The history of the Catacombs is inextricably interwoven with that of 99 Christianity. Their very structure reflects the character of the times in which they were made. The absence of constraint or concealment, and the superior construction and ornamentation of those belonging to the earliest times, indicate the comparative security of the church before it had awakened the jealousy or fear of the Roman emperors. Their immense extension and crowded galleries testify to the rapid increase of the Christian community. The altered character which they gradually assumed, the obstructed passages, the masked entrances, devious windings, and devices for concealment or escape, and the rudely scratched inscriptions and uncouth paintings, betray the sense of fear and the kindling rage of persecution which pursued the hunted Christians to these subterraneous sanctuaries of the faith. Their greater magnificence and more ornate structure, the costly mosaics, the marble stairways, and richly carved sarcophagi of the later ages, tell of the enthronement of Christianity on the seat of the Cæsars, and of the homage paid to the relics and shrines of the saints and martyrs. And their debased architecture, barbarous paintings, and progressive ruin during the later years of their history indicate the gradual eclipse of art, and their final abandonment. We must therefore carefully determine at least the proximate date of any particular feature if we would correctly interpret its significance. The last and most terrible persecution of the church before its final 100 triumph left abundant evidence of its violence and lengthened duration in the changes which contemporaneously took place in the Catacombs. God prepared a place for his saints, and hid them in the clefts of the rock as in the hollow of his hand. When the public observance of Christianity was proscribed by law the believers withdrew from the light of day, and in the inmost and darkest recesses of these subterranean crypts, by the graves of their martyred dead, enjoyed the consolation of religious worship, and broke the bread and drank the wine in memory of their dying Lord.[145] But after the decree of Valerian which forbade the entering or holding any assemblies in the Christian cemeteries, even these retreats were not safe, and the last sanctuaries of the faith were unscrupulously invaded. Persecution relentlessly followed the Christians through the labyrinthine windings of the Catacombs, and violated the sepulchres of the sainted dead by sacrilegious tumult and bloodshed. Sometimes the heathen soldiery, fearing to pursue their victims into these unknown passages, blocked up the entrance to prevent their escape; and many were thus buried alive and perished of hunger in these chambers of gloom.[146]