, that his
niece and nephew, aged nine and thirteen, used to visit and bring him
food there, until at length, at the suggestion of Stephen, Hippolytus
detained them one day, and so drew their parents to seek them in his
hiding-place, where they were eventually converted by means of a miracle
which they witnessed. Then, after being duly instructed and baptized,
they distributed their wealth to the poor; and having all received the
crown of martyrdom, they were buried in the same _arenarium_ in which
they had been wont to assemble during life. It was the _arenarium_
connected with the third story of the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, to which
a grand staircase was once made straight down from the surface of the
soil, for the convenience of the numerous pilgrims who came to do honour
to Hippolytus, Adrias and Paulina, Neo and Maria. The staircase has been
rediscovered, but the extremely friable nature of the soil has hitherto
baffled every attempt thoroughly to explore the sandpit.
It has been already told how this Catacomb of St. Callixtus was, as
it were, consecrated by the blood of St. Sixtus II., St. Stephen’s
successor. About thirty years later, during the Pontificate of St. Caius,
who himself had to lie hid in a catacomb for several years, we read of
a number of the faithful who were seen entering a cemetery on the Via
Salara to visit the tombs of SS. Chrysanthus and Daria; how, by order
of the Emperor (Numerian), the entrance was at once closed, and a vast
mound of sand and stones heaped up in front, that so they might all be
buried alive, even as the martyrs they had come to venerate. St. Gregory
of Tours tells us, that when the tombs of these martyrs were rediscovered
after the ages of persecution had ceased, there were found with them not
only the relics of those worshippers who had been thus cruelly put to
death—skeletons of men, women, and children lying on the floor—but also
the silver cruets which they had taken down with them for the celebration
of the sacred mysteries; and De Rossi holds out hopes that some traces
of this precious sanctuary may be restored even to our own generation.
For we know that Pope Damasus (by whom it was discovered) abstained from
making any of those changes whereby he sometimes decorated the martyrs’
tombs, but contented himself with setting up an historical inscription,
and opening a window in the adjacent wall or rock, that all might see,
without disturbing, a monument so unique and touching; and this was still
visible in St. Gregory’s days in the sixth century.
It is from another inscription of Pope Damasus that we learn the history
of the noble young acolyte and martyr, St. Tharsicius, who was seized
one day as he was leaving a catacomb in which the holy mysteries had
just been celebrated, and was carrying the Blessed Sacrament secretly
about his person to convey to some of the absent faithful, who were
either sick, or had not dared to fly in the face of the law prohibiting
the Christian assemblies. The youth sacrificed his life rather than
betray to Pagan eyes the priceless treasure that had been intrusted to
his keeping. Then they rifled his corpse, yet their profane curiosity
was not gratified; and the holy martyr was buried in the cemetery of St.
Callixtus, whence he had probably set out.
St. Agnes also belongs to the same period which we are trying to
illustrate, but she belongs to its very last stage, during the
persecution of Diocletian, when, as we have said, the Catacombs were
altogether confiscated. Still this did not succeed in rigorously
excluding the faithful. We know, from the irrefragable testimony of dated
inscriptions, that even at such times as these the Christians managed to
gain admission and to bury there. There is nothing, therefore, strange or
inconsistent with history in the story of her parents having been engaged
in prayer at her tomb two days after her martyrdom, when they were
consoled by the vision of her glory in heaven; nor in that other story
that her foster-sister, St. Emerentiana, was in the same place baptized
in her own blood.
CHAPTER III.
THEIR HISTORY FROM A.D. 310 TO A.D. 850.
The persecution of Diocletian ended in 306, but it was not until 311
that the Catacombs were restored to their natural owners and protectors,
the Bishops of Rome. In that year the Pope Melchiades sent, by the
hands of some of his deacons, letters from the Emperor Maxentius to
the Prefect of the city, that he might recover legal possession of all
“the ecclesiastical places” of which the Christians had been plundered;
and amongst these places, the cemeteries were the most precious. About
this time, if not earlier, other cemeteries also were made, more easily
and at less cost, above ground instead of below; and during the next
hundred years both places of burial were in use. If we may take the dated
inscriptions as a guide in estimating the relative proportions in which
they were used, we should say that burial in the Catacombs remained
in the greatest favour until the latter half of the century. From the
year 364 to the end, the balance is considerably on the other side;
only one-third of the burials appear to have been in the subterranean
cemeteries, and two-thirds above ground. Then from the year 400 to 410,
burial in the Catacombs became more and more rare, until in that year it
ceased altogether.
The portions of the Catacombs that were excavated during the fourth
century vary considerably in character. In some parts, everything is
on an exceptional scale of grandeur; the chambers are not only double,
one on either side of the gallery, but even treble and quadruple, and
of magnificent proportions. In other parts, on the contrary, there is
nothing but a number of miserable galleries, executed with great economy,
and destitute of all ornament; evidently they were required to meet the
increasing wants of a large Christian population. It is during this
same period that we meet with inscriptions recording contracts for the
purchase of graves, and many more which, without entering into details,
merely declare that the deceased had provided during his lifetime a place
of burial for himself alone, or for himself and his wife, and perhaps
some other relatives also. These have very rarely been found in the more
ancient parts of the Catacombs. Indeed, such purchases would have proved
a fruitful source of embarrassment in the days of persecution, when the
_fossors_ often used galleries whose walls had been already filled with
graves as a convenient place in which to deposit the soil removed from
the new galleries they were excavating, and sometimes even buried corpses
in the pathways which they had thus filled. But this could not have been
done if it had been necessary to reserve particular spots as the private
property of persons hereafter to be buried there.
In the earliest of the inscriptions which record the purchase of graves,
the _fossors_ appear as the vendors; indeed, towards the end of the
fourth century, it would almost seem as though the whole administration
of the Catacombs had fallen into their hands. Each _fossor_ now worked
either independently, or with a partner if he preferred it; at least,
the purchase is generally stated to have been made from one _fossor_,
occasionally from two; and if the names of others of the same class are
added, it is only to say that they assisted as witnesses of the contract.
Once we even find the family of a _fossor_ selling the graves which
their father had excavated. In several of the inscriptions the price is
named, as well as the names of the contracting parties; and some authors
have attempted to estimate from these examples the ordinary cost of a
grave in the Catacombs. Their calculations, however, cannot be accepted,
for several reasons. First, the recorded prices are, in every instance,
out of all proportion with the labour really expended on the grave; and
secondly, they vary immensely, yet not according to any fixed principle.
It seems safer, therefore, to conclude, with De Rossi, that the price was
in each case proportionate to the means and good-will of the purchaser,
that so provision might be made for the gratuitous burial of the poor out
of the superabundant payments of the wealthy.
Another and a more important change than any which has yet been mentioned
came over the Catacombs during the fourth century. It has been already
mentioned that the devotion of the faithful naturally led them to look
on the tombs of the martyrs with feelings of the most tender and pious
affection; they desired, therefore, to manifest their love by some
outward tokens—to exchange the primitive simplicity of their humble
graves for something more suitable to their own altered condition. From
the first moment, then, that it was possible, even in the very age of
Constantine, grand basilicas were built over the tombs of the more
celebrated saints, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Agnes, St. Sebastian, and
others. In all these instances, they aimed at enclosing the tomb they
desired to honour within the precincts of the church; indeed, this was,
of course, the central point of devotion in the new building. But it
was impossible to dig the foundations and build the walls of such vast
edifices without a great destruction of subterranean graves and galleries
throughout the whole neighbourhood. Probably there were always some who
regretted this necessity, and who would have preferred to see these
venerable monuments of primitive Christianity left in their original
form. Certainly at the end of some fifty or sixty years, about the year
370, there sat in the chair of Peter one who seems to have entertained
these feelings, and who devoted himself therefore with singular zeal and
prudence to the work of their preservation.
Pope Damasus (for it is he of whom we are speaking) sought diligently
for all the tombs of historical note that had been hidden in days
of persecution and not yet recovered. He had no means, indeed, nor
apparently any desire, to crown them with basilicas of royal grandeur
such as Constantine had built; but he did what he could, and what he
thought necessary, both for the avoidance of scandal and danger among
the innumerable pilgrims who now flocked from all parts of the world
to visit the tombs of the martyrs, and also to preserve their memory
to future generations. First, therefore, he made new staircases and
additional shafts to the upper world to admit more light and air; he
blocked up certain passages, so as to check indiscriminate rambles in
the subterranean labyrinth, and to guide the pilgrims perforce to those
particular shrines where they wished to pay their homage. He strengthened
the friable tufa walls of some of the galleries which needed support
by means of arches of brick and stone work. He enlarged some of the
chambers, and ornamented many more; sometimes encasing their walls from
top to bottom with marble; sometimes—“not content with Parian marble,”
as Prudentius says—even using much solid silver for the ornamentation
of very special shrines. Finally, he composed short sets of verses in
honour of some of the heroes he desired to honour—verses in which he
either relates some interesting circumstance of their history which would
otherwise have been lost, or records the repairs or ornaments which had
been his own work. These inscriptions have been of the utmost service
in fixing the geography of the cemeteries, and so in reconstructing
their history. They are all exquisitely engraved on marble, and set up
at the spots to which they severally belong; engraved, too, invariably
by the same hand, the hand of an accomplished artist, Furius Dionysius
Filocalus, who devoted himself to this work out of special love, as it
would seem, to the Pontiff whom he so ably served.
The devotion of Pope Damasus to the Catacombs was as intelligent as it
was ardent. He longed, as he himself tells us, to be buried in them,
in a chamber where many of his martyred predecessors and other saints
already lay; but he respected too much the integrity of their tombs, and
prepared his place of burial therefore elsewhere. He built a place for
the purpose aboveground, in which himself, his mother, and sister, were
all buried. It would have been a happy thing for Christian archæology
if others had been equally scrupulous; but numerous epitaphs tell us
of men and women who had secured for themselves by purchase the right
of a grave “behind the saints” (_retro sanctos_) or “near” (_ad_) such
and such a saint, _i.e._, near his tomb; and many a subterranean chapel
still testifies, by the destruction of its original decorations, to the
frequent gratification of this natural desire. It is not improbable that
Pope Damasus forbade its indulgence to others, as he certainly denied it
to himself. Anyhow, there was a rapid decline in the number of those who
were buried in any part of the Catacombs during the latter part of his
Pontificate.
Then came the fatal year 410, the year in which Rome was taken by
Alaric,—the year in which, as St. Jerome says, “the most beautiful light
of the world was put out: the Roman Empire was decapitated, and, to
sum up all in one word, in the destruction of one city the whole world
perished.” In this year, the use of the Catacombs as Christian cemeteries
came to an end, and it was never again resumed. Here and there, at rare
intervals, a few exceptions may be found, even down to the middle of
the fifth century; but, speaking generally, it may be said that they
now ceased to be places of burial, and were only henceforth places of
pilgrimage.
In 557, much mischief was done in them by the Goths, attracted, perhaps,
by some report of the Parian marble and solid silver of which Prudentius
had written with such enthusiasm. The mischief was repaired in part by
the generosity of the people, in part by the care of the Popes. Pope
Vigilius (A.D. 550) restored some of the monumental inscriptions of
Pope Damasus which had been broken. It must be acknowledged that his
restorations were not very successful; but this was not through any fault
of his. Those were days of continual alarm and violence, and literature
and the fine arts do not flourish in such an atmosphere. The artists,
therefore, whom Vigilius had at his command were not worthy successors
of Filocalus; they were both ignorant and unskilful. Sometimes they
do not seem to have known the Latin words they had to reproduce, and,
when they knew them, often they could not spell them. They committed
many offences against the laws both of prosody and of orthography.
Nevertheless, we owe the Pope a debt of gratitude for having done what
he could, for he has preserved to us some valuable records which would
otherwise have perished.
During the next two hundred years matters did not mend. We read of many
ordinances by the Popes designed for the protection of the cemeteries and
for the celebration of mass in them. But by and by, when the Lombards
attacked Rome in 756, the work of ruin made fresh and rapid strides,
and, in fact, was soon completed. These men were Arians, and they broke
in and carried off some bodies of the saints to take them home to their
own churches in the North of Italy; so that, immediately afterwards,
Pope Paul I., finding himself quite unable effectually to protect so
many cemeteries situated all round the city and so far from its walls,
determined to bring the bodies of the martyrs for safer custody into
churches within the city. This work of translation, as it was called,
though not continued by either of his immediate successors, was resumed
by Pope Paschal I. in 817, and carried on by others, the latest instance
on record belonging to the days of Leo IV. (A.D. 848). All these Popes
assign as the cause for the translation the state of ruin to which the
cemeteries were now reduced, and the horrible profanation to which they
were continually exposed, parts of them being even used by farmers of the
Campagna for the stabling of their sheep and oxen. From this time the
real living history of the Catacombs was at an end. As in the beginning
of the fifth century they had ceased to be used as places of burial, so
in the first half of the ninth they ceased to be frequented for purposes
of devotion. Henceforward there was nothing to keep them in the minds and
hearts of men. They were neglected and then forgotten.
A few exceptions must be made to these remarks. To some cemeteries
religious congregations of men or women had been attached from a very
early date. These houses were established for the singing of the Divine
praises day and night, in continuation of the primitive practice, when
clergy and laity used to keep watch and sing psalms and hymns at the
martyrs’ tombs. As long as this was done, the adjoining cemeteries
remained at least partially accessible, and were preserved from utter
oblivion. This is why we read of occasional visits to the Catacombs
of St. Agnes, St. Cyriaca, St. Sebastian, and one or two others, even
during the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Numerous inscriptions, which
the making of the modern _Campo Santo_ in Rome has lately brought to
light, demonstrate that there was a convent of nuns near San Lorenzo
_fuori le mura_, as early as the fourth century. There had been another
at the Basilica of St. Agnes since the days of Constantine; and Pope
Sixtus III. established a congregation of men at the Basilica of St.
Sebastian on the Via Appia. This last has an interesting connection with
our subject; for the cemetery at St. Sebastian’s, which had been the
temporary resting-place of the bodies of the Apostles Peter and Paul, was
known as the Cemetery _ad Catacumbas_. How it came to be so called, or
what is the meaning of the name, scholars are not agreed; neither would
the settlement of the question add much to our knowledge of the Catacombs
themselves, any more than if we could discover why another cemetery was
called “The Cemetery at The Two Laurels” (_ad duas lauros_), and another,
“The Cemetery at Cucumber Hill” (_ad divum cucumeris_). An accidental
importance, however, attaches to the name of this particular cemetery,
because it is now given also to all the other subterranean cemeteries of
Rome, and even to the cemeteries of Naples, of Paris and Malta, of Sicily
and Egypt, some of which have hardly any characteristics in common with
them.
CHAPTER IV.
THEIR LOSS AND RECOVERY.
From the middle of the ninth century till nearly the end of the
sixteenth, the Roman Catacombs had no history, and were practically
unknown. At various times indeed during the fifteenth century, a few
friars and strangers from Scotland, from Sicily, and the North of
Italy, had somehow found their way into a corner of the Catacomb of
St. Callixtus; and a few men of learning also, about the same time,
visited both this and some other cemeteries. All these visitors have
left their names inscribed upon the walls; but neither the friars nor
the archæologists seem to have recognised the value of what they saw,
nor taken pains to communicate their discovery to others. The whole
subject lay in complete darkness, when, in the year 1578, an accidental
circumstance brought it to light.
On the last day of May in that year, some labourers who were digging
_pozzolana_ in a vineyard on the Via Salara happened to break into
a gallery of graves ornamented with Christian paintings, Greek and
Latin inscriptions, and two or three sculptured sarcophagi. Such a
discovery in an age of great intellectual activity naturally excited
much curiosity, so that persons of all classes flocked to see it. “Rome
was amazed,” writes a cotemporary author, “at finding that she had other
cities unknown to her concealed beneath her own suburbs, beginning now
to understand what she had before only heard or read of;” “and in that
day,” says De Rossi, “was born the name and the knowledge of _Roma
Sotterranea_.” Would that there had been born also at the same time, in
the highest quarters of the Church, a sufficient appreciation of the
importance of the discovery to have caused them to take it under their
own immediate superintendence, and to pursue with care and diligence the
researches to which it invited them. Had the ecclesiastical authorities
of Rome adopted from the first some such means for the guardianship of
the Catacombs and their contents as Pope Pius IX. in 1851, by intrusting
them to a Commission of Sacred Archæology, or even as Clement IX. in
1688, by forbidding all excavations and removal of relics from them
by private individuals, they would have been to us almost a Christian
Pompeii—a true “city of the dead,” yet exhibiting such abundant and
authentic records of the first ages of the Roman Church as would have
enabled us to form a very lifelike picture of our forefathers in the
faith.
But alas! the work of destruction began almost as soon as it was
discovered that there was anything to destroy; and the labours of the
few who appreciated what had been found, and would fain have handed down
to posterity an accurate account of it, could hardly keep pace with the
destroyer. From the first there were a chosen few who laboured hard in
this new field of Christian archæology—in particular, a Spanish Dominican
friar and two young Flemish laymen; but the fruits of their labours were
never given to the public; and when Bosio took the work in hand, only
fifteen years after the date of the original discovery, the paintings in
the crypts on the Via Salara had already been destroyed.
Bosio seems to have paid his first visit to the Catacombs, in company
with the learned antiquarian Pompeo Ugonio and some others, on the
10th of December 1593. They penetrated into a catacomb about a mile
distant from St. Sebastian’s, and having found their way to a lower
level by means of an opening in the floor of one of the chapels, they
incautiously proceeded so far, that when they wished to return they
could not recognise the path by which they had come. To add to their
perplexity and alarm, their lights failed them, for they had remained
underground much longer than they had intended, and “I began to fear,”
he says, “that I should defile by my vile corpse the sepulchres of the
martyrs.” However, this accident did not damp his courage nor divert him
from his purpose; he only took precautions against its recurrence, and
then devoted himself for the remaining thirty-six years of his life to
the thorough prosecution of the work he had begun. He gave himself up
with untiring energy to researches in the bowels of the earth on the one
hand, and among old books and manuscripts on the other. His industry in
both was amazing. As to his literary labours, there are still extant some
thousands of folio pages in his own handwriting, showing with what care
he had read the Fathers, Greek, Latin, and Oriental; the collections
of canons and councils, ecclesiastical histories, lives of the saints,
and an immense number of theological treatises, including those of the
schoolmen; in fact, every work within his reach in which he thought there
was a chance of finding anything in illustration of his subject. He had
also transcribed numerous Acts of the Martyrs, especially of those who
had suffered in Rome, together with any other ancient records which
promised to throw light upon the topography of the Christian cemeteries.
