USA > Indiana > History of the Catholic church in Indiana, Volume I > Part 12
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archæology are taken, the catacombs, in which the Christians of the first agcs were laid to rest.
The practice of depositing the bodies of the dead in the ground the Chris- tians took from the Jews. It was not wholly a Jewish custom, as may be seen by inspecting pagan tombs discovered not long since on the Latin road. But the favorite manner, used by the Romans, was that of cremation, a custom born of the sentiment of repugnance human pride has to what is so revolting in death. The Jew, who believed in the immortality of the soul, reverenced the tabernacle in which it had to dwell, and in which he believed it was again one day to live. " In my flesh shall I see my Redeemer," was for him a sacred thought of deep meaning, and a tenet of unshaken faith. He followed the example of Abraham and of the patriarchs, and laid his dead to rest in tombs cut in the rock or exca- vated in the soil, leaving, in humble submission to God, the remains to resolve themselves into their former elements, as ordained by the Maker of man. To these reasons of the Jews the Christians added a still more weighty one, in fact of the Savior of man having thus been laid to rest. Every Christian wished to have his body buried as that of his Master, with whom he expected one day to rise again.
Before the Christian religion was preached in Romc the Jews were there, and possessed places of burial which remain at this day. Rome, being the center of the world at that day, was the starting point whence radiated roads to every point of the compass. These were the Ostain way, the Latin way, the Flaminian way, the Nomentan way, and the great Appian way, the main artery of communi- cation with the vast east, running across the Campagna in a straight line to Brun- disium, and so much frequented as to receive the appellation, Regina Viaruni- "Queen of Ways." By this road St. Paul came to Rome, striking the Via Appia on his way northward from Puteoli, or Pozzuoli. Owing to the fact of its being the principal way out of Rome, it was selected by preference as the one along which the great families of the city erected the sepulchral monuments destined to hold the ashes of their members. Nothing could be more gratifying to family pride than that all who left or entered the great metropolis of the world, should see the statues of those whose deeds had made the family famous, and recognize, in the taste and profusion of rich ornament, the culture and wealth of those to whom the monuments belonged. For miles outside the city, the Appian was lined with these tombs. This display disposition and circumstances made the Christians leave to the pagans. They were obliged, more by public opinion than by law, to bury as privately as was possible. The law of Rome was very con- siderate with regard to burial, and, in fact, would serve as a model for more than one of the present ruling states of the world. Even during persecution burial was protected by law. The jurisconsult, Marcean (Digest., i. 8, 56) says: " Any one makes a place sacred when he places in his property a dead body." Paulus, another authority, states (Sentent., 1. 21, 4): " Whosoever lays bare a body permanently buried, or put for a time in any place, or exposes it to the light of the sun, commits a crime against religion." (De Rossi, Bull. Archaol. Sacr., an. 1865, p. 89). He also says that " the bodies of criminals are to be given up to any persons seeking them for burial; " though sometimes, through odium of crime, especially of treason, it was not done. The Justinian code (iii. 44, 11) con- tains a decree of Diocletian and of Maxentius, of the year 290, in which they say: " We do not forbid the burial of those condemned for crime and subjected to a
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well-deserved punishment." This was the law. But public feelings often set aside law; and the Christians, with commendable prudence, took this into account, They, therefore, as a rule, sought to bury where they would be less likely to be- observed. The situations they sought were the hills around Rome, generally at the sides of the great Roman ways, not far from the city. A radius of about seven miles will include the most distant of the catacombs, by which name are known the Christian cemeteries. The reason why the Christians sought the hills was because, as they buried deep underground and not on the surface, they feared the waters of the rivers getting into the tombs in low ground. Moreover, they found strata of soft rock, known as tufa, which cuts easily with a pick, and which, as long as it is underground, and not subject to the action of the weather, remains for centuries unchanged; this being in great part due to the equable temperature of the catacombs, and especially to the absence of frost. Having selected a fitting place for their cemetery, which was generally on the farm of some Christian, they began by sinking a shaft, or by striking out from some sand-pit into which pro- jected this soft tufa. A corridor was excavated, seven or eight feet high by three feet wide, the earth being carried up and scattered over the farm, or thrown into the old sand-pit. When the corridor was completed, they made burial-places in the sides of it, according to the size of the corpse, and about a foot and a half in depth and height, which was hermetically sealed with tiles or marble slabs, inscribed with the name of the occupant, with figures, facts or dates. When these burial-places, known as loculi, or loculus, in the singular, had taken up all avail- able space, a further excavation was made; and, leaving a passage-way, it was the rule to throw the earth excavated into old corridors, sometimes completely filling them, to within a short distance of the top. This is why the catacombs are now said to be excavated; this filling is taken out. It was providential that the Chris- tians filled up these corridors, for by this means the most valuable remains of Christian antiquity have been kept to our day. After the burial in the catacombs ceased, they were from time to time devastated, first by the Goths in the fifth cen- tury, and in the eighth century by the Lombards under Astolphus, in the year 755. The latter devastation was the worst of all. Tombs were violated, inscriptions and monuments broken to pieces and strewn around, mingled with earth and sand; and this mass contributed also to fill up the corridors. From this fact we can appreciate the prudence which causes the earth now taken from the cata- combs to be carefully sifted, and every portion of marble discovered in it to be jealously preserved for future use in making up the monument it belongs to when the other parts will come to light.
