Plantilla, Petronilla and others, has a public entrance hewn out of a perpendicular cliff, conspicuous from the high road. (1) The crypt is approached through a vestibule, which is richly decorated with terra cotta carvings and with frescos on the ceiling. (Ibid).

(c) The underground catacombs began in times of persecution, after the first century. They were called after the names of persons on whose properties they were, v g., Catacombs of Domitilla, Cyriaca, Priscilla, Pretextatus, etc. Catacombs could not be excavated everywhere; the presence of veins or beds of soft volcanic stone or granular tufa, was a necessary condition of their existence.

(d) The aggregate length of the galleries of the catacombs hitherto discovered is said to be 866 kilometers, i.e., 587 geographical miles. These galleries are on different levels, reaching down to three, four and even five rows, and are ventilated by air shafts. The upper galleries, and chapels, have here and there luminaria, or funnel-shaped apertures for light; the rest are perfectly dark. They are like the narrow shafts of a mine shooting out horizontally, so narrow and low, that you can easily touch both walls and ceiling with your hands as you walk along. The sides have loculi or berth-like recesses, where the bodies of the dead were placed, each in its own loculus, shut in by marble slabs or jointed tiles.

(e) In the case of a martyr a cup or glass phial, containing some of the sacred blood he had shed for the Faith, was placed near his head, and on the slab enclosing the remains was sculptured the outline of a palm branch. Sometimes sponges, or sediment tinged with their blood, are found in the graves of martyrs, as also the very instruments of their torture.

(f) St. Callixtus, Pope and martyr (218-223), while still deacon of Pope St. Zephyrinus, was appointed superintendent of the works at this cemetery, (2) which he enlarged and beautified and which preserves his name, though he was not himself buried here. He suffered martyrdom in an outbreak of persecution in A. D. 223, and his body was cast into a well still shown near S. Maria in Trastevere. The Christians recovered and buried it in the nearest cemetery at hand. viz., that of Calepodius (now known as S. Pancrazio) by the Via Aurelia. It is now venerated under the high altar of S. Maria in Tras

(1) The modern Via delle Sette Chiese, see Northcote, Roma Sotterranea, p. 71.

(2) Northcote, Ibid., pp. 83-86.

tevere. On his martyrdom see Allard, Hist. des Persec'ns ii, p. 201.

(g) The works begun by St. Callixtus in the persecution of Septimius Severus (204-212) to mask the entrances of the catacombs, by connecting them with old disused sandpits, themselves underground, were continued in the persecution of Valerian (257-260), when not only were the approaches more perfectly concealed, but former stairs were removed, galleries blocked and barriers erected at every turn. To one who was not in the secret, even if he succeeded with the help of a torch in finding the entrance through the underground sand pits, it became a hopeless task to proceed beyond a short distance, for he was foiled and balked at every turn by blind corridors that seemed to lead nowhere; moreover, he did not know the secret sign or number of raps to be given, on hearing which, those within would open a concealed door from above and let down a ladder to admit him, or roll back a stone disclosing a secret stair to the gallery below.

(h) That the Christians from the beginning visited out of devotion the tombs of the martyrs, we know from St. Jerome, St. Paulinus and Prudentius; we know also that in times of persecution they concealed themselves in the catacombs and here assisted at the celebration of the Divine Mysteries. An edict was passed forbidding these assemblies, (1) but the Christians succeeded in baffling the vigilance of the government. Popes St. Stephen I and St. Sixtus II both said Mass in the crypt chapels and were there beheaded. (2)

XIII. THE CATACOMBS OF ST. CALLIXTUS. (Cont.)

(1)—The Oratory of St. Callixtus at the entrance of the Catacombs. Following our Trappist guide, we first visit a small brick building with three apses, which was identified by De Rossi as the ancient Cella Memoriæ of S. Sixtus, built by S. Fabian in the third century. It contains inscriptions and reliefs from the catacombs, plans of the parts hitherto discovered, and copies of the most important mural paintings. The entrance to the catacombs is near this building.

In 1849, De Rossi chanced to find in the cellar of a vineyard near

(1) Northcote, Roma Sotterranea, p. 87.

(2) On the Christians being hunted in their assemblies in the Catacombs. See Allard, Histoire des Persécutions, p. 85.

