Gatherings from grave yards : particularly those of London : with a concise history of the modes of interment among different nations, from the earliest periods. And a detail of dangerous and fatal results produced by the unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living / by G.A. Walker.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gatherings from grave yards : particularly those of London : with a concise history of the modes of interment among different nations, from the earliest periods. And a detail of dangerous and fatal results produced by the unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living / by G.A. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    63/290 (page 37)
    However, the persecutions which the Christians had to suffer in the Roman empire, the cruel car- nage, of which the barbarous Nero had given the example, and which was so often followed, increased the number of martyrs : the faithful were surrounded by a prodigious number of the dead, exposed to the contempt and the insults of the Pagans. Gratitude and the tenderest attachment combined with the voice of nature and religion. The Chris- tians determined to seek for these bodies, in order to remove them from the fury of an irritated people ; they concealed them at first in the houses of indi- viduals, to transport them afterwards to the public cemeteries, under cover of the night. The most mysterious privacy, the most attentive guard were necessary on this occasion. The catacombs, which some have perhaps improperly confounded with the puteoli of the ancient Romans, appeared well suited to secure the repose of these venerable remains. The Christians frequently assembled in these dark retreats to celebrate their mysteries. The horror of these places, the black darkness which there prevailed, caused St. Jerome to say, that they (') Pomponius Fcstus speaks of them de interpretati. The catacombs were subterranean excavations, in the neighbourhood of Rome, to be used, according to some, for the sepulchre of the Pagans, who afterwards abandoned the use of them. This word is derived from the Greek ; it signifies a place dug deep. We must not confound the catacombs with the cemeteries ; each of these words has its own signification, and the most celebrated eccle- siastical writers have alwaj's distinguished them.