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THE REV. PREBENDARY H. E. FOX, M.A., OX 



" In Jesus Christ (is) Carpus the servant of God." 

 " Athenodorus my son thy spirit (has entered) into rest " (the 

 word used in St. Matt, xi, 29). 



Some give evidence of belief in the Communion of Saints 

 still uniting dead and living. One, for instance, in the Vatican 

 Gallery, ends with the request : " And in thy prayers do thou ask 

 for us, for we know that thou art in Christ." 



Another, in Greek to a " blameless babe," who " lies here with 

 the Saints," has the words : " Eemember us in thy holy prayers," 

 to which a postscript is added in smaller letters " Yea and the 

 sculptor and scribe also." 



IV. Inscriptions to martyrs are few, but the following have 

 special interest. The first two are in Latin. Under a cross 

 with equal limbs (the earliest which the Lecturer could discover) 

 are the words " Lannus, Christ's Martyr, rests here, having 

 suffered under Diocletian." There were two persecutions in 

 this reign, one at the close of the third century, another at 

 the beginning of the fourth. 



" Primitius is in peace, who after many tortures (died) a most 

 brave martyr. He lived thirty-eight years more or less. To 

 (her) very dearest husband well deserving — placed (this)." 

 With exquisite pathos the poor widow omits her own name as 

 if unworthy to stand beside her brave man. 



The next is unique. The letters are somewhat rudely Greek, 

 but the words are Latin. It runs as follows : " Here lies 

 Gordian, an envoy from Gaul, slain foi his faith with all his 

 family, they rest in peace. Theophila a handmaid placed 

 (this)." 



This inscription was discovered in a.d. 1659 by Aringhi in 

 the Catacomb of Sta. Agnese. Maitland (page 134) quotes a 

 statement by Julius Caesar (De Bello Gallico, lib. vi) to the 

 effect that the Gallic Druids were accustomed to use Greek 

 letters in secular transactions and that they had charge of the 

 education of the young. It is probable, therefore, that though 

 Theophila, who had come from Gaul, had learned Latin by ear, 

 she had only learned to write in Greek. The stone cutter, 

 ignorant of letters, required a written inscription. The poor 

 servant did her best, but could only express Latin words in 

 Druidical Greek letters, naturally very irregular. 



V. Inscriptions to Church officers show that ecclesiastical 

 order was highly developed : though there is no evidence that 

 an Apostle was ever Bishop of Home. A well-known tablet in 

 the Lateran Gallery bears what are perhaps the portraits of 

 Peter and Paul, and the names of various bishops from the 



