CHAPTER I.

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.

The conditions under which Christian art was cultivated in the early centuries were eminently unfavourable to its highest development. It was not, like pagan art, the æsthetic exponent of a dominant religion, enjoying the patronage of the great and the wealthy, adorning the numerous temples of the gods and the palaces and banquet chambers of the emperors and senators, commemorating the virtues of patriots and heroes, and bodying forth the conceptions of poets and seers. There was no place in the Christian system for such representations as the glorious sun-god, Apollo, or the lovely Aphrodite, or the sublime majesty of Jove, which are still the unapproached _chefs d’oeuvre_ of the sculptor’s skill. The beautiful myths of Homer and Hesiod were regarded with abhorrence, and the Christians were expressly forbidden to make any representation of the supreme object of their worship, a prohibition which in the early and purer days of Christianity they never transgressed.

Nevertheless, the testimony of the Catacombs gives evidence that art was not, as has been frequently asserted, entirely abjured by the primitive Christians on account of its idolatrous employment by the pagans. They rather adopted and purified it for Christian purposes, 204 just as they did the diverse elements of ancient civilization. It was not till increasing wealth and the growing corruptions of the church led to the more lavish employment of art and its perversion to superstitious uses that it called forth the condemnation of the Fathers of the early centuries.

The art of any people is an outgrowth and efflorescence of an internal living principle: and as is the tree so is its fruit. An adequate representation of its art being given, we may estimate, at least proximately, the moral condition of any age or community. It is the perennial expression of the phenomena of humanity. The iconography of the early centuries of Christianity is, therefore, a pictorial history of its development and of the successive changes it has undergone.[325] The corruptions of doctrine, the rise of dogmas, the strifes of heresiarchs and schismatics, are all reflected therein.[326]

The frescoes of the Catacombs are illustrations, inestimable in value, of the pure and lofty character of that primitive Christian life of which they were the offspring. They were the exponent of a mighty spiritual force, “seeking,” as Kugler remarks, “to typify in the earthly and perishing the abiding and eternal.”[327] The very intensity of that old Christian life under repression and persecution created a more imperious necessity for a religious symbolism as an expression of its deepest feelings and as a common sign of the faith. Early Christian art, therefore, was not realistic and sensuous, but ideal and 205 spiritual. It sought to express the inner essence, not the outer form.

Christianity has nothing to fear from the comparison of these remains of its primitive art with those of the pre-existing art of paganism. As little has Protestantism to fear their comparison with the monuments of that debased form of Christianity into which the early church so soon, alas! degenerated. On the one hand may be seen the infinite contrast between the abominable condition of society under the empire and the purity of life of the early Christians; and on the other, the gradual corruption of doctrine and practice as we approach the Byzantine age. The exhumation of Pompeii and the recent exploration of the Catacombs bring into sharp contrast Christian and pagan art. While traversing the deserted chambers of the former “two thousand years roll backward,” and we stand among the objects familiar to the gaze of the maids and matrons of the palmy days of Rome. But what a tale of the prevailing sensuality, what a practical commentary on the scathing sarcasms of Juvenal, the denunciations of the Fathers, and the awful portraiture of St. Paul, do we read in the polluting pictures on every side. Nothing gives a more vivid conception of the appalling degradation of pagan society in the first century of the Christian era than the disinterred art of that Roman Sodom. Amid the silence and gloom of the Catacombs we are transported to an entirely different world; we breathe a purer moral atmosphere; we are surrounded by the evidences of an infinitely nobler social life; we are struck with the immeasurable superiority in all the elements of true dignity and grandeur of the lowly and persecuted Christians to the highest development of ancient civilization.

The decoration of these subterranean crypts is the first employment of 206 art by the early Christians of which we have any remains. A universal instinct leads us to beautify the sepulchres of the departed. This is seen alike in the rude funeral totem of the American savage, in the massive mausolea of the Appian Way, and in the magnificent Moorish tombs of the Alhambra.[328] It is not, therefore, remarkable that the primitive Christians adorned with religious paintings, expressive of their faith and hope, the graves of the dead, or in times of persecution traced upon the martyr’s tomb the crown and palm, emblems of victory, or the dove and olive branch, the beautiful symbol of peace. It must not, however, be supposed that the first beginnings of Christian art were rude and formless essays, such as we see among barbarous tribes. The primitive believers had not so much to create the principles of art as to adapt an art already fully developed to the expression of Christian thought. Like the neophyte converts from heathenism, pagan art had to be baptized into the service of Christianity. “The germs of a new life,” says Dr. Lübke, “were in embryo in the dying antique world. Ancient art was the garment in which the young and world-agitating ideas of Christianity were compelled to veil themselves.”[329] Hence the earlier paintings are the superior in execution, and manifest a richness, a vigour and 207 freedom like that of the best specimens of the classic period. Their design is more correct, their ornamentation more chaste and elegant, and the accessories more graceful than in the later examples. These shared the gradual decline which characterized the art of the dying empire, becoming more impoverished in conception, stiff in manner, and conventional and hieratic in type, till they sink into the barbarism of the Byzantine period.

