Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 8.djvu/72

 INSCRIPTIONS

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INSCRIPTIONS

to deacons, subdeacons. exorcists, lectors, acolytes, /nssores or grave-diggers, alumni or adopted chil- dren. The Greek inscriptions of Western Europe and the East yield especially interesting material; in them is found, in addition to other information, mention of archdeacons, archpriests, tleaconesses, and monks. Besides catechumens and neophytes, reference is also made to virgins consecrated to God, nuns, abbesses, holy widows, one of the last-named being the mother of Pope St. Damasus I (q. v.), the celebrated restorer of the catacombs. Epitaphs of martyrs and tituli mentioning the martyrs are not found as frequently as one would expect, especially in the Roman cata- combs. This, however, is easily explained by recall- ing the circumstances of burial in the periods of persecution, when Christians must have been con- tented to save and to give even secret burial to the remains of their martyrs. Many a nameless grave among the five million estimated to exist in the Roman catacombs held the remains of early Christians who witnessed to the Faith with their Ijlood. Another val- uable repertory of Catholic theology is found in the dogmatic inscriptions in which all important dogmas of the Church meet (incidentally) with monumental confirmation. The monotheism of the worshippers of the Word — or Cullores Verbi, as the early Chris- tians loved to style themselves — and their belief in Christ are well expressed even in the early inscriptions. Very ancient inscriptions emphasize, and with detail, the most profound of Catholic dogmas, the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. In this connexion we may mention the epitaph of Abercius (q. v.). Bishop of Hieropolis in Phrygia (second cen- tury), and the somewhat later epitaph of Pectorius (q. V.) at Autun in Gaul. The in.scription of Abercius speaks of the fish (Christ) caught by a holy virgin, which serves as food under the species of liread and wine; it speaks, further, of Rome, where Abercius vis- ited the chosen people, the Church par excellence. This important inscription aroused at first no little con- troversy among scholars, and some non-Catholic archa?ologists sought to find in it a tendency to pagan syncretism. Now, however, its purely Christian char- acter is almost universall}' acknowledged. The origi- nal was presented by Sullan .Abdul Hamid to Leo XIII, and is preserved in the Apostolic Museum at the Lateran. Early Christian inscriptions confirm the Catholic doctrine of the Resurrection, the sacraments, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin, and the primacy of the Apostolic See. It would be difficult to over- estimate the importance of these evidences, for they are always entirely incidental elements of the sepul- chral inscriptions, all of which were pre-eminently eschatological in their purpose.

POIOTICAL AND OFFICIAL INSCRIPTION^. — W'hilc the

copious material obtained from the early Christian epitaplis, especially the inscriptions of the Roman (Latin) and the Greek-Oriental groups, is eciuiva- lent to a book in stone on tlic faitli and life of our Christian forcfatlieis. the purely litcniry side of these monuments is not insignificant. Many inscriptions have the character of public dDOumenls; others are in ver.se, either taken from well-known poets, or at times the work of the person erecting tlie memorial. Fragments of cla.ssical poetry, especially quotations from Virgil, are occasionally found. The most famous composer of poetical epitaphs in Christian antiquity was Pope Damasus I CMU'i :',S 1 1, nienticnied al)Ove. He rejiaired the neglected tombs cf llic martyrs and the graves nf distinguisheil persons wIjo Ijad lived l)efore tlie Con- stantinian epoch, antl ailoiiicd tliese burial places with metrical epitaphs in a |)eeuliarly lieautiful letter- ing. Nearly all the larger cemeteries of Rome owe to this pope large stone tablets of this character, several of which have been preserved in their original form or in fragments. Besides verses on his mother Laurentia and his sister Irene, he wrote an autobiographical

poem In which the Saviour is addressed; "Thou Who stillest the waves of the deep. Whose power giveth life to the seed slumbering in the earth, who didst awaken Lazarus from the dead and give back the brother on the third day to the sister Martha ; Thou wilt, so I be- lieve, awake Damasus from death." Eulogies in honour of the Roman martyrs form the most impor- tant division of the Damasine inscriptions. They are written in hexameters, a few in pentameters. The best known celebrate the temporary burial of the two chief Apostles in the Platonia under the basilica of St. Sebastian on the Via Appia, the martyrs Protus and Hyacinth in the Via Salaria Antiqua, Pope Marcellus in the Via Salaria Nova, St. Agnes in the Via Nomen- tana, also Saints Laurence, Hippolytus, Gorgonius, Peter and Marcellinus, Ensebius, Tarsicius, Cornelius, Eutychius, Nereus and Achilleus, Felix and Adauctus. Damasus also placed a metrical inscription in the bap- tistery of the Vatican, and set up others in connexion with various restorations, e. g. an inscription on a stairway of the cemetery of St. Hermes. Altogether there have been preserved as the work of Damasus more than one hundred epigrammata, some of them originals and others written copies. More than one half are probably correctly ascribed to him, even though it is necessary to rememlier that after his death Damasine inscriptions continued to be set up, i. e. inscriptions in the beautifid lettering invented by Damasus or rather by his calligrapher Furius Diony- sius Filocalus. Some of the inscriptions, which imi- tate the lettering of Filocalus, make .special and lauda- tory mention of the pope who had done so much for the catacombs. Among these are the inscriptions of Pope Vigilius (537-55), a restorer animated by the spirit of Damasus. Some of his inscriptions are pre- served in the Lateran Museum.

The inscriptions just mentioned possess as a rule a public antl official character. Other inscriptions served as official records of the erection of Christian edifices (churches, baptisteries, etc.). Ancient Roman examples of this kind are the inscribed tablet dedi- cated by Boniface I at the beginning of the fifth cen- tury to St. Felicitas, to whom the pope ascribed the settlement of the schism of Eulalius, and the inscrip- tion (still visible) of Pope Sixtus III in the Lateran baptistery, etc. The Roman custom was soon copied in all parts of the empire. At Thebessa in Northern Africa there were found fragments of a metrical in- scription once set up over a door, and in almost exact verlial agreement with the text of an inscription in a Roman church. Both the basilica of Nola and the church at Primuliacum in Gaul bore the same distich; Pax tibi sit quicunque Dei penetralia Christi, pectore pacifico candidus ingrederis. (Peace be to thee whoever enterest with pure and gentle heart into the sanctuary of Christ God.) In such inscriptions the church building is generally re- ferred to as (htmus Dei, domun oration is (the house of God, the house of prayer). The present writer found an inscription with the customary Greek term Ohos Kvplov (House of the Lord) in the basilica of the Holy Baths, one of the basilicas of the ancient Egyptian town of Menas. In Northern Africa, especially, pas- sages from the psalms frequently occur in Christian inscriptions. The preference in the East was for in- scription;- executed in mosaic; such inscriptions were also fre<|uent in Rome, where, it is well known, the art of mosaic reaelicd very high i)erfeetion in Christian edifices. .\n excclieiit and welbkiiown example is the still extant original inscription of the fifth century on the wall of the interior of the Hoiiian basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine over the cntranee to the nave. This monumental record in mosaic contains seven lines in hexameters. On each side of the inscription is a mosaic figure: one is the Eccleaia ex genlihm (Church of the Gentiles), the other the Kcctcsl'a ex cir- cumcisione (Church of the Circumcision). The text