How long the Roman Christians were allowed to bury their dead where they pleased, and to visit their tombs in peace, we can hardly say. In Africa there had been a popular outcry against the Christian cemeteries, and a demand for their destruction, in the beginning of the third century; and the same thing may have happened in Rome also at the same or even at an earlier date. The first certain record, however, of any legal interference with the Roman Catacombs belongs to a period fifty years later, by which time they must have been both numerous and extensive; it must also have been very notorious where they were situated. We have seen how public the entrance was to the Catacomb of St. Domitilla in the first century, and there is no reason to suppose that this was an exception to the general rule. The Cœmeterium Ostrianum, on the Via Nomentana, was as old, and probably as well known, for it was the place where St. Peter had baptized; the Catacomb of St. Priscilla, too, of the noble family of Pudens, on the Via Salara, and several others. We read of St. Anacletus, who was Bishop of Rome about A.D. 160, that he built some sort of monument over the tomb of St. Peter on the Vatican, and his predecessors and some few of his successors till the end of the century were buried in this same place, _juxta corpus Beati Petri_, as the old records have it. Around the tomb of St. Paul, also, on the Via Ostiensis, a cemetery was formed, of which a few monuments still remain, bearing dates of the first decade of the second century. Hence a priest, writing in that same century, calls these tombs of the Apostles “the trophies,” or triumphal monuments, “of those who had laid the foundation of the Church in Rome.” About a hundred years later we read of St. Fabian—Pope A.D. 236-250—that “he caused numerous buildings to be constructed throughout the cemeteries.” And this expression seems to imply that the cemeteries were no longer private property (as several of them undoubtedly were at the first), but belonged to the Church in her corporate capacity, and were administered, therefore, under the superintendence of her rulers. We have contemporary evidence that this was the condition of a cemetery on the Via Appia from the beginning of the third century, Pope Zephyrinus having set over it his chief deacon, Callixtus; and the obvious advantages of such an arrangement may have led to its general, if not universal, adoption. At any rate, we cannot doubt that “the numerous buildings he caused to be constructed throughout the cemeteries” were either oratories for public worship, or chambers for the celebration of the _agapæ_, which he caused to be built after the fashion of the _scholæ_ of the Pagan burial-clubs, in the _areæ_ of cemeteries which had not had them before; and we can easily understand how this increased provision of places for assembly had been rendered necessary by the rapid multiplication of the faithful during the long