The Atlantic Monthly/Volume 2/Number 2/Catacombs of Rome

by Charles Eliot Norton

THE CATACOMBS OF ROME

[Concluded.]

—— fessoque sacrandum
Supponam capiti lapidem, Christoque quiescam.

Paulinus of Nola.

Et factus est in pace locus ejus et habitatio in Sion.

Ps. lxxc. 2

V.

Rome is preëminently the city of monuments and inscriptions, and the lapidary style is the one most familiar to her. The Republic, the Empire, the Papacy, the Heathens, and the Christians have written their record upon marble. But gravestones are proverbially dull reading, and inscriptions are often as cold as the stone upon which they are engraved.

The long gallery of the Vatican, through which one passes to enter the famous library, and which leads to the collection of statues, is lined on one side with heathen inscriptions, of miscellaneous character, on the other with Christian inscriptions, derived chiefly from the catacombs, but arranged with little order. The comparison thus exhibited to the eye is an impressive one. The contrast of one class with the other is visible even in external characteristics. The old Roman lines are cut with precision and evenness; the letters are well formed, the words are rightly spelt, the construction of the sentences is grammatical. But the Christian inscriptions bear for the most part the marks of ignorance, poverty, and want of skill. Their lines are uneven, the letters of various sizes, the words ill-spelt, the syntax often incorrect. Not seldom a mixture of Greek and Latin in the same sentence betrays the corrupt speech of the lower classes, and the Latin itself is that of the common people. But defects of style and faults of engraving are insufficient to hide the feeling that underlies them.

Besides this great collection of the Vatican, there is another collection now being formed in the loggia of the Lateran Palace, in immediate connection with the Christian Museum. Arranged as the inscriptions will here be in historic sequence and with careful classification, it will be chiefly to this collection that the student of Christian antiquity will hereafter resort. It in in the charge of the Cavaliere de Rossi, who is engaged in editing the Christian inscriptions of the first six centuries, and whose extraordinary learning and marvellous sagacity in deciphering and determining the slightest remains of ancient stone-cutting give him unexampled fitness for the work. Of these inscriptions, about eleven thousand are now known, and of late some forty or fifty have been added each year to the number previously recorded. But a very small proportion of the eleven thousand remain in situ in the catacombs, and besides the great collections of the Vatican and the Lateran, there are many smaller ones in Rome and in other Italian cities, and many inscriptions originally found in the subterranean cemeteries are now scattered in the porticos or on the pavements of churches in Rome, Ravenna, Milan, and elsewhere. From the first period of the desecration of the catacombs, the engraved tablets that had closed the graves were almost as much an object of the greed of pious or superstitious marauders as the more immediate relics of the saints. Hence came their dispersion through Italy, and hence, too, it has happened that many very important and interesting inscriptions belonging to Rome are now found scattered through the Continent.

It has been, indeed, sometimes the custom of the Roman Church to enhance the value of a gift of relics by adding to it the gift of the inscription on the grave from which they were taken. A curious instance of this kind, connected with the making of a very popular saint, occurred not many years since. In the year 1802 a grave was found in the Cemetery of St. Priscilla, by which were the remains of a glass vase that had held blood, the indication of the burial-place of a martyr. The grave was closed by three tiles, on which were the following words painted in red letters: LVMENA PAXTE CVMFL. There were also rudely painted on the tiles two anchors, three darts, a torch, and a palm-branch. The bones found within the grave, together with the tiles bearing the inscription, were placed in the Treasury of Relics at the Lateran. On the return of Pius VII., one of the deputation of Neapolitan clergy sent to congratulate him sought and received from the Pope these relics and the tiles as a gift for his church. The inscription had been read by placing the first tile after the two others, thus,—Pax tecum Filumena, Peace be with thee, Filumena; and Filumena was adopted as a new saint in the long list of those to whom the Roman Church has given this title. It was supposed, that, in the haste of closing the grave, the tiles had been thus misplaced.

