It is now time to give some details of the inner life of the Church, from the first years of the third century onwards. In this picture, the wonderful city of the dead, usually known as the Catacombs of Rome, requires a somewhat detailed mention. We must paint with some care those vast underground cemeteries which lie beneath the suburbs of Rome, with their endless streets of tombs, and their countless chapels, adorned with paintings, inscriptions, and roughly sculptured designs, all throwing light upon the doctrines, belief, hopes and on-looks of the Christians of the first days.
And this seems to be the place in our history marked out for this special study. For in the very earliest years of the third century, circa A. D. 202-3, these cemeteries, some of which in their beginnings date back to the reign of Domitian, and even of Nero, assumed a new and more prominent place in the great Roman community.
Zephyrinus, Bishop of Rome, A. D. 202-218, formally placed the great cemetery, which lay beneath the vineyards fringing the Appian Way, under the special charge of his deacon, the famous Callistus; who in the end became himself Bishop of the Church in Rome, and by whose name the cemetery, which was greatly enlarged and adorned by him, became generally known. Thus, in the earliest years of the third century this great city of the dead passed out of private hands, out of the control of individual members of the churches, becoming part of the public property of the Christian community; and the general superintendence of these vast cemeteries and of all the mighty network of meeting-rooms and chapels contained in them, was henceforth vested in an important functionary of the Roman congregation.
In the course of the third century this sacred possession of the Church was enormously developed; its dark corridors and sepulchral chambers were the scenes of some of the more striking events of the Christian story in Rome in the days when persecution weighed heavily on the Church.
From the earliest period of the existence of the Roman community of Christians, as far back probably as the days of the Apostles, the disciples of Jesus loved to adorn the city of their loved dead with paintings, inscriptions, or carved devices. Many of these are still to be seen, in spite of the ravages of time, the havoc of persecution, the plundering of barbaric raiders, in later days the well-meant but well-nigh equally destructive operations of bishops of Rome in the seventh and eighth centuries, who removed many thousand bodies of martyrs and others to places they deemed more secure and possessed of a greater sanctity. Some of these corridors and chapels are uncovered each year. The paintings, sculptured devices and inscriptions, marred and defaced though they are, constitute a simple and absolutely authoritative piece of testimony to the faith and the hope of the believers, which gave them courage to endure all their sufferings in the two centuries and a half which elapsed between the martyrdom of Peter and Paul and the epoch of the triumph of the Church under Constantine.
THE APPIAN WAY
Even the Pagans of Rome paid much attention to the remains of their dead—the ashes, preserved in a funeral urn when the body had been consumed on the pyre. The wealthy Romans loved to erect tombs on the borders of the highways. The ruins of a long, apparently interminable, line of more or less stately sepulchral buildings are still to be seen, on the Appian Way and other great roads outside Rome. Round the chapel (cella memoric) which not infrequently must have been an important building, were gardens carefully tended. In the chapel the ashes of the dead were preserved in a funeral urn. These roads, so lined with sepulchral buildings, were the popular and fashionable resort of the Roman world, and the living looked forward to the time when they, too, would rest in these well-known spots, in the midst of familiar sights and sounds. It was a strange and fanciful conception of a future state to be spent, at all events for a time, apparently in a dreamy, semi-conscious state. Sometimes these wealthy Romans would build such a sepulcher in the garden surrounding their villas. We find inscriptions on their tombs to this effect: "In sarcophago in hortulis nostris secessimus" ("We are in retirement in a sarcophagus in our own gardens"); or "In agellulis meis secessi" ("I am in retirement in my own little domain").
