CHAPTER II.

THE ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE CATACOMBS.

It is highly probable that the first Roman Catacombs were excavated by the Jews.* Many Hebrew captives graced the triumph of Pompey after his Syrian | conquests, B. C. 62. The Jewish population increased. by further voluntary accessions. They soon swarmed in that Trans-Tiberine region which formed the ancient Ghetto of Rome. They made many proselytes from paganism to the worship of the true God, and thus, to use the language of Seneca, "The conquered gave laws to their conquerors." t

All the national customs and prejudices of the Jews were opposed to the Roman practice of burning the dead, which Tacitus asserts they never observed; † and they clung with tenacity to their hereditary mode of sepul

ture.

Wherever they have dwelt they have left traces

*A deal of fanciful theory has been indulged in as to the origin of the Catacombs. They have been attributed to a pre-historic race of Troglodytes, who loathed the light of day, and burrowed like moles in the earth. Mac Farlane has an eloquent apostrophe to the old Etrurians, by whom he imagined they were excavated twelve hundred years before the Christian era. We have seen also how they were erroneously attributed to the pagan Romans.

† Victoribus victi leges dederunt. On the Tiber, the Tigris, and the Nile, this saying was strikingly verified. Yet Judaism is an essentially conservative, not an aggressive, religion. It was unadapted for such wide-spread conquests as those of Christianity, or even of Mohammedism. The ancient mould of thought, having served its purpose, was broken. Judaism may be said to have died in giving birth to Christianity.

+ Hist., v, 5.

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*

of subterranean burial. The hills of Judea are honeycombed with sepulchral caves and galleries. Similar excavations have been found in the Jewish settlements of Asia Minor, the Ægean Isles, Sicily, and Southern Italy. So also in Rome they sought to be separated in death, as in life, from the Gentiles among whom they dwelt. They had their Catacombs apart, in which not a single Christian or pagan inscription has been found. Bosio describes one such Catacomb, which he discovered on Monte Verde, which was much more ancient than the Christian Catacomb of St. Pontianus in the same vicinity. It was of very rude construction, and contained not a single Christian monument, but numerous slabs bearing the seven-branched Jewish candlestick, and one inscription on which the word CYNATг - Synagogue—was legible. It was situated near that Trans-Tiberine quarter of the city inhabited at the period of the Christian era by the numerous Jewish population of Rome. It cannot now, however, be identified, having been obliterated or concealed by the changes of the last two centuries. Maitland gives the following Jewish inscription from a MS. collection in Rome. The figure to the left may be a horn for replenishing the lamp with oil. The letters at the right are probably intended for the Hebrew word Diy, Shalom, or Peace, so common in its classical equivalent upon Christian tombs. The palm branch is a Pagan as well as Jewish and Christian symbol of victory. The central figure is a rude repre

*In 1853 a Jewish Catacomb was discovered at Venosa, in Southern Italy, containing one gallery seven feet high and four hundred feet long. In 1854 another was discovered at Oria, with many Hebrew symbols and inscriptions. There were many Jews in Apulia and Calabria.

In eo quippe haud ulla, ut in reliquis, Christianæ religionis 'ndicia et signa apparebant.--Bosio, Rom. Sott., 142.

Fig. 18.-Slab from Jewish Catacomb.

sentation of the seven-branched candlestick which appears also in bass-relief on the Arch of Titus at Rome.

In the year 1859 another Jewish Catacomb was discovered in the Vigna Randanini, on the Appian Way, about two miles from Rome. It has been minutely described by Padre Garrucci.* In this the graves and sarcophagi are sunk in the floor as well as in the walls. They are closed with terra cotta or marble slabs, and are otherwise similar to those of the Chri: tian Catacombs. It contains several vaulted chambers, one of which has some very remarkable paintings of the seven-branched candlestick on the roof and walls. The same figure is frequently scratched on the mortar with which the graves are closed. The dove and olive branch and the palm are also frequently repeated. Although nearly two hundred inscriptions have been discovered, not one of either pagan or Christian character has been met with.

