20 CHRISTIAN EPITAPHS OP 



sions d' une latinit^ barbare, d' aucun de ces sacrements de 1' Eglise; 

 ou reconnait une foule d' exemples de ces mots; cum spirito, ispiriio, 

 hispirito sancfo, cum spirita sancta, alteves d' une mani^re plus ou 

 moias vicieuse, et qui ne peuvent s'entendre que de Vame mgme du 

 cbretien, aumise apr^s la mort dans le sejour des bienheureux, en 

 vertu de la synonymie connu des mots anima et spiritus, dans le 

 vocabulaire de la basse latinite." He closes his observations on the 

 inscription by proposing the following expansion : 



" Divis mart^ribus sacrum quadraginta 



Leopardum in pace 



cum Spiritu sancto accep 



turn eumdem habeatis. *Innoceniem 



pomeruni parentes. qtd [vixit] annis VII, mensibus VII." 



It is very difficult to infer from the two copies that I have before 

 me — viz., Fabretti's and Kaoul Rochette's — ^the true reading of the 

 inscription; but I entertain no doubt that both Mabillon's and 

 Fabretti's interpretations should be rejected, and that Raoul Rochette's 

 view as to cum spirita santa is correct. At the same time, his expan- 

 sion — Divis Martyribus sacrum quadraginta — is clearly inadmissible. 

 There is no authority in any epitaph for this rendering. Nor is there 

 any reasonable doubt that the letters DMA stand for Diis Manibus, 

 as Mabillon understood them ; whilst the signification of XL, as I have 

 observed in my note on Epitaph, u. 90, remains to be discovered. 

 The rest of his expansion is probable, except the omission of numero 

 after annis, which should be introduced, if Fabretti's punctuation be 

 correct. But another, and a very remarkable, peculiarity of the inscrip- 

 tion, hitherto unnoticed, remains to be considered — i. e. the use of the 

 •expression acceptum habeatis with the dedication Dis Manibus in a 

 Christian epitaph. If we compare this with the words — Manes sanc- 

 tissimse \_sic] commendatum habeatis meum conjugem in Orelli's n. 

 4775, a Pagan epitaph, and Sanctique tui Manes nobis petentibus 

 adsint in Gruter's, 1061, 7, a Christian epitaph, there can, I think, 

 'be but little doubt that some Christians of the early ages retained 



* I have given this whole expansion, as it appears in Diciionnaire d'Upigra. 

 phie Chreiienne, for I am unable to refer to the original article in the 3fem. de 

 TAcademie. I have but little doubt, however, that neither the presence nor 



the absence of the points is as Eaoul Rochette intended: the authority of the 



Dlctlonnaire is not worth considering. 



