that portion of the Apocalypse in which St. John says, “I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren that should be killed as they were should be fulfilled.”[1] At any rate, these words must have dwelt in the memories of the Christiana who came to worship God in the presence of the dead by whom they were surrounded in the catacombs. But they knelt before the altar-tombs, not as before altars consecrated with relics of saints, but as before altars dedicated to God and connected with the memory of their own honored and beloved dead, whom he had called from them into his holy presence.
It is impossible to ascertain the date at which these chapels were first made; probably some time about the middle of the second century they became common. In many of the catacombs they are very numerous, and it is in them that the chief ornaments and decorations, and the paintings which give to the catacombs an especial value and importance in the history of Art, and which are among the most interesting illustrations of the state of religious feeling and belief in the early centuries, are found. Some of the chapels are known to be of comparatively late date, of the fourth and perhaps of the fifth century. In several even of earlier construction is found, in addition to the attar, a niche cut out in the rock, or a ledge projecting from it, which seems to have been intended to serve the place of the credence table, for holding the articles used in the service of the altar, and at a later period for receiving the elements before they were handed to the priest for consecration. The earliest services in the catacombs were undoubtedly those connected with the communion of the Lord’s Supper. The mystery of the mass and the puzzles of transubstantiation had not yet been introduced among the believers; but all who had received baptism as followers of Christ, all save those who had fallen away into open and manifest sin, were admitted to partake of the Lord’s Supper. Possibly upon some occasions these chapels may have been filled with the sounds of exhortation and lamentation. In the legends of the Roman Church we read of large numbers of Christians being buried alive, in time of persecution, in these underground chambers where they had assembled for worship and for counsel. But we are not aware of any proof of the truth of these stories having been discovered in recent times. This, and many other questionable points in the history and in the uses of the catacombs, may be solved by the investigations which are now proceeding; and it is fortunate for the interests, not only of truth, but of religion, that so learned and so honest-minded a man as the Cavaliere do Rossi should have the direction of these explorations.
Few of the chapels that are to be seen now in the catacombs are in their original condition. As time went on, and Christianity became a corrupt and imperial religion, the simple truths which had sufficed for the first Christians were succeeded by doctrines less plain, but more adapted to touch cold and materialized imaginations, and to inflame dull hearts. The worship of saints began, and was promoted by the heads of the Church, who soon saw how it might be diverted to the purposes of personal and ecclesiastical aggrandizement. Consequently the martyrs were made into a hierarchy of saintly protectors of the strayed flock of Christ, and round their graves in the catacombs
- ↑ Revelations, vi. 9-11. It seem? probable that another custom of the Roman Church took its rise in the catacombs,—that of burning candles on the altar; a custom simple in its origin, now turned into a form of superstition, and often abused to the profit of priests
