THE CATACOMBS OF ROME AS ILLUSTRATING The Church OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES BY THE RIGHT REV. WM. INGRAHAM KIP, D. D. MISSIONARY BISHOP OF CALIFORNIA, AUTHOR OF "THE LENTEN FAST"-"THE DOUBLE WITNESS OF THE CHURCH"- Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, By J. S. REDFIELD, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Southern District of New York. STEREOTYPED BY C. C. SAVAGE, 13 Chambers Street, N. Y. TO THE REVEREND CHARLES COTESWORTH PINCKNEY, Jr., OF SOUTH CAROLINA. AMONG the most cherished recollections of the past, is one of a morning in the early spring, when two youth stood on the banks of the Potomac, about to separate, as they feared, perhaps for ever. They talked of the pleasant past when their tastes and pursuits had been the same, and of the shadowy future which to them was radiant with all that the imagination could picture. And so they parted. Years have since gone by. Of the companions of those happy months, some are now scattered over the land, wearily waging the warfare of life, and some are sleeping in their quiet graves. Seldom have the two friends, who parted in the morning of life, met face to face; yet time has not severed those early bonds, and often have greetings passed between their distant homes, to brighten the chain of brotherhood which bound them together. And now, when the whole length and breadth of the land is about to be placed between them, and they may never meet again in this world, the one would dedicate this little volume to the companion of his early days, as a tribute to that friendship which has been steadfast through youth and manhood, and which, he trusts, may one day be renewed in that land where there shall be no more partings. ALBANY, ADVENT, 1853. PREFACE. THE writer believes that the argument derived from the Catacombs of Rome, in defence of primitive truth, is but little known in this country, and that he might therefore be doing some service by placing it in an accessible form. To most readers it will be a new chapter in the past history of the Church. Hitherto, the descriptions have been locked up in ponderous folios, or foreign languages, with the exception of two or three small volumes published in England. He believes that no work on this subject has ever been printed in this country. The first writer whose attention was turned to these remains of the past, was Father Bosio. He spent more than thirty years (1567 to 1600) in exploring the Catacombs, penetrating into some of the innermost crypts which had been closed for centuries, and in making drawings of ancient monuments, inscriptions, and paintings. It became the absorbing passion of his life, until, we are told, |