Very soon after the gift, a priest, who desired not to be named on account of his great humility, had a vision at noonday, in which the beautiful virgin with the beautiful name appeared to him and revealed to him that she had suffered death rather than yield her chastity to the will of the Emperor, who desired to make her his wife. Thereupon a young artist, whose name is also suppressed, likewise had a vision of St. Filomena, who told him that the emperor was Diocletian; but as history stands somewhat opposed to this statement, it has been suggested that the artist mistook the name, and that the Saint said Maximian. However this may be, the day of her martyrdom was fixed on the 10th of August, 303. Her relics were carried to Naples with great reverence; they were inclosed, after the Neapolitan fashion, in a wooden doll of the size of life, dressed in a white satin skirt and a red tunic, with a garland of flowers on its head, and a lily and a dart in its hand. This doll, with the red-lettered tiles, was soon transferred to its place in the church of Mugnano, a small town not far from Naples. Many miracles were wrought on the way, and many have since been wrought in the church itself. The fame of the virgin spread through Italy, and chapels were dedicated to her honor in many distant churches; from Italy it reached Germany and France, and it has even crossed the Atlantic to America. Thus a new saint, a new story, and a new exhibition of credulity had their rise not long ago from a grave and three words in the catacombs.

One of the first differences which are obvious, in comparing the Christian with the heathen mortuary inscriptions, is the introduction in the former of some new words, expressive of the new ideas that prevailed among them. Thus, in place of the old formula which had been in most common use upon gravestones, D.M., or, in Greek, Θ. Κ., standing for Dîs Manibus, or θεοῖς καταχθονίους, a dedication of the stone to the gods of death, we find constantly the words In pace. The exact meaning of these words varies on different inscriptions, but their general significance is simple and clear. When standing alone, they seem to mean that the dead rests in the peace of God; sometimes they are preceded by Requiescat, "May he rest in peace"; sometimes there is the affirmation, Dormit in pace, "He sleeps in peace"; sometimes a person is said recessisse in pace, "to have departed in peace." Still other forms are found, as, for instance, Vivas in pace, "Live in peace," or Suscipiatur in pace, "May he be received into peace,"—all being only variations of the expression of the Psalmist's trust, "I will lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety." It is a curious fact, however, that on some of the Christian tablets the same letters which were used by the heathens have been found. One inscription exists beginning with the words Dîs Manibus, and ending with the words in pace. But there is no need of finding a difficulty in this fact, or of seeking far for an explanation of it. As we have before remarked, in speaking of works of Art, the presence of some heathen imagery and ideas in the multitude of the paintings and inscriptions in the catacombs is not so strange as the comparatively entire absence of them. Many professing Christians must have had during the early ages but an imperfect conception of the truth, and can have separated themselves only partially from their previous opinions, and from the conceptions that prevailed around them in the world. To some the letters of the heathen gravestones, and the words which they stood for, probably appeared little more than a form expressive of the fact of death, and, with the imperfect understanding natural to uneducated minds, they used them with little thought of their absolute significance.^[1]

Another difference in words which is very noticeable, running through the inscriptions, is that of depositus, used by the Christians to signify the laying away in the grave, in place of the heathen words situs, positus, sepultus, conditus. The very name of cœmeterium, adopted by the Christians for their burial-places, a name unknown to the ancient Romans, bore a reference to the great doctrine of the Resurrection. Their burial-ground was a cemetery, that is, a sleeping-place; they regarded the dead as put there to await the awakening; the body was depositus, that is, intrusted to the grave, while the heathen was situs or sepultus, interred or buried,—the words implying a final and definitive position. And as the Christian dormit or quiescit, sleeps or rests in death, so the heathen is described as abreptus, or defunctus, snatched away or departed from life.

Again, the contrast between the inscriptions is marked, and in a sadder way, by the difference of the expressions of mourning and grief. No one who has read many of the ancient gravestones but remembers the bitter words that are often found on them,—words of indignation against the gods, of weariness of life, of despair and unconsoled melancholy. Here is one out of many:—

Procope manvs lebo contra
Devm qvi me innocentem svs
Tvlit qvae xixi annos xx.
Pos. Proclvs.

I, Procope, who lived twenty years, lift up my hands against God, who took me away innocent. Proclus set up this.

