We cannot doubt, therefore, that as some of the Roman Catacombs may have been the private work, and even remained the private property, of individuals or families, so others, possibly from the first, certainly as early as the end of the second century, belonged to the Christian community collectively, and were administered for the general good by duly-appointed officers. The earliest instance of this, of which any written evidence has come down to us, is the cemetery of which we have already spoken on the Via Appia, and which was intrusted by Pope Zephyrinus to the care of his archdeacon, Callixtus, whose name it has ever since retained. A monument may yet be seen in it showing how, a century later, this same cemetery still remained under the immediate jurisdiction of the Pope, and was administered by his deacon; for this was the arrangement made. The bishops were the legal possessors of the cemeteries, churches, and other religious places; but it was well understood, and the very language of the imperial decrees often acknowledges, that they really belonged to the whole body of the Christians, and not to any private individual; and the deacons acted as the _quæstores_, or representatives and agents of the body. It was not necessary that the Christians should obtain any special leave to form a _collegium_, nor seek for any special privileges. The ordinary liberties of every Roman citizen were sufficient for their purpose. Most of the Pagan burial-clubs indeed had, or pretended to have, a certain religious character, being usually placed under the invocation of some one or other of the gods. But this was not an essential condition of their existence. It was not necessary, therefore, that the Christians should put forward any religious profession at all, nor even take the name of a _collegium_. They might have retained, and probably did retain, their own favourite and characteristic name of _Fratres_; and, provided the ostensible motive of their association was to provide the means of burial for their members, they might have held meetings and possessed property with impunity. In this way a sort of practical _modus vivendi_ was established for them under the reign of the more just and merciful Emperors. The religious character of their meetings, though well known, might yet be winked at, so that they were tolerated, just as many Egyptian, Greek, and Asiatic religious confraternities (_erani_, or _thiasi_), were not interfered with so long as they gave no umbrage to the Government; and the laws which forbade the profession of the Christian religion were at those times restricted in their application to individual cases of accusation as they arose, just as we know that Trajan at least had enjoined. Nevertheless, those laws still remained; and when the hour of persecution came, the charge of practising a _religio illicita_ could be insisted upon, and all Christian meetings forbidden.