We have already seen the epitaph of “Petronia, the wife of a deacon, the type of modesty,” with whom were buried two of her children.[873] The following, of similar character, is accompanied by the epitaph of a deacon on the same stone, probably the husband who so tenderly lamented the loss of his faithful consort.

Epitaphs are also found indicating the prevalence of marriage in the inferior ecclesiastical ranks, as in the following examples: CLAVDIVS ATTICANVS LECTOR ET CLAVDIA FELICISSIMA CONIVX—“Claudius Atticanus, the reader, and Claudia Felicissima, his wife;”[874] IANVARIVS EXORCISTA · SIBI · ET · CONIVGI · FECIT—“Januarius, the exorcist, made this for himself and his wife;” TERENTIVS · FOSOR · (sic) · PRIMITIVE (sic) · CONIVGI · ET · SIBI ·—“Terentius, the fossor, for Primitiva, his wife and himself.”

The primitive church early availed itself of the services of godly women, a sort of female diaconate, for the administration of charity, the care of the sick, the instruction of the young, and of their own sex, and to carry the light and consolations of the gospel into the most private and delicate relations of life, for which these gentle ministrants possessed facilities denied to the other sex. They are frequently mentioned in the writings of the Fathers under the names of διάκονοι,[875] deaconesses, viduæ, widows, or ancillæ Dei, handmaids of God. In apostolic times they were required to be of the mature age of sixty years;[876] but widows, and even the unmarried, were subsequently admitted into this class as early as forty,[877] or even twenty,[878] years of age. The unmarried, however, assumed no vow of perpetual celibacy,[879] nor of conventual life, but lived privately in their own homes, employed in offices of piety and mercy. The growing esteem of celibacy, however, in the fourth and fifth centuries, invoked ecclesiastical censure for the abandonment of the lofty vantage ground of virginhood;[880] but the Imperial law granted liberty of marriage, if the order had been entered before the age of forty. How different the practice of Rome in binding young girls, in the first outburst of religious enthusiasm, or the first bitterness of disappointed hope, by irrevocable vows to a death-in-life, and indissolubly riveting those bonds, no matter how the chafed soul may repudiate the rash vow, and writhe beneath the galling yoke. The consecrated virgin of the early church, instead of the ghastly robings, like the cerements of the grave, in which the youthful nun is swathed, the symbol of her social death, wore a sacrum velamen, or veil, differing but little from that of Christian matrons, and a fillet of gold around her hair. The custom, now part of the Romish ritual, of despoiling the head of its natural adorning, was especially denounced by some of the ancient councils.

There are several of the early Christian inscriptions illustrative of these various classes of consecrated women, of which the following are examples: OC · TA · VI · AE · MA · TRO · NAE · VI · DV · AE · DE · I.—“To the matron Octavia, a widow of God;” HIC QVIESCIT GAVDIOSA CF ANCILLA DEI QVAE VIXIT ANNOS XL ET MEN V—“Here rests Gaudiosa, a most distinguished woman, a handmaid of God, who lived forty years and five months,” (A. D. 447); IN HOC SEPVLCHRO REQVIESCIT PVELLA VIRGO SACRA B · M · ALEXANDRA—“In this tomb rests a girl, a sacred virgin, Alexandra, well deserving;” HOC EST SEPVLCRVM SANCTAE LVCINAE VIRGINIS—“This is the sepulchre of the holy virgin Lucina”—this, however, may not indicate a special class. AESTONIA VIRGO PEREGRINA QVAE VIXIT ANNOS XLI; ET · DS · VIII (sic)—”Æstonia, a travelling virgin, who lived forty-one years and eight days”—she was probably a member of a distant church, received on a letter of recommendation, FVRIA HELPHIS (sic) VIRGO DEVOTA—“Furia Elpis, a consecrated virgin.” In the fifth century this consecration sometimes took place at an early age, as the following example, of date A. D. 401: PRIE (sic) IVNIAS PAVSABET (sic) PRAETIOSA ANNORVM PVLLA (sic) VIRGO XII TANTVM ANCILLA DEI ET CHRISTI—“On the day before (the Calends of) June Prætiosa went to her rest, a young maiden of only twelve years of age, a handmaid of God and of Christ.”[881]

There is no trace in the inscriptions of the Catacombs of that ascetic spirit from which, in the fourth and following centuries, sprang the strange phenomena of monachism, with its important influence for blended good and evil on the future of Christendom. That was rather the result of the decay and corruption of primitive Christianity, and of the despair of mankind as to its regenerative power upon the world. Hence, multitudes fled from the immedicable evils of society to the solitude of the desert or the mountain.[882] Primitive Christianity, on the contrary, was eminently cheerful and social in its character. It consecrated the family life, and developed, to a degree before unknown, the domestic virtues.