But among the Christian inscriptions of the first centuries there is not one of this sort. Most of them contain no reference to grief; they are the very short and simple words of love, remembrance, and faith,—as in the following from the Lateran:—

Adeodate Dignae et Meritae Virgini Et qviesce hic in pace ivbente XPO ejvs

To Adeodata, a worthy and deserving Virgin, and rests here in peace, her Christ commanding.

On a few the word dolens is found, simply telling of grief. On one to the memory of a sweetest daughter the word irreparable is used, Filiæ dulcissimæ inreparabili. Another is, "To Dalmatius, sweetest son, whom his unhappy father was not permitted to enjoy for even seven years." Another inscription, in which something of the feeling that was unchecked among the heathens finds expression in Christian words, is this: "Sweet soul. To the incomparable child, who lived seventeen years, and undeserving [of death] gave up life in the peace of the Lord." Neither the name of the child nor of the parents is on the stone, and the word immeritus, which is used here, and which is common in heathen use, is found, we believe, on only one other Christian grave. One inscription, which has been interpreted as being an expression of unresigned sorrow, is open to a very different signification. It is this:—

Innocentissimæ Etatis
Dvlcissimo Filio
Joviano qvi vixit ann· vii
Et menses vi non merentes
Theoctistvs et Thallvsa Parentes

To their sweetest boy Jovian, of the most innocent age, who lived seven years and six months, his undeserving [or unlamenting] parents Theoctistus and Thallusa.

Here, without forcing the meaning, non merentes might be supposed to refer to the parents' not esteeming themselves worthy to be left in possession of such a treasure; but the probability is that merentes is only a misspelling of maerentes for otherwise immerentes would have been the natural word.

But it is thus that the Christian inscriptions must be sifted, to find expressions at variance with their usual tenor, their general composure and trust. The simplicity and brevity of the greater number of them are, indeed, striking evidence of the condition of feeling among those who set them upon the graves. Their recollections of the dead feared no fading, and Christ, whose coming was so near at hand, would know and reunite his own. Continually we read only a name with in pace, without date, age, or title, but often with some symbol of love or faith hastily carved or painted on the stone or tiles. Such inscriptions as the following are common:—

Felicissimvs dvlcis,—Gavdentia in pace,—Severa in Deo Vivas,—

or, with a little more fulness of expression,—

Dvlcissimo Filio Endelecio
Benemerenti qvi vixit
Annos II Mense vnv
Dies XX in pace

To the sweetest son Endelechius, the well-deserving, who lived two years, one month, twenty days. In peace.

The word benemerenti is of constant recurrence. It is used both of the young and the old; and it seems to have been employed, with comprehensive meaning, as an expression of affectionate and grateful remembrance.

Here is another short and beautiful epitaph. The two words with which it begins are often found.

Anima Dvlcis Avfenis virgo
Benedicta Qve vixit Ann: XXX
Dormit in pace

Sweet Soul. The Blessed Virgin Aufenia, who lived thirty years. She sleeps in peace.

But the force and tenderness of such epitaphs as these is hardly to be recognized in single examples. There is a cumulative pathos in them, as one reads, one after another, such as these that follow:—

--

  ANGELICE BENE IN PACE

  To Angelica well in peace.

  CVRRENTIO SERVO DEI DEP. D. XVI. KAL
  NOVEM.

  To Currentius, the servant of God, laid in
  the grave on the sixteenth of the Kalends of
  November.

  MAXIMINVS QVI VIXIT ANNOS XXIII
  AMICVS OMNIVM

  Maximin, who lived twenty-three years, the
  friend of all.

  SEPTIMVS MARCIANE
  IN PACE QUE BICSIT MECV
  ANNOS XVII. DORMIT IN PACE

  Septimus to Marciana in peace. Who lived
  with me seventeen years. She sleeps in peace.

  GAVDENTIA
  PAVSAT DVLCIS
  SPIRITVS ANNORVM II
  MENSORVM TRES.

  Gaudentia rests. Sweet spirit of two years
  and three months.

Here is a gravestone with the single word VIATOR; here one that tells only that Mary placed it for her daughter; here one that tells of the light of the house,--[Greek: To phos thaes Oikias].

