The persecution of the Christians by Nero was perhaps only the caprice of a tyrant who wished to divert from himself to an unpopular sect the suspicion of having caused a terrible calamity. But the formal inquisition into the manners of the Christians by such a ruler as Trajan shows that they must have multiplied to such an extent as to have become objects of anxiety and suspicion to the government. It forms no part of our plan to enter into the persecutions suffered by the Christians; but it must be remembered that if they were persecuted by some emperors, they were tolerated, and even favoured, by others. Septimius Severus treated them with marked distinction, retained them in his domestic service, and even employed a Christian as tutor of his son Caracalla; till the increase of their number through his own indulgence inspired him with alarm, and induced him to take some measures to restrain it. These restraints were, however, removed under his immediate successors; and during more than the third of a century, or a whole generation, the Christians enjoyed an unrestricted freedom. Under Alexander Severus they obtained some important privileges; they were allowed to purchase land, to build churches, to choose their ministers, and to exercise their worship in public. It may be inferred, indeed, from some passages of Scripture, that the Christians must have had churches from the earliest period;2 but secret ones, and at most connived at, not tolerated, by the government. The succeeding emperors down to Diocletian, with the exceptions of Maximin, Decius, and Valerian, were indifferent, if not favourable, to the Christians; and even Diocletian himself for the far greater part of his reign treated them with mildness and toleration, though towards the end of it they were subjected to the most violent persecution which they had yet experienced.

1 Lamprid. Alex. Sever. c. 49.

2 See especially St. Paul's First Epistle to the Corinthians, xi. 18.

But his colleague Galerius, who had been the instigator of this cruelty, repented of it before his death, and published the celebrated Edict of Toleration which gave peace to the Christian church. The long periods of tranquillity enjoyed by the Christians must have been favourable to the increase of their numbers; and we can explain the later persecutions only on the ground that this increase had made them formidable to the state. Nor had they become important by their numbers only, but also by the offices which they filled and the part which they played in public life. Tertullian, who flourished about the middle of the third century, describes them as abounding in the military as well as the civil employments of the state; as being found in the camp as well as in the palace, the senate, and the forum.1 When, therefore, about three quarters of a century later, in the year 324, Constantine exhorted all his subjects to follow his example by embracing Christianity, we must presume that the Christian church had become not only very powerful by its numbers, but also very influential through the important posts filled by many of its members.

The nature of the present work, however, confines our attention to the state of the Christians in Rome, of which we shall proceed to give a brief outline.

History does not record the reputed visit of St. Peter to Rome; but it forms one of the traditions of the Romish church. According to Eusebius, the apostle came to Rome in the second year of the Emperor Claudius; but the statement of Lactantius and the Liber Pontificalis, by which his visit is placed in the reign of Nero, is more in accordance with probability. It is possible that he may have spent ten years at Rome, A.D. 55-65; and at all events it is probable that he was there in the last

1 Hesterni sumus et vestra omnia implevimus, urbes, insulas, castella, municipia, conciliabula, castra ipsa,

year of

tribus, decurias, palatium, senatum, forum; sola vobis relinquimus templa.'-Apol. c. 37.

his life, and that he suffered martyrdom by crucifixion in the Neronian persecution in the year 65. He was succeeded in the bishopric by Linus.1 Tradition is equally vague respecting the place of St. Peter's residence at Rome. According to one account, he lived in the house of the Senator Pudens and his wife Priscilla, situated in the Vicus Patricius, a street running from the Subura through the valley between the Viminal and Esquiline, and represented by the modern streets called Via Urbana and Via Sta. Pudenziana. Here he is said to have established a church or house of prayer, which, from the daughter of Tudens, obtained the name of Pudentiana. At this spot, not far from Sta. Maria Maggiore, a church of this name still exists, and is the first Roman church mentioned in the Liber Pontificalis. The old mosaics in its tribune are reckoned among the finest in Rome. The neighbouring church of Sta. Prassede seems to have taken its name from the sister of Pudenziana; but though this also appears to have been a very ancient church, as two priests of that title are mentioned in the acts of the Council held by Pope Symmachus in 499, yet there are no definite accounts of its foundation. According to other traditions which have not such an appearance of authenticity, St. Peter took up his abode near the present church of Sta. Cecilia in the Trastevere, A. D. 45. He is also said to have dwelt upon the Aventine with Aquila and Prisca, a Jewish couple that had been converted to Christianity, supposed to have been of the same family as the Aquila and Priscilla whom St. Paul met at Corinth after the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the Emperor Claudius.2

