Early Christian inscriptions
They are a valuable source of information in addition to the writings of the Church Fathers regarding the development of Christian thought and life in the first six centuries of the religion's existence.
The majority of the early Christian inscriptions, viewed from a technical and paleographical standpoint, give evidence of artistic decay: this applies especially to the tituli of the catacombs, which are, as a rule, less finely executed than the non-Christian work of the same time.
In the East, Greek was commonly employed, interesting dialects being occasionally found, as in the Christian inscriptions from Nubia in southern Egypt that were deciphered in the 19th century.
The cryptic emblems of primitive Christianity are also used in the epitaphs: the fish (Christ), the anchor (hope), the palm (victory), and the representation of the soul in the other world as a female figure with arms extended in prayer (orans).
They implore for the dead eternal peace and a place of refreshment (refrigerium), invite to the heavenly love-feast (Agape), and wish the departed the speedy enjoyment of the light of Paradise, and the fellowship of God and the saints.
It begins with the doxology, "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen", and continues: May the God of the spirit and of all flesh, Who has overcome death and trodden Hades under foot, and has graciously bestowed life on the world, permit this soul of Father Schenute to attain to rest in the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the place of light and of refreshment, where affliction, pain, and grief are no more.
A number of epitaphs of the early popes (Pontianus, Anterus, Fabianus, Cornelius, Lucius, Eutychianus, Caius) were found in the so-called "Papal Crypt" in the Catacomb of St. Callistus on the Via Appia, rediscovered by De Rossi.
Priests are frequently mentioned, and reference is often made to deacons, subdeacons, exorcists, lectors, acolytes, fossores or gravediggers, alumni or adopted children.
The Greek inscriptions of Western Europe and the East yield especially interesting material; in them is found, in addition to other information, mention of archdeacons, archpriests, deaconesses, and monks.
Besides catechumens and neophytes, reference is also made to virgins consecrated to God, nuns, abbesses, holy widows, one of the last-named being the mother of Pope Damasus I, the restorer of the catacombs.
Another valuable repertory of Catholic theology is found in the dogmatic inscriptions in which all important dogmas of the Church meet (incidentally) with monumental confirmation.
This important inscription was at first controversial among scholars, and some non-Catholic archeologists sought to find in it a tendency to syncretism, that is, an accommodation of Christianity with earlier and other religions practiced within the Roman Empire.
[citation needed] The original was presented by Sultan Abdul Hamid to Leo XIII, and is preserved in the Vatican Museums (ex Lateranense collection).
Early Christian inscriptions also provide evidence for the Catholic doctrine of the Resurrection, the sacraments, the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the primacy of the Apostolic See in Rome.
It would be difficult to overestimate the importance of these evidences, for they are always entirely incidental elements of the sepulchral inscriptions, all of which were pre-eminently eschatological in their purpose [citation needed].
He repaired the neglected tombs of the martyrs and the graves of distinguished persons who had lived before the Constantinian epoch, and adorned these burial places with metrical epitaphs in a peculiarly beautiful lettering.
Nearly all the larger cemeteries of Rome owe to this pope large stone tablets of this character, several of which have been preserved in their original form or in fragments.
Besides verses on his mother Laurentia and his sister Irene, he wrote an autobiographical poem addressed to Christ: "Thou Who stillest the waves of the deep, Whose power giveth life to the seed slumbering in the earth, who didst awaken Lazarus from the dead and give back the brother on the third day to the sister Martha; Thou wilt, so I believe, awake Damasus from death.
The best known celebrate the temporary burial of the two chief Apostles in the Platonia under the basilica of St. Sebastian on the Via Appia, the martyrs Hyacinth and Protus in the Via Salaria Antiqua, Pope Marcellus in the Via Salaria Nova, Saint Agnes in the Via Nomentana, also Saints Laurence, Hippolytus, Gorgonius, Marcellinus and Peter, Eusebius, Tarsicius, Cornelius, Eutychius, Nereus and Achilleus, Felix and Adauctus.
More than one half are probably correctly ascribed to him, even though after his death Damasine inscriptions continued to be set up in the beautiful lettering invented by Damasus or rather by his calligrapher Furius Dionysius Filocalus.
Both the basilica of Nola and the church at Primuliacum in Gaul bore the same distich: Pax tibi sit quicunque Dei penetralia Christi,
An excellent and well-known example is the still extant original inscription of the 5th century on the wall of the interior of the Roman basilica of Santa Sabina on the Aventine over the entrance to the nave.
Here rests in peace, Maxima a servant of Christ who lived about 25 years and (was) laid (to rest) 9 days before the Kalends of July of the year when the senator Flavius Probus the younger was consul (June 23, 525). [ 1 ] She lived with her husband (for) seven years and six months. (She was) most friendly, loyal in everything, good and prudent.
