trinkets of little children enclosed in their graves or affixed to the
plaster without. The dolls in the following engraving strikingly
resemble those with which children amuse themselves to-day. They are
made of ivory, and some are furnished with wires, by which the joints
can be worked after the manner of the modern marionettes. The object 387
in the upper left hand corner is a terra cotta vase with a narrow slit
for receiving money, like the common children’s savings banks. Beneath
it is an ivory ring. The other objects are small bronze bells, forming
part of a child’s rattle. In the Catacomb of St. Sebastian was also
found a small terra cotta horse of rude design, dappled with coloured
spots.
[Illustration: Fig. 120.--Children’s Toys found in the Catacombs.]
The human affections are the same in every age. These simple objects
speak more directly to the heart than “storied urn or animated bust.”
As we gaze upon these childish toys in the Vatican Museum the
centuries vanish, and busy fancy pictures the weeping Roman mother
placing these cherished relics of her dead babe in its waxen hands or
by its side, as it is laid from her loving arms in the cold embrace of
the rocky grave, and then, with tear-dimmed eyes, taking a last, long,
lingering farewell of the loved form about to be closed from her sight
forever.
Numerous toilet articles have also been found in the Catacombs,
generally in the graves of the dead or cemented by the plaster to the
tombs. Many of these have been plundered and lost; but still a very
interesting collection exists in the Vatican Library. Among its 388
contents are long silver or ivory bodkins for the hair, combs of box
or ivory, scent-bottles and boxes of perfume, broaches, earrings,
bracelets, sometimes with keys to unlock the clasps, and other
ornaments in bronze, silver, or gold.[654] The simpler manners of the
Christian women, as compared with those of pagan faith around them, is
indicated by the conspicuous absence of the rouge pots and jars of
cosmetics, and many other articles of luxury, which formed so
important a part of the toilet requisites of Rome’s proud dames, and
which are so frequently found in the ruins of Pompeii. The Christian
ornaments, moreover, even after the departure from the primitive
simplicity of manners, were of a very different character from those
of the corrupt civilization of paganism. Instead of the abominable
representations of heathen art, suggesting every evil thought and
stimulating every vile passion, of which so many examples occur in the
Museum of Naples, only chaste and modest figures are found; and even
the articles of the toilet are frequently adorned with pious mottoes.
Thus, on a bodkin for a lady’s hair, probably a love-gift to a wife or
betrothed bride, is engraved the beautiful sentiment, ROMVLA
SEMPER VIVAS IN DEO--“Romula, may you ever live in God.” Such a
religious art seems an anticipation of the day when “Holiness to the
Lord” shall be written upon the bells of the horses.
Small caskets of gold or other metal for containing a portion of the
gospels, generally part of the first chapter of John, which were worn 389
on the neck, have also been found. They seem to have been introduced
in the decline of primitive piety in imitation of the Jewish
phylactery or pagan amulet, and were probably worn for the same
superstitious purpose, to avert danger or to cure disease. They were
condemned by Irenæus, Augustine, Chrysostom, and by the Council of
Laodicea, as a relic of heathenism.[655] On a carved figure of a fish,
with a hole drilled through it for suspending it from the neck, and
probably intended for an amulet, is engraved the word, ϹΩϹΑΙϹ--“Mayest
thou save us.” Medals, coins, and what are described as tessaræ of
hospitality, by which the early Christians recognized travelling
members of distant churches as sharers of the same faith, and admitted
them to their assemblies and their homes, have likewise been found. So
also have articles of domestic economy, as spoons, knives, keys,
drinking-cups and shells used as such, and even a metallic kettle for
cooking. Certain articles employed in religious service, as a
baptismal font, altars, chairs, etc., will be hereafter described.
This practice of burying with the dead the objects which they had
employed in life was common to the pagans from the earliest Etruscan
times to the most recent heathen sepulture. They interred in the tombs
of the departed every kind of utensil and implement of trade, and even
articles of food. M. Rochette perceives herein a notion, confused and
gross though it may be, of the immortality of the soul, and a proof of
that instinct of man which recoils from the thought of annihilation.[656]
In like manner, the Christians, although animated by a loftier hope, 390
and inspired with an assurance of eternal deathlessness, long followed
this ancient custom, even to the extent sometimes of putting the piece
of money in the mouth of the deceased, intended by the heathen for the
payment of Charon.[657] This was most probably, in many instances a
mere unthinking conformity to ancient use and wont. Milman asserts
that the practice of burying money, often large sums, with the dead,
was the cause of the very severe Roman laws against the violations of
the tombs, inasmuch as the government wished to reserve to itself that
source of revenue.[658]
[Illustration: Fig. 121.--Statue of the Good Shepherd.]
In the Christian Museum of the Vatican is a marble statue of the Good
Shepherd, figured in the accompanying engraving, which is believed to
be from the Catacombs. Although the execution is coarse, yet from the
general style Rumohr thinks it probably the oldest extant specimen of 391
Christian statuary.[659] Sculpture seems to have bowed less willingly
than painting to the new religion, and was much more tardy in laying
its offerings on the altar of Christianity. It retained also much of
the spirit of paganism, and never became thoroughly imbued with
Christian sentiment. The colossal figure of the Galilean fisherman
beneath the mighty dome of his proud mausoleum--that stateliest fane
in Christendom--if not indeed the identical statue of the Capitoline
Jove, is copied from a heathen model. The majestic Moses of Michael
Angelo seems rather the embodied conception of the cloud-compelling
Phidian Zeus than of the Hebrew patriarch, described as the meekest of
men. Even Thorwaldsen’s sublime figures of Christ and the apostles
exhibit more of the majesty of antique pagan art than of the meek and
tender grace of Christianity. Sculpture, as M. Rochette well remarks,
struck its roots deeply into the soil of heathenism, and was with the
utmost difficulty transplanted therefrom. It is essentially pagan in
its character, and is especially adapted for the expression of the
severer virtues. Painting is more instinct with Christian spirit, and
is the better fitted for the representation of the softer graces.
Moreover, the profession of the sculptor was held in abhorrence on
account of its connexion with idolatry. Tertullian stigmatizes the
makers of images as the foster-fathers of devils and the procurers 392
of idols.[660] Prudentius calls Mentor and Phidias the makers and
parents of the heathen gods.[661] All who were in any wise connected
with this unhallowed craft were rejected from the ordinance of baptism
and denied the holy eucharist.[662] “The ancient Christians,”
Buonarotti truly remarks, “always kept aloof from these arts, by which
they might have run a risk of polluting themselves with idolatry; and
hence it arose that few or none of them devoted themselves to painting
or to sculpture, which had as their principal object the
representations of the gods or the myths of the heathen.”[663] Hence
the almost entire absence of Christian statuary from the Catacombs.
Even the sculptured bas reliefs of the sarcophagi before described
were for the most part the product of that later period, when
Christianity, coming forth from these subterranean crypts, walked in
the light of day and basked in the favour of princes.
This brief notice of early Christian sculpture would be incomplete
without some reference to the statue of the celebrated Hippolytus,
bishop of Portus, the most remarkable known specimen of that class. It
was discovered by some workmen digging near the church of _San
Lorenzo fuori le mura_ in the year 1551, and probably originally
stood in the adjacent Catacomb of Hippolytus. The martyr bishop is 393
represented as seated in a sort of episcopal chair. The figure is
modelled with a classic grace and dignity superior to any examples of
the Constantinian period. Indeed, the distinguished art critic,
Winckelmann, declares it to be the finest specimen of early Christian
sculpture extant. It was considerably mutilated, but has been
skilfully restored, and now stands in the Lateran Museum. On the base
of the chair is engraved a list of the published writings of
Hippolytus,[664] and also the table which he constructed for
determining the true period of the Easter festival. The discovery of
an error in this table deprived it of much of its value; and the date
of this monument is probably prior to that discovery, or the early
part of the third century.
Passing allusion should also be here made to the early Christian
diptychs, specimens of which are found in almost every antiquarian
museum. These were formed after the model of the imperial and consular
diptychs, or registers of the public officers of Rome. They consisted
of tablets of ivory, wood, or metal, folded together,[665] and bore 394
the names of the bishops, officers, or distinguished patrons of the
church, and memorials of the martyrs and holy dead. These memorials
were frequently read in the religious assemblies of the primitive
church, especially on the anniversaries of the martyrs’ death. This
practice led in course of time to the invocation of their aid in the
Litany of the Saints, and to other errors of Romanism. The diptychs
had also frequently elaborate bas reliefs of scenes from the biblical
cycle, and in the age of image-worship bore the figures of the saints
to whom a corrupt Christianity had begun to pay an idolatrous
veneration. They became thus the prototype of the illuminated missal
of the Middle Ages.
[614] _Vetri ornati di figure in oro trovati nei cimiteri dei
Cristiani primitivi di Roma raccolti e spiegati da Raffaele
Garrucci._--Roma, 1858.
[615] _Osservazioni sopra alcuni frammenti di vasi antichi di
vetro ornati di figure trovati nei cimiteri di
Roma._--Firenze, 1716.
[616] Transtyberinus ambulator,
Qui pallentia sulphurata fractis
Permutat vitreis.--_Epig._, i, 42.
[617] Sicche volendo i fedeli adornar con simboli devoti i loro
vasi, erano forzati per lo più a valersi di artefici inesperti, e
che professavano altre mestieri.--_De’ Vetri Cemeteriali._
[618] _Rom. Sott._, p. 283.
[619] _Ibid._
[620] “Unde dignationem sumeret.”--_Conf._, vi, 2. Compare with
the expression DIGNITAS in the previous inscription.
[621] Pastor quem in calice depingis.--_De Pudicit._, c. 7.
Ipsæ picturæ calicum vestrorum, si vel in illis _perlucebit_
interpretatio,... et ego ejus pastoris scripturam haurio _qui
non potest frangi_.--_Ibid._, 10.
[622] Glass chalices are common, indeed it is said universal, at
the present day in the Coptic churches of Egypt. The _San
Greal_, or reputed vessel of the institution of the Lord’s
Supper, preserved in the Cathedral of Genoa, is, curiously
enough, of glass, of a hexagonal form.
[623] P. 16, first foot note. Both Christ and Mary have the
nimbus. The legend _Christus et Istafanus_ on one example,
indicating a transition into modern Italian, implies a late date.
[624] Rock’s _Hierurgia_, p. 269.
[625] See the epitaphs of Lannus and Gordianus, p. 98.
[626] Muratori gives the epitaph of a girl of the age of two
years and twenty days, on whose tombstone this cup was found, and
feeling the absurdity of this theory, but unwilling to controvert
the decree of the Congregation of Relics, he adds ironically, “In
these sacred cemeteries you especially wonder at two things,
namely, that when so many glass or figured vases occur no mention
is made in the inscriptions of martyrdom; and especially that
_infants_ suffered death on account of faith in Christ”--In
sacris iis coemeteriis duo potissimum mireris, Nempe quum tot
Vasa vitrea aut figulina occurrant, nullam tamen in ipsis
inscriptionibus mortis pro Christo toleratæ mentionem haberi, et
praeterea Infantes ob Fidem Christi morti datos fuisse.--_Nov.
Thesaur. Vet. Inscrip._, p. 1958, No. 8.
[627] _Mornings with the Jesuits_, p. 222.
[628] The Third Council of Carthage in the year 397 forbade this
practice, because Christ said, “Take and eat,” whereas a dead
body can neither take nor eat--Placuit ut corporibus defunctorum
eucharistia non detur. Dictum est enim a Domino Accipite et
edite: cadavera autem nec accipere possunt, nec edere.--_Conc.
Cath._, 3, can. 6. Chrysostom also denounces the practice because
the words were spoken to the living and not to the dead.--_Hom._,
40, in 1 Cor. Gregory the Great speaks of the burial of the
Eucharist with the dead, “Jussit communionem Dominici corporis in
pectus defuncti reponi atque sic tumulari.”--_Greg. Dial._, lib.
ii, c. 24. Maitland thinks that these cups were probably
depositories for aromatic gums much used in the interment of the
dead.
[629] “Ergo palma indicium minime Martyri fuit.”--The
inscription, which bears two palms, reads thus--LEOPARDVS SE
BIBV FECIT.
[630] Il n’a rencontré lui même dans ces souterrains aucun trace
de nul autre tableau représentant une martyre.--_Hist. de l’Art._
[631] A fresco of the martyrdom of Felicitas and her seven sons,
in an ancient chapel within the Baths of Titus, is not later,
according to M. Rochette, (_Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr._,
tom. xiii, p. 165,) than the seventh century.
[632] Aringhi has given an entire chapter on this subject,
entitled “Martyriorum instrumenta unà cum martyrum corporibus
tumulo reponuntur.”--_Rom. Sott._, i, 29.
[633] _Catacombs of Rome_, pp. 111, 112.
[634] _Ibid._, p. 187.
[635] “Flagellum quoddam ad corpus excruciandum,” is the phrase
of Aringhi.
[636] _Rom. Sott._, p. 387.
[637] _Perret_, tom. iv, planche 2. The ship was a favourite
type of the church during the Middle Ages. In the church of St.
Etienne-du-Mont, at Paris, is a representation of a vessel
crowded with passengers, among whom the portrait of Francis I.
has been recognized. In an ancient Merovingian MS. missal the
same idea is repeated, only the Holy Spirit is substituted as
pilot--Bene gubernatus est Spiritus Sanctus.
[638] _La Corinne._
[639] Translata episcoporum manibus, cum alii pontifices lampadas
cereosque præferrent.--Hieron., Ep. 27, _ad Eustach., in
Epitaph. Paulæ_.
[640] Sometimes a single candelabrum bears three hundred and
sixty-five lights, emblematic of the days of the year. More
impressive is a solitary lamp ever burning at some lowly shrine,
the type of the flame of love burning in perpetual adoration on
the altar of the heart.
[641] Canon., 34.
[642] The following inscription from Gruter indicates this
practice:
QVISQVE · HVIC · TVMVLO
POSVIT · ARDENTEM · LVCERNAM
ILLIVS · CINERES · AVREA · TERRA · TEGAT.
“Who ever places a burning lamp before this tomb, may a golden
soil cover his ashes.”
Lactantius accuses the pagans of burning lights to God as to one
living in darkness, (_Institut. Divin._, lib. vi, cap. 2,) and
the Theodosian Code forbids the custom.
[643] Prope ritum gentilium videmus sub prætextu religionis
introductum in ecclesias, sole adhuc fulgente moles cereorum
accendi, etc.--_Adv. Vigil._, ii.
