Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/474

 CATACOMBS

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CATACOMBS

An arcosolium was a space excavated in the wall native method of burial, and imitated the rock-graves above which a semicircular recess was hewn out, in of Palestine by laying out cemeteries in the stone-like which a sarcophagus was sometimes placed; in the stratum of tufa around Rome. In this manner Jew- excavation below, the body was laid and covered with ish catacombs were laid out and developed before a flat marble slab. It was not common to bury the Christianity appeared in Rome. Connected with the dead beneath the floor of the passages or burial two chief Jewish colonies, one in the quarter of the chambers. At the present day the majority of the city across the Tiber, and the other by the Porta graves are found open, the slabs which once sealed Capena, were two large Jewish catacombs, one on the them having vanished; often nothing remains of the Via Portuensis and one on the Via Appia, as well as ashes and bones. The rock and broken material some smaller ones; all are recognizable by the seven- loosened by the constant digging in the innumer- branched candlestick, which repeatedly appears on able passages were piled up in the sand-pits near gravestones and lamps, by, or brought to the surface in baskets, or were Until after the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus

heaped up in the passages which were no longer visited because the families of the dead had passed away. In order to obtain light , and above all fresh air, shafts called luminaria, some- what like chimneys, were cut through the soil to the sur- face of the ground. These luminaria, however, are seldom found before the fourth century, when the great numbers of the faith- ful who attended the religious services in the catacombs on the feast days of the martyrs rendered such precautions for health a necessity. At this date also wider and easier stairways were made, leading from the surface of the ground into the depths below.

The early Chris- tian name for these places of burial was Koifi7iTTipioi>, ccemete- rium, place of rest. When, in the Middle Ages, the recollec- tion of the cata- combs passed away,

R^fl Tufa, or volcanic sto

the Catacombs wen

■B Early Christian maso

e. Id whkh eicavated. ary.

£33 -Modern masonry.

EZ2 Church above Catacomb,

on the: surface of the ground. /

(a. d. 70) the Chris- tians were regarded as a sect of the Jews ; hence those Jews who were converted by the Apostles at Rome were buried in the catacombs of their fellow-country- men. The question arises as to where those converted from heathenism by the Apostles found their last resting- place. It is a fact to which Tacitus, Suetonius, Dio Cas- sius.and other pagan historians bear wit- ness, that as early as the days of the Apostles members of the higher and even of the highest ranks of the nobility had become Chris- tians. These con- verts of rank from h e at h e ni s m had their own tombs, and permitted their brethren in thel'aith to construct, in con- nexion with these family tombs, places of burial modelled on the Jewish cata- combs. This is the origin of the Chris- tian catacombs. The catacombs of the Apostolic Era are:

the monks attached to the church of St. Sebastian on on the Via Ardeatina, the catacomb of Domitilla.

the Via Appia kept the ca-meterium ad catacumbas niece of the Emperor Domitian and a member of the

.in this road accessible for pilgrims. After the re- Flavian family; on the Via Salaria, that of PriseiUa,

discovery and opening of the other rnrmcteria, the who was probably the wife of the Consul Acilius

name belonging to this one ca-meterium was ap- Glabrio; on the Via Appia, that of Lucina, a member

plied to all. The catacombs awaken astonishment on of the Pomponian family; on the Via Ostiensis. that

account of the remarkable work of construction of Commodilla, connected with the grave of St. Paul,

which, in the course of three hundred years, the At a later date other catacombs were constructed,

piety of the early Christians and their love for the nearly all having their origin in a family vault;

dead produced. In estimating the enormous sum of among them an- those of Cecilia, Prffitextatas,

money required for the catacombs, it must also be Hermes, etc., which still bear the names of their

taken into consideration that the early Christians, by founders. Again, the grave of a venerated martyr

voluntary contributions, supported the clergy, aided would be another nucleus of a catacomb, e: g. that

the i r, widows, and orphans, assisted those sent of St. Laurence, St. Valentine, or St. Castulus;

to prison or the mines on account of their faith, and such a coemeterium would bear the name oi the

bought from the executioners at a large price the martyr. Catneteria occasionally owed their names to

if the martyrs. some external feature as the one ad duas lauros

II. History.— The Romans cremated their dead (the two laurel trees) ; this title is still added to the

and deposited the ashes in a family tomb (sepidcrum, names of the two martyrs, Peter and Mm-ellinus,

memorta), or in a vault or common sepulchre (colum- resting there. Thus in the course ot three hundred

barium : hut the Jews living in Home retained their years some fifty catacombs, large ami small, formed