And when he had learnt in this way something as to the probable position
of a catacomb, then began the anxious, fatiguing, and even dangerous
work of his subterranean researches. He would examine with the utmost
diligence all the neighbouring fields and vineyards, in order to
discover, if possible, some entrance by which he could penetrate; and
often, after returning again and again to the same spot, his labour still
remained unrewarded. At another time he would hear of some opening having
been accidentally made into a catacomb, by the digging of a new cellar
or a well; and on hastening to the spot, he would find perhaps that the
whole place was so buried in ruins that ingress was impossible. Even when
an entrance was once effected, he still had to force a passage, often by
the labour of his own hands, through the accumulated rubbish of ages;
for we must not suppose that the pioneers in the work of exploring the
Catacombs after their rediscovery found the galleries clear and empty as
they are seen by ordinary visitors at the present day; on the contrary,
some were filled to the very roof with soil that had been washed down
in the course of so many ages through the open _luminaria_; others had
been the scene of wilful injury done by Goth or Lombard, or by neighbours
nearer home seeking forbidden treasures, or only anxious to make use of
caves and cellars which they found ready-made to their hands. In some
places the roofs of the galleries and chambers had given way under the
shock of earthquakes, or from the continual disturbance of the surface
of the ground for the purposes of building or agriculture. In a word,
the work of exploration was attended with very real danger, so that no
Christian archæologist can ever speak of Antonio Bosio—the Columbus, as
he is often and deservedly called, of this new world of subterranean
Rome—without admiration and enthusiasm.
He was preparing to communicate to the world the fruits of all his
toil, when he was cut off by death at the early age of fifty-four. His
work, however, was published by others some five or six years later, in
1635. It was presently translated into German and Latin; an abridgment
of it also was published in Holland, and at once the Catacombs resumed
their ancient place as one of the wonderful sights of Rome which all
intelligent travellers should visit. More visitors, however, were
attracted by religious than by scientific motives, for Bosio’s book
had been the means of recalling some to the Catholic faith; and it was
obvious that a voice, issuing as it were from the graves of some of the
very earliest professors of Christianity, had a right to claim a hearing
amid the din of religious strife which was then raging. Moreover, the
devotion of the faithful had been excited by the hope of finding the
bodies of saints and martyrs still lying in their graves; and concessions
were therefore made to certain religious communities, and even to pious
individuals, to search for them. In this way excavations were going on
in a number of places at once, quite independently of one another, and
no trustworthy record was kept of any. At last, in 1688, all private
concessions were finally revoked, and henceforward the matter was
reserved entirely to official hands. Even so, however, the scientific
history of the Catacombs scarcely fared better than before. The
literature which appeared on the subject, with hardly an exception, was
controversial or apologetic rather than archæological. Nobody followed
the historical and topographical system of Bosio; so that from his death
down to the year 1740 we have no chronicles of each new discovery as it
was made, but only a number of independent treatises, on single epitaphs
perhaps, or on some special class of ancient monuments, out of which a
diligent reader may laboriously extract for himself some very imperfect
account of the results of the excavations that were in progress. Then
there followed another hundred years, during the greater part of which
the Catacombs remained almost in the same obscurity in which they had
been buried for so many ages before Bosio was born.
At the beginning of the present century, tokens of a reviving interest in
them may be traced in the proceedings of the Roman Archæological Society.
But it was not until the year 1840 that this interest spread to any wide
circle. The main impulse to it was then given by Father Marchi, S.J.,
who had been appointed _custode_ of the Catacombs, and devoted himself
to their study. In 1841 he began to publish a work on the monuments of
early Christian art. Only the first volume, however—on architecture—was
ever published, and then it was abandoned, partly in consequence of
the political troubles of the times, by which his own Order was so
seriously affected, but chiefly because, through the new discoveries
that were made, he became conscious of its grave imperfections. He saw
that he had begun to publish prematurely. He had, however, imparted his
own enthusiasm to one of his scholars, who was at first the frequent
companion of his subterranean exploring expeditions, whom he soon
recognised as a valuable fellow-labourer, and whom he finally urged in
the most pressing manner to undertake the work which he found too great
for his own failing strength. This scholar was Giovanni Battista de
Rossi, a Roman gentleman of good family, who has now for more than thirty
years devoted his means, time, and talents to the prosecution of the task
intrusted to him.
It has been well said that “archæology, as tempered and directed by
the philosophic spirit, and quickened with the life and energy of the
nineteenth century, is a very different pursuit from the archæology of
our forefathers, and has as little relation to their antiquarianism as
modern chemistry and modern astronomy have to their former prototypes,
alchemy and astrology;” and nowhere can the justice of this remark
be more keenly appreciated than in comparing De Rossi’s works on the
Catacombs with all that have gone before them. It is true that he has
had some advantages which his predecessors had not; he has had access
to newly recovered, or more carefully edited, documents, amongst
which are even ancient guides to those sanctuaries, or at least exact
descriptions of them, before they had been abandoned and their sacred
treasures removed. He has also had the assistance, as intelligent as
it has been indefatigable, of a brother whose mechanical genius has
invented an instrument whereby the process of surveying and mapping
any subterranean excavations has been rendered infinitely more easy, as
well as more accurate, than it was before. But, after all, the chief
secret of De Rossi’s wonderful success is to be sought for rather in
his own patient industry, his scrupulous caution, and the excellence
of his scientific method, than in any extraordinary superiority of his
literary or physical apparatus. He has studied every monument in its own
place. He has examined with his own eyes every detail of the subterranean
topography where it has been possible to penetrate, and then recorded his
observations with a minuteness of analysis which it is sometimes almost
wearying to follow in print, and which nothing but the most enthusiastic
love of truth and the most indomitable perseverance could have enabled
him to execute in fact. Thus his conclusions are drawn from the monuments
themselves; or rather, they are little more than a _résumé_ of the
observations he has had to record upon those monuments. He has had before
him, and, as far as possible, he sets before his readers, the precise
situation and the measurements of all the crypts and galleries on all
the different levels, and even of the thousands upon thousands of the
individual tombs throughout this Christian necropolis; he marks the place
and characteristics of every inscription, painting, and other monument
he comes across in them; then, side by side with this immense mass of
_data_, so important and so entirely trustworthy, he places every shred
of old historical documents that he knows of, and which he thinks capable
of throwing any light upon them; and finally proceeds to interpret them
according to the very best rules of archæological criticism. The result
has been a reconstruction of the history of the Catacombs, and in part
also of their geography, in such perfect accord with all the facts
and phenomena of the case, that there is probably no group of ancient
monuments which can now be classified more exactly and with greater
certainty than those in the Roman Catacombs.
CHAPTER V.
THEIR PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE.
There is no branch of Christian archæology in which the labours of De
Rossi have produced a more startling revolution than in the history of
Christian art. When the Reformers of the sixteenth century protested
against the use of pictures and images in churches, and boldly declared
that it was contrary to the practice of primitive ages, Catholics had no
monuments to appeal to in refutation of such a statement. The remains of
the Christian literature of those times were scanty, and more or less
silent upon the subject, and the paintings in the Catacombs were buried
in darkness. Even when they were brought to light, it was not easy at
once to speak positively as to their chronology. By and by, in proportion
as the Catacombs were more explored, and it became possible to compare
the paintings of one cemetery with those of another, and all of them with
the paintings of Pompeii, the baths of Titus, the tomb of the Nasones,
and other newly-recovered Pagan monuments whose ages were known, Catholic
writers began to assume a bolder tone, and to claim a greater antiquity
for the Christian use of painting than they had done before. Still it
was impossible to fix any dates with precision so long as men confined
themselves to the examination of single monuments, illustrating them
perhaps with great learning, but without reference to the place where
each monument had been found, the circumstances under which it had been
executed, its connection with the history of the period, and the internal
and external development of the Christian community at the time and place
to which it belonged.
Now the Roman Catacombs are a vast gallery of ancient Christian art.
Single specimens, indeed, may exist elsewhere, and wherever they are
found they deserve attentive examination; but it is obvious that the
largest and most valuable collection in the world is to be found in
subterranean Rome; and here, if anywhere, the subject may be thoroughly
sifted and settled. It is to the minuteness of the topographical
researches of De Rossi that we are indebted for the solid basis on which
the earliest chapters of the history of Christian art can now be made to
rest. His plan here, as well as in every other branch of his subject,
has been simply to note all he sees; and then, when he has collected
sufficient materials, to arrange and generalise, not according to any
preconceived theory of classification, but absolutely according to the
strict, stern facts before him. If these facts, arranged in their true
historical and geographical order, present a harmonious whole, and
suggest or support a theory which can otherwise be shown to be probable,
he accepts it gladly; if not, he is content to leave the facts to speak
for themselves, and to trust to further discoveries, or to the ingenuity
of future commentators, to introduce light and order where at present
there may seem to be chaos. For he never shrinks from acknowledging his
inability to explain this or that phenomenon, and he prefers to leave a
matter in doubt rather than to dogmatise on insufficient authority. Such
moderation naturally inspires confidence; and perhaps another presumption
in favour of the impartial accuracy of his statements may be found in the
fact that sometimes they militate against the theories of those who would
assign to every monument a greater antiquity than it is entitled to, and
sometimes against the theories of the opposite and more numerous school.
On the whole, however, whatever his opinion may be as to the age of any
particular monument that has been called in question, his testimony as
to the free use of painting by the early Christians is distinct and
positive, and supported by irrefragable proofs.
“It may be asked,” he says, “whether it is credible that the faithful,
in the age of the Apostles or their disciples, when the Church, fresh
from the bosom of the image-hating synagogue, was in deadly conflict
with idolatry, should have so promptly and so generally adopted and
(so to speak) baptized the fine arts?” And he replies, “I can only
say that the universal use of pictures throughout the subterranean
cemeteries, and the richness, the variety, and the freedom of the more
ancient types, when contrasted with the cycle of painting which I see
becoming more stiff in manner and poorer in conception towards the end
of the third century,—these things demonstrate the impossibility of
accepting the hypothesis of those who affirm that the use of pictures was
introduced little by little, on the sly, as it were, and in opposition
to the practice of the primitive Church.” He points out also that the
(comparatively) flourishing condition of the fine arts, and the large
number of their professors in Rome during the reigns of Trajan, of
Hadrian, and of the Antonines, materially favoured the early introduction
and development of pictorial art amongst the faithful; and that the
conversion to Christianity of wealthy personages, and even of members
of the imperial family, such as Domitilla and Flavius Clemens, told
powerfully in the same direction; “whereas, on the contrary, the decline
of the fine arts in the third and fourth centuries, the increasing cost
of the handiwork of the painter and sculptor as their numbers diminished
every day, the gradual but continuous impoverishment of public and
private fortunes, which induced even the Senate and the Emperors to make
their new monuments at the expense of others more ancient,—all this could
not facilitate the multiplication of new works of Christian art during
that period; so that, even if the faithful were gaining in the number of
converts, in power and in liberty, they lost quite as much, if I may say
so, in the conditions required for the flourishing of Christian art.”
The reader will have observed that De Rossi insists in these passages
upon the superiority of the Christian paintings of the first two
centuries over those of the third and fourth; it does not enter into
his argument in this place to speak of paintings executed at any later
period, when the Catacombs had ceased to be used as burial-places, and
were visited only from motives of piety. Neither does it form any part
of our own plan to examine these later paintings at any length. We only
mention here that, of course, there are such paintings, as it was not to
be expected that the Christians would cease to decorate the places in
which the relics of the martyrs still lay; but they are few in number as
compared with the great mass of paintings throughout the Catacombs, and
they are also so totally unlike those of the præ-Constantinian era, that
it would be impossible for any intelligent person to mistake the one for
the other. For the present, let us proceed to look more closely into the
paintings of the earlier period.
Pliny tells us that in the days of Vespasian, _i.e._, in the first
century of the Christian era, the art of painting was falling into decay
in Rome—that it no longer executed any great and original works, but
was well nigh confined to the decoration of apartments. Now, this is
precisely the branch of art for which there was the greatest demand—one
might almost say, the only opportunity—in the Catacombs. What kind of
chamber-decoration, then, was in fashion in Pagan houses and tombs (for
the Pagans also used to decorate their tombs) about this time? There are
not wanting numerous specimens, both in Pompeii and in the neighbourhood
of Rome itself, from which to form an opinion. But in the absence of any
copies of them here, let us read the general description of them given
by a competent and impartial critic. Müller (in his work on “Ancient
Art and its Remains”), after endorsing Pliny’s judgment, which has just
been quoted, goes on to say that “even in its degenerate state the art
exhibited inexhaustible invention and productiveness. The spaces on
the walls,” he says, “are divided and disposed in a tasteful way; then
into these spaces are introduced arabesques of admirable richness of
fancy; the roofs are often in the form of arbours hung with garlands,
interspersed with fluttering winged forms, and all this in lively
colours, clearly and agreeably arranged and executed.” Any one who is
familiar with the Catacombs knows that this is exactly what is to be
seen there over and over again, and that in those cemeteries to which we
are induced _for other reasons_ to assign the highest antiquity, we find
all these things in the highest degree of perfection, and with the least
admixture of anything distinctively Christian. This is so true, that a
Protestant controversialist has even ventured to say that, on entering
some of the most ancient chambers of the Catacombs, we hesitate for a
moment as to the Pagan or Christian character of what we see. There is
the same geometrical division of the roof, the same graceful arabesques,
the birds and flowers, just as Müller describes them; and it is only when
we recognise a figure of the Good Shepherd, or Daniel in the lions’ den,
or some similar subject, occupying the central compartment of the whole,
that our doubts are dissipated.
[Illustration: _Painting on roof of most ancient part of Cemetery of St.
Domitilla._]
Look for a moment at the most graceful specimen of decoration on the last
page; it is one of the most ancient in the Catacombs, and it comes from
that one of which we saw in a former chapter the public entrance close
to the high road, and which we said belonged to the noble Flavian family
at the end of the first century. The whole roof of the vaulted passage
is covered with the vine, trailing with all the freedom of nature, and
little winged genii are fluttering among the leaves. Certainly we might
suspect this of being Pagan, were it not that Daniel in the lions’ den,
Noe in the ark, and other undoubtedly Christian subjects, are close at
hand to disabuse us of the suspicion. Or look at the painting of another
vault on the opposite page. This is more stiff than the former, because
it was executed nearly a century later; still, there is nothing to
declare its Christian character until the eye rests on the Good Shepherd,
who appears below the principal part of the decoration.
[Illustration: _Painting on Vault of an Arcosolium in Cemetery of
Prætextatus._]
We are not saying that the artists who executed these paintings had
no Christian meaning in them; on the contrary, we believe that they
had, and that the paintings really suggested that meaning to those
who first saw them. For we know, on the authority of Tertullian, that
“the whole revolving order of the seasons” (which are represented in
the second painting) was considered by Christians to be “a witness
of the resurrection of the dead.” This, therefore, was probably
the reason why they were painted here; and no Christian needs to be
reminded that our Lord spoke of Himself under the image of a vine,
which sufficiently explains the first painting. Still the fact remains
that the representations themselves are such as might have been used
by Christian and by Pagan artists indifferently. If any of our readers
feel disappointed that the first essays of the Christian painter should
not have had a more distinctly Christian character, they must remember
that a new art cannot be created in a moment. If the Christian religion
in its infancy was to make use of art at all, it had no choice but to
appropriate to its own purposes the forms of ancient art, so far as they
were pure and innocent; by degrees it would proceed to eliminate what was
unmeaning, and substitute something Christian.
Some writers have supposed that Christians used at first Pagan subjects
as well as Pagan forms of ornamentation; and they point to the figure of
Orpheus, which appears in three or four places of the Catacombs, and to
that of Psyche also, which may be seen about as often. So insignificant
a number of exceptions, however, would scarcely suffice to establish
the general proposition, even if they were in themselves inexplicable.
But, in truth, the figure of Orpheus has no right to be considered an
exception at all, for he was taken by some of the early Fathers as a
type of our Lord; and it was even believed by some of them, that, like
the sybil, he had prophesied about Him. Clement of Alexandria calls our
Lord the Divine enchanter of souls, with evident reference to the tale of
Orpheus; and the same idea will have occurred to every classical scholar,
as often as he has heard those words of the Psalmist which speak of the
wicked as “refusing to hear the voice of the charmer, charm he never
so wisely.” When, then, we find Orpheus and his lyre, and the beasts
enchanted by his song, figured on the walls or roofs of the Catacombs,
we have a right to conclude that the artist intended a Christian
interpretation to be given to his work; and a similar explanation may
be given of any other subjects of heathen mythology which have gained
admittance there.
If we were asked to name the subject which seems to have been used most
frequently in the early decorations of the Catacombs, we should give the
palm to the Good Shepherd; nor is this preference to be wondered at.
Any one who has meditated upon the words in which our Blessed Lord took
this title to Himself, will easily understand why the first Christians,
living in the midst of heathen persecutors, should have delighted to keep
so touching an image always before them. They scratched it, therefore,
roughly on the tombstone as they laid some dear one in the grave; they
carved it on their cups, especially on the sacred chalice; they engraved
it on signet rings and wore it on their fingers; they placed it in the
centre of the paintings with which they covered the ceiling of their
subterranean chapels, or they gave it the chief place immediately over
the altar. We meet with it everywhere, and everybody can recognise it.