The care of the primitive church for the religious teaching of the young and of heathen converts is abundantly exemplified in the inscriptions of the Catacombs. The catechumens, or learners, as the word signifies—the “Cadets of Christianity”—were a distinctly recognized class for whose instruction especial provision was made. It consisted of the children of believers born in the church, and therefore peculiarly under its care; and also of converts from paganism, who needed to be weaned from their errors, and taught the doctrines of Christianity before admission to the sacraments of baptism and the holy eucharist. For the latter, as a safeguard against the rash assumption of the Christian vows and the danger of subsequent apostacy, a certain probation was prescribed.[883] The candidates were taught the Holy Scriptures, and a formal confession of faith, probably similar to the ancient creed in which the Christian belief of the church has for so many centuries been expressed. These instructions were given by the bishop himself as chief catechist; and also by the presbyters, deacons, lectors, and other members of the inferior ministry. Deaconesses and aged women acted as instructresses of their own sex; and one of these was always present during the questioning of the female catechumens by the male catechists.

The following engraving represents a chamber in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, which, it is conjectured, was employed for the instruction of the female catechumens. On either side of the doorway are seats or chairs hewn out of the solid tufa, which were probably occupied by the catechist and the presiding deaconess. The low stone bench running around the remaining walls of the chamber would conveniently accommodate the audientes, or hearers, as they were called.

Another curious chamber in the Catacomb of St. Agnes communicates with the one adjacent to it by a circular opening cut through the tufa wall about breast-high. It is conjectured that this was for the purpose of allowing the catechumens to hear the public instructions of the faithful without witnessing the celebration of the sacraments. The zeal of the candidates would thus be the more inflamed,[884] that they might be found worthy of admission to the fulness of Christian privilege and to the sacred mysteries hidden from the uninitiate and the unworthy. The following epitaph from the Lapidarian Gallery commemorates a youthful catechumen: VCILIANVS BACIO VALERIO QVE BISET ·(sic) ANN VIIII · MEN · VIII · DIES XXII CATECVM—“Ucilianus to Bacius Valerius, a catechumen, who lived nine years, eight months and twenty-two days.”

The ordinance of baptism receives several illustrations from the monumental evidences of the Catacombs. There are numerous epitaphs of neophytes—a term applied only to newly baptized persons—which indicate that this Christian rite was administered at all ages from tender infancy to adult years; in the latter case the subjects being probably recent converts from heathenism. The following are examples of this class: TEG · CANDIDIS NEOF Q · VXT · M · XXI—“The tile of Candidus, a neophyte, who lived twenty-one months;” FL · IOVINA · QVAE · VIX · ANNIS · TRIBVS · D · XXX · NEOFITA · IN PACE—“Flavia Jovina, who lived three years and thirty days, a neophyte, in peace;” MIRAE INDVSTRIAE ADQVE BONITATIS ... INNOCENTIA PREDITVS FL · AVR · LEONI. NEOFITO QVI VIXIT ANN VI · MENS · VIII DIES XI....—“Innocentia Preditus to Flavius Aurelius Leo, a neophyte of wonderful industry and goodness, who lived six years, eight months, eleven days;” ROMANO NEOFITO BENE MERENTI QVI VIXIT · ANNOS · VIII · D · XV · REQVIESCIT IN PACE—“To the well-deserving neophyte Romanus, who lived eight years and fifteen days; he rests in peace.” We have already seen the epitaph of Junius Bassus, who died a neophyte at the age of forty-one, and shall presently observe other instances of adult baptism.[885] We find also the epitaph of “two innocent brothers, one a neophyte, the other, one of the faithful.”

In course of time the rite of baptism degenerated into a superstitious charm, and was regarded as a mystical lustration which washed away all sin and was essential to salvation.[886] This change probably resulted from a reaction against the Pelagian heresy, which denied the necessity of baptism, and from the rhetorical exaggeration by the Fathers of the spiritual efficacy of this sacrament.[887] The church of the Catacombs, while duly administering the rite of baptism, did not, after the manner of the Church of Rome and other modern extreme sacramentalists, invest it with regenerative power, nor regard its involuntary omission as excluding the body from consecrated ground and the soul from heaven.[888]

Sometimes, by a beautiful metonyme derived from its spiritual significance, baptism is indicated as the palingenesis, or new birth, of which it is the appropriate symbol. The following is a characteristic example of this usage: ... CAELESTE RENATVS AQVA (sic)—... “Born again of heavenly water,” (A. D. 377.)[889] We read also of a certain Mercurius, who is described as a boy born and dying in the same year, aged twenty-four. The allusion is to the spiritual regeneration symbolized by baptism. With reference to this he was but a boy—puer—at the time of his death.[890] This rite was also called illumination, and we find in the Catacombs the epitaphs of persons said to be thus “newly illuminated.”

