2. The Offering of Cain and Abel. They present a lamb and sheaf of corn to a seated figure of the Almighty.

3. Noah in the Ark, represented as a box--a dove, bearing an olive-branch, flies towards him. Interpreted to express the doctrine that "the faithful having obtained remission of their sins through baptism, have received from the Holy Spirit the gift of divine peace, and are saved in the mystical ark of the church from the destruction which awaits the world."[214] (Acts ii. 47.)

4. Sacrifice of Isaac.

5. Passage of the Red Sea.

6. Moses receiving the Law.

7. Moses striking water from the rock--(very common).

8. Moses pointing to the pots of manna.

9. Elijah going up to heaven in the chariot of fire.

10. The Three Children in the fiery furnace;--very common as symbolical of martyrdom.

11. Daniel in the lions' den;--generally a naked figure with hands extended, and a lion on either side; most common--as an encouragement to Christian sufferers.

12. Jonah swallowed up by the whale, represented as a strange kind of sea-horse.

13. Jonah disgorged by the whale.

14. Jonah under the gourd; or, according to the Vulgate, under the ivy.

15. Jonah lamenting for the death of the gourd.

These four subjects from the story of Jonah are constantly repeated, perhaps as encouragement to the Christians suffering from the wickedness of Rome--the modern Nineveh, which they were to warn and pray for.

Subjects from the _New Testament_ are:

1. The Nativity--the ox and the ass kneeling.

2. The Adoration of the Magi--repeatedly placed in juxtaposition with the story of the Three Children.

3. Our Saviour turning water into wine.

4. Our Saviour conversing with the woman of Samaria.

5. Our Saviour healing the paralytic man--who takes up his bed.

This is very common.

6. Our Saviour healing the woman with the issue of blood.

7. Our Saviour multiplying the loaves and fishes.

8. Our Saviour healing the daughter of the woman of Canaan.

9. Our Saviour healing the blind man.

10. The raising of Lazarus, who appears at a door in his grave-clothes, while Christ with a wand stands before it. This is the New Testament subject oftenest introduced. It is constantly placed in juxtaposition with a picture of Moses striking the rock.

"These two subjects may be intended to represent the beginning and end of the Christian course, 'the fountain of water springing up to life everlasting.' God's grace and the gift of faith being typified by the water flowing from the rock, 'which was Christ,' and life everlasting by the victory over death and the second life vouchsafed to Lazarus."[215]

11. Our Saviour's triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

12. Our Saviour giving the keys to Peter--very rare.

13. Our Saviour predicting the denial of Peter.

14. The denial of Peter.

15. Our Saviour before Pilate.

16. St.Peter taken to prison.

These last six subjects are only represented on tombs.[216]

The class of paintings shown as _Liturgical_ are less definite than these. In the Catacombs of Calixtus several obscure paintings are shown (in cubicula anterior to the middle of the third century), which are said to have reference to the sacrament of baptism. Pictures of the paralytic carrying his bed are identified by some Roman Catholic authorities with the sacrament of penance. (!) Bosio believed that in the Catacomb of Sta. Priscilla he had found paintings which illustrated the sacrament of ordination. Representations undoubtedly exist which illustrate the _agape_ or love-feast of the primitive Church.

On the opposite side of the Via Appia from St. Calixtus (generally entered from the road leading to S. Urbano) is the _Catacomb of St.

Pretextatus_, interesting as being the known burial-place of several martyrs. A large crypt was discovered here in 1857, built with solid masonry and lined with Greek marble.

"The workmanship points to early date, and specimens of pagan architecture in the same neighbourhood enable us to fix the middle of the latter half of the second century (A.D. 175) as a very probable date for its erection. The Acts of the Saints explain to us why it was built with bricks, and not hewn out of the rock--viz.

because the Christian who made it (Sta. Marmenia) had caused it to be excavated immediately below her own house; and now that we see it, we understand the precise meaning of the words used by the itineraries describing it--viz. 'a large cavern, most firmly built.' The vault of the chapel is most elaborately painted, in a style by no means inferior to the best classical productions of the age. It is divided into four bands of wreaths, one of roses, another of corn-sheaves, a third of vine-leaves and grapes (and in all these, birds are introduced visiting their young in nests), and the last or highest, of leaves of laurel or the bay-tree. Of course these severally represent the seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The last is a well-known figure or symbol of death; and probably the laurel, as the token of victory, was intended to represent the new and Christian idea of the everlasting reward of a blessed immortality. Below these bands is another border, more indistinct, in which reapers are gathering in the corn; and at the back of the arch is a rural scene, of which the central figure is the Good Shepherd carrying a sheep upon his shoulders. This, however, has been destroyed by graves pierced through the wall and the rock behind it, from the eager desire to bury the dead of a later generation as near as possible to the tombs of the martyrs.

