Sister, take these verses, the sad comfort of your brother, who, in lonely lamentation, has given these words to you. Reader, if you desire to know who is covered by this tomb, she bore names which told her high descent. She, when alive, always followed, in her conduct, Christ, who she believed would be her guide after death.

In a prepared rest they join their dear bodies. These are our second but our perpetual nuptials.[758]

Sometimes the funeral tablet was erected by the hand of friendship, probably when there were none of kin to pay this last sad tribute of affection. De Rossi thinks that which follows one of the most ancient in Rome: DORMITIONI T. FLA. EVTYCHIO. HVNC LOCVM DONABIT M. ORBIVS AMICVS KARISSIMVS KARE BALE—“As a resting place for Titus Flavius Eutychius, his dearest friend, Marcus Orbius, gave this spot. Farewell, beloved.” One fair friend thus commemorates the loss of another: AELIA VICTORINA POSVIT AVRELIAE PROBAE—”Ælia Victorina erected this stone to Aurelia Proba.” We find also such expressions as, “Best friend,” “Dear and faithful companion,” “Constant in love and truth.” Sometimes a lowly servant or freedman records a master’s virtues, as in the epitaph of Gordianus, erected by his handmaid Theophila—ΥΘΦΗΛΑ ΑΝCΗΛΛΑ ΦΕCΙΤ (sic); and that of Prosenes, which Ampelius, his freedman, wrote—SCRIPSIT AMPELIVS LIB. Another was buried by her sweet and holy nurse in Christ—ΘΡΕΠΤΕΙΡΑΝ ΓΛΥΚΕΡΗΝ ΑΓΙΑΝ ΕΝ ΧΡΩ.

The duration of sickness, or cause of death, is sometimes, though very rarely, mentioned in Christian inscriptions. Thus we have such particulars as PERIT IN DIES V—“He died in five days;” ΕΝΟϹΗϹΕΝ ΗΜΕΡΑϹ ΙΒ—“He was ill twelve days.” A pagan epitaph complains of the death of the deceased by magical incantations: CARMINIBVS DEFIXA IACVIT PER TEMPORA MVTA VT EIVS SPIRITVS VI EXTORQVERETVR QVAM NATVRAE REDDERETVR—“Overcome by charms she lay at times dumb, so that her spirit was torn from her by force rather than given back to nature.” Another was snatched away while she too sedulously nursed a sick husband—DVM FOVIT NIMIA SEDVLITATE VIRVM. Another died of internal burnings, which medical skill was powerless to cope with—ARDENTES INTVS VINCERE QVOS MEDICAE NON POTVERE MANVS. Of another we read that after long and various infirmities she is freed from human things—POST LONGAS ET VARIAS INFIRMITATES HVMANIS REBVS EXEMPTA EST.[759] Like this is the expression in a Christian epitaph—POST VARIAS CVRAS POST LONGAE MVNERA VITAE—“After various cares, after the duties of a long life.”

The same spirit which thus commemorated the departed would lead also to the decoration of their sepulchres with pious frescoes or elaborate sculpture, limned or carved often as a last offering of love by the hand of affection or of friendship—now for fifteen centuries kindred dust with that whose resting-place it so fondly sought to beautify.

We should do scant justice, however, to the blameless character, simple dignity, and moral purity of the primitive Christians, as indicated in these posthumous remains, if we forgot the thoroughly effete and corrupt society by which they were surrounded. It would seem almost impossible for the Christian graces to grow in such a fetid atmosphere. Like the snow-white lily springing in virgin purity from the muddy ooze, they are more lovely by contrast with the surrounding pollutions. Like flowers that deck a sepulchre, breathing their fragrance amid scenes of corruption and death, are these holy characters, fragrant with the breath of heaven amid the social rottenness and moral death of their foul environment.

It is difficult to imagine, and impossible to portray, the abominable pollutions of the times. “Society,” says Gibbon, “was a rotting, aimless chaos of sensuality.” It was a boiling Acheron of seething passions, unhallowed lusts, and tiger thirst for blood, such as never provoked the wrath of heaven since God drowned the world with water, or destroyed the Cities of the Plain by fire. Only those who have visited the secret museum of Naples, or that house which no woman may enter at Pompeii, and whose paintings no pen may describe; or who are familiar with the scathing denunciations of popular vices by the Roman satirists and moralists and by the Christian Fathers, can conceive the appalling depravity of the age and nation. St. Paul, in his epistle to the church among this very people, hints at some features of their exceeding wickedness. It was a shame even to speak of the things which were done by them, but which gifted poets employed their wit to celebrate. A brutalized monster was deified as God, received divine homage,[760] and beheld all the world at his feet and the nations tremble at his nod, while the multitude wallowed in a sty of sensuality.[761]

Christianity was to be the new Hercules to cleanse this worse than Augean pollution. The pure morals and holy lives of the believers were a perpetual testimony against abounding iniquity, and a living proof of the regenerating power and transforming grace of God. For they themselves, as one of their apologists asserts, “had been reclaimed from ten thousand vices.”[762] And the Apostle, describing some of the vilest characters, exclaims, “Such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are sanctified.” They recoiled with the utmost abhorrence from the pollutions of the age, and became indeed “the salt of the earth,” the sole moral antiseptic to prevent the total disintegration of society.

