Biblical and Eschatological Imagery in the Jewish Catacombs of Rome: An Overview

This article examines the epigraphic formulae attested in the Jewish funerary inscriptions of Rome — drawn
principally from the catacombs of Villa Torlonia, Vigna Randanini, and Monteverde — with a view to recovering
the biblical and eschatological beliefs of the communities that produced them. After a preliminary discussion
of the linguistic landscape of the corpus, the article offers a systematic analysis of the main formulaic clusters:
laudatory epithets encoding a distinctly Jewish moral vocabulary (φιλόνομος, φιλέντολος, φιλόλαος,
φιλοπένης), closing augural clauses centred on peace (ἐν εἰρήνῃ, shalom), and the theology of resurrection implicit in
the κοίμησις metaphor and its Latin equivalent dormitio. The analysis concludes that the biblical contribution
operates not through explicit scriptural quotation but through a dense network of formulaic allusions mediated
by liturgical practice, constructing a coherent eschatological imaginary in which the deceased is perpetually
blessed and oriented towards resurrection.