From the corridors at intervals open out small rooms or chapels, known as cubicula. A cubiculum is usually not more than ten feet square; not always that. It generally has an arched tomb, known as an arcosolium, in which the head of the family to which the chapel belonged was laid to rest, or some distinguished person or martyr deposited. The remainder of the chapel is lined with loculi for the members of the family. The walls between them were plastered and frescoed.
For my purpose it is not necessary even to enumerate the various Catacombs, and useless to attempt to speak of more than one. For this reason I take the most celebrated, as well as the one richest in what we wish to study-the catacombs of St. Calixtus.
Riding out on the Appian Way, passing the Baths of Caracalla, the tombs of (128)
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the Scipios, the Columbaria, of Cæsar and of Pompey, you see before you the straight line of the Appian stretching on to the Alban Hills, crowned by the ruins of the temple of Jupiter Latialis, upon which stands a convent of the Passionist Fathers. On the right and on the left at intervals stand shapeless masses of masonry. What are they, or were they? They are the nuclei of sepulchral structures, which, cov- ered over with beautiful marble, and ornamented by statuary and alto-relievo work, were the pride of the old Roman families, and enclosed the ashes of their ancestors. About three miles out to the right stands conspicuously one of these masses, having beside it two trees which enable you to recognize, from a great distance, the site of the Catacombs of St. Calixtus. In the first century this area, or burial place, belonged to the gens Cæciliana, a pagan family. Later, some of the family becom- ing Christian, it was in the possession of the lady, from whom that portion of this Christian cemetery is known as the crypt of Lucina. Here Christian burial went on during the latter part of the first, and during the second century, until every portion was so full of tombs that it was necessary to enlarge the cemetery. Pope Zephyrinus ruled the Church of Rome from the year A. D. 202, and Calixtus was: the archdeacon. To him the Pope entrusted the charge of carrying out the work which made this the principal cemetery of Christian Rome. * * *
The cessation of burial in the catacombs certainly gives us sure data with regard to what is found in them. But there are other indications which serve to fix still more clearly the epoch to which the monuments we wish to use belong. In the crypt of the Catacombs of St. Calixtus, the wall of which has the representation of the Good Shepherd surrounded by His sheep, some of which are drinking of water flowing from the rock, on careful examination I found that the plaster, which served to close a loculus, lapped over the painting. Now this loculus had been made by cutting through the painting, because all the other portions of the wall of the crypt had become filled with bodies. Consequently this was an old fresco when it was cut through. People don't cut through new paintings. But, as I said, burial in the catacombs ceased, or began to cease, in the early part of the fourth century. This fresco was old then. Other indications show it to belong to the groups of the early part of the third century, while art was still flourishing. In fact, the judgments which artists, irrespectively of religious persuasion, have pro- nounced with reference to these frescoes of St. Calixtus, allots them to the early part of the third century. Just as those who are engaged in biblical research learn to distinguish, with great accuracy, the epoch of codices or Bible MSS. by the material on which they are written, the style of lettering, and other less indications; so, too, artists determine with great sureness, and very close approximation, the period to which paintings belong. Who cannot tell a pre-Raphael from a Giulio Romano? Who is not able to distinguish a Byzantine head from a Roman face of the time of the Cæsars? Just so it is with regard to the paintings of the cata- combs. Some might wonder how they could last so long under ground, and be inclined to doubt of their genuineness. Let them go to the Golden House of Nero on the Esquiline, admire the delicate and graceful figures of the Cripto Por- tico; and, when they have given expression and full play to their feelings of admi- ration of the art of the first century, let them visit the catacombs and doubt, if they can, of the possibility of frescoes lasting eighteen hundred years. * * *
Let us go down the stairway that leads into the catacombs of St. Calixtus. A descent of thirty feet brings us to a corridor, and a turn to the right leads us to the
