§ 87. Lessons of the Catacombs.
§ 87. Lessons of the Catacombs.
The catacombs represent the subterranean Christianity of the ante-Nicene age. They reveal the Christian life in the face of death and eternity. Their vast extent, their solemn darkness, their labyrinthine mystery, their rude epitaphs, pictures, and sculptures, their relics of handicrafts worship, and martyrdom give us a lively and impressive idea of the social and domestic condition, the poverty and humility, the devotional spirit, the trials and sufferings, the faith and hope of the Christians from the death of the apostles to the conversion of Constantine. A modern visitor descending alive into this region of the dead, receives the same impression as St. Jerome more than fifteen centuries ago: he is overcome by the solemn darkness, the terrible silence, and the sacred associations; only the darkness is deeper, and the tombs are emptied of their treasures. "He who is thoroughly steeped in the imagery of the catacombs," says Dean Stanley, not without rhetorical exaggeration, "will be nearer to the thoughts of the early church than he who has learned by heart the most elaborate treatise even of Tertullian or of Origen."556
The discovery of this subterranean necropolis has been made unduly subservient to polemical and apologetic purposes both by Roman Catholic and Protestant writers. The former seek and find in it monumental arguments for the worship of saints, images, and relics, for the cultus of the Virgin Mary, the primacy of Peter, the seven sacraments, the real presence, even for transubstantiation, and purgatory; while the latter see there the evidence of apostolic simplicity of life and worship, and an illustration of Paul’s saying that God chose the foolish, the weak, and the despised things of the world to put to shame them that are wise and strong and mighty.557
A full solution of the controversial questions would depend upon the chronology of the monuments and inscriptions, but this is exceedingly uncertain. The most eminent archaeologists hold widely differing opinions. John Baptist de Rossi of Rome, the greatest authority on the Roman Catholic side, traces some paintings and epitaphs in the crypts of St. Lucina and St. Domitilia back even to the close of the first century or the beginning of the second. On the other hand, J. H. Parker, of Oxford, an equally eminent archaeologist, maintains that fully three-fourths of the fresco-paintings belong to the latest restorations of the eighth and ninth centuries, and that "of the remaining fourth a considerable number are of the sixth century." He also asserts that in the catacomb pictures "there are no religious subjects before the time of Constantine," that "during the fourth and fifth centuries they are entirely confined to Scriptural subjects," and that there is "not a figure of a saint or martyr before the sixth century, and very few before the eighth, when they became abundant."558 Renan assigns the earliest pictures of the catacombs to the fourth century, very few (in Domitilla) to the third.559 Theodore Mommsen deems De Rossi’s argument for the early date of the Coemeterium Domitillae before a.d. 95 inconclusive, and traces it rather to the times of Hadrian and Pius than to those of the Flavian emperors.560
But in any case it is unreasonable to seek in the catacombs for a complete creed any more than in a modern grave-yard. All we can expect there is the popular elements of eschatology, or the sentiments concerning death and eternity, with incidental traces of the private and social life of those times. Heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian cemeteries have their characteristic peculiarities, yet all have many things in common which are inseparable from human nature. Roman Catholic cemeteries are easily recognized by crosses, crucifixes, and reference to purgatory and prayers for the dead; Protestant cemeteries by the frequency of Scripture passages in the epitaphs, and the expressions of hope and joy in prospect of the immediate transition of the pious dead to the presence of Christ. The catacombs have a character of their own, which distinguishes them from Roman Catholic as well as Protestant cemeteries.
Their most characteristic symbols and pictures are the Good Shepherd, the Fish, and the Vine. These symbols almost wholly disappeared after the fourth century, but to the mind of the early Christians they vividly expressed, in childlike simplicity, what is essential to Christians of all creeds, the idea of Christ and his salvation, as the only comfort in life and in death. The Shepherd, whether from the Sabine or the Galilean hills, suggested the recovery of the lost sheep, the tender care and protection, the green pasture and fresh fountain, the sacrifice of life: in a word, the whole picture of a Saviour.561 The popularity of this picture enables us to understand the immense popularity of the Pastor of Hermas, a religious allegory which was written in Rome about the middle of the second century, and read in many churches till the fourth as a part of the New Testament (as in the Sinaitic Codex). The Fish expressed the same idea of salvation, under a different form, but only to those who were familiar with the Greek (the anagrammatic meaning of Ichthys) and associated the fish with daily food and the baptismal water of regeneration. The Vine again sets forth the vital union of the believer with Christ and the vital communion of all believers among themselves.
