Fredric Ozanam [1800's]: The Christian Art of the Catacombs

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The Christian Art of the Catacombs
By Frederic Ozanam (French Catholic Cultural Historian, 1813-1853)

The Italian genius developed in the atmosphere of the catacombs. We must descend there to discover the source of all that was destined to become so great. There, in those primitive ages, lived a people in the modern sense of the word, comprising women and children, the weak and the small, such as ancient historians despise and hold of no account -- a new people, a medley of strangers, slaves, free-men, barbarians, all animated by a spirit alien to antiquity and suggestive of a new order of things. This society had an ideal which it was eager to express, but the ideal was too comprehensive, too impassioned, too new, to find adequate expression in words; it required the service of all the arts. In that early stage of its development, poetry was not yet clear, precise, or clothed in the garb which it needed. But it animated all the arts, architecture, painting, sculpture, engraving, for all these are symbolic and are characterized by figurative expression and the endeavor to make the image reflect the idea, to reveal the ideal in the real.

We must imagine the catacombs as a network of long, underground corridors, stretching in all directions beneath the suburbs and the outskirts of Rome. We must beware of confusing them with the spacious quarries dug out for the purpose of building the pagan city. The Christians themselves excavated the narrow corridors which were to hide the mysteries of their faith and to be the resting- placeof their tombs. These labyrinths are sometimes as much as three or four stories high and they penetrate a depth of eighty to a hundred feet below ground, but in many parts they are so narrow and low that it is difficult to make one's way through even with lowered head. To the right and left are several rows and broad, deep trenches scooped out of the wall, in which bodies of men, women, and children are placed side by side and covered with a little lime. As if to confuse the pagan searchers, the underground passage makes a thousand detours, and to this day these very detours speak of the horrors of those early days of persecution when the cruel hunter chased his prey through these winding labyrinths. For this very purpose of persecution the corridor was made to wind, to ascend and descend, and to bury itself in the lowest depths of the earth. But though a work born of cruelty and horror, it is at the same time an eloquent work. No building raised by human hands teaches nobler lessons. In those murky passages the visible world and all trace of light is denied to all who penetrate those depths. The cemetery encloses all the hidden treasures of darkness, even as eternity "concludes and shuts up" all time, and the oratories, built at various points for the celebration of the holy mysteries, are like so much daylight breaking in upon immortality to comfort the souls for the night here below.


THE FAITH OF THE MARTYRS

These oratories are covered with pictures which are often crudely executed and which are clearly the work of unskilled hands. Those ignorant workmen could do no better, working in haste and by the light of a lamp, in fear, and threatened with death. Yet often when the light of a torch is thrown upon the sacred walls, images are revealed whose design, form, and movement recall the best traditions of ancient art. At the same time, behind these very traditions lurks the principle which was destined to reanimate and transform them. The true faith of the martyrs is depicted in the expression of these beings whom the artist represents with eyes raised to heaven and hands outstretched in prayer. But in all, the intrusion of Christian art is revealed in the ideal which chose the subjects if these pictures, which planned the order of them and designed the types. In these desolate places, where images expressive of a society banned, persecuted, and mercilessly tracked might well be expected, are discovered instead those revealing a very different spirit. At the entrance of the vault appears the Good Shepherd bearing on His shoulders a lamb and a goat, indicating that He saves both the innocent and the repentant. Next, in four panels decorated with garlands of flowers and fruits, are depicted stories drawn from the Old and New Testaments, generally arranged in couples, as if to suggest allegory and reality, prophecy and history. In these figure Noah in the Ark, Moses striking the rock, Job on the dunghill, the Miracle of Cana, the feeding of the five thousand, Lazarus leaving the tomb, and most prominent -- Daniel in the lions den, Jonah cast out by the whale , the three Children in the furnace. All these are types of martyrdom -- martyrdom by beasts, water, and fire, but all symbolical of triumphant martyrdom such as is necessary to depict in order to maintain courage and console grief. We see no trace of contemporary persecutions, no representation of the butchery of the Christians, nothing bloodthirsty, nothing which could rouse hatred or vengeance, nothing but pictures of pardon, hope, and love.


THE TOMBS OF THE DEAD

Though the Christians of the catacombs found time to paint their chapels, they were zealous never to abandon the tombs of their dead without endowing them with some token of remembrance, some trace of their grief and reverence. Christian sculpture had its beginning in such hieroglyphics, and figures roughly hewn, without proportion, without grace, with no other worth than the ideal they represent. A leaf expresses the instability of life; a sailing boat, the fleeting of our days; the dove bearing the branch proclaims the dawn of a better world; the fishrecalls baptism, and at the same time, the Greek word which translates it unites in a mysterious anagram the majestic titles of the Son of God, the Saviour. On a nameless tomb there is a fish and the five miraculous loaves of bread, suggesting that here rests a man who believed in Christ, who, was regenerated by baptism, and who partook of the Eucharistic feast. As paganism gradually declined, the chisel of the Christian became bold and more productive. Instead of those indefinite emblems which he outlined on brick, he boldly cut the marble and produced the bas-reliefs of his sarcophagi which decorate the museums of Rome and the churches of Ravenna. In them we meet again the biblical subjects already treated in the catacombs, but other scenes are added. The richer and more definite symbolism announces that the time of the persecutions was over, and that the holy mysteries needed no longer to be celebrated in secret.