The testimony of the Catacombs respecting the mode of baptism, as far as it extends, is strongly in favour of aspersion or affusion. All their pictured representations of the rite indicate this mode, for which alone the early fonts seem adapted; nor is there any early art evidence of baptismal immersion. It seems incredible, if the latter were the original and exclusive mode, of apostolic and even Divine authority, that it should have left no trace in the earliest and most unconscious art-record, and have been supplanted therein by a new, unscriptural, and unhistoric method. It is apparent, indeed, from the writings of the fourth and fifth century, that many corrupt and unwarranted usages were introduced in connection with this Christian ordinance that greatly marred its beauty and simplicity. It is unquestionable that at that time baptism by immersion was practised with many superstitious and unseemly rites. The subjects, both men and women, were divested of their clothing, to represent the putting off the body of sin; which, notwithstanding the greatest efforts to avoid it, inevitably provoked scandal. They then received trien immersion, to imitate, says Gregory Nyssen,[891] the three days’ burial of Christ; or, according to others, as a symbol of the Trinity. The rite was accompanied by exorcism, insufflation, unction, confirmation, the gift of milk and honey, the administration of the eucharist even to infants, the clothing in white garments, and carrying of lighted tapers, to all of which a mystical meaning was attached.

But in the evidences of the Catacombs, which are the testimony of an earlier and purer period, there is no indication of this mode of baptism, nor of these dramatic accompaniments.[892] The marble font represented in the accompanying engraving, now in the crypts of St. Prisca within the walls, is said to have come from the Catacombs, and to have been used for baptismal purposes by St. Peter, himself; in corroboration of which legend it bears the somewhat apocryphal inscription—SCI · PET · BAPTISMV · (sic.) The tradition at least attests its extreme antiquity; and its basin is quite too small for even infant immersion. Other fonts have been found in several of the subterranean chapels, among which is one in the Catacomb of Pontianus, hewn out of the solid tufa and fed by a living stream. It is 1·45 metres long, ·92 metres wide, and 1·11 metres deep, but is seldom near full of water. It is obviously too small for immersion, and was evidently designed for administering the rite as shown in the fresco which accompanies it. (See Fig. 132.) The following inscription, from the Lapidarian Gallery, seems to have come from some such font, and perhaps contains a reference to the scripture, “Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins:” CORPORIS ET CORDIS MACVLAS VITALIS PVRGAT ET OMNE SIMVL ABLVIT VNDA—“The living stream cleanses the spots of the body as well as the heart, and at the same time washes away all (sins).”[893]

Immediately over the font in the Catacomb of Pontianus is the elaborate fresco of the baptism of Our Lord, figured above. He is represented standing in the river Jordan, while John pours water upon his head, and the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove. An angel stands by as witness of the rite, and in the foreground a stag, the emblem of a fervent Christian, is drinking at the pure stream.[894]

In a very ancient crypt of St. Lucina is another partially defaced baptism of Christ, attributed to the second century, in which St. John stands on the shore and our Saviour in a shallow stream, while the Holy Spirit descends as a dove. On the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus Christ is also symbolically represented as baptized by affusion. The annexed rude example from the Catacomb of Callixtus, probably of the third century, also clearly exhibits the administration of the rite by pouring.[895] It is accompanied by a representation of Peter striking water from the rock, an emblem, according to De Rossi, of the waters of baptism sprinkling the sinful souls that come thereto. A similar example also occurs in the cemetery of St. Prætextatus.

In ancient sarcophagal reliefs in the Vatican are representations of small detached baptisteries of circular form, crowned with the Constantinian monogram. These were necessarily of sufficient size to accommodate the number of persons who were baptized at one time, generally at Easter,[896] and were placed outside of the basilica to indicate the initiatory character of baptism as the entrance to the church of Christ.[897] In the early mosaics representing baptismal scenes, the rite is invariably administered by affusion, as in the baptistery of San Giovanni at Ravenna, in the beginning of the fifth century, in Sta. Maria in Cosmedin, at Ravenna, in the beginning, and in the ivory relief on the episcopal chair of Maximinus, at the end, of the sixth century.[898] So, also, a later example in the Lateran basilica represents Constantine kneeling naked in a laver, and Sylvester pouring water on his head.[899] This is also the method indicated in several medals, bas reliefs, frescoes, and mosaics, in almost every century from the fourth, through the Middle Ages, indicating a continuous tradition, even when immersion may have been practised, of a different mode of baptism.

The sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was the most sacred and consoling rite of the primitive church. It was at once the emblem of the Christian’s highest hopes, and the sublime commemoration of the ineffable sacrifice on which those hopes depend. It was the focus in which concentrated all their holiest thoughts, kindling the whole soul into a flame of adoring love.[900] It was the central act of worship, around which all their solemn devotions gathered, and to which they all looked. The sublime thought of the atonement of Christ and of salvation through his death, shone ever star-like over their souls, illumining even the sepulchral gloom of these subterranean crypts. Daily,[901] or as often as the vigilance of their foes in times of persecution would permit, the faithful met in the silent halls of death, far from the “madding crowd’s ignoble strife,” to nourish and strengthen their souls for fiery trial, and often for the red baptism of martyrdom, by meditation on the passion of their Lord and partaking of the emblems of his death.

