“840. THE CATACOMBS—HEBREWS 11:38”

The Catacombs—Heb_11:38

Although we possess no very satisfactory information respecting St. Paul’s career subsequent to the close of the “Acts of the Apostles,” we are not in want of information of peculiar interest respecting the early condition of that church—the church in the imperial city—which, as its importance demanded, occupied a large place in his thoughts and his prayers, and which long continued to bear the impress of his labors. The cursory reader of Scripture may be apt to underrate the extent of those labors, seeing that the record of them is embraced in a few verses at the close of the last historical book of Scripture. But a man like Paul could not labor for upwards of two years in a city like Rome, without leaving there, upon a soil already broken up to his hands, the most manifest signs of his culture. Then, there is the probability of a second visit of some duration, in which far more effectually than by oral teaching, he with his blood matured the “Lord’s husbandry” in that place. And besides this, there is that great epistle which he wrote to the Christians in that city before they had seen his face, and which was well calculated, with the Spirit’s blessing, to build up the church to which it was addressed, as it has since built up other churches—strong in doctrine and in faith. Verily, it was not milk for babes that he gave to them; but strong nourishing food, that they might grow thereby. And they did grow.

Deep beneath the soil of Rome, and winding off into labyrinths of unknown extent, excavations were made before the time of the birth of Christ for a species of earth or sand, now called pozzonala, from which was made the durable cement used by the Romans. As the material ran in narrow veins rising, dipping, and bending irregularly, it was worked out in galleries of only sufficient size for the operation of procuring it, and when exhausted in one place, the excavation was left to neglect, and was forgotten.

The Catacombs at Rome

These galleries are about six feet in height, and three in width. They have been traced for many miles, and there are several entrances to them. As they are not lighted by any holes or openings, and are very devious and confused in their windings, many persons have perished in them, so that most of the entrances have been closed. Note: This is the case also in the catacombs at Malta. They are supposed to extend as far as St. Paul’s Bay, and to the sea. Many accidents had occurred in them; but the one which led to the passages being built up at certain distances from the entrance, was the loss in them of a school-master and his pupils, who went too far into these passages, and were never found or heard of more. The principal access to them now is beneath the Church of St. Sebastian, outside the walls. At intervals are larger spaces, chambers originally made by the workmen for their own convenience; but which afterwards served for chapels to the early Roman Christians, and for dwellings when persecution compelled them to worship in these retreats, or to seek in them refuge for their lives.

Under the name arenaræ, these catacombs are mentioned by Cicero and by Suetonius. It has been a matter of much controversy whether or not the Pagan Romans used these dark and gloomy recesses for the purposes of sepulture. The Romans did not, however, usually bury the bodies of their dead, but consumed them by fire, and preserved the ashes in urns, a practice which became abhorrent to the Christians, under the hope they entertained of the resurrection of the body. Seeing, therefore, that sepulchers in the catacombs are adapted for the reception of entire bodies, the skeletons or the dust of which are found in them, the probability is, that the Christians were the first to put them to this service. Indeed, the exclusively Christian character of the inscriptions is a sufficient testimony to that effect.