The Christians were therefore especially exhorted to “keep themselves from idols.” They believed that their images were the abodes of dæmons who delighted in the reek of blood and the fetid odour of sacrificial flesh.[763] Against image-makers the severest ecclesiastical censures were denounced. They were the foster fathers of devils,[764] to whom they offered not the sacrifice of a beast, but immolated their mind, poured the libation of their sweat, kindled the torch of their thought, and slew the richer and more precious victim of their salvation.[765] The believers might not wreath their gates, nor illuminate their houses, nor attend the public festivals, nor witness a sacrifice, nor accept a heathen salutation, nor sell incense, nor eat meat polluted with idolatrous lustration.[766] Thus amid pagan usages and unspeakable moral degradation the Christians lived: a holy nation, a peculiar people. “We alone are without crime,” says Tertullian; “no Christian suffers but for his religion.” “Your prisons are full,” says Minutius Felix, “but they contain not one Christian.” And these holy lives were an argument which even the heathen could not gainsay. The ethics of paganism were the speculations of the cultivated few who aspired to the character of philosophers. The ethics of Christianity were a system of practical duty affecting the daily life of the most lowly and unlettered. “Philosophy,” says Lecky, “may dignify, but is impotent to regenerate man; it may cultivate virtue, but cannot restrain vice.”[767] But Christianity introduced a new sense of sin and of holiness, of everlasting reward, and of endless condemnation. It planted a sublime, impassioned love of Christ in the heart, inflaming all its affections. It transformed the character from icy stoicism or epicurean selfishness to a boundless and uncalculating self-abnegation and devotion.[768]

This divine principle developed a new instinct of philanthropy in the soul. A feeling of common brotherhood knit the hearts of the believers together. To love a slave, to love an enemy! was accounted the impossible among the heathen; yet this incredible virtue they beheld every day among the Christians. “This surprised them beyond measure,” says Tertullian, “that one man should die for another.”[769] Hence, in the Christian inscriptions no word of bitterness even toward their persecutors is to be found. Sweet peace, the peace of God that passeth all understanding, breathes on every side.

One of the most striking results of the new spirit of philanthropy which Christianity introduced is seen in the copious charity of the primitive church. Amid the ruins of ancient palaces and temples, theatres and baths, there are none of any house of mercy. Charity among the pagans was, at best, a fitful and capricious fancy. Among the Christians it was a vast and vigorous organization, and was cultivated with noble enthusiasm. And the great and wicked city of Rome, with its fierce oppressions and inhuman wrongs, afforded amplest opportunity for the Christ-like ministrations of love and pity. There were Christian slaves to succour, exposed to unutterable indignities and cruel punishment, even unto crucifixion for conscience’ sake. There were often martyrs’ pangs to assuage, the aching wounds inflicted by the rack or by the nameless tortures of the heathen to bind up, and their bruised and broken hearts to cheer with heavenly consolation. There were outcast babes to pluck from death. There were a thousand forms of suffering and sorrow to relieve, and the ever-present thought of Him who came, not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many, was an inspiration to heroic sacrifice and self-denial. And doubtless the religion of love won its way to many a stony pagan heart by the winsome spell of the saintly charities and heavenly benedictions of the persecuted Christians. This sublime principle has since covered the earth with its institutions of mercy, and with a passionate zeal has sought out the woes of man in every land, in order to their relief. In the primitive church voluntary collections[770] were regularly made for the poor, the aged, the sick, the brethren in bonds, and for the burial of the dead. All fraud and deceit was abhorred, and all usury forbidden. Many gave all their goods to feed the poor. “Our charity dispenses more in the streets,” says Tertullian to the heathen, “than your religion in all the temples.”[771] He upbraids them for offering to the gods only the worn-out and useless, such as is given to dogs.[772] “How monstrous is it,” exclaims the Alexandrian Clement, “to live in luxury while so many are in want.”[773] “As you would receive, show mercy,” says Chrysostom; “make God your debtor that you may receive again with usury.”[774] The church at Antioch, he tells us, maintained three thousand widows and virgins, besides the sick and poor. Under the persecuting Decius the widows and infirm under the care of the church at Rome were fifteen hundred. “Behold the treasures of the church,” said St. Lawrence, pointing to the aged and poor, when the heathen prefect came to confiscate its wealth. The church in Carthage sent a sum equal to four thousand dollars to ransom Christian captives in Numidia. St. Ambrose sold the sacred vessels of the church of Milan to rescue prisoners from the Goths, esteeming it their truest consecration to the service of God. “Better clothe the living temples of Christ,” says Jerome, “than adorn the temples of stone.”[775] “God has no need of plates and dishes,” said Acacius, bishop of Amida, and he ransomed therewith a number of poor captives. For a similar purpose Paulinus of Nola sold the treasures of his beautiful church, and it is said even sold himself into African slavery.[776] The Christian traveller was hospitably entertained by the faithful; and before the close of the fourth century asylums were provided for the sick, aged, and infirm. During the Decian persecution, when the streets of Carthage were strewn with the dying and the dead, the Christians, with the scars of recent torture and imprisonment upon them, exhibited the nobility of a gospel revenge in their care for their fever-smitten persecutors, and seemed to seek the martyrdom of Christian charity, even more glorious than that they had escaped.[777] In the plague of Alexandria six hundred Christian parabolani periled their lives to succour the dying and bury the dead.[778] Julian urged the pagan priests to imitate the virtues of the lowly Christians.

Christianity also gave a new sanctity to human life, and even denounced as murder the heathen custom of destroying the unborn child. The exposure of infants was a fearfully prevalent pagan practice, which even Plato and Aristotle permitted. We have had evidences of the tender charity of the Christians in rescuing these foundlings from death, or from a fate more dreadful still—a life of infamy. Christianity also emphatically affirmed the Almighty’s “canon ’gainst self-slaughter,” which crime the pagans had even exalted into a virtue. It taught that a patient endurance of suffering, like Job’s, exhibited a loftier courage than Cato’s renunciation of life.