Another prominent feature of the catacombs is their hopeful and joyful eschatology. They proclaim in symbols and words a certain conviction of the immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body, rooted and grounded in a living union with Christ in this world.562 These glorious hopes comforted and strengthened the early Christians in a time of poverty, trial, and persecution. This character stands in striking contrast with the preceding and contemporary gloom of paganism, for which the future world was a blank, and with the succeeding gloom of the mediaeval eschatology which presented the future world to the most serious Christians as a continuation of penal sufferings. This is the chief, we may say, the only doctrinal, lesson of the catacombs.
On some other points they incidentally shed new light, especially on the spread of Christianity and the origin of Christian art. Their immense extent implies that Christianity was numerically much stronger in heathen Rome than was generally supposed.563 Their numerous decorations prove conclusively, either that the primitive Christian aversion to pictures and sculptures, inherited from the Jews, was not so general nor so long continued as might be inferred from some passages of ante-Nicene writers, or, what is more likely, that the popular love for art inherited from the Greeks and Romans was little affected by the theologians, and ultimately prevailed over the scruples of theorizers.
The first discovery of the catacombs was a surprise to the Christian world, and gave birth to wild fancies about the incalculable number of martyrs, the terrors of persecution, the subterranean assemblies of the early Christians, as if they lived and died, by necessity or preference, in darkness beneath the earth. A closer investigation has dispelled the romance, and deepened the reality.
There is no contradiction between the religion of the ante-Nicene monuments and the religion of the ante-Nicene literature. They supplement and illustrate each other. Both exhibit to us neither the mediaeval Catholic nor the modern Protestant, but the post-apostolic Christianity of confessors and martyrs, simple, humble, unpretending, unlearned, unworldly, strong in death and in the hope of a blissful resurrection; free from the distinctive dogmas and usages of later times; yet with that strong love for symbolism, mysticism, asceticism, and popular superstitions which we find in the writings of Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.
Mosheim and Gibbon in the last century, and even Neander, Gieseler, andBaur, in our age, ignore the very existence of the catacombs, except that Gieseler quotes the well-known passage of Jerome. But Dean Milman, in his History of Christianity, Hase, Kurtz, Kraus, and others, in their manuals, take brief notice of them.
katakuvmbion, catacumba, also (in some MSS.) catatumba. Various derivations: 1) From katav (down from, downwards, as in katabaivnw, katavkeimai, katapevmpw), and tuvmbo" (compare the late Latin tumba, the French tombe, tombeau, and the English tomb, grave), i.e. a tomb down in the earth, as distinct from tombs on the surface. This corresponds best to the thing itself. 2) From katav and koimavw (to sleep), which would make it equivalent to koimhthvrion, dormitorium, sleeping place. 3) From katav and kuvmbh (the hollow of a vessel) or (cup), kumbivon (a small cup, Lat. cymbium), which would simply give us the idea of a hollow place. So Venables in Smith and Cheetham. Very unlikely. 4) A hybrid term from katav and the Latin decumbo, to lie down, to recline. So Marchi, and Northcote and Brownlow (I. 263). The word first occurs in a Christian calendar of the third or fourth century (in Catacumbas), and in a letter of Gregory I. to the Empress Constantia, towards the end of the sixth century (Epp. III. 30), with a special local application to San Sebastian. The earlier writers use the terms koimhthvria, coemeteria (whence our cemetery), also cryptae, crypts
So Aringhi, Baronius; Severano, Bottari, Boldetti, and all writers prior to Marchi, and his pupils, the two brothers De Rossi, who turned the current of opinion. See Northcote and Br. I. 377 sqq.
The sand-pits and stone-quarries were made wide enough for a horse and cart, and are cut in the tufa litoide and pozzolana pura, which furnish the best building material in Rome; while the catacombs have generally very narrow passages, run in straight lines, often cross each other at sharp angles, and are excavated in the tufa granulare, which is too soft for building-stone, and too much mixed with earth to be used for cement, but easily worked, and adapted for the construction of galleries and chambers. See Northcote and Br. I. 376-390. The exceptions are also stated by these authors. J. H. Parker has discovered loculi for Christian burial in the recesses of a deserted sand-pit.
See the remarks of Northcote and Br. I. 276 against J. H. Parker, who asserts the mixed use of the catacombs for heathens and Christians."