Nor is it only in these domestic and intimate inscriptions that the habitual temper and feeling of the Christians is shown, but even still more in those that were placed over the graves of such members of the household of faith as had made public profession of their belief, and shared in the sufferings of their Lord. There is no parade of words on the gravestones of the martyrs. Their death needed no other record than the little jar of blood placed in the mortar, and the fewest words were enough where this was present. Here is an inscription in the rudest letters from a martyr's grave:--

  SABATIVS BENEMERENTI QVI VIXIT ANNOS XL

  To the well-deserving Sabatias, who lived
  forty years.

And here another:--

  PROSPERO INNOCENTI ANIMAE IN PACE.

  To Prosperus, innocent soul, in peace.

And here a third, to a child who had died as one of the Innocents:--

  MIRAE INNOCENTIAE ANIMA DULCIS AEMILEANVS
  QVI VIXIT ANNO VNO, MENS. VIII D. XXVIII
  DORMIT IN PACE

  Aemilian, sweet soul of marvellous innocence,
  who lived one year, eight months, twenty-eight
  days. He sleeps in peace.

At this grave was found the vase of blood, and on the gravestone was the figure of a dove.

Another inscription, which preserves the name of one of those who suffered in the most severe persecution to which the ancient Church was exposed, and which, if genuine, is, so far as known, the only monument of the kind, is marked by the same simplicity of style:--

  LANNVS XPI MA
  RTIR HC*[Hic?] REQVIESC
  IT SVR [E-P-S] DIOCLITI ANO PASSVS

  Lannus Martyr of Christ here rests. He
  suffered under Diocletian.

The three letters EPS have been interpreted as standing for the words _et posteris suis_, and as meaning that the grave was also for his successors. Not yet, then, had future saints begun to sanctify their graves, and to claim the exclusive possession of them.

But there is another point of contrast between the inscriptions of the un- Christianized and the Christian Romans, which illustrates forcibly the difference in the regard which they paid to the dead. To the one the dead were still of this world, and the greatness of life, the distinctions of class, the titles of honor still clung to them; to the other the past life was as nothing to that which had now begun. The heathen epitaphs are loaded with titles of honor, and with the names of the offices which the dead had borne, and, like the modern Christian (?) epitaphs whose style has been borrowed from them, the vanity of this world holds its place above the grave. But among the early Christian inscriptions of Rome nothing of this kind is known. Scarcely a title of rank or a name of office is to be found among them. A military title, or the name of priest or deacon, or of some other officer in the Church, now and then is met with; but even these, for the most part, would seem to belong to the fourth century, and never contain any expression of boastfulness or flattery.

  FL. OLIVS PATERNVS
  CENTVRIO CHOR. X VRB.
  QVI VIXIT AH XXVII
  IN PACE

  Flavius Olius Paternus, Centurion of the
  Tenth Urban Cohort, who lived twenty-seven
  years. In peace.

It is true, no doubt, that among the first Christians there were very few of the rich and great. The words of St. Paul to the Corinthians were as true of the Romans as of those to whom they were specially addressed: "For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called." Still there is evidence enough that even in the first two centuries some of the mighty and some of the noble at Rome were among those called, but that evidence is not to be gathered from the gravestones of the catacombs. We have seen, in a former article, that even the grave of one of the early bishops,--the highest officer of the Church,--and one who had borne witness to the truth in his death, was marked by the words,

  CORNELIVS MARTYR
  EP.

  The Martyr Cornelius, Bishop.

Compare this with the epitaphs of the later popes, as they are found on their monuments in St. Peter's,--"flattering, false insculptions on a tomb, and in men's hearts reproach,"--epitaphs overweighted with superlatives, ridiculous, were it not for their impiety, and full of the lies and vanities of man in the very house of God.

With this absence of boastfulness and of titles of rank on the early Christian graves two other characteristics of the inscriptions are closely connected, which bear even yet more intimate and expressive relation to the change wrought by Christianity in the very centre of the heathen world.

"One cannot study a dozen monuments of pagan Rome," says Mr. Northcote, in his little volume on the catacombs, "without reading something of _servus_ or _libertus, libertis libertabusque posterisque eorum_; and I believe the proportion in which they are found is about three out of every four. Yet, in a number of Christian inscriptions exceeding eleven thousand, and all belonging to the first six centuries of our era, scarcely six have been found containing any allusion whatever--and even two or three of these are doubtful--to this fundamental division of ancient Roman society.

