Christian, cemetery, and especially the tomb of the prince of the apostles might be discovered and profaned, removed the body of St. Peter once more to the Appian Way. Here it lay for forty years, and round it and near it an underground cemetery was gradually formed; and it was to this burial-place, first of all, that the name Catacomb,[1] now used to denote all the underground cemeteries, was applied.
Though at length St. Peter was restored to the Vatican, from which he has never since been removed, and where his grave is now hidden by his church, the place where he had lain so long was still esteemed sacred. The story of St. Sebastian relates bow, after his martyred body had been thrown into the Cloaca Maxima, that his friends might not have the last satisfaction of giving it burial, he appeared in a vision to Lucina, a Homan lady, told her where his body might be found, and bade her lay it in a grave near that in which the apostles had rested. This was done, and less than a century afterward a church rose to mark the place of his burial, and connected with it, Pope Damasus, the first great restorer and adorner of the catacombs, [A. D. 266-285,] caused the chamber that was formed below the surface of the ground around the grave of the apostles to be lined with wide slabs of marble, and to be consecrated as a subterranean chapel. It is curious enough that this pious work should have been performed, as is learned from an inscription set up here by Damasus himself, in fulfilment of a vow, on the extinction among the Roman clergy of the party of Ursicinus, his rival. This custom of propitiating the favor of the saints by fair promises was thus early established. It was soon found out that it was well to have a friend at court with whom a bargain could be struck. If the adorning of this chapel was all that Damasus had to pay for the getting rid of his rival’s party, the bargain was an easy one for him. There had been terrible and bloody fights in the Roman streets between the parties of the contending aspirants for the papal seat. Ursicinus had been driven from Rome, but Damasus bad had trouble with the priests of his faction. Some of them had been rescued, as he was hurrying them off to prison, and had taken refuge with their followers in the Basilica of Sta Maria Maggiore. Damasus, with a mob of charioteers. gladiators, and others of the scum of Rome, broke into the church, and slew a hundred and sixty men and women who had been shut up within it. Ursicinus, however, returned to the city; there were fresh disturbances, and a new massacre, on this occasion, in the Church of St. Agues; and years passed before Damasus was established as undisputed ruler of the Church.
It was then, in fulfilment of the vow he had made during his troubles, that Saint Damasus (for he became a saint long since, success being a great sanctifier) adorned the underground chapel of the apostles. The entrance to it is through the modern basilica of St. Sebastian. It is a low, semicircular chamber, with irregular walls, in which a row of arched graves (arcosolia) has been formed, which once were occupied, probably, by bodies of saints or martyrs. Hear the middle of the chapel is the well, about seven feet square, within which are the two graves, lined with marble, where the bodies of the apostles are said to have lain hid. Fragments of painting still remain on the walls of this pit, and three faint and shadowy figures maybe traced, which seem to represent the Saviour between St. Peter and St. Paul. Over the mouth of the well stands an ancient altar. However little credence may be given to the old legends concerning the place, it is impossible not to look with interest upon it. For fifteen hundred years worshippers have knelt there as upon ground made holy by the presence of the two apostles. The memory of their lives and
- ↑ A word, the derivation of which is not yet determined. The first instance of its use is in the letter of Gregory from which we de rive the legend. This letter was written a. d. 504.