Out of eleven thousand Christian inscriptions of the first six centuries, scarce half a dozen make any reference to a condition of servitude, and of these, as Dr. Northcote remarks, two or three are doubtful. Yet of pagan epitaphs at least three fourths are those of slaves or freedmen. The conspicuous absence of recognition of this unhappy social distinction is no mere accident. We know that the Christians were largely drawn from the servile classes, but in the church of God there was no respect of persons. The gospel of liberty smote the gyves at once from the bodies and the souls of men. In Christ Jesus there was neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free. The wretched slave, in the intervals of toil or torture, caught with joy the emancipating message, and sprang up enfranchised by an immortalizing hope. Then “trampled manhood heard and claimed his crown.” The victim of human oppression exulted in a new-found liberty in Christ which no wealth could purchase, no chains of slavery fetter, nor even death itself destroy. To him earth’s loftiest palace was but a gilded prison of the soul, his lowly cot became the antechamber of the skies, and his emancipated spirit passed from his pallet of straw to the repose of Abraham’s bosom.

In the Christian church the distinctions of worldly rank were abolished.[779] The highest spiritual dignities were open to the lowliest slave. In the ecclesiastical hierarchy were no rights of birth, and no privileges of blood. In the inscriptions of the Catacombs no badges of servitude, no titles of honour appear. The wealthy noble—the lord of many acres—recognized in his lowly servant a fellow-heir of glory. They bowed together at the same table of the Lord, saluted each other with the mutual kiss of charity, and side by side in their narrow graves at length returned to indistinguishable dust. The story of Onesimus may have often been repeated, and the patrician master have received his returning slave, “not now as a servant, but above a servant—a brother beloved.” Nay, he may have bowed to him as his ecclesiastical superior, and received from his plebeian hands the emblems of their common Lord. The lowly arenarii and fossors, the rude Campagnian husbandmen and shepherds, and they “of Cæsar’s household,” met in common brotherhood, knit together by stronger ties than those of kinship or of worldly rank, as heirs of glory and of everlasting life.

The condition of the slave population of Rome was one of inconceivable wretchedness. Colossal piles built by their blood and sweat attest the bitterness of their bondage. The lash of the taskmaster was heard in the fields, and crosses bearing aloft their quivering victims polluted the public highways. Vidius Pollio fed his lampreys with the bodies of his slaves. Four hundred of these wretched beings deluged with their blood the funeral pyre of Pedanius Secundus. A single freedman possessed over four thousand of these human chattels. They had no rights of marriage nor any claim to their children. This dumb, weltering mass of humanity, crushed by power, led by their lusts, and fed by public dole, became a hot-bed of vice in which every evil passion grew apace. The institution of slavery cast a stigma of disgrace on labour, and prevented the formation of that intelligent middle class which is the true safeguard of liberty. Christianity, on the contrary, dignified, ennobled, and in a sense hallowed labour by the example of its Divine Founder. It consecrated the lowly virtues of humility, obedience, gentleness, patience, and long-suffering, which paganism contemned. It did not, indeed, at once subvert the political institution of slavery, but it mitigated its evils, and gradually led to its abolition.

One of the noblest triumphs of Christianity was its suppression of the bloody spectacles of the amphitheatre. The early Christians had good reason to regard with shuddering aversion those accursed scenes within that vast Coliseum which rears to-day its mighty walls, a perpetual monument of the cruelty of Rome’s Christless creed. Many of their number had been mangled to death by savage beasts or still more savage men, surrounded by a sea of pitiless faces, twice eighty thousand hungry eyes gloating on the mortal agony of the confessor of Christ, while not a single thumb was reversed to make the sign of mercy.[780] There the maids and matrons, the patricians and the “vile plebs” of Rome, enjoyed the grateful spectacle of cruelty and blood. Even woman’s pitiful nature forgot its tenderness, and the honour was reserved for the vestal virgin to give the signal for the mortal stroke that crowned the martyr’s brow with fadeless amaranth. These hateful scenes, in which the spectacle of human agony and death became the impassioned delight of all classes, created a ferocious thirst for blood and torture throughout society.[781] They overthrew the altar of pity, and impelled to every excess and refinement of barbarity. Even children imitated the cruel sport in their games, schools of gladiators were trained for the work of slaughter, and women fought in the arena, or lay dead and trampled in the sand.

From the very first Christianity relentlessly opposed this horrid practice, as well as all theatrical exhibitions. The mingled cruelty, idolatry, and indecency of the performances were obnoxious alike to the humanity, the piety, and the modesty of the Christians.[782] They were especially included in the pomps of Satan which the believer abjured at his baptism. Hence their abandonment was often regarded as a proof of conversion to Christianity. The theatre was the devil’s house, and he had a right to all found therein.[783] Christianity, soon after it ascended the throne of the Cæsars, suppressed the gladiatorial combats. The Christian city of Constantinople was never polluted by the atrocious exhibition. A Christian poet eloquently denounced the bloody spectacle, and a Christian monk, at the cost of his life, protested, amid the very frenzy of the conflict, against its cruelty. His heroic martyrdom produced a moral revulsion against the practice, and the laws of Honorius, to use the language of Gibbon, “abolished forever the human sacrifices of the amphitheatre.”

