The Humble Splendor of the First Witnesses
The Catacombs of Saint Callixtus in Rome
(At the beginning of the third century, Pope Zephyrinus entrusted
the administration of the Church of Rome's first cemetery to his
deacon, Callixtus. And so this place took the name of the man who
would succeed Zephryinus as pope and die a martyr)
by Stefania Falasca
One April day in 1870, Mariano Armellini and Orazio Marucchi, who
had just turned 18, were walking along Rome's via Nomentana when
they encountered Pius IX returning to the city with a small
entourage. Seeing the young men, laden with books and paper, the
Pontiff stopped and asked them where they had been. Surprised and
embarrassed, the boys answered that they had just visited the
catacombs of Saint Agnes on the instructions of their teacher,
Giovanni Battista de Rossi. Then Pius IX blessed them, saying
"Dear children, go and pray to the holy martyrs in the catacombs,
like the ancient Christians used to do so that we may be the stock
of their precious blood. Study them, then, with love under the
guidance of your good teacher". Pope Pius IX and Giovanni Battista
de Rossi, father of Christian archeology, were the masterminds of
efforts to bring Rome's catacombs to light. It is to their credit
if today we can learn about and visit these places so dear to
Christian memory because, for many centuries after the martyrs'
relics were translated inside the city walls, most of the nearly
60 catacombs along the consular roads leading to Rome had been
left in a state of abandon. Few even remembered their exact
topographical location. De Rossi was principally credited with
uncovering the largest and most famous of them all - the Catacombs
of Saint Callixtus, the first official underground cemetery under
the direct jurisdiction of the Church of Rome and a cradle o f
Christianity from the beginning. In 1849, t he archeologist was
examining the surface of the Saint Callixtus area between the
Appian Way and the via Ardeatina when he saw a badly damaged stone
bearing the letters "NELIUS MARTYR". He intuited the missing
letters as "CORNELIUS" and realized that it was part of the
sepulchral inscription to the martyr Pope Comelius, who died in
Civitavecchia in 253. Excavations confirmed this and within a few
years he had uncovered all of six crypts of saints and martyrs:
the crypt of the martyr Pope Comelius, of the young martyrs
Calocerus and Parthenius the crypt of the Saint Pope Gaius, of the
martyr Pope Eusebius and the two most famous and venerated
memorials of all Rome's catacombs: the sepulchres of third century
popes and the Crypt of Saint Cecilia.
It is here, in this place housing the tombs of so many martyr
saints, victims of the persecutions of the first centuries, that
we can grasp what Paul VI meant when, on September 12 1965 during
a visit to Saint Callixtus, he spoke of the "humble splendor of
the early Christian witnesses".
Place of Encounter, Memory and Prayer Already at the beginning of
the second century, this area between the Appian Way and the via
Ardeatine, was a place of burial, the property of the aristocratic
Roman Cecili family. The owners of the land, who undoubtedly
included Christian converts, had made it available to their
brothers in faith. In fact, it was the members of wealthy noble
families who made their homes available to Christian communities
for the celebration of the Eucharist (<domus ecclesiae>) as well
as their land outside the city so that needy brethren could be
decently buried. That is why many of Rome's catacombs are named
for their owners - the Catacombs of Priscilla, Domitilla,
Pretextatus, for example. But at the beginning of the third
century, the descendants of the Cecili family gave this cemetery
personally to the bishop of Rome, Pope Zephyrinus (199-217) who
entrusted its administration to his primary dean, Callixtus, the
same able manager of the first "Christian banks". This, therefore,
became the first cemetery for which the Church of Rome was
directly responsible and it was destined ever to bear the name of
one of the cleverest and most enterprising of Peter's successors.
When he succeeded Zephyrinus as pope in 217, Callixtus had been
the cemetery's custodian for about 20 years. He extended the so-
called "primary area", the oldest part of the catacombs, to adorn
the burial place of the young venerated martyr Cecilia, probably
killed <in odium fidei> under the Emperor Marcus Aurelius (161-
180). In this area above ground, he had the sepulchre of the Saint
Pope Zephyrinus erected and Zephyrinus became the first pope to be
buried here. Callixtus, who died a martyr according to his
<Passio> during an uprising in the Trastevere quarter, was laid to
rest in a cemetery on the via Aurelia, but 16 popes after him -
nearly all from the period between Urban I (222-230) and Marcus
(January 336-October 336) and many of them martyrs - were buried
in the Saint Callixtus cemetery. The third century and the
beginning of the fourth inaugurated the age of the great waves of
persecution and particularly violent were the campaigns under the
emperors Decius (249-251), under Valerianus (253-260) and under
Diocletian (284-312). They all aimed at the Church's destruction
by striking out at its hierarchy: popes, bishops, presbyters,
deacons. So it was here on these tombs that the Christians in the
capital of the Empire gathered to pray. It was here in this place,
held in such veneration that it was second in importance only to
the tombs of Peter and Paul, that they gathered during the periods
of particularly violent persecution to celebrate their liturgy and
participate in the Eucharist. The Roman authorities were well
aware of these places and they twice decreed their confiscation.
