RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Celtic Church Cemeteries
among the Latin-speaking races, especially in North Africa, and it has become customary, following De Rossi, to use it for all surface buryinggrounds of the primitive Church. The name " catacomb " is more recent than any of the abovenamed, but has come into more general use to designate not only the subterranean burial-places of the primitive Christians but frequently also those of the Jews and other races. It is first met with in connection with the circus of Maxentius near the Appian Way outside of Rome, in an inscription which has the phrase fecit et circum in catecumbas. As relating to a Christian burial-place, it is not demonstrable before the year 354, when it appears as a specific designation of the cemetery of St. Sebastian on the Appian Way, to which it was limited for centuries. Johannes Diaconus is the earliest evidence for its application to other Christian cemeteries, outside of Rome as well as within. Familiar as the word now is, however, there is no certainty as to its original signification. The most probable theory is that of De Waal, followed by Schultze, that the circus of Maxentius and the cemetery of St. Sebastian were called in catacumbas (Gk. kata kumbas, " in the ravine ") because of the sudden dip which the land, including the Appian Way, takes at that point into a deep hollow.
II. Christian Burial and Burial-Places in General. —1. Fundamental Ideas: The burial of Christ in the garden was taken as the model for that of his disciples. The fact that never in the oldest Christian literature (including the New Testament) and not often later is a prohibition of cremation found, and the absence of traces of cremation, cinerary urns, and the like, demonstrate that burial in the earth was the unwritten law. Based originally upon the example of Christ, it was supported later by reasoning which connected the resurrection of the body more or less with its burial. Minucius Felix, however, prefers burial to cremation merely as "the older and better custom" (Octavius, xxxiv. 11). Augustine (De civitate Dei, i. 22; De cura pro mortuis, hi., etc.) takes burial for granted, and so does Origen in the East (Contra Celsum, v. 23, viii. 49; De principiis, ii. 10). It is impossible to decide how far Christians of the Apostolic Age were buried in Jewish and pagan graveyards ; but later a strict line of demarcation was drawn, at least as early as Tertullian. The Christian graves were not required to be at a great distance, but there was to be a distinct interval between them and the heathen, and the burial of individual Christians in heathen graveyards was strictly forbidden, and vice versa. Primitive Christianity was thus as exclusive in death as in its worship during life.
2. Predecessors of the Cemeteries : While Christian antiquity agreed in condemning cremation, it made no attempt at enforcing uniformity in the manner of burial. Both of the earlier methods of sepulture, under and above the ground, were employed. The choice between the two was determined partly by the geological conformation of the place, though perhaps not as largely as has been usually assumed. Other prevailing reasons are to be sought in the customs of pre-Christian times in regard to the disposal of corpses. That the early II.— 31
Christians should have undertaken, in the absence of any definite prescription, to strike out wholly new lines for themselves in this matter is unlikely, especially since they did not attempt this in the analogous matter of the construction of their houses and churches. Naturally, therefore, they adopted in each place the prevailing local custom — the Hebrew Christians of Palestine following the Jewish mode, and the Gentile Christians of Sicily that of their pagan neighbors. The fuller our knowledge grows of both ancient Christian and ancient pagan burial-places, the more clearly is this theory demonstrated, not only in regard to the choice mentioned above, but equally in regard to the shape, decoration, and equipment of the sepulchers. Thus it may be remarked, without anticipating too much what will be said later, that private vaults, holding but a small number of bodies, are characteristic of the earliest period of Christian burial. As far as inscriptions and other indications go, these were restricted to the members of one family, its friends, etc., with, it is true, the addition (as in the familia of the imperial period) of Christian freedmen and their Christian offspring. It is not yet certain whether so early as this (on the analogy of the older Roman and later Christian custom) individuals joined together in associations for the purpose of providing a common burial-place. In a word, it is safe to say that the primitive Christians followed Jewish models in Palestine and pagan elsewhere, almost without exception.
3. Development of Cemeteries and Their Types: As in other things, so here Christianity proved itself a religion of development; and, once more following the general rule, this development was more rapid in the West than in the East. To take but a single important point, the development from the family vault to the general cemetery, the East never went beyond a few experiments, and burying-grounds for the whole of a local church remained exceptional, even at a much later period. The West, on the other hand, while it began with the family vault, and examples of this form persist through the whole of Christian antiquity, was not long in adopting the large common cemetery. The development was not everywhere equally rapid; Sicily was least affected by it, and Rome most. By the third century the common cemetery was the rule here.
The Roman catacombs mark the highest point reached in the development of ancient Christian burial, the greatest and most speedy advance upon its pre-Christian prototypes and upon its own beginnings. The most striking feature of this is not the immense extent attained by the wonderful underground city, but the motive power which created it — the spirit of brotherly love and esprit de corps. As nearly as the obscure beginnings can be traced, this, rather than practical considera-
1. Origin t|ons orneeds, was responsible for the of the Gen- yagt extension 0f the system. Before eral Ceme- the adyent of Christianity, it was not ery' uncommon for philanthropists to provide either individuals or whole classes, principally among the poor, with burial-places, and there was nothing in itself remarkable about Christians
Cemeteries