| 86. Epitaphs. | ||||
Rudely written, but each letter | ||||
Full of hope, and yet of heart-break, | ||||
Full of all the tender pathos of the Here | ||||
and the Hereafter. | ||||
To perpetuate, by means of sepulchral inscriptions, the memory of relatives and friends, and to record the sentiments of love and esteem, of grief and hope, in the face of death and eternity, is a custom common to all civilized ages and nations. These epitaphs are limited by space, and often provoke rather than satisfy curiosity, but contain nevertheless in poetry or prose a vast amount of biographical and historical information. Many a grave-yard is a broken record of the church to which it belongs. | ||||
The Catacombs abound in such monumental inscriptions, Greek and Latin, or strangely mixed (Latin words in Greek characters), often rudely written, badly spelt, mutilated, and almost illegible, with and without symbolical figures. The classical languages were then in a process of decay, like classical eloquence and art, and the great majority of Christians were poor and illiterate people. One name only is given in the earlier epitaphs, sometimes the age, and the day of burial, but not the date of birth. | ||||
More than fifteen thousand epitaphs have been collected, classified, and explained by De Rossi from the first six centuries in Rome alone, and their number is constantly increasing. Benedict XIV. founded, in 1750, a Christian Museum, and devoted a hill in the Vatican to the collection of ancient sarcophagi. Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. patronized it. In this Lapidarian Gallery the costly pagan and the simple Christian inscriptions and sarcophagi confront each other on opposite walls, and present a striking contrast. Another important collection is in the Kircherian Museum, in the Roman College, another in the Christian Museum of the University of Berlin. | ||||
The most difficult part of this branch of archaeology is the chronology (the oldest inscriptions being mostly undated). Their chief interest for the church historian is their religion, as far as it may be inferred from a few words. | ||||
The key-note of the Christian epitaphs, as compared with the heathen, is struck by Paul in his words of comfort to the Thessalonians, that they should not sorrow like the heathen who have no hope, but remember that, as Jesus rose from the dead, so God will raise them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus. | ||||
Hence, while the heathen epitaphs rarely express a belief in immortality, but often describe death as an eternal sleep, the grave as a final home, and are pervaded by a tone of sadness, the Christian epitaphs are hopeful and cheerful. The farewell on earth is followed by a welcome from heaven. Death is but a short sleep; the soul is with Christ and lives in God, the body waits for a joyful resurrection: this is the sum and substance of the theology of Christian epitaphs. The symbol of Christ (Ichyours) is often placed at the beginning or end to show the ground of this hope. Again and again we find the brief, but significant words: in peace; he or she sleeps in peace; live in God, or in Christ; live forever. He rests well. God quicken your spirit. Weep not, my child; death is not eternal. Alexander is not dead, but lives above the stars, and his body rests in this tomb. Here Gordian, the courier from Gaul, strangled for the faith, with his whole family, rests in peace. The maid servant, Theophila, erected this. | ||||
At the same time stereotyped heathen epitaphs continued to be used but of course not in a polytheistic sense), as sacred to the funeral gods, or to the departed spirits. The laudatory epithets of heathen epitaphs are rare, but simple terms of natural affection very frequent, as My sweetest child; Innocent little lamb; My dearest husband; My dearest wife; My innocent dove; My well-deserving father, or mother. A. and B. lived together (for 15, 20, 30, 50, or even 60 years) without any complaint or quarrel, without taking or giving offence. Such commemoration of conjugal happiness and commendations of female virtues, as modesty, chastity, prudence, diligence, frequently occur also on pagan monuments, and prove that there were many exceptions to the corruption of Roman society, as painted by Juvenal and the satirists. | ||||
Some epitaphs contain a request to the dead in heaven to pray for the living on earth. At a later period we find requests for intercession in behalf of the departed when once, chiefly through the influence of Pope Gregory I., purgatory became an article of general belief in the Western church. But the overwhelming testimony of the oldest Christian epitaphs is that the pious dead are already in the enjoyment of peace, and this accords with the Saviour's promise to the penitent thief, and with St. Paul's desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Take but this example: Prima, you livest in the glory of God, and in the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. | ||||
Notes. | ||||
I. Selection of Roman Epitaphs. | ||||
The following selection of brief epitaphs in the Roman catacombs is taken from De Rossi, and Northcote, who give facsimiles THE original Latin and Greek. Comp. also the photographic plates in Roller, vol. I. Nos. X, XXXI, XXXII, and XXXIII; and vol. II. Nos. LXI, LXII, LXV, and LXVI. | ||||