[644] From ἀμφί and φέρω--on account of the handles on each
side of the neck. They were also called _diota_, or two-eared,
from διώτη.
[645] Lac significat innocentiam parvulorum.--Hieron., in
_Esai_. lv, 1. Deinde egressos lactis et mellis prægustare
concordiam ad infantiæ significationem.--_Ibid._, _Contr.
Lucif._, c. 4. See also Tertul., _de Coron. Mil._, c. 3;
Clem. Alex., _Pædagog._, lib. i, c. 6.
[646] Nam utique et altare portarent et vasa ejus, et aquam in
manus funderent sarcerdoti, sicut videmus per omnes
ecclesias.--Aug., _Quæst. Vet. et Nov. Test._, qu. 101. See
also Cyril, _Catech. Myst._, 5, n. 1.
[647] “_Renfermer le Saint-chrême._” Tom. i, p. 266.
[648] Cum aurum nulla norat præter unico digito, quem sponsus
oppignerasset annulo pronubo.--_Apol._, c. 6.
[649] Et annulo fidei suæ subarravit me.--In Ambr. _Ep._ 31.
[650] Clem. Alex., _Pædagog._, iii, 2.
[651] _Ibid._
[652] See the example of Pharaoh, Gen. xli, 42; and Ahasuerus,
Esther iii, 10, and viii, 2.
[653] Pitra, _Spicil. Solesm._, tom. iii, tab. iii, n. 4.
[654] When the tomb of the Empress Maria, wife of Honorius, was
opened in 1544, a profusion of ornaments and trinkets were found,
from which, it is said, not less than thirty-six pounds of gold
were taken. The Empress Placidia was also interred in similar
gorgeous funeral pomp, which was, however, consumed in 1577 by
the accidental ignition of her gold-embroidered robes.
[655] Iren., lib. ii, c. 57. Aug., tract 7, _in Joan._; serm.
215, _de Tempore_. Chrysos., hom. vi, _Contr. Judæos_.
Conc. Laodic., can. 36.
[656] Il y avait là une notion confuse et grossière sans doute de
l’immortalité de l’âme, mais il s’y trouvait aussi la preuve
sensible et palpable de cet instinct de l’homme, qui repugne à
l’idée de la destruction de son être.--_Mém. de l’Acad. des
Inscr._, tom. xiii, p. 689.
[657] Rochette says that this practice continued down to the time
of Thomas Aquinas, who wrote against it.
[658] “Gold may justly be taken from the sepulture which no
longer contains its original owner,” says the minister of
Theodoric to a provincial governor; “indeed, it is a sort of
fault to leave idly hidden with the dead that which might support
the living.”--Aurum enim justè sepulcro detrahitur, ubi dominus
non habetur; imo culpæ genus est inutiliter abdita relinquere
mortuorum, unde se vita potest sustentare viventium.--Cassiod.,
_Var._, iv, 34.
[659] _Italienische Forschungen_, vol. i, p. 168.--The subject of
early Christian sculpture is fully treated in a recent work by
Dr. Wilhelm Lübke, entitled _Geschichte der Plastik_. Two vols.
Leipzig: Seeman, 1870.
[660] Qua constantia exorcizabit _alumnos suos_, quibus
domum suam cellariam præstat ... quid aliud quam procurator
idolorum demonstraris?--_De Idol._, c. 11.
[661] Fabri deorum, vel parentes numinum.--_Peristeph._, x, 293.
[662] _Constit. Apostol._, lib. viii, c. 32.
[663] Stettero sempre lontane di quelle arti, colle quali
avessero potuto correr pericolo di contaminarsi colla idolatria,
e da ciò avvenne, che pochi, o niuno di essi si diede alla
pittura e alla scultura, le quali aveano per oggetto principale
di rappresentare le deità, e le favole de’ gentili.--Buonarotti,
_De’ Vetri Cemeteriali_.
[664] These were exceedingly voluminous, and although several of
them have perished, those which remain throw great light on one
of the most obscure periods in the history of the church, and
vindicate the title of Origen of the West, bestowed on Hippolytus
by Pressensé. Among his most important works were a commentary on
the greater part of the Old and New Testament, treatises on
Antichrist, on the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, on Good and the
Origin of Evil, on God and the Resurrection. He was especially
noted, moreover, as a vigorous and skilful polemic, and wrote
against Platonism and Judaism, and, as we have seen, (page 173,)
against Callixtus, bishop of Rome, for his pantheistic heresy.
His great work, however, is that entitled the _Philosophoumena_.
“It is a vast repertory,” says Pressensé, “reviewing all the
doctrinal controversies of the church from the earliest ages and
most obscure beginnings of Gnosticism. Christian antiquity has
left us no more valuable monument than the treatise “On all the
Heresies” of Hippolytus, discovered a few years since among the
dusty treasures of a convent of Mount Athos.”
[665] Whence the name, from δίπτυχον, twofold; when several
tablets were used they were called πολύπτυχον, or manifold.
BOOK THIRD. 395
THE INSCRIPTIONS OF THE CATACOMBS.
CHAPTER I.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INSCRIPTIONS.
Few places in Rome are more attractive to the student of Christian
archæology than the Lapidarian Gallery in the palace of the Vatican.
In this long corridor[666] are preserved a multitude of epigraphic
remains of the venerable past, shattered wrecks of antiquity, which
have floated down the stream of time, and have here, as in a quiet
haven, at length found shelter. The walls on either side are
completely covered with inscribed slabs affixed to their surface. On
the right hand are arranged the pagan monuments collected from the
neighbourhood of the city--sepulchral and votive tablets, altar
dedications, fragments of imperial rescripts and edicts, and other
evidences of the power and splendour of the palmy days of Rome. On the
left are the humble epitaphs of the early Christians, rudely carved in
stone or scratched in plaster, and brought hither chiefly from the
crypts of the Catacombs. Of greater interest to him who would
rehabilitate the early ages of the church, and
To the sessions of sweet silent thought
Would summon up remembrance of things past,[667]
is this long corridor of inscriptions than any of the four thousand 396
apartments of that vast palace of the popes, with their priceless
bronzes, marbles, gems, frescoes, and other remains of classic art. He
will turn away from the noble galleries where the Laocoon forever
writhes in stone, and Apollo--lord of the unerring bow--watches his
arrow hurtling toward its mark, to the plain marble slabs that line
these walls. In the rude inscriptions here recorded he will discover
some of the strongest evidences of revealed religion and most striking
proofs of the purity of the faith, simplicity of worship, and
uncorrupted doctrines of the early church. Thus primitive Christianity
lifts its solemn protest in these halls of wealth and power, in the
very palace of the popes, against the anti-Christian system of which
they are the representatives.
Here the monuments of pagan and of Christian Rome confront each other.
The spectator stands between two worlds of widest divergence, and
cannot but be struck with the immense contrast between them. “I have
spent,” says M. Rochette, “many entire days in this sanctuary of
antiquity, where the sacred and profane stand face to face in the
written monuments preserved to us, as in the days when paganism and
Christianity, striving with all their powers, were engaged in mortal
conflict.”[668] On the one side are recorded the pride and pomp of
worldly rank, the lofty titles and manifold distinctions of every
class, from divinities to slaves. The undying historic names of Rome’s
mighty conquerors, the leaders of her cohorts and legions, mingle with
those of the proud patrician citizens, and alike display on their
sepulchral slabs the august array of prænomen, nomen, and cognomen,
which attest their lofty social position or civil power.[669] The 397
costly carving and elaborate bas reliefs of many of these monuments
indicate the wealth of him whom they commemorate. The elegantly turned
classic epitaph--with its elegiac hexameters breathing the stern and
cold philosophy of the Stoa, or an utter blankness of despair
concerning the future, or, perchance, a querulous and passionate
complaining against the gods--shows how the races without the
knowledge of the true God met the awful mystery of death. The numerous
altars to all the fabled deities of the Pantheon, the vaunting
inscriptions and lofty attributes ascribed to the shadowy brood of
Olympus--“unconquered, greatest, and best”--read, by the light of
to-day, like an unconscious satire on the high pretensions of those
vanished powers. The fragmentary edicts of the emperors, the numerous
military trophies, and the records of complicated political orders,
indicate the might and majesty of the Empire in the days of its utmost
power and splendour.
On the other side of the corridor are the humble epitaphs of the
despised and persecuted Christians, many of which, by their rudeness,
their brevity, and often their marks of ignorance and haste, confirm
the truth of the Scripture, that “not many mighty, not many noble, are
called.” Yet these “short and simple annals of the poor” speak to the
heart with a power and pathos compared with which the loftiest classic
eloquence seems cold and empty. It is a fascinating task to spell out
the sculptured legends of the Catacombs--the vast graveyard of the
primitive church, which seems to give up its dead at our questioning,
to bear witness concerning the faith and hope of the Golden Age of
Christianity. As we muse upon these half-effaced inscriptions-- 398
Rudely written, but each letter
Full of hope, and yet of heart-break,
Full of all the tender pathos
Of the Here and the Hereafter--
we are brought face to face with the church of the early centuries,
and are enabled to comprehend its spirit better than by means of any
other evidence extant. These simple epitaphs speak no conventional
language like the edicts of the emperors, the monuments of the mighty,
or even the writings of the Fathers; they utter the cry of the human
heart in the hours of its deepest emotion; they bridge the gulf of
time, and make us feel ourselves akin with the suffering, sorrowing,
yet triumphant Christians of the primitive ages.
These inscriptions were found _in situ_ in the explorations of the
Catacombs, or were dug up in vineyards in the vicinity of the city.
They have been diligently collected by antiquarians for the last three
hundred years. Before the year 1578 there were not a thousand
Christian inscriptions extant in all Italy. Of these not one was
derived from the Catacombs, and the earliest date was the year 533.
With all its boasted veneration for the past, and professed devotion
to the antiquities of primitive Christianity, the Church of Rome
allowed the memory of the Catacombs, the shrine and sanctuary of the
faith in the early centuries, to be as completely forgotten as the
site of Troy; and even after their rediscovery many of their principal
records of the past were wantonly destroyed or recklessly lost through
the ignorance or carelessness of their self-constituted guardians and
preservers. Numerous invaluable inscriptions have perished from the
effects of time; many have been scattered throughout the public and 399
private collections of Europe; and many more have been defaced or
ruined by the feet of generations of worshippers in the churches of
whose pavements they form a part. Bosio describes many monuments
extant in his day of which De Rossi saw only the fragments, and the
latter pathetically deplores the destruction and devastation of those
precious relics of Christian antiquity.[670]
Christian epigraphy, however, was not altogether neglected during the
Middle Ages. A manuscript collection of epitaphs found at Einsiedlen,
and attributed to the ninth century, is partly Christian; and another,
found at Kloster Newburg, is exclusively so. A manuscript in St.
Mark’s Library at Venice contains about a hundred and fifty early
Christian epitaphs. The first collection after the revival of letters
was made by Pietro Sabini, and another was published by Onofrio
Panvini. Leo X. commanded Raphael, the _capo architetto_ of St.
Peter’s, to preserve from injury the inscriptions--_res lapidaria_--of
the older structure; but no systematic attempt at their preservation
was made till Benedict XIV. appointed Francesco Brambini to that task.
He collected a large number in the long gallery of the Vatican; but
they were not arranged till the close of the last century, when they
were classified by the distinguished archæologist Geatano Marini at 400
the command of Pius VI. A new collection was begun in the Lateran
Museum by Padre Marchi, which has been greatly enlarged and admirably
classified and arranged by Cavaliere De Rossi. There are also other
collections in the Collegio Romano, and in the Kircherian and other
Museums. Many sepulchral slabs are also affixed to the walls or
inserted in the pavement of the churches of St. Paul, St. Gregory, St.
Laurence, St. Mark, St. Maria in Trastevere, and in a few others in
Rome.[671]
That distinguished scholar and epigraphist, De Rossi, has passed
through the crucible of his critical examination all the extant
inscriptions of the first six centuries found in the neighbourhood of
Rome. In the first volume of his _Inscriptiones Christianæ_ he gives
all those with consular dates, thirteen hundred and seventy-four in
number. He designs giving in future volumes the remainder of the
series, classified according to their doctrinal, historical, or other
characteristics. He treats the subject with the utmost candour and
moderation, and illustrates these frequently obscure topics with
exhaustive and various scholarship. There are now over eleven thousand
of these epitaphs extant, which number is being continually increased
by the progressive exploration of the Catacombs. From an analysis of
their general characteristics and appearance the following results are
derived.
The inscriptions are generally engraved on marble slabs from one to
three feet long and one foot high, which are used to close the graves
of the dead; many, however, are mere scratches on the soft surface of
the plaster, hardened in drying; and some are written with red or 401
black paint, or, more rarely, with charcoal. The letters vary from
half an inch to four inches in height, and the incised surface is
frequently coloured with a reddish pigment. Prudentius, alluding to
this practice of chiseling the letters in stone, calls upon the
faithful to “wash with their tears the furrows of those marble
slabs.”[672]
The epitaphs are for the most part written in uncial characters,
frequently without any separation of the words,[673] although
sometimes they are divided by spaces, points, or leaves. They
frequently abound also in contractions and monogrammatic
abbreviations, imposed by limit of space or economy of labour, as in
the following figure:
[Illustration: Fig. 122.--“Gemella sleeps in peace.”]
Although sometimes well cut, the inscriptions are often wretchedly 402
executed, presenting a straggling and scarce legible scrawl, as in the
following examples, the second of which indicates a transition into
the later cursive character.
[Illustration: Fig. 123.--“Ligurius Successus, in peace.”]
[Illustration: DOMITI
IN PACE
LEA FECIT.
Fig. 124.--“Domitius in peace. Lea erected this.”[674]]
This ancient epigraphy often betrays extreme ignorance, and sets at
defiance all the laws of grammatical construction. The spelling is
frequently atrocious, and the general style and character utterly
barbarous, rendering the meaning extremely obscure or altogether
undecipherable. The language was much corrupted by the foreigners and
slaves who formed so large a portion of the population. The later
examples are often marked by the absence of terminal inflexions and
the use of prepositions instead, and by other indications of the
falling to pieces of the stately Latin tongue, which had been the
vehicle of such a noble literature and such lofty eloquence, and of
its degeneracy from the purity of the Augustan era into the mixed 403
dialect of the Middle Ages, from which the modern Italian has
sprung.[675]
The barbarous Latinity of the following indicates the degradation into
which the language had fallen:
IIBER QVI VIXI QVAI QVO
PARE IVA ANOIVE I ANORV
M PLVI MINVI XXX I PACE.