There are, however, one or two peculiarities in its mode of treatment
which require a word of explanation. The shepherd is generally
represented as a young man lightly clad, with his tunic girt high about
his loins, denoting thereby his unwearied activity; he is surrounded
by sheep, or he carries one on his shoulders, bearing it home to the
fold,—the most tender act of his office. And there is nothing in this
but what we might naturally have expected. But he is also sometimes
represented with a goat instead of a sheep upon his shoulders; and, in
later paintings, he has the pastoral reed or tuneful pipe either hanging
on the tree by his side or he is playing on it. Now this last particular
has no place in the gospel parable, and the former seems directly
opposed to it, since the goat is the accepted symbol of the wicked, the
sheep only of the good. Hence these points have been taken up by some
critics, either as tokens of thoughtless carelessness on the part of the
Christian artists, or as proofs that their work, whether consciously
or unconsciously, was merely copied from some Pagan original. Neither
of these remarks appears to be just. The images of a shepherd in Pagan
art, with scarcely a single exception, are of a very different kind; and
the particular details objected to are not only capable of receiving a
Christian interpretation, they even express consoling Christian truths.
St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the anxious care of the shepherd as he
sits on the hillside, filling the air with the soft notes of his pipe,
calling together his scattered flock; and he observes that in like manner
the spiritual pastor, desirous to recall souls to God, should follow the
example of his Divine Master, and use his pipe more frequently than his
staff. Then, as to the substitution of the goat for the sheep, it was
probably intended as a distinct protest against the un-Christian severity
of those heretics, who in very early times refused reconciliation to
certain classes of penitent sinners.
Not many, however, of the most ancient Christian paintings are of the
same simple and obvious character as the Good Shepherd. The leading
feature which characterises most of them is this, that they suggest
religious ideas or doctrines under the guise of artistic symbols or
historic types. One doctrine specially prominent in them, and most
appropriately taught in cemeteries, is that of the resurrection and
the everlasting life of happiness which awaits the souls of the just
after death. It is in this sense that we must understand not only the
frequent repetitions of the stories of Jonas and of Lazarus—the type
and the example of a resurrection—but also of Daniel in the lions’ den,
and the three children in the fiery furnace. These last, indeed, very
probably had reference also to the persecution which the Christians were
then suffering, and were intended to inspire courage and a confident
expectation that God would deliver them, even as He had delivered His
chosen servants of old; but, as they are spoken of in very ancient
Christian documents (_e.g._, in the hymns of St. Ephrem and in the
Apostolic Constitutions) as foreshadowing the future triumph of the body
over death, whence these too had been in a manner delivered, we prefer,
in obedience to these ancient guides, to assign this interpretation to
them; at any rate, it is certain that this interpretation cannot be
excluded. Figures also of the deceased, with arms outstretched in prayer,
sometimes accompanied by their names, or standing in the midst of a
garden, or, again, figures of birds pecking at fruits and flowers, we
understand as images of the soul still living after death, received into
the garden of Paradise, and fed by immortal fruits.
Sometimes there may be a difference of opinion perhaps as to the
correctness of this or that interpretation suggested for any particular
symbolical painting; but the soundness of the principle of interpretation
in itself cannot be called in question, nor will there often be any
serious difficulty in its application, among those who study the subject
with diligence and candour. The language, both of Holy Scripture and
of the earliest Fathers, abounds in symbols, and it was only natural
that the earliest specimens of Christian art should exhibit the same
characteristic. More was meant by them than that which met at first the
outward senses; without this clue to their meaning, the paintings are
scarcely intelligible,—with it, all is plain and easy.
[Illustration: _Tombstone from the very ancient Crypt of St. Lucina, now
united with the Catacomb of St. Callixtus._]
Take, for example, the figure of an anchor, so repeatedly represented
on gravestones and other monuments of the Catacombs; so rarely, if
indeed ever, to be found on Pagan monuments. What influenced the early
Christians in the selection of such a figure? what meaning did they
attach to it? This enquiry forces itself upon our minds, if we are
intelligent students of Christian archæology, anxious to understand what
we see: and if we are also prudent and on our guard against being led
astray by mere fancy, we shall conduct the enquiry by the same laws and
principles as we should apply to the interpretation of some perplexing
riddle in heathen art. We should first examine the literature of the age
and people to whom it was supposed to belong, and see if any light could
be thrown upon it from that source. In the present instance, therefore,
we turn to the sacred literature of the Christians, and we find there
a passage which speaks of the duty of “holding fast the hope that is
set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and
firm.” We assume, then, provisionally, as a basis of further enquiry,
that an anchor may perhaps have been used as an emblem of Christian
hope. Continuing our search in the same sacred books, we find that there
was a special connection in the Christian creed between hope and the
condition of the dead. It is written that Christians are not sorrowful
about those who die, “as others who have no hope.” The conclusion is
obvious, that a reference to hope is just one of those things which might
not unreasonably be looked for on a Christian’s grave-stone, since it
was something on which they prided themselves as a point of difference
between themselves and others. This greatly confirms our conjectural
interpretation of the symbol, and we proceed with some confidence to
apply it to every example of its use that we can meet with; for if it
is the right key, it cannot fail to unlock all the problems that will
come before us. In doing this, we are first struck by the fact that
in several instances the very names of the deceased persons on whose
epitaphs the anchor is engraved, themselves also meant the same thing.
They were called _Spes_, _Elpis_, _Elpidius_, _Elpizusa_; all names
coming from the Latin or Greek word for hope. Next, we observe that many
of these anchors are so fashioned as to contain a hidden yet unmistakable
representation of a cross; and, reflecting that the one only ground of
a Christian’s hope is the cross of Christ, we hail this also as lending
further support to our theory. Yet once more, we find many of the
epitaphs contain the same idea, expressed in distinct words written in
the ordinary alphabet and not in these hieroglyphics, so to call them,—we
find _Spes in Deo_, _Spes in Deo Christo_ &c. Finally, we often find the
anchor united with one or more of several other symbols, to which, by a
similar but independent process, we can assign a certain signification.
We try, then, whether our rendering of the anchor as equivalent to “hope”
will _make sense_, as a schoolboy would say who was trying to translate
a piece of Greek or Latin into English, in all these other places; and
if it does, we are satisfied that our interpretation can be no longer
disputed. A false reading of a single symbol might chance to fit one
monument, or two, or three; but to say that any false reading will fit
hundreds of separate monuments, fit all equally well, and succeed in
extracting a consistent meaning from each, is to assert what no sane man
can believe.
Those who know the way in which the interpretation of the Egyptian
hieroglyphics was first guessed at, and then triumphantly established
against all gainsayers, by a similar process of reasoning, will not
dispute the soundness of the argument by which the meaning of the anchor
has been arrived at. We cannot attempt to vindicate our interpretation of
all the other symbols used by Christian artists with the same minuteness
of detail, neither is it necessary. All will accept the dove as a fitting
symbol of the simplicity, the gentleness, purity, and innocence of a
Christian soul gone to its rest, and a sheep as fitly representing a
disciple of Christ.
Another emblem, the fish, requires more words of explanation, because it
is capable of receiving a double meaning. At first sight, our thoughts
at once recur to the words of our Blessed Lord to St. Peter and his
brother, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” and no
doubt this will sufficiently explain many old Christian paintings or
sculptures in which the fish appears. Taking this idea for our guide,
we can understand why a man angling and catching a fish should find a
place on the walls of a church, whether above ground or below. Such a
representation in these sacred places was inspired by the same doctrinal
teaching, and suggested the same ideas, as were present to the old
Christian preachers when they spoke of men being caught by the bait of
charity and the hook of preaching, and being drawn out of the bitter
waters of this world, not to have their life taken from them, which is
the fate that awaits the natural fish when it is caught, but that they
may be made partakers of a new and heavenly life. This, however, will
not enable us to decypher other symbolical paintings into which the fish
enters, and which are found with equal frequency among the decorations of
the Christian cemeteries. It is necessary that we should learn another,
and, as it would seem, a still more common use of the fish. Just as the
dove might stand for the Holy Ghost, and also for a soul sanctified by
the Holy Ghost—just as the lamb or sheep might stand either for the Lamb
of God, or for those who are “the people of His pasture and the sheep of
His hand”—so the fish, too, was used not only to represent a Christian,
but also, still more frequently perhaps, Christ Himself. To understand
how this could be, we must study a little Greek, which may be easily
apprehended, however, even by those who are not scholars, if they will
fix their attention for a few moments on the accompanying plan:—
Ι ΗϹΟΥϹ = JESUS
Χ ΡΙϹΤΟϹ = CHRIST
Θ ΕΟΥ = OF GOD
Υ ΙΟϹ = SON
Ϲ ΩΤΗΡ = SAVIOUR
The Greek for fish is here written perpendicularly, one letter above
another, ΙΧΘΥϹ; and it is seen that these five letters are the initial
letters of five words, which, together, contain a tolerably complete
account of what Christ is. He is JESUS CHRIST, SON OF GOD, SAVIOUR. Thus,
this one word, ιχθυς, or fish, read in this way, tells a great deal about
our Lord’s name and titles; it is almost a miniature creed, or, as one
of the Fathers expresses it, “it contains in one name a whole multitude
of holy names.” It would take us too long to enquire into the origin of
this device for expressing our Lord’s name and titles in so compendious
and secret a form. Clearly, whoever may have invented it, it was very
ingenious, and specially convenient at those times and places where men
dared not speak of Him freely and openly. We cannot say when it began,
but it was in universal use throughout the Church during the first three
hundred years of her life, and then, when she was in the enjoyment of
peace and liberty, it gradually dropped, first out of sight in Christian
monuments, and then out of mind also in Christian literature. But,
during the ages of persecution, it had sunk deep into the habits of
Christian thought and language; it became, as it were, a part of the
very Catechism,—every baptized Christian seems to have been familiar
with it, whether he lived on the banks of the Tiber or of the Po, of
the Loire, of the Euphrates, or of the Nile. In all these parts of the
world, writers in books, poets in hymns, preachers in sermons, artists
in painting, the very masons themselves on gravestones, made use of it
without a word of explanation, in a way that would utterly mystify any
modern Christian community. Who would now dream of carving or painting a
fish upon a gravestone in a Christian churchyard? yet scores of graves in
the Catacombs were so marked, and some of them with hardly a word or an
emblem upon them besides. Or what meaning could we attach to the picture
of a dove or a lamb standing on a fish’s back, if we did not understand
that the fish represented Christ, and the dove or the lamb a Christian,
so that the whole symbol stood for a Christian soul supported by Christ
through the waves and storms of life? Or again, only imagine a Christian
in these days having buried with him, or wearing round his neck during
life, a little figure of a fish cut in ivory, or crystal, or mother of
pearl, or some still more costly material? Yet a number of those who were
buried in the Catacombs did this; and some of these fish even bear an
inscription, calling upon the fish to be a Saviour!
It was necessary to give this explanation of certain symbols, and to
justify it by sufficient examples, before we proceed to study any of the
more complex paintings in the Catacombs. But now, with these thoughts
in our minds, let us enter the Cemetery of St. Callixtus, and look on
a figure represented two or three times on a wall of one of its most
ancient chambers: a fish swimming and carrying on its back a basket
of bread, and in the midst of the loaves of bread, a glass vessel
containing a red liquid. What is this but bread and wine, the elements
of the Sacrament of Love, and Jesus Christ Its reality? St. Jerome, when
speaking of a holy bishop of Toulouse who had sold the gold and silver
vessels of his church to relieve the poor, uses these words, “What can
be more rich than a man who carries the body of Christ in a basket of
wicker-work, and the blood of Christ in a vessel of glass?” Here are
undeniably the basket of wicker-work and the vessel of glass; and who can
doubt that we have the other also, veiled under the figure of the fish?
[Illustration: _Consecration of the Holy Eucharist._]
Let us go to another part of the same cemetery, and consider a painting
which with some variations is repeated in three or four successive
chambers, all opening out of one of the primitive galleries. Bread and
fish lie on a three-legged table, and several baskets of bread are
arranged along the floor in front of it, or a man and woman stand by
the side of the table. The woman has her arms outstretched in the form
of a cross, the ancient attitude of Christian prayer; the man, too, is
stretching forth his hands, but in another way: he holds them forward,
and especially his right hand, over the bread and fish, in such a way as
to press upon every Catholic intelligence the idea that he is blessing
or consecrating what is before him. To modern eyes, indeed, his vestment
does not look worthy of one engaged in the highest act of Christian
worship; perhaps, at first sight, it almost strikes us as hardly decent.
Nevertheless, to the Christian archæologist, this very vestment is a
strong confirmation of the view we are taking of the real sense of the
painting. For it is the Greek _pallium_, or philosophers’ cloak; and we
know that at the time to which this painting belongs (the end of the
second or beginning of the third century) it was a common practice to
preach the Word of God in this particular costume. Tertullian, who was
living at the same time, wrote a treatise _De Pallio_, in which, in his
own peculiar style, he defended its use, and congratulated the _pallium_
on its promotion to be a Christian vestment. It was not until fifty years
later that St. Cyprian objected to it, both as not sufficiently modest in
itself and as vainglorious in its signification.
If there were any lingering uncertainty as to whether these figures were
really intended to have reference to the Holy Eucharist, or whether our
interpretation of them may not have been fanciful and arbitrary, an
examination of the other decorations of the same chambers will suffice to
remove it. For it will be seen that, whilst in closest connection with
them are other suitable emblems or figures of the same Divine Sacrament,
they are also uniformly preceded by representations of the initiatory
Sacrament of the Christian covenant, without which no man can be admitted
to partake of the Eucharist; and they are followed by a figure of the
Resurrection, which our Lord Himself most emphatically connected with
the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood, saying, “He that
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life, and I will
raise him up at the last day.” These three subjects, Baptism, the Holy
Eucharist, and the Resurrection occupy the three perfect sides of the
chamber, the fourth side being, of course, broken by the entrance; and,
taken in their right order, they faithfully depict the new life of a
Christian; the life of divine grace, first imparted by baptism, then fed
by the Holy Eucharist, and finally exchanged for an everlasting life of
glory.
[Illustration: _The Smitten Rock._]
Let us look at the figures of these subjects in detail, and see how
they are represented here. First, we have Moses striking the rock, a
scene which occurs over and over again in the Catacombs, and which in
these chambers commences the series of paintings we are examining; it
is to be seen on the left-hand wall as we enter. St. Paul tells us that
“the rock was Christ;” the water, then, which flowed from it must be
those streams of Divine grace whereby His disciples are refreshed and
sustained during their pilgrimage through the wilderness of this world,
and this grace is first given in the waters of baptism. Next we have
a man fishing, which has been already explained; and (in one instance
at least) this is followed by another man performing the very act of
baptism on a youth who stands before him; the youth stands in the water,
and the man is pouring water over his head. Lastly, on the same wall, is
the paralytic carrying his bed on his shoulders—the same, doubtless, who
was miraculously cured at the pool of Bethsaida, which pool the fathers
of the Church uniformly interpret as typical of the healing waters of the
Christian sacrament.
[Illustration: _The Sacrament of Baptism._]
[Illustration: _Eucharistic Feast._]
On the wall opposite the doorway, the central scene is a feast wherein
seven men are seated at a table, partaking of fish and bread; and there
is a history in the last chapter of St. John’s Gospel, of which it
may be taken as a literal representation. It was when our Lord “showed
Himself to His disciples at the Sea of Tiberias, and He showed Himself,
after this manner. There were together Simon Peter and Thomas who is
called Didymus, and Nathanael who was of Cana of Galilee, and the sons of
Zebedee, and two others of His disciples”—seven in all. “And they went
a-fishing, but caught nothing. Jesus appeared to them on the shore.”
Then there follows the miraculous draught of fishes; and as soon as they
came to land, they saw “hot coals lying, and a fish laid thereon, and
bread. Jesus saith to them, Bring hither of the fishes which you have
now caught. And Jesus cometh and taketh bread and giveth them, and fish
in like manner.” Such is the letter of the gospel narrative; but this
narrative is in fact a mystical and prophetic representation of the
Church gathered together out of the waters of the world, and fed by the
Holy Eucharist. The hundred and fifty-three great fishes that were caught
represent the large numbers of the faithful that were drawn into the
Church by apostolic preaching; the fish laid on the hot coals is Jesus
Christ in His Passion, His Body “delivered for us” on Mount Calvary,
given to us also to be our food in the Blessed Sacrament whereby “we show
the death of the Lord until He come.” The faithful caught in the net of
the Church must be brought to that broiled fish (_Piscis assus, Christus
passus_, says St. Augustine), that crucified Lord, and they must be
incorporated with Him by partaking of the living Bread which came down
from Heaven.
[Illustration: _Sacrifice of Isaac._]
[Illustration: _Resurrection of Lazarus._]
Such is the full meaning of the scene at the Sea of Tiberias, as
interpreted according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers; and the
adjuncts of this picture show that it was intended to be so understood
here also; for on one side is the figure of the consecration already
described; and on the other, the sacrifice of Isaac by his father, which
was surely a most lively type of the sacrifice of Christ upon the altar;
wherein blood is not really shed, but the Lamb is only “_as it were_
slain,” just as Isaac was not really slain, but was received back from
the dead, “for a parable.” Lastly, as has been mentioned before, there
follows on the third wall of the same chamber the natural complement of
the rest; the doctrine of the Resurrection, as contained in the fact
of the rising again of Lazarus. Thus, this whole series of paintings,
executed at the end of the second century, or within the first twenty or
thirty years of the third, and repeated (as has been said) in several
successive chambers, was a continual homily, as it were, set before the
eyes of the faithful, in which they were reminded of the beginning,
progress, and consummation of their new and supernatural life.
We do not say that every modern Christian who looks at these paintings
will thus read their meaning at once; but we believe that all ancient
Christians did so, because it is clear from the writings of the Apostles
themselves and their successors, that nothing was more familiar to the
Christian mind of those days than the symbolical and prophetical meaning
of the facts both of the Old and of the New Testaments. They believed
the facts themselves to have taken place just as they are recorded, but
they believed also that they had a mysterious signification, whereby
the truths of the Christian faith were insinuated or expressed, and
that this was their highest and truest meaning. “Perhaps there is no one
recorded miracle of our Lord,” says St. Gregory, “which is not therefore
selected for recording because it was the type of something to happen
in the Church;” and precisely the same was felt to be true also of the
histories of the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations. “All these things
had happened to them in figure, and they were written for our correction,
upon whom the ends of the world are come.”