1. To dear Cyriacus, sweetest son. Mayest you live in the Holy Spirit. | ||||
2. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. To Pastor, a good and innocent son, who lived 4 years, 5 months and 26 days. Vitalis and Marcellina, his parents. | ||||
3. In eternal sleep (somno aeternali). Aurelius Gemellus, who lived... years and 8 months and 18 days. His mother made this for her dearest well-deserving son. In peace. I commend [to you], Bassilla, the innocence of Gemellus. | ||||
4. Lady Bassilla [= Saint Bassilla], we, Crescentius and Micina, commend to you our daughter Crescen [tina], who lived 10 months and... days. | ||||
5. Matronata Matrona, who lived a year and 52 days. Pray for your parents. | ||||
6. Anatolius made this for his well-deserving son, who lived 7 years, 7 months and 20 days. May your spirit rest well in God. Pray for your sister. | ||||
7. Regina, mayest you live in the Lord Jesus (vivas in Domino Jesu). | ||||
8. To my good and sweetest husband Castorinus, who lived 61 years, 5 months and 10 days; well-deserving. His wife made this. Live in God! | ||||
9. Amerimnus to his dearest, well-deserving wife, Rufina. May God refresh your spirit. | ||||
10. Sweet Faustina, mayest you live in God. | ||||
11. Refresh, O God, the soul of.... | ||||
12. Bolosa, may God refresh you, who lived 31 years; died on the 19th of September. In Christ. | ||||
13. Peace to your soul, Oxycholis. | ||||
14. Agape, you will live forever. | ||||
15. In Christ. To Paulinus, a neophyte. In peace. Who lived 8 years. | ||||
16. Your spirit in peace, Filmena. | ||||
17. In Christ. Aestonia, a virgin; a foreigner, who lived 41 years and 8 days. She departed from the body on the 26th of February. | ||||
18. Victorina in peace and in Christ. | ||||
19. Dafnen, a widow, who whilst she lived burdened the church in nothing. | ||||
20. To Leopardus, a neophyte, who lived 3 years, 11 months. Buried on the 24th of March. In peace. | ||||
21. To Felix, their well-deserving son, who lived 23 years and 10 days; who went out of the world a virgin and a neophyte. In peace. His parents made this. Buried on the 2d of August. | ||||
22. Lucilianus to Bacius Valerius, who lived 9 years, 8 [months], 22 days. A catechumen. | ||||
23. Septimius Praetextatus Caecilianus, servant of God, who has led a worthy life. If I have served You [O Lord], I have not repented, and I will give thanks to Your name. He gave up his soul to God (at the age of) thirty-three years and six months. [In the crypt of St. Cecilia in St. Callisto. Probably a member of some noble family, the third name is mutilated. De Rossi assigns this epitaph to the beginning of the third century.] | ||||
24. Cornelius. Martyr. Ep. [iscopus]. | ||||
II. The Autun Inscription. | ||||
This Greek inscription was discovered a.d. 1839 in the cemetery Saint Pierre l'Estrier near Autun (Augustodunum, the ancient capital of Gallia Aeduensis), first made known by Cardinal Pitra, and thoroughly discussed by learned archaeologists of different countries. See the Spicilegium Solesmense (ed. by Pitra), vols. I.-III., Raf. Garrucci, Monuments d' epigraphie ancienne, Paris 1856, 1857; P. Lenormant, Memoire sur l' inscription d' Autun, Paris 1855; H. B. Marriott, The Testimony of the Catacombs, Lond. 1870, pp. 113-188. The Jesuit fathers Secchi and Garrucci find in it conclusive evidence of transubstantiation and purgatory, but Marriott takes pains to refute them. Comp. also Schultze, Katak. p. 118. The Ichyours-symbol figures prominently in the inscription, and betrays an early origin, but archaeologists differ: Pitra, Garrucci and others assign it to a.d. 160-202; Kirchhoff, Marriott, and Schultze, with greater probability, to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century, Lenormant and Le Blant to the fifth or sixth. De Rossi observes that the characters are not so old as the ideas which they express. The inscription has some gaps which must be filled out by conjecture. It is a memorial of Pectorius to his parents and friends, in two parts; the first six lines are an acrostic (Ichyours), and contain words of the dead (probably the mother); in the second part the son speaks. The first seems to be older. Schultze conjectures that it is an old Christian hymn. The inscription begins with j Icquvo a [ujranivou a{g] ion [or perhaps qei'on] gevno, and concludes with mnhvseo Pektorivou, who prepared the monument for his parents. The following is the translation (partly conjectural) of Marriott (l.c. 118): | ||||
'Offspring of the heavenly Ichyours, see that a heart of holy reverence be your, now that from Divine waters you have received, while yet among mortals, a fount of life that is to immortality. Quicken your soul, beloved one, with ever-flowing waters of wealth-giving wisdom, and receive the honey-sweet food of the Saviour of the saints. Eat with a longing hunger, holding Ichyours in your hands.' | ||||
'To Ichyours... Come nigh to me, my Lord [and] Saviour [be you my Guide] I entreat You, You Light of them for whom the hour of death is past.' | ||||
'Aschandius, my Father, dear to mine heart, and you [sweet Mother, and all] that are mine... remember Pectorius.' | ||||