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The Tomb of the Apostles Ad Catacumbas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2011

Hans Lietzmann
Affiliation:
University of Jena

Extract

In the number of this Review for January 1921, Dr. George La Piana discussed, in the light of the most recent discoveries at Rome, the several hypotheses which have been put forward in regard to the ancient tradition connected with the church of San Sebastiano at Rome. He there controverts the view proposed in my Petrus und Paulus in Rom (1915) that a translation of the relics of Peter and Paul to the Catacumbae, that is to the site of the later basilica of San Sebastiano, took place on June 29, 258, and defends the opinion, held also by eminent archaeologists in Rome, that what took place ad Catacumbas in the year 258 was only the establishment of a memorial festival in honor of the two apostles. His acute argument skilfully detects the weak points of my position, and at the same time contains so much that is new as to give me a welcome opportunity for a reëxamination of the evidence.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1923

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References

1 La Piana, pp. 60 f., and Lietzmann, Petrus und Paulus in Rom, pp. 81 f.

2 This I think I have shown; Petrus und Paulus in Rom, pp. 90 ff. La Piana also (p. 65) considers the date June 29 as not historical.

3 Petrus und Paulus in Rom, pp. 92 ff.

4 La Piana (p. 90, note 32) characterizes this view as “not improbable,” but in so doing he destroys his own argument in the text (p. 61).

5 Petrus und Paulus in Rom, pp. 107 f.

6 Note agiografiche 5 (1915), p. 123

7 See Dessau, Inscriptions latinae selectae III. 2, Index, p. 939; Carmina epigraphica, ed. Buecheler, No. 662. 1.

8 Delehaye, H., Les origines du culte des Martyrs (1912), p. 308, cited by La Piana, p. 90, note 28.Google Scholar

9 Zeitschrift für katholische Theologie XLV, p. 567.

10 Styger, Dissert. Pont. Acc., p. 93.

11 Dissert. Pont. Acc., plates I–XXV.

12 Bullettino d'archeologia cristiana, 1865, p. 96; Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'archéologie chrétienne I, 809 ff.

13 Figured in Styger, Diss. pont. acc., p. 27.

14 See La Piana, p. 70, plan I, A and N.

15 Nuovo bullettino 26 (1920), pp. 12 ff.

16 Petrus und Paulus in Rom, pp. 120, 182. I spoke only of the rooms, not of the sarcophagi; La Piana (p. 74) misunderstood the bearing of the passage. The coffin of “Fabianus” with its mediaeval inscription was merely a guide for the tradition of a later age.

17 Diss. pont. acc., p. 49.

18 Cf. Acta Cypriani i, 8, praeceperunt etiam ne in aliquibus locis conciliabula fiant nec coemeteria ingrediantur.

19 For the proofs see Petrus und Paulus in Rom, p. 152.

20 Note agiografiche V, pp. 123 f.

21 On these see Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaft XXI (1922), p. 148.

22 Cf. Petrus und Paulus in Rom, p. 164, note 2.

23 Styger, Diss. pont. acc., p. 88: “Possono essere assegnate alla seconda metà del III secolo. Ciò è fuori di ogni dubbio, perchè mancano affatto in esse i caratteri della decadenza, che già si rivelano nel IV secolo avanzato.” He expresses the same opinion in his earlier publications.

24 Styger, Diss. pont. acc., plate II, on the right, below. Styger, p. 61, reads Paulu[m], but the o is clearly recognizable. The sense is the same with either reading; at is equivalent to ad, and, as often, is construed with an ablative; cf. Diehl, Vulgärlateinische Inschriften (Kleine Texte 62), Nos. 1293 ff.