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The catacombs are the ancient underground cemeteries used by the Christians and the Jewish people in Rome. The Christian catacombs, which are numerous, began in the second century and the shoveling out continued until the first half of the fifth century. In the ....

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.... Paul was also buried in a necropolis along the Via Ostiense, a section of the catacombs. In the first half of the second century, as a result of donations, the Christians started burying their dead underground. That is how the catacombs were founded. Many of them began and developed around family tombs whose owners, newly converted Christians, did not reserve them to the members of the family, but opened them to their fellow people, showing the faith. As time went on and room started to run out in the catacombs, these areas grew larger by gifts or by the purchase of new properties, sometimes by the Church itself. Saint Callixtus was a very typical ....