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entrance of a crypt which gives the name by which these catacombs were known to antiquity, ad sanctum Xystum. This subterranean chapel is about fifteen feet long by eight feet wide, with a skylight. Here were buried St. Xystus and twelve other pontiffs. The bodies were taken out and brought to Rome in consequence of the ravages of barbarians, already referred to. The slabs which enclosed the remains were broken and thrown on the ground; among them, those of Popes Eutychian, Fabian, Lucius and Anterus, which have been recovered from the debris and replaced in loculi. Here was the inscription of Pope Damasus I spoke of, in which, after commemorating the sufferings and triumphs of those laid to rest in the cata- combs, he declared himself " afraid to disturb the ashes of the just." The portions of this inscription recovered are let into a piece of peperino, or stone of the Alban Mount. To the name, ad sanctum Xystum, was coupled the further appellation, ad sanctum Ceciliam; for tradition told of the burial place of St. Cæcilia at this place. When Pope Paschal I, who became pope the year 817, set about bringing the bodies of the martyrs and pontiffs to Rome, he sought for her body, but could not find it. He tells us in the Liber Pontificalis what happened to him. He says he was one morning at St. Peter's with his clergy, when St. Cæcilia appeared to him and reproached him for giving up the search for her body, saying he had been so near to her in the chapel in which he had been, this crypt of the pontiffs, that he could have spoken to her, face to face. On coming to himself he told his clergy what had happened. They proceeded to St. Xystus and St. Cæcilia, and found the body on the other side of the wall of tufa, which separates the crypt from that of St. Cæcila. She was in a sarcophagus, richly clad in a robe of golden tissue, with ornaments of gold upon her person; the delicate body lay on its side, her head, nearly severed by the lictor's axe from the neck, enveloped in a light veil and turned to one side, the face downward, while her arms lay naturally with the hands in front, one hand with one finger extended, the other with three-she thus professing her faith in one God in three persons. The remains were reverently taken up and carried to her house in Rome, across the Tiber, which had been the scene of her martyrdom, which she had left to be used as a church, and deposited under the high altar. There they remained until Cardinal Sfondrati, in the year 1599, by permission of the Pope, in repairing this church, opened the tomb and recognized officially the authenticity of the relics. The urn was opened in the presence of the cardinal and many others, among whom were Bosio, the archaeologist, and Maderno, the sculptor, who made the beautiful statue of St. Cæcilia, so much admired, which is now under the high altar of the church.
Let us leave this place, though so full of edifying and refreshing memories, to wend our way through the labrynth of corridors. Through an opening in the side of the crypt, we find ourselves in a corridor lined on one side and the other with empty loculi. They once had occupants; the marks are there to show that-a tile still in its place or a crumbling bone. Look well into them, and see the nature of the rock; how the mark of the pick, as fresh as if made yesterday, makes it evident that it yielded easily to the stroke. Cold and heat have had no effect on it. We are too far underground for that. We pass on. Here right before us is an open door- way. We enter and find ourselves in a small room perhaps ten feet square and seven in height. It is full of loculi. But the ceiling and the spaces between the burial places have been plastered and painted. Over your head you see a repre- sentation of the Good Shepherd, so often met with in the catacombs. At your left
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on entering you see on the wall a fresco-painting. There is a man with a rod in in his hand, and he is striking a rock from which water is flowing. The subject is evidently Scriptural. It recalls Moses striking the rock in the desert. But it is not Moses. The very opposition, so marked in the New Testament, to every Judaizing spirit, would itself exclude the frequently recurring figure of Moses. The rod in the hand, typifying power, might lead one to think it might be the pro- phet like unto Moses, to be raised up -- Christ Himself. But Christ is not the one who strikes, but the thing struck; for St. Paul says: " They all drank of the spir- itual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." A matter-of-fact argu- ment helps us out of the difficulty and tells us who this figure is. Discs of glass have been found in the catacombs at the tombs, illuminated by gold and black, which were covered over with a second plate of glass and annealed in a furnace, so as to hermetically seal the edges and so protect the figure. Several have come to light representing this picture we see before us, and one of them is now in the Vatican library. Over the head of the man striking the rock is read the name Petrus, Peter. Peter is the antitype of Moses; he is the leader of the New Dispen- sation. So speaks St. Ephrem of Syria in his sermon on the transfiguration on the Mount. Moses, the cconome of the Father, he says, saw Peter, the procurator of the Son. * *
Bishop Chatard's lectures, each being complete in itself and the parts much dependent upon one another, ought not be pre- sented except as a whole. The selections given read better when read with the whole lecture to which each belongs.
