Tuesday, June 19th was an amazing day. It’s the day I found the early church, or at least a part of it. I didn’t really even know I was looking for it until we visited San Clemente near the Coliseum in Rome. This was part of our Rick Steve’s Italy tour, and was the last official day of the tour. We had been to Venice, Florence and were now in Rome. The day before we visited the Vatican and St. Peter’s which I found to be sadly disappointing. The power, prestige, and riches of the cahurch which are meant to impress felt very distant from the Jesus of Nazareth I believe in.
So on this last day of the Rick Steve’s tour, we set out for the Coliseum and the Roman Forum. As a way of setting the stage for this tour our guide took us first to San Clemente - a 12th century basilica. Ho hum. Not even very old. Our guide, Francesca, explained our visit would help us understand how the layers of Roman civilizations get uncovered.
Once inside I was impressed by the beautiful and rather simple sanctuary built on the model of what had been a fourth century basilica. There was a large choir section right in the middle of the church for intimate daily worship. As it turns out, this choir section was taken directly from the original fourth century basilica and is decorated with early Christian symbols - not the cross. The cross was not used as a symbol of Christianity until the late fourth century/early fifth century. Instead it is decorated with the fish (which is an acronym for the words: Jesus Christ, son of God, savior), the dove - a symbol of peace and the vine - a symbol of the Eucharist or communion (the vine held the grapes from which communion wine was made.)
The chancel mosaic was also quite beautiful and is so characteristic of 4th and fifth century theology that it has been suggested it was simply a copy of the original church’s mosaic. Jesus is pictured on a cross that is the tree of life planted on the hill of paradise with rivers flowing out of it. The doves, here a symbol of souls, decorate the cross. A deer drinks from the river and the phoenix is pictured - a symbol of immortality. The inscription underneath reads, “Let us liken the Church of Christ to this vine.” And the scenes around the rivers show people and animals drawing substance and life from the river. What a wonderful image for the purpose of Christ and Christ’ church. Our tour, however, was not over.
Francesca, our guide, invited us to follow her. We headed through a hall and down a staircase. While we were descended the stairs she explained that in 1857, a Father Joseph Mullooly, the then prior of San Clemente, had discovered a loose tile in the floor of the church, and having lifted it discovered an old pillar descending under the church. he spear headed an effort to excavate under the church and discovered the original fourth century church buried beneath. Francesca took us below to this very sanctuary to which St. Jerome refers to in 390 as “a church in Rome that preserves the memory of St. Clement to this day.” Clearly this basilica was built sometime between the Edict of Milan in 313 which allowed Christianity to come out into the open and 390 when we hear it is a thriving church community.
The fourth century church was remarkable with frescoes around the room and a simple altar with an anchor on the front of it - another ancient symbol of Christianity, recognizing Christ as the anchor that holds us true in troubled waters. The tour, however, was not over. Francesca explained there was more below. We headed down another set of stairs and found a second century building that belonged to someone who had practiced Mithraism, a religion popular with soldiers in Rome at the time when Christianity was also beginning to flourish. Mithraism died out in the fourth century.
We continued around the corner and sat down in a brick room. Francesca pointed out the herringbone bricks on the floor and the patterned stone work on the walls characteristic of first century homes. She said these brick rooms (there were several) were attached to a large public area that remains un-excavated because such an effort would endanger the present church. That public area, however, is believed to have belonged to a Christian named Clement who made his space available in the late 1st century/early second century to Christians for worship. We were sitting in a room that either was an early house church or was next to a room that was an early house church on top of which a fourth century basilica was built over which a 12th century basilica was constructed years later. This was holy ground. I had chills. In fact, Mike and I came back again the next day just to sit in this space and think about those early Christians sitting together, perhaps listening to one of Peter’s disciples retelling the stories Peter had told him and breaking bread together and drinking out of a common cup remembering Jesus.
There are a lot of Christian traditions and Christian churches that have grown up since the first century when those early believers gathered in hope because they were convinced God had done something unique and profound through Jesus of Nazareth. I’ve been looking for those early believers and trying to grasp something of their experience. I think I found them, at least maybe a few of them.
Postscript... There is more below this last first century level. There is evidence of a building that was destroyed in the great Roman fire of 64 AD. Nero, looking for someone to blame, accused the Christians of setting fire to the city and a great persecution swept through the church in Rome.