It is remarkable that so few references to military life occur in Christian epitaphs, whereas they form a prominent feature in those of heathen origin. In ten thousand pagan inscriptions analyzed by M. Le Blant, over five hundred, or, more precisely, 5·47 per cent., were of military character; while in four thousand seven hundred of Christian origin, most of which were after the period of Constantine, only ·57 per cent., were military, or one tenth the proportion of those among the pagans. But even if in the army, the Christians, whose higher dignity was that of soldiers of Christ, would be less likely than the heathen to mention it in their epitaphs. Although Tertullian inveighs against the military service,[784] he yet admits that the Christians engaged in that as well as in other pursuits,[785] and asserts that they were found even in the camps.[786] It is probable, however, that the number in the army was insignificant, and these, it is most likely, were converted after their enlistment. There could be little affinity between the bronzed and hardened ruffians who were the instruments of the reigning tyrant’s cruelty, and the meek and gentle Christians. We know that the latter had often to choose between the sword and the gospel; and many resigned their office, and even embraced martyrdom, rather than perjure their consciences.[787] They could not take the military oath, nor deck their weapons with laurel, nor crown the emperor’s effigy, nor celebrate his birthday, nor observe any other idolatrous festival. Hence they were accused of the dreaded crime of treason, and announced as the enemies of Cæsar and of the Roman people.[788] Tertullian repels the charge, and demonstrates their loyalty to the emperor and to their country.[789]

Feeling that their citizenship was in heaven, the Christians took no part in the troubled politics of earth. “Nothing is more indifferent to us,” says Tertullian, “than public affairs.”[790] If only their religious convictions were unassailed they would gladly live in quiet, unaffected by civic ambition or by worldly strife. “Themselves half naked,” sneered the heathen, “they despise honours and purple robes.”[791] But although accused of being profitless to the state,[792] they were nevertheless diligent in business while fervent in spirit. “We are no Brahmins or Indian devotees,” says their great apologist, “living naked in the woods, and banished from civilized life.”[793] They were no drones in the social hive, but patterns of industry and thrift. Inspired with loftier motives than their heathen neighbours, they faithfully discharged life’s lowly toils, sedulously cultivated the private virtues, and followed blamelessly whatsoever things were lovely and of good report.

In nothing, however, is the superiority of Christianity over paganism so apparent as in the vast difference in the position and treatment of woman in the respective systems. It is difficult to conceive the depths of degradation into which woman had fallen when Christianity came to rescue her from infamy, to clothe her with the domestic virtues, to enshrine her amid the sanctities of home, and to employ her in the gentle ministrations of charity. The Greek courtesan, says Lecky, was the finest type of Greek life—the one free woman of Athens. But how world-wide was the difference between the Greek hetæra—a Phryne or an Aspasia, though honoured by Socrates and Pericles—and the Christian matrons Monica, Marcella, or Fabiola. So much does woman owe to Christianity! In Rome her condition was still worse. The heathen satirists paint in strongest colours the prevailing corruptions, and the historians of the times reveal abounding wickedness that shames humanity. The vast wealth, the multiplication of slaves, the influx of orientalism with its debasing vices, had thoroughly corrupted society. The relations of the sexes seemed entirely dislocated. The early Roman ideas of marriage were forgotten; it had no moral, only a legal character. Woman, reckless of her “good name,” had lost “the most immediate jewel of her soul.” The Lucretias and Virginias of the old heroic days were beings of tradition. A chaste woman, says Juvenal, was a rara avis in terra. The Julias and Messalinas flaunted their wickedness in the high places of the earth, and to be Cæsar’s wife was not to be above suspicion. Alas, that in a few short centuries Christianity should sink so low that the excesses of a Theodora should rival those of an Agrippina or a Julia! Even the loftiest pagan moralists and philosophers recklessly disregarded the most sacred social obligation at their mere caprice. Cicero, who discoursed so nobly concerning the nature of the gods, divorced his wife Terentia that he might mend his broken fortunes by marrying his wealthy ward. Cato ceded his wife, with the consent of her father, to his friend Hortensius, taking her back after his death. Woman was not a person, but a thing, says Gibbon. Her rights and interests were lost in those of her husband. She should have no friends nor gods but his, says Plutarch. It was the age of reckless divorce. In the early days of the Commonwealth there had been no divorce in Rome in five hundred and forty years. In the reign of Nero, says Seneca, the women measured their years by their husbands, and not by the consuls. Juvenal speaks of a woman with eight husbands in five years;[794] and Martial, in extravagant hyperbole, of another who married ten husbands in a month.[795] We must also regard as an exaggeration the account given by Jerome of a woman married to her twenty-third husband, being his twenty-first wife.[796]

Nevertheless, God did not leave himself without a witness in the hearts of the people; and we have seen many illustrations of conjugal happiness in previous inscriptions.[797] But Christianity first taught the sanctity of the marriage relation, as a type of the mystical union between Christ and his church; and enforced the reciprocal obligation of conjugal fidelity, which was previously regarded as binding on woman alone. In their recoil from the abominable licentiousness of the heathen, the Christians regarded modesty as the crown of all the virtues, and against its violation the heaviest ecclesiastical penalties were threatened. This regard was at length intensified into a superstitious reverence for celibacy.[798]

The absolute sinfulness of a divorce was maintained by the early councils.[799] The Fathers admit of but one cause, that which Christ himself assigns, as rendering it lawful.[800] They also denounced second marriage, or bigamy, as it was called, which excluded from the clerical order, and from a share in the charities of the church.[801] The marriage relation was regarded as the union of two souls for time and for eternity.[802]

The church, following the principle laid down by St. Paul, strongly opposed mixed marriages with the heathen; and the Fathers denounced them as dangerous and immoral. Cyprian regards them as a prostitution of the members of Christ.[803] Tertullian also designates them spiritual adultery.[804] Where conversion occurred after marriage, the Christian partner was exhorted, in the spirit of the apostolic counsel, to strive by gentleness and love to win the unbelieving companion to Christ. Thus Monica, the mother of Augustine, and Clotildis, the wife of Clovis, both brought their heathen husbands to embrace Christianity.