The first time, ordained by the Emperor Valerianus in 258, the
confiscation lasted for two years and the second, under Diocletian
in 303, for seven years.
During Valerianus' persecution, Pope Sixtus II was martyred on the
land above these catacombs. The emperor had just emanated the
edict confiscating Church property, including the <coemeteria>,
and prohibiting gatherings in these places. As he celebrated Mass,
the pontiff was suddenly attacked and beheaded by the emperor's
soldiers. The date was August 6, 258. "My dear brothers", writes
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, to inform African bishops of events
in Rome, "the Emperor Valerianus has sent his order to the Senate
that bishops, priests and deacons be immediately executed. Sixtus,
our good and peaceable father, endured martyrdom together with
four deacons on August 6 while in the area of the Cemetery". The
exact place of the saintly pontiff's martyrdom is traceable,
according to de Rossi's research, on the site of a small basilica
known today as the "eastern tricora" because of its triple apse
floor plan. It is likely that another venerated martyr of Saint
Callixtus' catacombs was killed in this same wave of persecution -
the young Tarcisius. According to tradition, Tarcisius was little
more than a boy. He would often set off from this place to bring
the Eucharist to Christians in prison. Caught by soldiers as he
bore the consecrated Host, he preferred to die rather than forsake
the body of Christ. His tomb must also be on the surface, on the
site of another small basilica known as the "western tricora".
"Here lies a range of saints"
"O Saint Sixtus, remember Aurelius Repentinus in your prayers". "O
Saintly Souls, remember Marcianus, Severus and all our brothers".
These are the invocations and the names of Christians from the
time of the persecutions. They are written on the tunnel which, at
the immediate foot of a staircase, leads to the Crypt of the
Popes. Other writings represent Christian symbols: the fish the
anchor, Christ's monogram. Still more graffiti were etched by
priests, recognizeable by the letters PRB (<presbyter>) after
their names. A frequent addition was the expression <indignitus
peccator>, poor sinner. The words of Bernard de Clairvaux spring
to mind on reading these epigraphs "The memory of the saints
arouses the desire in us to take joy in their companionship which
is so sweet ... That the hope of incomparable happiness become
reality, we need their help". In another epigraph this holy place
is compared with the heavenly Jerusalem: "Jerusalem, city and
adornment of the martyrs of God". We are now in the short stretch
of tunnel which opens onto the "glorious tombs of the most
illustrious of all the Christian necropolises", as de Rossi
described the Crypt of the Popes. And there are the tombstones of
six of Peter's successors: Pontianus, Antherus, Fabianus, Lucius,
Eutichianus, Sixtus II and more names of priests and deacons
martyred with Pope Sixtus II. When in the fourth century the
persecutions came to an end, veneration of the martyrs became
increasingly widespread and the Saint Pope Damasus (366-384) who
was a great and devoted scholar of the martyrs, transformed this
burial place into a church. In front of the tomb of Sixtus II
there is a poem by Damasus in Latin hexameters, perhaps the most
famous of all his compositions: "Know that here lies joined
together a range of Saints/ The venerable tombs conserve their
bodies,/ while the kingdom of heaven welcomed their chosen souls./
Here lie the companions of Sixtus who triumphed over the
persecutor;/ here the range of popes who safeguard the altar of
Christ;/ here the bishop who lived long in peace/ here the saint
confessors sent from Greece;/ here young men and boys, and the old
with their descendancy castes./ Here I Damasus, confess that I,
too, would have wished to be buried here,/ but I feared disturbing
the ashes of the Saints". Saint Damasus also had the Crypt of
Saint Cecilia, immediately behind the Crypt of the Popes, adorned.