The tombs of Ravenna do not speak of death, everything there suggests the immortality given by the Eucharist to Christians: for instance, birds pecking at vines, doves drinking from a chalice, tender lambs feeding on the fruits of a palm.

But the designer, despairing of expressing his thought adequately in sculpture, had called speech to his aid, though at first it took a secondary place. The first inscriptions are a brevity which has its own eloquence. "This is the place of Philemon." Some are amplified by means of tender and comforting expressions such as "Florentius felix agneglus (sic) Dei" -- "Florentius, happy little lamb of God." Or yet again, "You have fallen too soon, Constantia, miracle of beauty and wisdom". And yet Constance had died as a martyr and the phial stained with blood marked out her tomb for the veneration of the faithful. But the young saint was only eighteen, and the Church forgave the cry of the parents' hearts. Sometimes these few words suggest all the terror of divine judgement, as do those in the following prayer which the Christian Benirosus had traced on his father's tomb: "Lord, take thou not us unawares when our mind is shrouded in darkness" -- "Domine, ne quando adumbretur spiritus, veneris." At another time the thought of the Resurrection breaks forth in the midst of lamentation and weeping. The family of the Christian Severianus invokes on his behalf Him who causes the seeds buried in the furrow to germinate.

At this period was produced the only poetry truly worthy of the name -- poetry expressed in language and metre. The muse could no longer be silent, for the time was approaching when the poet Prudentius was to celebrate the catacombs and their martyrs in the metres of Virgil and Horace. But till now poetry had happily remained popular and crude. It is surely indisputable that ignorant people traced these Latin inscriptions written inGreek characters and bristling with faults of orthography, lan- guage, and prosody, and the picture of the plebeian mothers, the slave-fathers, engraving stealthily their griefs and hopes on the stone before which they knelt in reverence, may be readily imagined. When the persecutors, the true Romans, descended into these cemeteries they must have laughed contemptuously and shrugged their shoulders at the epitaphs of these poor wretches who knew not how to write and yet claimed to teach the world. And truly that is what they were destined to do. The ancient Roman civilization was declining to its fall, and at that very moment Rome was to see emerge rom these subterranean passages with which she was undermined, from that Christian society which she had regarded as her enemy, a whole civilization and subsequently, an entirely new poetry.

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From the Vatican website: 

The Christian Catacombs

Rome, Catacombs of Priscilla – Gallery of sandstone

Origins of the catacombs. The catacombs originated in Rome between the end of the second and the beginning of the third centuries A.D., under the papacy of Pope Zephyrin (199-217), who entrusted to the deacon Callixtus, who would later become pope (217-222), the task of supervising the cemetery of the Appian Way, where the most important pontiffs of the third century would be buried. The custom of burying the dead in underground areas was already known to the Etruscans, the Jews and the Romans, but with Christianity much more complex and larger burial hypogea originated in order to welcome the whole community in only one necropolis. The ancient term to designate these monuments is coemeterium, which derives from the Greek and means “dormitory”, thereby stressing the fact that for Christians, burial is just a temporary moment while they wait for the final resurrection. In antiquity, the term catacomb, extended to all the Christian cemeteries, only defined the complex of St. Sebastian on the Appian Way.

Rome, Catacombs of Priscilla – Gallery with closed loculi

Characteristics of the catacombs. The catacombs are, for the most part, excavated in tuff or in other easily removable but solid soils so as to create a negative architecture. For this reason, the catacombs are found especially where there are tufacious types of soil: that is, in central, southern and insular Italy. The catacombs entail the presence of ladders that lead to ambulatories which are called galleries, as in mines. In the walls of the galleries the “loculi” are arranged: that is, the burial places of ordinary Christians that are made lengthwise. These tombs are closed with marble slabs or bricks. The loculi represent the humblest and most egalitarian burial system in order to respect the community sense that animated the early Christians. In any event, in the catacombs more complex tombs are also found, such as the arcosolia, which entail the excavation of an arch on the tuff casket, and the cubicula, which are real and proper burial chambers.



Catacombs in Italy and around the world. Most of the catacombs are found in Rome where they number nearly sixty, while the same number can be counted in Latium. In Italy, the catacombs developed especially in the South where the soil consistency is harder but at the same time more ductile for excavation. The northernmost catacomb is the one that developed on the Island of Pianosa, while the southernmost cemetery hypogea are the ones in northern Africa and especially at Hadrumentum in Tunisia. Other catacombs are found in Tuscany (Chiusi), Umbria (near Todi), Abruzzi (Amiterno, Aquila), Campania (Naples), Apulia (Canosa), Basilicata (Venosa), Sicily (Palermo, Siracusa, Marsala and Agrigento), and Sardinia (Cagliari, S. Antioco).