The rites and benedictions of the church were early invoked to give sanction to Christian marriage;[805] and doubtless in the dim recesses of the Catacombs, and surrounded by the holy dead, youthful hearts must have plighted their troth, and been the more firmly knit together by the common perils and persecutions they must share. Here, too, the wedded pair may have paced the silent galleries, by holy converse inspired with stronger faith and more fervent love. How sweet must discourse of heaven have been in those sunless depths of earth! How thrilling those partings when before another meeting each might win a martyr’s crown.

When the church emerged from the Catacombs the marriage rites assumed a more festive character, and were frequently attended with nuptial processions, songs, music, and feasting. Some of the gilded glasses previously described seem to commemorate these occasions. Thus we occasionally find representations of the man and woman standing with clasped hands before the marriage altar, while Christ crowns the newly wedded pair. Sometimes the glass used in the marriage rite was immediately broken, as if to denote the transient nature of even the highest human bliss. The innocent festivities of these occasions gradually degenerated into convivial excesses; and, in conformity to heathen usages, were contaminated by licentiousness of speech and action unbecoming to Christian modesty. These abuses called for the strong denunciations of the Fathers and the early councils, and at length the clergy were forbidden to attend such festivals. The early Christians were required, in all their entertainments and festivals, by temperance,[806] by purity, by piety, to adorn the doctrines of the Gospel. Prayer hallowed their daily lives, and every act was done to the glory of God.

In their apparel and households the primitive believers were patterns of sobriety and godliness. The pomps and vanities of the world were renounced at their baptism. They eschewed all sumptuous and gaudy clothing as unbecoming the gravity and simplicity of the Christian character. Although many by social rank were entitled to wear the flowing Roman toga, yet by most it was regarded as too ostentatious in appearance; and, disdaining all assumption of worldly honour, they wore instead the common pallium or cloak. They rejected also, as the epicurean enticements of a world the fashion whereof was passing away, the luxurious draperies, the costly cabinets and couches, the golden vessels and marble statuary that adorned the abodes of the wealthy heathen.

The strong instinct of the female mind to personal adornment was suppressed by religious convictions and ecclesiastical discipline; and Christian women cultivated rather the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit than the meretricious attractions of the heathen. “Let your comeliness be the goodly garment of the soul,” says Tertullian. “Be arrayed in the ornaments of the apostles and prophets, drawing your whiteness from simplicity, your ruddy hue from modesty, painting your eyes with bashfulness, your mouth with silence, implanting in your ears the word of God, fitting on your neck the yoke of Christ. Clothe yourself with the silk of uprightness, the fine linen of holiness, the purple of modesty, and you shall have God himself for your lover and spouse.”[807]

“Let woman breathe the odour of the true royal ointment, that of Christ, and not of unguents and scented powders,” writes Clement of Alexandria, warning the faithful against another heathen practice. “Let her be anointed with the ambrosial chrism of industry, and find delight in the holy unguent of the Spirit, and offer spiritual fragrance. She may not crown the living image of God as the heathen do dead idols. Her fair crown is one of amaranth, which groweth not on earth, but in the skies.”[808] The simple and modest garb of the Christian matron is exhibited in many of the representations of oranti, or praying figures, in the chambers of the Catacombs. See one beautiful example from a sarcophagus in Fig. 88.

With the corruption of the church and decay of piety under the post-Constantinian emperors came the development of luxury and an increased sumptuousness of apparel. The refined classic taste was lost, and barbaric pomp and splendour were the only expression of opulence. The mosaics in the vestibules of the more ancient basilicas, and an occasional representation from the Catacombs of the period of their latest occupation, illustrate the increased luxury of dress. The primitive simplicity has given place to many-coloured and embroidered robes. The hair, often false, was tortured into unnatural forms, and raised in a towering mass on the head, not unlike certain modern fashionable modes, and was frequently artificially dyed. The person was bedizened with jewelry—pendents in the ears, pearls on the neck, bracelets and a profusion of rings on the arms and fingers. St. Jerome inveighs with peculiar vehemence against the attempt to beautify the complexion with pigments. “What business have rouge and paint on a Christian cheek?” he asks. “Who can weep for her sins when her tears wash bare furrows on her skin? With what trust can faces be lifted to heaven which the Maker cannot recognize as his workmanship?”[809] The mosaic portrait of St. Agnes is richly adorned with gems, and even the earliest examples of the Madonna is bedizened in Byzantine style with a necklace of pearls.[810] The following engraving from D’Agincourt illustrates the tasteless drapery and coiffure which awakened such intense patristic indignation.