"No one, we think, will be rash enough to maintain, either that this omission is the result of mere accident, or that no individual slave or freedman was ever buried in the catacombs. Rather, these two cognate facts, the absence from ancient Christian epitaphs of all titles of rank and honor on the one hand, or of disgrace and servitude on the other, can only be adequately explained by an appeal to the religion of those who made them. The children of the primitive Church did not record upon their monuments titles of earthly dignity, because they knew that with the God whom they served 'there was no respect of persons'; neither did they care to mention the fact of their bondage, or of their deliverance from bondage, to some earthly master, because they thought only of that higher and more perfect liberty wherewith Christ had set them free; remembering that 'he that was called, being a bondman, was yet the freeman of the Lord, and likewise he that was called, being free, was still the bondman of Christ.'

"And this conclusion is still further confirmed by another remarkable fact which should be mentioned, namely, that there are not wanting in the catacombs numerous examples of another class of persons, sometimes ranked among slaves, but the mention of whose servitude, such as it was, served rather to record an act of Christian charity than any social degradation; I allude to the alumni, or foundlings, as they may be called. The laws of pagan Rome assigned these victims of their parents' crimes or poverty to be the absolute property of any one who would take charge of them. As nothing, however, but compassion could move a man to do this, children thus acquired were not called _servi_, as though they were slaves who had been bought with money, nor _vernae_, as though they had been the children of slaves born in the house, but _alumni_, a name simply implying that they had been brought up (_ab alendo_) by their owners. Now it is a very singular fact, that there are actually more instances of _alumni_ among the sepulchral inscriptions of Christians than among the infinitely more numerous inscriptions of pagans, showing clearly that this was an act of charity to which the early Christians were much addicted; and the _alumni_, when their foster-parents died, very properly and naturally recorded upon their tombs this act of charity, to which they were themselves so deeply indebted."

So far Mr. Northcote. It is still further to be noted, as an expression of the Christian temper, as displayed in this kind of charity, that it never appears in the inscriptions as furnishing a claim for praise, or as being regarded as a peculiar merit. There is no departure from the usual simplicity of the gravestones in those of this class.

 [Greek:
  PETROS
  THREPTOS
  RAUKUTA
  TOS EN THEO]

  Peter, sweetest foster-child, in God.

And a dove is engraved at either side of
this short epitaph.

  VITALIANO ALVMNO KARO
  EVTROPIVS FECIT.

  Eutropius made this for the dear foster-child
  Vitalian.

  ANTONIVS DISCOLIVS FILIVS ET BIBIVS
  FELLICISSIMVS ALVMNVS VALERIE CRESTENI
  MATRI BIDVE ANORVM XVIII INTET SANCTOS

  Antonius Discolius her son, and Bibius Felicissimus
  her foster-child, to Valeria Crestina
  their mother, a widow for eighteen years.
  [Her grave is] among the holy.[2]

[Footnote 2: This inscription is not of earlier date than the fourth century, as is shown by the words, _Inter sancios_,--referring, as we heretofore stated, to the grave being made near that of some person esteemed a saint.]

These inscriptions lead us by a natural transition to such as contain some reference to the habits of life or to the domestic occupations and feelings of the early Christians. Unfortunately for the gratification of the desire to learn of these things, this class of inscriptions is far from numerous,--and the common conciseness is rarely, in the first centuries, amplified by details. But here is one that tells a little story in itself:--

               DOMNINAE
INNOCENTISSINAE ET DVLCISSIMAE COIVGI
  QVAE VIXIT ANN XVI M. IIII ET FVIT
 IMARITATA ANN. DVOBVS M. IIII D. VIIII
  CVM QVA SON LICVIT FVISSE PROPTER
       CAVSAS PEREGRINATIONIS
           NISI MENEIE VI
QVO TEMPORE VT EGO SENSI ET EXHBVI
            AMOREM MEVM
   NVLLI SV ALII SIC DILEXERVNT
       DEPOSIT XV KAL. IVN.