Read: _Liber, qui vixit cum compare sua annum I. Annorum plus
minus XXX. In pace._
Liber, who lived with his wife one year. He lived thirty years,
more or less. In peace.
Sometimes the inscription is found upside down, being probably thus
placed by one unable to read. In the following example, from the
Catacomb of St. Priscilla, a dove was afterward added, to correct in
part the mistake of the ignorant fossor. Probably the epitaph may
have been scratched on the stone by the dim light struggling through a 404
_luminare_, but when brought to the grave it was too dark to see
which side was uppermost.
[Illustration: Fig. 125.--Inscription upside down.]
In one example in the Lapidarian Gallery, represented in Fig. 126, the
inscription is actually written backwards, like Hebrew text. Probably,
as Maitland suggests, the stonecutter took the impression on marble
from a written copy, and was too ignorant to perceive that it was, of
course, reversed.
[Illustration: Fig. 126.--Reversed Inscription.]
Read: _Elia Vincentia. qui vixit an ... et mesis II, cum
Virginis que vixit annu diem._
Elia Vincentia, who lived ... years and two months, and lived
with Virginius a year and a day.
Most of the early epitaphs are of touching brevity and simplicity.
Frequently only a single word, the name given in baptism, is recorded
on the tomb, as in Fig. 127, which exhibits also the Christian symbols
of the monogram, cross, and palm.
[Illustration: Fig. 127.--“Cassta.” (_sic._)] 405
In Fig. 128 the names of three individuals appear on the same slab,
which is recognizable as Christian only by the symbol of the Good
Shepherd:
[Illustration: Fig. 128.--“Septimina, Aurelius, Galymedes.”]
Frequently the phrase IN PACE, or DORMIT IN PACE, is added, in
attestation of the Christian faith of the deceased, (see Figs.
122-124;) or, more briefly still, the word LOCVS is prefixed, as LOCVS
PRIMI--“The place of Primus,”[676] as if descriptive of the last long
home, the house appointed for all living.
The later inscriptions are frequently far removed from this naive
simplicity, being inflated in style and elaborate in execution,
attesting the increased wealth and growing pride of the Christian
community. Of these we shall hereafter have frequent examples. One
very remarkable series is that executed, under the direction of
Pope Damasus, in the latter part of the fourth century. He composed 406
numerous metrical epitaphs in honour of the martyrs, which were
engraved in marble in a singularly elegant decorated character,
designed by his secretary, Furius Dionysius Filocalus, who was also an
accomplished artist. Hence the letters of these Damasine inscriptions
are as distinct a characteristic in early Christian epigraphy as the
celebrated Aldine type in the bibliography of the revival of learning.
There are few of the Catacombs where these inscriptions have not been
found; and De Rossi has been enabled thereby to reconstruct some
valuable historical monuments from a few fragments, just as a skilful
anatomist will reconstruct a skeleton from a portion of the vertebræ.
Some of the most important of these have already been given; others
will hereafter occur. The Latinity is often of a school-boy
mediocrity; but they are of great value as determining the identity
and elucidating the history of many important Christian tombs.
Most of the epitaphs, as we might naturally expect, were written in
Latin. Nevertheless, a considerable proportion are in Greek, to which
circumstance several causes conduced. Although Latin was the language
of the mass of the Roman population, yet Greek was also spoken largely
by the educated classes. We know, too, from the pages of Juvenal[677]
and contemporary writers, that Rome swarmed with numbers of slaves and
others from Greece and Asia Minor, who, although they might be able to
speak Latin, would find it very difficult to write it. Moreover, Greek
seems to have been in the early centuries a sort of ecclesiastical
language at Rome, just as Latin is now throughout Roman Catholic
Christendom. It was in this language that the glad tidings of the new 407
evangel were first declared, and in it St. Paul wrote his epistle to
the Roman church. The new wine of the gospel flowed from that classic
chalice which so long had poured libations to the gods. Probably a
religious sentiment led to the adoption, even by those to whom it was
unfamiliar, of the language in which their holiest teachings and
highest hopes had been originally conveyed, and in which the Apostolic
Fathers and the greatest apologists, theologians, and historians of
the early church had fought the battles of the faith. The responses of
the Roman liturgy long continued to be uttered in this tongue, and
traces of this practice still remain in the _Kyrie, eleeson! Christe,
eleeson!_ of the Order of the Mass. This primitive Greek influence has
also left its indelible impression on our language in such words as
church, bishop, presbyter, eucharist, baptism, catechism, liturgy,
psalm, and hymn.
Sometimes the humble mourner had to be content with recording the
Latin words in Greek characters, as in the following examples: ΛΕΙΒΕΡΕ
ΜΑΞΙΜΙΛΛΕ ΚΟΙΟΥΓΕ ΑΜΑΝΤΙϹϹΙΜΑΕ ΦΙΚΙΤ ΕΝ ΠΑΚΕ. Read: _Liberæ Maximillæ
conjugi amantissimæ, vixit in pace_--“To Libera Maximilla, a most
loving wife. She lived in peace.” ΒΕΝΕ ΜΕΡΕΝΤΙ ΦΙΛΙΕ ΘΕΟΔΩΡΕ ΚΥΕ ΒΙΞΙΤ
ΜΗϹΙϹ ΧΙ ΔΙΕΣ ΧVΙΙΙ. Read: _Bene merenti filiæ Theodoræ, qui vixit
menses XI, dies XVIII_--“To our well-deserving daughter Theodora, who
lived eleven months and eighteen days.”[678]
In copying Latin inscriptions many errors arose from the mason
mistaking the Roman characters for similar Greek ones, as A for 408
Λ, T for Γ, and the Latin H and P for the Greek _Eta_ and _Rho_. The
Greek influence is also seen in the altered inflexion of Latin words,
as _maritous_ for _maritos_, _filies_ for _filias_, and the like. The
proportion of Greek inscriptions among those before the time of
Constantine is estimated at one eighth.[679] After that period it is
less, indicating the gradual decline of Greek influence. In Gaul and
the western provinces the proportion is not so great. At Autun there
is only one Greek epitaph.
Of the eleven thousand extant inscriptions only thirteen hundred and
seventy-four bear dates. The period of the others can be only
approximately determined by a comparison with those whose ages are
known; by a careful examination of the execution, language, and
general sentiment, those of earlier date being less florid and more
classical in style; by the presence or absence of certain symbols, as
the sacred monogram, of which no example is known before the period of
Constantine; and by the position in the Catacombs, those in the lower
_piani_ being of later date.
Judging by these criteria, De Rossi has arrived at the following
conclusions: About six thousand of the epitaphs belong to the first
four centuries, and are from the Catacombs; the rest were found above
ground. Of these six thousand, about four thousand are before the year
324 A. D., when Constantine became sole emperor.
Only one of the _dated_ inscriptions belongs to the first century,
(A. D. 71,) two are of the second, (A. D. 107 and 111,) and 409
twenty-three of the third; the fourth century is represented by over
five hundred; the fifth by nearly as many; the sixth by about three
hundred, principally in its earlier half; and the seventh by only
seven.
Of these dated inscriptions, all before the year 313 A. D., when the
edict of Milan gave peace to the church, are from the Catacombs. After
that event subterranean sepulture rapidly decreased. Of the epitaphs
bearing dates between the years 313 A. D. and 337 A. D., two thirds
are from the Catacombs, and one third from the basilicas and other
places of burial above ground. From A. D. 337 to the time of Julian
the proportion of each was about equal. Of the dated inscriptions of
the last quarter of this century, about one fourth are subterranean.
Of those between the years A. D. 400 and A. D. 410, not one in ten is
from the Catacombs, and after that period not one subterranean example
occurs.[680] Sometimes, in epitaphs of late date, the name of the
church and the position of the tomb are mentioned, as in the
following: DEPOSITVS IN BASILICA SANCTORVM NASARI ET NABORIS SECVNDV
ARCV IVXTA FENESTRA, (A. D. 404,)--“Buried in the basilica of Sts.
Nasarius and Nabor, in the second arch near the window;” DEPOSITA IN
CONTRA COLONNA VII, (A. D. 452,)--“Buried in the space opposite the
seventh column.”
The Christian era was not adopted as a note of time till after the
sixth century. The dates of the Roman inscriptions were therefore
indicated by the names of the consuls for the year, generally written
in an abbreviated form.[681] Frequently the addition VC., for _Vir 410
Clarissimus_--“An illustrious man”--or, in the case of imperial
consuls, DN., for _Dominus Noster_--“Our Lord”--also occurs.[682]
In one instance the epithet DIVVS--“Divine”--assumed by the emperors, is
employed in a Christian epitaph, in unthinking imitation of a heathen
formula.
This mode of indicating dates, to which the name hypatic (from ὕπατος,
consul) has been applied, continued in vogue till the latter part of
the sixth century, and is the last recognition of that venerable
institution, the Roman consulate. The year of the emperor, which was
enjoined by Justinian, A. D. 537, for the dating of all public acts,
appears after that time.
Towards the close of the fourth century the date is sometimes
indicated by the name of the presiding bishop of the church at Rome,
as SVB LIBERIO EPISCOPO, SVB DAMASO EPISCOPO, or TEMPORIBVS SANCTI
INNOCENTII, the last expression used probably after the death of the
pope named. The names of the bishops of other dioceses than that of
Rome are also used, an indication of the parity of episcopal rank in
the primitive ages. Thus we have in the year A. D. 397 the name
PASCASIO EPISCOPO, according to De Rossi, probably the bishop of an
ancient diocese in the immediate vicinity of the city. In the sixth
century the names of certain priests, and even deacons, were used as
local marks of time.
In a large number of inscriptions the day of the month is mentioned,
although the year is not. Cardinal Wiseman attributes this to the 411
custom of commemorating the anniversary of the death of the departed
as that of his birth into a higher life.[683] But a similar usage is
observed also in pagan epitaphs; and Dr. McCaul has well remarked[684]
that it is the day of burial that is mentioned more frequently than
that of death. The date of birth is seldom given,[685] but the length
of life is almost invariably indicated, frequently with great
minuteness. Not only are the number of years, months, and days
mentioned, but often, with loving exactness, the hours, half-hours,
and even the “scruples” or twenty-fourths of an hour, as in the
following example: BENE MERENTI IN PACE SILVANA QVAE HIC DORMIT VIXIT
ANN. XXI. MENS. III. HOR. IV. SCRVPLOS VI.--“To the well-deserving
Silvana, who sleeps here in peace. She lived twenty-one years, three
months, four hours, and six scruples.” Six scruples are a quarter of
an hour.
When the exact number of years was unknown, the expressions PLVS
MINVS, ΠΛΕΟΝ ΕΛΑΤΤΟΝ--“more or less”--were used.[686] Frequently the
duration of married life is also mentioned with extreme definiteness, 412
as in the following:[687] SILVANA NICIATI MARITO BENE MERENTI CUM QVO
VIXIT ANNIS TRIBVS MANSIBVS DVABVS HORIS UNDECIM,--“Silvana to her
well-deserving husband Niciatis, with whom she lived three years, two
months, eleven hours.”
The day of the month is generally indicated in the ordinary way with
reference to the divisions of Calends, Nones, and Ides.[688] The days
of the week are mentioned by their usual classical names, as _Dies
Solis_, Sunday; _Dies Lunæ_, Monday; _Dies Martis_, Tuesday; _Dies
Mercurii_, Wednesday; _Dies Jovis_, Thursday; _Dies Veneris_, Friday;
and _Dies Saturni_, Saturday. Sometimes, however, the first and last
days of the week are indicated by the Christian designations _Dies
Dominica_, the day of the Lord, and _Dies Sabbati_, the day of rest.
The Christian inscriptions also habitually ignore all mention of the
birth-place or country of the deceased, as if in recognition that the
Christian’s true country is beyond the grave.[689] As if, also, in
obedience to the injunction to forsake father and mother in order to
follow after Christ, details of family or descent, which are so
conspicuous in some heathen inscriptions, almost never occur. 413
Mr. Burgon has briefly expressed the principal points of contrast
between modern epitaphs and those of the early Christians, as follows:
“They never mention the date of birth,[690] we seldom omit it. They
constantly record the day of burial, we never. They seldom mention the
year of death, we never omit it. We never allude to burial, they
always. They frequently record the years of married life, we never. In
theirs the survivors appear prominently, even by name, and are
sometimes mentioned exclusively. With us the dead are always named,
the living seldom.”[691]
There are among these inscriptions several examples of _opisthographæ_,
as they are called,[692] that is, Christian epitaphs written on slabs
that had originally borne one of pagan character. The latter are
generally defaced or obliterated, filled with cement or turned to the
wall, or placed upside down or sideways, so as to indicate their
rejection by the Christian artist. Sometimes, however, they are still
legible, but they have manifestly no connection with Christian
sepulture whatever. Some are not funeral epitaphs at all, and some
which are commemorate an entire family, though affixed to a single
Christian grave. The appropriation of heathen monuments for the
reception of Christian inscriptions will appear less strange when we
reflect that the very temples of the gods have been the quarries from
which many of the churches and palaces of later times were built.
Sometimes, as in the example given in Fig. 59, the heathen formula of
consecration to the “Divine Spirits”--D. M., for _Dis Manibus_--is 414
obliterated, and the sacred monogram gives the slab a Christian
character. Occasionally, however, these letters appear in manifestly
Christian inscriptions, in which case Fabretti and others have
maintained that they were capable of the interpretation _Deo Magno_ or
_Deo Maximo_--“To the Supreme God.” With still less probability M.
Rochette renders them _Divis Martyribus_--“To the divine martyrs,” for
which expression no countenance is to be found in the entire range of
the Catacombs. Both interpretations are entirely gratuitous
suppositions, for which Christian epigraphy furnishes absolutely no
warrant. It is more probable that they were careless or conventional
imitations of a common heathen formula, which was occasionally adopted
by the Christians without thought, or perhaps in ignorance of its
meaning, just as they also imitated the winged genii and other classic
accessories of pagan art in the ornamentation of the Catacombs. Dr.
McCaul has suggested that the Roman mortuary sculptors probably kept
sepulchral slabs on sale, as is often done now, with the common
formulæ already engraved, which were purchased without regard to their
appropriateness, and that in filling up the inscription the Christians
sometimes neglected to obliterate the letters of pagan significance.
Possibly, also, some lingering remnants of heathen superstition may
sometimes be indicated by their use.
