The faith of our fathers - Carmel Apologetics

16 i THE FAITH OP OUR FATHERS.rity, and in their discretion in dispensing the charityof the faithful.During the first three hundred years, the Pastorsof the Church were generally incapable of holdingreal estate in Rome; for, Christianity was yet a proscribed religion, and the faithful were exposed tothe most violent and unrelenting persecutions thathave ever darkened the annals of history.The Christians of Rome worshipped for the mostpart in the catacombs. These catacombs are subterranean chambers and passages under the city ofRome. They extend for miles in different directions,and are visited to this day by thousands of strangers.Here the primitive Christians prayed together here;they encouraged one another to martyrdom ;herethey died and were buried. So that these cavernsserved at the same time as temples of worship forthe living, and as tombs for the dead.At last, Constantine the Great brought peace tothe Church. The long night of Pagan persecutionwas succeeded by the bright dawn of religiousliberty and as our Blessed Saviour rose triumph;ant from the grave, after having lain there for threedays, so did our early brethren in the faith emergefrom the tombs of the catacombs, after haviuw beeaburied, as it were, in the bowels of the earth forthree centuries.Coustantiue gave to the Roman Church munificent donations of money and real estate, which wereaugmented by additional grants contributed by