This view is supported by Professor Mommsen, the Roman historian, who says (in "Contemporary Review," vol. xxvii. p. 168): "Associations of poor people who clubbed together for the burial of their members were not only tolerated but supported by the imperial government, which otherwise was very strict against associations. From this point of view, therefore, there was no legal impediment to the acquisition of these properties. Christian associations have from the very beginning paid great attention to their burials; it was considered the duty of the wealthier members to provide for the burial of the poor, and St. Ambrose still allowed churches to sell their communion plate, in order to enlarge the cemeteries of the faithful. The catacombs show what could be achieved by such means at Rome. Even if their fabulous dimensions are reduced to their right measure, they form an immense work, without beauty and ornament, despising in architecture and inscription not only pomp and empty phraseology, but even nicety and correctness, avoiding the splendor and grandeur as well as the tinsel and vanity of the life of the great town that was hurrying and throbbing above, the true commentary of the words of Christ-’My kingdom is not of this world.’
Euseb. H. E. VII. 13: 1, ta; tw'n kaloumevnwn koimhthrivwn ajpolambavnein ejpitrevpwn cwriva.
Roller says (in Lichtenberger’s Encycl. des Sc. Rel. II. 685)."Les juifs ensevelissaient dans le roc. A Rome ils ont creusé de grandes catacombes presque identique à celles des chrétiens. Ceux-ci ont été leurs imitateurs. Les Etrusques se servaient aussi de grottes; mais ils ne les reliaient point par des galeries illimitées." Dean Stanley (l.c. p. 274): "The Catacombs are the standing monuments of the Oriental and Jewish character, even of Western Christianity. The fact that they are the counterparts of the rock-hewn tombs of Palestine, and yet more closely of the Jewish cemeteries in the neighborhood of Rome, corresponds to the fact that the early Roman Church was not a Latin but an Eastern community, speaking Greek and following the usages of Syria. And again, the ease with which the Roman Christians had recourse to these cemeteries is an indication of the impartiality of the Roman law, which extended (as De Rossi has well pointed out) to this despised sect the same protection in regard to burial, even during the times of persecution, that was accorded to the highest in the land. They thus bear witness, to the unconscious fostering care of the Imperial Government over the infant church. They are thus monuments, not so much of the persecution as of the toleration which the Christians received at the hands of the Roman Empire."
De Rossi (as quoted by Northcote and Brownlow I. 112): "Precisely in those cemeteries to which history or tradition assigns apostolic origin, I see, in the light of the most searching archaeological criticism, the cradle both of Christian subterranean sepulchres, of Christian art, and of Christian inscriptions; there I had memorials of persons who appear to belong to the times of the Flavii and of Trajan; and finally I discover precise dates of those times."
Schultze (Die Katak., p. 73 and 83) maintains in opposition to Marchi, that the catacombs were nothing but burial place, and used only for the burial service, and that the little chapels (ecclesiolae) were either private sepulchral chambers or post-Constantinian structures.
Com. in Ez. 40.
He refers to such passages as Ps. 55:15; Num. 16:33.
Aen. II. 755:
"Horror on every side, and terrible even the silence."
Or in German:
"Grauen rings um mich her, und schreckvoll selber die Stille."
Peristeph. XI. 153 sqq
E. g. Bishop Burnet (who visited the catacombs in 1685): Letters from Italy and Switzerland in 1685 and 1686. He believed that the catacombs were the common burial places of the ancient heathen. G. S. Cyprian (1699), J. Basnage (1699), and Peter Zorn (1703), wrote on the subject in polemical interest against Rome.
I hesitate to state the figures. Roman archaeologists, as Marchi, J. B. de Rossi and his brother Michael de R. (a practical mathematician), Martigny and others estimate the length of the Roman catacombs variously at from 350 to 900 miles, or as "more than the whole length of Italy" (Northcote and Brownlow, I. 2). Allowance is made for from four to seven millions of graves! It seems incredible that there should have been so many Christians in Rome in four centuries, even if we include the numerous strangers. All such estimates are purely conjectural. See Smith and Cheetham, I. 301. Smyth (l.c. p. 15) quotes Rawlinson as saying that 7,000,000 of graves in 400 years’ time gives an average population of from 500,000 to 700,000. Total population of Rome, 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 at the beginning of the empire.
This is so stated by Hippolytus, Philosoph. IX. 11. Zephyrinus was buried there contrary to the custom of burying the popes in St. Peter’s crypt in the Vatican. Callistus was hurled from a window in Trastevere, and hastily removed to the nearest cemetery on the Via Aurelia. The whole report of Hippolytus about Callistus is discredited by Northcote and Brownlow (I. 497 sqq.), but without good reason.
Eusebius, H. E. III. 18. De Rossi distinguishes two Christian Domitillas, and defends this view against Mommsen See "Bulletino," 1875, pp. 69-77, and Mommsen, Corp. Inscript. Lat., Tom. VI. p. 172, as quoted by Northcote and Br. I. 86. See also Mommsen in "The Contemp. Review," XVII. 169 sq. Lightfoot. Philippians, p. 22, and S. Clement of R., 257.
