fact proclaimed in many an inscription of the fourth and later centuries. The following, from the cemetery of St. Domitilla, may stand as an example: ALEXIUS ET CAPRIOLA FECERVNT SE VIVI Alexius and Capriola made this in their own lifetime, with the permission of Archelaus and Dulcitus the priests. The Fossors. The excavation and keeping in repair of all these miles of galleries demanded an immense deal of labour, and this was given over to a particular class of men, the fossores or diggers, who carried out their charge with great difficulty and self-denial because of the want of air and the pestilential atmosphere in which they laboured. Hence they were always regarded as worthy of especial honour, as sacrificing themselves for the common good. The work was one which required a good deal of skill and knowledge, as otherwise the galleries would continually have been breaking into one another, and great confusion would have resulted. It was no mere hard and unpleasant labour that they performed, but a highly skilled and technical art, which had its own special danger in the risk of martyrdom inseparable from it. Hence they ranked immediately after the clergy, and were wellknown and trusted officials of the Church, charged with the important duty of caring for the tombs of the martyrs and those of others who were buried within the area of their charge. There is a very famous tomb in the cemetery of St. Domitilla which bears on it the representation of one of these fossors, Diogenes by name. He bears the pickaxe on his shoulder, the special sign of his office, by which the fossors may always be recognized in any representation of the period, and is surrounded by the implements of his craft, hatchet and hammer, chisel and compasses, mallet and lamp. It bears the inscription: "Diogenes the Fossor, buried in peace". At a later date, after the peace of the Church and towards the end of the fourth century we find the fossors apparently almost in the position of owners of the catacombs, selling the graves and registering the title to them. But in earlier times there is no trace of this, and rich and poor seem for the most part to have been laid in similar graves, and without payment of any kind. It is another evidence for the existence of the collegia, of which we have spoken. But this last carries us on to later years than our present subject allows. For the present it must suffice to have sketched out in outline the circumstances which brought the catacombs into existence, and enabled them to be carried on for the use of the Church and the preservation of her worship. To the religious services of the catacombs how much do we owe of that which we are enjoying to-day. The whole Christian calendar as regards the anniversaries of saints had its rise in the meetings at the tomb of the Martyr on the natalitia or anniversary of his martyrdom; the relics of the saints built into every Catholic altar carry us back to the times when their tombs were the only places where Mass could lawfully be celebrated; the consecration of a new altar to this day takes the aspect of the burial of a martyr. The lights in our churches, especially at the reading of the Gospel at High Mass and in the course of processions, have, in the opinion of many, no other origin than the darkness of the subterranean chapels in which Mass was then said. Everywhere, as soon as we begin to make serious inquiry into origins, we find the glorious ceremonial of the Church of to-day has sprung from those humble beginnings which alone were possible for Christian worship when it had to be carried on under the conditions of persecution, in subterranean vaults and chapels excavated far down in the very bowels of the earth. CHAPTER V. The Christianizing of Rome. THE fierce battle between the old paganism and the new Christianity for the possession of the Empire, which we know by the name of the persecution of Diocletian, could not be continued for a very protracted period. The final issue was really decided before that persecution ever began, for Christianity was already, by the end of the third century, too widely diffused and accepted by too many adherents to be successfully stamped out. A modus vivendi had to be reached in one way or another if the Empire itself were not to perish, weakened as it must have been by this long internal strife; and many of the less fanatical thinkers on the pagan side must have been asking themselves anxiously, about the year 312, in what way such a modus vivendi could best be discovered. It came, as we all know, by the conversion of Constantine the Emperor to Christianity. Not that Constantine thus suddenly and openly avowed his change of faith. That would have been too dangerous a thing to do; nor, perhaps were the Emperor's opinions at that time sufficiently clear and settled to justify him in such a procedure. At first the whole affair bore the aspect of mere political expediency, and only by degrees was it made manifest to how great an extent the Emperor's own religious beliefs were involved. The whole matter at a later date became obscured by stories, such as that of the famous vision of the cross before the battle of the Milvian bridge; stories which no doubt have a real historical foundation, but which have nevertheless been exaggerated, and tend sometimes to take possession of the imagination and thus to obscure the true historical sequence of events. Here archæology comes in, and is able by indisputable monumental evidence to fill in some at least of the lacunae left by the documents of history. It shows us not so much Christianity triumphing over paganism, as Christianity and paganism living side by side, both enjoying the protection and favour of the State. The persecution had been brought to an end, and peace had been finally given to the Church by the famous Edict of Milan in 313. The effect of this edict was simply to annul the existing laws against Christianity and to put the Christian religion into the category of religiones licitae, religions which were recognized and permitted by the State. It put an end to the condition of affairs which had continued ever since the time of Nero, according to which Christianity was not only not permitted to exist, but was absolutely forbidden under the strongest penalties; but it did nothing further. The issuing of the edict did not mean that the Emperor had himself embraced Christianity, or even that he intended to do so. It only meant that the Christian religion now attained the position which the Jewish, for example, had always been allowed; that it was a permitted religion, whose votaries were free to worship as they pleased, and to build churches and own property, not merely by means of legal subterfuges as they had done in the past, but of absolute right and without any fear of molestation. This consideration enables us to understand how it was that the Edict of Milan was the joint act of |