 To Domnina, my most innocent and sweetest
 wife; who lived sixteen years and four
 months, and was married two years, four
 months, and nine days; with whom, on account
 of my journeys, I was permitted to be
 only six months; in which time, as I felt, so
 I showed my love. No others have so loved
 one another. Placed in the grave the 15th
 of the Kalends of June.

Who was this husband whose far-off journeys had so separated him from his lately married wife? Who were they who so loved as no others had loved? The tombstone gives only the name of Domnina. But in naming her, and in the expression of her husband's love, it gives evidence, which is confirmed by many other tokens in the catacombs, of the change introduced by Christianity in the position of women, and in the regard paid to them. Marriage was invested with a sanctity which redeemed it from sensuality, and Christianity became the means of uniting man and woman in the bonds of an immortal love.

Here is an inscription which, spite of the rudeness of its style, preserves the pleasant memory of a Roman child:--

  ISPIRITO SANTO BONO
  FLORENTIO QVI VIXIT ANIS XIII
  QVAM SI FILIVM SVVM ET COTDEVS
  MATER FILIO BENEMERETI FECERVNT.

  To the good and holy spirit Florentius, who
  lived thirteen years, Coritus, his master, who
  loved him more than if he were his own son,
  and Cotdeus, his mother, have made this for
  her well-deserving son.[3]

[Footnote 3: Compare an inscription from a heathen tomb:--

  C. JVLIVS MAXIMVS
  ANN. II. M. V.

  ATROX O FORTVNA TRVCI QVAE FVNERR GAVDES
  QVID MIHI TAM SVBITO MAXIMVS ERIPITVR
  QVI MODO JVCVNDVS GREMIO SVPERESSE SOLEBAT
  HIC LAPIS TN TVMVLO NVNC JACET ECCE MATER

  C. Julius Maximus,
  Two years, five months old.

  Harsh Fortune, that in cruel death finds't joy,
  Why is my Maximus thus sudden reft,
  So late the pleasant burden of my breast?
  Now in the grave this stone lies: lo, his mother!]

And Coritus, his master, and Cotdeus, his mother, might have rejoiced in knowing that their poor, rough tablet would keep the memory of her boy alive for so many centuries; and that long after they had gone to the grave, the good spirit of Florentius should still, through these few words, remain to work good upon the earth.--Note in this inscription (as in many others) the Italianizing of the old Latin,--the _ispirito_, and the _santo_; note also the mother's strange name, reminding one of Puritan appellations,--Cotdeus being the abbreviation of _Quod vult Deus_, "What God wills."[4]

[Footnote 4: Other names of this kind were _Deogratias_, _Habetdeum_, and _Adeodatus_.]

Here is an inscription set up by a husband to his wife, Dignitas, who was a woman of great goodness and entire purity of life:--

  QUE SINE LESIONE ANIMI MEI VIXI MECVM
  ANNOS XV FILIOS AVTEM PROCREAVIT VII
  EX QVIBVS SECV ABET AD DOMINVM IIII

  Who, without ever wounding my soul, lived
  with me for fifteen years, and bore seven
  children, four of whom she has with her in
  the Lord.

We have already referred to the inscriptions which bear the name of some officer of the early Church; but there is still another class, which exhibits in clear letters others of the designations and customs familiar to the first Christians. Thus, those who had not yet been baptized and received into the fold, but were being instructed in Christian doctrine for that end, were called _catechumens_; those who were recently baptized were called _neophytes_; and baptism itself appears sometimes to have been designated by the word _illuminatio_. Of the use of these names the inscriptions give not infrequent examples. It was the custom also among the Christians to afford support to the poor and to the widows of their body. Thus we read such inscriptions as the following:--

  RIGINE VENEMEREMTI FILIA SVA FECIT
  VENERIGINE MATRI VIDVAE QVE SE
  DIT VIDVA ANNOS LX ET ECLESA
  VIXIT ANNOS LXXX MESIS V
  DIES XXVI

  Her daughter Reneregina made this for her
  well-deserving mother Regina, a widow, who
  sat a widow sixty years, and never burdened
  the church, the wife of one husband, who lived
  eighty years, five months, twenty-six days.

The words of this inscription recall to mind those of St. Paul, in his First Epistle to Timothy, (v. 3-16,) and especially the verse, "If any man or woman that believeth have widows, let them relieve them, and let not the church be charged."