It may not be often possible to trace as clearly as we have just done
in a single instance, the logical order and dependence of the several
subjects that were selected for representation in each chamber of the
Catacombs; they may not always have been so admirably arranged as
to be in fact equivalent, as these were, to a well-ordered dogmatic
discourse. Nevertheless it is only when read in this way, that the
decoration of the Catacombs can be made thoroughly intelligible; and
it is certain that some such meaning must have been intended from the
first. The extremely limited number of Biblical subjects selected for
representation, while such an immense variety is really contained in the
Bible (and so many of those that are neglected might have seemed equally
suitable for the purpose), and then again, the thoroughly unhistorical
way in which these few subjects are dealt with, shows clearly that the
principle of selection was theological rather than artistic. The artists
were not left to indulge their own unfettered fancy, but worked under
ecclesiastical supervision; and the Bible stories which they depicted
were not represented according to their historical verity, because they
were not intended to be a souvenir of past facts, but to symbolise and
suggest something beyond themselves. In order, therefore, to understand
them, it is necessary to bring them face to face with the Christian
doctrines which they foreshadow.
[Illustration: _Noe in the Ark._]
Look, for example, at the numerous pictures of Noe in the ark which
appear in the Catacombs, all resembling one another, but none resembling
the reality. Instead of a vessel, three stories high, containing eight
human beings and specimens of every kind of animal, we see only a narrow
box, barely large enough to hold one person, and that person sometimes a
lady, whose name is also inscribed upon it perhaps, being the same lady
(as we learn from the inscription) who lies buried in the adjacent tomb.
If all ancient Christian literature had perished, we should have been at
a loss to comprehend this enigma; but as soon as we know that the Fathers
of the Church speak of it as an acknowledged fact, which “nobody doubts”
(to use St. Augustine’s words), that the Church was typified by the ark,
a ray of light begins to dawn upon us; and when we call to mind that
St. Peter himself speaks of the waters of baptism as saving men’s souls,
“even as Noe and his family were saved by the waters of the flood,” all
is at once made clear. We see plainly that the friends of the deceased
have intended to signify that he had been received into the ark of the
Church and made a Christian by baptism. And if they had added to the
composition, as they often did, the figure of a dove bringing an olive
branch to the person standing in the ark, this also enters into the same
interpretation; it was symbolical of that Divine peace which comes to the
soul in this world by faith, and which is a pledge of the peace given by
everlasting happiness in the next.
[Illustration: _Scenes from the History of Jonas._]
The frequent repetition of the story of Jonas in a Christian cemetery
needs no explanation, our Lord himself having put it forward as a type of
His own resurrection, and so a pledge of ours also. The particular form,
however, under which this story appears, was not suggested, as Noe’s ark
was, by the place which it held in the cycle of Christian doctrine, but
rather by a certain Pagan model with which the Romans of that day were
very familiar. The mythological tale of Andromeda, and the sea-monster
to which she was exposed on the coast near Joppa (for so the story ran),
was a favourite subject for the decoration of the walls in Roman villas,
temples, and other public buildings. It may be seen in Pompeii, and,
much nearer to the Catacombs, in Rome itself—_e.g._, in the barracks of
one of the cohorts of the imperial police, discovered a few years ago in
Trastevere; and in both places the monster is the precise counterpart
of that which is always represented as swallowing or casting up Jonas;
a kind of dragon, with large head and ears, a long slender neck, and a
very tortuous body. Of course, in the infancy of Christian art, it was
convenient to have a model at hand to represent an unknown monster, and,
as we have said, we do not doubt that this is the true history of its
origin. Still this was not the only reason which recommended the adoption
of so grotesque a form; it offered the further advantage of creating as
strong a contrast as possible between this “great fish,” which was a
type of death, and the ordinary fish, which, as we have seen, was the
recognised symbol of the Author of life.
Another incident in the life of Jonas, which was often painted in the
Catacombs, was his resting on the east side of the city of Nineve,
under the shade of a certain plant which God caused to grow up for his
protection, and which He again caused as suddenly to wither away. In the
days of St. Jerome and St. Augustine there was a dispute between those
learned doctors as to the precise nature of this plant; and in the course
of it St. Jerome appealed to these paintings as bearing testimony in
favour of his own rendering of the Hebrew word. We need not enter into
the merits of the dispute, but it is important to note the fact of the
appeal, as it peremptorily refutes the ridiculous assertions of certain
authors of the present day, who would assign very recent dates to these
and similar paintings in the Catacombs. We know that St. Jerome was very
fond, when a boy, of visiting these places, and it is interesting to
hear him appealing to the paintings he had seen in them as to “ancient
witnesses.” It would be still more interesting, if we could say with
certainty what were the motives which led the ancient Christians to
choose this subject for such frequent contemplation; whether they read
in it only a very striking lesson as to the watchfulness of Divine
Providence, or whether it had a more subtle meaning, as a type of the
mercy of God which overshadows the souls of the faithful in the long
sleep of death which goes before the Sun of the Resurrection. But where
no clue is supplied by the writings of cotemporary, or nearly cotemporary
authors, we prefer to keep silence rather than to insist on any doubtful
interpretation. All that need be said is that such a painting was
certainly not out of place in a Christian Church or cemetery, any more
than the story of Adam and Eve, or any other Biblical narrative which
has reference to the doctrines or promises announced by Christianity to
the world.
We do not pretend to enumerate here all the subjects from the Old and
New Testaments that were painted in the Catacombs. We are but naming
those that were used most frequently, that seem most interesting, or
whose signification can be most precisely determined. Those who have seen
the Catacombs themselves will call to mind others of which we have not
spoken, but we think their meaning is generally obvious so as to need no
explanation. We will name one class only of these paintings; those in
which our Lord and His Blessed Mother appear. Our readers will hardly
expect to find anything that pretends to be a portrait of either one or
the other. We have seen that the disposition in primitive Christian art
was to represent facts rather than persons, and the mystery which the
facts signified rather than the facts themselves. Christ, therefore,
appears most commonly in the typical character of the Good Shepherd, and
as such is represented in appropriate form and with suitable accessories,
or He sits in the midst of His Apostles, with a chest of volumes at His
feet, as the Great Teacher of the world. Once, indeed, His head and bust
form a medallion occupying the centre of a roof in a chamber of the
Cemetery of St. Domitilla, the same in which appear Orpheus and his lyre.
It is a work of the third century; there is more evidence of an intention
to give a definite individual type of countenance, neither is the type
altogether unlike that which the practice of later ages has consecrated
by traditional usage. Nevertheless others of the fourth century are
evidently not copies of the same model, so that it is clear that in those
early days there was no uniform agreement upon the subject.
[Illustration: _The B. Virgin and Isaias, from Cemetery of St.
Priscilla._]
Our Blessed Lady appears principally in the scene of the Adoration of the
Magi. Two, three, or four of these men (according to the arrangement of
the group and the space at the artist’s disposal) stand in their Oriental
dress, presenting their gifts to Christ who sits on Mary’s knee. Once or
twice also the Holy Child appears in His Mother’s arms, or before her
breast, without reference apparently to any particular event in their
lives, but either absolutely alone, or standing opposite to Isaias, as
though presenting in themselves the fulfilment of his prophecies. One
of these paintings in the Catacomb on the Via Nomentana belongs to the
fourth century; but for another of far higher artistic merit, to be
seen in the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, the most competent judges do not
hesitate to claim almost apostolic antiquity; and the claim is supported
by many and weighty arguments. We cannot, however, discuss them here, for
we have already exceeded the limits we had proposed to ourselves.
[Illustration: _The B. Virgin and Magi._]
[Illustration: _The B. Virgin, from the Cemetery on Via Nomentana._]
In conclusion, we will give a slight sketch of the successive phases in
the development of Christian art within the limits of the first three
centuries; for, thanks to De Rossi’s almost microscopic examination of
every accessible corner of subterranean Rome, even this is now possible.
As each of these phases was derived from its predecessor by a natural
sequence of ideas, it is not pretended that they are separated from one
another by strict chronological boundaries which are never transgressed;
yet the characteristics of the several periods are, in the main,
sufficiently distinct to allow of their being followed as safe guides in
determining, at least approximately, the age of any particular class, or
even individual specimen of ornamentation.
We have already seen that primitive Christian art sprung out of an
alliance of ancient forms with new ideas; in its outward physiognomy it
proceeded directly, in point of style and method of execution, from the
school of Pagan decorative art, but it was animated by a new life; and
therefore it began at once to create a pictorial cycle for itself, taken
partly from historical and partly from allegorical materials. At first
the allegorical element greatly predominated. The fish and the anchor,
the lamb and the dove, the shepherd and the fisherman, may be named as
the most prominent examples; and all these during the first, or, as it
has been styled, the hieroglyphic or ideographic period of Christian
art, were characterised by the utmost simplicity. The principal figure
usually stood alone; the fisherman is catching a fish, or the shepherd is
carrying a sheep upon his shoulders, and nothing more.
In the second period—_i.e._, from the middle of the second to the middle
of the third century—the Good Shepherd occurs less frequently, and
is represented less simply; he carries a goat, or he plays his pipe;
he stands amid trees in a garden, or in the midst of his flock, and
the several members of his flock stand in different attitudes towards
him, marking a difference of internal disposition. Other figures
also undergo similar changes; different emblems or different typical
histories are blended together, and the result is more artistic; a
more brilliant translation, so to speak, is thus given of the same
thoughts and ideas with which we have been familiar in a more elementary
form from the beginning. This change, or rather this growth, was in
truth only the natural result of time and of the pious meditation of
successive generations of Christians exercised upon the history of their
faith and upon the outward representations of its mysteries, in which
their forefathers had always delighted. The bud had expanded, and
the full-blown flower displayed new beauties—beauties which had been
there indeed before, but unseen. Thus we meet again with the apostolic
fisherman, but the river in which he fishes is now a mystical river,
formed by the waters which have flowed from the rock struck by Moses.
More Bible histories are made use of; or, if not now introduced for the
first time, are used more frequently—the history of Daniel and of Jonas,
the sacrifice of Abraham, the resurrection of Lazarus, the healing of
the paralytic at Bethsaida, and others. And as all these histories have
been illustrated in the writings of cotemporary Fathers, the monuments
which represent them are of the highest value as an historical expression
of what Christians in those days believed and taught. Both the writings
and the paintings are evidently the faithful echo of the same doctrinal
teaching and tradition.
[Illustration: _Glass from the Catacombs, now in Vatican Library._]
Then follows a third period in the history of Christian art, which, if
the first two have been justly compared to its spring and summer, may
itself be certainly called its autumn. It extends from the middle of the
third century to the age of Constantine; and during this period there is
a certain falling off of leaves, accompanied by a further development of
the flower, without, however, any addition to its beauty. The symbolical
element is sensibly diminished; what we have ventured to call Christian
hieroglyphics are almost or quite abandoned; the parables also are less
used, and even the historical types are represented in a more hard and
literal form. If Moses is still seen striking the mystical rock, the
literal or historical Moses is at his side, taking off his shoes before
drawing near to the burning bush; or the Jews are there, in their low
round caps, drinking of the waters; or if it is desired to keep the
mystical sense of the history before the people, it is deemed necessary
to inscribe the name of PETRUS over the head of Moses, as we see in
two or three specimens of the gilded glasses found in the Catacombs,
and belonging probably to the fourth century. Christ no longer appears
as the Good Shepherd, but sits or stands in the midst of His Apostles,
or, still more frequently, miraculously multiplies the loaves and
fishes. The fish is no longer the mystical monogram, “containing a
multitude of mysteries,” but appears only as a necessary feature in the
representation of this same miracle. Lazarus appears swathed like a
mummy, in accordance, as we know, with the fact; but earlier artists had
idealised him, and made him rise from the tomb young, free, and active.
The three children refusing to adore the image set up by Nabuchodonosor
are brought forward, and placed in juxtaposition with the three wise men
adoring the Infant Jesus, suggesting a comparison, or rather a contrast,
very suitable to the altered circumstances of the times.
This last remark, however, must not be allowed to mislead us. We must
not imagine that the chronological sketch which has been here attempted
of the development of Christian art has been in any way suggested by a
consideration of what was likely to have been its course in consequence
of the history of the Christian society. The sketch is really the result
of a very careful induction from the laborious researches which De Rossi
has made into the chronology of the several parts of the Catacombs; and
if there proves to be a correspondence between the successive variations
of character in the works of art that are found there, and the natural
progress of the Christian mind or the outward condition of the Christian
Church, these are purely “undesigned coincidences,” which may justly be
urged in confirmation of our conclusion, though they formed no part of
the premisses. We may venture also to add, that the conclusions were
as contrary to the preconceived opinion of their discoverer as of the
Christian world in general. Nothing but the overwhelming evidence of
facts has forced their acceptance; but from these there is no escape.
When it was found that the oldest _areæ_ in the cemeteries are precisely
those that are richest in paintings, and those in the best style, whereas
in the more modern _areæ_ the paintings are less in number, poorer in
conception, and inferior in point of execution, it was impossible not
to suspect the justice of the popular belief, that the infant Church,
engaged in deadly conflict with idolatry, had rejected all use of the
fine arts, and that it was only in a later and less prudent age that they
had crept, as it were, unobservedly into her service; and as fresh and
fresh evidence of the same kind has been multiplied in the course of the
excavations, a complete revolution has at length been effected in public
opinion on this matter. Even Protestant writers no longer deny that,
from the very first, Christians ornamented their subterranean cemeteries
with painting; only they insist that this was done, “not because it was
congenial to the mind of Christianity so to illustrate the faith, but
because it was the heathen custom so to honour the dead.” If by this it
is only meant that Christians, though renewed interiorly by the grace of
baptism, yet continued, in everything where conscience was not directly
engaged, to live conformably to the usages of their former life, and
that to ornament the tombs of the dead had been one of those usages—it
is, of course, quite true. Nevertheless it is plain from the history that
has here been given, that the earliest essays of Christian art were much
more concerned with illustrating the mysteries of the faith than with
doing honour to the dead.
Our space will not allow, neither is it necessary, that we should enter
at any length into the history of Christian sculpture, since the same
general laws of growth presided over this as over painting. It must be
remembered, however, that sculpture was used much more sparingly, and did
not attain its full Christian development nearly so soon as the sister
art. There was no room for it in the Catacombs except on the faces and
sides of the sarcophagi, which were sometimes used there for the burial
of the dead; neither was it possible to execute it with the same freedom
as painting. The painter, buried in the bowels of the earth, prosecuted
his labours in secret, and, therefore, in comparative security, without
fear of any intrusion from the profane; but the work of the sculptor was
necessarily more public; it could not even be conveyed from the city to
the cemetery without the help of many hands, and it must always have run
the risk of attracting a dangerous degree of general attention. We are
not surprised, therefore, at hearing that some of those sarcophagi which
are found in the most ancient parts of the Catacombs seem rather to have
been purchased from Pagan workshops than executed by Christians; those,
for instance, on which are figured scenes of pastoral life, of farming,
of the vintage, or of the chase, genii, dolphins, or other subjects
equally harmless. Sometimes it might almost seem as though the subjects
had been suggested by a Christian, but their Christian character blurred
in the execution by some Pagan hand, which added a doubtful or unmeaning
accessory,—_e.g._, a dog at the side of the shepherd. On some others
there are real Pagan subjects, but these were either carefully defaced
by the chisel, or covered up with plaster, or hidden from sight by being
turned towards the wall.
[Illustration: _Sarcophagus still to be seen in the Cemetery of San
Callisto._]
[Illustration: _Very ancient Sarcophagus, found in Crypt of St. Lucina._]
When, however, in progress of time, all fear of danger was past, the
same series of sacred subjects as are seen in the fresco-paintings of
the second and third centuries is reproduced in the marble monuments
of the fourth and fifth; only they appear, of course, in their later,
and not in their earlier form; often even in a still more developed and
literally historical form than in any of the subterranean paintings. Thus
Adam and Eve no longer stand alone, one on either side of the fatal tree,
but the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity are introduced in the work of
creation and the promise of redemption. Adam receives a wheat sheaf, in
token that as a punishment for his sin he shall till the ground, and to
Eve a lamb is presented, the spinning of whose wool is to be part of
her labour. Daniel does not stand alone in the lions’ den, but Habacuc
is there also, bearing in his hand bread, and sometimes fish, for the
prophet’s sustenance. To the resurrection of Lazarus the figure of one of
his sisters is added, kneeling at our Lord’s feet, as though petitioning
for the miracle. Our Lord stands between St. Peter and St. Paul, and He
gives to one of them a volume, roll, or tablet, representing the new law
of the Gospel. On the gilded glasses which belong to the same period
the legend is added, _Lex Domini_, or _Dominus legem dat_. The Apostles
are distinguished, the one as the Apostle of the Jews, the other of the
Gentiles; and even two small temples or churches are added, out of which
sheep are coming forth; and over one is written Jerusalem, and over the
other Bethlehem. This is a scene with which we are familiar in the grand
old mosaics of the Roman Basilicas, a further development of Christian
art, to which, as far as the choice of subjects is concerned and the mode
of executing them, the sculpture may be considered a sort of intermediate
step after the decline of painting.
[Illustration: _Glass in the Vatican Library._
Representing Christ between SS. Peter and Paul; also Christ as the Lamb,
and the faithful as Lambs—Jews and Gentiles coming from Jerusalem and
Bethlehem (_Becle_) to Mount Sion, whence flow the four Evangelical
Streams, united in the Mystical Jordan.]
We may still further add, that the cycle of scriptural subjects was
somewhat enlarged by the sculptors; at least, we do not know of any
paintings in the Catacombs which represent our Lord giving sight to
the blind, or raising the dead child to life, or healing the woman who
touched the hem of His garment; or His nativity, His triumphant entry
into Jerusalem, or certain scenes of His Passion; yet all these, and
some others besides, may be seen carved on the old Christian monuments
collected in the Lateran Museum at Rome and elsewhere. The sarcophagus
which has the representation of the Nativity, and with the traditional ox
and ass by the manger, has its own date upon it, A.D. 343; but, as we are
not here writing a complete history of Christian art, it must suffice to
have given this general idea of its earliest efforts both in painting and
sculpture.