See the picture in Northcote and Br. I. 182, and on the whole subject of Petronilla, pp. 122, 176-186.
Acta Sanct. Maii, III. 11.
See also the list in N. and Br. I. pp. xx-xxi, and in Smith and Cheetham, I. 315.
The curious controversy about these blood-stained phials is not yet closed. Chemical experiments have led to no decided results. The Congregation of Rites and Relics decided, in 1668, that the phiolae cruentae or ampullae sanguinolentaewere blood-vessels of martyrs, and Pius IX. confirmed the decision in 1863. It was opposed by distinguished Roman scholars (Mabillon, Tillemont, Muratori, the Jesuit Père de Buck (De phialis rubricatis, Brussels, 1855), but defended again, though cautiously and to a very limited extent by De Rossi (III. 602), Northcote and Brownlow (II. 330-343), and by F. X. Kraus (Die Blutampullen der Röm. Katakomben, 1868, and Ueber den gegenw. Stand der Frage nach dem Inhalt und der Bedeutung der röm. Blutampullen, 1872). Comp. also Schultze: Die sogen. Blutgläser der Röm. Kat. (1880), and Die Katakomben (1882, pp. 226-232). Roller thinks that the phials contained probably perfumery, or perhaps eucharistic wine.
Renan dates the oldest sculptures from the end of the third century: "Les sarcophages sculptés, représentant des scènes sacrées, apparaissent vers la fin du IIIe siècle. Comme les peintures chrétiennes, ils ne s’écartent guère, sauf pour le sujet, des habitudes de l’art païen du méme temps." (Marc Auréle, p. 546). Comp. also Schultze, Die Katak. 165-186, and especially the IXth part of John Henry Parker’s great work, which treats on the Tombs in and near Rome, 1877.
See photographs of both in Parker, Part IX, Nos. 209 and 210, and pp. 41 and 42.
See a photograph in Parker, l.c., Plate XIII; also in Lundy, Monum. Christianity, p. 112.
Under the care of Professor Piper (a pupil of Neander), who even before De Rossi introduced a scientific knowledge of the sepulchral monuments and inscriptions. Comp. his "Monumental Theology," and his essay "Ueber den kirchenhistorischen Gewinn aus Inschriften, in the Jahrbücher f. D. Theologie," 1875.
De Rossi traces some up to the first century, but Renan (Marc-Auréle, p. 536) maintains: "Les inscriptions chrétiennes des catacombes ne remontent qu’ au commencement du IIIesiècle."
In pace; ejn eijrhvnh. Frequent also in the Jewish cemeteries (shalom).
Dormit in pace; requiescit in pace; in pace Domini; koima'tai ejn eijrhvnh.The pagan formula "depositus" also occurs, but with an altered meaning: a precious treasure intrusted to faithful keeping for a short time.
Vivas, orvive in Deo; vivas in aeternum; vivas inter sanctos. Contrast with these the pagan declamations: Sit tibi terra levis; Ossa tua bene quiescant Ave; Vale.
This inscription in the cemetery of Callistus dates from the time of persecution, probably in the third century, and alludes to it in these words: "For while on his knees, and about to sacrifice to the true God, he was led away to execution. O sad times! in which among sacred rites and prayers, even in caverns, we are not safe. What can be more wretched than such a life? and what than such a death? when they cannot be buried by their friends and relations-still at the end they shine like stars in heaven (tandem in caelo corruscant)." See Maitland, The Church in the Cat., second ed. p. 40.
This inscription is in Latin words, but in Greek uncial letters. See Perret, II. 152, and Aringhi, p. 387.
D. M. or D. M. S. =Dis Manibus sacrum (others explain: Deo Magno or Maximo);memoriae aeterrae, etc. See Schultze, p. 250 sq. Sometimes the monogram of Christ is inserted before S, and then the meaning may be Deo Magno Christo Sacrum, or Christo Salvatori. So Northcote, p. 99, who refers to Tit. 2:13.
More frequent in those after the middle of the fourth century, as inconparabilis, mirae sapientiae or innocentiae, rarissimi exempli, eximiae bonitatis.
Dulcis, dulcissimus, ordulcissima, carus, orcara, carissimus, optimus, incomparabilis, famulus Dei, puella Deo placita,ajgaqov", a{gio" , qeosebhv", semnov", etc.
Sine ulla querela, sine ulla contumelia, sine laesione animi, sine ulla offensa, sine jurgio, sine lite motesta, etc.