Along the sides of the galleries, excavated under the circumstances described, rising in tiers above each other, are horizontal recesses of the size of the human body, fronted with slabs of marble. On these may be read the first Christian inscriptions; and within, the dust or bones, sometimes entire skeletons of the early martyrs and disciples of the Christian faith, are enclosed. Many of the slabs remain in the catacombs, but a large number have been removed to the galleries of the Vatican, where they are embedded in the walls. There can be no deception or mistake in the touching mementoes of these rude inscriptions. There may be seen in Rome thousands of cinerary urns and tombs, which enclose Pagan dust. These are inscribed to many gods, to the deities of the shades, and ornamented with beautiful but vain symbols, speaking of darkened minds and hopeless sorrows; and offering in all respects a marked contrast with the first rude sculptures of a vigorous and hopeful Christian faith over the ashes of those who had lived in it, or died or suffered for it. The slabs of marble over the Christian tombs discard the pomp of epitaphs. They more generally give the name of the deceased, the length of his earthly pilgrimage, the prayer that the sleeper may “rest in peace,” and generally with a monogram Note: See page 448. formed by the letters P.X., meaning in or for Christ, the X being the initial letter of the Greek name of Christ, just as writers even now use it as a contraction for that sacred name by itself, and in such words as Xmas, Xian, etc. Some, however, allege that the monograms merely express the first two letters of the Greek word for Christ. Sometimes is added a rude representation of a cluster of grapes, a palm branch, a fish, a bow of promise, a dove, an anchor, a ship, or the letters Α. Ω., in reference to the well-known passage (Rev_21:6) in which our Lord describes himself as “the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last” The following are a few specimens of the more simple of the inscriptions—“O Donilius! mayest thou rest in peace. Leo did this.” “Apthona! mayest thou live in God.” “Farewell, O Sabrina! She lived eight years, eight months, twenty-two days. Mayest thou live sweet in God.” “Irene, in peace. Her mother Agapa set up this. In Christ.” “Zoticus, may you live. Trust in the Lord.” “Nicephorus, a sweet soul, in the place of refreshment.” “Laurence, to his sweetest son Severus, borne away by angels on the seventh Ides of January.” “Here lies Damalis. So God wills.” Expressions of tenderness and character occur in paternal and conjugal inscriptions; and it is in such epitaphs that we begin to discover a tendency to that complimentary form of Pagan epitaph, which, as also in the dismal funeral symbols of paganism—the urn, the inverted torch, the broken column, and the like—have been adopted by the moderns, in preference to the simple and more truly Christian style of monumental inscription. “To Adsertor, our son, dear, sweet, most innocent, and incomparable; who lived seventeen years, six months, and eight days. His father and mother set up this.” Sometimes the age is expressed with still greater exactness: “In Christ. Died on the Kalends of September, Pompeianus the innocent, aged six years, nine months, eight days, and four hours. He sleeps in peace.” “To Claudius, the well-deserving and affectionate, who loved me. He lived twenty-five years, more or less, in peace.” “Cecilius the husband, to Cecilia Placidina, my wife, of excellent memory, with whom I lived well ten years, without any quarrel. In Christ.”

In regard to the symbols employed; the fish was chosen because its name in Greek, contained the initial letters of the Greek for “Jesus Christ, son of God, the Savior;” Note: That is: ΙΧΟΥΣ––Ιησους Χριστος Θεου Υιος Σωτηρ. the dove (with or without olive branch, and with laurels in mouth or claws), with reference to the dove returning to the ark, and as hence a sign of safety and peace; the palm of victory, the anchor, as the close of a holy life; the ship, of the church in her heavenward voyage, etc.

Sometimes sundry implements are represented on the slabs, and were at one time thought to denote the instruments of martyrdom or torture; but they are now conceived to express, in agreement with subsisting Oriental usage, the trade or employment of the deceased, as exhibited by the principal tool or tools of his craft.

Another set of symbols found upon these monuments express phonetically the name of the deceased, the intention of these representations being rendered apparent by the accompanying inscription. Thus the tomb of Dracontius exhibits a dragon; that of Onager, an ass; that of Leo, a lion; that of Navira, a ship; that of Porcella (little pig), a hog, etc.

We are inclined to concur in the view of Dr. Maitland, Note: Church in the Catacombs, London, 1846, which, together with some of the works therein cited as authorities, with various books on the Antiquities of Rome, and an article entitled “Local Vestige’s of Early Propagation of Christianity in the City of Rome,” in an American periodical—from which we made extracts some years ago, but the title and date of which are lost—supply most of the information digested in this Evening’s Reading. that the cause which most powerfully contributed to the adoption of Christian symbols, was the ignorance of reading and writing then prevalent. Books and even inscriptions were for the learned; unlettered survivors were by no means consoled by the epitaph of the deceased, or enlightened by the figures expressing his age and the day of his death. In some cases the most absurd mistakes of the stone-cutter have passed unaltered. Even where the sculptor has done his part unexceptionally, the orthography of some epitaphs is so faulty as almost to frustrate their intention, by rendering them scarcely intelligible to those who can read. For persons capable of making or permitting such errors, another mode of representation became necessary, and the symbols, however imperfectly they supplied the deficiency, were the only substitutes known. This view seems forced upon us by the existence of phonetic signs just noticed, such as the ass on the tomb of Onager, and the lion on that of Leo—an idea so strange, and to our taste so bordering upon caricature, that it is only to be explained by the necessity of some characteristic mark, intelligible to his unlettered relations. When those employed in seeking the grave of their departed friend saw the lion, the ass, the pig, or the ship, by pronouncing the name of the object, they expressed that of the occupant of the tomb.