Some of the inscriptions preserve a record of the occupation or trade of the dead, sometimes in words, more often by the representation of the implements of labor. Here, for instance, is one which seems like the advertisement of a surviving partner:--

  DE BIANOBA
  POLLECLA QVE ORDEV BENDET DE
  BIANOBA

  From New Street. Pollecla, who sold barley
  on New Street.

Others often bear a figure which refers to the name of the deceased, an _armoirie parlante_ as it were, which might be read by those too ignorant to read the letters on the stone. Thus, a lion is scratched on the grave of a man named Leo; a little pig on the grave of the little child Porcella, who had lived not quite four years; on the tomb of Dracontius is a dragon; and by the side of the following charming inscription is found the figure of a ship:--

  NABIRA IN PACE ANIMA DULCIS
  QVI BIXIT ANOS XVI M V
  ANIMA MELEIEA
  TITVLV FACTV
  APARENTES SIGNVM NABE

  Navira in peace. Sweet soul, who lived sixteen
  years, five months. Soul honey-sweet.
  This inscription made by her parents. The
  sign a ship.

The figures that are most frequent upon the sepulchral slabs are, however, not such as bear relation to a name or profession, but the commonly adopted symbols of the faith, similar in design and character to those exhibited in the paintings of the catacombs. The Good Shepherd is thus often rudely represented; the figure of Jonah is naturally, from its reference to the Resurrection, also frequently found; and the figure of a man or woman with arms outstretched, in the attitude of prayer, occurs on many of the sepulchral slabs. The anchor, the palm, the crown, and the dove, as being simpler in character and more easily represented, are still more frequently found. The varying use of symbols at different periods has been one of the means which have assisted in determining approximate dates for the inscriptions upon which they are met with. It is a matter of importance, in many instances, to fix a date to an inscription. Historical and theological controversies hang on such trifles. Most of the early gravestones bear no date; and it was not till the fourth century, that, with many other changes, the custom of carving a date upon them became general. The century to which an inscription belongs may generally be determined with some confidence, either by the style of expression and the nature of the language, or by the engraved character, or some other external indications. Among these latter are the symbols. It has, for instance, been recently satisfactorily proved by the Cavaliere de Rossi that the use of the emblem of the fish in the catacombs extended only to the fourth century, so that the monuments upon which it is found may, with scarcely an exception, be referred to the preceding period. As this emblem went out of use, owing perhaps to the fact that the Christians were no longer forced to seek concealment for their name and profession, the famous monogram of Christ, [Symbol] the hieroglyphic, not only of his name, but of his cross, succeeded to it, and came, indeed, into far more general use than that which the fish had ever attained. The monogram is hardly to be found before the time of Constantine, and, as it is very frequently met with in the inscriptions from the catacombs, it affords an easy means, in the absence of a more specific date, for determining a period earlier than which any special inscription bearing it cannot have originated. Its use spread rapidly during the fourth century. It "became," says Gibbon, with one of his amusing sneers, "extremely fashionable in the Christian world." The story of the vision of Constantine was connected with it, and the Labarum displayed its form in the front of the imperial army. It was thus not merely the emblem of Christ, but that also of the conversion of the Emperor and of the fatal victory of the Church.

It is a remarkable fact, and one which none of the recent Romanist authorities attempt to controvert, that the undoubted earlier inscriptions afford no evidence of any of the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church. There is no reference to the doctrine of the Trinity to be found among them; nothing is to be derived from them in support of the worship of the Virgin; her name even is not met with on any monument of the first three centuries; and none of the inscriptions of this period give any sign of the prevalence of the worship of saints. There is no support of the claim of the Roman Church to supremacy, and no reference to the claim of the Popes to be the Vicars of Christ. As the third century advances to its close, we find the simple and crude beginning of that change in Christian faith which developed afterward into the broad idea of the intercessory power of the saints. Among the earlier inscriptions prayers to God or to Christ are sometimes met with, generally in short exclamatory expressions concerning the dead. Thus we find at first such words as these:--

  AMERIMNVS
  RVFINAE COIV
  GI CARISSIME
  BENEMEREN
  TI SPIRITVM
  TVVM DEVS
  REFRIGERET

  Amerimnus to his dearest wife Rufina well-
  deserving. May God refresh thy spirit!

