A Procession in the Catacomb of Callistusdetails

“If those who had inscribed the proud words round the dome of S. Peter’s has known that hidden in the catacombs there were frescoes representing Peter as the new Moses striking the rock from which flow forth the saving waters of Christ—the name Petrus clearly written above him—even they must have thrilled with wonder and awe: the upholders of Petrine primacy could not have imagined or devised a parable of the first centuries better fitted to their hand.

The burial-places of the first Christians in Rome were their only certain property. The law allowed to every corporation its religiosus locus, its God’s acre, property seldom confiscated even in the worst hours of the great persecutions. It was thus that the Christians,

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