
Originally Posted by
brymble
I studied them in my art history class, and they were, at least the ones in Rome. But the burial practices with the French onces are consistent. In a nutshell, when Christianity was an illegal religion, Christian burial was also outlawed. Because they believed in the resurection of the body, early Christians had to be buried properly, and preserved to ensure that they could rise again at the Last Judgement. Openly practicing their religion was a crime punishable by death, and so the religion was literally driven underground, and they took the bodies of their dead with them. The catacombs weren't just tombs, there was Christian worship down there, and the places are filled with the earliest Christian - which also shows Christianity to be a very eclectic faith, borrowing symbolism from other dominant religions, such as that of the Egyptians (shepherd symbolism), Mithraism, and even the cult of Bacchus (wine symbolism). The early Christians worshipped down there for years, surrounded by the preserved bodies of their dead. Sounds creepy but when you think of it, they must have poured a lot of love into that place, all their loved ones, and how much they sacrificed to keep their faith alive even as they buried their dead.
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