And, in still further development,--

  [Greek: AUR. AIANOS PAPHLAGON THEOU
  DOULOS PISTOS
  EKOIMNON EN EIPNIN MINSON
  AUTOU
  O THEOS EIS TOUS AIONAS]

  Aurelius Aelianus, a Paphlagonian, faithful
  servant of God. He sleeps in peace. Remember
  him, O God, forever!

Again, two sons ask for their mother,--

  DOMINE NE QVANDO
  ADVMBRETVR SPIRITVS
  VENERES

  O Lord, let not the spirit of Venus be shadowed
  at any time!

From such petitions as these we come by a natural transition to such as are addressed to the dead themselves, as being members of the same communion with the living, and uniting in prayers with those they had left on earth and for their sake.

  VIBAS IN PACE ET PETE PRO NOBIS

  Mayst thou live in peace and ask for us!

Or, as in another instance,--

  PETE PRO PARENTES TVOS
  MATRONATA MATRONA
  QVE VIXIT AN. I. DI. LII.

  Pray for thy parents, Matronata Matrona!
  Who lived one year, fifty-two days.

And as we have seen how in the fourth century the desire arose of being buried near the graves of those reputed holy, so by a similar process we find this simple and affectionate petition to the dead passing into a prayer for the dead to those under whose protection it was hoped that they might be. In the multitude of epitaphs, however, these form but a small number. Here is one that begins with a heathen formula:--

  SOMNO HETERNALI
  AVRELIVS GEMELLVS QVI BIXIT AN--
  ET MESES VIII DIES XVIII MATER FILIO
  CARISSIMO BENAEMERENTI FECIT IN PA--
  [C]ONMANDO BASSILA INNOCENTIA GEMELLI

  In Eternal Sleep. Aurelius Gemellus, who
  lived --- years, and eight months, eighteen
  days. His mother made this for her dearest
  well-deserving son in peace. I commend to
  Basilla the innocence of Gemellus.

Basilla was one of the famous martyrs of the time of Valerian and Gallienus.

Here again is another inscription of a curious character, as interposing a saint between the dead and his Saviour. The monogram marks its date.

  RVTA OMNIBVS SVBDITA ET ATFABI
  LIS BIBET IN NOMINE PETRI
  IN PACE

  Ruta, subject and affable to all, shall live in
  the name of Peter, in the peace of Christ.

But it would seem from other inscriptions as if the new practice of calling upon the saints were not adopted witho protest. Thus we read, in contrast to the last epitaph, this simple one:—

Zosime vivas in nomine XTI

O Zosimus, mayst thou live in the name of Christ!

And again, in the strongest and most direct words:—

Solvs Devs animam tvam
Defendad Alexandre

May God alone protect thy spirit, Alexander!

One more inscription and we have done; it well closes the long list:--

Qvi legerit vivat in Christo

Whoever shall read this, may he live in Christ!

 

As the fourth century advanced, the character of the inscriptions underwent great change. They become less simple; they exhibit less faith, and more worldliness; superlatives abound in them; and the want of feeling displays itself in the abundance of words.

We end here our examinations of the testimony of the catacombs regarding the doctrine, the faith, and the lives of the Christians of Rome in the first three centuries. The evidence is harmonious and complete. It leaves no room for skepticism or doubt. There are no contradictions in it. From every point of view, theologic, historic, artistic, the results coincide and afford mutual support. The construction of the catacombs, the works of painting found within them, the inscriptions on the graves, all unite in bearing witness to the simplicity of the faith, the purity of the doctrine, the strength of the feeling, the change in the lives of the vast mass of the members of the early church of Christ. A light had come into the world, and the dark passages of the underground cemeteries were illuminated by it, and manifest its brightness. Wherever it reached, the world was humanized and purified. To the merely outward eye it might at first have seemed faint and dim, but "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation."

1. It is probable that most of the gravestones upon which this heathen formula is found are not of an earlier date than the middle of the fourth century. At this time Christianity became the formal religion of many who were still heathen in character and thought, and cared little about the expression of a faith which they had adopted more from the influence of external motives than from principle or conviction.