I Cubicoli dei Sacramenti
© Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra
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I Cubicoli dei Sacramenti |
With these drawings the Christians of the first centuries wished to recall
their catechumenate (i.e. their preparation to Baptism) and leave a message
to their contemporaries. They had become Christians through Baptism and had
persevered in their Christian life by frequent communion. They also wanted to
remind their dear ones, and whoever visited their tombs, that one day they would
be united again only if they shared the same means of salvation.
The Baptism
As the Fathers of the Church taught in their writings, these means of salvation
were prefigured in the Old Testament. This appears in the miracle of Moses
striking the rock, enabling the Jewish people to quench their thirst in the
desert (Ex17,1-71). The Baptism of Christ is also a prefiguration
of Christian Baptism.
On the back wall in Cubicle A2 is found the oldest representation of a true
Christian Baptism: a priest dressed in tunica and pallium places his right hand
on the head of the person being baptized, and standing in a stream.
Other representations of Baptism are the fisherman, the Samaritan woman at
the well of Sichem, the paralytic in the pool of Bethesda.
The Eucharist
As seen in these cubicles the preference of the Christians for the symbols of
the Eucharist goes to the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes
(Jo 6,1-15). Through this miracle, Jesus promised a very particular and
different bread: his body ( Jo 6,22-59). The scene of the multiplication
of the loaves is always repeated in the same way: seven person sit round a table.
The number seven is symbolic and indicates that all are called by God to be
saved. Two or three dishes with loaves are placed on the table, and at the sides
of the table are baskets of bread which may contain seven to twelve loaves.
The Biblical Jonah
The prophet Jonah, a biblical figure very dear to the early Christians, appears
in all these cubicles. Jonah had preached repentance and conversion to the inhabitants
of Nineveh, that is to the pagans. Jonah symbolizes the call to salvation of
all men, whether Jews or pagans. Indeed, since the faithful buried in this crypt
were originally all pagans, the prophet came to be the image of God's universal
mercy.
Jonah is also a symbol of resurrection. Jesus himself quotes Jonah as a figure
of this reality: "As Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly
of the whale, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart
of the earth, and then rise again (Mt 12,40).
The "Martyrs' Staircase"
At the end of the Cubicles of Sacraments there begins the "Martyrs'
Staircase", excavated about the middle of the 2nd century, and which still
preserves steps of that period. It was called the "Martyrs' Staircase"
because the Popes buried in the nearby crypt passed that way. It is also thought
that young Tarcisius used it when he came to pray at the tombs of the martyr
popes, or to get the Eucharist and carry it to the Christians in prison or in
their homes during a period of persecution.