Rome, Catacombs of Priscilla – three children in the furnace

The art of the catacombs. From the end of the second century, an extremely simple art developed in the catacombs which is in part narrative and in part symbolic. The paintings, mosaics, reliefs on the sarcophaguses and minor arts recall stories from the Old and New Testaments, as if to present the examples of salvation from the past to the new converts. This is why Jonah is often depicted who was saved from the belly of the whale where he remained for three days, which re-evokes Christ’s Resurrection.

Rome. Catacombs of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter – Jonah is vomited out


Rome, Catacombs of Sts. Marcellinus and Peter – Noah in the Ark

There are also representations of the young people of Babylonia rescued from the flames of the furnace, Susan saved from the snares of the elders, Noah who escaped the flood, and Daniel who stayed unharmed in the lions’ den.

From the New Testament, the miracles are chosen of healing (the blind man, the paralytic, the hemorrhaging woman) and resurrection (Lazarus, the widow of Naim’s son, Jairus’ daughter), but also other episodes, such as the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well and the multiplication of the loaves.

Rome, Catacombs of St. Sebastian – Funeral inscription with symbols

The art of the catacombs is also a symbolic art in the sense that some concepts which are difficult to express are represented in a simple way. To indicate Christ a fish is depicted; to signify the peace of heaven a dove is represented; to express firmness of faith an anchor is drawn. On the closing slabs of the loculi, symbols with different meanings are often engraved. In some cases, a tool is depicted which indicates the dead person’s trade in life. Some symbols, such as glasses, loaves of bread and amphorae, allude to the funeral meals consumed in honor of the deceased, the so-called refrigeria. Most of the symbols refer to eternal salvation, such as the dove, the palm, the peacock, the phoenix and the lamb.

Rome, Catacombs of Priscilla – Our Lady with the Prophet

The catacombs and the Mother of God. In the Roman catacombs the most ancient image is preserved of Our Lady who is depicted in a painting in the cemetery of Priscilla on the Via Salaria. The fresco, which can be dated back to the first half of the third century, depicts the Virgin with the Child on her knees in front of a prophet (perhaps Balaam or Isaiah) who is pointing to a star to refer to the messianic prediction. In the catacombs other episodes with Our Lady are also represented such as the Adoration of the Magi and scenes from the Christmas crib, but it is thought that prior to the Council of Ephesus, all these representations had a Christological and not a Mariological significance.

Rome, Catacombs of Priscilla – The Good Shepherd

The Good Shepherd in the catacombs. One of the images represented the most in the art of the catacombs is the Good Shepherd. While the model is taken from pagan culture, it immediately takes on a Christological significance inspired by the parable of the lost sheep. Christ is thus represented as a humble shepherd with a lamb on his shoulders as he watches over his little flock that is sometimes made up of only two sheep placed at his sides.

Rome, Catacombs of St. Sebastian – devotional graffiti

The martyrs of the catacombs. In the catacombs, the martyrs are buried who were killed during the cruel persecutions willed by Emperors Decius, Valerianus and Diocletian. Around the tombs of the martyrs, a form of devotion developed rapidly among the pilgrims who left their graffiti and prayers at these exceptional burial places. The Christians tried to arrange the burial places of their deceased as close as possible to the martyrs’ tombs because it was thought this would also establish a mystical nearness in heaven.



The catacombs and the Fathers of the Church. Between the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth centuries, the Fathers of the Church described the catacombs. St. Jerome was the first to recount how as a student he would go on Sundays to visit the tombs of the apostles and the martyrs together with his study companions: “We would enter the galleries dug into the bowels of the earth…Rare lights coming from above land attenuated the darkness a little…We would proceed slowly, one step at a time, completely enveloped in darkness”. The Iberian poet, Prudentius, also recalls that in the early years of the fifth century, many pilgrims would come from around Rome and even from the surrounding regions to venerate the tomb of the martyr Hippolitus who was buried in the catacombs on the Via Tiburtina.



The Pontiffs restore the catacombs. In the second half of the fourth century, Pope Damasus began the search for the tombs of the martyrs located in the different catacombs of Rome. After the tombs were found, he had them restored and had splendid praises engraved in honor of these first champions of the faith. In the sixth century, Popes Vigilus and John III also restored the catacombs after the incursions due to the Greek-Gothic war. Subsequently, between the eighth and ninth centuries, Popes Hadrian I and Leo II also restored the martyrs’ shrines in the Roman catacombs. After a long period of oblivion, the rediscovery of these hypogea in the sixteenth century offered valuable testimonies of the first Christians’ genuine faith that were used by the Counterreformation movement. Finally, in the nineteenth century, Pope Pius IX created the Commission for Sacred Archaeology in order to preserve and study in a fitting way the places of early Christianity.