The catacombs are the ancient underground
cemeteries, used by the Christian and the
Jewish communities, above all at Rome. The
Christian catacombs, which are the most
numerous, began in the second century and
the excavating continued until the first
half of the fifth.
In the beginning they were only
burial places. Here the Christians gathered
to celebrate their funeral rites, the anniversaries
of the martyrs and of the dead.
During the persecutions, in exceptional
cases, the catacombs were used as places
of momentary refuge for the celebration
of the Eucharist They were not used as secret
hiding places of the early Christians. This
is only a fiction taken from novels or movies.
After the persecutions, especially
in the time of pope Saint Damasus (366 -
384) they became real shrines of the martyrs,
centres of devotion and of pilgrimage for
Christians from every part of the empire.
In those days in Rome too there
existed cemeteries in the open, but the
Christians, for several reasons, preferred
underground cemeteries. First of all, the
Christians rejected the pagan custom of
cremation; they preferred burial, just as
Christ was buried, because they felt they
had to respect the bodies that one day would
rise from the dead.
This genuine belief of the Christians
created a problem of space, which exerted
a great influence upon the development of
the catacombs. The areas owned by the Christians
above ground were very limited in extent.
Had they used only open-air cemeteries,
since they as a rule did not reuse the tombs,
the space available for burial would have
quickly been exhausted. The catacombs came
as the solution of the problem; and it proved
to be economical, safe and practical. In
fact it was cheaper to dig underground corridors
and galleries than to buy large pieces of
land in the open. As the early Christians
were predominantly poor, this way of burying
the dead in catacombs was decisive.
But there were other reasons too
for choosing the underground digging. The
Christians felt a lively community sense:
they wished to be together even in the "sleep
of death". Furthermore such out-of-the-way
areas, especially during the persecutions,
were very apt for reserved community meetings
and for the free displaying of the Christian
symbols.
In compliance with the Roman law,
which forbade the burial of the dead within
the city walls, all catacombs are located
outside the city of rome, along the great
consular roads, generally in the immediate
suburban area of Rome of that age.
Cristian catacombs
of early Rome |
