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When Christianity Went Underground

SOMETIME in the year 64 (A.D.) a flame rose against the skies of Rome. Spreading, the hungry fire leaped into a rabid blaze that engulfed much of the pagan capital of antiquity and burned it to the ground. The depraved emperor, Nero, who allegedly set the fire himself, sought to divert suspicion by blaming the unpopular Christians of the city for the atrocity. The flame that consumed the city touched off a scorching chain of persecutions against the Christians. Authorities number these persecutions at ten, continuing intermittently from Nero to Diocletian in the fourth century. The attrition opened as Nero filled his gardens and circus in the Vatican with sights of horror: the martyrs being impaled, bound in animal skins and thrown to wild dogs, or covered with incendiary material and ignited to light the emperor’s evening amusements.

Though occasional reigns of indifferent or indulgent rulers permitted rest from the fierce opposition, Christians of those days came to live in a state of perpetual caution, though unrelaxed as a group in the vigorous prosecution of their worship. Much of the time it was impossible for them to meet together in congregational worship and study except in the strictest secrecy. Hence less than a hundred years after the apostle Paul fell victim of the Neronian persecution, Christianity had developed into a well-organized underground movement. This proved true in a very literal way as well, for the sites chosen by them for their meetings were the twisting underground labyrinths of Rome known as the catacombs. Though there are existing catacombs in other cities and locations, those in Rome are the most famous for their association with early Christianity. They furnish us with a remarkably clear description of the history, beliefs and traits of Christian worship during our common era’s first three or four centuries.

Opinion varies as to the time and purpose of the original construction of the catacombs. While most assign the construction of them to the Christians, others believe the passages were there even before Rome was founded. Some think they were abandoned quarries converted by the Christians to their purpose. Ostensibly, of course, that purpose was the burial of the dead, which was done by placing the corpses in niches carved in the rock walls and sealing them with a slab of marble bearing the name of the crypt’s occupant.

The crypts of the catacombs are found in layers usually three, four or five deep. When it was necessary to make more crypts in any passageway, the floor was lowered by digging to allow for the extra wall space necessary. This proved superior to trying to carve the new niches in the area above by raising the ceiling, a most unhandy task. The passages themselves wind like uncontrolled tentacles beneath the city and vicinity. Intersecting avenues occur at irregular intervals to stretch out in opposite directions. Rooms are to be found adaptable to the purpose of assembling for group meetings, adding their now silent testimony to the secrecy once required by those who came together to gain renewed strength for advancing true worship while their pagan tormentors raged above them. Only the imprudent would enter these labyrinths without a guide, like the class of students and their teacher who in 1837 descended into the maze never to be seen again.

UNSHAKEN BY VIOLENCE

While the remains of the primitive Christians filling the catacombs have long slept in quiet, many of them left life by any but a peaceful means, their bodies being torn, burned or broken as they faced a martyr’s death. As wave after wave of persecution rolled through the ranks of the Christians the number of martyrdoms mounted continuously. Though impossible to name all the martyr crypts, the inscriptions that do specifically reveal them provide some sense of the vast number there must be: a young military officer here who embraced the faith and with it death from his government, a man and his entire family there who were foully murdered, a young girl boiled in oil. Rome reddened with innocent blood as some assailants, maddened at their inability to smash the spirit along with the body, sought foolishly to quash the Christian’s resurrection hope by burning the bodies of the slain and scattering the ashes in the river. Further, seeing the increased zeal acquired by those who visited with the resolute condemned ones in their death cells, the mid-third century Valerian persecution against the elders of the Christian church tried to thwart this by marching the condemned straight from the tribunal to the place of execution. This was the fate of the prominent overseer Cyprian, whose brothers followed him along the way exhorting him to steadfastness.

Similarly, to prevent the strength obtained from the meeting together in the catacombs this emperor forbade further entry into the subterranean cemeteries. Enforcement proved vain, however, as the entrances were too many and devious, and few were the members of the guard intrepid enough to wander far into the passages in search. The persecutions raged to their peak and failed.

To the anxious inquirer of this day and age acquainted with the world’s present multitudinous religions and religious alliances, interfaith leagues and the like, the most gratifying lesson from the catacombs comes in their answer on early Christian beliefs and customs. The pagans worshiped gaudily in ornate temples with magnificent idols and accompanied with all the frills of incense and candles. Not so the Christians. The typical pagan view of them was: “Why have they no altars, temples and sacrifices?” The historian Gibbon points to this complete disdain for idolatry by the Christians and of the wit of some of their writers who expressed ridicule of the pagans for their bowing before the works of their own hands. The marked contrast between Christian and pagan then can be seen from the epitaphs of each. Whereas the heathen extolled their lives of indulgence and sounded an “eat, drink and be merry” note, Christians usually engraved the name and a few words denoting the restful sleep into which the dead had fallen and frequently made reference to their hope in the resurrection. One inscription reads: “You, well-deserving one, having left your [relations], lie in peace—in sleep. You will arise; a temporary rest is granted you.”

But these facts will alert one to the realization that those Christians so close to the apostolic church held beliefs markedly different not only from pagans then but from many professed Christians now. Surely if they ridiculed the idolatry of the Romans of the first three centuries, they would not condone the recognition paid to images by the church with headquarters in the same city today, simply because it professes to be Christian. If they believed in a resurrection until which time they would sleep it is unthinkable that they could reconcile their faith to a teaching in an afterdeath “purgatory”, hell-fire or, for that matter, consciousness in any form. But this is only the beginning of the great gulf separating those early followers of the Messiah from modern Christendom’s hundreds of sects and cults.

