CHAPTER VI.

WANDERINGS AMONG THE CATACOMBS.

Origin of the Catacombs - Catacombs of St. Calixtus - Epitaphs Little Chapels · - Frescoes Portrait of Christ The Burial Place of St. Paul.

IF your inspection of Rome has confined itself only to her monumental and artistic treasures, you have still left a most interesting portion unexamined. There is a silent city which extends its ramifications under busy life above; having its history, its monuments and associations fraught with interest the most profound. I allude to the Catacombs.

The origin of these sepulchral chambers has been keenly disputed. The excavations in which they began, were most certainly made for the purpose of digging out the volcanic earth used by the ancient, as well as the modern builders. There can be little question that these quarries and caves were ancient, long before the cradle of the Twins floated among the reeds of the Tiber, or the udders of the she-wolf gave down the strengthening milk that nourished. the Founder of the Seven Hilled City. The cities that once crowded the Campagna were built no-doubt out of the materials taken from these quarries. When the Romans obtained a foot-hold on the banks of the Tiber, and began to erect Temples, Forums and Thermæ, then the demand for this material for building constantly increased, and so it continued under the magnificent reigns of the Twelve Cæsars, down to the time when the Romans left off quarrying and turned to destroying old buildings to find materials for new.

These caves or excavations seem to have been used as early as the first century of our era, as hiding places, caves of refuge by the Christians. Pagan superstition had pointed out these desolate places, these dark and deep excavations as the spots haunted by Canidia and her weird sister old Sagana; of course they were shunned by the superstitious Romans-and this therefore made them a most secure place of concealment for the Christians. The Christians at first interred in them, no other bodies but those of their martyrs, which they were often forced to conceal from their persecutors. It has been very plausibly conjectured that many of the workmen employed in the excavations being Christians, first suggested to their fellow worshippers in Rome, the use of these retreats for the observance of their religious rites, thus guarding them into those recesses which very early thus became places of concealment and devotion. No doubt the laborers in these subterranean galleries formed a class by themselves. They were for the most part slaves, the degraded and the outcasts of the Imperial City. It was natural that the religion which proclaimed the great truth of the equality of mankind before God—which taught the hereditary bondsmen, to look to the future as a reward for all the sufferings and irregularities of this life-that had selected fishermen and publicans for apostles, should be received with joy and embraced with gladness, by the neglected and despised laborers in these sand caves.

One morning we obtained a special permit to visit the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, which contain memorials of Christianity, as early as the first century, before the last of the Apostles had left the earth.

About two miles from the Saint Sebastian gate, after

traversing a portion of the Appian Way, we entered a large field occupying the right of the road, commanding a most glorious view over the Campagna, and of the ⚫distant ranges of the Appenines. In the centre of this field we came to a large opening, which revealed a long and steep staircase of stone, going down as it were into the very bowels of the earth. As we descended, the transition from the outer world where all was sunshine and warmth, into the regions of darkness and dampness below, reminded me of Dante's entrance into the Inferno. The first impression on entering these catacombs, when the light of day is almost instantly lost, and by the dim light of the torches one sees nothing in advance but the narrow gallery, lined with tiers of sepulchres, filled with the decaying relics of humanity-and feels the path beneath his feet descending deeper and deeper-is one of horror that chills and astonishes the mind. The imagination then calls up what the reason rejects, and plays, as if fascinated, with ideal terrors. One remembers then the story of the band of students who, with their tutor, several years ago, were lost in these very sepulchral chambers, and whose remains have never even been found. But soberly speaking, there is not the least occasion for fear-the localities are perfectly familiar to the guides, and many of the more dangerous galleries have been walled up, so as not to tempt the wandering foot of imprudent curiosity. Soon we were traversing numberless corridors, intersecting each other, some at acute, some at obtuse angles, and many of them terminating in a rudely formed niche, something in shape like the tribune of a church, so that you are obliged to strike off in a direction quite different. As we advanced along the narrow galleries, on each side we observed with scarcely any interruption,

two, and sometimes three tiers of grave-like shelves, such as only could have been used by Christians, whose custom it was, not to burn their dead. These graves were mostly open, and in many of them were crumbling fragments of bones, and in two or three almost entire skeletons; at their sides earthen flasks, and sometimes flasks of glass, containing a red sediment, these last marking the resting place of the martyrs; this sediment being the remains of their blood, which these vases always contained in small quantities. Some of the tombs are still closed with slabs of marble, bearing the name and age of the deceased, with short comments, all testifying their faith "in brighter worlds beyond". - one "sleeps in Christ"-another is buried "that she may live in the Lord Jesus"-while on another we noticed almost the words of St. Paul himself. This inscription records the name of Cornelia, beloved daughter of Leopardus, and below the words, "dying! yet behold she lives." These inscriptions are chiefly in Latin, often mis-spelt or ungrammatical, occasionally written in Greek characters, and are generally simple, but in some cases extremely affecting. A parent briefly names the age of his beloved child, or a husband that of his wife, and the years of their wedded life: or the epitaph adds a prayer that the dead "may rest in peace," annexing some rudely carved emblem of the believer's hope and immortality. But most of all, I noticed the Cross in its simplest form, employed to testify the faith of the deceased. Whatever ignorance and blind credulity may have sprung up in later times, here in these catacombs, upon these marble slabs, that shut their beloved dead from their sight, the early Christians have shown that with them there was no doubt of the full appreciation of that glorious sacrifice, "whereby

alone we obtain the remission of sins, and are made partakers of the Kingdom of Heaven." One inscription interested me very much, so sad and solemn in its details a translation of which would be-"Oh unhappy times, when we cannot worship in safety, hardly in caverns when we are hunted like wild beasts from the surface of the earth." It is in one of the chapels, and just over a fresco representing the three children in the fiery furnace, evidently emblematizing martyrdom. Most of the inscriptions are concise, and to the purpose, as the following :— "Here lies Godianus, deputy of Gaul, who was executed for the faith, with all his family;" and then the touching conclusion: "Theophilas a handmaid placed this stone in fear, but full of hope;" as if none were left to pay this last tribute, but the faithful handmaid of the deputy of Gaul; or if for his faith his family had deserted him then among the faithless, faithful only this poor menial, who in fear erected the memorial, which handed down to our times the master's faith, and the handmaiden's faithfulness.

The intelligent gentleman who accompanied us, seemed to think, that in the peculiar form of these tombs, the early Christians desired to imitate that of the Saviour's, fashioning them like caves, and closing the aperture with a slab of marble or granite-a very likely hypothesis, and certainly a most beautiful impulse of love, treating as sacred, and to be imitated, even the accidental and outward details connected with the history on earth of "the Incarnate God."

In passing along these narrow galleries of tombs, at intervals, you come to small vaulted chambers many of them still ornamented with the rude frescoes by which the