The letters BM., which frequently occur in these inscriptions, have
been erroneously interpreted as standing for _Beatus_ or _Beata
Martyr_, for which there is no authority whatever. They unquestionably
indicate the ever-recurring phrase, both in pagan and Christian
epigraphy, _Bene Merenti_--“To the well-deserving,” or _Bonæ
Memoriæ_--“Of happy memory.”
[666] It is eight hundred feet in extent, and contains about
three thousand inscriptions.
[667] Shakspeare’s _Sonnets_, No. XXX.
[668] _Tableau des Catacombes_, p. x.
[669] Cf. Juv., “Gaudent prænomine molles auriculæ.” These are
very rare in Christian inscriptions. See _postea_.
[670] Demolita et horrendum in modum vastata.--_Prolegomena_ to
_Inscr. Christ._ He has often to complain that he is unable to
read part of the inscription:--Reliqua legere haud potui.
Marangoni tells us that thousands of epigraphs were taken from
the Catacombs to the church of St. Maria in Trastevere; seven
cartloads to St. Giovanni de Fiorentini; two cartloads to another
church of St. Giovanni in Rome; yet there are at present only
about twenty in the portico of the former and not _one_ in either
of the two latter churches. See Heman’s _Sac. Art. in Italy_,
pp. 58, 59.
[671] The latter works of Fabretti, Muratori, Orelli, Martigny,
Cardinal Mai, and Perret contain numerous examples. These have
all been laid under tribute in preparing these pages.
[672] Nos pio fletu, date, perluamus
Marmorum sulcos.--_Peristeph._, hymn vii.
[673] We append the following examples by way of illustration:
CALEVIVSBENDIDITAVINTRISOMVVBIPOSITIERANT
VINIETCALVILIVSETLVCIVSINPA.
Calevius sold to Avinius a place for three bodies, where both
Cavilius and Lucius had (already) been placed in peace.--De
Rossi, _Inscr. Christ._, No. 489.
ΤΡΙΑΚΟΝΤΑΠΕΝΤΑΕΤΗϹΕΝΘΑΔΕΚΙΤΕΥΠΑΤΙΑ
ΘΥΓΑΤΗΡΑΝΤΩΝΙΟΥΚΩϹΤΑΝΤΙΝΟΠΟΛΙΤΙϹϹΑ.
Here lies Hypatia, thirty-five years of age, daughter of
Antonius, a native of Constantinople.--De Rossi, No. 583.
The originals are more difficult to decipher, but with a little
practice it becomes comparatively easy. Sometimes the letters are
of greatly varying sizes, as in the following:
LoCvSavgvStileCToRis.
The place of Augustus, the Reader.
[674] See, also, the uncouthness of the epitaph of Martyrus, Fig.
19, and of Tesaris, Fig. 58.
[675] The distinctions of case gradually disappear, the
accusative and genitive are often used indiscriminately, and the
former is frequently substituted for the ablative, as in the
following phrases, _cum uxorem_, _cum fratrem_, _sine aliquam_,
_pro caritatem_, _decessit de seculum_, etc. The transition into
Italian is indicated by the prefixing the letter _i_, as in the
words _ispiritus_, _iscribet_; by affixing _e_, as _posuete_ for
_posuit_, and by the general softening of the pronunciation, as
_santa_ for _sancta_, _meses_ for _menses_, and _sesies_ for
_sexies_. The names _Stefano_ and _Filipo_ have also a very
modern appearance.
The misplacing of the aspirate is seen to be by no means a
cockney peculiarity, as in the following examples:--_Hossa_,
_hordine_, _Hosiris_, _helephantus_, _post hobitum_, _Hoctobris_,
_heterna_, etc. In the following the _h_ is omitted: _Onorius_,
_ora_, _omo_, _ilaris_, _ospitium_, _onestus_, _oc_, and _ic_.
The permutation of the letters _t_ and _d_, and _v_ and _b_, is
also common, as _adque_ for _atque_, and _bibit_ for _vivit_. We
also find such forms as _vicxit_, _visit_, _bissit_, or _visse_,
for _vixit_; _michi_ for _mihi_; _pake_ or _pache_ for _pace_;
_opsequia_ for _obsequia_; _quisquenti_ for _quiescenti_;
_depossio_ for _depositio_; _vocitus_ for _vocatus_; _pulla_ for
_puella_; _omniorum_ for _omnium_; _restutus_ for _restitutus_;
_pride_ for _pridie_; _que_ or _qae_ for _quæ_, and the like.
Many of these peculiarities, however, are common to later pagan
as well as to Christian inscriptions.
[676] See Fig. 45.
[677] See his “Græculus esuriens,” (_Sat._, iii, 78,) and the
expression, “In Tiberem defluxit Orontes.”--_Ib._, 62.
[678] Sometimes the two languages are strangely blended in the
same epitaph; and occasionally we find a Greek inscription in
Latin characters, as in the following: PRIMA IRENE SOI.
Read: Πρῖμα εἰρήνη σοι--“Prima, peace to thee.”
[679] In the dated inscriptions the proportion is less, as the
Latin-speaking Christians would be the more likely to employ the
consular dates as indications of time.
[680] Of the four hundred Gaulish inscriptions in Le Blant few
bear dates, and of these none are earlier than the time of
Constantine. The first is of the year A. D. 334; the next, at
Autun, of the year A. D. 374. They are also more artificial and
rhetorical in style than those of Rome.
[681] For example, POL · II · ET · APR · II · COS, which,
expanded, reads thus: _Pollione iterum et Apro iterum
Consulibus_, that is, 176 A. D.
L · FAB · CIL · M · ANN · LIB · COS--_Lucio Fabio Cilone, Marco
Annio Libone Consulibus_, that is, 204 A. D. To save space we
have generally omitted the names of the consuls, giving merely
the date.
[682] Sometimes we have the forms VVCC., _Viri Clarissimi_;
DD. NN., _Domini Nostri_; and AVGG., or AAVVGG.,
_Augusti_.
[683] _Fabiola_, p. 146.
[684] _Christian Epitaphs_, Introd., p. xxii, note ✝. We are
indebted to this masterly prolegomena for several of the
illustrations cited.
[685] In one example it is minutely indicated thus: _Ora noctis_
· IIII. ··· VIII _Idus Madias die Saturnis luna vigesima Signo
Apiorno_,--“In the fourth hour of the night, the eighth day
before the Ides of May, the twentieth day of the Moon, in the
sign of Capricorn.” De Rossi regards this as an astrological
horoscope--a relic of heathen superstition.
[686] The greatest age we have observed in Christian epitaphs is
ninety-one years. See Fig. 19. The youngest is three
months--_Mens. III_. We have noticed in Muratori (p. 382, No. 5)
the following remarkable instance of longevity: _M. Flavius
Secundus filius fecit Flavio Secundo patri q. vixit ann. CXII, et
Flaviæ Urbanæ matri piæ vixit ann. CV_.--“M. Flavius Secundus,
the son, made this to Flavius Secundus, his father, who lived one
hundred and twelve years, and to his pious mother, (who) lived
one hundred and five years.” Kenrick quotes an epitaph of a child
of three and his mother (_mammula_) of eighty; and another of a
man of one hundred and two years, ninety of which were passed
without disease. The average duration of life, according to
Ulpian, was thirty years.
[687] The relationship is generally expressed by such phrases as
_vixit mecum_, _duravit mecum_,_ vixit in conjugio_, _fecit
mecum_, _fecit cum compare_. McCaul, _Christ. Epitaphs_,
Introd. xv.
[688] _Ib._, xxvii.
[689] Of 5,000 epitaphs in Squier’s Index, only forty-five
mention the country of the deceased. See one example, page 401,
second footnote, and also the following, of date A. D. 388:
_Rapetiga, medicus, civis Hispanus, qui vixit in pace annos
plus minus XXV_,--“Rapetiga, a physician, a citizen of Spain,
who lived in peace twenty-five years, more or less.”
[690] This is not quite correct.
[691] _Letters from Rome_, pp. 202, 203.
[692] From ὀπίσθιος and γράφω, _to write again_.
CHAPTER II. 415
THE DOCTRINAL TEACHINGS OF THE CATACOMBS.
“What insight into the familiar feelings and thoughts of the primitive
ages of the church,” remarks the learned and eloquent Dean
Stanley,[693] “can be compared with that afforded by the Roman
Catacombs! Hardly noticed by Gibbon or Mosheim, they yet give us a
likeness of those early times beyond that derived from any of the
written authorities on which Gibbon and Mosheim repose.... The
subjects of the painting and sculpture place before us the exact ideas
with which the first Christians were familiar; they remind us, by what
they do not contain, of the ideas with which the first Christians were
not familiar.... He who is thoroughly steeped in the imagery of the
Catacombs will be nearer to the thought of the early church than he
who has learned by heart the most elaborate treatise even of
Tertullian or of Origen.”
By the study of the inscriptions, paintings, and sculpture of this
subterranean city of the dead, we may follow the development of
Christian thought from century to century; we may trace the successive
changes of doctrine and discipline; we may read the irrefragable
testimony, written with a pen of iron in the rock forever, of the
purity of the primitive faith, and of the gradual corruption which it
has undergone.
In this era of critical investigation of the very foundations of the
faith it will be well to examine this vast body of Christian evidences 416
as to the doctrinal teachings of the primitive times, which has been
handed down from the believers living in or near the apostolic age,
and thus providentially preserved in these subterranean excavations,
as a perpetual memorial of the faith and practice of the golden prime
of Christianity.
While we should not expect to find in these inscriptions a complete
system of theology, we would certainly look for some definite
expression regarding the religious belief of those who wrote these
memorials of the dead. We would expect some reference to the lives of
the departed, to the virtues of their character, and to the hopes of
the survivors as to their future condition in the spirit-world. In
this expectation we are not disappointed. We find in these epitaphs a
body of evidence on the doctrines and discipline of the primitive
church, whose value it is scarcely possible to overestimate. We are
struck with the infinite contrast of their sentiment to that of the
pagan sepulchral monuments, and also by the conspicuous absence, in
those of the early centuries and purer period of Christianity, of the
doctrines by which the church of Rome is characterized. We shall also
find references to some of the heresies, which, like plague spots,
alas! so soon began to infect the church,[694] and some of which even
found distinguished ecclesiastical patronage.[695]
The Church of Rome lays especial claim to the traditions of the early
ages and the antiquities of the Catacombs as proofs of the apostolic
character of her peculiar dogmas and usages. But these ancient records 417
are a palimpsest which she has written all over with her own glosses
and interpretations; and when the ordeal of modern criticism revives
the real documents and removes the accumulation of error, the
testimony of the past is strikingly opposed to the pretensions of the
Roman See and the teachings of Romish doctrine. The distinguished
scholarship, laborious research, and archæological skill of such
eminent authorities as De Rossi, Pitra, Garrucci, and other Roman
_savants_, only furnish the weapons for the refutation of many of
Rome’s most cherished beliefs. There are those, indeed, who carry to
these investigations the faculty of seeing what they wish to see, and
what no others can perceive. It not unfrequently happens, also, that
extreme credulity and superstition are found united with great
learning and high scientific attainments. The effect, however, of the
honest examination of this testimony by a candid mind is seen in the
case of Mr. Hemans, the learned author of “Ancient Christianity and
Sacred Art in Italy.” This gentleman, although a pervert from the
Anglican communion to that of Rome, and in strong sympathy with many
of its institutions, as is apparent from his interesting volume, felt
compelled by the historical and monumental testimony of the Catacombs,
and of early Christian art and literature, to retrace his steps, and,
however reluctantly to condemn and abandon the faith he had espoused.
Protestantism, therefore, has nothing to fear from the closest
investigation of these evidences of primitive Christianity. They offer
no warrant whatever for the characteristic doctrines and practice of
the modern Church of Rome. There is not a single inscription, nor
painting, nor sculpture, before the middle of the fourth century, that
lends the least countenance to her arrogant assumptions and erroneous 418
dogmas. All previous to this date are remarkable for their evangelical
character; and it is only after that period that the distinctive
peculiarities of Romanism begin to appear. The wholesome breath of
persecution and the “sweet uses of adversity” in the early ages tended
to preserve the moral purity of the church; but the enervating
influence of imperial favour and the influx of wealth and luxury, led
to corruptions of practice and errors of doctrine. Her trappings of
worldly pomp and power were a Nessus garment which empoisoned her
spiritual life. Hence the Catacombs, the rude cradle of the early
faith, became also the grave of much of its simplicity and purity.
In the investigation of early Christian epigraphy, therefore, the
determination of dates is of the utmost importance, as it is only
inscriptions of the earlier and acknowledged purer period of the
church which can bear authoritative testimony as to primitive
doctrine. We shall, therefore, first examine in chronological order
_all_ those bearing dates earlier than the fourth century which have
any doctrinal significance, and then glean the evidence of later
examples as to the antiquity of Romanist teachings. We will take the
inscriptions as given in his great work,[696] by De Rossi, the most
eminent authority on this subject; but while accepting his facts, and
acknowledging his candour and honesty of research, which qualities we
will seek to imitate, we cannot in all cases accept his conclusions.
The first dated inscription possessing any doctrinal character occurs
in the year 217.[697] It is taken from a large sarcophagus found in
the _Via Labicana_, and is of great interest as indicating the lofty 419
social position and honourable offices of the deceased as a
member of the imperial household, as well as the devout confidence of
his pious freedmen in his spiritual beatification. The upper portion
of the following inscription, that in larger type, is engraved on the
front of the sarcophagus, and that in smaller characters on the back.
The use of a sarcophagus is an indication of the wealth of the
deceased.
M · AVRELIO · AVGG · LIB · PROSENETI
A C V B I C V L O · A V G ·
P R O C · T H E S A V R O R V M
P R O C · P A T R I M O N I · P R O C ·
M V N E R V M · P R O C · V I N O R V M
O R D I N A T O A D I V O C O M M O D O
I N KASTRENSE P A T R O N O PIISSIMO
L I B E R T I · B E N E M E R E N T I
S A R C O P H A G V M D E S V O ·
A D O R N A V E R V N T ·
PROSENES RECEPTVS ADDEVM · V · NON ····· SSA ········ NIA PRAESENTE ·
[ET · EXTRICATO · II
REGREDIENS IN VRBE AB EXPEDITI ONIBVS SCRIPSIT AMPELIVS LIB.
--_Inscrip. Christ._, No. 5.
To Marcus Aurelius Prosenes, freedman of the two Augusti, of the
bed-chamber of Augustus, Procurator of the Treasures, Procurator
of the Patrimony, Procurator of the Presents, Procurator of the
Wines, appointed by the deified Commodus to duty in the camp, a
most affectionate Patron. For him, well-deserving, his freedmen
provided (this) sarcophagus at their own cost.
