A visit to the Roman catacombs E-Book

James Spencer Northcote

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

My study of the Roman Catacombs began in 1846. Two years later I published a series of letters upon the subject in the Rambler, and the substance of these, with some additions and corrections, was collected into a small volume in 1856. This was translated both into French and German, and a second English edition was published in 1859.
But in 1864 and 1867 the first two volumes of De Rossi’s great work appeared; and these not only added indefinitely to our knowledge of particulars about the Catacombs, but also effected a complete revolution in the view to be taken of their history, and laid a new basis for the future study of them. Formerly, it had been taken for granted that the Christians had had recourse to this mode of burying their dead, only for the sake of the opportunities of secrecy which it afforded, and it was a difficult question for Christian archæologists to solve how it had been possible to carry on a work of such magnitude, under the very eyes (as it were) of the Pagan authorities, without detection. De Rossi set aside these speculations, and proved that there was no necessity for the early Christians to take exceptional precautions with reference to the burial of their dead, since many of the customs of their Pagan neighbours in this matter were such as they might themselves make use of, and, under ordinary circumstances, their cemeteries were adequately protected by the law.

Leseprobe

A VISITTO THE ROMAN CATACOMBS.

BY REV. J. SPENCER NORTHCOTE

© 2024 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782385746650

A VISIT TO THE ROMAN CATACOMBS.

PREFACE.

Part First.

CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS.

CHAPTER II. THEIR HISTORY DURING THE AGES OF PERSECUTION.

CHAPTER III. THEIR HISTORY FROM A.D. 310 TO A.D. 850.

CHAPTER IV. THEIR LOSS AND RECOVERY.

CHAPTER V. THEIR PAINTINGS AND SCULPTURE.

CHAPTER VI. THEIR INSCRIPTIONS.

Part Second.

CHAPTER I. THE PAPAL CRYPT.

CHAPTER II. THE CRYPT OF ST. CECILIA.

CHAPTER III. THE CRYPT OF ST. EUSEBIUS.

CHAPTER IV. THE TOMB OF ST. CORNELIUS.

PREFACE.

My study of the Roman Catacombs began in 1846. Two years later I published a series of letters upon the subject in the Rambler, and the substance of these, with some additions and corrections, was collected into a small volume in 1856. This was translated both into French and German, and a second English edition was published in 1859.

But in 1864 and 1867 the first two volumes of De Rossi’s great work appeared; and these not only added indefinitely to our knowledge of particulars about the Catacombs, but also effected a complete revolution in the view to be taken of their history, and laid a new basis for the future study of them. Formerly, it had been taken for granted that the Christians had had recourse to this mode of burying their dead, only for the sake of the opportunities of secrecy which it afforded, and it was a difficult question for Christian archæologists to solve how it had been possible to carry on a work of such magnitude, under the very eyes (as it were) of the Pagan authorities, without detection. De Rossi set aside these speculations, and proved that there was no necessity for the early Christians to take exceptional precautions with reference to the burial of their dead, since many of the customs of their Pagan neighbours in this matter were such as they might themselves make use of, and, under ordinary circumstances, their cemeteries were adequately protected by the law.

Henceforward, the manual of 1859 was not only incomplete, it had also been demonstrated to be incorrect. In 1869, therefore, a much larger volume was published by Rev. W. R. Brownlow and myself, founded upon the new discoveries. This also was favourably received by the public; the first English edition was soon exhausted, and translations were made both in France and Germany. A second and enlarged edition is now in course of preparation, which will embody the most interesting and important parts of De Rossi’s third volume, which has only just appeared. Meanwhile, however, there is need of a short manual, which shall be a safe guide to those who only desire to become acquainted with the leading features of the subject, according to the present condition of our knowledge of it; and with this view I have compiled the following pages, at a time when ill health has necessitated the suspension of more arduous labours. They do not pretend to give a complete account either of the past history or present condition of the Catacombs, but merely a correct outline of the whole, so that those who would pursue the study further shall, at least, have nothing to unlearn.

I have called the volume “A visit to the Roman Catacombs,” because it describes the principal objects of interest which are to be seen in the visit now usually paid by educated travellers to the Catacomb of St. Callixtus. To this, however, I have prefixed half a dozen chapters, which make, in fact, three-fourths of the whole work, and in which I have condensed the information which every visitor ought to have before he descends into these subterranean crypts. Unless he has some general idea of what the Catacombs really are, how they came to be made, when and how they were used, and what they contain, he will derive but little pleasure or profit from what he sees in them. I hope, therefore, that this volume will not only be a valuable guide to those who are able to visit the Catacombs, but also a useful introduction to the whole subject for all classes. Those who desire to study it more profoundly must have recourse to De Rossi’s learned volumes, or to the English abridgment of them.

St. Dominic’s, Stone, September 1877.

P.S.—Any profits derived from the sale of this book will be sent to Commendatore de Rossi to promote the work of excavation, which languishes for want of funds. At more than one spot in the Catacombs, the Commission of Sacred Archæology, of which De Rossi is Secretary, has the strongest reason for believing in the existence of historic monuments of great value, and it is most desirable that these monuments should be recovered, whilst we have amongst us so competent an interpreter of them. But funds are wanting. The late Monsignor de Merode was a most munificent benefactor to this work, and his death has been an irreparable loss. Smaller contributions, however, will be thankfully received; and through the kindness of friends, or by means of my own public lectures, I have been able to send two or three hundred pounds within the last few years. Any further sums that may be intrusted to me for the same purpose will be at once forwarded to Rome.