Therefore, in ever-recurring and appropriate symbolism, was this holy rite set forth upon the walls of the Catacombs. Its direct representation, however, was carefully avoided; and its sacred meaning was hidden from the profane gaze of the heathen under a veil of allegory and emblem, which was, nevertheless, instinct with profoundest significance to the initiated. Thus, we find representations of seven men eating bread and fish, which are interpreted as the repast of the disciples by the sea-shore when Our Lord manifested himself in the breaking of bread, and, indirectly, as symbols of the holy eucharist.[902] They are not at all analogous to the pictures of pagan funeral banquets, to which they have been compared, but which are entirely foreign to Christian thought. The miracles of turning water into wine, and of the multiplication of the loaves, were also regarded as types of the eucharist, which was, doubtless, frequently symbolized under these figures. We have seen a copy of the remarkable fresco, twice repeated in the Catacomb of St. Lucina, of a fish bearing a basket of bread on its back, and in the midst what seems to be a chalice of wine.[903] This is considered one of the most ancient emblems of this sacred rite. This view derives singular corroboration from a passage in Jerome, which speaks of carrying the body of Christ in a basket made of twigs, and his blood in a chalice of glass.[904] The eucharist is also evidently symbolized in the representations of fish and sheep carrying small loaves of bread in their mouths. These are sometimes marked with a decussate cross, as was done to facilitate fracture during administration.

The first Christian altars were tables of wood, which, in times of persecution, could be easily removed from house to house in which worship was celebrated. The entire absence of any thing corresponding to the pagan sacrificial altar was made the subject of heathen reproach.[905] In a painting found in the Catacomb of Callixtus, which Dr. Northcote describes as “the sacrifice of the Mass, symbolically depicted,” a man stands with hands outstretched, as if in act of consecration, over a three-legged table, on which are bread and a fish, while opposite stands a female figure in the attitude of prayer. In an adjoining chamber a precisely similar table is represented, but without the accompanying figures.[906] These tables were placed, not against the wall like a Romish altar, but set out from it, so that the ministrant could stand behind it looking toward the congregation. In the “papal crypt” of the Callixtan Catacomb the sockets for the four feet of the table thus set out from the wall are distinctly visible, and Bosio and Boldetti both found examples of altars standing in the middle of the cubicula. This was also their position in the oldest basilicas of Rome.

In the sixth century a general council decreed that the altars should be of stone. This transition had already taken place in the Catacombs, and arose from the employment of the slab covering the grave in an arcosolium for the administration of the eucharist. This practice led to an increased veneration for the relics of the saints; and soon the presence of these relics became essential to the idea of an altar.[907] To this custom Prudentius refers in his hymn for Hippolytus’ day.

“Illa sacramenti donatrix mensa, eademque
 Custos fida sui martyris apposita:
Servat ad æterni spem Judicis ossa sepulchro
 Pascit item sanctis Tibricolas dapibus.
Mira loci pietas, et prompta precantibus ara.”

“That slab gives the sacrament, and at the same time faithfully guards the martyr’s remains; it preserves his bones in the sepulchre in hope of the Eternal Judge, and feeds the dwellers by the Tiber with sacred food. Great is the sanctity of the place, and it offers a ready altar for those who pray.”

After the consecration of the elements by the presbyter or bishop, the communion in both kinds was administered to the faithful by the deacons in the formula of its institution which we still use.[908] The consecrated elements[909] were sent to any who were sick, by the hands of deacons or acolytes, as is still the practice in the Greek and Armenian churches. In the Acts of St. Stephen, we read of a young martyr who chose to be beaten to death by a Roman mob, rather than disclose the sacred treasure entrusted to his care. This practice in time degenerated into the superstitious administration of the viaticum as a preparation for the soul’s journey to the spirit-world. Some of the gilt glasses, before described, are thought to have been used as patens and chalices for the celebration of the eucharist. With the increasing wealth and more gorgeous ritual of the church, gold and silver vessels, adorned with costly gems and rarest workmanship, took the place of the humbler material of the primitive ages.[910]

Another beautiful institution generally associated with the celebration of the eucharist in primitive times is that of the agape, or love-feast. In a subterranean chapel in the Catacomb of Marcellinus and Peter is an exceedingly interesting representation of the observance of this custom, shown in the following engraving.

Numerous other representations of this devout feast at which Love and Peace preside attest its general observance. It would be a touching symbol of Christian unity to the persecuted saints, and would unite still closer hearts bound together by common dangers and a common hope. All the distinctions of rank were then forgotten. Gathering by stealth in these subterranean crypts from the imperial palace and the lowly abode of poverty, they break bread together in the solemn presence of the dead in token of their common brotherhood in Christ. The slave of a Roman master, but the freedman of Christ, and the patrician convert, the intellectual Greek and the once bigoted Jew, together

This beautiful institution, first mentioned by Jude as the “feasts of charity,”[911] was usually observed in connexion with the eucharist, though not necessarily a part of it. It dates from the earliest period of the church,[912] and its corruptions among the Corinthians called forth the sharp rebuke of the Apostle Paul.[913]