The simplicity of the funeral rites of the primitive Christians is indicated by the character of the sepulchral monuments of the Catacombs. No “storied urn or animated bust,” nor costly mausolea, were employed to commemorate those who slept in Christ. A narrow grave, undistinguished from the multitude around save by the name of the deceased, or by the emblem of his calling, or symbol of his faith, and most frequently not even by these, sufficed, in the earlier and purer days of the church, for the last resting-place of the saints. As wealth increased and faith grew cold, more attention was given to the external expression of grief or regard for the departed; and the chambers, at first rudely hewn from the tufa, became ornamented with stucco and frescoes, and lined with marble slabs, and the inscriptions became more turgid and artificial. The superstitious veneration paid to the relics of the saints in later days led to the adornment of their sepulchres; and during the period of the temporal supremacy of Christianity, the posthumous ostentation of the rich was manifested in their costly sarcophagi and funeral monuments.[811]

All immoderate grief for the departed was regarded as inconsistent with Christian faith and hope. “Our brethren are not to be lamented who are freed from the world by the summons of the Lord,” says Cyprian, “for we know they are not lost, but sent before us. We may not wear the black robes of mourning while they are already clothed with the white raiment of joy. Nor may we grieve for those as lost whom we know to be living with God.”[812] Nay, the day of their death was celebrated as their Natalitia, or their true birthday—their entrance into the undying life of heaven. The primitive believers were not, however, insensible to natural affection, as many of the inscriptions already given fully prove; but they were sustained by a lofty hope and serene confidence in God.

The early Christian burial rites were entirely different from the pomp and pageantry of grief which characterized pagan funerals. When the spirit had departed, the body was washed with water and robed for the grave in spotless white, to represent, Chrysostom suggests, the soul’s putting on the garment of incorruption. In later times costly robes of silk and cloth of gold were employed for the burial of the wealthy, against which practice Jerome strongly inveighs. “Why does not your ambition cease,” he exclaims, “in the midst of mourning and tears? Cannot the bodies of the rich return to dust otherwise than in silk?”[813] The body was also frequently embalmed, or at least plentifully enswathed with myrrh and aromatic spices, after the manner of the burial of Our Lord. This was especially necessary in the Catacombs on account of the frequent proximity of the living to the dead. We find frequent allusions to this practice in the Fathers.[814] It was a pagan reproach that the Christians bought no odours for their persons nor incense for the gods.[815] “It is true,” says Tertullian, “but the Arabs and Sabeans well know that we consume more of these costly wares for our dead than the heathen do for the gods.”[816]

The nearest relatives or pious friends bore the corpse to the grave, and committed it as the seed of immortality to the genial bosom of the earth, often strewing the body with flowers, in beautiful symbolism of the resurrection to the fadeless summer of the skies.[817] In times of persecution the privilege would often be purchased with money of gathering the martyrs’ mangled remains, and bearing them by stealth, along the pagan “Street of Tombs,” to the silent community of the Christian dead.[818] Instead of employing the pagan nænia, or funeral dirge, and prœficæ, or hireling mourners, the Christians accompanied the dead to their repose with psalms and hymns,[819] chanting such versicles as, “Return to thy rest, O my soul;” “I will fear no evil, for thou art with me;” “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.”[820] Frequently, as will be hereafter seen, the agape or eucharist was celebrated at the grave.

The heathen buried their dead by night on account of the defilement the very sight of a funeral was supposed to cause. The Christians repudiated this idolatrous notion, and, except when prevented during times of persecution, buried openly by day, that the living might be reminded of their mortality and led to prepare for death.

We have thus seen the immense superiority, in all the elements of true dignity and excellence of primitive Christianity to the corrupt civilization by which it was surrounded. It ennobled the character and purified the morals of mankind. It raised society from the ineffable slough into which it had fallen, imparted tenderness and fidelity to the domestic relations of life, and enshrined marriage in a sanctity before unknown. Notwithstanding the corruptions by which it became infected in the days of its power and pride, even the worst form of Christianity was infinitely preferable to the abominations of paganism. It gave a sacredness previously unconceived to human life. It averted the sword from the throat of the gladiator, and, plucking helpless infancy from exposure to untimely death, nourished it in Christian homes. It threw the ægis of its protection over the slave and the oppressed, raising them from the condition of beasts to the dignity of men and the fellowship of saints. With an unwearied and passionate charity it yearned over the suffering and sorrowing every-where, and created a vast and comprehensive organization for their relief, of which the world had before no example and had formed no conception. It was a holy Vestal, ministering at the altar of humanity, witnessing ever of the Divine, and keeping the sacred fire burning, not for Rome, but for the world. Its winsome gladness and purity, in an era of unspeakable pollution and sadness, revived the sinking heart of mankind, and made possible a Golden Age in the future transcending far that which poets pictured in the past. It blotted out cruel laws, like those of Draco written in blood,[821] and led back Justice, long banished, to the judgment seat. It ameliorated the rigours of the penal code, and, as experience has shown, lessened the amount of crime. It created an art purer and loftier than that of paganism; and a literature rivaling in elegance of form, and surpassing in nobleness of spirit, the sublimest productions of the classic muse. Instead of the sensual conceptions of heathenism, polluting the soul, it supplied images of purity, tenderness, and pathos, which fascinated the imagination and hallowed the heart. It taught the sanctity of suffering and of weakness, and the supreme majesty of gentleness and ruth.

[740] Some of these occur also on pagan tombs.

[741] This, it will be remembered, was the name of Augustine’s son, whose early death he so pathetically laments.

[742] Compare also the classic names Diodorus, Herodotus, Athenadorus, Heliodorus, Apollodorus, Isidorus—the gift of Zeus, of Here, of Athene, of the Sun, of Apollo, of Isis; and Diogenes, Hermogenes—born of Zeus, of Hermes; also the beautiful German names Gottlieb, Gottlob—Beloved of God, Praise God, etc.

