THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
being inspired with the same benevolent idea. But the earlier instances were the product of mere kindness of heart, while the motive of the Christian benefactions was distinctly the spirit of brotherhood. The most famous among those who thus endowed the oldest Roman church was a member of the imperial family, Flavia Domitilla, who possessed an estate on the Via Ardeatina, of which she allowed portions to be used for burial. The largest common cemetery of Rome, the catacomb which bears her name, was constructed on this spot, and some <fi her own relations buried in it. Other Christians followed her example, and the Church as a whole, so renowned for its spirit of charity, can not have been idle in this good work.
These beginnings date from the second century; the third is the great epoch of subterranean burial in Rome; and the new development ceased there first, as it had begun there. It is true that new catacombs were established in the fourth century, such as that of St. Felix on the Via Aurelia, but their number and extent were comparatively insignificant. Burial on the surface, previously rare, increased in frequency with the cessa-
2. Period tion of persecution, and by the beginof the ning of the fifth century became the Catacombs. rme. The dated inscriptions give an accurate view of the change: if their proportion may be taken, one-third of the burials between 338 and 360, half between 364 and 369, two-thirds between 373 and 400, and after 450 all those who died were buried outside the catacombs. This striking change is not sufficiently explained by the recognition of Christianity; the decisive change does not coincide with the date of the Edict of Milan (313), and both in Sicily and in Palestine burial continued to be as before — in the former on the surface, in the latter underground. It may perhaps be better taken as merely an expression of the general consciousness of the change in the Church's position during the century, corresponding to the change which has been noticed in the ideal portrait of Christ in the same period (see Jesus Christ, Pictures and Images of).
After the Roman catacombs ceased to be burialplaces, they were by no means deserted, but remained the destination of pious pilgrimages. The veneration of the martyrs and their relics received a great extension in the fourth century, and the use of the ancient burial-places in this way was furthered by the restoration of the passages and chambers and the opening of new approaches by Pope Damasus. A number of fifth and sixth-century popes followed his example. The old chambers were enlarged into chapels, or regular basilicas were established in the catacombs (Sanf Agnete, San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, Santi Nereo ed Achilleo)!
While burial either in catacombs or in the open ground was the common practise of primitive Christianity, it sometimes took place in mausoleums or churches. The construction of churches to mark the sepulchers of the martyrs and render them accessible to large numbers of the faithful began soon after the recognition of Christianity. In churches of this kind burial was practised, either by graves dug in the earth or by sarcophagi. The
principal churches used in this way in Rome were those of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Laurence and St. Agnes without the Walls, and St. Pancreas, in and around which large numbers of Christians were buried until late in the sixth century. 3. Burial in If in the first three centuries the Mauso- Christians had respected the civil leums and ordinance which required burial out- Churches. side the walls of cities> the fourtn wit_
nessed a tendency to break down these restrictions. In Constantinople this took place about 381; in the mean while the relics of martyrs had been translated to the churches within the city, and promoted the desire of others to be buried in their neighborhood, so that an imperial edict was required which strictly prohibited such intramural burial. Chrysostom, however, who had sanctioned this restriction, was himself buried in a church in Constantinople in 438, and near him a number of persons of prominence. The increasing prevalence of the practise gradually broke through the law; in Rome there were intramural burialplaces in the sixth century — a cemetery on the Esquiline and a number of places in and around the churches of the city, though the solemn translation of the relics of martyrs from the cemeteries outside to the city churches did not begin till the eighth and ninth centuries.
4. Establishment and Administration of Cemeteries: The same spirit of love which watched over not only the poor and the sick but also the dead in the primitive Church must have had before it the problem of the setting apart of definite officers for the care of this part of its work. It seems probable that as early as Cyprian's day special persons were officially charged with the care of funerals. Where vaults were hewn out of the rock or built up in masonry, special grave-diggers were not required; but the laying out of the larger catacombs required the services of technical knowledge. Thus it happens that next to nothing is heard about the organizers of cemeteries before the reign of Constantine, and in and after that reign more in the East than in the West. The Roman Church had no special officials in the middle of the second century, but at Cirta in North Africa as early as the beginning of the persecution of Diocletian fossores appear as the lowest of the clerical orders (see Fossarians).
Accordingly they came to be reckoned 1. Fossores. among the clerics between 250 and
350. Outside of Africa the fossores are sometimes named before the ostiarii. Their function was to dig the graves and act as custodians of the cemeteries. In the catacombs there are a number of pictures which show them at their work; here they are evidently of a higher class than mere laborers. In view of the complicated nature of their task, they are rather to be compared with architects. They seem to have been supported at first, like other church officials, from the free-will offerings of the faithful; but a number of fourth and fifth-century inscriptions imply that they received considerable sums from the sale of graves. This sort of traffic probably led to abuses, and so ultimately to the decline of the order as an order. It seems to have been definitely suppressed in Rome