The fact that the catacombs not only furnished sepulchres for dead believers, but retreats for the living in time of persecution, rests upon good evidence, notwithstanding the objections that may be advanced from the narrowness of the passages, the difficulty of supporting life, and the risk of discovery in asylums so well known. But these objections scarcely apply to a temporary residence below ground in times of danger, and it is not pretended that the catacombs were used as habitations under other circumstances. The asylum would doubtless have been insecure had the passages been well known to the heathen authorities, or the entrances limited in number to two or three; but the openings into them were numberless, scattered for miles over the Campagna, and the labyrinthian passages below were so occupied by the Christians, and so blocked up in various places by them, that pursuit must have been hopeless. Besides this, the discovery of wells and springs in various parts of the corridors, assists us in understanding how life could be supported in those dismal regions, though there is no evidence that the wells were sunk for this purpose. Moreover, we are not to suppose that the entire Christian population of Rome resorted to these retreats. When a persecution arose, it would strike first at the elders of the church, the heads of families, and others particularly obnoxious to the pagans; and warned by the signs of approaching danger, these might easily betake themselves to the catacombs, where they could be supported by those whose obscure condition left them at liberty—particularly by the humble sand-diggers who claimed a sort of property in the place, and among whom the Christian faith had early made great progress, judging from the number of inscriptions in which they are indicated.

That worship Note: The evidence afforded by a long monumental inscription in the Vatican Museum, found in the cemetery of Callistus, is very important and interesting. It refers to the fifth persecution of the Christians, which began in 161 A.D. “In Christ. Alexander is not dead, but lives beyond the stars; and his body rests in this tomb. He lived under the Emperor Antonine, who, foreseeing that great benefit would result from his services, returned evil for good; for, while on his knees, and about to sacrifice to the true God, he was led away to execution. O sad times! in which sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, afford no protection to us. What can be more wretched than such a life? and what than such a death? when they could not be buried by friends and relations—at length they sparkle in heaven. He has scarcely lived who has lived in Christian times.”—Maitland, p. 33. was held in these caverns may also be shown on good testimony. But this must be understood with much the same limitations as residence in them. It is known that before the time of Constantine, there were in Rome many rooms or halls employed for divine worship, though, perhaps, not any edifices built expressly for the purpose. Besides this, the extreme smallness of the catacomb chapels, and their distance from the usual dwellings of the Christians, offer serious objections to the supposition of their being used for regular meetings. Their use in that respect must, therefore, be limited to times of persecution; but that, even when not under the pressure of such necessity, the catacombs were occasionally resorted to for devotional purposes by pious individuals, and by bodies of Christians for special solemnities, is shown by the testimony of ancient writers, by some of the inscriptions themselves, and even by the probabilities of the case. The discovery of chapels, altars, fonts, and episcopal chairs, would show the existence of a subterranean worship at some time or other; but it would be difficult to prove that these belong to the early period under consideration.

There can, upon the whole, then, be no manner of doubt as to the traditions which fill out the history of the simple inscriptions in the catacombs, and assert that in these dark chambers the first Roman Christians worshipped, and that in these neglected galleries were laid the mangled remains of the martyrs and bodies of early believers. St. Jerome, about the middle of the fourth century, speaks of the catacombs as a place of sacred and solemn interest to him, and which, while still a youth pursuing his studies at Rome, he used to visit on Sundays, in company with other young men like-minded. A few years later, a Spaniard named Prudentius visited Rome; and he has not only informed us that while there he loved to wander amid those solemn testimonials of the catacombs, but has left evidence of the fact in his beautiful hymns upon them, and upon the men and scenes associated with them.

What most impresses the reflecting mind is, that Rome, who has so grievously departed from the faith in Christ, should bear within her own bosom, “written with an iron pen, in the rock forever,” evidence against her own corruptions, in the memorials of a pure, apostolic, Pauline faith, from which no one has been able to gather a shadow of evidence in favor of any of those bastard dogmas which Rome in later years devised, and has to this day strenuously upheld. We find here no trace of Petrine or papal supremacy, no celibacy of the clergy, no worship of the Virgin, no invocation of saints, no purgatory, no prayers for the dead, no representations of the Deity in sculpture or painting; and against many of those things we have not only the indirect, though impressive, evidence of silence, but the plain indication of the contrary practices and ideas. In these solemn recesses we meet with “none but Christ.” It is the unobscured light of his countenance, as of the sun shining in its strength, that irradiates the gloom of these solitudes. He is the Alpha, the Omega, of all around. All is of Him—

“him first, him last, him midst, him without end.”

Monogram with Crown and Palm

The End

Autor: JOHN KITTO