As De Rossi proceeded to examine these graves in detail, he could hardly believe his eyes when he read around the edge of one of them these words and fragments of words:--_Mi Refrigeri Januarius Agatopos Felicissim Martyres_--'Januarius, Agapetus, Felicissimus, martyrs, refresh the soul of....' The words had been scratched upon the mortar while it was yet fresh, fifteen centuries ago, as the prayer of some bereaved relative for the soul of him whom they were burying here, and now they revealed to the antiquarian of the nineteenth century the secret he was in quest of--viz. the place of burial of the saints whose aid is here invoked; for the numerous examples to be seen in other cemeteries warrant us in concluding that the bodies of the saints, to whose intercession the soul of the deceased is here recommended, were at the time of his burial lying at no great distance."--_Roma Sotterranea._

The St. Januarius buried here was the eldest of the seven sons of St.

Felicitas, martyred July 10, A.D. 162. St. Agapitus and St. Felicissimus were deacons of Pope Sixtus II., who were martyred together with him and St. Pretextatus[217] in this very catacomb, because Sixtus II. "had set at nought the commands of the Emperor Valerian."[218]

A mutilated inscription of St. Damasus, in the Catacomb of Calixtus, near the tomb of Cornelius, thus records the death of this pope:

"Tempore quo gladius secuit pia visura Matris Hic positus rector caelestia jussa docebam; Adveniunt subito, rapiunt qui forte sedentem; Militibus missis, populi tunc colla dedere.

Mox sibi cognovit senior quis tollere vellet Palmam seque suumque caput prior obtulit ipse, Impatiens feritas posset ne laedere quemquam.

Ostendit Christus reddit qui praemia vitae Pastoris meritum, numerum gregis ipse tuetur."

"At the time when the sword pierced the heart of our Mother (Church), I, its ruler, buried here, was teaching the things of heaven. Suddenly they came, they seized me seated as I was;--the soldiers being sent in, the people gave their necks (to the slaughter). Soon the old man saw who was willing to bear away the palm from himself, and was the first to offer himself and his own head, fearing lest the blow should fall on any one else. Christ who awards the rewards of life recognises the merit of the pastor, he himself is preserving the number of his flock."

An adjoining crypt, considered to date from A.D. 130, is believed to be the burial-place of St. Quirinus.

Above this catacomb are ruins of two basilicas, erected in honour of St.

Zeno; and of Tiburtius, Valerian, and Maximus, companions of Sta.

Cecilia in martyrdom.

In the road leading to S. Urbano is the entrance to the _Jewish Catacomb_. It is entered by a chamber open to the sky, floored with black and white mosaic, which is supposed to have formed part of a pagan dwelling. The following chamber has remains of a well. Hence a low door forms the entrance of a gallery out of which open six cubicula, one of them containing a fine while marble sarcophagus, and decorated with a painting of the seven-branched candlestick. A side passage leads to other cubicula, and to an open space which seems to have been an actual arenarium. A winding passage at the end of the larger gallery leads to the graves in the floor divided into different cells for corpses, and called _Cocim_ by Rabbinical writers. A cubiculum at the end of the catacomb has paintings of figures--Plenty, with a cornucopia; Victory, with a palm leaf, &c. The inscriptions found show that this cemetery was exclusively Jewish. They refer to officers of the synagogue, rulers (a????te?), and scribes (??aate??), &c. The inscriptions are in great part in Greek letters, expressing Latin words.

Another small Jewish catacomb has been discovered behind the basilica of St. Sebastian. Behind the Catacomb of St. Calixtus, on the right of the Via Ardeatina, is the _Catacomb of SS. Nereo ed Achilleo_. Close to its entrance is the farm of _Tor Marancia_, where are some ruins, believed to be remains of the villa of Flavia Domitilla. This celebrated member of the early Christian Church was daughter of the Flavia Domitilla who was sister of the Emperor Domitian,--and wife of Titus Flavius Clemens, son of the Titus Flavius Sabinus who was brother of the Emperor Vespasian. Her two sons were, Vespasian Junior and Domitian Junior, who were intended to succeed to the throne, and to whom Quinctilian was appointed as tutor by the emperor. Dion Cassius narrates that "Domitian put to death several persons, and amongst them Flavius Clemens the consul, although he was his nephew, and although he had Flavia Domitilla for his wife, who was also related to the emperor. They were both accused of atheism, on which charge many others also had been condemned, going after the manners and customs of the Jew; and some of them were put to death, and others had their goods confiscated; but Domitilla was only banished to Pandataria."[219] This Flavia Domitilla is frequently confused with her niece of the same name,[220] whose banishment is mentioned by Eusebius, when he says:--"The teaching of our faith had by this time shone so far and wide, that even pagan historians did not refuse to insert in their narratives some account of the persecution and the martyrdoms that were suffered in it. Some, too, have marked the time accurately, mentioning, amongst many others, in the fifteenth year of Domitian (A.D. 97), Flavia Domitilla, the daughter of a sister of Flavius Clemens, one of the Roman consuls of those days, who, for her testimony for Christ, was punished by exile to the island of Pontia." It was this younger Domitilla who was accompanied in her exile by her two Christian servants, Nereus and Achilles; whose banishment is spoken of by St. Jerome as "a life-long martyrdom,"--whose cell was afterwards visited by Sta. Paula,[221] and who, according to the Acts of SS. Nereus and Achilles, was brought back to the mainland to be burnt alive at Terracina, because she refused to sacrifice to idols.

The relics of Domitilla, with those of her servants, were preserved in the catacomb under the villa which had belonged to her Christian aunt.