art, we must endeavor to realize what this ordinance was to the early Christians the centre, and it seems daily recurring transaction of their worship; the keystone of the mystic arch on which their whole devotional system may be said to have rested. On every side appears evident the desire at once to convey its meanings through symbolism to the faithful, and to conceal both its dogma and celebration from the knowledge of unbelievers: never introduced with direct representation either of its institution or ritual, but repeatedly in presentment for the enlightened eye through a peculiar selection of types, as by the fish placed, together with loaves marked with a cross, on a table; or still more significant, the fish floating in water, with a basket containing bread and a small vessel of wine on its back-thus representing at once what I might de scribe in the words of the Anglican Catechism, "the outward and visible sign," and "the inward part or thing signified," the elements of the Eucharist with the very Person of the Redeemer. Another naïvely expressive symbol, less intelligible at first sight, is the pail of milk, designed to signify the celestial food prepared by the Good Shepherd for his flock: this mystic sense sometimes made more clear by the nimbus within which the pail is seen; or by its being placed on a rude altar, beside which is the pastoral staff, without the figure of the shepherd, who is elsewhere seen carrying this vessel; the lamb also being sometimes represented with the pail on its back. A symbolic picture of the Eucharist in the form of fish and bread, at the Callixtan Catacombs, is referable, beyond doubt, to antiquity as early as the first half of the third century; and a similar one in those of S. Lucina is assumed to be not more modern than the second century, perhaps of even earlier date. Another subject, in the same reference, though less directly conveyed, is the Agape, that fraternal (and once sacred) banquet, for whose practice in the apostolic age we must refer to a remarkable passage in one of St. Paul's Epistles, that at once explains, and is explained by, this ancient usage so often pictorially treated in catacombs. And a mournful testimony indeed are the Apostle's words to the rapid deterioration of the holiest ordinance through the per- when ye come together to eat, tarry one As to the very complex indications of date, no era proper to Christians is found for our guidance in the earlier catacomb monuments; but about the end of the fourth century appears the year of the Roman bishops, for example, "Salvo Siricio Episcopo," or "temporibus Sancti Innocentii:" the last formula, no doubt, adopted after the death of the pope named; or (proof of the comparative equality in episcopal rank according to primitive ideas) the date by the years of other bishops also, in inscriptions belonging to their several dioceses; and from the beginning of the sixth century are indicated the years, not only of bishops, but priests, deacons, or even the matrons presiding over female communities. Date by consulates was rarely adopted in these epigraphs before the third, but becomes common in the next two centuries, again falling into disuse after the middle of the sixth century; and the year of the emperor, which was enjoined for the dating of all public acts by Justinian, A.D. 537, scarcely in any instance occurs before that period. We follow with interest in these chiselled lines the last traces of the existence, and the gradual dying out, of that proud institution, the Roman consulate; the unostentatious language of these Christian epitaphs here supplying the last monumental evidence to this once 66 ΖΗΣΗΣ ΙΝ ΔΕΟ ΧΡΙΣΤΟ ΥΔΗ ΙΝ ΗΛΚΕ great historic reality. The consulate of females, the " ancilla Dei," or "virgo proper to Rome expired in the year 531, Dei "-first type of the consecrated nun after being held in the last instance by sometimes, it seems, so set apart by Decius Paulinus; in the following year, the vows of their parents from infancy. however, reäppearing when assumed by Interesting is it to trace the growth of Belisarius after his Italian victories. a feeling which, from the utterance of From 534 to 544, only one consul (for prayer for the dead, passed to the inthe Eastern Empire) is on record; and voking of their intercession for the livin that last year the office was suppressed ing-as Vivas in Deo et roga;" and by Justinian, though once more assumed, the recommending of their spirits to some in his own person, by an emperor, name- specially revered saint, rather as a forly Justin, in 566: up to which date the mula of pious valediction than the excomputation, since the act of suppression, pression of anything like dogma in rehad been according to the years (as we gard to human intercessors, as "In nosee in these epitaphs) "post Consulatum mine Petri, in pace Christi." Basilii" (after the consulate of Basilius), The faith of the primitive Church as who had last held that office at Constan- to the Divine Being, her Founder and tinople. Curious in this lapidary style Head, is clear, as in letters of light, on is the use of the epithet "divus," long these monumental pages: we read it (to given to defunct emperors without scru- cite one remarkable example) conveyed ple as a mere civil honor, by their Chris- in the