sleep on the ground; I have no wife, no children, no prætorium, but only the earth and the heavens, and one poor cloak. And what do I want? Am I not without sorrow? Am I not without fear? Am I not free ?" He will avoid the politics of the material state, and devote himself to the spiritual politics, to ethical exhortation. Men cannot truly insult and revile him, for he holds his soul apart, and contumely cannot move it. He will not marry; or, if he did, his wife and family ought to follow the same lofty rules of life as himself. He regards the whole world as his home. "The Cynic is the father of all men; the men are his sons, the women are his daughters; he so carefully visits all, so well does he care for all. Do you think that it is from idle impertinence that he rebukes those whom he meets? He does it as a father, as a brother, and as the minister of the Father of All, the minister of Zeus." To the man who forgets his high dignity Epictetus makes a noble appeal. In each man there is a divine spark. "You are a superior thing. You are a portion separated from the deity......Why, then, are you ignorant of your own noble descent ?" In eating, drinking, in all the acts of life, it behoves us not to lose sight of our essential greatness. "Wretch," cries Epictetus to the slave of lust, "you are carrying about a God with you, and you know it not. Do you think that I mean some god of silver or of gold, and external? You carry him within yourself, and you perceive not that you are polluting him by impure thoughts and foul deeds." We readily think of the parallel in Paul's address to the Corinthian Saints: "Know ye not that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have from God? and ye are not your own; for ye were bought with a price; glorify God, therefore, in your body."

Yet, so singularly detached were the Christian and Stoical methods at this period that Epictetus knew no more of Paul than Paul knew of Seneca. Both Paul and Epictetus placed the riches of the soul above the things of carnal life; both preached the possibility of moral freedom; both discovered the secret of inward peace; yet each would have rejected the theology of the other.*

* G. Long's translation of the "Discourses of Epictetus, with the Encheiridion and Fragments," with notes and Introduction.

25. The Catacombs.-Beyond the walls of Rome some forty or fifty underground cemeteries have been excavated in the soft soil, which is chiefly composed of tufa. Their narrow galleries vary from two to four feet in width, and do not often exceed ten feet in height. The walls are honeycombed with oblong niches, in which dead bodies were deposited. Sometimes the skeletons crumble at the explorer's touch; sometimes they retain their hardness. At intervals shafts admitted a dim light and provided ventilation. The graves number hundreds of thousands. If formed in a continuous line, the gloomy corridors would extend more than 350 miles. The Catacombs lay in oblivion from the sixth to the seventeenth century.

The ancient Umbrians burned their dead. The Etruscans more often buried the bodies than cremated them, and they constructed elaborate subterranean tombs. For a long time the Romans preferred disposal by interment; the sepulchres of the rich adorned the roadsides; the poor and the slaves rested in crowded cemeteries. After the close of the Republic, cremation came into general vogue, and urns, containing the ashes of the dead, were placed in the pigeonholes of buildings known as "columbaria." Everywhere there sprang up, even before the Christian era, associations or "collegia " which served the purpose of Burial-clubs. By easy payments the members purchased the right of interment in the club burial-ground, or the preservation of ashes in the club columbarium. The society would usually adopt the worship of a patron god or goddess—Jupiter, Hercules, Apollo, Diana, Isis, etc. Sometimes the clubs were used to cover political intrigues or mere debauchery; and such abuses provoked the jealousy of the Roman Government, and led to occasional interference or temporary suppression. In the second Christian century, however, the working-folk of the Empire maintained an extraordinary number of these insurance colleges. In the year 133 a club was formed near Rome; and the code of rules adopted by the general meeting was inscribed on stone. The inscription was discovered in 1816. Diana and Antinous presided over this association of humble people. Their subscriptions were punctually demanded, arrears being punished by fines. Deputations attended the funeral of a deceased colleague. The club-suppers included bread,

wine, and small fishes (sarda) in the bill of fare. And, since the Jews swarmed in Rome, we need not feel surprised that several Jewish cemeteries should have been brought to light. On the walls of the sepulchral chambers of the Jewish catacombs one sees paintings of palm-branches, doves, and the national emblem of the seven-branched candlestick.

The numerous drawings, paintings, and carvings on the walls of the crypts or on the sides of sarcophagi have aroused very natural curiosity. Authors and artists have hastened to give the world full descriptions of these sepulchral pictures. Unfortunately, the researches have been conducted on the principle that all the designs must be pronounced Christian unless the evidence of pagan art is overwhelming. Undoubtedly Christians used the catacombs for burial, for meeting-places, and as fitting spots for the pictorial records of their religious faith; but the date at which their occupation began lies in obscurity, and the frescoes of the catacombs need a rational scrutiny before the question can be decided.

