THE ROMAN CATACOMBS
THE “COME AND DINE” OF THE LAST CHAPTER OF ST. JOHN’S GOSPEL—THE MYSTIC REPAST OF THE SEVEN DISCIPLES
CEMETERY OF CALLISTUS—II CENTURY. (A FAVOURITE PICTURE IN THE CATACOMBS)
An absolutely reliable source of information respecting the secret of the inner life of the Church in the early Christian centuries is the faithful record of the thoughts, the hopes, the aspirations of the congregations of the Church of the metropolis of the Empire, carved and painted on the countless graves of the subterranean corridors and chambers of the Catacombs of Rome.
“The popular, the actual belief of a generation or society of men cannot always be ascertained from the contemporary writers, who belong for the most part to another stratum. The belief of a people is something separate from the books or the watchwords of parties. It is in the air. It is in their intimate conversation. We must hear, especially in the case of the simple and unlearned, what they talk of to each other. We must sit by their bedsides, get at what gives them most consolation, what most occupies their last moments. This, whatever it be, is the belief of the people, right or wrong; this and this only, is their real religion.... Now, is it possible to ascertain this concerning the early Christians?
“The books of that period are few and far between, and those books are for the most part the works of learned scholars rather than of popular writers. Can we, apart from these books, discover what was their most real and constant representation of their dearest hopes here and hereafter? Strange to say, after all this lapse of time (getting on for some two thousand years) it is possible; the answer, at any rate, for that large mass of Christians from all parts of the Empire that was collected in the capital, the answer is to be found in the Roman Catacombs,”[119]—that great city of the dead which lies beneath the soil of the immediate suburbs of imperial Rome. This city of the dead certainly contains several hundred miles of streets of tombs, and the tombs at least contain three or more millions of silent dwellers!
In this resting-place of the dead the community of Rome, by far the greatest of the Christian churches who professed the faith of Jesus, for some two centuries and a half reverently laid their dear ones as they passed from the stir of busy restless Roman life into the unseen world. There in these Catacombs they used to pray often, very often in the years of persecution; there they used to hear the teaching of Duty, of Hope and Faith from the lips of some chosen master, and it is from the words written or graven upon the innumerable tombs in the Catacombs that we gather what was the real belief of these early congregations—what their sure hopes and aspirations. In these silent streets, on the walls of the countless sepulchral chambers, they loved to paint pictures and to grave short epitaphs telling of these same cherished hopes. Some of these pictures and epitaphs, often dim and discoloured, often mutilated, are with us still. Not a few of the artists who worked there were evidently men of no mean power in their noble craft.
Ruined, desecrated, spoiled though it now is, with only comparatively small portions accessible at all—what a treasure-house for the scholar is this silent group of cemeteries!
A careful study of the more recent discoveries in the Catacombs throws much light on the opinions and thoughts of the Christians of the first and second centuries, showing us that the current of early Christian thought not unfrequently ran in a somewhat different channel to the stream of thoughts presented to us by the contemporary writers of that very early period. It must, however, be insisted on that the cardinal doctrines of the Faith taught by the weightiest of the first Christian writers were absolutely identical with the belief of the Christians of the Roman Catacombs. If anything, the supreme divinity of the Son of God—His love for, His care for men, is emphasised more emphatically, if it be possible, in the silent teaching than in the fervid dogmatism of the great Catholic writers.
To enable the reader fairly to grasp something of the vast extent, the nature, and importance of these Catacombs of Rome, whose silent witness to the “Inner Life” of the early Church is invoked, this Fourth Book will give: (1) a brief description of the way in which the investigations into this wonderful “City of the Dead” in later years has been carried out by careful scholars and experts; (2) a general and somewhat detailed account of the situation and features of the several Catacombs, dwelling especially on the more important of these cemeteries; (3) the teaching contained in the inscriptions, carvings, and paintings on the graves in the Catacomb corridors.