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CHAPTER IX.
DIOCESE OF FORT WAYNE - EARLY TIMES - FATHERS CLAUDE ALLOUEZ - ADRIAN GRELON - LEWIS HENNEPIN - LA SALLE, THE EXPLORER - FATHER STEHHEN THEODORE BADIN - THE DIOCESE OF BARDSTOWN, KY., ETC.
IN this chapter we shall record, on the authority of John Gilmary Shea (The Catholic Church in the United States, Volume I, “ In Colonial Days"), the little that is known about some of the early missionaries whose feet trod the soil of what is now northern Indi- ana. These missionaries were few, and were more given to doing God's work than to keeping a record of their self-sacrificing labors. Yet such of them as belonged to the order of Jesuits were obliged to send annually an account of their work to the general of the order in Rome, and these relations are now one of the historian's sources of information, and from these relations the following facts are gleaned.
EARLY TIMES.
Father Claude Allouez, S. J., was born in France at Saint Didier en Forest, and studied at the college of Puy en Velay, where he was under the direction of St. Francis Regis. Entering the society of Jesus with one of his brothers, he was sent to Can- ada in 1658. His first labors were near Quebec, but he left there on the 8th of August, 1665, for his great western mission. On the - following first of September he reached Sault Ste. Marie, and after a brief stay at St. Teresa's bay landed, on the first of October, at Chegoimegon. There he erected his bark chapel, dedicating it to the Holy Ghost, the spot taking the name of La Pointe du Saint Esprit.
The population of Chegoimegon was a motley gathering of (132)
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Indians belonging to eight different tribes. When Father Allouez arrived in their midst they were preparing to attack the Sioux. He persuaded them to lay aside their weapons, and to remain peace- fully in their wigwams. Soon the news of the chapel he had erected spread, and Indians came from various parts to see and hear the "black-gown;" some to be instructed, others to mock and jeer. Others brought children to be baptized, and some Hurons, whose ancestors had been Catholics, sought to revive the faith now almost extinct in their hearts.
The medicine-men were the missionaries' great enemies, and early in 1666 they incited the Indians of a neighboring town, where the missionary had erected a chapel, to destroy it and rob him of his few possessions. He was forced to return to Chegoimegon, where the Hurons proved more docile, as another Jesuit, Father Garnier, had instructed them in the faith. Father Allouez bap- tized some whom that saintly missionary had instructed.
The Pottawatomies at La Pointe showed better dispositions for · conversion than the Ottawas, whereas the Sacs and Foxes remained obstinate. From their great river came also the Illinois, who listened to his instructions and went back to their distant home bearing with them the first tidings of the gospel.
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Bishop Laval, of Quebec, appointed Father Allouez his vicar- general in the west, the document attesting his first ecclesias- tical act relating to the church in that part of the country. It is dated July 21, 1663. Father Allouez went to the western extrem- ity of lake Superior, where he met a band of Sioux, and endeav- ored through an interpreter to preach the faith to them. He learned that beyond their country lay the Karezi, after which their land was cut off. He also met Kilistinons, whose language resembled that of the Montagnais of the lower St. Lawrence. In 1667 he penetrated to lake Alimibegong, where he revived the faith in the hearts of the Nipissings, whom the Fathers of the Huron mission had formerly instructed. He celebrated the feast of Pentecost among them in a chapel made of branches, but with a devout and attentive flock, whose piety was the great consola- tion of his laborious ministry.
