THE CATACOMBS.

THE catacombs were the subterranean burial-places of the early Christians in Rome. It is not easy to fix the origin of the name of catacomb, now generally applied to all these excavations; it appears to have been first employed in the seventh century, to designate a limited space or vault beneath the Basilica of St. Sebastian on the Appian, ad catacumbas. The general application, however, to all these Christian sepulchres was only at a much later period, for we find these caverns of Christian resort and interment universally designated, in the Acts of the Martyrs and early Fathers of the Church, as cemeteries or places of repose. There is considerable difference of opinion as to the derivation of the word 'catacomb.' Hoffman derives it from ката, down; and cumba, a hollow. Ducange suggests another from cata and tumbas, 'underground tombs.' The word 'cemetery' is derived from a Greek word, Koμnтnpiov, meaning 'sleeping-place,' hence the frequent formula in the Christian epitaphs, 'he sleeps in peace,'' the sleeping place of Elpis;' for with the early Christians, death was but a sleep from which they were to be awakened

to everlasting happiness. 'Soon,' Prudentius says, in one of his hymns, 'the time will come when these bones shall be reanimated, when blood shall flow again in these veins, when life will resume possession of the abode it has abandoned. Those bodies, which have long lain in the dust of the tombs, shall ascend to heaven to join again their former souls.'

The practice of subterranean burial among the early Christians was evidently derived from the Jewish custom of burying the dead in excavated sepulchres, and thus may have been adopted by the early Jewish converts. The Roman Jews had a very early catacomb of their own contiguous to their place of abode, in the Transteverine quarter of Rome. It is generally supposed that the early Christians used for burialplaces the excavations made by the Romans for procuring the stone and cement for building purposes, and that they were originally arenariæ, or sand-pits, from which the Romans extracted that peculiar variety of volcanic ashes called arena by the ancients, and puzzolana by the moderns, so extensively used in the composition of their mortars. A more careful examination of the several catacombs now scarcely permits of attributing any portion of those used for interment to such an origin; but, on the contrary, renders evident that they were formed expressly for the purpose we now see them used for, and in no way connected with the arenariæ, except when lying beneath these Pagan excavations.

Recent geological observations on the soil of the country around Rome have shown that the surface of

the Campagna consists of volcanic rocks of different natures and ages. The earliest of the series, the tufa litoide, was constantly employed from the earliest ages in the buildings of the Cloaca, the Tabularium, the so-called wall of Romulus; the second, or tufa granolare, which, though it has just consistency enough to retain the form given to it by the excavator, cannot be hewn or extracted in blocks; and the puzzolana, which has been extensively used in all ages for mortar and cement. The tufa litoide and the puzzolana were thus alone used for building purposes by the Romans, and the catacombs are never found excavated in these. The catacombs were hewn only in the tufa granolare, and were consequently excavated expressly for burials by the early Christians. The Christian architects carefully avoided the massive strata of the tufa litoide, and we believe it is ascertained that all the known catacombs are driven exclusively along the courses of the tufa granolare. With equal care these subterranean engineers avoided the layers of puzzolana, which would have rendered their work insecure, and in which no permanent rock-tomb could have been constructed. Thus we arrive at the curious fact, that in making the catacombs the excavators carefully avoided the strata of hard stone and the strata of soft stone, used respectively for building and for mortar, and selected that course of medium hardness which was best adapted to their peculiar purpose.

Signor de Rossi has now demonstrated that the Roman Christians from the first excavated their own

catacombs in an orderly, systematic, and legal way. A certain area of ground was purchased, or given to them by some wealthy convert, and the subterranean passages were dug out in some fixed place beneath the surface. The conclusion must be that the catacomb galleries can never have been dug out for any other purpose than that of interment; or, in other words, that they have a Christian, not a Pagan origin. It can be no longer supposed that the primitive Roman Christians buried their dead from the first in the meanest and most furtive manner; on the contrary, it would seem that before the close of the first century they had begun their catacombs on a large scale, without concealment, and with the free use of every embellishment of the art of the time.

It has been a matter of surprise to some how these catacombs could have been excavated and the earth removed without the knowledge of a Government which persecuted the Christians. But De Rossi has shown that these catacombs were excavated openly, and with the permission of the authorities. The law was severe against all religions which had not been approved of by the Senate, but as a 'burial college' the Christian association was authorized. The Roman Emperors may have persecuted the Christians themselves, but they respected their tombs. In the first and second centuries of the Empire, several burial associations (collegia funeraticia) were formed by a special decree of the Senate. The Christians had evidently availed themselves of this privilege, and hence their places of burial were respected.

From the very first the Christians preferred interment to cremation for the disposal of the dead. They adopted, as De Rossi has shown, the rules and privileges of the funeral confraternities which were common in pagan Rome, and for some years, at least, they had nothing to fear from legal interference or popular violence; afterwards, in the times of open persecution, they were reduced to the greatest straits.

The catacombs were begun, it would seem, in Apostolic times, and were not disused until many years after 'the peace of the Church,' that is, after the publication of the Edict of Toleration by the Emperor Galerius, A.D. 311.

The catacombs are distributed in considerable numbers-about sixty in all-in every direction outside the walls of Rome. They consist of an immense network of subterranean passages or galleries, generally intersecting each other at right angles, sometimes tortuous, more rarely diverging from a centre. These galleries vary in length and height; in general they may be stated to be 8 feet high by 3 to 5 feet wide; the roof is either horizontal or slightly vaulted, and seldom requires any other support than its walls in the tufa, in the sides of which are excavated the sepulchral loculi, or graves, forming tiers above each other like berths in the cabin of a ship. There the bodies of the dead were placed, being first embalmed with spices and wrapped in fine linen, to imitate the mode of our Lord's interment at Jerusalem. These graves are irregular in size, persons of all ages being interred close to each other, as well as in depth, some