LA PIANA TELLS OF WORK ON EARLY ROMAN LIFE

"To reconstruct the life of Rome in the first three centuries of the Christian era," said Professor George La Piana, who has just returned to this country, to a Crimson reporter yesterday, "has been the purpose of my four months' stay in Italy."

Professor La Piana is preparing a book on the history of the Roman Church in the first three centuries, which is to be a compilation and enlargement of pamphlets and articles he has issued from time to time through the Harvard Theological Review.

"I am, however," he continued, "taking the matter up from the special angle of the grouping of foreign settlements in Rome at the time in question. Rome, a metropolis at that period, much resembled the New York of today in the numbers of different groups which established themselves within its limits."

"Little Italies" Then Extant

He then showed that the "little Italies" and Chinatowns of the present were then existent. In much the same way, Christianity and its followers formed an entirely separate community. There are many records extant, of the life, customs and works of the Christians and it is with these that Professor La Piana has been primarily concerned.

"Have you ever noticed in the North End of Boston, for example," he went on, "a large funeral of some fifteen or twenty automobiles and huge loads of flowers, accompanying the burial of some obscure laborer? The collegia, in the time of the Empire, were associations of a very similar nature to those which provide the North End funerals. The Aryan faith required that a man have a decent burial, and for those who could not provide one, the funeral associations existed. While the Christians only inhumed the bodies of the deceased, the pagans used cremation as well. It was as a result of this custom that the Christians built the Catacombs to receive the bodies.

"Dissenting groups, however, even grew up within the church itself, and the Bishop of Rome tried to keep the elements united. As a result, the Christians had to devote their attentions not only to the avoidance of persecution but equally as much to the prevention of a disintegration within their ranks."

The religious customs, associations, and economic position of the Christian colony were among the most important phase upon which Professor La Piana spent his time. In the course of his researches he had occasion to make frequent visits to the Catacombs and other important early Christian churches and monuments.