FOOTPRINTS IN PARCHMENT

The catacombs and the Rome of the early Christians are still there in modern Rome. The ruins of the Colosseum, built with the plunder taken from Jerusalem by Titus when he destroyed the Jewish capital in 70 AD, dominate. Since 63 BC when the Roman general Pompey had conquered the Jews, they had actively resisted the rule of Rome. There were constant uprisings, constant claims of Roman offenses against their one God. The Jews, like the early Christians, were a cantankerous bunch. They had to be destroyed.

The 50’ high marble Arch of Titus, commemorating the Fall of Jerusalem, still stands on the Via Sacra close to the Colosseum. The Inscription on the Arch reads: “The Roman Senate And The People (dedicated this arch) To Deified Titus Vespasian Augustus, Son Of Deified Vespasian.” High up in the relief is toga-clad Titus in his chariot in triumphal procession followed by men carrying treasures from the sacked Temple in Jerusalem: the golden Menorah, silver trumpets, the Table of the Shewbread. All the gold and silver plundered from Jerusalem was used to finance the building of the Colosseum and Jewish captives were the slave labor for the construction. The Colosseum, covering six acres and seating 87,000 people according to Philocalus’ Chronographia of 354 (Italicize Chronographia of 354), was finished in 80. Most of the huge amphitheater survives as a symbol of Rome.

The weed-wrapped rubble of ancient Rome’s political and religious center, the Forum, with its broken Ionic columns and weatherworn steps leading nowhere sit stoically on Palatine Hill. Toppled columns, the cobbled Via Appia and the relics of caved-in, carved-out ancient buildings intimately intermingle with the 17th century Baroque architecture of papal Rome and with the buildings of modern Rome. The Romans and their buildings will not go away. The early Christians, their religion, their God, their catacombs would not and did not go away either.

The catacombs are subterranean burial sites with labyrinthine, dark passages containing little rooms and small burial niches. There are 600 miles of these underground burial sites that ring Rome. Laid end to end they would stretch almost the entire length of Italy. About 6,000,000 Christians, Jews and Romans are buried in the catacombs.

All the underground chambers have not been found. As late as 1955 the Via Latina Catacomb was discovered when workmen were driving piles into the ground for a new apartment building on the Via Latina. They broke into an underground spacious chamber of wonder and beauty. Inside were perfectly preserved frescoes of early 4th century Christian art. Most of the paintings are vividly colored and of exceptional quality. Often called the “Sistine Chapel of the Early Christian World,” appointments to see the Via Latina Catacomb can be petitioned through the Vatican Commission of the Catacombs.

The catacombs that are partially open to the public are: St. Callixtus (by far the largest and most visited); Domitilla (near Callixtus with a good bookstore); St. Sebastian (the oldest and most venerable); St. Agnes (named for the martyred girl) and Priscilla (way out on the Via Salaria).

The Via Salaria is the old Salt Road that pre-dates Rome itself. Salt was to the ancient world what crude oil is to the early 21st century---the couch upon which the civilization reclined. Salt is a preservative, an additive with the power to protect against decay. Covering meat and fish in salt removes the moisture that causes spoiling. Salted food is sun-dried and can be eaten for months and sometimes for years. Ancient armies fought on brined and dried fish and meat. Fleets of trading ships plied the waters of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic on brined fish and meat. Salted and dried food was the staple of the ancient world. Roman housewives flavored their food with salt and pickled and preserved vegetables in salt water. Salt was used in sacrifices to God (Leviticus 2:13) and Hebrews had a “covenant of salt” symbolizing faith, loyalty and longevity with their God (II Chronicles 13:5). Salt was a “good influence” (Matthew 5:13) and “eating salt together” meant sharing a meal. Roman soldiers were often paid in salt (sale). Salt was their salarium, their salary. The Roman author Petronius in his novel Satyricon 57 (Italicize) coined the expression “not worth his salt” about a Roman soldier who was so bad he was not worth his pay, his salt. Not only to Rome but to all the ancient world, salt was white gold.

In 800 BC the Via Salaria (“Salt Road”) ran all the way from a tiny settlement on the Tiber River to the Adriatic Sea where they evaporated the water from the salt ponds and caravanned the precious crystals back to the village that would become Rome. All roads, salt or not, would eventually lead to her.

In 28 AD, an ocean away from Imperial Rome, a popular young rabbi in the Galilee region of Judea stood on a mountainside and told His followers they were “the salt of the earth.” (Matthew 5:13) Did He mean they were the preservers of the world? Salt was money, so were they to be a new currency? Were they to be a vital flavor to the world? Covenants were sealed with the exchange of salt, so were they to be a new covenant? Were they to be the stinging, healing disinfectant on the festering and the rotting? What did the Jewish rabbi mean? Rome would soon find out.