strangely confused Latin and Greek tian subjects. Together with character- not unfrequently found among Christian istics of brevity and simplicity, we notice, epitaphs, with the following distinct utin these epitaphs, a serene spirit of resig-terancenation that never allows vent to passionate utterance; the word "dolens" is the strongest expression of sorrow, and this but rarely occurring. As the colder formalities of the classic lapidary style were gradually laid aside, ecstatic ejaculations of prayer and hope were admitted-"Vivas in Deo," most ancient in such use; "Vive in æterno;" "Pax spiritu tuo;" "In pace Domini dormias," frequently introduced before the period of Constantine's conversion, but later falling into disuse; "In pace" continuing to be the established Christian formula-though also found in the epitaphs of Jews; while the "Vixit in pace," very rare in Roman inscriptions, appears commonly among those of Africa and of several French cities otherwise that distinctive phrase of the pagan epitaph, "Vixit" (as if even in the records of the grave to present life rather than death to the mental eye), does not pertain to Christian terminology. Various usages of the primitive Church, important to her history, are attested by these epigraphs-as the classification of the clergy into bishops, priests, deacons, acolytes, exorcists; and the recognition of another revered class, the pious widows, "matrona vidua Dei," of one among whom we read on her epitaph that she never burdened the Church;" here also do we find proof of the dedication 66 that is: "Mayest thou live in God Christ, Sylva, in peace; " we read it in the formulas where this holy name is otherwise accompanied with what declares beliefas, "In Christo Deo," or "in D. Christo; or in the Greek - εν θεω Κυρειω XELOTW (sic). Again, alike distinctly expressed in other formulas, at the epitaph's close, as "in pace et in "-with a monogram XP, implying the obvious sequel, "Christo;" also in the rudely traced line with which one inscription finishes: "Nutricatus Deo Cristo marturibus;" in one curious example of the Latin language's decline : "Regina vibas in Domino zesu;" and in the Greek xovs, sometimes at the beginning, evidently intended as dedication in the name of God. Alike clearly, though less frequently, enounced is the worship of a Divine Spirit, as an aspect, or in more strict theologic phrase, Person of the Deity, for example: "in pace cum spiritu sancta" (sic) "vibas in Spiritu sanc." And indeed no moral truth could be more convincingly established by monumental proof than the unanimous belief with which the Church, at this first and purest phase in her history, directed adoring regards to the "Logos," the perfect Image of the Father, as true and essential Deity. "Hic habitasse prius sanctos cognoscere debes." But that saint (elected to the papacy 366) cannot be cited as a contemporary witness to ages of persecution; at periods subsequent to which, however, we Below the surface of the Roman Campagna, it is supposed that from eight hundred to nine hundred miles of excavated corridors, interspersed with chambers in various forms, extend their mar-read of Pope Liberius taking refuge (352) vellous ramifications; and between six and seven millions is the assumed number of the Christian dead here deposited during primitive ages.* In much the greater part it is certain that these hypogees were formed for Christian worship, instruction, and interment, before the period of the first converted emperor: but it is also indisputably proved that they continued in use for devotional purposes, and received many pictorial decorations, long afterwards; likewise that works of excavating were in progress till so late as the beginning of the fifth century. The idea that they ever served for the habitation of numbers, during persecution, is erroneous, assuming indeed what is materially impossible, owing to the formamation of their far-stretching labyrinths, small chapels, and story above story of narrow passages. We read, it is true, of the martyrdom of saintly bishops while in the very act of officiating at their humble altars; of several among the earliest Roman pontiffs, who, during extreme perl took refuge in such retreats-as did Alexander I. (A.D 109-19), Stephen I. (253-7), and Sixtus II., who was put to death in one of these subterranean sanctuaries (A.D. 258); and Pope Cajus (283-96) is said to have actually lived for eight years in catacombs, from which he only came out to suffer martyrdom (296). With Mr. Northcote (whose work is a vade mecum for this range of antiquities) we may conclude that not the multitude of the faithful, but the pontiffs alone, or others especially sought after by myrmidons of power, were at any time resident for long periods in these retreats, in no part of which do we see anything like preparation for dwelling, or for any other purposes save worship and interment; though indeed an epitaph by St. Damasus, in the Callixtan Catacombs, implies the fact that at some period those cemeteries were inhabited: in the cemetery called after St. Agnes, from the outrages and insolence of the then ascendant Arian sect; of Pope Boniface I., so late as between 418-22, passing some time in a similar retreat, to withdraw from the faction that supported his rival