Tertullian thus describes its character in the second century: “Our supper, which you accuse of luxury, shows its reason by its very name; for it is called agape, which, among the Greeks, signifies love. It admits of nothing vile or immodest. We eat and drink only as much as hunger and thirst demand, mindful that the evening is to be spent in the worship of God. We so speak as knowing that God hears. After washing our hands and bringing lights, each is asked to sing to God according to his ability, either from Scripture or from his own mind. Prayer also concludes the feast.”[914] He calls it also a supper of philosophy and discipline, rather than a corporeal feast. At the close collections were made for widows and orphans and for the poor, many of whom would be thrown out of employment by their renunciation of idolatrous trades; also for prisoners and for persons who had suffered shipwreck.[915] It is doubtless the agape which Pliny describes as “the common and harmless meal”[916] of the Christians, and at which, according to Lucian, their “sacred conversations”[917] were held. Clement of Alexandria calls the agape “the banquet of reason, a celestial food, and the supper of love; the pledge and proof of mutual affection.”[918]

The primitive church carefully guarded the celebration of the eucharist and agape from the pryings of idle curiosity or the perfidy of heathen malevolence, lest the name of God should be blasphemed, or the goodly pearls of salvation be trampled beneath swinish feet. But this very secresy and mystery became the occasion of the vilest slanders and aspersions. The Christians were accused of celebrating these rites with the most abominable orgies—feasting on human flesh and infants’ blood, and committing nameless crimes of still deeper dye. “They charge us,” say the martyrs of Lyons, “with feasts of Thyestes, and the crimes of Œdipus, and such abominations as are neither lawful for us to speak nor think.” The blameless believers were denounced as the very dregs of society, a skulking and darkness-loving race, meeting by night for profane conjuration and unhallowed banquets, as despisers of the gods, haters of mankind, and mockers at holy things,[919] and were confounded with pestilent sorcerers who in midnight caves practiced their foul incantations against human life.[920] These accusations arose partly, it is probable, from distorted accounts of the holy communion of the body and the blood of Christ, interpreted as a literal partaking of the corporeal substance; partly from the vile practices of the Carpocratians and other heretics; but chiefly from the malice of the heathen themselves, judging the character of the Christian mysteries from the obscene orgies of Venus and Bacchus.

Tertullian indignantly resents the vile calumnies, and shows them to be monstrous and absurd. “We are daily beset by foes,” he exclaims, “we are daily betrayed, we are often surprised in our secret congregations; yet who ever came upon a half-consumed corpse among us, or any other corroborations of the accusations against us?”[921] He retorts upon the heathen the charge of infanticide, human sacrifice, and unnatural crimes, and contrasts therewith the purity of the Christian character. Minucius Felix also attests the modest and sober character of the Christian feasts, which they celebrated with chaste discourse and chaster bodies.[922]

In course of time the agapæ lost in great measure their religious character, and were employed for the anniversaries of the martyrs, and for marriage and funeral occasions.[923] They were still further desecrated by their substitution for pagan festivals, in order, as St. Augustine remarks, “that the heathen might feast with their former luxury, though without their former sacrilege.”[924] These “pious hilarities” thus degenerated, in the fourth and fifth centuries, into convivial banquets and wanton revelry—a scandal and disgrace to Christendom, and provoked the indignant censure of the Fathers. “It is absurd,” says St. Jerome, “to honour with feasting the saints who pleased God with their fasts.” St. Augustine vehemently condemns those “who inebriate themselves in honour of the martyrs, and place even their gluttony and drunkenness to the account of religion.”[925] “These drunkards persecute the saints as much with their cups,” he says, “as the furious pagans did with stones.”[926] The good bishop of Nola, greatly scandalized at these semi-pagan revelries, painted with holy pictures the church of St. Felix, that as the ignorant peasants gazed more they might drink the less. It has been suggested that probably the pious figures in the gilt glasses of the Catacombs were designed for the same purpose; but many of their mottoes were of a highly convivial character, calculated rather to promote the revelry in which they were doubtlessly employed. Both the natalitia and the agapæ at length became so obnoxious in character as to excite the taunts of the pagans and the condemnation of the more devout and thoughtful Christians. The abuse of the latter beautiful institution became so intolerable that it became the object of repressive decrees of successive councils till it was finally abolished. The council of Elvira (A. D. 305) prudently forbade the presence of females at these nocturnal meetings in the Catacombs.[927] That of Laodicea (A. D. 361) enacted that the agapæ should not be celebrated in churches. The council of Carthage (A. D. 397) forbade the clergy attending them, and the council of Trullo (A. D. 706) prohibited their celebration at all, under penalty of excommunication.