CHAPTER VI.
THEIR INSCRIPTIONS.
What student of antiquity, or what merely intelligent observer of men
and manners, is content to leave an old church or churchyard without
first casting his eye over its monumental inscriptions? In like manner,
we think our readers would justly complain if we bade them take leave
of the Catacombs without saying a word about their epitaphs. And if the
study of any considerable number of epitaphs anywhere is pretty sure
to be rewarded by the discovery of something more or less interesting,
how much more have we not a right to expect from the monuments of Roman
Christianity during a period of three or four hundred years!
And truly, if all these monuments had been preserved and gathered
together into one place, or, better still, had all been left in their
original places, they would have formed an invaluable and inexhaustible
library for the Christian archæologist. This, however, has not been
their lot. Hundreds and thousands of them have been destroyed by those
who have broken into the Catacombs from time to time during the last
thousand years, and drawn from them materials for building. Others,
again, and amongst them some of the most valuable, have been given to
learned antiquarians or devout ecclesiastics, who coveted them for
their own private possession, and carried them off to their own distant
homes, without reflecting upon the grievous injury which they were thus
inflicting upon those that should come after them. A much larger number
have been most injudiciously placed, even by persons who knew their
value, and were anxious for their preservation, in the pavements of Roman
churches, where they have been either gradually effaced by the constant
tread of worshippers, or thoughtlessly removed and lost sight of on
occasion of some subsequent restoration of this portion of the church.
A few have been more securely placed in the museums of the Capitol and
of the Roman College, in the porticoes of some of the Roman churches, or
in the cloisters of convents. Lastly, twelve or thirteen hundred were
brought together, some eighty or ninety years ago, in the Library and
Lapidarian Gallery at the Vatican—a number sufficiently great to enable
us to appreciate their value, and to increase our regret that so many
more should have been dispersed and lost.
It is to the sovereign Pontiffs that we are principally indebted for
whatever fragments have been preserved from the general wreck. As early
as the middle of the fifteenth century, Pope Nicholas V. seems to have
entertained the idea of collecting all the lapidarian monuments of early
Christianity which had at that time been discovered; and both Eugenius
IV., his immediate predecessor, and Calixtus III. who succeeded him,
forbade, under heavy penalties, the alienation or destruction of anything
belonging to this class of monuments. When Leo X., too, appointed Raphael
to superintend the works at the rebuilding of St. Peter’s, he gave him
a special charge that the _res lapidaria_ should not be injured. In
later times, these injunctions became more earnest and more frequent, in
proportion to the increasing number and importance of the inscriptions
that were brought to light. Still nothing practical appears to have been
devised until the reign of Benedict XIV., who appointed the learned
Francesco Bianchini to collect all the inscribed stones that could be
found; and it was he who recommended the long narrow gallery leading
to the Vatican Library and Museum as a convenient place for their
preservation. Even then political and other difficulties interfered to
prevent the execution of the design, so that it was not until the close
of the last century that it was really carried out by Gaetano Marini,
under the orders of Pope Pius VI. It is to be regretted that he took so
little pains to make the most of such materials as he had. He merely
inserted the monuments in the wall, without giving any indication of the
places where they had been found, or making any attempts to classify
them, beyond separating the few which contain the names of the consuls
from those which are without this chronological note. A small selection
has since been made, in our own day, by De Rossi, in obedience to the
orders of Pope Pius IX., and placed in a gallery of the Lateran Palace,
adjoining the Christian Museum. The arrangement of these specimens (few
as they are, comparatively speaking) makes it a valuable guide to those
who would study this part of our subject to any profit.
The collections at the Vatican and the Lateran together do not exceed
two thousand. Hundreds of others, recovered by more recent excavations,
have not yet found a suitable home; many have been left in their original
sites. Still it will always remain true that the number actually in
existence is quite insignificant when compared with those which have been
destroyed or lost. A large proportion, however, even of these have not
altogether perished; they were copied, not always with accuracy, yet with
praiseworthy diligence, by various scholars, even from the eighth and
ninth centuries; and since the invention of printing, similar collections
have been, of course, more frequent. We need not enter into any detailed
account of these; we will say but a brief word even about De Rossi’s
collection, for as yet he has only published the first volume, which
contains all the Christian inscriptions of Rome during the first six
centuries, whose date is indisputably fixed by the names of the consuls
having been appended to them.
Of these, only one belongs to the first century, two to the second, the
third supplies twenty, and the fourth and fifth about five hundred each.
Of this last century, of course, only those which belong to the first ten
years can be claimed for the Catacombs, because, as we have already seen,
they ceased after that period to be the common cemetery of the faithful.
It appears, then, that all the dated inscriptions of gravestones found in
the Catacombs up to the year 1864 do not amount to six hundred: whence
some writers have argued that in the earliest ages Christians were not
in the habit of inscribing epitaphs on their graves. This conclusion,
however, is obviously illogical; for we have no right to assume that
the proportion between dated and undated inscriptions remained uniform
during the first four centuries. If there are only six hundred epitaphs
bearing the names of consuls, there are more than twice as many thousands
without those names; and we must seek, by independent processes of
inquiry, to establish other chronological criteria, which, if not equally
exact, may yet be shown to be generally trustworthy. And this is what
De Rossi has done, with a zeal tempered by caution which is beyond all
praise. It would be impossible to exaggerate, first, the slow and patient
industry with which he has accumulated observations; then the care
and assiduity with which he compares the innumerable examples he has
collected with one another, so as to ascertain their marks of resemblance
and difference; and finally, the moderation with which he has drawn his
conclusions. These vary in value, from mere conjecture to the highest
degree of probability, or even of moral certainty. In a popular work
like this, there is no room for discussion; we must confine ourselves to
a statement of some of the best ascertained and most important facts,
resting upon certain chronological canons, which a daily increasing
experience warrants us in saying are now demonstrated with palpable and
almost mathematical exactness.
First, then, De Rossi observes it as a notable fact, attested by the
contents of all the Catacombs, that the most ancient inscriptions on
Christian tombs differ from those of the Pagans “more by what they do
_not_ say, than by what they do say.” The language of Christian epigraphy
was not created in a day any more than Christian art was. There were
urgent reasons for changing or omitting what the Pagans had been wont to
use; but the Church did not at once provide anything else in its stead.
Hence the very earliest Christian tombstones only recorded the bare name
or names of the deceased, to which, in a _very few_ instances, chiefly
of ladies, one or two words, or the initials of words, were added, to
denote the rank or title which belonged to them—_e.g._, C.F., _clarissima
femina_, or lady of senatorial rank. Generally speaking, however, there
is an entire absence from these epitaphs of all those titles of rank
and dignity with which Pagan monuments are so commonly overloaded. And
the same must be said of those titles also which belong to the other
extremity of the social scale, such as _servus_ and _libertus_. One
cannot study a dozen monuments of Pagan Rome without coming across some
trace of this great social division of the ancient world into freemen
and slaves. Yet in a number of Christian inscriptions in Rome, exceeding
twelve or thirteen thousand, and all belonging to centuries during which
slavery still flourished, scarcely ten have been found—and even two or
three of these are doubtful—containing any allusion whatever to this
fundamental division of ancient Roman society. It is not to be supposed
that there was any legislation upon the subject; not even, perhaps,
a hint from the clergy; it was simply the spontaneous effect of the
religious doctrines of the new society, reflected in their epigraphy as
in a faithful mirror. The children of the Primitive Church did not record
on their monuments titles of earthly dignity, because they knew that with
the God whom they served there was no respect of persons; neither did
they care to mention the fact of their bondage, or of their deliverance
from bondage, to some earthly master, because they thought only of that
higher and more perfect liberty “wherewith Christ had set them free;”
remembering that “he that was called, being a bondman, was yet a freeman
of the Lord; and likewise he that was called, being free, was still the
bondman of Christ.”
We repeat, then, that the most ancient inscriptions on Christian
gravestones in Rome consisted merely of the name of the deceased;
ordinarily his _cognomen_ only, though in some of the very earliest
date the name of the _gens_ was also added; not, we may be sure, from
a motive of vanity, but merely for the purpose of identification.
Large groups of inscriptions of this kind may still be seen in some of
the oldest portions of subterranean Rome; traced in vermilion on the
tiles, as in the Catacomb of Sta. Priscilla, or engraved in letters of
most beautiful classical form, as in the Cœmeterium Ostrianum and the
Cemetery of Pretextatus. The names are often of classical origin; nearly
a hundred instances of Claudii, Flavii, Ulpii, Aurelii, and others of
the same date, carrying us back to the period between Nero and the first
of the Antonines. Very often there is added after the names, as on Pagan
tombstones, such words as _filio dulcissimo_, _conjugi dulcissimo_, or,
_incomparabili_, _dulcissimis parentibus_, and nothing else. In fact,
these epitaphs vary so little from the old classical type, that had they
not been seen by Marini and other competent witnesses—some of them even
by De Rossi himself—in their original position, and some of them been
marked with the Christian symbol of the anchor, we might have hesitated
whether they ought not rather to be classed among Pagan monuments; as
it is, we are sure that they belonged to the earliest Christian period;
that they are the gravestones of men who died in the Apostolic, or
immediately post-Apostolic age.
It was not to be expected, however, that Christian epitaphs should
always remain so brief and bare a record. In the light of Christian
doctrine, death had altogether changed its character; it was no longer an
everlasting sleep, though here and there a Christian epitaph may still be
found to call it so; it was no longer a final and perpetual separation
from those who were left behind; it was recognised as the necessary gate
of admission to a new and nobler life; and it was only likely, therefore,
that some tokens of this change of feeling and belief should, sooner or
later, find expression in the places where the dead were laid. Amid the
almost innumerable monumental inscriptions of Pagan Rome that have been
preserved to us, we seek in vain for any token of belief in a future
life. Generally speaking, there is a total silence on the subject; but
if the silence is broken, it is by faint traces of poetical imagery,
not by the distinct utterances of a firm hope, much less of a clear and
certain belief. The Christian epitaphs first broke this silence by the
frequent use of a symbol, the anchor indicating hope, carved or rudely
scratched beside the name upon the gravestone. Presently they added words
also; words which were the natural outpourings of hearts which were full
of Christian faith and love. On a few gravestones in those parts of the
Catacomb of Sta. Priscilla already spoken of, we read the Apostolic
salutation, _Pax tecum_, or _Pax tibi_; on one in the Cœmeterium
Ostrianum, _Vivas in Deo_, and these are the first germs, out of which
Christian epigraphy grew.
The epitaphs on the gravestones of the latter half of the second and
of the third centuries are only a development of the fundamental ideas
contained in these ejaculations. They still keep silence as to the
worldly rank, or the Christian virtues of the deceased; they do not even,
for the most part, tell us anything as to his age, or his relationship
to the survivor who sets up the stone; most commonly, not even the day
of his death or burial. But they announce with confident assurance that
his soul has been admitted to that happy lot reserved for the just who
have left this world in peace, that he is united with the saints, that
he is in God, and in the enjoyment of good things; or they breathe a
humble and loving prayer that he may soon be admitted to a participation
in these blessings. They ask for the departed soul peace, and light, and
refreshment, and rest in God and in Christ. Sometimes, also, they invoke
the help of his prayers (since he, they know, still lives in God) for
the surviving relatives whose time of trial is not yet ended. In a word,
they proceed upon the assumption that there is an incessant interchange
of kindly offices between this world and the next, between the living
and the dead; they represent all the faithful as living members of one
Body, the Body of Christ; as forming one great family, knit together in
the closest bonds of love; and this love finding its chief work and
happiness in prayer, prayer of the survivors for those who have gone
before, prayer of the blessed for those who are left behind. We subjoin
a few examples of the class of epitaphs of which we speak; and to secure
accuracy, we will only give those that we have ourselves copied from
the originals, and which every visitor to Rome may, therefore, still
see if he pleases. The figures which we have appended to some of these
inscriptions denote the column and the number under which they will
be found in the gallery at the Lateran; the letters K.M. refer to the
Kircherian Museum at the Roman College; and the last four may be seen
where they were found, in the Catacomb of SS. Nereus and Achilles.
1. PAX TECUM, URANIA, xviii. 17.
2. SPES, PAX TIBI. xviii. 20.
3. ΥΓΙΕΙΑ ΖΗΣΕΣ ΜΕΤΑ ΙΣΤΕΡΚΟΡΙΟΥ
ΤΟΥ ΛΕΓΟΜΕΝΟΥ ΥΓΕΙΝΟΥ ΕΝ ΤΕΩ. xix. 23.
4. ΦΙΓΟΥΜΕΝΗ ΕΝ ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ΣΟΥ ΤΟ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ. ix. 28.
5. LAIS CUM PACE. ISPIRITUS IN BONU QUESCAT. ix. 15.
6. SUSANNA VIVAS IN DEO. xx. 30.
7. SEMPER IN D. VIVAS, DULCIS ANIMA. ix. 5.
8. REGINA, VIVAS IN DOMINO ZESU. ix. 17.
9. BOLOSA, DEUS TIBI REFRIGERET QUÆ VIXIT ANNOS XXXI. ix. 12.
10. AMERIMNUS RUFINÆ ... SPIRITUM TUUM DEUS REFRIGERET. ix. 13.
11. REFRIGERA DEUS ANIMA HO.... ix. 14.
12. KALEMERE DEUS REFRIGERET SPIRITUM TUUM
UNA CUM SORORIS TUÆ HILARE. K. M.
13. LUCIFERE ... MERUIT TITULUM
INSCRIBI UT QUISQUI DE FRATRIBUS LEGERIT ROGET DEU
UT SANCTO ET INNOCENTI SPIRITO AD DEUM SUSCIPIATUR. ix. 10.
14. ANATOLIUS FILIO BENEMERENTI FECIT
QUI VIXIT ANNIS VII MENSIS VII DIEBUS XX
ISPIRITUS TUUS BENE REQUIESCAT
IN DEO. PETAS PRO SORORE TUA. viii. 19.
15. AURELIVS AGAPETVS ET AURELIA
FELICISSIMA ALVMNE FELICITATI
DIGNISSIMÆ QVE VICSIT ANIS XXX ET VI
ET PETE PRO CELSINIANV COJVGEM. viii. 21.
16. PETE PRO PARENTES TVOS
MATRONATA MATRONA
QVE VIXIT AN. I. DI. LIII. viii. 18.
17. ΔΙΟΝΥϹΙΟϹ ΝΗΠΙΟϹ ΑΚΑΚΟϹ ΕΝΘΑΔΕ
ΚΕΙΤΕ ΜΕΤΑ ΤΩΝ ΑΓΙΩΝ ΜΝΗϹΚΕϹΘΕ
ΔΕ ΚΑΙ ΗΜΩΝ ΕΝ ΤΑΙϹ ΑΓΙΑΙϹ ΥΜΩΝ
ΠΡΕΥΧΑΙϹ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ ΓΛΥΨΑΤΟϹ ΚΑΙ ΓΡΑΨΑΝΤΟϹ. K. M.
18. GENTIANVS FIDELIS IN PACE QVI VIX
IT ANNIS XXI MENNS VIII DIES
XVI ET IN ORATIONIS TVIS
ROGES PRO NOBIS QVIA SCIMVS TE IN ☧. (Vatican Gallery.)
19. ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙϹ ΕΤ ΛΕΟΝΤΙΑ
ϹΕΙΡΙΚΕ ΦΕΙΛΙΕ ΒΕΝΕΜΕΡΕΝ
ΤΙ ΜΝΗϹΘΗϹ ΙΗϹΟΥϹ
Ο ΚΥΡΙΟϹ ΤΕΚΝΟΝ Ε....
20. VICTORIA REFRIGER
ISSPIRITUS TUS IN BONO.
21. ... VIBAS IN PACE ET PETE PRO NOBIS.
22. ΖΗϹΑΙϹ ΕΝ ̅Κ̅Ω ΚΑΙ ΕΡΩΤΑ ΥΠΕΡ ΗΜΩΝ.
1. Peace with thee, Urania.
2. Peace to thee, Spes.
3. Hygeia, mayest thou live in God with Stercorius, who is
(also) called Hyginus.
4. Beloved one, may thy spirit be in peace.
5. Peace with thee, Lais. May thy spirit rest in good [_i.e._,
God].
6. Susanna, mayest thou live in God.
7. Sweet soul, mayest thou always live in God.
8. Regina, mayest thou live in the Lord Jesus.
9. Bolosa, may God refresh thee; who lived thirty-one years.
10. Amerimnus ... to Rufina, may the Lord refresh thy spirit.
11. Refresh, O God, the soul of ...
12. Kalemere, may God refresh thy spirit, together with that of
thy sister Hilare.
13. Lucifera ... deserved that an epitaph should be inscribed
to her, that whoever of the brethren shall read it, may pray
God that her holy and innocent spirit may be received to God.
14. Anatolius set this up to his well-deserving son, who lived
seven years, seven months, and twenty days. May thy spirit rest
well in God. Pray for thy sister.
15. Aurelius Agapetus and Aurelia Felicissima to their most
excellent foster-child Felicitas, who lived thirty-six years;
and pray for your husband Celsinianus.
16. Pray for your parents, Matronata Matrona, who lived one
year and fifty-three days.
17. Dionysius, an innocent child, lies here with the saints:
and remember us, too, in your holy prayers, both me who
engraved and me who wrote [this inscription].
18. Gentianus, one of the faithful, in peace, who lived
twenty-one years, eight months, and sixteen days: and in your
prayers make petition for us, because we know that thou art in
Christ.
19. Demetrius and Leontia to their well-deserving daughter
Syrica. Remember, O Lord Jesus, our child.
20. Victoria, may thy spirit be refreshed in good [_i.e._, in
God].
21. Mayest thou live in peace and pray for us.
22. Mayest thou live in the Lord and pray for us.
It would be easy to fill several pages with inscriptions of this kind;
but enough has been produced to impress upon the reader a fair idea of
their general character. They abound on the monuments of the second
and third centuries; but after that date they fade out of use, and are
succeeded by a new style of epigraphy, colder and more historical.