Eulalius; considering which facts, we cannot deny that the evidence as to the occasional habitation of catacombs is too conclusive to be set aside without rejecting much that claims belief in Acts of Martyrs, and other received authorities. Of St. Urban we read (Acts of St. Cecilia) "latebat in sacrorum martyrum monimentis;" of St. Hippolytus (Acts of St. Stephen, A.D. 259)," vitam solitariam agebat in cryptis." Baronius states that the same Pope Urban "used to celebrate masses and hold councils in the crypts of the martyrs ;" and an epitaph to St. Alexander, in the Callixtan Catacombs, contains the sentence, "O tempora infausta, quibus inter sacra et vota ne in cavernis quidem salvara possumus!" In one terrific persecution a multitude of the faithful suffered death in catacombs on the Salarian Way, by order of the Emperor Numerianus; sand and stones being heaped up against the entrance, so as to leave buried alive those victims, of whose fate was found affecting proof long afterwards, not only in the bones of the dead, but in several silver cruets that had served for the eucharistic celebration. An impressive circumstance accompanied the martyrdom of Pope Stephen: the ministers of death rushed into the subterranean chapel, where they found him officiating, and, as if struck with sudden awe, waited till the rite was over before they slew him in his episcopal chair. As catacomb sepulchres became gradually filled, those sections or corridors no longer serviceable used to be blocked up with soil, in order thus both to separate the living from the dead, and to avoid the necessity of leaving accumulations outside. Granular tufa, which, with lithoid tufa and pozzolana, forms the material of the volcanic strata around Rome, is the substance (easily worked, but quite unsuitable for building) in which all Roman catacombs are excavated, except those of St. Pontianus, outside the Porta Portese, and of St. Valentine, on the Flaminian Way, which are in a soil of marine and fluvial deposits, shells, fossils, etc. abode for a time (v. Anastasius) in the catacombs of SS. Tiburtius and Valerian, ordered all such hypogees as had suffered from barbarian spoliation to be repaired; also provided that a regular supply of bread, wine, and lights should be furnished from the Lateran Basilica for the celebrations still kept up on Sundays at the altars of these subterraneans. Towards the end of the sixth century, St. Gregory the Great indicated, among places of assemblage for the faithful on the days of the Lenten "Stations," or concourse, some of the cemeteries as well as principal churches of Rome. The evidences of art may be here cited to prove comparative modernness in decorative details: the nimbus, for instance, around the heads of saintly figures, indicates date subsequent to the fourth century; and in the Callixtan Catacombs the figure of St. Cecilia, attired in cumbrous finery, jewelled head dress, and necklaces, as also those of SS. Urban and Cornelius, besides a sternly expressive head of the Saviour, with marked characteristics of the Byzantine school, suggest origin certainly not earlier than the sixth or seventh, if not so late as the eighth century. From the ninth century till a comparatively late period most of these catacombs were left unexplored, perhaps entirely inaccessible, and forgotten. Mediæval writers usually ignored their existence. That strange compilation, so cu-ganized by him with much solemnity and rious in its fantastic suggestions and blindness to historic fact, the Mirabilia Urbis Roma (written, some critics assume, in the tenth, others in the twelfth century; first published about 1471), enumerates, indeed, twenty-one catacombs. Flavio Biondo, writing in the fifteenth century, mentions those of St. Callixtus alone; Onofrio Panvinio, in the sixteenth century, reckons thirty-nine; Baronius, at date not much later, raises the number to forty-three. Those of St. Priscilla, entered below the Salarian Way, belonging to that mother of the Christian Senator Pudens, who received St. Peter; also those of SS. Nereus and Achilleus, near the Appian Way, have been referred to an antiquity correspondent with the apostolic age; and if those called after St. Callixtus were indeed formed long anterior to that pope's election, A.D. 210, we may place them second in chronologic order. That several continued in use as cemeteries long after the first imperial conversion, is evident from the fact that Constantine's daughter ordered the embellishment and enlargement of those called after St. Agnes, which became in consequence more than ever frequented-so to say, fashionable as a place of interment during the fourth century: a circumstance manifest in the superior regularity and spaciousness of corridors; in the more labored execution, but inferior style, of paintings seen in those catacombs. Other facts relevant to the story of later vicissitudes may be cited: Pope Damasus (v. Baronius, anno 384) ordered a platonia (pavement of inlaid marbles) for that part of the Callixtan Catacombs in which for a certain time had lain the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul. Pope John III. (560-73), who The practice of frequenting these cemeteries for prayer, or for visiting the tombs of martyrs, continued common till the ninth, nor had entirely ceased