Perhaps the artist was really a pagan and thought a Greek god as good as
a Hebrew prophet any day; art was probably one of the last things to be
converted, having a presentiment of the dark and bloody themes the new
religion would give it to deal with.
The earthy scent of the catacomb will cling to the reader's clothes, and
he will have two minds about keeping for a souvenir the taper which he
carried, and which the guide wraps in a bit of newspaper for him; he may
prefer the flower which he is allowed to gather from the tiny garden at
the entrance to the catacombs. Yet these Catacombs of Domatilla are
among the cheer-fulest of all the catacombs, and a sense of something
sweet and appealing invests them from the memory of the gentle lady
whose piety consecrated them as the last home of the refugees and
martyrs. They are of the more recent Roman excavations, but I do not
know whether later or earlier than those which have revealed the house
of the two Christian gentlemen, John and Paul, of unknown surname, where
they suffered death for their faith, under the Passionist church named
for them.
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