Prosenes received to God, on the fifth day before the Nones of--
Præsens and Extricatus (being consuls) for the second time.
Ampelius his freedman, returning to the city from the wars, wrote
(this inscription.)
We have here the earliest indication of doctrinal belief as to the 420
condition of the departed. It is not, however, a dark and gloomy
apprehension of purgatorial fires, but, on the contrary, the joyous
confidence of immediate reception into the presence of God.[698] The
retention of the pagan title of the emperor, “the deified Commodus,”
is an anomalous feature in a Christian monument, although doubtless it
is merely the unthinking imitation of a common epigraphic formula.
Accompanying an inscription of date A. D. 234, is the first example of
the symbols, afterward so common, the fish and the anchor, but no
other distinctively Christian feature. In the next year, A. D. 235,
occurs the following epitaph, in which there is possibly an intimation
of immortality in the expression _de sæculo recessit_--“retired
from the world,” or “from the age.”[699] AVRELIA DVLCISSIMA FILIA
QVAE DE SAECVLO RECESSIT VIXIT ANN · XV · M · IIII · SEVERO ET QVINTIN
COSS,--“Aurelia, our very sweet daughter, who retired from the
world, Severus and Quintinus being consuls. She lived fifteen years
and four months.” The epithet “very sweet daughter” is peculiarly
appropriate to the Christian character, although common also on pagan
tombs.
In the year A. D. 238, on a sarcophagus which bears the first dated
representation of the Good Shepherd, we find the following touching
inscription. It conveys nothing doctrinal beyond the phrase “most
devout,” or “God-loving,” expressive of the youthful piety of the
deceased. ΗΡΑΚΛΙΤΟϹ Ο ΘΕΟΦΙΛΕϹΤΑΤΟϹ ΕΖΗϹΕΝ ΕΤ(η) Η ΠΑΡΑ Η(μέρας) 421
ΙΓ ΕΝΟϹΗϹΕΝ ΗΜ(ε)Ρ(ας) ΙΒ.... ΞΑΝΘΙΑϹ ΠΑΤΗΡ ΤΕΚΝΩ ΓΛΥΚΥΤΕΡΩ ΦΩΤΟϹ ΚΑΙ
ΖΩΗϹ--“The very devout Heraclitus lived eight years and thirteen days.
He was ill twelve days.... Xanthias his father, to his son, sweeter
than light and life.” The mention of the duration of the illness is
very rare in these epitaphs. The yearning affection of the bereaved
father is beautifully expressed in the last clause.
The next example merely gives the consular date, A. D. 249, and the
assurance that the deceased sleeps, DORMIT--a distinctively Christian
synonym for death. In the year A. D. 268 occurs a fragment on which
one may with difficulty decipher the inscription by the parents “to
their well-deserving son, who lived twelve years and eleven months.”
The chief interest attaches to the last line: VIBAS INTER SANCTIS
(_sic_) IHA--“May you live among the holy ones.”
The meaning of the last three letters is unknown. They have been
interpreted as standing for _in pace_ or _et have_; but the last
rarely, if ever, occurs in Christian epigraphy. Dr. McCaul ingeniously
conjectures that the last word is intended for _sanctissimas_, or
“most holy ones,” the H being an ill cut M. This natural ejaculation
of the sorrowing friends, of which we shall find occasional examples,
is certainly no indication of the later Romish practice of prayers for
the dead, or of the intercession of the saints. On this slab are also
the first known examples of the dove, olive branch, and vase.
The next dated inscription, of the year 269, A. D., is of a very
barbarous character--Latin words in Greek letters, not engraved, but
merely painted on the slab. It is evidently, as is indicated by its
wretched grammar and orthography, the production of extreme ignorance. 422
It requires a strong dogmatic prepossession to detect in its
incoherent language any meaning beyond the attestation of the sanctity
of character of the deceased. After giving the date, it reads thus:
ΛΕΥΚΕϹ · ΦΙΛΕΙΕ ϹΕΒΗΡΕ · ΚΑΡΕϹϹΕΜΕ · ΠΟϹΟΥΕΤΕ · ΕΔ · ΕΙϹΠΕΙΡΕΙΤΩ ·
ϹΑΝΚΤΩ · ΤΟΥΩ · Read, _Leuces filiæ Severæ carissimæ posuit et
spiritui sancto tuo_,--“Leuces erected this (memorial) to her very
dear daughter, and to thy (_sic_) holy spirit.”
Nothing further of a doctrinal character occurs till the year 291,
when we find the following barbarous example. The grammar and spelling
are atrocious, and the division of the words quite arbitrary: EX
VIRGINEO TVO BENE MECO VIXISTI LIB ENIC ONIVGA INNOCENTISSE MACERVONIA
SILVANA REFRIGERA CVM SPIRITA SANCTA. Read, _Ex virginio tuo bene
mecum vixisti libens in conjuga innocentissima Macervonia Silvana.
Refrigera cum spiritis sanctis_--“Macervonia Silvana, thou didst live
well with me from thy maidenhood, rejoicing in most innocent wedlock.
Refresh (thyself) among the holy spirits.”
No candid interpretation can discover in the closing acclamation any
thing beyond the natural expression of a desire for the happiness of
the departed among the sanctified.
There is nothing, therefore, in any of the inscriptions of the first
three centuries--the ages of the purity of the faith--which can in the
least degree support the assumptions of Roman controversialists as to
the antiquity of Romish dogmas. Nor is there any indication of those
dogmas till the latter part of the fourth century, as will be evident
from a brief examination of the principal inscriptions having any
reference to doctrine before that period. In the year A. D. 302 we 423
find the following beautiful tribute of conjugal and filial affection,
which only, however, attests the high Christian character of the
deceased: DOMINO PATRI PIISSIMO AC DVLCISSIMO SECVNDO VXOR ET FILII
PRO PIETATE POSVERVNT--“To the highly venerable, most devout, and very
sweet father, Secundus. His wife and sons in expression of their
dutifulness have placed this slab.”
In the year A. D. 310, in the epitaph of a youth twenty-two years of
age, we find the beautiful euphemism for death, ACCERSITVS AB
ANGELIS--“Called away (literally, sent for) by angels.” There is
no doctrine of purgatory here. The Christian soul, like Lazarus, is
borne by angels to Abraham’s bosom, and not, like Dives, to tormenting
flames, albeit called of purgatorial efficacy to supplement the work
of Christ. In A. D. 329 occurs the still nobler expression, NATVS
EST LAVRENTIVS IN ETERNVM ANN XX · DORMIT IN PACE--“Laurentius
was born into eternity in the twentieth year of his age. He sleeps in
peace.”
Sometimes the word _natus_ refers to the new birth of spiritual
regeneration, and admission to the church by the rite of baptism.
Thus, in an example of date A. D. 338, a youth of twenty-four years of
age is said to have been born and died in the same year, though at the
interval of a few months. In A. D. 377 we find the expression COELESTI
RENATVS AQVA--“Born again of heavenly water.”
In the year A. D. 335 the chaste and modest character of a Christian
matron is commended, without any suggestion of the Romish notion of
the superior merit of virginity, as follows:
B · M · CVBICVLVM · AVRELIAE · MARTINAE · CASTISSIMAE ·
ADQVE. PVDICISSIMAE · FEMINAE · QVI · FECIT · IN · CONIVGIO ·
ANN · XXIII · D · XIIII--“To one well-deserving. The 424
sleeping-place of Aurelia Martina, a most chaste and modest
woman, who passed in wedlock twenty-three years, fourteen days.”
The primitive Christians had no doubt of the immediate happiness of
those who died in the faith. They were incapable of the blasphemous
thought that the atoning blood of Christ was insufficient to wash away
their guilt and that therefore they were doomed to penal fires,
Till the foul crimes done in their days of nature
Were burned and purged away.
All the expressions applied to the death of the righteous indicate the
assurance of their spirits’ peace and happiness. Thus, in addition to
the examples already given, we have, A. D. 339, BENE QVESQVENTI
(_sic_) IN PACE--“Resting well in peace;” A. D. 339, IN PACE DECESSIT,
A. D. 349, and A. D. 360, IBIT and EXIBIT IN PACE--“Departed in
peace;” A. D. 348, REQVIEVIT--“Entered into rest;” A. D. 353,
PAVSABIT--“Will repose;” A. D. 355, QVIESCIT--“He rests,” not
REQVIESCAT--“May he rest,” as the Romanists write, but the joyful
assurance of present repose in the peace of God; A. D. 359, IVIT AD
DEVM--“He went to God;” A. D. 363, SEMPER QVIESCIS SECVRA--“Thou dost
repose forever free from care;” A. D. 368, QVIENCIS (_sic_) IN PACE
CONIVX INCOMPARABILIS--“Thou restest in peace, incomparable wife;” A.
D. 369, VOCITVS (_sic_) IIT IN PACE--“Called away, he went in peace;”
in A. D. 380, we find AETERNA REQVIES FELICITATIS--“Everlasting rest
of happiness.” The Christians, as is asserted in the following,
sorrowed not as those without hope: IVLIAE INNOCENTISSIMAE ET
DVLCISSIMAE, MATER SVA SPERANS--“To the most sweet and innocent Julia,
her mother hoping.” The loved ones were “not lost, but gone before:”
PRAECESSIT NOS IN PACE--“He went before us in peace;” ΠΡΟΑΠΕΛΘΩΝ ΤΟΥ 425
ΚΑΘ ΗΜΑϹ ΒΙΟΥ--“Having gone before from our life.” Sometimes the body
seems to be regarded as the clog and fetter of the soul, binding it to
earth, as in the following: ABSOLVTVS DE CORPORE--“Set free from the
body;” CORPOREOS RVMPENS NEXVS GAVDET IN ASTRIS--“Breaking the bonds
of the body, he rejoices in the stars,” that is, in heaven.
The entire inscriptions from which extracts are thus given may be
found in De Rossi’s _Inscriptiones Christianæ_, under the respective
dates.
The following, of date A. D. 381, rises to loftier poetical flights,
though ignoring the metrical divisions, which are indicated in the
copy by parallels:
THEODORA QVAE VIXIT ANNOS XXI M. VII D. XXIII IN PACE....
AMPLIFICAM SEQVITVR VITAM DVM CASTA AFRODITE || FECIT AD ASTRA
VIAM CHRISTI MODO GAVDET IN AVLA || RESTITIT HAEC MVNDO SEMPER
CAELESTIA QVAERENS || OPTIMA SERVATRIX LEGIS FIDEIQVE MAGISTRA ||
DEDIT EGREGIAM SANCTIS PER SECVLA MENTEM || INDE EXIMIOS PARADISI
REGNAT ODORES || TEMPORE CONTINVO VERNANT VBI GRAMINA RIVIS ||
EXPECTATQVE DEVM SVPERAS QVO SVRGAT AD AVRAS || HOC POSVIT CORPVS
TVMVLO MORTALIA LINQVENS || FVNDAVITQVE LOCVM CONIVNX EVACRIVS
INSTANS.
Theodora, who lived twenty-one years, seven months, twenty-three
days. In peace. Whilst following an exalted life, a chaste Venus,
she pursued her way to the stars. Now she rejoices in the court
of Christ. She resisted the world, ever following heavenly
things. A devout observer of the law, and mistress of honour, she
applied an illustrious mind to holy things while here in this
world. Hence she reigns (amid) the choice odours of paradise,
where the herbage is forever green beside the streams of
heaven,[700] and awaits God, in order that she may rise to the
upper air. She laid her body in this tomb, forsaking mortal
things, and Evacrius, her husband, built the monument,
superintending the work.
The first inscription at all favourable to Romish doctrine is the
following barbarous example, (A. D. 380:)
HIC QVIESCIT ANCILLA DEI OVEDE 426
SVA OMNIA PEPENDIT DOMVM ISTA
QVVM AMICI DEFLENT SOLACIVM Q. REQVIRVNT
PRO HVNC VNVM ORA SVBOLEM QVEM SVPERIS
TITEM REQVESTI ETERNA REQVIEM FELICITAS CAVSA MANEBIS.
Read: _Hic quiescit ancilla Dei quæ de suis omnibus pependit
domum istam, quam amicæ deflent solaciumque requirunt. Pro hac
una ora subole quam superstitem reliquisti. Eterna requie
felicitatis causa manebis._
Here rests a handmaid of God[701] who, of all her riches,
possesses but this one house: whom her friends bewail, and seek
for consolation. O pray for this thine only child whom thou hast
left behind. Thou wilt remain in the eternal repose of happiness.
The yearning cry of an orphaned heart for the prayers of a departed
mother is, however, a slight foundation for the Romish practice of the
invocation of the saints.
Previous to this date we have found not the slightest indication of
Romish doctrine; and if those doctrines have been transmitted, as
their advocates assert, from the very earliest ages, it is incredible
that they should have left no trace in the dated inscriptions for
nearly four centuries. After this time, it is true, we find occasional
epitaphs which, rigidly interpreted according to the canons of
theological criticism, contain sentiments unwarranted by Scripture;
but these may be the result of carelessness of expression, or of the
corruptions of doctrine which had already taken place in the church.
If then those inscriptions which apparently favour Romish dogmas, of
which we know the date, are all of a late period, we may assume that
those of a similar character which are undated are of the same
relative age, and therefore valueless as evidence of the antiquity of
such dogmas. Dr. Northcote admits the fact, but objects to this
conclusion as founded upon negative evidence; yet he himself adopts 427
the same line of argument concerning the absence of military rank
among the primitive Christians. But we are not left to negative
evidence. We have the amplest testimony of a positive character, which
we shall proceed to examine, showing that even in the fifth and sixth
century the vast proportion of the inscriptions are of a highly
evangelical character, and are entirely antagonistic to the most
cherished doctrines of the Church of Rome.
The Christian’s view of death is always, in striking contrast to the
sullen resignation or blank despair of paganism, full of cheerfulness
and hope. Its rugged front is veiled under softest synonyms. The grave
was considered merely as the temporary resting place of the body,
while the freed spirit was regarded as already rejoicing in the
presence of God in a broader day, and brighter light, and fairer
fields than those of earth. The following examples will illustrate the
pious orthodoxy of these early Christian epitaphs.
ABIIT ETHERIAM CVPIENS CAELI CONSCENDERE LVCEM. (A. D. 383.)
She departed, desiring to ascend to the ethereal light of heaven.