Mention is now made of the exact age of the deceased, and of the length
of his married life, not as to years only, but as to months, and
sometimes even as to days and hours; of the day of his death also, more
commonly of his burial, and, in a few instances, of both. To record the
day of the burial (_depositio_) was creeping into use before the end
of the third century; from the middle of the fourth, it became little
short of universal; and in this century and the next, mention of the
year also was frequently added. During this period, the phrase _in pace_
became general, as a formula to be used by itself absolutely without
any verb at all. In old Christian inscriptions in Africa, this phrase
frequently occurs with the verb _vixit_; in which case the word _pax_ is
undoubtedly used in the same sense in which Tertullian, St. Cyprian, and
other ecclesiastical writers employ it, as denoting peace with God to be
obtained through communion with the Church; and in a community distracted
by schisms and heresies, as the African Church was, such a record on
the tomb of a Christian is intelligible and important. Not so in Rome;
here the purport of the thousands of greetings of peace has reference to
the peace of a joyful resurrection and a happy eternity, whether spoken
of with confidence as already possessed, or only prayed for with glad
expectation. The act of death had been expressed in earlier epitaphs
under Christian phrases:—_Translatus de sæculo_; _exivit de sæculo_;
_arcessitus a Domino_, or _ab angelis_; _natus in æternum_; or, much more
commonly, _Deo reddidit spiritum_; and this last phrase had come into
such established use by the middle of the third century, that the single
letter R was a recognised abbreviation of it. But, in the second half of
that century, and still more frequently afterwards _decessit_ was used
in its stead; and in the fifth century we find this again superseded by
_Hic jacet_, _pausat_, _quiescit_, or _requiescit_.
Complimentary phrases as to the goodness, wisdom, innocence, and holiness
of the deceased came into fashion about the age of Constantine, and in
later times were repeated with such uniformity as to be quite wearisome;
we see that they were simply formal and unmeaning; not unfrequently
they were extravagant. Widows and widowers bear mutual testimony to one
another’s gentleness and amiability of disposition, which enabled them to
live together so many years _semper concordes, sine ullâ querelâ, sine
læsione animi_. But this was, after all, only a return to the style of
Pagan epigraphy, in which the very same phrases were frequently used.
Children are commended for innocence and simplicity of spirit; sometimes
also for wisdom and beauty! A child of five years old is _miræ bonitatis
et totius innocentiæ_. This belongs to the year 387. In the next century,
we find, for the first time, the phrase _contra votum_, which was also
a return to the language of Pagan parents when burying their children.
It cannot be said that there is anything absolutely unchristian in this
phrase; at the same time, it does not savour of that hearty resignation
to the will of God, or that cheerful assertion of His providence, to
be found in other epitaphs; as, for instance, in more than a score of
inscriptions recovered from the ancient cemetery in Ostia, in which this
resignation is touchingly expressed by the statement that the deceased
had ended his term of days “_when God willed it_.”
Of course, there still remains very much more that might be said, and
which it would be interesting to say, about the thousands of inscriptions
that have been found in the Catacombs; but we can only here attempt to
indicate the main outlines of the subject, and enough has been said to
satisfy our readers that Christian epigraphy followed the same laws of
development as Christian art. At first it resembled the corresponding
monuments of Paganism, excepting in those particulars in which Christian
dogma and Christian feeling suggested a departure from that model. Still
for a while that dogma and feeling found no distinct positive expression.
Then it began to whisper, at first in hidden symbols, such as the dove,
the anchor, and the fish; then, in the short but hearty apostolic
salutation, _Pax tecum_, _Pax tibi_, _Vivas in Deo_, and the like. By and
by these pious ejaculations, dictated by a spirit of affectionate piety
towards the deceased, and a tender solicitude for his eternal welfare,
became more frequent and less laconic; and so, step by step, a special
style of Christian epigraphy grows up spontaneously (as it were) out of
the joyful light of faith and hope of heaven. A certain type becomes
fixed, varying indeed, as all things human never fail to vary, in some
minor details, according to circumstances of time and place, or the
peculiar tastes and fancies of this or that individual, yet sufficiently
consistent to set a distinctive mark upon each particular period,
whilst by its variations during successive ages it faithfully reflects
(we may be sure) some corresponding change in the tone and temper of
the ordinary Christian mind. Christian epigraphy was born as Christian
art was, simultaneously with the introduction of Christianity itself
into the metropolis of the ancient world; it acquired all its special
characteristics, and perhaps attained its highest religious perfection,
before the end of the third century, after which its beautiful and
touching simplicity is somewhat marred and secularised by a gradual
influx of some of those modes of thought and expression which prevailed
in the world without.
Part Second.
CHAPTER I.
THE PAPAL CRYPT.
We have now acquired a sufficient general idea of the Catacombs to enable
us to understand what we see when we come to examine any one of them in
detail; and we will, therefore, proceed to pay a visit to the famous
Cemetery of Callixtus.
But first we must explain what is meant by this title. It may be used
in two senses. When first the Catacombs were made, and as long as the
true history of their origin and gradual development was remembered,
“the Cemetery of Callixtus” was only a small and well-defined area,
measuring 250 Roman feet by 100, and situated on a little cross-road
which united the Via Appia with the Via Ardeatina. But as time went on,
other areæ were joined to this, until at length a vast and intricate
subterranean necropolis was formed, measuring several hundred feet both
in length and breadth; and to the whole of this space, for convenience’
sake, we continue to give the name of one of its most ancient and famous
parts. In our visit we shall pass through some portions of several of
these areæ; for we shall first descend into the original “Cemetery of
Callixtus,” and we shall return to the upper world from the “Crypt of
Lucina,” which in the old martyrologies is spoken of as “near” that
cemetery, not as part of it.
[Illustration: _Galleries in Cemetery of St. Callixtus breaking through
graves._]
The casual visitor cannot, of course, expect to be able to distinguish
the limits of the several areæ which he traverses in his hurried
subterranean walk; nevertheless, if he keeps his eyes open, he cannot
fail to recognise occasional tokens of the transition; as, for instance,
when he finds himself passing from a higher to a lower level, or _vice
versâ_, or when the path which he is pursuing leads him through a wall
of broken graves, so that it has been necessary perhaps to strengthen
the points of connection by masonry. Any one who desires to study this
branch of the subject, will find it fully treated of, and made easily
intelligible, by numerous plans and illustrations either in the original
work of De Rossi, or in the English abridgment of it. The present popular
manual proposes to itself a more humble task. We propose to describe the
principal objects of interest which are shown to strangers, and to supply
such historical or archæological information as will give them a greater
interest in, and a keener appreciation of, the importance of what they
see.
[Illustration: _Entrance to the Cemetery of St. Callixtus._]
Without further preface, then, let us set out on our walk. Let us proceed
along the Via Appia till we come to a doorway on the right-hand side,
over which we read the words “Cœmeterium S. Callixti.” On entering the
vineyard our attention is first arrested by a ruined monument standing
close beside us. We shall have already seen others more or less like it
on both sides of the road since we came out of the city; and in answer to
our inquiries we shall have learnt that they are the remains of what were
once grand Pagan tombs, covered, probably, with marble and ornamented
with sculpture. Without stopping then to inquire whether anything special
is known about the history of this particular mausoleum, we will walk
forward to another more modest building standing in the middle of the
vineyard. It looks small and mean; and if we could enter it, we should
find that it is used only as a convenient magazine for the stowing away
of fragments of sarcophagi, or tombstones, extracted from the cemetery
which underlies it. Yet its apsidal termination, and the other apses on
either side of the building, naturally suggest to us that it must once
have had something of an ecclesiastical character. In truth, it was one
of the “numerous buildings constructed throughout the cemeteries” by
Fabian, pope and martyr, in the middle of the third century (see page
27), and was known to ancient pilgrims as the _cella memoriæ_, or chapel
of St. Sixtus and of St. Cæcilia, being built immediately over the tombs
of those martyrs. Originally, the end or fourth side of the building
was unenclosed, that so larger numbers of the faithful might assist at
the celebration of the holy mysteries: indeed the side-walls themselves
were not at first continued to their present length, but the building
consisted of little else than the three _exedræ_ or apses.
If we examine the ground round this ancient chapel, we shall see that it
was once used as a place of burial. All round it, but not within it, nor
yet quite close to its walls, but just at a sufficient distance from them
to allow space for the channels which carried off the water from the roof
(traces of which channels still remain), deep graves are dug, of various
sizes, but all arranged according to a regular plan of orientation.
These graves are made chiefly with blocks of tufa; but bricks also are
used, and thick layers of mortar. Some of them were cased inside with
marble, or at least had slabs of that material at the top and bottom,
the upper surface of the one serving as the bottom of another; and it is
worthy of remark that on several of these slabs were inscribed epitaphs
of the usual kind, though their position would necessarily conceal them
from every human eye. Some of the graves were made of sufficient depth
to receive ten bodies, one over the other; some could only receive
four; and occasionally only a single sarcophagus occupied the grave.
The average, however, may be taken at four bodies in each grave, which
would give a total of eight thousand persons buried over the first area
of the Catacomb of St. Callixtus. Of course this cemetery, being in the
open air, is no part of the catacomb—properly so called; it is of later
date, having been made in the fourth and fifth centuries, but it observes
precisely the same limits as the catacomb. The boundary-wall may still
be seen at no great distance from the chapel; and beyond it no graves are
to be found either in the cemetery or in the catacomb; a fact which shows
with what care the rights of private property were respected below ground
as well as above.
But now let us no longer tarry in the open air, but go down at once
into the catacomb. A staircase stands ready at our side, being in fact
a mere restoration of the original entrance. When we get to the bottom,
a keen eye may detect upon the plaster of the walls a certain number of
_graffiti_, as they are called, or scribblings of names, ejaculations,
&c., of very great antiquity. It is comparatively a new thing to pay any
attention to these rude scribblings of ancient visitors on the walls
of places of public resort, and to take pains to decipher them; but of
late years they have proved to be a most interesting subject of study,
whether found on the tombs of Egyptian kings in Thebes, on the walls of
the barracks and theatres in Pompeii, in the prisons and cellars of Pagan
Rome, or, lastly, in the Christian Catacombs. Here especially they have
proved to be of immense importance, being, as De Rossi justly calls them,
“the faithful echo of history and infallible guides through the labyrinth
of subterranean galleries;” for by means of them we can trace the path
that was followed by pilgrims to subterranean Rome from the fourth to
the seventh century, and identify the crypts or chapels which were most
frequently visited. Probably there is no group of ancient _graffiti_
in the world to be compared, either for number or intricacy, with those
which cover the wall at the entrance of the crypt we are about to enter;
and it must have been a work of infinite labour to disentangle and
decipher them. Now that the work has been done for us, however, by the
indefatigable De Rossi, we can see that they may be divided into three
classes. They are either the mere names of persons, with the occasional
adjunct of their titles; or they are good wishes, prayers, salutations,
or acclamations, on behalf of friends and relatives, living or dead; or,
lastly, they are invocations of the martyrs near whose tombs they are
inscribed.
Of the names we find two kinds; one, the most ancient and most numerous,
scribbled on the first coat of plaster, and in the most convenient and
accessible parts of the wall, are names of the old classical type, such
as Tychis, Elpidephorus, Polyneicus, Maximus, Nikasius, and the like; the
other, belonging manifestly to a somewhat later period, because written
on a later coat of plaster, and in more inaccessible places, high above
the first, are such as Lupo, Ildebrand, Ethelrid, Bonizo, Joannes Presb.,
Prando Pr., _indignus peccator_, &c., &c.
Prayers or acclamations for absent or departed friends are mixed among
the most ancient names, and generally run in the same form as the
earliest and most simple Christian epitaphs, _e.g._, VIVAS, VIVAS IN
DEO CRISTO, VIVAS IN ETERNO, ΖΗϹ ΕΝ ΘΕΩ, ΒΙΒΑϹ ΙΝ ΘΕΩ, TE IN PACE,
&c. “Mayest thou live in God Christ, for ever, Thee in peace,” &c. The
feeling which prompted the pilgrims who visited these shrines thus to
inscribe in sacred places the names of those they loved and would fain
benefit, is so natural to the human heart, that instances of it may be
found even among the heathen themselves.
But besides mere names and short acclamations, there are also in the
same place, and manifestly belonging to a very early age, prayers and
invocations of the martyrs who lay buried in these chapels. Sometimes
the holy souls of all the martyrs are addressed collectively, and
petitioned to hold such or such an one in remembrance; and sometimes this
prayer is addressed to one individually. The following may suffice as
specimens:—MARCIANUM SUCCESSUM SEVERUM SPIRITA SANCTA IN MENTE HAVETE,
ET OMNES FRATRES NOSTROS. PETITE SPIRITA SANCTA UT VERECUNDUS CUM SUIS
BENE NAVIGET. OTIA PETITE ET PRO PARENTE ET PRO FRATRIBUS EJUS; VIBANT
CUM BONO. SANTE SUSTE, IN MENTE HABEAS IN HORATIONES AURELIU REPENTINU.
ΔΙΟΝΥΣΙΝ ΕΙΣ ΜΝΙΑΝ ΕΧΕΤΑΙ (for ΕΧΕΤΕ). “Holy souls, have in remembrance
Marcianus Successus Severus and all our brethren. Holy souls, ask that
Verecundus and his friends may have a prosperous voyage. Ask for rest
both for my parent and his brethren; may they live with good Holy Sixtus,
have in remembrance in your prayers Aurelius Repentinus. Have ye in
remembrance Dionysius.”
The inspection of these _graffiti_, then, is enough to warn us that
we are on the threshold of a very special sanctuary of the ancient
Church, and to excite our deepest interest in all that we may find it
to contain. But our first impression on entering will probably be one
of disappointment. We were led to expect that we were about to visit a
Christian burial-place and place of worship of very great antiquity,
but the greater part of the masonry we see around us is manifestly of
quite recent construction. The truth is, that when this chamber was
rediscovered in 1854, it was in a complete state of ruin; access was
gained to it only through the _luminare_, which, as usual, had served
for many centuries as a channel for pouring into it all the adjacent
soil, fragments of grave-stones from the cemetery above-ground, decaying
brickwork, and every kind of rubbish. When this was removed, the vault
of the chamber, deprived of its usual support, soon gave way; so that,
if any portion of it was to be preserved and put in a condition to be
visited with safety, it was absolutely necessary to build fresh walls,
and otherwise strengthen it. This has been done with the utmost care,
and so as still to preserve, wherever it was possible, remains of the
more ancient condition of the chapel and of its decoration in succeeding
ages. Thus we are able to trace very clearly in the arch of the doorway
three stages or conditions of ornamentation by means of three different
coatings of plaster, each retaining some remnant of its original
painting. We can trace also the remains of the marble slabs with which,
at a later period, the whole chapel was faced; and even this _later_
period takes us back to the earlier half of the fifth century, when, as
the _Liber Pontificalis_ tells us, St. Sixtus III. _platoniam fecit in
Cœmeterio Callixti_. The fragments of marble columns and other ornamental
work, which lie scattered about on the pavement, belong probably to
the same period, or they may have been the work of St. Leo III., the
last pontiff of whom we read that he made restorations here before the
translation of the relics by Pope Paschal I. Again, the raised step or
dais of marble, which we see directly opposite to us at the further end
of the chapel, having four holes or sockets in it, was of course found
here as it now is, and it shows plainly where the altar once stood,
supported on four pillars; but in the wall behind this platform we seem
to detect traces of a yet older and more simple kind of altar—a sepulchre
hewn out of the rock, the flat covering of which was probably the
original _mensa_ whereon the holy mysteries were celebrated in this place.
Thus, spite of the ruin and the neglect of ages, and spite of the work
of restoration which has been thereby made necessary in our own time,
many clear traces still remain both of its original condition and of the
reverent care with which successive generations of the ancient Church
did their best to adorn this chamber. The cause of this extraordinary
and long-continued veneration is revealed to us, in part, by a few
grave-stones which have been recovered from amid the rubbish, and which
are now restored, if not to the precise spots they originally occupied
(which we cannot tell), yet certainly to the _walls_ in which they were
first placed; in part also by an inscription of Pope Damasus, which,
though broken into more than a hundred pieces, has yet been put together
from the fragments discovered in this chamber, the few words or letters
that have not been found being supplied in letters of a different colour;
the whole, therefore, may now again be read just where our forefathers in
the faith read it when it was first set up 1500 years ago. The tombstones
are of St. Anteros and St. Fabian, who sat in the chair of Peter from
A.D. 235 to 250; of St. Lucius, A.D. 252; and of St. Eutychianus, who
died nearly thirty years later. No one having an intimate acquaintance
with Christian epigraphy doubts that these are the original grave-stones
of the Popes whose names they bear; and it is certain that other Popes of
the same century were buried here also; but as their tombstones are not
before our eyes, we will say nothing about them in this place, but go on
to speak of the inscription of Pope Damasus. It runs in this wise:—
HIC CONGESTA JACET QUÆRIS SI TURBA PIORUM,
CORPORA SANCTORUM RETINENT VENERANDA SEPULCHRA,
SUBLIMES ANIMAS RAPUIT SIBI REGIA CŒLI:
HIC COMITES XYSTI PORTANT QUI EX HOSTE TROPÆA;
HIC NUMERUS PROCERUM SERVAT QUI ALTARIA CHRISTI;
HIC POSITUS LONGA VIXIT QUI IN PACE SACERDOS;
HIC CONFESSORES SANCTI QUOS GRÆCIA MISIT;
HIC JUVENES, PUERIQUE, SENES CASTIQUE NEPOTES,
QUÏS MAGE VIRGINEUM PLACUIT RETINERE PUDOREM.
HIC FATEOR DAMASUS VOLUI MEA CONDERE MEMBRA,
SED CINERES TIMUI SANCTOS VEXARE PIORUM.
“Here, if you would know, lie heaped together a whole crowd of saints.
These honoured sepulchres enclose their bodies,
Their noble souls the palace of Heaven has taken to itself.
