Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/371

CAT. 313 CATACOMBS. after it has been hoisted by the capstan as far as the hawsepipe. See Anchor. CAT. In military engineering, a heavy beam with a sharp iron point, used during the Middle Ages in besieging castles or towns. It was pro- vided rt'ith a movable cover of timber, for the protection <if those who worked it, by swinging it back and forth. It was called a cat because it clawed into a wall. It was also known as a mouse or fox, because it gnawed a round hole, and as a hog or sow, from the round back of its cover, or because it worked with its tusk, like a boar. CATABANGAN, ka't:-ban-gan', or CATTJ- BANGAN. A Malay-Negrito people in Tagd- Las I'l-ovince, southern Luzon. See Puilippixes. CATABAP'TISTS (Gk. KaraiSa-riaTK, kata- baptisli's, from KaTa,kiita, dovii + fiair-(t|f n', toyj- ' iizeiti, to baptize). A general name applied by Zwingli and others, instead of the more common term Anabaptists, to those who baptized only be- lievers, and denied the validity of infant baptism. The term was defined by Zwingli as equivalent to pseudo-baptist, but the fact that et_inologi- cally it means a droinicr was not lost sight of. CAT ACAUS'TIC CURVE. See Caustic. CATACHRE'SIS. See Ehetoric, Figures OF. CAT'ACLYSM (Fr. cataclysme, Lat. cata- clystnos, Gk. KaroK/.tc/ioc, kataklysmos, froniAani, kata, down + K/.iJeii', klt/zein, to dash, of waves). A term used by some of the earlier geologists to denote sudden changes, such as those which might be produced by deluges, as the Xoachian Flood, or by sudden upheavals. They considered that deposits such as the drift were formed in this manner. The word has been dropped from geological terminologi,'. See C.TAsTR()riii.sir. CATACOMBS. The Catacombs tell us sub- stantially all that we know of early Christian art, and a large part of what we know of the life of that time. The term is of uncertain deri- vation, and is used to designate a network of subterranean chambers and galleries excavated in the soft rock, and especially those used pri- marily for burial purposes by the early Cliris- tians, and, in times of persecution, for refuge and for religious ser'ices. They were called by contemporaries Ccemcteria, 'cemeteries,' or cryp- ia, 'hidden ])laces'; the term 'catacomb' {cata- cunihu) is of mediipval origin. The lower classes of Romans were usually cremated, and their ashes put into urns in sepulchral chambers called co- himharia (q.v.) ; but Christian usage forbade in- cineration, so separate burial was resorted to in property belonging to wealthy converts or pur- chased by association. Burial in cemeteries above ground was used generally, but where the subsoil consisted of some kind of easily worked, roek-like tufa, the burial was made in underground gal- leries, which we now call catacombs. Such catacombs exist in various parts of the early Christian world^ — the Crimea, Asia Minor, Syria, Egj'pt (.Vlexandria), Cyrenaica, Malta. Sicily, ^Syracuse). Italy (Rome, Xaples, Chiusi). By far the most important group is in Rome, and it is by the study of these Roman catacombs that we know anything of the Christian arts of ihe first four centiiries, and can better under- stand the life and feelings, manners and cus- VoL. iv.— ai. tonis of the early Christians. About sixty ol these are known. They are all outside the city walls, within a radius of S miles, excavated in the tufa wherever it was of the right kind — i.e. granular. The larger ones consist of a confusing maze of galleries, but this was by no means their original condition: rather, the result of gradual evolution. During the First and Second centuries a Christian landowner would establish a small catacomb for the burial of his family, freedmen, and slaves, and would set aside for the purpose a small rectangular patch of grovuid, or area, measuring, say, 100 by 200 feet, which was registered as a family burying-ground, and became inviolable imder common Roman law. A single gallery ran within the outer edge of this rectangle, about 8 feet high by 3 feet W'ide, in whose sides were cut loculi, one above another, to receive the bodies. The loculus was low, as long as the body, and its depth varied to con- tain from one to three or four members of the same family. Persons of distinction were buried in chambers, or cubicula, which opened out of these galleries, and for these burials caned sar- cophagi were often used, placed in arched niches, or arcosolia. Usually some martyr was buried in such chambers, and his tomb served as an altar at which services were celebrated. As Christianity progressed and burials multiplied, the plot of ground was honcycomlK<d with gal- leries, parallel and at right angles ; and when one story of them was no longer sufficient, stair- cases were made and a second line of galleries excavated beneath. This was followed, if neces- sary, by a third, fourth, or even fifth stoiy of galleries. Sometimes the extra room was gained by increasing the height of the galleries through lowering the floor-level. As persecutions in- creased in virulence, the catacombs became places of refuge and worship, where Christians could avoid arrest , as burial-places had right of asylum by law, and when churches above ground were confiscated and destroyed by imperial orders and religious meetings interdicted, it was always possible to use the catacomb chapels for seiTices. Such importance did the catacombs, therefore, assume that in the Third Century their admin- istration was no longer left in the hands of jjrivate persons, but was assumed by the Church. The city was divided into parishes — twenty-five or more — and to each one was assigned a cata comb outside the walls for the burial of iis church members. Above its entrance was a chaiK'l for religious services. The head deacon of the church was their administrator, and under him were the body of fossores, or exca- vators, the artisans who executed the marble slabs with their inscriptions and symbols, the lamps and the symbolic wall-jiaintiugs. The chief cemetery then became that of Calixtus, and here the bishops of the Third Century were buried in a special crypt. Passages were cut to connect the neighboring catacombs, but without allowing the burials to extend beyond the ap- pointed legal limits. A new period began, how- ever, in the middle of the Third Century, when the violence of popular hatred refused any longer to recognize the inviolability of the Christian places of burial, and persecuting mobs and officials invaded them. Christians then destroyed the entrances, with their oratories, feast ing-halls, and open staircases, filled up the front galleries, and made other and secret cnti'ances, usually