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CHAPTER XIII.

THE CATACOMBS.

Advantages of a Visit to the Catacombs-Edification to be derived by the untravelled from a description of them-Wonderful workings of Providence illustrated by the Catacombs-Human reason baffled, and the teaching of the Church supported by the testimony of the Catacombs-The Lesson of the Catacombs important in the present age of unbelief-The Theory of the Arenaria-Other benefits derived from a Visit to the Catacombs-Reflections suggested by a Visit to the Catacombs-Persecution of the Infant Church-Persecution at all times the Heritage of Truth-At all times ineffectual to accomplish its purpose-Our own Country instanced-Persecution foretold by Christ to be the lot of his Disciples-Reference made to Works on the Catacombs-What Pius IX. has done for the Catacombs-Other names mentioned in connection with this subject.

Or all the thousand sights and scenes of unrivalled interest which attract the pilgrim from every shore to the banks of the historic Tiber, there are scarcely any to which he turns with a more devout attention, and from which he carries away a more abiding consolation, than those dark corridors of death, those mysterious abodes of primitive Christianity, the crypts, or, as they are commonly called, the Catacombs* of Rome. There

* This name seems to have been originally given to the cemetery of St. Sebastian, which was first called the Cemeterium ad Catacumbas, and afterwards for brevity the Catacombs. At present the term is so far generalized that we apply it to all these sepulchres without distinction. They are about sixty in number, about nine hundred miles in extent, and contain almost seven millions of graves. Of the monumental inscriptions which have been found in them, three hundred bear con

are no curiosities, moreover, that he has seen which, on his return, he may describe with more edification to his untravelled friends, by their incontrovertible testimony in favour of our faith, confirming his Catholic neighbours in the doctrines which they have been taught at their mothers' knees; encouraging the convert on whom, later in life, their truth has dawned, and clearing away the mists of doubt which separate his brethren of other persuasions from the fold of that Church whose struggling infancy sought a refuge in the cold depths of these gloomy excavations.*

It is wonderful to consider the ineffable workings of that Divine Providence, by which the first followers of the faith had been driven from the face of earth and

sular dates, ranging from the time of the early emperors to the year 350 of our era. Soon after the latter period, interment in the catacombs appears to have been discontinued altogether. Their antiquity at least cannot be disputed.

* “Within is dampness foul,

And darkness by the day-beam undispell'd—

The cheerless dead's abode."

The account which St. Jerome gives of the horrors of the sepulchres is lively and accurate :

"Dum essem Romæ puer, et liberalibus studiis erudier solebam cum cæteris ejusdem ætatis et propositi, diebus dominicis sepulcra apostolorum et martyrum circumire, crebroque cryptas ingredi, quæ, in terrarum profundo de fossæ, ex utraque parte ingredientium per parietes habent corpora sepultorum, et ita obscura sunt omnia ut propemodum illud propheticum compleatur: Descendant in infernum viventes; et raro desuper lumen admissum, hororem temperat tenebrarum, ut non tam fenestram quam foramen demissi luminis putes; rursumque pedetentim acceditur, et cava nocte circumdatis illud Virgilianum proponitur, 'Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent."

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S. Hieron. in Ezech.

imprisoned within its bowels, that there they might record the belief of the pure ages in which they lived, by indubitable signs and enduring marks, which the research of after centuries should discover to check the mistaken flights of unaided reason, and to strengthen the tottering steps of faith by the support and confirmation of their testimony. In this present age of unbelief particularly, the lesson of the Catacombs is working wonders, and thousands who had been wandering in the dark way, led only by the glimmering lamp of human intellect, are daily enlightened unto truth by the torch that guides them through those wildering passages. There he who runs may read, that prayers were offered for the dead, the saints invoked, and the blessed mother of our Lord honoured then as now by the Church of God. Fast as he can decipher the monumental inscriptions, conviction comes to him; and the old frescoes and carvings which adorn those parts that served as churches, preach to him at every step the truth of that faith which is to last for ever. But it is the preparations for the oblation of the Holy Eucharist that most unmistakably bring persuasion to the heart of every conscientious inquirer. No one surely can view those evidences of primitive belief and not be struck with the identity of the Church of to-day with the Church of the earliest ages, and edified by the profound veneration and unwavering fidelity with which unchangeable Christianity has continued throughout all times to teach this glorious mystery of Divine commiseration.

The lesson of the Catacombs is undoubtedly not very

flattering to human pride, which in these days of socalled progress refuses credence, like the incredulous Thomas, to everything save what falls within the narrow range of sense, and the little which the mind without the light of faith can understand; but it is one which not even human reason itself can reject. In an age when men must see with their eyes and touch with their hands before they will believe, God has taken pity on them; the "garden concealed" has been opened, and there, with the finger of His right hand, He points out unerringly the way of life. Some learned writers, indeed, seeing what they considered the dangerous Popish tendency of this great lesson, endeavoured to prove the Catacombs nothing more than heathen excavations, made to extract a valuable species of sand for the building of the city. But the failure of their attempts was so manifest to all who tested them by personal examination, that they have thereby only shown the more clearly how impossible and absurd was the task which they undertook. Sandpits, it is true, exist, and they have even sometimes for convenience been made the entrances to the crypts in question; but no one who sees both for himself will deny that the arenaria and the Catacombs were excavations made for purposes widely different indeed.

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But the benefits which I have mentioned, though perhaps the greatest, are not the only ones to be derived from a visit to the Catacombs. It is refreshing to the soul, in this age of ours, which is as active as it is faithless, to steal from the cares and strife of our usual existence into the seclusion of those quiet, holy places,

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