The Catholic church had begun her work on lake Superior
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with great energy, and Father Allouez, who by this time had acquired a thorough knowledge of the whole field open to mission- ary labor, descended with a trading flotilla, in the summer of 1667, to lay his plans before his superiors. In Quebec he spent only two days, and then returned with an associate, Father Louis Nico- las, to pass through the hardships of the long and dangerous jour- ney. He bore with him a pastoral of the venerable Bishop Laval, whose authority he had invoked to aid him in checking the unchris- tian lives of some of the early French pioneers. The labors of the missionaries found other obstacles than the pagan ideas and practices of the Indian tribes. The bad examples of some fur- traders who, having thrown off the restraints of civilization, plunged into every vice, produced a most unfavorable impression on the Indians, who contrasted it with the high morality preached by the missionaries. To remove the scandal, as far as possible, Father Allouez appealed to Bishop Laval. The following is probably the first official act, applying directly and exclusively to the church in the west.
Francis, by the grace of God and of the Holy see, Bishop of Petræa, vicar apostolic in New France, and nominated, by the king, bishop of said couutry: To our well-beloved Fr. Claude Allouez, superior of the Mission of the Society of Jesus among the Ottawas, health:
.On the report which we have received of the disorder prevailing in your mis- sions in regard to the French who go thither to trade, and who do not hesitate to take part in all the profane feasts held there by the pagans, sometimes with great scandal to their souls, and not to the edification which they ought to give to the Christian converts, we enjoin you to take in hand that they shall never 'be present when these feasts are manifestly idolatrous, and in case they do to the contrary of what you decide ought to be done or not to be done on this point, to threaten them with censures if they do not return to their duty, and, in case of contumacy, to pro- ceed according to your prudence and discretion, as also towards those who are given in an extraordinary degree to scandalous impurity, to act in the same manner.
Given at Quebec, this 6th day of August, 1667.
FRANCIS, Bishop of Petræa.
The mission stations in charge of Father Allouez and his Jesuit brethren were Sault Ste. Marie and La Pointe du St. Esprit at Chagoimegon, each provided with a chapel. At the last mission, about this time, bands of a very great number of tribes had gath- ered, flying from the war parties of the Iroquois, which had car- ried desolation around the shores of lake Michigan, as of old (134)
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amid the nations seated on lake Huron. This gave Father Allouez an opportunity to announce the faith to many tribes, to obtain a knowledge of their language, and the routes leading to their coun- try. The Iroquois were the great obstacle, and peace with them was essential. The Ottawas (Queues Coupées) at La Pointe, among whom he labored two or three years, showing little sign of conversion, Father Allouez at last announced his determination to leave them and go to the Sault, where the people showed docility. Finding him in earnest, the chiefs called a council in the autumn of 1665. There they decided to put an end to polygamy, to abol- ish all offering to the Manitous, and not to take part in the heathen rites of the tribes that had gathered around them. The change was sudden, but sincere. The whole tribe became Christians, and, by its numbers and love of peace, gave great hopes for the glory of the church.
To obtain more missionaries and means to establish stations at Green Bay and other points, Father Allouez, in 1669, went to Quebec, taking several Iroquois whom he had rescued, and through whom he hoped to effect a peace between the Five Nations and the western tribes. This happy result followed.
In November, 1670, Father Allouez set out in canoes of the Pottawatomies, accompanied by two Frenchmen, and, amid storms and snow, toiled on till they reached lake Michigan. Skirting its shores they arrived at Green bay on December 3, the feast of St. Francis Xavier. The next day Father Allouez celebrated the first mass in that part, which was attended by eight Frenchmen. A motley village of 600 Indians, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomies and Winnebagoes, had gathered here to winter, and similar groups were scattered at intervals around the bay. The missionary spent the winter announcing the gospel, first to the Sacs, instructing them and teaching them to pray, having adapted the Algonquin, Our Father and Hail Mary to their dialect. In February he vis- ited the Pottawatomies, convening the chiefs and then visiting each cabin. In both villages all sick children were baptized, and adults in danger were instructed and prepared for death. The winter wore away before he had made a thorough visitation of all
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