"Pete, or roga, ora, pro nobis, pro parentibus, pro conjuge, pro filiis, pro sorore." These petitions are comparatively rare among the thousands of undated inscriptions before Constantine, and mostly confined to members of the family. The Autun inscription (probably from the fourth century) ends with the petition of Pectorius to his departed parents, to think of him as often as they look upon Christ. See Marriott, p. 185.
Dr. McCaul, of Toronto (as quoted in Smith and Cheetham, 1. 856) says: I recollect but two examples in Christian epitaphs of the first six centuries of the address to the reader for his prayers, so common in mediaeval times."
Luke 23:43; Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:8.
Prima, vives in gloria Dei et in pace Domini nostri."Scratched in the mortar round a grave in the cemetery of Thraso, in Rome, quoted by Northcote, p. 89. He also quotes Paulinus of Nola, who represents a whole host of saints going forth from heaven to receive the soul of St. Felix as soon as it had left the body, and conducting it in triumph before the throne of God. A distinction, however was made by Tertullian and other fathers between Paradise or Abraham’s bosom, whither the pious go, and heaven proper. Comp. Roller’s discussion of the idea of refrigerium which often meets us in the epitaphs, Les Catacombes, I. 225 sqq.
556 Study of Ecclesiastical History, prefixed to his Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, p. 59.
557 The apologetic interest for Romanism is represented by Marchi, De Rossi, Garrucci, Le Blant., D. de Richemond, Armellini, Bertoli, Maurus, Wolter (Die röm. Katakomben und die Sakramente der kath. Kirche, 1866), Martigny (Dictionaire, etc., 1877), A. Kuhn (1877), Northcote and Brownlow (1879), F. X. Kraus (Real=Encykl. der christl. Alterthümer, 1880 sqq.), Diepolder (1882), and among periodicals, by De Rossi’s Bulletino, theCiviltà Cattolica, the Revue de l’art chrétien, and the Revue archéologique. Among the Protestant writers on the catacombs are Piper, Parker, Maitland, Lundy, Withrow, Becker, Stanley, Schultze, Heinrici, and Roller. See among others: Heinrici, Zur Deutung der Bildwerke altchristlicher Grabstätten, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1882, p. 720-743, and especially Piper, Monumentale Theologie.
558 Catacombs, Pref. p. xi. The writer of the article Catacombs in the "Encycl. Brit." v. 214 (ninth ed.), is of the same opinion: "It is tolerably certain that the existing frescos are restorations of the eighth, or even a later century, from which the character of the earlier work can only very imperfectly be discovered." He then refers to Parker’s invaluable photographs taken in the catacombs by magnesian light, and condemns, with Milman, the finished drawings in Perret’s costly work as worthless to the historian, who wants truth and fidelity.
559 Marc-Auréle, p. 543.
560 "Contemp. Rev." for May, 1871, p. 170.
561 Stanley, 1.c., p. 283: "What was the popular Religion of the first Christians? It was, in one word, the Religion of the Good Shepherd. The kindness, the courage, the grace, the love, the beauty of the Good Shepherd was to them, if we may so say, Prayer Book and Articles, Creeds and Canons, all in one. They looked on that figure, and it conveyed to them all that they wanted. As ages passed on, the Good Shepherd faded away from the mind of the Christian world, and other emblems of the Christian faith have taken his place. Instead of the gracious and gentle Pastor, there came the Omnipotent Judge or the Crucified Sufferer, or the Infant in His Mother’s arms, or the Master in His Parting Supper, or the figures of innumerable saints and angels, or the elaborate expositions of the various forms of theological controversy."
562 See the concluding chapter in the work of Roller, II. 347 sqq. Raoul-Rochette characterizes the art of the Catacombs as "unsystème d’illusions consolantes." Schultze sees in the sepulchral symbols chiefly Auferstehungsgedanken and Auferstehungshoffnungen. Heinrici dissents from him by extending the symbolism to the present life as a life of hope in Christ. "Nicht der Gedanke an die Auferstehung des Fleisches für sich, sondern die christliche Hoffnung überhaupt, wie sie aus der sicheren Lebensgemeinschaft mit Christus erblüht und Leben wie Sterben des Gläubigen beherrscht, bedingt die Wahl der religiös bedeutsamen Bilder. Sie sind nicht Symbole der einstigen Auferstehung, sondern des unverlierbaren Heilsbesitzes in Christus." ("Studien und Krit." 1842, p. 729).
563 Theodore Mommsen (in "The Contemp. Rev." for May, 1871, p. 167): The enormous space occupied by the burial vaults of Christian Rome, in their extent not surpassed even by the system of cloacae or sewers of Republican Rome, is certainly the work of that community which St. Paul addressed in his Epistle to the Romans—a living witness of its immense development corresponding to the importance of the capital."