LIMINA MORTIS ADIIT
EVTVCHIVS SAPIENS PIVS ADQ BENIGNVS
IN CHRISTVM CREDENS PREMIA LVCIS ABET. (_sic._) A. D. 393.
Eutuchius, wise, pious, and kind, believing in Christ, entered
the portals of death, (and) has the rewards of the light (of
heaven).
DVLCIS ET INNOCES (_sic_) HIC DORMIT SEVERIANVS SOMNO PACIS...
CVIVS SPIRITVS IN LVCE DOMINI SVSCEPTVS EST. (A. D. 393.)
Here sleeps in the sleep of peace the sweet and innocent
Severianus, whose spirit is received into the light of the Lord.
HIC IACET VRBICA SVABIS (_sic_) SEMPERQ. PVDICA
VIXIT VERBORVM VERA LOQVVTA (_sic_) IN SEMPITERNALE
AEVVM QVIESCIT SECVRA. (A. D. 397.)
Here lies Urbica, agreeable and ever modest. She lived a speaker
of truth. She rests free from care throughout endless time.
NEC REOR HVNC LACRIMIS FAS SIT DEFLERE 428
CORPORIS EXVTVS VINCLIS QVI GAVDET IN ASTRIS
NEC MALA TERRENI SENTIT CONTAGIA SENSVS. (A. D. 399.)
Nor do I think it right to lament with tears him, who, freed from
the fetters of the body, rejoices among the stars, nor feels the
evil contagion of earthly sense.
PAVSABET (_sic_) PRAETIOSA ANNORVM
PVLLA (_sic_) VIRGO XII. TANTVM ANCILLA DEI ET XPI.
Pretiosa went to her rest, a maiden of only twelve years of age,
a handmaid of God and of Christ. (A. D. 401.)
NON TAMEN HAEC TRISTES HABITAT POST LIMINA SEDES
PROXIMA SED CHRISTO SIDERA CELSA TENET. (A. D. 406.)
Nevertheless she occupies not the doleful seats behind the
threshold, but inhabits the lofty stars, next to Christ.
HIC REQVIESCET (_sic_) IN SOMNO PACIS MALA....
ACCEPTA APVT (_sic_) DEVM. (A. D. 432.)
Here rests in the sleep of peace Mala ... Received into the
presence of God.
REDDITVR HAEC MERITIS QUAE SINE FINE MANET.
This (life) without end which remains is bestowed for his pious
desert.
In the following epitaph of date A. D. 472, the departed is
represented as comforting the survivors with the thought of the
felicity of the blest:
LEVITAE CONIVNX PETRONIA FORMA PVDORIS
HIS MEA DEPONENS SEDIBVS OSSA LOCO
PARCITE VOS LACRIMIS DVLCES CVM CONIVGE NATAE
VIVENTEMQVE DEO CREDITE FLERE NEFAS.
I, Petronia, the wife of a deacon, the type of modesty, lay down
my bones in this resting place. Refrain from tears, my sweet
daughters and husband, and believe that it is forbidden to weep
for one who lives in God.
The early Christians confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims
in the earth, and that they desired a better country, even a heavenly.
They felt that, in the language of Cyprian, the soul’s true Fatherland
is on high. This sentiment is expressed as follows, in an epitaph of
date A. D. 493, MIGRAVIT DE HOC SAECVLO--“He migrated from this 429
world.” Similar is the idea in the following: FELIX VITA FVIT FELIX ET
TRANSITVS IPSE--“Happy was the life, and happy also the death,”
literally, “the transit;” HIC REQIESCIT .. QVAE A DEO INTER EXORDIA
VIVENDI DE HAC LVCE SVBLATA EST VT IN MELIORE LVMINE VIVERE
MERERETVR--“Here rests ... who was snatched away by God in the very
beginning of life from the light of earth, that she might be worthy to
live in the more glorious light (of heaven).”
The following is a striking protest against the heathen notions of the
future state.
SI MENTIS VIRTVS LVCISQVE SERENIOR VSVS
DEFVNCTO IN XPO REVENIT NON TARTARA SENTIT
CYMERIOSQVE LACOS MERITIS POST FATA SVPERSTES
FVNERIS ET LEGEM PERIMENS TERRAEQVE SEPVLCRIS
ASTRA TENET NESCITQVE MORI SIC LVCE RELICTA.
Since vigour of mind and more serene enjoyment of the light
return to the dead in Christ, she feels not (the pains of)
Tartarus, nor the Cimmerian lakes, by her deserts surviving after
death and destroying that law of the grave, (which is) imposed on
the sepulchres of earth, she occupies the stars, and knows not
death, having in this manner left the light.
We find also such expressions as follow: DEPOSTVS (_sic_) IN PACE
FIDEI CATHOLICE, (_sic_)--“Buried in the peace of the Catholic faith,”
A. D. 462; HIC. REQ. IN PACE DEVS, (_sic_)--“Here rests in the peace
of God,” A. D. 500; IN PACE ECCLESIAE--“In the peace of the church,”
A. D. 523; IN PACE ET BENEDICTIONE--“In peace and benediction;” SEMPER
FIDELIS MANEBIT APVD DEVM--“Ever faithful, he shall remain with God,”
(_circ. 590_); FATVM FECIT--“She fulfilled her destiny;”[702] REDDIDI
NVNC DIVO RERVM DEBITVM COMMVNE OMNIBVS--“I have rendered now to the 430
Lord of the universe the debt common to all,” A. D. 483; ZOTICVS HIC
AD DORMIENDVM--“Zoticus here laid to sleep;” DORMITIO ELPIDIS--“The
sleeping place of Elpis;” DORMIVIT ET REQVIESCIT--“He has slept and is
at rest;” DORMIT SED VIVIT--“He sleeps but lives;” QVIESCIT IN DOMINO
IESV--“He reposes in the Lord Jesus;” IVIT AD DEVM--“He went to God;”
EVOCATVS A DOMINO--“Called by God;” ACCEPTA APVD DEVM--“Accepted with
God;” ΕΤΕΛΕΙΩΘΗ--“He finished his life;” ΕΚΟΙΜΗΘΗ--“He fell asleep;”
DAMALIS HIC SIC · V · D--“Here lies Damalis, for so God wills.”
Many of these undated inscriptions are full of Christian thought, and
breathe the strongest assurance of the happiness of the departed, as
the following from the Lateran Museum:
MACVS PVER INNOCENS
ESSE IAM INTER INNOCENTES COEPISTI
QVAM STAVILIS TIBI HAEC VITA EST
QVAM TE LAETVM EXCIPET MATER ECCLESIA
MVNDO REVERTENTEM COMPREMATVR PECTORVM
GEMITUS STRVATVR FLETVS OCVLORVM.
Macus, innocent boy, thou hast already begun to be among the
innocent. Unto thee how sure is thy present life. Thee how gladly
thy mother, the church, (on high,) received returning from this
world. Hushed be this bosom’s groaning, dried be these weeping
eyes.[703]
Of similar character are also the following: SALONICE ISPIRITVS TVVS
IN BONIS--“Salonice, thy spirit is among the good;” REFRIGERAS
SPIRITVS TVVS IN BONIS--“Thou refreshest thy spirit among the good;”
ΠΡΩΤΟϹ ΕΝ ΑΓΙΩ ΠΝΕΥΜΑΤΙ ΘΕΟΥ ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΑΙ--“Here in the Holy Spirit
of God lieth Protus;” CORPVS HABET TELLVS ANIMAM CAELESTIA REGNA--“The
earth has the body, celestial realms the soul;” ΓΛΥΚΕΡΟΝ ΦΑΟϹ ΟΥ
ΚΑΤΕΔΕΨΑΣ (_sic_) ΕΣΧΕΣ ΓΑΡ ΜΕΤΑ ϹΟΥ ΠΑΝΑΘΑΝΑΤΟΝ--“Thou didst not 431
leave the sweet light, for thou hadst with thee Him who knows not
death,” literally, “the all-deathless one;” AGAPE VIBIS IN
ETERNVM--“Agape, thou livest forever;” DORMIT ET VIVIT IN PACE XO,
(_sic_)--“He sleeps and lives in the peace of Christ;” MENS NESCIA
MORTIS VIVIT ET ASPECTV FRVITVR BENE CONSCIA CHRISTI--“The soul lives
unknowing of death, and consciously rejoices in the vision of Christ;”
PRIMA VIVIS IN GLORIA DEI ET IN PACE DOMINI NOSTRI XR.--“Prima, thou
livest in the glory of God, and in the peace of Christ, Our Lord.”[704]
The glorious doctrine of the resurrection, which is peculiarly the
characteristic of our holy religion as distinguished from all the
faiths of antiquity, was everywhere recorded throughout the Catacombs.
It was symbolized in the ever-recurring representations of the story
of Jonah and of the raising of Lazarus, and was strongly asserted in
numerous inscriptions. As the early Christians laid the remains of the
departed saint in their last long rest, the sacred words of the
Gospel, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” must have echoed with a
strange power through the long corridors of that silent city of the
dead, and have filled the hearts of the believers, though surrounded
by the evidences of their mortality, with an exultant thrill of
triumph over death and the grave. This was a recompense for all their
pains. Of this not even the malignant ingenuity of persecution could
deprive them. Although the body were consumed and its ashes strewn
upon the waters, or sown upon the wandering winds, still, still the
Lord knoweth them that are his, and keeps the dust of his chosen. 432
Tertullian ridicules the heathen for believing the doctrine of
metempsychosis and rejecting that of the resurrection.[705] “God
forbid that he should abandon to everlasting destruction,” he
exclaims, “the labour of his hands, the care of his own thoughts, the
receptacle of his own Spirit!”[706]
The hope of the resurrection is often strongly expressed, as in the
following examples:
HIC REQVIESCIT CARO MEA NOVISSIMO VERO DIE
PER |XPM| CREDO RESVSCITABITVR A MORTVIS. (A. D. 544.)
Here rests my flesh; but at the last day, through Christ, I
believe it will be raised from the dead.
RELICTIS TVIS IACES IN PACE SOPORE
MERITA RESVRGES TEMPORALIS TIBI DATA REQVIETIO.
You, well-deserving one, having left your (relations), lie asleep
in peace--you will arise--a temporary rest is granted you.
In an epitaph of the year 449 we read, RECEPTA CAELO MERVIT
OCCVRRERE |XPO| AD RESVRRECTIONEM PRAEMIVM AETERNVM SVSCIPERE
DIGNA--“Received into heaven, she deserved to meet Christ at the
resurrection, worthy to receive an everlasting reward.” In the
following example from the Catacomb of Naples, Christian confidence
adopts the sublime language of Job:
CREDO QVIA REDEMPTOR MEVS BIBIT (_sic_) ET NOBISSIMO DIE
DE TERRA SVSCITABIT ME IN CARNE MEA VIDEBO |DOM|.
I believe, because that my Redeemer liveth, and in the last day
shall raise me from the earth, that in my flesh I shall see the
Lord.
More briefly is this cardinal doctrine asserted in the following:
IVSTVS CVM |SCIS| XPO MEDIANTE RESVRGET--“Justus, who will arise with
the saints through Christ.” HIC IN PACE REQVIESCIT LAVRENTIA QVAE 433
CREDIDIT RESVRRECTIONEM--“Here reposes in peace Laurentia, who
believed in the resurrection.”[707]
The very idea of death seems to have been repudiated by the primitive
Christians. “_Non mortua sed data somno_,” sings Prudentius
in paraphrase of the words of Our Lord, “She is not dead
but sleepeth.”[708] Hence the Catacomb was designated the
_coemeterium_,[709] or place of sleeping, and the funeral vault the
_cubiculum_, or sleeping chamber. The dead were not “buried,” as the
pagan expressions _conditus_, _compositus_, _situs_, indicate; but
_depositus_, “laid down” in their lowly beds till the everlasting morn
should come, and the angel’s trump awake them; consigned as a precious
trust to the tender keeping of mother earth, and “lying in wait for
the resurrection.”[710] The saints were “fallen asleep” in Jesus, and
on the bridal morning of the soul they should awake with his likeness
and be satisfied. The primitive Christians believed that the power
which called a Lazarus from the tomb could wake to life again the
slumbering millions of this valley of dry bones, vaster far than that 434
of Ezekiel’s vision, till they should stand up upon their feet an
exceeding great army.
But this sleep was a sleep of the body only, not of the soul. The
ancient Christians were assured, as we have seen, of the immediate
happiness of those that died in the faith. They believed that being
absent from the body they were present with the Lord; that as soon as
they passed from earth’s living death they entered into the undying
life and unfading bliss of heaven. Though surrounded by the mouldering
bodies of the saints in Christ, the eye of faith beheld their
glorified spirits, starry-crowned and palm-bearing, among the
white-robed multitude before the throne of God. They admitted no
thought of a long and dreary period of forgetfulness, nor probation of
purgatorial fires, before the soul could enter into joy and peace.
The sublime reflections with which Cyprian concludes his treatise
_De Mortalitate_ nobly express the grand consoling thoughts which
sustained the primitive Christians, and which sustain God’s saints in
every age. “We are but pilgrims and strangers here below,” he
exclaims, “let us then welcome the day that gives to us the joys of
heaven. What exile longs not for his native land? Our true native land
is paradise. A large and loving company expects us there. O the bliss
of those celestial realms where no fear of dying enters! There the
glorious choir of the apostles, the exulting company of the prophets,
the countless army of the martyrs, await us. To them let us eagerly
hasten. Let us long to be with them the sooner, that we may the sooner
be with CHRIST.”
What a striking contrast to these holy hopes is the pagans’ blankness
of despair concerning the future. Compared with this assurance of a
blissful immortality, how cold and cheerless is their shadowy elysium, 435
their unsubstantial visions of the spirit-world; how terrible the
gloomy Acherontian lake, dark Lethe’s stream, and Styx, and fiery
Phlegethon. Like a gleam of heaven’s sunshine in a benighted age are
these rude inscriptions of the early Christians. Sublimer is their
lofty hope, reaching forward beyond this world, and laying hands of
faith upon the eternal verities of the world to come, than the
imperishable renown of classic sages, or the Roman poet’s vaunting
boast of earthly immortality--_Non omnis moriar_.