The visit of St. Paul to Rome, whither he was brought as a prisoner in company with St. Luke, and his dwelling there two years in a house which he had hired, are recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. During this period he seems to

1 Pagi, Breviar. Gestor. Pont. Rom. t. i. p. 3 sq.

2 Acts, xviii. 2.

have been retained in a sort of surveillance, though with liberty to preach and receive his friends. According to tradition, he dwelt in the Via Lata. Beyond this period there is no authentic account of the life of St. Paul; but it is pretty certain that he suffered martyrdom at Rome, and in all probability in company with St. Peter at the time of Nero's persecution. According to a tradition, they were both led forth to execution by the Porta Trigemina, and along the Via Ostiensis; and St. Paul was put to death at a place called Aqua Salviæ, not far from the magnificent Basilica that bears his name.1 But St. Peter was conducted back either to the Janiculum, or more probably to Nero's Circus, near the present Basilica of St. Peter, and there crucified; and it is said with his head downwards, agreeably to his own request.

In the early ages of the church, in the midst of these dangers and persecutions, and even down to the middle of the fifth century, the Christians of Rome resorted to large subterranean caverns outside the walls, which served them at once as places of refuge and concealment, as churches wherein to exercise their sacred rites, and as places of interment for their dead. These caverns are now commonly known by the name of CATACOMBS; but in ancient times they were also called Area, Crypto, and Cometeria. According to the most general opinion, which is also that of Bosio and his editor Aringhi,2 these catacombs were constructed by the Christians in the sandpits, or galleries, called arenaria, or arenifodina, excavated by the pagan Romans for the purpose of procuring building materials. That such excavations existed we know from the testimony of classical writers. Cicero mentions some arenaria outside the Porta Esquilina ;3 and Suetonius, in relating the death of Nero, describes how Phaon exhorted him to enter a cavern formed by excavating the sand. The

1 Aringhi, Roma Subterr. lib. iii.

c. 2.

2 Ibid. lib. i. c. 1.

Pro Cluent, 13.

4 Ner. 48.

Cavaliere de Rossi has recently treated this subject in a large and learned publication. In a dissertation by his brother, Michele Stefano de Rossi, entitled Analisi Geologica ed Architettonica, which the Cavaliere has annexed to his work, it is laid down that the catacombs, with very trifling exceptions, are entirely the work of the Christians.2 Into this subject, on which volumes might be written, our limits do not permit us to enter; and those readers who are curious on the subject are therefore referred to the work just mentioned. It should, however, be stated that one of the results of Cavaliere de Rossi's investigations is to transfer the catacombs of S. Calixtus from the church of S. Sebastian, where they are commonly placed, to a spot rather nearer Rome between the Via Appia and Via Ardeatina.3

We have already adverted, when describing the persecution of Nero, to the hatred with which the Christians were regarded by the Roman populace. During two or three centuries they were considered as the proper expiatory victims of any public calamity; and on such occasions their death was clamorously demanded by the people assembled in the theatres. A still worse fate was invoked upon the Christian virgins. A conspicuous martyr among these inhuman sacrifices was Ignatius, bishop of Syria, who by command of Trajan was thrown to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre during the festival of the Saturnalia. Yet in spite of these persecutions the church continued to flourish at Rome. The number of

1 La Roma sotteranea Christiana, descritta ed illustrata dal Cav. G. B. de Rossi, tom. i. Roma, 1864.

2 I cimeteri sotteranei di Roma sono stati scavati dai cristiani fossori tranne pochissime eccezioni, le quali importanti per la storia, nell' ampiezza però della sotteranea escavazione scompajono; e possono veramente dirsi quello, che i matematici appellano una quantità infinitesima e da non essere tenuta a calcolo.'

U

App. p. 39. Two of the catacombs are Jewish.

3 Roma sott. Christ. p. 250.

4 'Si Tyberis ascendit ad moenia, si Nilus non ascendit in arva, si cœlum stetit, si terra movit, si fames, si lues, statim, "Christianos ad leonem!"Tertull. Apol. c. 40. An alliterative cry, which probably afforded much amusement to those brutal minds, was: Virgines ad lenonem !'-Ibid. 48 sub fin.