It's one thing to walk on someone's grave, but it is an entirely different matter to walk in a grave! When walking through the catacombs of Rome, you are literally walking in and through thousands of graves.
The catacombs are underground cemeteries which with few exceptions were dug by Christians for burial places. Often they were created by associations of poor people who joined together and formed burial clubs. They were mostly constructed during the first three centuries of the Christian era. After the 9th century A.D. they were abandoned and their existence was forgotten. The catacombs remained lost until 1578 when some laborers digging in a vineyard near Rome dug into an underground cemetery. They found chambers and long galleries of graves decorated with Christian paintings and Latin and Greek writings.
Subsequently, Antonio Bosio, "the Christopher Columbus of underground Rome" located 30 more underground cemeteries. Since then, catacombs have been unearthed in other Italian cities, and in Sicily, Malta, Egypt, North Africa, and Palestine. However, the reader should be reminded that catacombs were not the normal and universal method of burial for the early Christians. In all other parts of the Roman empire the dead were buried in mausoleums or simple graves.
The history of the Roman catacombs begins in the second century. Up until that time Christians in Rome had no cemeteries of their own and were buried above the ground in the same manner as the pagans. By the middle of the second century, some cemeteries owned by wealthy Christians were shared with those too poor to buy tombs of their own. It was during this time that the digging of underground burial chambers began. By the early third century, the Catholic church took over administration of the catacombs. The burial site expanded to include 600 acres. Eventually the church divided the city into seven ecclesiastical regions with catacombs assigned for each area. Finally, at the beginning of the fifth century, burial within the catacombs ended and open-air burial resumed over the catacombs below.
I visited the Catacombs of St. Callixtus outside of Rome. St. Callixtus the burial place of probably half a million Christians. Entering you ascend a steep stair case into a gallery so narrow that a man can spread his arms and touch both sides. This catacomb is more like a deep long trench cut into semi-soft volcanic lava with an occasional sky-light hole above for illumination and ventilation. Dug into the sides of the trench are as many small burial chambers as the rock will support. These thousands of narrow hollows in the soft brown stone form a strange honeycomb like appearance. You immediately notice by the size of the chambers that people were notably smaller then and that many young children are buried there. The burial custom was to simply wrap the body in a sheet or shroud and seal into the chamber by cementing in tiles, bricks or a marble slab. An inscription was often scratched on the slab.
As you walk through the maze of honey-combed burial tunnels, your imagination wonders what it must have been like when they were actively digging and using the graves. It must have been an erie and disgusting task to work by the light of a few flickering oil lamps and the ever present stench of the dead. The commonly held belief that Christians lived in these chambers during persecution by the Roman state is regularly questioned by most historians. Their doubts are easily understood after you visit these tunnel-tombs. While there are hollowed out little chapels where small groups met for funerals and devotional services, at best the catacombs would have been places of temporary refuge. The stale stench of the decaying corpses and sunless gloom could surely have only been endured for short periods of time.
Visitors come away from these ancient burial places having gained valuable insights and lessons. Everywhere are symbols and inscriptions crudely scratched in the walls and marble slabs such as, "To my good and sweetest husband Castorinus, who lived 61 years, 5 months and 10 days; well deserving. His wife made this. Live in God! Another reads, "In Christ. To Paulinus, a neophyte. In peace. Who lived 8 years." Most representative are the pictures and symbols of the Good Shepherd, the Fish, and the Vine. Considered as a whole, visitors are sincerely moved by the faith and hope that those buried there. They died in the hope of Jesus Christ as their Savior and Redeemer awaiting his triumphant return.

Blessings in your study of God's Word!

Marvin Hunt

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Blessings!
Marvin Hunt

Http://www.biblehistory.com

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