Classic sculptors often executed statues of Hermes Kriophoros (Hermes the ram-bearer), and the representations in the Catacombs of a shepherd bearing a sheep on his shoulders, though certainly pagan, are popularly regarded as pictures of the Good Shepherd. The Chrism (see p. 107) frequently occurs, and is illegitimately claimed as a Christian symbol. In ornamental borders descriptive of peasants reaping, gathering, and pressing grapes or olives, and the like, some uncritical eyes view the four seasons controlled by the providence of Christ! The melodious Orpheus, playing his five-stringed harp amid sheep and horses and wild beasts, is manifestly pagan, and yet it is not unseldom looked upon as an early Christian type of Christ. Other classical designs embrace Psyche, the girl-butterfly; Venus; and the death and ascension of the lady Vibia. The latter subject comprises four paintings, showing the soul of Vibia carried off by Pluto in his chariot; the funeral supper of seven priests in memory of the departed lady; the shade of Vibia standing before the judgment-seat of Dis and Abracura (Proserpine); and the entry of Vibia through a gate into the Elysium where a celestial banquet awaits. Pictures of club-suppers, in which fish and baskets of cakes appear, are distorted by unreflecting writers into

records of the Eucharist of Christ and his apostles! The figure of a man striking a rock whence water gushes is usually, but without good reason, accepted as a portrayal of Moses.*

26. From the accession of Antoninus Pius, 138 C.E., to the end of the second century.

I. Rome.

66

For three-and-twenty years Antoninus reigned, and never left Rome and its vicinity. On his accession he gave up his private wealth to the service of the State. Frugal in imperial finance, liberal in the construction of public monuments, tolerant towards the Christians, temperate in habit, diligent in the performance of daily duty, he deserved and earned the title of Pius. The echoes of war sometimes rumbled on the horizon of the Empire, and the wall of Antoninus, thrown up from the Clyde to the Forth, repressed the rage of the northern barbarians. But, on the whole, peace brooded over the provinces of Rome, and when (if we may trust a well-known tradition) the dying emperor gave to the tribune of the guard the watchword, “ Equanimity," it spoke alike for the character of the prince and the condition of the people. In the year 161 Marcus Aurelius, the adopted son and colleague of Antoninus, succeeded to the throne, in association with Verus. They were unequally yoked; but the philosophic Aurelius kept on amicable terms with the frivolous Verus. The clash of rebellious arms resounded in the East. Verus lazily watched the campaign of which he was the nominal conductor, and, when Parthia yielded and the palace of Ctesiphon lay in ashes, enjoyed the parade of a Roman Triumph (166). The legions which returned from the East brought the germs of a plague, which wasted all Italy. Piled-up corpses were conveyed in waggons. The panic-stricken people believed that the fiery end of the world was at hand. Along the Danube the tribes revolted. Scarcely had the two emperors crossed the Alps when Verus died. When, after a period

*

Stanley's "Christian Institutions," chapter xiii.; Northcote and Brownlow's "Roma Sotteranea ;" Palmer's "Early Christian Symbolism;" W. H. Withrow's "Catacombs of Rome;" Farrar's "Christ in Art."

of drought (so a well-known story runs), a violent tempest disordered the barbarians and gave the Roman camp a much-needed supply of water, and enabled them to make a victorious onslaught (174), this "Miracle of the Thundering Legion" was ascribed by some to the kindness of Jupiter Pluvius, by others to the God who heard the prayers of Christian soldiers, while a third conjecture pointed to the incantations of an Egyptian sorcerer. But as against tradition it is asserted that the Thundering Legion had borne the title for many years previously. Aurelius mourned the death of two children, and of a wife whom the talk of the street declared unfaithful. Treason in Syria brought Aurelius to Antioch, whence he journeyed to Alexandria. In that famous city he attended the lecture-rooms of the philosophers. Around Vindobona (Vienna) the Sarmatians rose. Thither Aurelius hastened, but, exhausted by the hardships of war, died in the camp on March 17th, 180. The noble Antonine column records his achievements.

At this period two powers waned in a brilliant sunset. Imperial Rome tended to decline. The splendid Stoicism which Aurelius represented faded before the rising of the Christian Church.

In camp and palace Marcus Aurelius indited the Meditations, in which he expresses the movements, the convictions, and the aspirations of his inmost soul. The book opens with a note of gratitude: "From my grandfather I learned good morals and the government of my temper; from the reputation and remembrance of my father, modesty and a manly character; from my mother, piety and beneficence, and abstinence, not only from evil deeds, but even from evil thoughts; and, further, simplicity in my way of living, far removed from the habits of the rich." And, as his mode of life differed from the luxury of the Roman aristocracy, so his manner of speculating on things divine and human differed from the noisy dogmatism of the plebeian pietist. Even in the face of death their attitudes make a contrast. The Stoic meets death with stately resignation, the Christian with a flourish :-" What a soul that is," says Aurelius, "which is ready, if at any moment it must be separated from the body, and ready either to be extinguished, or dispersed, or continue to exist; but so that this readiness comes from a man's judgment, not from mere