This beautiful symbol of Christian unity was revived in spirit by the founder of Methodism; but, to guard against the corruptions into which it had previously fallen, the elements of its celebration were restricted to bread and water. A similar custom is also observed among the Moravian brethren, from whom, probably, Wesley borrowed it. It has also been transmitted from primitive times by the Nestorian Christians of the Malabar coast.[928]

We have thus endeavoured to give a faithful transcript of the testimony of the Catacombs relative to primitive Christianity. We have seen how consonant it is with the teachings of Holy Scripture, how opposed to all the institutions and dogmas of Rome. We have only to compare the buried relics of the past with the living present above ground to see at a glance the infinite contrast between the church of Christ and that of Antichrist. Could the simple bishops of the primitive ages behold the more than regal state and oriental pomp in which, surrounded by armed halberdiers, amid the blare of martial music and thunder of the guns of St. Angelo, their successor of to-day rides in his golden chariot from his stately palace to the majestic fane of St. Peter—the grandest temple in the world—they would feel it difficult to perceive therein any resemblance to their own humble and often persecuted estate, or to the pure and spiritual religion of the meek and lowly Nazarene. Could they witness the almost idolatrous homage which he receives, throned in state, tiaraed with a triple crown, presenting his foot for the humiliating osculation of bishops, cardinals, ambassadors, and pilgrims from every land; could they behold him summoning from the ends of the earth the prelates of Roman Catholic Christendom to record a decree of his personal infallibility and freedom from human error; they would regard as blasphemous these unhallowed assumptions, and denounce, as the prophetic Antichrist, him who laid claim to these awful attributes.[929]

Above the lowly sleepers in the crypts of the Vatican swells the mighty dome which Michael Angelo hung high in air; lofty chant and pealing anthem thrill through the vast expanse; polished shafts of porphyry, jasper, and costliest marble gleam around; priceless paintings and rarest sculpture by the hand of genius afford a still richer adorning; at an altar blazing with gold and gems a human priest in many-coloured vestments daily repeats, as he dares assert, the ineffable sacrifice of Christ; from four hundred cross-crowned campaniles baptized and consecrated bells ring forth the hours of prayer; at a thousand shrines the multitude adore, they vainly think, the real presence of the Redeemer; and perfumed incense evermore ascends, not to the many gods of the Pantheon, but to the still more numerous saints of the Roman calendar. But we feel that all the kingdoms of the world, and all the glory of them, were a poor compensation for the loss of the primitive simplicity, purity, and spiritual power of the humble service of the Catacombs. We turn away from the gorgeous ritual and hollow pomp to those lowly crypts where the Christian hymn of a persecuted remnant of the saints ascended from beside the martyr’s grave, as the truer type of Christ’s spiritual temple upon earth. In these chambers of silence and gloom we find the evidences of that undying life of Christianity which we seek in vain amid the living death of that city of churches and of priests—the Apostolic See of Christendom—the vaunted seat of Christ’s vicegerent upon earth. With a deeper significance than that with which it was first uttered, we adopt the language of Tertullian, and exclaim, ID ESSE VERUM, QUODCUNQUE PRIMUM; ID ESSE ADULTERUM, QUODCUNQUE POSTERIUS.[930]

[822] Northcote’s Catacombs, p. 140.

[823] Euseb., Hist. Eccles., vi, 43. The hierarchical subdivisions in the Greek church are vastly more elaborate. Thus we have the patriarch, metropolitan, archbishop, bishop, proto-presbyter, super-dean, dean, presbyter, proto-deacon, deacon, sub-deacon, and common priest, besides a host of inferior grades.

[824] Strom., vi, 13. “The succession of the early Roman bishops,” says Stillingfleet, “is as muddy as the Tiber itself.”—Irenicum, ii, 7. It is an historical riddle of which it is difficult or impossible to find the solution.

[825] Eusebius gives this very title, ποιμήν, to Cyprian, (vii, 3.) They were also called πρόεδροι, προεστώς, and præsides, or presidents.

[826] Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, only fifteen miles from Rome, and a saint of the Roman calendar, strongly opposed both Zephyrinus and Callixtus, bishops of Rome. In the fifth century Milan took precedence of Rome, and many other places were of equal dignity. The episcopal office was very different from what is now implied by the name, and its functions varied little from those of the presbyter, save in the general oversight of a comparatively limited diocese. Thus in Northern Africa alone were four hundred and sixty-six bishops, beside sixty-six vacant sees. Clement, bishop of Rome, (Ep. ad Cor., 74,) Justin Martyr, and other early writers, seem to imply that the terms bishop and presbyter were at first permutable. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, addresses his clergy as his co-presbyters—compresbyteros. Jerome, jealous for his order, asserts the original identity of the offices (idem est presbyter qui et episcopus) and the gradual development of episcopal dignity, from custom rather than from primitive appointment, (Comment. in Titum.) Chrysostom asserts the original convertibility of the titles of bishop and presbyter—οἱ πρεσβύτεροι τὸ παλαιὸν ἐκαλοῦντο ἐπίσκοποι, καὶ οἱ ἐπίσκοποι πρεσβύτεροι.—Homil. i, in Phil., i. Lord King compares the two to the offices of rector and curate, (Prim. Ch., c. 4,) but Bingham’s High Church notions led him to magnify the essential difference between the two, (Orig. Eccl., ii, 3.) The bishops were elected by the presbyters and the laity jointly. Eusebius states that Fabian was indicated for the office by the divine portent of a dove descending upon him, (H. E., vi, 29.) They generally attained this dignity not per saltum, but having passed through the inferior grades. Cyprian, however, was but a neophyte, Eusebius a catechumen, and Ambrose a layman, when appointed to the office of bishop. In the course of time, in the East the emperors, in the West the kings, usurped the power of appointment, a relic of which is seen in the royal congé d’élire in Great Britain, so strongly satirized by Carlyle, (Latter-day Pamphlets.)