Here lie the companions of Xystus, who triumphed over the enemy;
Here a number of rulers, who keep the altars of Christ;
Here is buried the Bishop, who lived in a long peace;
Here the holy Confessors whom Greece sent us;
Here lie youths and boys, old men, and their chaste relatives,
Who chose, as the better part, to keep their virgin chastity.
Here I, Damasus, confess I wished to lay my bones,
But I feared to disturb the holy ashes of the saints.”
The first lines of this inscription seem to allude to a number of martyrs
laid together in one large tomb, such as we know from other witnesses
were sometimes to be seen in the Roman Catacombs. The poet Prudentius,
for instance, supposes a friend to ask him the names of those who have
shed their blood for the faith in Rome, and the epitaphs inscribed on
their tombs. He replies that it would be very difficult to tell this,
for that “the relics of the saints in Rome are innumerable, since as
long as the city continued to worship their Pagan gods, their wicked
rage slew vast multitudes of the just. On many tombs, indeed,” he says,
“you may read the name of the martyr, and some short inscription; but
there are many others which are silent as to the name, and only express
the number. You can ascertain the number which lie heaped up together
(_congestis corpora acervis_), but nothing more;” and he specifies one
grave in particular, in which he learnt that the relics of sixty martyrs
had been laid, but their names were known only to Christ. To some such
_polyandrium_, then, the words of Pope Damasus would seem to allude, and
the martyrologies and other ancient documents speak of three or four such
tombs “near St. Cecilia’s;” and here in this very chamber, just where (as
we shall presently see) it touches the crypt of St. Cecilia, we can still
recognise a pit of unusual size and depth, intended apparently for the
reception of many bodies, or perhaps only of the charred remains of many
bodies; for, where the victims were numerous, the capital sentence was
not unfrequently executed by fire.
Of the martyrdom of St. Sixtus we have already spoken as having taken
place in the Catacomb of Pretextatus (page 31), but his body was brought
here to be laid with those of his predecessors. Pope Damasus only
mentions his deacons, and not St. Sixtus himself, because he had composed
another set of verses in honour of the holy Pontiff alone, and had set
them up in this same crypt. It is easy to see where they were placed,
above and behind the altar, and a copy of them has been preserved to us
by ancient pilgrims and scholars. Scarcely a dozen letters of them,
however, were found when the chapel was cleared out in 1854; they have
not, therefore, been restored to their place, and need not be reproduced
in this manual.
The _numerus procerum_ in the fifth line of our present inscription are,
of course, the Popes whose epitaphs we have seen, and others who were
buried here; nor can we fail to recognise in the Bishop who enjoyed a
long life of peace Pope Melchiades, who lived when the persecutions
had ended. Finally, we have heard the story of some at least of “the
holy confessors who came from Greece,” Hippolytus Maria and Neo, Adrias
and Paulina (page 37); and the _arenarium_ in which these martyrs were
buried was in the immediate neighbourhood of the Papal crypt which we are
describing.
CHAPTER II.
THE CRYPT OF ST. CECILIA.
A narrow doorway, cut somewhat irregularly through the rock in the corner
of the Papal Crypt, introduces us into another chamber. As we pass
through this doorway we observe that the sides were once covered with
slabs of marble, and the arch over our heads adorned with mosaics. The
chamber itself is much larger than that which we have left behind us.
It is nearly 20 feet square (the other had been only 14 by 11); it is
irregular in shape; it has a wide _luminare_ over it, completely flooding
it with light, and at the other end of it is a large portico, supported
by arches of brick. Yet we see no altar-tomb, no contemporary epitaphs
of popes or martyrs, nor indeed anything else which at once engages our
attention and promises to give us valuable information. Nevertheless, a
more careful examination will soon detect paintings and scribblings on
the walls not inferior in interest to any that are to be seen elsewhere.
We shall hardly appreciate them, however, as they deserve, unless we
first briefly call to mind the history of the relics of St. Cecilia,
before whose tomb we are.
We shall take it for granted that our readers are familiar with the
history of the Saint’s martyrdom and pass on to the first discovery of
her relics in the ninth century. Pope Paschal I. succeeded to the see
of Peter in January A.D. 817, and in the following July he translated
into different churches within the city the relics of 2300 martyrs,
collected from the various suburban cemeteries, which, as we have seen,
were lying at that time in a deplorable state of ruin. Amongst the relics
thus removed were those of the popes from the Papal Crypt we have just
visited. His cotemporary biographer, writing in the _Liber Pontificalis_
tells us that Paschal had wished to remove at the same time the body
of St. Cecilia, which the Acts of her martyrdom assured him had been
buried by Pope Urban “near to his own colleagues;” but he could not find
it; so at length he reluctantly acquiesced in the report that it had
been carried off by Astulfus, the Lombard king, by whom Rome had been
besieged, and the cemeteries plundered. Some four years afterwards,
however, St. Cecilia appeared to him in a dream or vision, as he was
assisting at matins in the Vatican Basilica, and told him that when he
was translating the bodies of the popes she was so close to him that they
might have conversed together. In consequence of this vision he returned
to the search, and found the body where he had been told. It was fresh
and perfect as when it was first laid in the tomb, and clad in rich
garments wrought with gold, lying in a cypress coffin, with linen cloths
stained with blood rolled up at her feet.
It is not essential to our history, yet it may be worth while to add that
Paschal tells us he lined the coffin with fringed silk, spread over the
body a covering of silk gauze, and then, placing it within a sarcophagus
of white marble, deposited it under the high altar of the Church of Sta.
Cecilia in Trastevere, where it was rediscovered nearly eight hundred
years afterwards (A.D. 1599) by the titular cardinal of the Church, and
exposed to the veneration of the faithful for a period of four or five
weeks. All visitors to Rome have seen and admired Maderna’s beautiful
statue of the saint; but not all take sufficient notice of the legend
which he has inserted around it, testifying that he was one of those who
had seen her lying incorrupt in her coffin, and that he has reproduced
her in marble, in the very same posture in which he saw her.
[Illustration: _Maderna’s Statue of St. Cecilia._]
We have said that the Acts of the Saint’s martyrdom assert that Pope
Urban had buried her near to his own colleagues. The itineraries of
ancient pilgrims mention her grave, either immediately before, or
immediately after, those of the Popes. Finally, Pope Paschal says that
he found her body close to the place whence he had withdrawn the bodies
of his predecessors. Are these topographical notices true or false? This
is the question which must have agitated the mind of De Rossi when he
discovered this chamber so immediately contiguous to that in which he
had learnt for certain that the Popes had been buried; or rather—for his
own conviction upon this subject had been already formed—would there
be anything in the chamber itself to confirm his conclusion, and to
establish it to the satisfaction of others? We may imagine with what
eagerness he desired to penetrate it. But this could not be done at once.
The chapel was full of earth, even to the very top of the _luminare_, and
all this soil must first be removed, through the _luminare_ itself. As
the work of excavation proceeded, there came to light first, on the wall
of the _luminare_, the figure of a woman in the usual attitude of prayer,
but so indistinct as to baffle all attempts at identification. Below this
there appeared a Latin cross between two sheep, which may still be seen,
though these also are much faded. Still lower down the wall—the wall,
that is, of the _luminare_, not of the chamber itself—we come upon the
figures of three saints, executed apparently in the fourth, or perhaps
even the fifth century; but they are all of men; and as their names
inscribed at the side show no trace of any connection with the history
of St. Cecilia, we will postpone what we have to say about them for the
present, and proceed with our work of clearance of the whole chamber.
As we come nearer to the floor, we find upon the wall, close to the
entrance from the burial-place of the popes, a painting which may be
attributed, perhaps, to the seventh century, of a woman, richly attired,
with pearls hanging from her ears and entwined in her hair, necklaces and
bracelets of pearls and gold; a white dress covered with a pink tunic
ornamented with gold and silver flowers, and large roses springing out
of the ground by her feet. Everything about the painting is rich, and
bright, and gay, such as an artist of the seventh century might picture
to himself that a Roman bride, of wealth and noble family, like St.
Cecilia, ought to have been. Below this figure we come to a niche, such
as is found in other parts of the Catacombs, to receive the large shallow
vessels of oil, or precious unguents, which, in ancient times, were used
to feed the lamps burning before the tombs of the martyrs. At the back
of this niche is a large head of our Lord, represented according to the
Byzantine type, and with rays of glory behind it in the form of a Greek
cross. Side by side with this, but on the flat surface of the wall, is a
figure of a bishop, in full pontifical dress, with his name inscribed, S.
VRBANVS.
[Illustration: _Crypt of St. Cecilia._]
Examination of these paintings shows that they were not the original
ornaments of the place. The painting of St. Cecilia was executed on the
surface of ruined mosaic work, portions of which may still be easily
detected towards the bottom of the picture. The niche, too, in which
our Lord’s head is painted bears evident traces of having once been
encased with porphyry, and both it and the figure of St. Urban are so
rudely done, that they might have been executed as late as the tenth or
eleventh century. Probably they belong to the age of the translation of
the relics—_i.e._, the ninth century. A half-obliterated scroll or tablet
by the side of the figure of St. Urban states that it was intended as an
ornament to the martyr’s sepulchre—DECORI SEPULCRI S. CÆCILIÆ MARTYRIS.
When we add that immediately by the side of these paintings is a deep
recess in the wall, capable of receiving a large sarcophagus, and that
between the back of this recess and the back of one of the papal graves
in the adjoining chamber, there is scarcely an inch of rock, we think the
most sceptical of critics will confess that the old traditions are very
remarkably confirmed.
It will be asked, however, if this is really the place where St. Cecilia
was buried, and if Paschal really visited the adjoining chapel, how is
it possible that he could have had any difficulty in finding her tomb?
To this we reply, first, by reminding our readers of the condition in
which the Catacombs were at that time: these translations of relics were
being made, because the cemeteries in which they lay were utterly ruined.
But, secondly, it is very possible that the doorway, or the recess, or
both, may have been walled up or otherwise concealed, for the express
purpose of baffling the search of the sacrilegious Lombards. Nor is this
mere conjecture. Among the _débris_ of this spot De Rossi has found
several fragments of a wall, too thin ever to have been used as a means
of support, but manifestly serviceable as a curtain of concealment; and,
although, with that perfect candour and truthfulness which so enhances
all his other merits, he adds that these fragments bear tokens of
belonging to a later date, this does not prove that there had not been
another wall of the same kind at an earlier period; for he is able to
quote from his own discoveries the instance of an _arcosolium_ in another
Catacomb, which was thus carefully concealed in very ancient times by the
erection of a wall. However, be the true explanation of this difficulty
what it may, our ignorance on this subject cannot be allowed to outweigh
the explicit testimony of Paschal and the other ancient witnesses now so
abundantly confirmed by modern discoveries.
But it may be objected yet once more, that there is an inscription in
the Catacomb under the Basilica of St. Sebastian, more than a quarter of
a mile off, which states that St. Cecilia was buried there. Most true,
but consider the date of the inscription. It was set up by William de
Bois-Ratier, Archbishop of Bourges, in the year 1609; and there are other
inscriptions hard by, of the same or of a later date, which claim for
the same locality the tombs of several popes, as well as of thousands of
martyrs. The inscriptions were set up precisely during that age in which
the Catacombs were buried in the most profound darkness and oblivion.
We have already explained (page 50) how it came to pass that whilst the
other ancient cemeteries were inaccessible and unknown, this one under
the Church of St. Sebastian still remained partially open; and we can
heartily sympathise with the religious feelings which prompted the good
Archbishop and others to make an appeal to the devotion of the faithful
not to lose the memory of those glorious martyrs who had certainly been
buried in a Catacomb on this road, and at no great distance, yet not in
this particular spot. But whilst we admire their piety, we cannot bow to
their authority upon a topographical question, which they had no means
of deciding, and in respect to which recent discoveries, as well as the
testimony of more ancient documents, prove to a demonstration that they
were certainly wrong.
Dismissing, then, all these objections, which it was quite right and
reasonable to raise, but which, on critical examination, entirely
disappear, we may rest assured that we have here certainly recovered the
original resting-place of one of the most ancient and famous of Rome’s
virgin saints. Let us take one more look round the crypt before we leave
it. If we examine the picture of the saint more closely, we shall find
it defaced by a number of _graffiti_, which may be divided into two
classes; the one class quite irregular, both as to place and style of
writing, consisting only of the names of pilgrims who had visited the
shrine, several of whom were not Romans but foreigners. Thus, one is
named Hildebrandus, another Lupo, another is a Bishop Ethelred, and two
write themselves down Spaniards. But the other class of _graffiti_ is
quite regular, arranged in four lines, and contains almost exclusively
the names of priests; the only exceptions being that one woman appears
amongst them, but it is added that she is the mother of the priest (Leo)
who signs before her, and that the last signature of all is that of a
_scriniarius_, or secretary. There is something about this arrangement
of names which suggests the idea of an official act; neither can it
be attributed to chance that several of the same names (including the
unusual name of Mercurius, and written too in the same peculiar style,
a mixture of square and of cursive letters) appear on the painting of
St. Cornelius, presently to be visited in a catacomb under this same
vineyard, whence his body was translated some thirty or forty years
before St. Cecilia’s. In both cases these priests probably signed as
witnesses of the translation.
It only remains that we should fulfil our promise to say a word or two
about those saints whose names and figures we saw in the _luminare_. They
are three in number, St. Sebastian, St. Cyrinus, and St. Polycamus. We
know of no other Sebastian that can be meant here but the famous martyr,
whose basilica we have mentioned before as being not far off. Cyrinus,
or Quirinus, was Bishop of Siscia in Illyria, and martyr. In the days of
Prudentius his body lay in his own city, but when Illyria was invaded
by the barbarians it was brought to Rome and buried in the Basilica of
St. Sebastian about the year 420. Of Polycamus the history is altogether
lost; neither ecclesiastical historians nor martyrologists have left us
any record of his life. We know, however, from the Itineraries of the
old pilgrims that there was the tomb of one Polycamus, a martyr, near
that of St. Cecilia, and the same name appears among the martyrs whose
relics were removed from the Catacombs to the churches within the city.
It would seem then that the figures of these three saints were painted
in the _luminare_ of this chamber, only because they were saints to
whom there was much devotion, and whose relics were lying at no great
distance.
CHAPTER III.
THE CRYPT OF ST. EUSEBIUS.
From the crypt of St. Cecilia we pass through a modern opening in
one of its walls to a short gallery which leads to the sacramental
chapels—_i.e._, to those chambers whose walls are decorated with a
remarkable series of paintings having reference to the Sacraments of
Baptism and the Holy Eucharist. These paintings, however, having been
sufficiently described and commented upon in another place, we may take
our leave of this first area of the Cemetery of Callixtus, and, ascending
a short staircase, pass on through the broken wall of a chamber into a
wide and lofty gallery, which brings us presently to the chief object
of interest in the second area—viz., the crypt of St. Eusebius, Pope,
A.D. 310. Just before we reach it, we shall see on our left hand the
staircase by which it was anciently arrived at; and if we stop here for
a moment and look around us, we shall recognise an example of what has
been already mentioned, the exemplary care and prudence with which the
pilgrims of old were guided in their subterranean visits. Walls were
built, blocking up all paths but the right one, so that they should not
go astray or lose themselves in the labyrinth which surrounded them.
They must needs go forward till they arrived at two chapels, which stood
opposite to one another on different sides of the gallery.
One of these chambers was about 9 feet by 12, the other considerably
larger, 16 by 13. The one had evidently been the chief object of
devotion; the other was added for the convenience of the worshippers.
The smaller one had an arcosolium on each side as well as at the end,
the one opposite the door being the most important of the three; and
all of these tombs were once ornamented with mosaics and paintings,
and the walls of the chamber with marble. All is now sadly ruined; but
it is still possible to distinguish among the remains of the mosaic
work over the principal arcosolium traces of a very common Christian
symbol, a double-handed vessel, with a bird on either side of it; also
certain winged figures, which probably represent the seasons, and a few
other accessories of ornament; but the main figures and general design
have perished. The walls of the opposite chamber were never cased with
marble, so that the pilgrims were able to leave here the same tokens
of their visits as they left at St. Sixtus’. The _graffiti_ are of the
same general character, but of a somewhat later date; the old forms
of prayer have disappeared; most of the names and inscriptions are in
Latin; and among the few that are Greek, there are symptoms of Byzantine
peculiarities.
The chief object of interest, however, now remaining in these chambers is
the epitaph which stands in the middle of the smaller room. Of course,
this was not its original position; but it has been so placed, in order
that we may see both sides of the stone without difficulty, for both are
inscribed. The stone was originally used for an inscription in honour
of Caracalla, belonging to the year 214. The Christian inscription
on the other side professes to have been set up by “Damasus, Bishop,
to Eusebius, Bishop and Martyr,” and to have been written by Furius
Dionysius Filocalus, “a worshipper (_cultor_) and lover of Pope Damasus.”
But it is easy to see at a glance that it never was really executed
by the same hand to which we are indebted for so many other beautiful
productions of that Pope. At first, therefore, and whilst only a few
fragments of this inscription had been recovered, De Rossi was tempted to
conjecture that it might be one of the earliest efforts of the artist who
subsequently attained such perfection. At length, however, the difficulty
was solved in a more sure and satisfactory way. A diligent search in
the earth with which the chamber was filled brought to light several
fragments of the original stone, on which the letters are executed with
the same faultlessness as on the other specimens of its class. The
visitor to the Catacombs may see them painted, in a different colour
from the rest, in the copy of the epitaph which De Rossi has caused to
be affixed to the wall; and he will observe that amongst them are some
letters which are wanting in the more ancient copy transcribed on the
reverse of Caracalla’s monument. It is clear that the original must have
been broken in pieces, by the Lombards or other ancient plunderers of the
Catacombs, and that the copy which we now see is one of the restorations
by Pope Vigilus or some other Pontiff about that time (page 47). The
copyist was so ignorant that he could only transcribe the letters which
were on the spot before his eyes, and, even when he was conscious that a
letter was missing, he could only leave a vacant space, being doubtful
how it should be supplied. Witness the space left for the first letter of
_Domino_ in the penultimate line of the inscription, and the word _in_
altogether omitted in the third line.
