Monuments of the early church . rarely of a freedman,among the thousands of inscriptions of the catacombs —justifying the Christian boast that master and slave recognizedtheir equality in the Church. In a later time the inscriptionsoccasionally record the manumission of slaves in suffrage of thedeparted. In contrast to the pagan custom, even the noblest of theChristians recounted none of the honors of their offices and 68 CEMETERIES rank, except that the initials V. C. {vir darissimus), C. F.(clarissima femina), were not uncommonly inscribed to indicatemembership in the senatorial order. The C
Monuments of the early church . rarely of a freedman,among the thousands of inscriptions of the catacombs —justifying the Christian boast that master and slave recognizedtheir equality in the Church. In a later time the inscriptionsoccasionally record the manumission of slaves in suffrage of thedeparted. In contrast to the pagan custom, even the noblest of theChristians recounted none of the honors of their offices and 68 CEMETERIES rank, except that the initials V. C. {vir darissimus), C. F.(clarissima femina), were not uncommonly inscribed to indicatemembership in the senatorial order. The Christian attitudewas that of looking forward beyond the tomb, rather thanback over the course of earthly honor and success; recessita sceculo became a familiar formula in the fourth century. Inthe third and fourth centuries the profession of the defunctwas often mentioned in the inscription or indicated by pic-turing the tools of his trade. We have in general in thecatacombs a thorough vindication of Tertullians boast ^ that. tone in the catacomb of Douiitilla. the Christians were to be found in every rank and in everyprofession. Nothing could be more simple than the epitaphs of theKoman bishops in the papal crypt at S. Callistus. The earliestwhich have been preserved in this cr3qjt are those of Anteros(236) and Fabianus (250) : — ANTEPnC • EIII (Anteros, bishop). ^ABIANOU . EIII . K/TP (Fabianus, bishop, martyr). The inscriptions of this crypt prove that Greek was still theofficial language of the Roman Church. The next pope, Cornelius, was buried in a distant region ofthe same cemetery, the very region, in fact which seems inorigin to have been the property of the Cornelii and the 1 Apol. 37. lySCBIPTIOXS G9 Caecilii. This probably explains the fact that the epitaph ofthis pope is not in the official language of the Church, but inLatin : — CORNELIVS • MARTYREP The word martyr here is original; on the epitaph of Fabianus,however, it was a subsequent addition. Most of
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectchristi, bookyear1901
