APOSTLES’ RESTING PLACE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 19 June 1926, Page 4

APOSTLES’ RESTING PLACE

RECENT DISCOVERY IN ROME

The Rev. On non E. S. Hughes, vicar n f St. lVk*r\s Church, Kastcru Hill, liiik forwarded to the Dominion some interesting information with reference |,o recent discoveries made on the site _of 11 11 v Ihisilua id San Sebastian, beside the Appian Way, in Rome. Tho discoveries are of remarkable interest, and tliev appear to decide, once and for all, that SI. Peter and St. Paul actually died at. Rome, as tradition lias always declared. < The word Catacombs, which fur some two centuries has been applied to all tlu: underground cemeteries in Rome, seems properly to belong to tho district round I lie Church of San Sebastian, including tlie Circo <!i Massen/.i© near-by. Its derivation is unknown, but as there is a hollow in tho ground near-by it may be the Greek for “down in the hollow.” The form in which it is generally used is ad or in cataeumbas. An official pamphlet states that it may have been applied to the locality “by the Greeks who camo from the sea on trade bent. At the beginning of flic decline, where the seven church roads meet on the Appian Way, on the right hand ig the church of San Sebastian.” The church was built, as inscriptions show, in the middle of the fourth .century, bv Pope Damasus, and has always borne tho name “Basilica Apostolorum.” Excavations which were begun in the floor of tho church a- few years ago have had amazing results. A crypt bas been discovered immediately below tho centre of the church containing seven large Christian sarcophagi. One of thoso ig in splendid preservation, and a carving on its depicts our I /ord a# a youthful Good Shepherd, with an old Good Shepherd on the right and three figures in the centre —Peter, Paul, and Linus. Tho sarcophagus is evidently that of Linus, possibly the Linus of the gecond Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy (iv. 21), the so-called second bishop of Rome. He is said to havo been a Welshman, and the gon of Caractacus. The portraits of the two Apostles agree with tho portraits which Pope Sylvescr had struclc on a bronze plate at the time of the removal of- the bodies of the two A post leg to their present resting places in St. Peter’s Rome, and St. Pauls Without-the-Walls. This bronze plate was unearthed two or three yearg ngo in tho cemetery of Domitilla, and is now in Hie Vatican library. Further search revealed three marble sarcophagi, tho centre oue of which contained a body embalmed, with the following inscription near to the head

S. FAVIANUS I C REQUIESCIT.

St. Fabius list in Jesus Christ.) TJie body was that of St. Fabian, Popo and martyr, of A.D. 251. The wailg of the; crypt are covered with invocation of St. Peter and Paul, of third century date. Partly they arc cut in marble, but scores of them are just graffiti, or sevatchings, on the soft rock. "More than a hundred times wo see inscriptions, Greek and Latin, in which are mentioned the names Peter and Paul." says the pamphlet. Thus: "Peter aud Paul, have us in remembrance,” "Peter and Paul, help the chief of sinners,” "Paul and Peter, pray for us all, ‘Peter and Paul, keep Vincentius.” TJIO crypt appears to liavo been called a triclea, or a pergola, words meaning a bower 0 r an arbour, and the visitors have scratched on tile walls that they have made refrigcrium, “refreshment.’ ’for Peter and Paul, doubtless by a sepulchral rite that included a banquet, "sonio religious custom known'arah in Pagan antiquity.’ ’ Ail along the walls are seats, and there is a little marble fountain which suppied the water. .There is a second place 15 metres long 10 metres wide, and oife meter lower that the trileu. This served as a balcony and as a place for pilgrims,' who were enabled to push in' objects through little windows in the sides of tile altar, as near as possible to the martyrs’ remains. The official view is that this crypt was the original burying place of St. Peter and St. Paul, who, according to an inscription, both "suffered under Jyiro.” The ground belonged to a noblp family, and the Lady Lucina is said (by Anastasias) to have asked for the bodies of the Apostles, and to have buried them i n the night ad cataeumbas m the catacomb). It may be that she mined them in her'own family vault. Hero the remains rested for 19 months, and then Linus transferred them to their tombs in the Catacombs of Callistus, near by, on Juno 26, A.D. 71. In 1924 a Franeisia n monk, who has been Canon Hughes’s guide, was excavating beneath the floor of the church vvlion-Jie litcrfilJy fell into a firsL-cemury V n to 1 ky Codius Hermes in .'I.D. o«, and intended.as a heathen necropolis. there is every reason to conHermes wiUl fbc Hermes of 1/ti r.Y s Epistle to the Jlomans (xvi., 14). iwenty-ono largo rooms have been discovered. The work of making them was proceeding while the two Apostles were m Home, and they may well have seen it. In those rooms are columbaria, or places cut for the reception of the ashes of the departed. Callistus (the pamphlet calls him Cahallistus), after whom the neighbouring catacomb is named, is buried in this necropolis. An inscription states that lie was a writer belonging to the court of Vespasian, and the fact that ho died a Christian seems to be shown by the omission of thqt attribute divus in the account of the style and title of the Emperor. Vespasian died in A.D. 79, so Callistus must, have been buried before that year. On tlie monument of Hermes himself there is a painting of the vino and grapes which would .show that Hennes died a Christian, and also that the words of Our Lord as recorded in the Gospel according to St. John (xv., s) ‘I am the vine, ye are the branches”— were known in Home, before St. John’s Gospel was written n o later date be ascribed to it, or even that date. St. John himself may have repeated them to the.converts there, for Trullian states that St. John was in Rome after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 71. "Two adjoining archways lead into the original catacombs,” says the pamphlet. “Roth have, wonderful stucco decorations, and mm arch is completely covered with the vin c and the grapes.” Somewhere in this necropolis the bodies of tlie two Apostles were placed by Linus During the Valerian persecution of Juno 29 A.D. 258 Pope Sextus 11. brought the bodies- back to the iA.VPG and there they rested until A.D 328, when Popp Sylvester Maced theni m lheir present tombs. Pope Damascus limit the Basilica Apostolorum over the crypt, and bad an inscription cut which begins thus—,You iire bound to know saints once dwelt here— Whoever requires their names, Peter and equally Paul.