[827] See ante, p. 95.

[828] We have already seen that the inscription of date A. D. 392, regarded as the epitaph of a “most holy Pope Felix,” was in reality that of a foster-father. See ante, p. 471. The phrase “Apostolic See,” now restricted to Rome, was originally applied to every bishop’s seat.—Bingham, ii, 2, § 3.

[829] He speaks of his predecessor in office as “our father, (πάπα,) the blessed Hereclas.”—Eu., H. E., vii, 7. In like manner an epitaph of an African bishop, of date A. D. 475, designates him “our father of holy memory”—Sanctæ memoriæ pater noster.

[830] Ep. 8. Cler. Rom. ad Cler. Carth.

[831] De Pudicit., c. 13.

[832] Ep. 17, 18, 30, etc.

[833] The synonymous title of abbot is still used in this sense. It was applied to the hermit monks of the Orkneys and Iceland, and gave the name Papa Strona and Papa Westra to islands of the Orkney group.

[834] Optatus says there were forty churches in Rome in the third century. Ammianus describes the almost regal pomp of the bishops in the latter part of the fourth century, and records the sanguinary struggle for the episcopal dignity between Damasus and Ursicinus. The streets were strewn with the slain, and one hundred and thirty-seven corpses polluted the sacred precincts of a Christian basilica. The primitive church stigmatized simony as χριστεμπορείαν, or “selling Christ.”

[835] Ego autem fidenter dico quia quisque se universalem sacerdotem vocat, vel vocari desiderat, in elatione suâ Antichristum præcurrit.—Greg. Max., Epis. vii, 7-33.

[836] Gregory III. (731-741) styles himself “the most holy and blessed Apostolic Pope”—Sanctissimus ac Beatissimus Apostolicus Papa. Boniface VIII. adopted the triple-crowned tiara, to indicate the Pope’s dominion over heaven, earth, and hell.

Dante represents the pope as an all-powerful griffin, symbolical of his spiritual and temporal functions, drawing the triumphal car of the church.—Purgatorio, Can. xxix. Yet in a fresco of the seventh or eighth century, of Cornelius, bishop of Rome, he is in no way distinguished by costume, insignia, or title from Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who stands beside him.

[837] The name was not always indicative of age, but of office, like the Jewish זְקֻנִים or elders, the Latin senatores, and the Saxon aldermen.

Rheinwal, Geisler, Neander, and other eminent German scholars, agree that the term bishop originally was merely the official title of the presbyter who was chosen to rule or oversee the church; and that the latter sat in consistory with the bishop, forming the ecclesiastical senate, in which the bishop was simply the presiding officer—primus inter pares.

It is worthy of note that the word ἱερεύς, “priest,” that is, one who offers sacrifice, is nowhere applied to any ecclesiastical rank in the Catacombs, or in the writings of the primitive Fathers. It has been left for Romanism, and a Romanizing sacerdotalism, to apply to the Christian minister this phrase, so opposed to the genius of the New Testament.

[838] The letters Pbb., according to De Rossi, stand for Presbyter benedictus.

[839] Felix was probably presbyter of the basilica of St. Paul, founded by Constantine A. D. 324, rebuilt by Theodosius and Honorius, A. D. 388-395, restored by Leo I., A. D. 440, and again by the present Pope, in its ancient dimensions, (four hundred and eleven feet by two hundred and seventy-nine.) It is one of the noblest basilicas of Rome.

[840] According to Bingham, Pontifex maximus was a title common to all bishops in primitive times.—Orig. Eccl., ii, § 6.

There is here possibly a paronomasia on the word “Leo,” lion of the pontiffs. There were sometimes several presbyters attached to one church. See De Rossi, Inscr. Christ., No. 975.

[841] Adleguntur in ordinem ecclesiasticum artifices idolorum.—De Idol., vii.

[842] Hist. Eccles., c. vii, 29.

[843] Sozomen, i, 27, and vii, 28.

[844] Clericus quantumlibet verbo Dei eruditus, artificio victum quærat.—Conc. Carth., 4, can. 51. The example of Paul, the tentmaker, who, though asserting the right of the ministry to a support, yet “wrought with labour and travail night and day,” that he might not be chargeable to the church, will occur to the reader. Chrysostom, speaking of the rural bishops of Antioch, says: “These men you may see sometimes yoking the oxen and driving the plough, and again ascending the pulpit and cultivating the souls under their care; now uprooting the thorns from the earth with a hook, and now purging out the sins of the soul by the word.”—Hom. ad Pop. Antioch., xix. “How glorious to see the gray-haired pastor approach, like Abraham, his loins girt, digging the ground and working with his own hands.”—Hom. in Act., xviii.

[845] A similar office obtained in the Jewish synagogue, the פַרְנַסִים.