J. S. N.

ROMA SOTTERRANEA.

Part First.

CHAPTER I.THE ORIGIN OF THE CATACOMBS.

The great St. Jerome, writing about 1500 years ago, tells us that when he was a schoolboy in Rome, he used to go every Sunday, in company with other boys of his own age and tastes, to visit the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, and to go down into the crypts excavated there in the bowels of the earth. “As you enter,” he says, “you find the walls on either side full of the bodies of the dead, and the whole place is so dark, that one seems almost to realise the fulfilment of those words of the prophet, ‘Let them go down alive into Hades.’ Here and there a little light admitted from above suffices to give a momentary relief to the horror of the darkness; but, as you go forward, you find yourself again plunged into the utter blackness of night, and the words of the poet come unbidden to your mind, ‘The very silence fills the soul with dread.’” Anybody who has frequented the Roman Catacombs will recognise the justice of this description; and if he is as familiar with Virgil and with the Psalms of David as St. Jerome was, he may have used something like the same language to describe his own impressions. But we are writing for those who have never seen the Catacombs at all, and we must therefore enter into more minute particulars.

Let us first try to get a general idea of what the Catacombs are. And for this purpose let us transport ourselves in imagination to the city of Rome, and having been led out some two or three miles (more or less) almost on any of the fourteen great consular roads which went forth from the old centre of the world to its most distant provinces, let us go down, either by some modern staircase or through some accidental fissure in the soil, into the bowels of the earth. At the depth of fifteen or twenty feet we shall probably find ourselves landed in a dark narrow gallery, something like what is here represented—a gallery about three feet wide, and perhaps seven or eight feet high, cut out of the living rock, and its walls on either side pierced with a number of horizontal shelves, one above the other, like the shelves of a bookcase. We need hardly be told that each of these shelves once contained a dead body, and had then been shut up by long tiles or slabs of marble, securely fastened by cement, and inscribed perhaps with the name of the deceased or with some Christian emblem. Probably some grave still uninjured may lie within our sight, or we may see bones and ashes in some of the graves that are open.

Gallery with Tombs.

If we step forward and enter one of the doorways to be found on either side, it will introduce us to a small chamber, twelve or fourteen feet square perhaps. If there is nothing but graves cut in the walls of this chamber, just as in the galleries, we may safely conjecture that it was only a family vault. But if we find a bench hewn out of the rock all round the room, together with a chair (or perhaps two) similarly excavated, we can hardly be wrong in supposing that the room was once used as a place of assembly, whether for purposes of public psalmody or of religious instruction. Or, if the principal tomb in the chamber be shaped like an altar, if two or three chambers open out of one another, and if one of these have an absidal termination, with a chair at the end and a low seat running round the sides, such as may still be seen in some of the old basilicas above ground for the accommodation of the bishop and clergy, no one can justly accuse us of rashness if we suspect that we stand in a place that was provided for the celebration of the Christian mysteries in days of persecution.

Arcosolium, or altar-shaped tomb.

Part of Catacomb of St. Agnes.

If we were sufficiently bold to leave the gallery which we first entered, and to pursue our way further into the interior, we should soon lose ourselves in some such labyrinth as is here represented. This diagram is a true map of a small portion (perhaps not more than an eighth) of a catacomb on the Via Nomentana, commonly known by the name of St. Agnes. It is about 230 yards long by 180 in width; yet if all the galleries in this small section of a catacomb were stretched out in one continuous line, they would make very nearly two English miles in length. And then we must remember that in almost all these subterranean cemeteries the same thing is repeated on two or three different levels—in some of them even on five levels. In the Catacomb of St. Callixtus, on the Via Appia, we can descend by a succession of staircases to five different stories, so to speak; and perhaps the excavators might have made even a sixth and a seventh had they not by this time come to the level of water, where any galleries they might dig would soon have become mere subterranean canals.

Section of the Cemetery of St. Callixtus.

But we have not even yet finished our tale of wonder. One such excavation as this would have been a remarkable work, and its history would have deserved examination. But in the hills round Rome there are forty or fifty such, of various sizes indeed, and each having its own name and history, but all evidently inspired by the same idea and forming part of the same general plan. What was this plan? For what purpose were these labyrinths of long narrow galleries and small chambers so laboriously excavated?

To this question their very form seems to supply the only possible answer. They were made to bury the dead. This is undeniably the first and principal use to which they were put. It is no less certain that this was also the object for which they were designed. Time was, indeed, when learned men shrank from this conclusion, and suggested, that though unquestionably they were used as burial-places, yet perhaps this was only an afterthought, and that they may have been originally designed for something else. The building of Rome, it was said, must have required vast quantities of stone and of sand to make cement; perhaps, therefore, in the Roman Catacombs we have only lit upon a certain number of exhausted, or rather deserted, sandpits and quarries, which later generations availed themselves of, for economy’s sake, as places of burial.

Plan of Arenaria at St. Agnes’.