Project Gutenberg's Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858, by Various

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Title: Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858

Author: Various

Release Date: May 18, 2004 [EBook #12373]
[Date last updated: May 21, 2005]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.

* * * * *

VOL. I--MARCH, 1858.--NO. V.

* * * * *

THE CATACOMBS OF ROME.

--------parti elette
Di Roma, che son state cimitero
Alla milizia che Pietro seguette.

PARADISO, c. ix.

"Roma Sotterranea,"--the underground Rome of the dead,--the buried city
of graves. Sacred is the dust of its narrow streets. Blessed were those
who, having died for their faith, were laid to rest in its chambers.
_In pace_ is the epitaph that marks the places where they lie.
_In pace_ is the inscription which the imagination reads over the
entrance to the Christian Catacombs.

Full as the upper city is of great and precious memories, it possesses
none greater and more precious than those which belong to the city under
ground. Republican Rome had no braver heroes than Christian Rome. The
ground and motives of action were changed, but the courage and devotion
of earlier times did not surpass the courage and devotion of later
days,--while a new spirit displayed itself in new and unexampled deeds,
and a new and brighter glory shone from them over the world. But,
unhappily, the stories of the early Christian centuries were taken
possession of by a Church which has sought in them the means of
enhancing her claims and increasing her power; mingling with them
falsehoods and absurdities, cherishing the wildest and most unnatural
traditions, inventing fictitious miracles, dogmatizing on false
assertions, until reasonable and thoughtful religious men have turned
away from the history of the first Christians in Rome with a sensation
of disgust, and with despa