[743] Compare the Puritan names: Accepted, Redeemed, Called, More Fruit, Kill Sin, Fly Debate, and even lengthy texts of Scripture. See Neal’s Puritans, ii, 133, third foot note. In New England graveyards may still be found such names as Assurance, Faith, Hope, Charity, Patience, Perseverance, and all the cardinal virtues, together with Tribulation, and others still more ominous. Mr. Wellbeloved is the name of a living person. See also the French Bien Aimé, etc.

[744] Compare the funeral totems, the beaver, the bear, or eagle, of the American Indians. The Greeks also had similar names: Lycos, a wolf; Moschos, a calf; Corax, a raven; Sauros, a lizard, etc.

[745] Sometimes a sort of pun or play upon words occurs, as the following: HIC IACET GLYCONIS DVLCIS NOMINE ERAT ANIMA QVOQVE DVLCIOR VSQVE—“Here lies Glyconis. She was sweet by name, her disposition also was even sweeter.” HEIC EST SEPVLCHRVM PVLCRVM PVLCRAE FEMINAE—“Here is the beautiful tomb of a beautiful woman.” Much of the paronomasia is lost in translation. Another conceit is giving the name of the deceased acrostically in the initial letters of the lines, an invariable symbol of degraded taste. See De Rossi, No. 677, A. D. 432.

A few examples of Gothic names occur, as Bringa, Uviliaric, Erida, (is it Freda?) Ildebrand. In Gaul these are more striking, as Ingomir, Hagen, and the like.

[746] Quia solum in libro vitæ describi avebant.—Inscrip. Antiq., p. 545.

[747] See chap. ii, p. 419.

[748] Various titles of honour occur in these epitaphs, generally applied to the Consuls, occasionally to the deceased, and indicated by initial letters as above, and as follows: VI., Vir Illustris, “An Illustrious Man;” VD., Vir Devotus, or Devotissimus, “A Devout, or Very Devout Man;” VC., Vir Clarissimus, FC., Femina Clarissima, “A Most Distinguished Man or Woman;” VH., Vir Honestus, FH. Femina Honesta, “An Honourable Man or Woman;” VSP., Vir Spectabilis, “A Very Notable Man;” VP., Vir Perfectissimus, “A Most Eminent Man;” VD., Vir Doctissimus, “A Most Learned Man.”

[749] Apol., 46.

[750] It may not be uninteresting to notice some of the trades and occupations mentioned in pagan epitaphs. They are of a much wider range than those of the Christians, indicating that the latter were a “peculiar people,” excluded from many pursuits on account of their immoral or idolatrous character. Besides occupations like those above mentioned, we find such examples as QVADRIGARIVS, “A charioteer;” CVRSOR, “The runner;” MAGISTER LVDI, “Master of the Games;” MINISTER POCVLI, “Toast master;” DOCTOR MYRMILON, “Teacher of the gladiators,” DERISOR, or SCVRRA CONVIVIORVM, “Buffoon, or clown of the revels;” STVPIDVS GREGIS VRBANAE, “Clown of the city company of mountebanks.” We have also official titles, as NABICVLARIVS CVR. CORPORIS MARIS HADRIATICI, “Commissioner of the Hadriatic Company;” CVRATOR ALVEI ET RIPARVM MARIS, “Curator of the river channel and sea banks;” MENSOR PVBLICVS, “Public measurer;” VILICVS SVPRA HORTOS, “Steward over gardens;” CAESARIS PRAESIGNATOR, “Imperial Notary;” INVITATOR, “Agent.” We notice, too, others, as NVMVLARIVS, “A banker;” MEDICVS IVMENTARIVS, “Mule doctor;” MEDICVS OCVLARIS, “Oculist;” EXONERATOR CALCARIVS, “Lime dealer;” LANARIVS, “Wool-worker;” PECTINARIVS, “Comb-seller;” NEGOTIANS SALSAMENTARIVS ET VINEARIVS “Salt and wine merchant;” CVBICVLARIVS, “Keeper of the Couch;” GRAMMATICVS LECTORQVE, “Grammarian and reader;” COMPARATOR MERCIS SVTORIAE, “Shoemaker’s furnisher;” FVNARIVS, “Rope maker;” NEGOTIATOR LENTIC · ET CASTRENIAR · “A Camp Grocer and Sutler;” REDEMPTOR AB AERE, “Contractor in Brass;” FABER FERRARIVS, “Iron Worker;” NEGOTIATOR LVGDVNENSIS ARTIS, “A Dealer in Lyons wares,” not silks, as the phrase would now mean, but pottery; EXACTOR TRIBVTORVM, “Tax gatherer;” and the FANATICVS in the temple of Isis, i. e., one hired to stimulate the zeal of the votaries by wild and frantic gestures, attributed to the inspiration of the deity. We find also epitaphs of actors, dancers, pantomimists, of one of whom, a young girl, it is said, CVIVS IN OCTAVA LASCIVIA SVRGERE MESSE COEPERAT—a horrible circumstance to mention on her tomb.

[751] Tertullian bases his apology for the Christians on the blamelessness of their character, refutes the accusations against them, and challenges proof. The unworthy members of the community, he says, are only as moles or freckles on the body, or as a fleecy cloud on a sunny sky, affecting not its general character.—Ad Nationes, 5.

[752] Compare, in Propertius’ elegy on Cornelia, the line

Viximus insignes inter utramque facem.

“I lived spotless from the kindling of my marriage torch to that which lit my funeral pyre.”

[753] The text and translation are as given by Burgon.