D DAMASUS EPISCOPUS FECIT F
A V
M R
A I
S HERACLIUS VETUIT LABSOS PECCATA DOLERE, V
I S
P D
A EUSEBIUS MISEROS DOCUIT SUA CRIMINA FLERE; I
P O
P N
A SCINDITUR IN PARTES POPULUS, GLISCENTE FURORE; Y
E S
C I
V SEDITIO, CÆDES, BELLUM, DISCORDIA, LITES; V
L S
T F
O I
R EXTEMPLO PARITER PULSI FERITATE TYRANNI, L
A O
T C
Q INTEGRA CUM RECTOR SERVARET FŒDERA PACIS. A
V L
E V
A PERTULIT EXILIUM DOMINO SUB JUDICE LÆTUS S
M S
A C
T R
O LITORE TRINACRIO MUNDUM VITAMQUE RELIQUIT. I
R B
S
EUSEBIO EPISCOPO ET MARTYRI. I
T
“Heraclius forbad those who had fallen away [in times of persecution]
to grieve for their sins.
But Eusebius taught those unhappy men to weep for their crimes.
The people are divided into parties; fury increases;
Sedition, murder, fighting, quarrelling, and strife.
Presently both [the Pope and the heretic] are exiled by the cruelty
of the tyrant,
Although the Pope was preserving the bonds of peace inviolate.
He bore his exile with joy, looking to the Lord as his Judge.
And on the shore of Sicily gave up the world and his life.”
Having sufficiently considered the _form_ of the inscription, let us now
say a few words about its _substance_, which is important, because it
restores to us a lost chapter of Church history. Every student knows how
keenly contested in the early ages of the Church was the question as to
the discipline to be observed towards those Christians who relapsed into
an outward profession of Paganism under the pressure of persecution.
There were some who would fain close the door of reconciliation
altogether against these unhappy men (_miseri_), whilst others claimed
for them restitution of all Christian privileges before they had brought
forth worthy fruits of penance.
The question arose whenever a persecution followed after a long term of
peace; for during such a time men’s minds were specially apt to decline
from primitive fervour, and the number of the lapsed to increase. We
are not surprised, therefore, to find the question agitated during the
persecution of Decius in the middle of the third century. There is still
extant a touching letter, written to St. Cyprian by the clergy of Rome at
a time when the Holy See was vacant after the martyrdom of St. Fabian,
which clearly defines the tradition and practice of the Church. In it
they say that absolution was freely given to those of the lapsed who are
in danger of death, but to others only when wholesome penance has been
exacted; and they declare that “they have left nothing undone that the
perverse may not boast of their being too easy, nor the true penitents
accuse them of inflexible cruelty.” The same question arose under the
same circumstances in the persecution of Diocletian. Pope Marcellus was
firm in upholding the Church’s discipline, but he was resisted with such
violence that public order was disturbed in the city by the strife of
contending factions, and the Pope was banished by order of the Emperor
Maxentius. This we learn from another inscription of Pope Damasus, who
says that he wrote it in order that the faithful might not be ignorant
of the merit of the holy Pontiff. Eusebius was the immediate successor
of Marcellus, and the epitaph now before us is clearly a continuation
of the same history, ending in the same punishment of the Pope, as the
reward of his contention for the liberties of the Church. For it should
be remembered that these Popes were driven from their see and died in
exile, not because they refused to apostatize, but because they insisted
on maintaining the integrity of ecclesiastical discipline. They may
justly be reckoned, therefore, among the earliest of that noble army of
martyrs, who, from those days even to our own, have braved every danger
rather than consent to govern the Church in accordance with other than
the Church’s rules.
It yet remains to make two further remarks upon the epitaph of Pope
Eusebius before we leave it. The first is, that he is called a martyr,
though it nowhere appears that he really shed his blood; but this is
by no means the only instance in which the title of martyr is given in
ancient documents to men who have suffered for the faith and died whilst
those sufferings continued. And secondly, it is to be observed that
although we have no record of the translation of the body of St. Eusebius
from Sicily to Rome, there is no reason to doubt the fact. All the
earliest monuments speak of him as buried in a crypt of the Cemetery of
St. Callixtus, and although the law forbad the translation of the bodies
of those who had died in exile unless the emperor’s permission had been
previously obtained, the old lawyers tell us that this permission was
freely given. Numerous examples teach us the great anxiety of the ancient
churches to have their bishops buried in the midst of them; no doubt,
therefore, the necessary permission was asked for, as soon as a change in
the imperial policy towards the Church made it possible; and the body of
St. Eusebius was recovered and brought to Rome soon after his death, just
as that of one of his predecessors, St. Pontian, had been brought from
Sardinia by St. Fabian.
CHAPTER IV.
THE TOMB OF ST. CORNELIUS.
We have not promised to conduct the visitor to everything that is worth
seeing in this cemetery, but only to enumerate and explain the principal
monuments of historical importance which every stranger usually sees. And
the only specimen of this class which remains to be spoken of is the tomb
of St. Cornelius, which lies some way off. In order to reach it we must
traverse a vast network of galleries, narrow and irregular, connecting
what were once independent cemeteries, or at least were _areæ_ added at
various times to the Cemetery of Callixtus. If our guide is not in too
great haste, he may allow us to step aside into two or three chambers by
the way, in which are certain objects of interest worth looking at. The
first is a long inscription belonging to the last decade of the third
century, in which the Deacon Severus records that he has obtained leave
from the Pope Marcellinus to make a double chamber, with _arcosolia_
and a _luminare_, in which himself and his family may have quiet
graves (_mansionem in pace quietam_). This is in the third area of the
cemetery, next to the area in which we visited the crypt of St. Eusebius.
In the adjoining area, and belonging probably to the same date, is a very
curious fresco, much damaged by having been cut through for the sake of
making a grave behind it, yet still easily distinguishable in all its
main features. The Good Shepherd occupies the centre of the painting. On
either side is an apostle, probably SS. Peter and Paul, hastening away
from Christ, Who has sent them to go and teach all nations. These are
represented by two sheep standing before each of the apostles; and over
their heads hangs a rock, whence pour down streams of water, which the
apostles are receiving in their hands and turning on the heads of the
sheep. We need no special explanation of this; we have already learnt
that the Rock is Christ, and that the waters represent all Christian
graces and sacraments. But what is worth noticing in this picture is
the various attitudes of the sheep, and the corresponding distribution
of the water. A perfect torrent is falling on the animal that stands
with outstretched neck and head uplifted, drinking in all he hears with
simplicity and eagerness; whilst another, which has turned its back upon
the apostle, is left without any water at all. Of the other two, one is
standing with head downcast, as if in doubt and perplexity, and upon him
too grace is still being poured out more abundantly than upon the fourth,
which is eating grass, _i.e._, occupied with the affairs of this world.
On the right hand side of this _arcosolium_ are two representations
of Moses; in the one he is striking the rock, and one of the Jews is
catching some of the water which gushes forth; in the other he is taking
off his shoes, preparing to obey the summons of God, who is represented
by a hand coming forth from the cloud. The painting on the other side of
the _arcosolium_ is even more defaced than that in the centre. A large
semi-circular recess has been cut through it, and then the smoke of the
lamp which burnt in this recess during the fourth and fifth centuries has
almost obliterated the little that remained of the figure of our Lord. He
stood between two of His apostles, who are offering Him bread and fish,
and six baskets of loaves stand on the ground before them.
And now we will not linger any more upon the road, but follow our guide,
who hurries forward along the intricate passages until he lands us
at last in an irregularly shaped space, illuminated by a _luminare_,
decorated with paintings, and bearing manifest tokens of having been once
a great centre of devotion. There is the pillar to support the usual
vessel of oil or more precious unguents to be burnt before the tomb of
the martyr; and hard by is a gravestone let into the wall with the words
CORNELIUS MARTYR, EP.
The stone does not close one of the common graves such as are seen in
the walls of the galleries or of the _cubicula_, neither is the grave
an ordinary _arcosolium_. The lower part of it, indeed, resembles an
_arcosolium_ inasmuch as it is large enough to contain three or four
bodies, but there is no arch over it. The opening is rectangular, not
circular, and yet there is no trace of any slab having been let into
the wall to cover the top of the grave. It is probable, therefore, that
a sarcophagus once filled the vacant space, and that the top of this
sarcophagus served as the _mensa_ or altar, an arrangement of which other
examples have been found.
But how came Pope Cornelius to be buried here, and not with his
predecessors in the Papal Crypt? He was Pope, A.D. 250, between Fabian
and Lucius, both of whom were buried, as we have seen, in that crypt.
It is to be observed, however, that Cornelius is the only Pope, during
the first three centuries, who bore the name of a noble Roman family;
and many ancient epitaphs have been found in the area round this tomb,
of persons who belonged to the same family. It is obvious, therefore, to
conjecture that this sepulchre was the private property of some branch
of the Gens Cornelia. The public Cemetery of St. Callixtus may have been
closed at this time by order of the Government; but even without such a
reason, it may have been the wish of the family that the Pope should not
be separated in burial from the rest of his race. The same circumstance
would account for the epitaph being written in Latin, not in Greek,
for many of the old patrician families clung to the language of their
forefathers long after the use of Greek had come into fashion; and this
departure from the official language of the Church (for such, in fact,
Greek really was at that time) is quite of a piece with the preference of
the domestic to the official burial-place.
But whatever may be the true explanation of these circumstances, the
fact is at least certain that Cornelius was buried here; and above and
below the opening of his tomb are fragments, still adhering to the wall,
of large slabs of marble, containing a few letters of what were once
important inscriptions. The upper inscription was unquestionably the
work of Damasus. The letters of the lower, though closely resembling
the Damasine type, yet present a few points of difference—sufficient to
warrant the conjecture of De Rossi that they were executed by the same
hand, but with slight variations, in order to mark that it belonged to
another series of monuments. We subjoin a copy of both inscriptions, in
the form in which De Rossi believes them to have been originally written.
In the first inscription the difference of type will distinguish the
earlier half of each line, which is a conjectural restoration, from the
latter half which still remains _in situ_; and in estimating the degree
of probability of the restorations, the reader should bear in mind two
things: _first_, that the Damasine inscriptions were engraved with such
mathematical precision that no emendations are admissible which would
materially increase or diminish the number of letters in each line; and
_secondly_, that whereas Damasus was in the habit of repeating himself
very frequently in his epitaphs, several of De Rossi’s restorations are
mere literal reproductions of some of his favourite forms of speech.
Had the following epitaph been found in some ancient MS., and there
attributed to Pope Damasus, we are confident that no critic would have
seen reason to doubt its genuineness:—
ASPICE, DESCENSU EXSTRUCTO TENEBRISQUE FUGATIS,
CORNELI MONUMENTA VIDES TUMULUMQUE SACRATUM.
HOC OPUS ÆGROTI DAMASI PRÆSTANTIA FECIT,
ESSET UT ACCESSUS MELIOR, POPULISQUE PARATUM
AUXILIUM SANCTI, ET VALEAS SI FUNDERE PURO
CORDE PRECES, DAMASUS MELIOR CONSURGERE POSSET,
QUEM NON LUCIS AMOR, TENUIT MAGE CURA LABORIS.
“Behold, a new staircase having been made, and the darkness put
to flight,
You see the monuments of Cornelius and his sacred tomb.
This work the zeal of Damasus has accomplished, at a time when he
was sick;
That so the means of approach might be better, and the aid of the
saint
Put more within the reach of the people; and that if you pour forth
prayers
From a pure heart, Damasus may rise up in better health;
Though it has not been love of life, but rather anxiety for work,
that has retained him in this life.”
The second inscription De Rossi would restore as follows:—
SIRICIUS PERFECIT OPUS,
CONCLUSIT ET ARCAM
MARMORE, CORNELI QUONIAM
PIA MEMBRA RETENTAT
—that is to say, he supposes that, Damasus having died, his successor
Siricius completed the work that had been begun, and, furthermore,
strengthened the wall which enclosed the tomb of St. Cornelius with this
very thick slab of marble—a work which may have been rendered necessary
by the alterations already made by Damasus. Of course, these restorations
of the mutilated inscriptions must always remain more or less doubtful,
for we fear there is no chance of any other fragments of the original
ever coming to light. We publish them under the same reserve with which
he himself proposes them, as at least approximations to the truth. He
says that, without daring to affirm their literal correctness, there are
certainly strong reasons for believing that they exactly reproduce the
sense of the original.
This same tomb of St. Cornelius will supply us with an example of De
Rossi’s power of happy conjecture, confirmed with absolute certainty by
subsequent discoveries. He had often publicly expressed his confident
expectation of finding at this tomb of St. Cornelius some memorial of
his cotemporary, St. Cyprian. These two saints were martyred on the same
day, though in different years; and their feasts were, therefore, always
celebrated together, just as they are now, on the 16th of September, all
the liturgical prayers for the day being common to both. Now, De Rossi
had found in one of the old Itineraries, to whose accuracy of detail he
had been greatly indebted, an extraordinary misstatement, viz., that the
bodies of both these saints rested together in the same catacomb, whereas
everybody knows that St. Cyprian was buried in Africa. He conjectured,
therefore, that the pilgrim had been led into this blunder by something
he had seen at the tomb of St. Cornelius. On its rediscovery, the cause
of the error stands at once revealed. Immediately on the right hand side
of the grave are two large figures of bishops painted on the wall, with
a legend by the side of each, declaring them to be St. Cornelius and St.
Cyprian.
On the other side of the tomb is another painting, executed in the same
style, on the wall at the end of the gallery: two figures of bishops,
again designated by their proper names and titles. Only one of these can
now be deciphered, S̅C̅S̅ XUSTUS P̅P̅ R̅O̅M̅, _i.e._, Pope Sixtus II.,
of whose connection with this cemetery we have already heard so often.
The other name began with an O, and was probably St. Optatus, an African
bishop and martyr, whose body had been brought to Rome and buried in this
cemetery.
These paintings are manifestly a late work: perhaps they were executed
in the days of Leo III., A.D. 795-815, of whom it is recorded in the
_Liber Pontificalis_, that “he renewed the Cemetery of Sts. Sixtus and
Cornelius on the Appian Way;” and the legend which runs round them would
have a special significance as the motto of one who had been almost
miraculously delivered out of the hands of his enemies by the Emperor
Charlemagne. It is taken from the 17th verse of the 58th Psalm: “Ego
autem cantabo virtutem Tuam et exaltabo misericordiam Tuam quia factus
es et susceptor meus.”... “I will sing Thy strength, and will extol Thy
mercy, for Thou art become my support.” Of course, this had not been the
earliest ornamentation of these walls. Even now, we can detect traces
of a more ancient painting, and of _graffiti_ upon it, underlying this
later work. The _graffiti_ are only the names of priests and deacons, who
either came here to offer the holy sacrifice, or perhaps to take part in
the translation of the relics: “_Leo prb._, _Theodorus prb._, _Kiprianus
Diaconus_,” &c.
We are drawing very near to the end of our subterranean walk: indeed,
the staircase which is to restore us to the upper air close to the
very entrance of the vineyard is immediately behind us, as we stand
contemplating the tomb of St. Cornelius. Nevertheless, if we are not
too weary, nor our guide too impatient, we should do well to resist the
temptation to escape, until we have first visited two small chambers
which are in the immediate neighbourhood. They contain some of the most
ancient specimens of painting to be found in the whole range of the
Catacombs. The ceilings are divided into circles and other geometrical
figures, and then the spaces are filled up with graceful arabesques,
birds, and flowers, peacocks, and dancing genii. It was the sight of
such paintings as these which led the Protestant writer quoted in a
former chapter to express an opinion that, on first entering some of the
decorated chambers in the Catacombs, it is not easy to determine whether
the work is Christian or Pagan. Here, indeed, the Good Shepherd in one
centre and Daniel between two lions in the other soon solve the doubt;
but all the other details and the excellence of their execution may well
have suggested it. No one can doubt that the paintings belong to the very
earliest period of Christian art, when the forms and traditions of the
classical age had not yet died away.
In the first of the two chambers we are speaking of, there is nothing
special to be seen besides the ceiling; but the second and more distant
is more richly decorated. Here, two sepulchral chambers open one into the
other: over the doorway which admits to the inner vault is represented
the Baptism of our Lord by St. John: He is coming up out of the water and
the dove is descending upon Him. On the wall opposite to the entrance is
that fish carrying the basket of bread and wine that has been already
described (page 81). On the wall to the left is a pail of milk standing
on a kind of altar between two sheep, and we know from St. Irenæus and
from some of the earliest and most authentic acts of the martyrs that
milk was an accepted symbol of the Holy Eucharist. Opposite to this
are doves and trees, which are often used as types of the souls of the
blessed in Paradise. Thus, on one side we have the faithful on earth
standing around the Divine food which prepares for heaven; and on the
other, souls released from the prison of the body have flown away and are
at rest, reposing amid the joys of another world; so that it would almost
seem as though the same sequence of ideas presided over the decoration
of these chambers, as was certainly present to the minds of those who
designed the ornamentation of the sacramental chambers in the Cemetery of
St. Callixtus (page 84).
And now at length we must conclude our visit to St. Callixtus. We fear
that we have already enumerated more than can be seen with advantage
during the course of a single visit; yet it is worth an effort to see
it all, because it includes monuments which illustrate nearly every
century of the period during which the Catacombs were used. It is for
this reason that a visit to St. Callixtus is so singularly valuable,
whether it be intended to take this cemetery as a sample of all, or only
to use it as an introduction to others. Those who propose to pursue the
subject further would do well to visit next the Catacomb of SS. Nereus
and Achilles, which lies at no great distance, off the Via Ardeatina;
then the Cemetery of Pretextatus on the other side of the Via Appia; and
finally, the _Cœmeterium Ostrianum_ on the Via Nomentana. When these
have been carefully examined, there will still remain many interesting
monuments, of considerable historical importance, in other less famous
cemeteries; but enough will have been seen to give an excellent general
acquaintance with the main characteristics of Roma Sotterranea.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO.
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
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