The passage joining the two crypts was covered with marble slabs
and its ceiling with mosaics. The body of the martyr was placed in
the niche where her statue stands today. The body remained there
until 821 when Pope Pascal 1(817824) had it translated to
Trastevere to the basilica dedicated to her. The statue we see
today is a copy of the celebrated work sculpted by Maderno in 1600
and represents the body of the martyr in the exact position in
which it was found intact in 1599 when the sarcophagus was opened
to identify the mortal remains. Her head was back to front and on
her neck was the mark of the sword. Three fingers of her right
hand were open and only one on the left. Dying, Cecilia sought to
point with her fingers to her faith in the Trinity and in the
Oneness of God.
Like the First Christians
In the fourth century, the catacombs of Saint Callixtus were
developed to a considerable degree. Faithful preferred this among
the Church's cemeteries for their repose alongside the tombs of
the martyrs and in order to partake of their intercession. The
practice of burying the dead in underground cemeteries continued
until the early fifth century or until about the time of the sack
of Rome by the Visigoth Alaric in 410. Between the fifth and ninth
centuries and be fore many of the martyrs' relics were translated
to various churches in Rome, these catacombs became a sanctuary
visited b! thousands of pilgrims, according to the ancient
medieval <Itinerarii> and the inscriptions conserved in the
catacombs them selves. These early pilgrims walked down the so-
called "staircase of the martyrs" and on to the Crypts of the
Popes and of Saint Cecilia. They then headed for the various areas
of the cemetery complex to pray on the tombs of the other popes
and martyrs venerated here. In the candlelight, the painting
adorning the tombs must have been splendid still, and together
with the symbols, they constituted a visible appeal to the Story
of salvation brought about by Jesus Christ.
Examples of these sacred illustration can still be found in a good
state of conservation in the so-called "cubicles of the
sacraments", in the area of the popes and Saint Cecilia. They are
scenes of baptism and the Eucharist. Here, too, we find the oldest
representation of baptism: the person administering it places his
right hand on the head of another being baptized immersed in
water.
The catacombs of Saint Callixtus also feature an image of Mary and
it is one of the complex's oldest illustrations. It is to be found
in the area known as Saint Sotheris, named for the martyr who was
related to Ambrose, bishop of Milan. Represented in an arcosolium
in a scene depicting the Epiphany, Our Lady is seated on a throne
and holds the Christchild, dressed in a little tunic, on her lap.
In front of the Arcosolium of Our Lady, a passage leads to four
communicating cubicles. Here, in the second half of the 19th
century when excavations were under way, a group of friends - all
pupils of Giovanni Battista de Rossi - used to gather here to pray
together, as the first Christians did. This little group of young
people had chosen these cubicles as their place of prayer because,
given their architectonic conformation, they were suitable for the
alternated chanting of Psalms. A communicating skylight allowed
the voices to travel from one room to another. During Christmas
1878, four of these young people decided to celebrate the upcoming
feast of the Epiphany on the Arcosolium of Our Lady. And it was on
that occasion that they had the idea to launch an association
aimed at fostering devotion to the martyrs of the catacombs. Thus
was born the <Collegium cultorum martyrum> which enjoyed the
enthusiastic support of Pope Pius IX. Pius IX once visited these
catacombs. De Rossi tells in his memoirs of the Pontiff's visit to
Saint Callixtus as soon as the archeologist informed him of the
discovery of the Crypt of the Popes. "He came with a few people in
the afternoon. I told him of the finds of sepulchral inscriptions
to a few saints, the successors of the Prince of the Apostles. We
then went into the crypt and I pointed out the tombstones to him
that had been uncovered. Pius IX turned to me and said: 'So these,
then, really are the tombstones of the first successors of Peter,
the tombs of my predecessors who now repose here?'. I answered:
'Holiness, here are written the names of the martyr popes whom
Damasus, who was indefaticably devoted to the martyrs, mentions in
the poem I told you about'. At that point, Pius IX drew nearer,
visibly moved. He took the marble slabs in his hands and read the
names. At the sight of those names he reddened with emotion and
his eyes filled with tears. Then he knelt on the ground and
remained absorbed in prayer". It was May 11, 1854. For the first
time in nearly 1,000 years, a successor of Peter had set foot in
these places made holy by the blood of so many witnesses.
This article was taken from the No. 4, 1996 issue of "30Days". To
subscribe contact "30Days" at: Subscriptions Office, 28 Trinity
St., Newton, NJ 07860 or call 1-800-321-2255, Fax 201-579-5541.
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