[754] Dr. Northcote indeed asserts that “there are actually more instances of alumni among the sepulchral inscriptions of the Christians than among the infinitely more numerous sepulchral inscriptions of the pagans.” (Page 136.) The accompanying Greek examples are characteristic of the class: ΠΡΟΚΛΗ ΘΡΕΠΤΗ, “To Procla, an adopted daughter;” ΠΕΤΡΟϹ ΘΡΕΠΤΟϹ ΓΛΥΚΥΤΑΤΟϹ ΕΝ ΘΕΩ, “Peter, a most sweet adopted son, in God.”

The titles mamma and tata, sometimes in their diminutive forms mamula and tatula, equivalent to our mamma and papa, occur in Christian and pagan epitaphs.

[755] The expression papasantimio was erroneously translated “most holy Pope” by Paoli and Fea, but their mistake was long since pointed out. Maitland, and Bishop Kip who followed him, fell into the same error. De Rossi severely criticises the former as “most ignorant of the whole controversy, known even to blear-eyed and barbers.”—Totius controversiæ, vel lippis ac tonsoribus notæ, ignarissimus.—Inscrip. Antiq., p. 177. The translation above given is that of Dr. McCaul.

[756] This example and translation are from Maitland. It will be observed that Domnina must have been married before her fourteenth birthday. Several notices of early marriages occur, as e.g.

VISCILIVS NICENI · COSTAE · SVAE QVAE FVIT ·
ANNOR · P · M · XXXI · EX QVIBVS DVRABIT · MECVM ANNOS XV—

“Viscilius to Nice, his rib, who was of thirty-one years (of age) more or less, of which she passed with me fifteen years.” The use of costa for uxor is doubtless an allusion to Genesis ii, 21. We read also of Felicissima, QVAE VIXIT ANNVS LX · QVAE FECIT CVM VIRO SVO ANNVS XLV—“Who lived sixty years, who passed with her husband forty-five years;” and of Januaria, L · F · QVAE VIXIT PL · M · ANN · XXVIII · C · MARITV · FEC ANN XV · M · XI · D · X—“A praiseworthy woman, who lived twenty-eight years, more or less; she passed with her husband fifteen years, eleven months, ten days.” She was, therefore, married when about twelve years of age. The earliest date of marriage we have noticed is the following: CONSTANTIAE BENEMERENTI BERGINIVS CASTAE CONPARAE · CVM QVA · FECIT ANNIS VIII. QVE VICSIT (sic) ANNIS XVIII · MENSES VIIII · DIES XVII.—“Virginius, to the well-deserving Constantia, his chaste consort, with whom he lived eight years, who lived eighteen years, nine months, seventeen days.” She was less than eleven years old when married. It must be borne in mind, however, that marriage still occurs at a very early age in these southern latitudes, as both sexes attain nubile years much sooner than in northern climates. But this precocious maturity is followed, especially in females, by a premature decline. Like the brilliant flowers of their own fervid clime, they early bloom and quickly fade.

[757] We have also illustrations of the fatal facility of divorce under the Empire, and of the domestic strife and crime resulting therefrom. In the following epitaph a discarded wife laments the murder of her child by the usurper of her rights: MATER FILIO PIISSIMO MISERA ET IN LVCTV ETERNALL VENEFICIO NOVERCAE—“To her most affectionate son, the wretched mother, plunged in perpetual grief by the poison of his step-mother, (raised this slab.)” There is also a curious inscription, written jointly by two living husbands to the same deceased wife, in which she is designated, CONIVX BENE MERENTA (sic)—“A well-deserving consort.” Another slab is dedicated to both the wife and the concubine—VXORI ET CONCVBINAE—of a Roman lictor.

[758] In like manner, with more tender sentiment than we would have expected in the stolid monarch, George II. was, in accordance with his own request, laid in death beside his good and gentle consort long deceased, and the partition between them removed, “that their dust might blend together.”

[759] Several of these examples are translated from Kenrick.

[760] While yet alive, Domitian was called, Our Lord and God—Dominus et Deus noster.

[761] A licentious poet, recognizing this moral corruption as the cause of national decay, exclaims:

Hoc fonte derivata clades
In patriam populumque fluxit.

[762] Origen, Contra Cels., i, 67. Cf. Jus. Mar., Apol., ii, 61, and Tert. Apol., and Ad. Nat., passim.

[763] Tertul., Apol., 22.

[764] Fabri deorum vel parentes numinum.—Prudentius, Peristeph., Hymn x, 293.

[765] Tertul., De Idol., vi.

[766] The martyr Lucian chose to die rather than to eat things offered to idols.

[767] Hist. of Eur. Morals, ii, 34.

[768] The Pædagogus of Clement of Alexandria was prepared as a guide or “Instructor” to those who were striving to free themselves from pagan customs, and to conform their lives to the Christian character.

[769] Apol., c. 39.

[770] Nemo compellitur, sed sponte confert.—Apol., c. 39.

[771] Ibid., 42.

[772] Ibid., 14.

[773] Pædag., ii, 13.

[774] Hom. in 2 Tim.

[775] Epitaph. Paulæ.

[776] Greg., Dial., iii.

[777] Vita Cypr.

[778] Euseb., H. E., ix, 8.

[779] Apud nos inter pauperes et divites, servos et dominos, interest nihil.—Lactant., Div. Inst., v. 14, 15.

[780] The arena, once crimson with human gore, is now consecrated by the cross of Christ, and a Christian service is weekly celebrated on the spot where a pagan emperor sought to crush the infant church.