Even the high philosophy of Greece and the noble stoicism of the Roman
mind afford no consolation to the soul brought face to face with the
solemn mystery of death. A forced and sullen submission to the
inevitable is all that they can teach. They shed no light upon the
world beyond the grave, DOMVS AETERNA--“An eternal home,”[711] and
SOMNO AETERNALI--“In eternal sleep,” are written on their tombs,
frequently accompanied by an inverted torch, the emblem of despair. To
them death is an unsolved and insoluble problem. Their loftiest
reasonings lack authority to satisfy the mind. It is the gospel of
Christ alone which dispels the awful shadows of the tomb, plants the
flower of hope in the very ashes of the grave, and brings life and
immortality to light; which appeases the soul-hunger of mankind, and
meets the yearning cry of the human heart.
Even the thoughtful mind of Pliny could extract no comfort from the 436
various theories concerning the future state, but looked forward to
annihilation as the universal doom. “To all,” he says, “from the last
day of life is there the same lot that there was before the first; nor
is there any more consciousness after death than there was before
birth.”[712] Of Agricola, the wise and good, the philosophic Tacitus
could only say with an incredulous sigh, “Doubtless if there be a
place for the departed spirits of the just, if great souls perish not
with the body, thou dost calmly repose.”[713] “That the manes are any
thing,” says Juvenal, “or that the nether world is any thing, not even
boys believe, unless those still in the nursery.”[714] In sullen
submission to fate, the pagan submits to the inevitable doom. When the
name has issued from the fatal urn he leaves forever his woods, his
villa, his pleasant home, and enters the bark which is to bear him
into eternal exile.[715] The wisest sages can only fan the embers of
their hopes into a flickering flame, and cry, “Ha! we have seen the
fire.”
The following are examples of the melancholy and despairing spirit
often breathed by pagan epitaphs:
PRAEVENERE DIEM VITAE CRVDELIA FATA
ET RAPTAM INFERNA ME POSVERE RATE
HOC LECTO ELOGIO IVVENIS MISERERE IACENTIS
ET DIC DISCEDENS SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS.
The cruel fates have anticipated the term of life, and placed me, 437
snatched away, in the infernal bark. Having read this elegy pity
the fallen youth and say departing, May the earth be light upon
thee.
INFANTI DVLCISSIMO QVEM DII IRATI AETERNO SOMNO DEDERVNT--“To a very
sweet child, whom the angry gods gave to eternal sleep.” SVSCIPE NVNC
CONIVNX SI QVIS POST FVNERA SENSVS DEBITA MANIBVS OFFICIA--“Receive
now, O husband, if after death is any consciousness, the rites due to
departed spirits.” The hopeless parting of a dying wife is thus
expressed: CARE MARITE MIHI DVLCISSIMA NATA VALETE--“O husband, dear
to me, and dearest daughter, farewell.” Or more briefly we read, AVE
ATQVE VALE--“Hail and farewell.”
Sometimes the desponding view of life is like the bitter experience of
the Hebrew moralist, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!” One such
example reads thus:
DECIPIMVR VOTIS ET TEMPORE FALLIMVR ET MORS
DERIDET CVRAS ANXIA VITA NIHIL.
We are deceived by our vows, misled by time, and death derides
our cares; anxious life is naught.
Of similar character is the following recalling the complaint of Job,
“He cometh forth as a flower and is cut down:” VIVE LAETVS QVICVNQVE
VIVIS VITA PARVVM MVNVS EST MOX EXORTA EST SENSIM VIGESCIT DEINDE
SENSIM DEFICIT--“Live joyful who ever thou art that livest. Life is a
small gift. It is scarcely sprung up when it imperceptibly flourishes
and then imperceptibly declines.” The succeeding example is remarkable
for its misanthropy: ANIMAL INGRATIVS HOMINE NVLLVM EST--“No animal is
more ungrateful than man.” The inspired apothegm, “We brought nothing
into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out,” is
illustrated in the following: EX OMNIBVS BONIS SVIS HOC SIBI
SVMPSERVNT--“Of all their wealth they possess only this tomb.” We find 438
also the expression, MATER GENVIT ME MATER RECIPIT--“Mother (earth)
nourished me, she receives me again,” analogous to the declaration of
Scripture, “Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Spon
gives also the following example: VIXI VT VIVIS MORIERIS VT SVM
MORTVVS--“I have lived as thou livest, thou shalt die as I have died.”
Sometimes the cold consolation is offered that others are also the
subjects of sorrow and death, as DOLOR TALIS NON TIBI CONTIGIT
VNI--“Such grief affects not thee alone;” NEC TIBI NEC NOBIS AETERNVM
VIVERE CESSIT--“Neither to you nor to us was it granted to live
forever.” Similar to this is a Christian inscription, ΕΥΨΥΧΕΙ
ϹΕΚΟΥΝΔΕ ΟΥΔΕΙϹ ΑΘΑΝΟΤΟϹ--“Be of good cheer, Secundus; no one is
immortal.”
More painful even than the gloomy stoicism of many pagan inscriptions
is the light Epicurean tone which frequently occurs, as in the
instance which follows, where life is compared to a play:
VIXI · DVM · VIXI · BENE · IAM · MEA
PERACTA · MOX · VESTRA · AGETVR
FABVLA · VALETE · ET · PLAVDITE ·
While I lived, I lived well. My play is now ended, soon yours
will be. Farewell and applaud me.[716]
In the succeeding example the sentiment is still more Anacreontic. It
breathes the true pagan spirit, _Carpe diem_--“Seize the day.
Pluck each flower of pleasure as you pass. Press all life’s nectar
into one frenzied draught and drain it to the dregs. Let us eat and
drink, for to-morrow we die.” Even in the solemn presence of death, 439
the soul, unawed by the dread shadow of the future, turns regretfully
to the vanished pleasures of earth, and finds its only consolation in
the thought of their enjoyment.
D · M · TI : CLAVDI · SECVNDI
HIC · SECVM · HABET · OMNIA
BALNEA · VINVM · VENVS · CORRVMPVNT · CORPORA
NOSTRA · SED · VITAM · FACIVNT B · V · V ·
To the Divine Manes of Tiberius Claudius Secundus. Here he enjoys
every thing. Baths, wine, and lust ruin our constitutions,
but--they make life what it is. Farewell, farewell.[717]
The following expresses the very essence of coarse sensualism: QVOD
EDI ET BIBI MECVM HABEO QVOD RELIQVI PERDIDI--“What I ate and drank I
have with me; what I left I have lost.” Compare the moral antithesis
of the sentiment expressed by John Wesley: “What I gave away I have
still; what I kept I have lost.”
Frequently the pagan epitaphs contain an outburst of scorn or defiance
of the unjust gods that sit aloft and make their sport of human woe,
as is seen in the accompanying examples:
PROCOPE · MANVS · LEBO · CONTRA · DEVM
QVI · ME · INNOCENTEM · SVSTVLIT.
I, Procope, lift up my hands against the god who snatched away me
innocent.
In an epitaph in the Lapidarian Gallery a bereaved mother in the
bitterness of her soul cries out:
ATROX O FORTVNA TRVCI QVAE FVNERE GAVDES
QVID MIHI TAM SVBITO MAXIMVS ERIPITVR
QVI MODO IVCVNDVS GREMIO SVPERESSE SOLEBAT
HIC LAPIS IN TVMVLO NVNC IACET ECCE MATER.
O relentless Fortune, who delightest in cruel death, 440
Why is Maximus so suddenly snatched from me?
He who lately used to be joyful in my bosom,
This stone now marks his tomb.--Behold his mother.
Compare also the following: INVIDA LIBITINA FILIIS ABSTVLIT
PATREM--“Envious Libitina snatched away a father from his children;”
VICTA EST IVSTICIA NON AEQVO IVDICE FATO--“Justice is overcome by that
unjust judge, Fate;” DIIS INIQVIS ANIMVLAM TVAM RAPVERVNT--“To the
unjust gods, (who) snatched away thy soul.”
But the holy teachings of Christianity revealed to the weary and heavy
laden souls of men, aching with a sense of orphanage, the loving
Fatherhood of God,[718] and produced a spirit of meekness and
resignation altogether foreign to the pagan mind. Of pathetic
interest, as illustrating this fact, is a Christian fragment of date
_circ._ A. D. 600, on which we may still read the inscription
QVI · DEDIT · ET · ABSTVLIT
.... OMINI · BENEDIC ....
The familiar words suggest the imperishable thought, which has been a
source of consolation to bereaved ones in every age. “Like a voice
from among the graves,” says Dr. Maitland, “broken by sobs, yet
distinctly intelligible, fall these words on the listening ear, ‘who
gave, and hath taken away--blessed [be the name] of the Lord.’”
We occasionally find pagan inscriptions breathing a sense of spiritual
existence and hope of future life.[719] The yearning of the human
heart that
Longs for the touch of a vanished hand
And the sound of a voice that is still,
and the hunger of the soul for communion with the dear departed in the 441
loving tryst of the silent land are pathetically expressed in the
following prayer of Furia Spes: PETO VOS MANES SANCTISSIMAE (_sic_)
... MEVM CONIVGEM HORIS NOCTVRNIS VT VIDEAM ET ETIAM VT EGO DVLCIVS ET
CELERIVS APVD EVM PERVENIRE POSSIM--“I beseech you, most holy spirits,
that I may behold my husband in the midnight hours; and also that I
may more sweetly and swiftly go to him.”
More common, however, is the feeling of hopeless severance expressed
by the frequent valediction, VALE VALE LONGVM VALE--“Farewell,
farewell, a long farewell;” or, sadder still, VALE AETERNVM--“Farewell
forever.”
There occur in the Catacombs frequent examples of acclamations
addressed to the departed, expressive of a desire for their happiness
and peace. These acclamations have been quoted by Romanist writers as
indicating a belief in the doctrine of purgatory, and in the efficacy
of prayers on behalf of the dead. The importance of this subject will
justify its careful examination. Many of the examples quoted by
Roman controversialists are not precatory at all, but simply
declarative.[720] But there are others in which the expression assumes
a distinctively optative form. Some of these may be of comparatively 442
late date, as the _graffiti_, or inscriptions of pilgrims near the
more celebrated shrines, of which we have seen examples at the
so-called “papal crypt.” But others are unquestionably part of the
original epitaphs. We find, for instance, such expressions as
VIVAS--“May you live;” VIVAS IN DEO, ΖΗϹ ΕΝ ΘΕΩ--“May you live in
God;” VIVAS IN ETERNVM--“May you live forever;” ETERNA TIBI
LVX--“Eternal light to thee;” ESTOTE IN PACE--“Be in peace;” VIVAS
INTER SANCTOS--“May you live among the holy ones;” VIVAS IN NOMINE
XTI--“May you live, in the name of Christ;” ΖΗϹΗϹ (_sic_) ΙΝ ΔΕΟ
ΧΡΙϹΤΟ--“May you live in God Christ;” VIVAS IN DOMINO ZEZV--“May you
live in the Lord Jesus;” VIVAS VINCAS--“May you live, may you
conquer;” DORMITIO TVA INTER DICAEIS, (ΔΙΚΑΙΟΙϹ)--“May your sleep be
among the just;” DEVS TIBI REFRIGERET--SPIRITVM TVVM REFRIGERET--“God
refresh thee, refresh thy spirit;” ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ϹΟΙ--“Peace to thee;” EN
ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ΣΟΥ ΤΟ ΠΝΕΥΜΑ--“In peace be thy spirit;” Ο ΘΕΟϹ ΑΝΑΠΑΥϹΗ ΤΗΝ
ΨΥΧΗΝ ΕΝ ϹΚΗΝΑΙϹ ΑΓΙΩΝ--“God give thy soul rest in the tents of the
holy.” These, it will be perceived, are not intercessions _for_ the
dead, but mere apostrophes addressed _to_ them, as is apparent in the
following: ΖΩΤΙΚΕ ΖΗϹΑΙϹΕΝ (_sic_) ΚΥΡΙΩ ΘΑΡΡΙ, (_sic_)--“Zoticus,
mayest thou live in the Lord. Be of good cheer.” They were no more
prayers for the souls of the departed than is Byron’s verse, “Bright
be the place of thy rest.”
But the wish sometimes takes the form of a prayer _for_ the beloved
one, as ΜΝΗϹΘΗϹ ΙΗϹΟΥϹ Ο ΚΥΡΙΟϹ ΤΕΚΝΟΝ ΕΜ ...--“Remember, O Lord
Jesus, our child;” ΔΕΟΥϹ ΧΡΙϹΤΟΥϹ ΟΜΝΙΠΟΤΕϹ ϹΠΙΡΙΤ ... ΤΟΥ ΡΕΦ.ΙΓΕΡΕ
ΙΝ ☧, (Latin in Greek characters,)--“May the Almighty God Christ 443
refresh thy spirit in Christ.” ΝΗΜΝΗΘΗ ΕΑΥΤΟΥ Ω ΘΕΟϹ ΙϹΤΟΥϹ ΑΓΝΑϹ
(_sic_)--“Remember him, O God, among thy lambs;” ΜΝΗϹΘΗΤΙ ΚΥΡΙΕ ΤΗϹ
ΚΟΙΜΗϹΕΩϹ ΤΗϹ ΔΟΥΛΗϹ ϹΟΥ ΑΝΑΠΑΥϹΟΝ ΤΗΝ ΨΥΧΗΝ ΤΟΥ ΔΟΥΛΟΥ ϹΟΥ ΕΝ ΤΟ
ΦΩΤΙΝΩ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΑΝΑΨΥΞΕΩϹ ΕΙϹ ΚΟΛΠΟΝ ΑΒΡΑΑΜ,--“Remember, O God, the sleep
of thy servant; give rest to the soul of thy servant in the light, in
the refreshment in Abraham’s bosom:” DOMINE NE ADVMBRETVR SPIRITVS--“O
Lord! let not (this) soul be brought into darkness;” ΜΝΗϹΘΗ ΑΥΤΟΥ Ο
ΘΕΟϹ ΕΙϹ ΤΟΥϹ ΑΙΩΝΑϹ--“May God remember him forever.”[721]
These intense expressions of affection of the ardent Italian
nature[722] that would fain follow the loved object--“though lost to
sight to memory dear”--beyond the barrier of the tomb, are surely a
slight foundation on which to build the vast system of mercenary
masses for the dead. And yet they are the only evidences that keen
Roman controversialists can adduce from these Christian inscriptions
of the first six centuries.[723] And, be it remembered, these
inscriptions were not a formulated and authoritative creed framed by
learned theologians, but the untutored utterances of humble peasants,
many of whom were recent converts from paganism or Judaism, in which 444
religions such expressions were a customary sepulchral formula. The
accompanying examples indicate the prevalence of this practice in
pagan epigraphy: AVE or HAVE VALE--“Hail, farewell;” DI TIBI
BENEFACIANT--“May the gods be good to thee;” OSSA TVA BENE
QVIESCANT--“May thy bones rest well;” SIT TIBI TERRA LEVIS--“May the
earth be light upon thee;” ΧΑΙΡΕ ΕΥΠΛΟΕΙ--ΕΥΔΡΟΜΕΙ--“Rejoice, a safe
voyage, a prosperous journey;” ΕΥΨΥΧΕΙ ΚΥΡΙΑ ΚΑΙ ΔΩΗ ϹΟΙ ΟϹΙΡΙϹ ΤΟ
ΨΥΧΡΟΝ ΥΔΩΡ--“Be of good cheer, O lady, and to thee Osiris give to
quaff the cooling water;”[724] ΕΝ ΜΥΡΟΙϹ ϹΟΙ ΤΕΚΝΟΝ Η ΨΥΧΗ--“In
precious odours be thy soul, my child;” HIC MANES PLACIDA NOCTE
QVIESCANT ET SVPER IN NIDO MARATHONIA CANTET AEDON--“Here may the
manes rest throughout the placid night, and above thee in her nest may
the Marathonian nightingale sing;” BENE VALEAS MATER ROGAT TE VT ME AD
TE RECIPIAS VALE--“Farewell, thy mother prays, O take me to thyself
again, farewell.”[725] In the Jewish epitaphs these acclamations are
much more common than in the Christian inscriptions. The following is
an example: MARCIA BONA IVDEA DORMITIO IN BONIS--“Marcia, a good
Jewess, thy sleep be among the good.” On many modern Hebrew tombstones
are the words, “Let his soul be bound up in the bundle of life.”