THE STONES ACCUSE CHRISTENDOM

One will scan the record of the catacombs in vain to find any record of Mariolatry during the first three centuries. In none of the early drawings is the virgin given a position of prominence, nor is any prayer found addressed to or through her. Neither were the Christians of the catacombs fanatical collectors of relics. Though their martyrs were naturally highly respected, there was no effort to worship them or to secure their remains for use as relics by which to exploit the credulous. To the chagrin of Roman Catholic art, William Kip points out that God was never represented in human form. Roman Catholic efforts to do this are rejected by that authority, even when represented “by the genius of Michael Angelo”. Also concerning the delegating of church headship to Peter, the catacomb walls are blank. Note what McClintock and Strong’s Cyclopedia has to say: “No specifically Romanist doctrine finds any support in inscriptions dating before the 4th century. We begin to trace signs of saint-worship in the 5th century. The first idea of transmission of power from Christ to Peter dates from the latter part of the 5th to the beginning of the 6th, and even then Peter’s figure does not appear armed with the keys, as in the later symbolism.”

The foregoing agrees with the fact that Emperor Constantine inspired the formal adoption of an apostate form of Christianity fused with Roman paganism following the Nicene Council of A.D. 325. From that time date the countless heathen innovations that have since besmirched papal Rome. Undoubtedly the work of iniquity of which the apostle Paul forewarned had begun to influence the Christians of the first three centuries; but, though possibly tainted with some false teachings, their staunch refusal to knowingly cave in beneath the weighty pressure of heathenism has helped distinguish between some of the basic beliefs taught by Jesus and the apostles and the doctrines of fused paganism later emanating from Rome.—2 Thess. 2:7.

Though drawings are frequent no capital is made of the crucifixion or of Jesus in anguish of any kind among those of the first three centuries. Even the heathenish cross, claimed by Christendom as the very symbol of Christianity, is rare in the catacombs and then, as Sheldon tells us, usually appears in some disguised form. He assumes that this was due to the ridicule and reproach that the symbol is supposed to have brought on the Christians by their adversaries. However, in the light of their otherwise very bold and uncompromising attitude before their oppressors, it is not likely that a little added humiliation would prevent them from setting their supposedly sacred symbol to the fore. Far more likely is it that in those times the Christians flatly refused the universal acceptance of the cross. Withering under the fire of repudiation from the catacombs, the Catholic Encyclopedia admits: “Catholic writers have at times found a richer dogmatic content in the pictures of the catacombs than a strict examination is able to prove.”

Interesting is the fact that, though forced to meet underground, those primitive Christians by no means kept their light hidden there. As Christ had commanded, they lifted it high on “lampstands” by a work of public testimony. Though this drew the infuriated malice of many, it introduced untold hope to others who proceeded to associate with the Christian community. Charles Maitland, in The Church in the Catacombs, singles out this proselytizing nature of the Christians as the greatest aggravating factor of their persecution, because of which other charges were trumped up by the authorities. Their harmlessness can be seen in that for the mere reason of secretly celebrating the Lord’s Supper they suffered an official ban. From what can be told by the ancient inscriptions those Christians scorned the hierarchical structure which papal Rome copied from pagan Rome. Authorities find instead of the voice of bishops and doctors the simple hope of such ones as Mary and Martha at the grave of Lazarus. The illustrations stress this instead of the prominence of hierarchs or of the people’s dependence on such for instruction. The common burial sites for all alike further reflect Jesus’ teaching: “All you are brothers.”

CHRISTIANITY ABOVEGROUND

Simply because friendly comparison between the early church and today’s Christendom is lacking, must we cynically conclude that at this time no truth at all exists? Hardly that, when one considers that without the help of worldly religion, politics, wealth and position, indeed without Christendom, a glad message of the birth of God’s kingdom, the hope of all nations, has been published throughout the world in an intensified way for the past thirty years or more. World-wide the bringers of this good news are known for their unique stand of separateness from the world, their aggressive persistence in pushing ahead with their work, the opposition with which they have been met around the globe. They are known too as the witnesses of the one they represent, Jehovah’s witnesses. The striking comparisons in some of the basic principles of their work and teaching with that of the church of the first three centuries arrest the eye of investigators. And charges raised to thwart their work have been just as absurd in a frantic effort to hide the real reason. Why, in fact, an assembly of Jehovah’s witnesses was even interrupted and disorganized in Canada during the wartime ban there at a time when they had come together for no purpose more sinister than to celebrate the Lord’s Supper!

The facts when strung together simply show that the truth has never been welcomed by this old world of wickedness. True of Christ’s time, true of now. Even as he foretold, “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” (John 15:20) For long centuries men of good will have had to wait while Christianity was driven underground, later engulfed in paganism, and since misrepresented to the world for centuries. But now a program of Bible education sweeps the world and with clearer understanding than ever, to the hope of people everywhere. The truth shines more brightly than in any part of man’s nearly 6,000-year-long history. Though in time denied by every earthly government, though yet banned repeatedly, the truth has burst all bonds, is increasing, and will yet fill the earth.—Hab. 2:14.