and more visited by those who desired the protection or the intercession of their occupants.  St. Jerome, who was born about this time in Rome, [A.D. 331,] has a curious passage concerning his own experiences in the catacombs.  He says:  “When I was a boy at Rome, being instructed in liberal studies, I was accustomed, with others of the same age and disposition, to go on Sundays to the tombs of the apostles and martyrs, and often to go into the crypts, which, being dug out in the depths of the earth, have for walls, on either side of those who enter, the bodies of the buried; and they are so dark, that the saying of the prophet seems almost fulfilled, The living descend into hell.” But as the chapels and sacred tombs in the catacombs became thus more and more resorted to as places for worship, the number of burials within them was continually growing less,—­and the change in the spirit of the religion was marked by the change of character in the paintings and inscriptions on their walls.  By the middle of the fifth century the extension of the catacombs had ceased, and nearly about the same time the assemblies in them fell off.  The desolation of the Campagna had already begun; Rome had sunk rapidly; and the churches and burial-places within the walls afforded all the space that was needed for the assemblies of the living or the dead.

When the Goths descended upon Italy, ravaging the country as they passed over it, and sat down before Rome, not content with stripping the land, they forced their way into the catacombs, searching for treasure, and seeking also, it seems likely, for the bodies of the martyrs, whom their imperfect creed did not prevent them from honoring.  After they retired, in the short breathing-space that was given to the unhappy city, various popes undertook to do something to restore the catacombs,[D]—­and one of them, John III., [A.D. 560-574,] ordered that service should be performed at certain underground shrines, and that candles and all else needful for this purpose should be furnished from the Basilica of St. John Lateran.  Just at the close of the sixth century, Gregory the Great [590-604] again appointed stations in the catacombs at which service should be held on special days in the course of the year, and a curious illustration of the veneration in which the relics of the saints were then held is afforded by a gift which he sent to Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards.  At this time the Lombards were laying all Italy waste.  Their Arian zeal ranged them in religious hate against the Roman Church,—­but Theodelinda was an orthodox believer, and through her Gregory hoped to secure the conversion of her husband and his subjects.  It was to her that he addressed his famous Dialogues, filled with the most marvellous stories of holy men and the strangest notions of religion.  Wishing to satisfy her pious desires, and to make her a very precious gift, he sent to her many phials of oil taken from the lamps that were kept burning at the shrines of the martyrs in the catacombs.  It was the custom of those who visited these shrines to dip handkerchiefs, or other bits of cloth, in the reservoirs of oil, to which a sacred virtue was supposed to be imparted by the neighborhood of the saints; and even now may often be seen the places where the lamps were kept lighted.[E]