The poor, who made up the vast majority of the Roman world, of course made no pretensions to this luxury in death. But they, too, from the small merchant or trader down to the slave, made provision, if it were possible, for their "ashes." There were a number of associations and "guilds," to use the mediaeval term, among the less wealthy Romans, the large majority of which were really burial societies, whose raison d'etre was the provision of a fitting burial place for the ashes of the members. They were commonly designated by a religious title, such as, "The Society of the Gultores (worshippers) of Jove, Hercules, Diana," etc. Sometimes, however, they were named after their founder or his family. Some of these death guilds were comparatively wealthy, many of them extremely poor. Their primary object was to erect a "Columbarium," a building so arranged as to receive a number of funeral urns, each containing the ashes of a departed member of the guild. In some cases, when the expense could be afforded, a "sacerdos," or chaplain, was provided for the Columbarium, whose duty it was to perform the Pagan funeral rites for each departed member of the guild. Not infrequently a wealthy person came forward as patron and piously assisted these poor communities in the erection and maintenance of their Columbarium, sometimes even arranging and maintaining a garden round the building where the funeral urns were deposited, and where on certain days the confraternity would meet and enjoy a common meal together. The cost of securing a niche with funeral rites in one of these Columbaria varied considerably. A very small sum indeed was necessary in the case of the members of the poorer associations. In some cases, three hundred, or even two hundred sesterces (rather less than $2) is mentioned as the amount paid for this privilege.
The same desire to provide fitting resting-places for their dead was even more pronounced among the Christians. But whereas among the Pagan subjects of the Empire the body was burned and only a handful of ashes, representing the departed, was carefully preserved in a little vase and deposited often, though not always, in a separate; sepulcher in the case of the rich, or in a building (Columbarium) adapted to hold very many such little vases in the case of the poor; among the Christians the body of the dead was never burned, but was reverently wrapped in cloths, more or less costly and so interred.
By the Roman law, land that was used for the purposes of burial was especially protected. In this protection of the State the Christian places of interment shared. The spot where a body was buried became at once, in the technical language of the law, "religious," and was inalienable, secure for ever from disturbance. A special ritual consecration, which such a spot usually received in the case of the Pagans, threw a peculiar veil of protection over the garden and any enclosure around the tomb or tombs or Columbarium. Such ritual consecration, of course, was never sought by the Christians, as it involved certain idolatrous ceremonies; but this disadvantage was usually made good to them in their case by some deed of gift or testament on the part of the proprietor. Thus from very early times the graves and the grounds immediately surrounding them, set apart for burying the dead belonging to the Christians, were placed under the protection of the law.
In tracing the story of Christian interment, the Roman Christian community may be taken as typical. In the first century several Christians of fortune, arranging in the gardens of their villas or in some pleasaunce or vineyard belonging to them, in the immediate neighborhood of the city, a tomb for the burial of members of their house, including freedmen and slaves, would dig a few small sepulchral chambers beneath, or close to, the family burying place. They were thus enabled to offer to certain poorer brethren the "hospitality of the tomb," as it has been termed; the peculiar nature of the soil of the country around Rome being especially favorable for such excavations. This was the beginning of that vast system of underground corridors and chambers for the reception of the Christian dead now known as the Roman Catacombs. There is an admirable example of such an early arrangement for the interment of the Christian dead which still exists about two miles from Rome on the Via Ardeatina, near the Appian Way. It is known as the Cemetery of Domitilla. The original family tomb, erected probably before the owner was converted to Christianity, was evidently a gracious and ornate building. Behind it, beneath the vines and gardens of the proprietor, there is a crypt of considerable size, with long corridors and chambers arranged for a number of the dead, much of the masonry and ornamentation belonging to the last quarter of the first century.
There are other crypts or cemeteries on all sides of Rome, evidently excavated on a similar plan, with gardens and vineyards surrounding the tomb of some great and noble Roman converted to Christianity, and arranged for the reception of the many poor brethren who belonged to the communities of Christians in the first and second centuries. As for instance, the cemeteries of S. Priscilla on the Via Salaria; S. Lucina on the Ostian Way; S. Praetextatus on the Appian Way, and several others; where the masonry and decoration of the corridors and sepulchral chambers indicate their date as between A. D. 160, or even earlier, and A. D. 200. These early cemeteries, with their time-faded frescoes, their, broken, partly ruined, fittings, supply much information respecting the ritual and faith of the Roman congregations during the century and a half upon which we have been dwelling, and the countless loculi, the narrow closed-up shelves where the dead were laid, give us some idea of the great numbers of the believers.