The names are sometimes strikingly Jewish in form, and where the epitaphs refer to the station of the de

*Cimitero degli Antichi Ebrei Scoperto recentemente in Vigna Randanini, illustrato da Raffaele Garrucci. 8vo. Roma, 1862.

ceased it is always to officers of the synagogue, as APKONTEC, rulers, TPAMMATEIC, scribes. The foling examples are from the Kircherian Museum:

ΩΔΕ ΚΕΙΤΕ CΑΛΩ[ΜΗ] ΘΥΓΑΤΗΡ ΓΑΔΙΑ ΠΑΤΡΟC CYNAΓΩΓΗΣ ΑΙΒΡΕΩΝ ΕΒΙΩCEN MA EN ΕΙΡΗΝΗ ΚΟΙΜΗCIC ΑYTHC. Here lies Salome, daughter of Gadia, Father of the Synagogue of the Hebrews. She lived forty-one years. Her sleep is in peace. ENOAAE KEITE KYNTIANOC TEPOYCIAP XHC CYNAгOTHC THC AYTYСTHCION. Here lies Quintianus, Gerousiarch (that is, Chief Elder) of the Synagogue of the Augustenses. ENOAAE KEITAI NEIKOAHMOC O APXON CIBOYPHCIÓN KAI ΠΑΕΙ ΦΕΙΛΗΤΟΣ ΑΙΤΩΝ Λ ΗΜΕΡ ΜΕ ΘΑΡΙ ΑΒΛΑΒΙ ΝΕΩΤΕΡΕ OYAEIC AOANATOC. Here lies Nicodemus, ruler of the Severenses, and beloved of all; (aged) thirty years, forty-two days. Be of good cheer, O inoffensive young man! no one is exempt from death.

This inscription will recall another "ruler of the Synagogue" of the same name. Many of the sleepers in this Jewish Cemetery were evidently, from their names,* Greek or Latin proselytes. Sometimes, indeed, this is expressly asserted, as in the following:

MANNACIVS SORORI CRYSIDI DVLCISSIME PROSELYTE.-Mannacius to his sweetest sister Chrysis, a proselyte.

It may be assumed that this Catacomb was exclusively Jewish, and we know, from the testimony of Juvenal and others, that numbers of the Jews inhabited the adjacent part of Rome, about the Porta Capena and the valley of Egeria. It is not, however, certain whether it is the original type, or a later imitation, of the Christian cemetery. But the Jewish population must have had extra-mural places of sepulture before the Christian era; and it is probable that the early Jewish

* See Fig. 18.

† Nunc sacri fontis nimus, et delubra locantur

Judaeis.-Sat. iii, 13.

converts to Christianity may have merely continued a mode of burial already in vogue, substituting the emblems of their newly adopted faith for those which they had forsaken; or, rather- for we find that they frequently retained certain Jewish symbols, as the dove, olive branch, and palm—supplementing them with the emblems of Christianity. De Rossi has expressed the opinion that the earliest mode of Christian. burial was in sarcophagi, as in the Jewish cemetery. above described.

The date of the planting of Christianity in Rome is uncertain. Probably some of the "strangers of Rome' who witnessed the miracle of the Pentecost, or, perhaps, the Gentile converts of the "Italian band" of Cornelius, brought the new evangel to their native city.* But certain it is that as early as A. D. 58 the faith of the

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* It is incredible that the Apostle Peter had any share in planting the Roman Church. If he had, Paul would not, as he does, utterly ignore his labours. Only Luke is with me," writes St. Paul, just before his death; yet he and Peter are feigned to have suffered on the same day. The story of St. Peter's twenty-five years' episcopate at Rome is too absurd to require disproof. The very minuteness of detail in the legends of St. Peter is their own refutation. In vain are we shown the chair in which tradition asserts that he sat, the font at which he baptized, the cell in which he was confined, the fountain which sprang up in its floor, the pillar to which he was bound, the chains which he wore, the impression made by his head in the wall and by his knees in the stony pavement, the scene of his crucifixion, the very hole in which the foot of the cross was placed, and the tomb in which his body is said to lie; they all fail to carry conviction to any mind in which superstition has not destroyed the critical faculty. The mighty fane which rises sublimely in the heart of Rome in honour of the Galilean fisherman, like the religious system of which it is the visible exponent, is founded on a shadowy tradition, opposed alike to the testimony of Scripture, the evidence of history, and the deductions of reason. The question whether Peter ever was in Rome has recently been publicly discussed under the very shadow of the Vatican. Verily, Tempora mutantur.