Small wonder, therefore, that those Christian converts who had been
brought up in pagan or Jewish superstition should retain traces of
this ancient custom so congenial to the sympathies of the human heart,
unprescient as they were of the baneful results to which it would
lead. Their freedom of language had not yet been restricted, as Bishop
Kip remarks, to the cold rules of ordinary logic by the fear of deadly 445
heresy. We know, indeed, from the testimony of the Fathers, that
mention of the dead was frequently made in the prayers of the
church. These prayers, however, were often thanksgivings--εὐχὴ
εὐχαριστήριος--for those who were asleep in Christ, or commemorations
of their virtues for the improvement of the living.[726] Many of the
Fathers vigorously protest against the idea that the dead can be
benefitted by any prayers on their behalf, and strongly assert their
changeless state in the other world.[727] The notion, however, of the
efficacy of these prayers gradually crept into the church; but that
they were not conceived to procure remission from purgatorial flames
is evident from the fact that, even at a comparatively late period,
they were offered on behalf of the patriarchs, prophets, apostles,
martyrs, and saints, and even of the Virgin Mary herself, who were all
believed to be in the immediate presence of God. At length even this
tremendous error found entrance into the church, and gave into the
hands of a mercenary hierarchy the keys of heaven and hell.
But in the testimony of the Catacombs is no trace of that torturing
doctrine which hangs the heart on tenter-hooks of dread suspense, and
wrings from the lacerated affections a dole to a hireling priesthood
for the exercise of their ghostly functions in delivering the souls of 446
the departed from burning flame. There is no hint in their cheerful
art and pious epitaphs of the Dantean horrors, the worse than
Sisyphean toil, and torments more dire than those of Tantalus, under
the intense conception of which for centuries the heart of Christendom
was wrung. No; the early church believed the pious dead already to
enjoy the ampler life, the more ethereal air, and sweet beatitude of
paradise.[728]
Associated with the Romish practice of praying for the dead is that of
praying _to_ them. For this there is still less authority in the
testimony of the Catacombs than for the former. There are, indeed,
indications that this custom was not unknown, but they are very rare
and exceptional. In all the dated inscriptions of the first six
centuries, thirteen hundred and seventy four in number, there is only
_one_ invocation of the departed. It is that of the year 380,
already given, in which from the heart of an orphaned and ignorant[729]
girl, in the hour of her bitter sorrow and bereavement, is wrung the
cry, PRO HVNC VNVM ORA SVBOLEM--“O pray for this, thine only child.”
The few undated inscriptions of a similar character are probably of as
late, or it may be of a much later, date than this; and the invocation
is almost invariably uttered by some relative of the deceased, as if
prompted by natural affection rather than by religious feeling. Thus
we have such examples as the following: PETE PRO FILIIS TVIS--“Pray
for thy children; “PETE ET ROGA PRO FRATRES ET SOBOLES TVOS,
(_sic_)--“Entreat and pray for your brothers and children;” ORA PRO 447
PARENTIBVS TVIS--“Pray for thy parents;” VIBAS IN PACE ET PETE PRO
NOBIS--“May you live in peace and pray for us;” VIBAS IN DEO ET
ROGA--“May you live in God and pray;” IN ORATIONIBVS TVIS ROGES PRO
NOBIS QVIA SCIMVS TE IN ☧--“In your prayers, pray for us, for we
know you (to be) in Christ.” ΔΙΟΝΥϹΙΟϹ ΝΗΠΙΟϹ ΑΚΑΚΟϹ ΕΝΘΑΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΕ ΜΕΤΑ
ΤΩΝ ΑΓΙΩΝ ΜΝΗϹΚΕϹΘΕ ΔΕ ΚΑΙ ΗΜΩΝ ΕΝ ΤΑΙϹ ΑΓΙΑΙϹ ΥΜΩΝ ΠΡΕΥΧΑϹ ΚΑΙ ΤΟΥ
ΓΛΥΨΑΤΟϹ ΚΑΙ ΓΡΑΨΑΝΤΟϹ--“Dionysius a spotless infant, lies here with
the saints. O remember us also in thy holy prayers; aye, and the
sculptor and writer as well.” The last clause is in smaller characters
as if an afterthought.[730]
These few examples among eleven thousand inscriptions, of which the
greater number are of post-Constantinian date, are a slight foundation
for the vast Roman system of the invocation of saints. “If this
doctrine,” says Bishop Kip, “so much in unison with many of the
deepest feelings of our nature, had been held by the primitive church,
we should have found it written broadly and clearly every-where
through these epitaphs. Its proof would not be left to half a dozen
inscriptions among thousands which plainly declare the reverse.” How
different from these lowly crypts is a modern Romish sepulchral
chapel, with its ceaseless appeals by the dead for the prayers of the 448
living, and by the living for the prayers of the dead; with its
ever-recurring _Orate pro anima_, and _Maria sanctissima, ora
pro nobis_. We search in vain through all the corridors of those
ancient sanctuaries of the Christian faith for a single example of
these now universal Romish formulæ.
The invocation of saints probably sprang from the superstitious
reverence paid to the martyrs after the age of persecution had passed.
_Miserere nostrarum precum_, “Pitying, hear our prayer,” sings
Prudentius at the close of the fourth century in his hymn to St.
Vincent. VT DAMASI PRECIBVS FAVEAS PRECOR INCLYTA MARTYR--“Illustrious
martyr, I beseech thee to aid my prayers,” writes Damasus about the
same period in his epitaph on St. Agnes; and in an epitaph on his
sister Irene he exclaims, NOSTRI REMINISCERE VIRGO VT TVA PER DOMINVM
PRAESTET MIHI FACVLA LVMEN--“Remember me, O virgin, that by God’s help
your torch may give me light.”
Thus was developed in course of time a vast celestial hierarchy
endowed with the attributes of Deity,[731] usurping the intercessory
office of Christ, and rivalling the polytheism of paganism. The
primitive Fathers repudiated the worship of any saint or angel, or the
intervention of any mediator with God but Christ. “We worship the Son
of God,” write the elders of Smyrna, “but the martyrs we only
love.”[732] “We sacrifice not to martyrs,” says Augustine, “but to the
one God, both theirs and ours;”[733] “nor is our religion,” he 449
indignantly adds, “the worship of dead men.”[734] “It is the devil who
has introduced this homage of angels,” says Chrysostom;[735] and the
Council of Laodicea, (A. D. 361,) forbade their invocation as
idolatrous and a forsaking of Christ.[736]
We now turn from these polemical subjects to the consideration of the
doctrines, common to Christendom, of the trinity of the Godhead and
the divinity of Jesus Christ. We know from ecclesiastical history that
numerous heresies sprang up in the early centuries with reference to
these august themes; but no evidence accuses the church in the
Catacombs of departure from the primitive and orthodox faith in these
important respects. Frequently, indeed, the belief in these cardinal
doctrines is so strongly asserted as to suggest, that it is in
designed and vigorous protest against the contemporary heretical
notions.
The doctrine of the essential divinity of the Son of God is repeatedly
and strikingly affirmed. Not only are the symbolical letters Alpha and
Omega often associated with the sacred monogram, in allusion to the
sublime passage in the Revelation descriptive of the eternity of
Christ, but his name and Messianic title are variously combined with 450
that of the Deity so as to indicate their identity. Thus we have the
expressions ΖΗϹΗϹ ΙΝ DEO ΧΡΙϹΤΟ, (_sic_)--ΕΝ ΤΗΕΩ ΚΥΡΕΙΩ ΧΕΙϹΤΩ,
(_sic_)--VIBAS IN CHRISTO DEO--IN DOMINO IESV--“May you live in God
Christ--in God, the Lord Christ--in Christ God--in the Lord Jesus.” Or
the divine attributes are still more strongly expressed as follows:
ΔΕΟΥϹ ΧΡΙϹΤΟΥϹ ΟΜΝΙΠΟΤΕϹ, (_sic_)--“God Christ Almighty;” DEO SANC
XRO VN LVC, (_sic_)--“God, holy Christ, only light;” DEO SANC ☧
VNI, (_sic_)--“To Christ, the one holy God.” We have seen the
impression in the plaster of a grave whereby some orthodox believer,
probably in protest against the Arian heresy, has “set to his seal”
that “Christ is God.” Fig. 119, page 386.[737]
Mention is made of the three persons of the Trinity separately in
several epitaphs in which the deceased is said to sleep IN DEO--IN 451
CHRISTO--IN SPIRITV SANCTO, and collectively in the following of
date 403, QVINTILIANVS HOMO DEI CONFIRMANS TRINITATEM AMANS
CASTITATEM RESPVENS MVNDVM--“Quintilianus, a man of God, holding
fast the doctrine of the Trinity, loving chastity, contemning the
world.” In later examples from Aqueilia and other places we find the
formulæ, IN NOMINE SANCTAE TRINITATIS--PATRIS ET FILII ET SPIRITVS
SANCTI--“In the name of the Holy Trinity--of the Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit.”[738]
Patristic evidence informs us that both these doctrines were firmly
held by the primitive Christians. The doxologies, benedictions, and
baptismal formulæ, of the ancient liturgies are all in the name of the
triune God. The divinity of the three persons and at the same time the
unity of the Godhead are distinctly and often asserted. This is also 452
affirmed in frequent Christian inscriptions “to the one God”--DEO
VNO. (_sic_.)
Such, then, is the testimony of the Catacombs concerning the doctrines
of the early believers--a testimony more favourable to the general
character of ancient Christianity than the writings of the Fathers and
ecclesiastical historians of the times; probably, as Dr. Maitland
remarks, because “the sepulchral tablet is more congenial to the
expression of pious feeling than the controversial epistle, or even
the much needed episcopal rebuke.” We know, indeed, from these latter
sources, that heresy, strife, recrimination, and mutual anathemas
early disgraced the religion of peace and love. But no sounds of this
profane controversy disturbed those quiet resting-places of the
Christian dead. The expression of faith and hope and joy and
peace--the peace of God that passeth all understanding--every-where
appears. The stricken and sorrowing believer burst not forth like the
heathen in passionate complainings and impotent rage against the gods,
but bowed in meek submission to _His_ will who doeth all things
well. With devout and chastened spirit he bore the ills of life, and
with calm confidence and holy joy he met the doom of death,
Not like the quarry slave, at night
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approached his grave,
Like one who wrapped the drapery of his couch
About him, and lay down to pleasant dreams.[739]
[693] _Eastern Churches._
[694] Tertullian says they destroy the soul as fevers do the
body.--_De Præscrip. Hæreticorum_, c. 2.
[695] The Gnostic Marcion sought admission to the Roman
presbytery and Valentine even aspired to the episcopal chair.
“Speraverat episcopatum Valentinus.”--Tertull., _Adv.
Valent._, c. iv.
[696] _Inscriptiones Christianæ Urbis Romæ Septimo Sæculo
Antiquiores._
[697] The earlier inscriptions express merely the consular dates,
and in one instance only, the name and age of the deceased.
[698] Dr. McCaul remarks the occurrence of a similar expression
in a pagan inscription given by Muratori, (978, 979,) as follows:
_D.M. in hoc tumulo jacet corpus exanimis_ (sic) _cujus spiritus
inter deos receptus est; sic enim meruit_,--“In this tomb lies a
lifeless body whose spirit is received among the gods, for so it
deserved.”
[699] The use of _recedo_ in the sense of “to die” is classical;
but in the above form it is unknown in pagan epigraphy.
[700] Compare Wesley--
“There everlasting spring abides,
And never-withering flowers.”
[701] De Rossi thinks _Ancilla Dei_ a proper name.
[702] The following is the brief biography of some unknown saint
at Naples: SERVVS DEI ... ET AD VITA (_sic_) PERBENIT
(_sic_,)--“A servant of God ... and attained unto life.”
[703] Burgon.
[704] Of the Antiochene Christians Chrysostom writes: “They say
not of the departed ‘he is dead,’ but, ‘he is perfected.’”--_Hom._
in _Matt._, 68.
[705] _Apol._, c. 48.
[706] _De Resur. Carn._, c. 9. He mentions the long duration
of the bones and teeth, and quotes the story of the phoenix as
an argument in favour of the doctrine, c. 13.
[707] A spurious epitaph of the fourteenth century, given by
Maitland, p. 82, as genuine, thus fantastically refers to this
august theme: QVI INQVIETVS VIXI NVNC TANDEM MORTVVS NON LVBENS
QVIESCO, SOLVS CVR SIM QVAESERIS (_sic_) VT IN DIE CENSORIO SINE
IMPEDIMENTO FACILIVS RESVRGAM--“I who lived restless, being now
at length dead, rest unwillingly. Do you ask why I am alone? That
in the day of Judgment I may more readily rise without
impediment.”
[708] See also the epitaph given in Book I, chap. iii.--ALEXANDER
MORTVVS NON EST SED VIVIT SVPER ASTRA--“Alexander is not dead but
lives above the stars.”
[709] Similarly the African Christians called their burial places
_accubitoria_--“sleeping places.”