even in the thirteenth century, being certainly more or less in prevalence under Honorius III. (1217-27.) Yet the process of transporting the bodies of martyrs from these resting places to the city, for safer and more honored interment, had begun under Pope Paul I. (757-67), who took such precaution against the pious frauds practiced by the Longobards, while investing Rome, led by Astolphus-a king particularly bent upon relic-stealing: so devout in this respect were the fierce invaders of papal territory. At later mediæval periods the Catacombs fell into oblivion, till their ingresses became, for the most part, unknown even to the clergy; and one of the earliest records of their being visited in later ages is found in the names of Raynuzio Farnese (father of Paul III.) and the companions who descended with him, still read, beside the date 1490, in the Callixtan Cata theme, is, that it entirely sets at rest the question of supposed connection between the Christian Catacombs and pagan arenaria; and establishes that in no one instance were the former a mere continuance or enlargement of the latter, as neither could the quality of soil in which these cemeteries were opened have served for building, nor their plan and dimensions have permitted the extracting of material for such purposes. One could not, indeed, desire clearer refutation of the theory respecting the identity of the two formations than that which meets the eye in the St. Agnes lower story, that originally formed for Christian purposes, we enter the pagan arenaria above those corridors sacred to the dead, this higher part being totally distinct in plan and in the dimensions of winding passages, as requisite for extracting the pozzolana sand. combs. Not till late in the next century was the attention of savans directed by new lights from science, and through the revived study of antiquity, towards this field of research; subsequently to which movement, excavations were carried on at intervals from 1592 to 1693; the most important and fruitful in results being the labors of the indefatigable Bosio, who, after patient toils, pursued enthusiastically for thirty three years, died (1600) without completing the work projected for transmitting their profits to posterity. Its first publication was in 1632, under the title, Roma Sotterranea, compiled from Bosio's Mss. by Catacombs-ascending in which from the Severano (an Oratorian priest); and a few years subsequently another Oratorian, Arringhi, brought out, with additions, the same work translated into Latin. Next followed (1702) the Inscriptiones Antiqua of Fabretti, official custode to the Catacombs; and the learned work, Cimiteri dei Santi Martiri (1720), by Bol- Another valuable illustration to the detti, the fruit of thirty years' labors, same range of sacred antiquities is the surpassed all hitherto contributions on work by Padre Garrucci, Vetri Ornati this subject alike in vivacity of descrip- (" Glasses adorned with Figures in Gold, tion, extensive knowledge, and well-sus- from the Cemeteries of the Primitive tained argument. Only next in merit Christians"), with engravings of 318 and authority is the Sculture e Pitture Sacre ("Sacred Sculptures and Paintings from the Cemeteries of Rome"), by Bottari (1734-54), an illustrated work evincing thorough acquaintance with its theme. The Manners of the Primitive Christians, by the Dominican Mamachi, one of the most valuable archæologic publications from the Roman press (1752), comprises, though not dedicated to this particular range, a general review of catacomb - monuments, together with others that throw light on the usages or ideas of the early Church. Interesting, though incomplete, is the contribution of the Jesuit father, Marchi-Architettura della Roma Sotterranea Cristiana, or Monuments of Primitive Christian Art in the Metropolis of Christianity (1844), which the writer only lived to carry to the close of one volume, exclusively dedicated to the constructive and topographic aspects of his subject-this publication having been suspended, long before his death, owing to the defection of subscribers after that year '48, so fatal to the interests of his religious order. The merit of his argument, in throwing light on its tazze, all presenting groups or heads, gilt by a peculiar process on glass. As to the use of these, Garrucci differs from Buonarotti and others, who assume all such vessels to have served for sacramental purposes; his view referring many of them to remoter periods-to the second and third, instead of exclusively to the fourth century, as was the conclusion of previous writers. Among the figured designs on these glasses are several of great significance; and of their subjects one of the most frequently repeated is the group of SS. Peter and Paul side by side, usually as busts, and with not the slightest indication of superiority in one over the other apostlerather, indeed, a perfect parity in honors and deserts, as implied in the single crown suspended, in some instances, over the heads of both; or in their simultaneous crowning by the Saviour, whose figure is hovering over the pair alike thus honored at the Divine Master's hand. Between these two apostles is often placed the Virgin, or some other female saint, especially Agnes, admitted to like honor; and in cer |