The Early Christians in RomeSpence-Jones, H. D. M. (Henry Donald Maurice)
History
The Early Christians in Rome
Spence-Jones, H. D. M. (Henry Donald Maurice)
Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Rome (Italy) -- Church history
A very remarkable feature in the Catacomb of S. Priscilla are the
reservoirs of water, which evidently served in very early days as
baptisteries. The most considerable of these reservoirs or tanks is
on the upper story of the cemetery, and is communicated with by a
broad staircase of over twenty-five steps, which come out behind what
was once the apsidal end of the Basilica of S. Sylvester. Marucchi
describes it as “une vaste piscine encore pleine d’eau, desservie par
un petit canal.” This great baptistery became, from the fourth century
onward, a spot of intense interest to the many pilgrims who visited the
catacomb sanctuaries.
Another large reservoir of water has been found on the second story of
this vast catacomb; other and smaller tanks have also been found.
Marucchi believes that this cemetery is the one alluded to in the
many traditions, including the notices in the Pilgrim Itineraries, as
the special scene of S. Peter’s labours and preaching, teaching and
baptizing, as the “cœmeterium beati Petri ubi baptizaverat,” as the
“sedes ubi prius sedit sanctus Petrus.”
The investigation which has led to recent discoveries in this cemetery
had not been completed when De Rossi identified the Cœmeterium
Ostrianum (of which we spoke above) as the scene of S. Peter’s work. It
is these latest “finds” that have induced Marucchi to fix the Priscilla
Cemetery as the place where the great apostle laboured in those early
years of the history of Roman Christianity.
Beneath the first vast gallery of this catacomb with its many memories
of saints and martyrs, including the famous crypt of the “Acilii
Glabriones” house, lies another and very ancient area of sepulchral
galleries.
This area was communicated with by several staircases, some of which
are now completely closed. This vast sepulchral area has been as yet
only partially explored. It is described roughly as consisting of a
long gallery, out of which lead more than twenty other galleries, many
of which as yet are only imperfectly investigated.
Marucchi, who has devoted a long and important section of his great
work to the Priscilla Catacomb, writes of this second story of the
cemetery as the most extensive and carefully planned of all the
cemeteries of subterranean Rome that have been yet examined.
His words here are remarkable, and must be quoted: “On peut dire sans
exaggeration, que c’est la région cemétériale la plus vaste et la plus
régulière de toute la Rome souterraine.”
The masonry used in its construction; its many inscriptions on the
loculi, carved in marble, or painted in red on tiles,--all bear witness
of its hoar antiquity; much of it dates certainly from the second
century. It contains, as we have remarked already, a reservoir or tank
of water--of course a baptistery--deep and of considerable size.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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