So vast a necropolis would command attention in any country, or as the memorial of any age, or of any part of the human race; but to us the catacombs of Rome are doubly interesting, as the mysterious crypts which served the first confessors of our faith for the purposes of sepulture and sometimes of concealment. Their extent at once precludes the idea of their having been excavated in a clandestine manner, as was at one time erroneously believed; and, moreover, history tells us that, apart from some passing storms of persecution, the Christians had as little reason as the Jews, their religious ancestors, for making a secret of their faith, or of their places of interment. From the times of the Apostles their community constantly grew and multiplied throughout the Roman world—in Rome especially, the centre of that world—and there can be little doubt that from Nerva to the middle of the reign of Marcus Aurelius (from 96 to about 166) and so onward to the great persecution under Decius (A.D. 249–256), the Christians, if exposed here and there and at times to local persecutions, were growing in unchecked and still expanding numbers. But as the living community increased, so also must the number of its dead, a reverence for whom was, among the survivors, not only a solemn duty but a deep-rooted passion. The Christians not only inherited from the Jews the ancient usage of interment, but this respect for the dead was strengthened by the belief that Christ had risen bodily from the grave, and that a bodily resurrection was to be their own glorious privilege. Hence the burning of the dead, customary among the wealthier pagans, was to them a profanation; and as the body of the slave was as holy as that of his master, it claimed the same right of decent burial. But where was room for the spacious burial-places required for so vast a community?