The modern name of Catacombs was unknown to those Christian communities who, with enormous pains and labor and with no little skill, planned and excavated these resting places for their loved dead; nor was it heard of for several centuries after these cemeteries had ceased to be used as places of interment. The term "catacomb" signifies a hollow or valley. The district on the Appian Way near the well-known tomb of Cecilia Metella, where the ancient little basilica of S. Sebastian now stands, seems to have been originally known as ad catacumbas ("The Hollow"). In the earlier part of the ninth century, partly owing to the repeated barbarian raids, in the course of which these cemeteries had been several times visited and pillaged, partly owing to the destructive anxiety of certain of the Popes of Rome, who had removed many of the bodies of the most prominent saints and martyrs from their original resting places to what they deemed the more secure custody of certain of the Roman churches, the famous subterranean cemeteries gradually ceased to be an object of interest and of pilgrimage, and became in time forgotten. All through the Middle Ages, however, the one cemetery of S. Sebastian remained still an object of reverence and subsequently of pilgrimage, no doubt owing to a persistent tradition that the bodies of Peter and Paul had reposed in the smaller crypt beneath the church for a period of years. The crypt and little cemetery beneath S. Sebastian, from the district in which the church was situated, was known generally as "Coemeterium ad Catacumbas."
CATACOMB CHAMBERS OR "SHELVES"
Thus through the Middle Ages, among the shrines and many objects of sacred interest which pilgrims to Rome from distant lands loved to visit, the crypt or cemetery of S. Sebastian "ad catacumbas" still maintained a prominent position. Gradually the appellation of "ad catacumbas" came to be used for other similar underground crypts, not only in Rome and the neighborhood, but in other cities; for instance, we find the term used at Naples as early as the ninth century. On the re-discovery of the great underground City of the Dead at Rome, late in the sixteenth century, the popular name of the catacombs was adopted for all the subterranean cemeteries. But it must be borne in mind that it is after all a curious misnomer, and was utterly unknown in its present general signification in ancient times.
The extent of this vast system of subterranean corridors and sepulchral chambers has been the subject of much speculation. Their most scientific explorer and historian, De Rossi, enumerates as many as forty-three distinct cemeteries in the suburbs of Rome; this list he has largely constructed out of ancient "itineraries" and other trustworthy records. Many of these cemeteries he has succeeded in identifying, and some he has partially investigated, but only partially, for even in the case of the best known, large portions are still "earthed up." This "earthing up" was the work of Christians during bitter persecutions, probably mainly carried out in the troubling periods of the third and the early years of the fourth century. In some cases, however, little or nothing has been done by way of exploration by modern men of science, the work of excavating being difficult, dangerous, and very costly. Thus, anything like an accurate estimate of their extent is as yet impossible. Various calculations have been made by experts, giving from five to eight hundred miles as the probable extent of the galleries lined with the remains of the dead. The number of interments is also a matter of dispute: some scholars consider that as many as six millions of Christians sleep their last sleep on the shelves of the dark corridors and in the sepulchral chambers leading out of them, while others put the number so low as two millions. When, however, it is remembered that in many of the catacombs there are three or four or more galleries, one excavated beneath the other, communicating by means of short flights of steps; that in each gallery there are five or six tiers of shelves; that on many of the shelves two, three, or even four bodies have been laid one alongside the other; that in the most thoroughly explored catacomb, that of S. Callistus, with its adjacent cemeteries, there are some thirty-seven or forty miles of galleries; the smaller numbers would scarcely seem an adequate estimate.
