Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 05, March, 1858

"Hoc miserae plebi stabat commune sepulcrum."

It not unfrequently happens in the soil of the Campagna, that the vein of harder rock in which the catacombs are quarried assumes the soft and sandy character which belongs to it in a state of decomposition. The ancient Romans dug this sand as the modern Romans do; and it seems probable, from the fact that some of the catacombs open out into arenaria , or sandpits, as in the case of the famous one of St. Agnes, that the Christians, in time of persecution, when obliged to bury with secresy, may have chosen a locality near some disused sandpit, or near a sandpit belonging to one of their own number, for the easier concealment of their work, and for the safer removal of the quarried tufa. In such cases the tufa may have been broken down into the condition of sand for removal. In later times, as the catacombs were extended, the tufa dug out from one passage was carried into the old passages no longer used; and thus, as the catacomb extended in one direction, it was closed up in another, and the ancient graves were concealed. This is now one of the great impediments in the way of modern exploration; and the same process is being repeated at present; for the Church allows none of the earth or stone to be removed that has been hallowed as the resting-place of the martyrs, and thus, as one passage is now opened, another has to be closed. The archaeologists may rebel, but the priests have their way. The ancient filling up was, however, productive of one good result; it preserved some of the graves from the rifling to which most were exposed during the period of the desertion of the catacombs. Most of the graves which are now found with their tiled or marble front complete, and with the inscription of name or date upon them unbroken, are those which were thus secluded.

But there is still another curious fact bearing upon the Christian origin of the catacombs. They are in general situated on somewhat elevated land, and always on land protected from the overflow of the river, and from the drainage of the hills. The early traditions of the Church preserve the names of many Christians who gave land for the purpose,—a portion of their vignas , or their villas. The names of the women Priscilla, Cyriaca, and Lucina are honored with such remembrance, and are attached to three of the catacombs. Sometimes a piece of land was thus occupied which was surrounded by property belonging to those who were not Christian. This seems to have been the case, for instance, in regard to the cemetery of St. Callixtus; for (and this is one of the recent discoveries of the Cavaliere de Rossi) the paths of this cemetery, crossing and recrossing in three, four, and five stages, are all limited to a definite and confined area,—and this area is not determined by the quality of the ground, but apparently by the limits of the field overhead. There can be no other probable explanation of this but that Christians would not extend their burial-place under land that was not in their possession. Many other facts, as we shall see in other connections, go to establish beyond the slightest doubt the Christian origin and occupation of the catacombs.

Descending from the level of the ground by a flight of steps into one of the narrow underground passages, one sees on either side, by the light of the taper with which he is provided, range upon range of tombs cut, as has been described, in the walls that border the pathway. Usually the arrangement is careful, but with an indiscriminate mingling of larger and smaller graves, as if they had been made one after another for young and old, according as they might be brought for burial. Now and then a system of regularity is introduced, as if the fossor , or digger, who was a recognized officer of the early Church, had had the leisure for preparing graves before they were needed. Here, there is a range of little graves for the youngest children, so that all infants should be laid together, then a range for older children, and then one for the grown up. Sometimes, instead of a grave suitable for a single body, the excavation is made deep enough into the rock to admit of two, three, or four bodies being placed side by side,—family graves. And sometimes, instead of the simple loculus , or coffin-like excavation, there is an arch cut out of the tufa, and sunk back over the whole depth of the grave, the outer side of which is not cut away, so that, instead of being closed in front by a perpendicular slab of marble or by tiles, it is covered on the top by a horizontal slab. Such a grave is called an arcosolium , and its somewhat elaborate construction leads to the conclusion that it was rarely used in the earliest period of the catacombs 5 5 There is one puzzling circumstance in the cemetery of S. Domitilla. All the graves in this cemetery are arcosolia , and yet the date of construction is early. The Cavaliere de Rossi suggests that the cemetery was begun at the expense of the Domitilla whose name it bears, the niece of Domitian, previously to her banishment; that her position enabled her to have it laid out from the beginning on a regular plan, and to introduce this more expensive and elaborate form of grave, which was continued for the sake of uniformity in the later excavations. . The arcosolia are usually wide enough for more than one body; and it would seem, from inscriptions that have been found upon their covering-slabs, that they were not infrequently prepared during the lifetime of persons who had paid beforehand for their graves. It is not improbable that the expenses of some one or more of the cemeteries may have been borne by the richer members of the Christian community, for the sake of their poorer brothers in the faith. The example of Nicodemus was one that would be readily followed.

But beside the different forms of the graves, by which their general character was varied, there were often personal marks of affection and remembrance affixed to the narrow excavations, which give to the catacombs their most peculiar and touching interest. The marble facing of the tomb is engraved with a simple name or date; or where tiles take the place of marble, the few words needed are scratched upon their hard surface. It is not too much to say that we know more of the common faith and feeling, of the sufferings and rejoicings of the Christians of the first two centuries from these inscriptions than from all other sources put together. In another paper we propose to treat more fully of them. As we walk along the dark passage, the eye is caught by the gleam of a little flake of glass fastened in the cement which once held the closing slab before the long since rifled grave. We stop to look at it. It is a broken bit from the bottom of a little jar ( ampulla ); but that little glass jar once held the drops of a martyr's blood, which had been carefully gathered up by those who learned from him how to die, and placed here as a precious memorial of his faith. The name of the martyr was perhaps never written on his grave; if it were ever there, it has been lost for centuries; but the little dulled bit of glass, as it catches the rays of the taper borne through the silent files of graves, sparkles and gleams with a light and glory not of this world. There are other graves in which martyrs have lain, where no such sign as this appears, but in its place the rude scratching of a palm-branch upon the rock or the plaster. It was the sign of victory, and he who lay within had conquered. The great rudeness in the drawing of the palm, often as if, while the mortar was still wet, the mason had made the lines upon it with his trowel, is a striking indication of the state of feeling at the time when the grave was made. There was no pomp or parade; possibly the burial of him or of her who had died for the faith was in secret; those who carried the corpse of their beloved to the tomb were, perhaps, in this very act, preparing to follow his steps,—were, perhaps, preparing themselves for his fate. Their thoughts were with their Lord, and with his disciple who had just suffered for his sake,—with their Saviour who was coming so soon. What matter to put a name on the tomb? They could not forget where they had laid the torn and wearied limbs away. In pace , they would write upon the stone; a palm branch should be marked in the mortar, the sign of suffering and triumph. Their Lord would remember his servant. Was not his blood crying to God from the ground? And could they doubt that the Lord would also protect and avenge? In those first days there was little thought of relics to be carried away,—little thought of material suggestions to the dull imagination, and pricks to the failing memory. The eternal truths of their religion were too real to them; their faith was too sincere; their belief in the actual union of heaven and earth, and of the presence of God with them in the world, too absolute to allow them to feel the need of that lower order of incitements which are the resort of superstition, ignorance, and conventionalism in religion. In the earlier burials, no differences, save the ampulla and the palm, or some equally slight sign, distinguished the graves of the martyrs from those of other Christians.