[846] This was especially the case in verse, as the word diaconus was unsuitable for hexameters.

[847] In Constantinople there were more than one hundred deacons, and more than ninety sub-deacons.—Justin., Nov., iii, 1.

[848] This was probably a memorial of a later period than the times of persecution. The epithet sanctus was not applied till comparatively late. The office of deacon, however, was particularly obnoxious to persecuting greed. Witness the martyrdom of Lawrence the deacon, antea.

[849] Rome was divided into seven ecclesiastical districts corresponding to its seven deacons.

[850] John III., bishop of Rome.

[851] They are mentioned by Tertullian (De Præscrip., c. 41) and Cyprian, (Ep., 24, 33,) and by many later writers. The office was possibly derived from the Synagogue.

[852] Socrat., iii, 1. Sozom., v. 2.

[853] cxxiii, c. 54.

[854] Leo X. was a priest at seven and a cardinal at ten. Among the five hundred clergy destroyed by the Vandal persecution in Carthage were many infant readers—quam plurimi erant lectores infantuli.—Victor de Persec. Vandal., lib. iii.

[855] On the tomb of a youth of fourteen occurs the words, VOTVS DEO, “Dedicated to God.”

[856] Ἀκόλουθος, “A servant.”

[857] Cornelius, bishop of Rome in the third century, says there were in that church forty-two acolytes, (Euseb., H.E., vi, 43;) and, according to Eusebius, a great number attended the bishops at the council of Nice.

[858] See the vagabond Jew exorcists of Acts xix, 13. They were probably also magicians and soothsayers. Exorcism was common also among the pagan soothsayers, with whom the Christians were sometimes confounded. It is probable against them that a law of Ulpian was directed, condemning those who used incantations, imprecations, or, to use the common word of impostors, exorcisms—Si incantavit, si imprecatus est, si (ut vulgari verbo impostorum utar) exorcisavit.

[859] Apol., 23.

[860] Cont. Cels., vii. Gregory Thaumaturgus, the Wonder-worker, won especial fame by his exploits of this nature.—Socrates, iv, 27. Antony, of Egypt, could detect dæmons by the sense of smell!

[861] A somewhat analogous practice to the ancient exorcism was that of touching for king’s evil, for which there was a recognized form in the prayer-book of the time of George II.—De Strumosis Attrectandis. Charles II. “touched” one hundred thousand persons.

[862] See ante, p. 132.

[863] Primus in clericis fossariorum ordo est, etc.—De Sept. Ord. Eccles. They were also called lecticarii, from their carrying the corpse on a lectica or bier, and copiatæ, a word of uncertain origin. Constantine organized the copiatæ into a corporation at Constantinople, where they numbered four hundred. Compare the Parabolani of Alexandria.

[864] See Figs. 23, 24.

[865] With the increase of wealth and the progress of learning in the Christian community, the number and variety of clerical offices was greatly multiplied, and all the paraphernalia of pomp and gorgeous ritual were added. A multitude of inferior ecclesiastical dependants hung upon the church, absorbing its strength, corrupting its virtue, and degrading its character. The knowledge of their very names and offices has become a difficult task. Thus we have sacristarii, or keepers of the sacred vestments and vessels; cappellani, or attendants on the altar; matricularii, or marshals of the public processions; staurophori, or cross bearers; ceroferarii and thuriferarii, the bearers of tapers and incense; and parafrenarii, or coachmen of the higher ecclesiastics—the latter, according to Mabillon, being themselves reckoned among the clergy. There were also œconomi, or stewards of church lands; thesaurii, or treasurers of ecclesiastical funds; notarii, or secretaries; apocrisiarii, or legates; cancellarii, or chancellors; syndici, or syndics; and hermeneutai, or interpreters, chiefly in the Syrian and African churches, where the congregation used different languages—speaking to the people in an unknown tongue is a Romish innovation. Even the offices of highest dignity were indefinitely multiplied. There were several orders of bishops:—metropolitans, archbishops, patriarchs, primates, and exarchs; bishops diocesan, bishops quiescentes, that is, without charges, and titular bishops with charges in partibus infidelium; suffragan bishops and chorepiscopi; cardinals and vicars general; and many other officers of lordly titles, princely wealth, and vast political power. But of these we find no examples, no prototypes in the epitaphs of the Catacombs, nor in the lowly pastors of the persecuted flock of Christ in the primitive ages of the church. The application of the title of pope with its present signification to the early bishops is a ludicrous anachronism and misnomer, as nothing could be further from the reality than the idea which it now suggests.

Like the vine, which, twining round some noble elm, seems to enhance its beauty, but in time completely stifles its strength in its strangling embrace, so the rank growth of human institutions has strangled the life of the goodly tree of Roman Christianity, and blighted the promise of its early years. Forms of ritual should be but the trellis for the support of a spiritual worship; else, better that, like the brazen serpent, they be broken in pieces, and, like the body of Moses, buried in an unknown sepulchre, than become the objects of idolatrous homage or of superstitious veneration.