thor in St. Jerome they are styled fossarii, gravemakers; and by him placed in the first and lowest order of the clerici, and exhorted to be like good old Tobit in faith, holiness, knowledge, and virtue.' In the great church of Constantinople they were called decani, or deans; but quite distinct from the palatin deans spoken of in the Theodosian code, and frequently elsewhere; who were a military order, and chiefly belonged to the emperor's palace. They were one of the collegia or corporations of the city. Their number was very great: Constantine is said to have appointed no less than eleven hundred of them; but by a law of Honorious and Theodosius they were reduced to nine hundred and fifty; till afterwards Anastasius brought them back to their former number, which was also ratified and confirmed by Justinian; their particular duties and offices, both as relating to the dead, and all other things are largely described in two novel constitutions of his to that purpose.* Nor did they only take care that the body might be prepared for its funeral, but to provide it with a decent and convenient sepulchre, wherein it might be honourably and securely laid up; a thing which had been always practised by the more sober and civilized part of mankind. Their burying-places (called polyandria, cryptæ, arenarie, but commonly cœmiteria, or dormitories, because according to the notion which the Scripture gives us of the death of the righteous, Christians are not so properly said to die as to sleep in the Lord, and their bodies to rest 'De Sept. Ordin. Ecc. tom. iv. p. 81. 2 Lib. vi. tit. de Decanis, 1. 1. in the grave in expectation of a joyful resurrection) were generally in the fields or gardens; it being prohibited by the Roman laws, and especially an ancient law of the twelve tables, to bury within the city walls.' This held for some centuries after Christianity appeared in the world, and longer it was before they buried within churches; within the out-parts whereof to be interred, was a privilege at first granted only to princes and persons of the greatest rank and quality. Chrysostom assures us that Constantius the emperor reckoned he did his father Constantine the Great a peculiar honour, when he obtained to have him buried in the porch of the church which he had built at Constantinople to the memory of the apostles, and wherein he had earnestly desired to be buried, as Eusebius tells us.3 In the same many of his successors were interred; it not being in use then, nor some hundreds of years after, for persons to be buried in the body of the church, as appears from the Capitula of Charles the great, where burying in the church, which then it seems had crept into some places, is strictly forbidden." During the first ages of Christianity, while the malice of their enemies persecuted them both alive and dead, their camiteria were ordinarily under ground, imitating herein the custom of the Jews, whose sepulchres were in caverns and holes of rocks. Doubtless the Christians did it to avoid the rage and fury of their enemies; not so much upon the account of secrecy; for their frequent retiring 1 Apud. Cicer. de leg. lib. ii. p. 288, vol. iv. 2 Hom. 26, in Cap. 12, 2 ad Cor. p. 929. Lib. i. cap. 159, fol. 27, p. 1. to those places was so notorious, as could not escape the observation of their enemies, and therefore we sometimes find the emperor's officers readily coming thither; but it was upon the account of that sacredness and religion that was reckoned to be due to places of this nature, it being accounted by all nations a piece of great impiety, manes temerare sepultos, to disturb and violate the ashes of the dead. They were large vaults, dug in dry sandy places, and arched over, and separated into many little apartments, wherein on either side the bodies of the martyrs lay in distinct cells, each having an inscription upon marble, whereon his name, quality, and probably the time and manner of his death were engraven.' In the heats of persecution they were forced to bury great numbers together in one common grave; (sixty Prudentius tells us he observed;) and then not the names, but only the number of the interred was written upon the tomb. Indeed the multitudes of martyrs that then suffered required very large conveniences of interment. And so they had, insomuch that the last publisher of the Roma Subterranea assures us, that though those cœmiteria were underground, yet were they many times double and sometimes treble, two or three stories, one still under another.2 By reason whereof they must needs be very dark, having no light from without, but what peeped in from a few little crannies, which filled the place with a kind of sacred horror, as St. Jerome informs us, who while a youth, when he went to I Prudent. Peri. Steph. Pass. Hippol. Mart. Hym. 11, p. 2 Lib. i. c. 2, num. 9, p. 4. 139. school at Rome, used upon the Lord's-day to visit these solemn places.' Built they were by pious and charitable persons, (thence called after their names,) for the interment of martyrs, and other uses of the church; for in these places Christians in times of persecution were wont to hide themselves; and to hold their religious assemblies, when banished from their public churches, as I have formerly noted. Of these about Rome only Baronius out of the records in the Vatican reckons up forty-three,' and others to the number of three score. We may take an estimate of the rest by the account which Baronius gives of one, called the cemiterie of Priscilla, discovered in his time, an. 1578, in the Via Salaria about three miles from Rome, which he often viewed and searched. “It is," says he "strange to report, the place by reason of its vastness and variety of apartments appearing like a city under ground. At the entrance into it there was a principal way or street much larger than the rest, which on either hand opened into diverse other ways, and those again divided into many lesser ways and turnings, like lanes and alleys within one another. And as in cities there are void open places for the markets; so here, there were some larger spaces for the holding (as occasion was) of their religious meetings, wherein were placed the effigies and representations of martyrs, with places in the top to let in light, long since stopped up. The discovery of this place caused great wonder in Rome, being the most exact and perfect cemiterie that had been yet found 1 Comment. in c. 40, Ezekiel. tom. v. p. 521. 2 Ad An. 226, tom. ii. out.' Thus much I thought good to add upon occasion of that singular care, which Christians then took about the bodies of their dead. If any desire to know more of these venerable antiquities, they may consult Onuphius de Cœmeteriis, and especially the Latin edition of the Roma Subterranea, where their largest curiosity may be fully satisfied in these things.2 Many other instances of their charity might be mentioned; their ready entertaining strangers, providing for those that laboured in the mines, marrying poor virgins, and the like, of which to treat particularly would be too vast and tedious. To enable them to do these charitable offices, they had not only the extraordinary contributions of particular persons, but a common stock and treasury of the church. At the first going abroad of the Gospel into the world, so great was the piety and charity of the Christians, that the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul, neither said any of them, that aught of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had all things common; neither was there any among them that lacked; for as many as were possessors of lands or houses, sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need." But this community of goods lasted not long in the church. We find St. Paul giving order to the churches of Galatia and Corinth 1 Ad. an. 130, vid. ad. an. 57, tom. i. num. 112. |