 Although various explanations have been offered for the word "catacomb," it may derive from the term ad catacumbas, the Latinized Greek kata kumbas meaning "down near the hollows" (perhaps the resting places or graves). On the other hand, the phrase may be a topographical reference to the site of the third-century Christian cemetery under the present basilica of S. Sebastiano near the hollow in the Via Appia. This burial ground, a link in a network of cemeteries and tombs, lies south of the ancient city walls.
During the second half of the third century, the site became the center of Christian veneration of Peter and Paul, thus giving the basilica its earlier name, basilica apostolorum. The Christian underground cemetery located there was not the earliest cemetery of this kind; however, since it was one of the three catacombs still visited in the Middle Ages, the name "catacomb" came to be applied to all such subterranean networks—large of small, private (often known as hypogea) or communal—that had served ancient burial societies and various religious sects.
The catacombs served primarily for burials and commemorative services for the dead. There is no evidence to support the common, romantic notion that Christians habitually worshiped in the catacombs; nor is there any proof that they used them as hiding places during the periods of persecution. Even though most subterranean Christian burials had ceased by the mid-fifth century, the memory of the Christian catacombs was kept alive by the cults of the martyrs. Sanctuaries and eventually cemeterial basilicas became the centers for the veneration of sacred relics by pilgrims, who often journeyed from afar. |
The shrines of the martyrs were maintained and refurbished through the eighth century in spite of poverty and the incursions of the Goths and Longobards. Then the removal of relics to churches within the city walls escalated, and the catacombs faded into oblivion with the exception of a few galleries in the three cemeteries that continued to be visited during the Middle Ages. Thereafter, little was known of their history until interest began anew in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Not until the nineteenth century was meticulous study of the catacombs resumed. Devotion to the Christian martyrs and the impression made by the catacombs are described in the words of Jerome, a noted Christian scholar of the late fourth century: "When I was a youth at Rome, studying liberal arts, it was my custom on Sundays . . . to visit the sepulchres of the apostles and martyrs. And often did I enter the crypts, dug in the depths of the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where the darkness was such that it almost seemed as if the psalmists's words were fulfilled: "Let them go down quick into hell'" (Ps. 55:15).
According to a number of twentieth-century scholars, the main development of the Christian catacombs took place in the mid-third and fourth centuries. Entombment in Jewish catacombs appears to have flourished from at least the end of the second century to the fourth century, after which time sub divo (in the open air) burials were again the rule. Since in most instances there is no epigraphic evidence for dating, chronologies for the underground interments of the members of these Jewish and Christian communities remain under discussion. |
