left for the purpose, and to be eaten at the grave of the testator. Not seldom it was further enacted that sacrifice should be offered, and that those who had benefited by the will should be present at the sacrifice on certain specified days in every month, or at least in every year. For these purposes an upper chamber was often provided above the vault in which the dead. were laid, an edificium superpositum as it was often called, which served as the meeting-place on these mournful occasions. Sometimes land or gardens were set aside by a testator for the purpose of providing the entertainment and of keeping his tomb in order and repair. Here is an actual instance: "These gardens shall always serve my ashes. I shall appoint guardians to feast on my birthday on the income they provide and to throw roses on my tomb. I will that they shall never be alienated nor divided." 1

The Collegia.

Such were the arrangements of the rich in order to keep their memory from perishing. Poorer men could naturally do much less than this, but many could and did make some provision. Some bought themselves land for a grave while they were yet living, or at the least a niche in some one of the public columbaria, where the urn containing their ashes could be deposited. But the usual way in which the poorer Romans provided for their last obsequies was by means of mutual co-operation. They formed themselves into burial guilds and societies by whom they could be cared for after death had taken place. It is said that the Roman soldiers used to make regular contributions out of their pay for this purpose; and it is certain that

1" Corpus Insc. Lat.," v. p. 843. The inscription is at Grazzano.

members of the various trades and professions had each their own burial clubs.1

Nothing was more carefully regulated in the later days of the Republic and throughout the times of the Empire than the right of joining together in any form of guild or society. Such organizations, it was feared, might be used for seditious purposes and militate against the good order and government of the State. From the days of Augustus onward it was forbidden to form any new association of a private character without the special leave of the Senate, which was very rarely given. Under Trajan such liberty was even more narrowly restricted. Pliny has left on record his absolute failure to get permission to enrol a body of firemen, even though he proposed to confine their numbers to 150 and promised to be very careful in making his selection,2

To this general and strictly enforced prohibition one exception and one only was allowed. It was the provision to be made by the poor (tenuiores) for their funeral rites. Such men were allowed to meet together and to make monthly contributions to be applied for this purpose.3

The classical instance which has come down to us of such burial clubs among the pagans is to be found in the celebrated inscription discovered at Lanuvium, now called Cittá Lavinia, in 1816. It recites the law of the Senate by virtue of which it was allowed to exist, and also the special conditions insisted on; that it should not meet oftener than once a month, and should be formed bona fide for the provision of burial facilities. Then follow the statutes of the club. Every 1 Brownlow," Roma Sotterranea," i. p. 66.

2 Pliny," Ep.," x. 97.

3 Marcianus, "Institut.," iii.; "Digest," xlvii. 22, 1. Cf. Mommsen, "De Collegiis et Sodalitiis Romanis," and De Rossi, "Roma Sotterranea," iii. 509.

member as an entrance fee had to give a keg of good wine and pay a sum of about sixteen shillings. After that his monthly subscription was to be about fourpence. If at his death his subscriptions were long in arrear he was to forfeit all rights, but if his subscriptions were paid up and he had paid for a long time the club provided a sum of about thirty shillings out of which the expenses of his funeral were met. Suppers were to be given on fixed days—including the birthdays of the founder of the club, and of some of his relations, and the anniversary of the foundation of the club itself. Bread and wine and small fishes (sardae) were to be provided for this purpose. Then follow certain fines and other regulations for the due management of the club. The date of the monument is about A.D. 133. This may serve as a typical instance of the burial collegia which were existing everywhere in the second century. Any family or body of persons who had some common bond of unity might form themselves into such a collegium and draw up statutes for the due administration of any property which the collegium might hold. As members of such a college they gave themselves a new name by which they might be known. Thus the members of the collegium which met at the sepulchre of Annius Phylles were known as the Phylletians, while in another instance they were known as the Syncratians. These are pagan instances, but it is quite likely that there were Christian parallels, and it may well be that this is the true explanation of a stone which still remains in a beautiful vault in the cemetery of St. Callixtus, which bears the single word inscribed upon it EVTYCHIORVM.

Christian Burial Guilds.

Indeed it is not hard for us to see how admirably this law was adapted to the special needs of the

Christians who wanted to find a loophole which would allow them to meet together for religious worship without thereby rendering themselves liable to be punished for unlawful assembly. As we go on to consider the history of the Christian catacombs we shall constantly find ourselves faced by details which seem to show that it was precisely in virtue of this exception to the general law that these singular burying-places came into existence.

We must, however, be on our guard against assigning to this system of burying guilds an influence in the development of Christianity greater than that which it actually possessed. Mgr. Batiffol1 has made an attack on this ground on the whole position on this point which was taken up by De Rossi. "How could Christianity," he asks, "being a religion, have concealed itself under the name of small funeral collegia? Who could have been deceived by the device? How could it have been possible for Christian worship, with its meetings held every Sunday and often during the week, to be protected by a legislation which allowed the collegia to meet only once a month? How could Christians who were admitted to communion in any church they visited, have complied with a legislation which forbade anyone to belong to more than one such college?"

Arguments of this kind would be decisive if anyone were contending that the use of such collegia was the only way in which Christian worship was carried on, or that the Christian Church as such applied for recognition in this way. It is no argument at all against the more moderate position put forward by De Rossi and maintained by his followers, which is simply that some Christians at special times of persecution seem to have availed themselves of the loophole provided by

1" Primitive Catholicism," pp. 35, 36,

the law. We may admit readily enough that Christianity itself was neither a collegium nor a collection of collegia, but it still remains possible and probable that Christian collegia did exist and quite probably existed in considerable numbers. Of at least one instance we have positive proof in an inscription recording a “Collegium quod est in domo Sergiae Paulinae".

The Catacombs.

From the first, Christians set their faces resolutely against the pagan practice, which had become almost general, of burning the dead. "Christians execrate the funeral pyre and condemn burial by fire," says Minucius Felix. It became necessary for them, in consequence, to make provision for the large numbers for whom burial was needed, and this was done, as we shall see, in a very remarkable way.

It was not infrequent among the richer and nobler Roman families for the older custom of burial to be retained, and a great many monuments have come down to us which show us the way in which this was commonly done. The most important are subterranean vaults surmounted by an upper chamber above ground, and many remain in a more or less dilapidated condition along the Via Appia and the Via Latina. But in other cases subterranean chambers and passages were cut out in the solid tufa rock with horizontal shelves or arched recesses in the walls upon which the dead bodies might be laid.

Both these plans were adopted by the Christians in their turn. The tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul, in the Vatican and on the Ostian Way respectively, were examples of the first kind, funeral vaults containing only a single sarcophagus, and in the case of St. Peter's

1 "Roma Sotterranea," i. 209.