entry that leads into it; thus most of them are shut; nor are more left open than what is necessary to keep up the Trade of shewing them to Strangers, which they say is done to prevent what has often happen'd, I mean Peoples losing themselves in these subterraneous Labyrinths; by this conduct depriving us of the means of knowing whither and how far they were carried. To this it may be justly excepted, that allowing the Catacombs to be proper for the end for which they are presum'd to be made, and that the Christians of that Age were in a capacity of making that convenience, for themselves to live and assemble in below Ground, at a time when 'twas so very unsafe to appear above it; yet to suppose that a work of that Vastness and Importance cou'd be carried on without the knowledge of the Government, is to suppose the Government asleep, and that that was actually done under its Nose, that must necessarily have alarm'd it, had it been attempted on the frontiers of the Empire. The other sort of Authors give indeed a mighty Idea of the Catacombs, represent them as a work of that Vastness, that the Christians in the persecuting times had not number enough to carry it on; but then most unadvisedly with the same breath they confound them with the _Puticuli in Festus Pompeius_, where, at the same time that the Ancient _Romans_ us'd to burn the Bodies of their dead, the custom was, to avoid expence, to throw those of the Slaves to rot. This is not all, the _Roman_ Christians, say they, observing at length the great veneration that certain Places gain'd by the presence of Relicts, resolv'd to provide a stock for themselves; entring therefore the Catacombs, they made in some of them what Cyphers, what Inscriptions, what Painting they thought fit, and then shut them up; intending to open them again upon a Dream, or some other important incident. The few that were in the secret of this Artifice either dying, or as the Monks, who were the only Men that seem to have had Heads adapted to a thought of this quality, were subject to so many removes, being transported to other Places, the contrivance came to be forgot, and those Galleries continu'd shut, till Chance, the Parent often of great discoveries, open'd them at last. Thus they conclude, the Remains of the vilest part of Mankind are trump'd up in the Church for the Bodies of the most eminent Confessors and Martyrs.