On the interesting subject, how the Christian community, availing itself of the law sanctioning funeral clubs, came to own the cemeteries or Catacombs see Allard, vol. ii., p. 1o., seq., p. 485, seq.: Northcote, pp. 49-53.

this building a fragment of a monumental stone having on it the upper part of the letter R, followed by the complete letters NELIUS, MARTYR. He divined it at once to belong to the grave of St. Cornelius, Pope and Martyr, and, having induced Pope Pius IX to purchase the vineyard, set to work diligently with his excavations. It was not long before he came upon the other half of the same slab, lying at the foot of the grave to which it evidently belonged. He could now read plainly―

CORNELIUS, MARTYR. EP.

This was enough to convince him that he had hit upon the cemetery of St. Callixtus, for he knew from his ancient guides that the tomb of St. Cornelius, though not actually within its precients, was hard by. Further important discoveries followed, till the whole cemetery of St. Callixtus, with the crypt chapels of the Popes, and of St. Cecilia, gradually yielded its secrets to the young archæologist.

(2)-Descent to the Catacombs.

The descent is by a steep flight of steps constructed probably after the time of Constantine, when the faithful of the fourth and fifth centuries used to come in crowds to visit these subterranean chapels and venerate the tombs of the martyrs. St. Jerome (in c. 40 Ezech.) writing in the fourth century says: "While I was pursuing my studies at Rome as a youth, I was accustomed frequently on Sundays, in company with others of the same age and disposition, to visit the tombs of the Apostles and Martyrs, and frequently entered the vaults which are dug deep down in the earth, and have the bodies of the dead ranged along the walls on either side as you enter. Everything there is so dark, that the saying of the prophet seems almost verified, 'Let them go down alive into Hades.' Here and there a scanty light admitted by a hole from above moderates the horror of the darkness; and as you advance step by step, and are immersed in the blackness of night, you are reminded of the words of the poet, 'The very silence fills the soul with dread.'" St. Paulinus and Prudentius also speak of the Catacombs as being devoutly visited by the early Christians. St. Paulinus (Poem 27 in Nat) says, that the tombs of the martyrs here contained could not be numbered. (1)

We descend from the bright light of day and plunge into the Egyptian darkness of a subterranean world. Lighting our tapers, we follow the guide along the narrow passages, peopled on either side by the dead,

(1) Prudentius on the Catacombs, see Northcote, Roma Sotterranea, p. 98-99.

lying on sepulchral shelves. The covers of some of the tombs have been removed, revealing only dust and occasionally fragments of bones; others are shut in by marble slabs or jointed tiles. The bodies of martyrs, wherever discovered, have been translated elsewhere. It is hard to realize that crowds of Christians in days of persecution were forced to take refuge in these dark recesses and kept there, packed in a mine, with its crypts and cemeteries, for weeks and weeks together. It was a living tomb, solaced, however, with the voice of prayer and praise and the daily celebration of the Divine Mysteries.

"A catacomb," says Cardinal Wiseman, Fabiola, Part II, c. 2, may be divided into three parts, its passages or streets, its chambers or squares and its churches. The passages are long, narrow galleries, cut with tolerable regularity, often so narrow as scarcely to allow two persons to go abreast. They sometimes run quite straight to a considerable length; but they are crossed by others, and these again by others, so as to form a complete labyrinth or network of subterranean corridors. To be lost among them would easily be fatal.

"The walls of these galleries, as well as the sides of the staircases, leading to lower depths, are honeycombed with graves, large and small, of sufficient length to admit a human body laid with its side to the gallery. Sometimes there are three or four of these rows, one above the other, sometimes many more."

For further particulars the reader is referred to Cardinal Wiseman. Ibid., c. 2, c. 3, also to Northcote's Roma Sotterranea.

Our guide points out to us the graffiti, or scribblings on the walls left by pious pilgrims in the fifth, sixth and seventh centuries, and important as showing that we are approaching a place of more than ordinary sanctity.

(3)-The Papal Crypt or Tomb Chapel of the Popes (1). Presently we reach a chamber of considerable dimensions containing the tombs of the Popes. The walls are lined with graves of the earliest Popes, many of them martyrs, viz., St. Soterus (168–176), St. Zephyrinus (200-218), St. Pontianus, who died in banishment in Sardinia (230-235), St. Anterus, martyr (235-236), St. Fabian, martyr (236-250), St. Lucius, martyr (253-254), St. Stephen I, martyred in his episcopal chair under Valerian (254-257), St. Sixtus II, martyred in the Catacombs of Pretextatus (257-258), St. Dionysius (259-269), St. Eutychianus, martyr (275-283) and St. Caius (283

(1) See Northcote, Roma Sotterranea, p. 130 seq.