the most severe persecution to which the ancient Church was exposed,
and which, if genuine, is, so far as known, the only monument of the kind,
is marked by the same simplicity of style:--

LANNVS XPI MA
RTIR HC*[Hic?] REQVIESC
IT SVR [E-P-S] DIOCLITI ANO PASSVS

Lannus Martyr of Christ here rests. He
suffered under Diocletian.

The three letters EPS have been interpreted as standing for the words _et
posteris suis_, and as meaning that the grave was also for his successors.
Not yet, then, had future saints begun to sanctify their graves, and to
claim the exclusive possession of them.

But there is another point of contrast between the inscriptions of the un-
Christianized and the Christian Romans, which illustrates forcibly the
difference in the regard which they paid to the dead. To the one the dead
were still of this world, and the greatness of life, the distinctions of
class, the titles of honor still clung to them; to the other the past life
was as nothing to that which had now begun. The heathen epitaphs are
loaded with titles of honor, and with the names of the offices which the
dead had borne, and, like the modern Christian (?) epitaphs whose style
has been borrowed from them, the vanity of this world holds its place
above the grave. But among the early Christian inscriptions of Rome
nothing of this kind is known. Scarcely a title of rank or a name of
office is to be found among them. A military title, or the name of priest
or deacon, or of some other officer in the Church, now and then is met
with; but even these, for the most part, would seem to belong to the
fourth century, and never contain any expression of boastfulness or
flattery.

FL. OLIVS PATERNVS
CENTVRIO CHOR. X VRB.
QVI VIXIT AH XXVII
IN PACE

Flavius Olius Paternus, Centurion of the
Tenth Urban Cohort, who lived twenty-seven
years. In peace.

It is true, no doubt, that among the first Christians there were very few
of the rich and great. The words of St. Paul to the Corinthians were as
true of the Romans as of those to whom they were specially addressed: "For
ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble are called." Still there is evidence
enough that even in the first two centuries some of the mighty and some of
the noble at Rome were among those called, but that evidence is not to be
gathered from the gravestones of the catacombs. We have seen, in a