The soil of the country, which lies immediately round Rome, was peculiarly adapted for these vast works of excavation, most of the early Christian Roman Catacombs being hollowed out of a volcanic stratum technically known as the "red tufa granulare." This tufa was easily worked, besides being of sufficient consistency to admit of excavation into galleries and chambers without any danger of collapse, its porous nature always allowed any water quickly to drain off from it, thus leaving the corridors, where the bodies were usually laid on shelves specially arranged for this purpose, dry and fairly wholesome. The shelves were dug out of the tufa of the side walls, and when the dead had been laid on them the openings were hermetically closed with thick plaster, or more commonly with slabs of stone or marble, on which the name of the inmate was sometimes engraved; in some cases with a little carved picture and a few words expressive of love and faith and hope. These shelves were ranged one above the other, and have been compared, not inaptly, to the berths in a ship's cabin. Each shelf contained one or more bodies according to its depth. This was the usual arrangement of the corridors. The sepulchral chambers, of which there are a great number leading out of the corridors, vary much in size, and usually contain one or more tombs of greater importance.
Thus it was that the followers of Christ in the Roman community were enabled to bury their dead by themselves, without the defilement of heathen rites; avoiding, too, the necessity of cremation generally adopted by the Romans of the Empire. Cremation was singularly abhorrent to the early Christians, who were deeply imbued with the feelings of the Synagogue out of which, in early years, not a few of them had come. To these devoted followers of Jesus such a sepulcher as that provided in the catacombs which lay beneath the gardens of the city suburbs, was inexpressibly dear, for it recalled with a strange accuracy the loved memory of the temporary resting-place of their Lord. "In the place where He was crucified was a garden, and in the garden a new Sepulcher . . . there laid they Jesus."
As time went on there were probably but few chambers or corridors of these catacombs which were not hallowed by containing one or more of the bodies of martyrs for the Faith, more or less distinguished. The merciful laws of Rome peculiarly facilitated this practice; for the bodies of those who had suffered capital punishment were, as a rule, given up to the friends who might desire reverently to inter their remains. Even the ashes of those who had been burned by public sentence were allowed to be collected by those who loved the dead, for subsequent interment. Very rarely, and then only in cases of treason against the State, was this last kindly office not allowed by the laws of Rome, ever tender and respectful to the dead. It will be remembered how readily Pilate gave up the body of the crucified Lord to His friends. This gracious and humane custom of Rome in the case of the dead who had suffered the extreme penalty of the law, explains the well authenticated presence of so many bodies of more or less distinguished martyrs in the various subterranean cemeteries around Rome. To cite a few well-known instances. In the cemetery of S. Domitilla we find traces of the sepulcher of S. Nereus and S. Achilles; in the Vatican crypt, along with other illustrious martyred dead, lie the remains of Peter; in the closed catacomb beneath the basilica of Paul outside the Trails, a universal tradition tells us, is the Sepulcher of the martyred apostle of the Gentiles; in the cemetery of S. Callistus we find traces of the sepulcher of many Roman bishops of the third century, several of whom we know were martyrs; in the same great cemetery the original tomb of the virgin martyr, S. Cecilia, is now well known; in the catacomb of S. Praetextatus, recent discoverers have found the graves of S. Januarius and of several other historic martyrs. In the cemetery of S. Agnes was the tomb of the virgin saint; in the Ostrian cemetery the tomb of S. Emerentiana, the martyr foster-sister of S. Agnes, has been identified quite lately. Very many other similar examples might be quoted; and these hallowed graves are by no means merely traditional sites, but portions of tablets, with inscriptions more or less perfect, still remain, thus confirming very ancient traditions which for so long a time have designated these spots as peculiarly sacred The question has been raised whether these enormous cemeteries of the Christian dead were ever used by the communities of Rome as places of religious assembly, or even of refuge in times when persecution was especially active. There is little doubt that all through the second and third centuries religious services, more or less frequent, were held in certain of the larger sepulchral chambers on special days, particularly on the anniversary of the dead who slept in the chambers in question. It is also certain that in times of danger many a hunted Christian—probably whole congregations—found a temporary hiding place in the sombre labyrinths of one or other of these subterranean burying-places.