This is contrary to the opinion which has till recently been entertained. Lord Lindsay asserts of the paintings of the Catacombs that, “considered as works of art, they are but poor productions--the meagreness of invention only equalled by the feebleness of execution--inferior, generally speaking, to the worst specimens of contemporary heathen art.”[330] But this characterization was the result of imperfect acquaintance with the subject. Indeed, he speaks of the Catacombs as “for the most part closed up and inaccessible, and the frescoes obliterated by time and destroyed.” But recent discoveries have brought to light many important examples which completely disprove his depreciatory estimate. In many of the newly opened crypts the colours are as fresh as if applied yesterday; and, as regards style and execution, the frescoes of the Catacombs “approach,” says the eminent art critic, Kugler, “very near to the wall paintings of the best period of the empire.”[331] No one can look through the magnificent volumes of Perret without being struck with the grace, vigour, and classic beauty of many of the paintings there reproduced. It is admitted that the French artists have “touched up” the faded colours, and some of the pictures may be better termed 208 restorations than accurate copies; but they are nowhere accused of being false to the general character and spirit of the originals.

The antiquity of these better specimens of Christian art is still further confirmed by their being found in the oldest crypts of the Catacombs; and, like the architectural character of these more ancient chambers, they indicate the publicity of their construction and their legal protection. In the later excavations, on the contrary, the paintings are few in number, and inferior in type and execution--an evidence of the persecution and impoverishment of the Christians as well as of the decline of art. The more celebrated shrines, it is true, were repeatedly decorated at successive periods down to the ninth century;[332] but the times of these decorations may be approximately estimated by internal evidence, as the presence of the Constantinian monogram, of the nimbus,[333] and other characteristic signs testify.

Early Christian art thus sprang out of that which was pre-existing, selecting and adapting what was consistent with its spirit, and rigorously rejecting whatever savoured of idolatry or of the sensual character of ancient heathen life. It stripped off, to use the figure of Dr. Lübke, what was unsuitable to the new ideas, and retained the 209 healthy germ from which the tree of Christian art was to unfold in grand magnificence. As Christianity was the very antithesis of paganism in spirit, so its art was singularly free from pagan error. There are no wanton dances of nude figures like those upon the walls of Pompeii, but chaste pictures with figures clothed from head to foot; or, where historical accuracy required the representation of the undraped form, as in pictures of our first parents in the garden of Eden, or of the story of Jonah, they are instinct with modesty and innocence. Pagan art, a genius with drooping wing and torch reversed, stood at the door of death, but cast no light upon the world beyond. Christian art, inspired with lofty faith, pierced through the veil of sense, beyond the shadows of time, and beheld the pure spirit soaring above the grave, like essence rising from an alembic in which all the grosser qualities of matter are left behind. Hence only images of hope and tender joy were employed. There is no symptom of the despair of paganism; scarce even of natural sorrow.

Independent statues were in the first ages rarely if ever used.[334] There seemed to be greater danger of falling into idolatry in the imitation of these, in which form were most of the representations of the heathen deities, than in the employment of painting; and it was against the making of graven images that the prohibition of Scripture was especially directed.[335] Their fabrication, therefore, was especially avoided. Indeed, sculpture never became truly Christian, and even in the hands of an Angelo or a Thorwaldsen failed to produce triumphs of skill like those of Phidias or Praxiteles. Christian 210 graphic art, however, in its noblest development far surpassed even the grandest achievements of which we have any account of the schools of Apelles and Zeuxis. Christianity is the embodiment of the gentler graces; paganism, in its purest form, that of the sterner virtues. The former finds its best expression in painting, the latter in sculpture.

The first Christian paintings were light and graceful sketches, after the manner of the older classic art; and but for the substitution of a Christian for a heathen conception--a biblical scene or character, as Daniel in the lions’ den, Jonah, or the Good Shepherd, or some striking Christian symbol--it would be difficult to distinguish them from contemporary pagan pictures.[336] While the principal figure gave an unquestionably Christian character to the whole, the accessories, divisions of space, colouring, and general treatment were quite in the manner of the antique. Garlands, festoons of flowers and vases of fruits; graceful arabesques, luxuriant vines, grapes, birds and genii; ideal heads, masks, and fabulous animals; hunting, vintage and harvest scenes, and pastoral groups; personifications of the hours, seasons, rivers, and the like, made up the _entourage_, or formed part of the picture. Thus the roof of a crypt in the most ancient part (probably of the first century) of the cemetery of Domitilla is completely covered with branches trailing in graceful curves with exquisite naturalness, and entirely free from the conventional 211 restraint and geometrical symmetry which indicate the subsequent decline of art. Among the branches flit birds, and winged genii like little cupids. Another specimen of great beauty, of the second century, in the Catacomb of Prætextatus, exhibits a well drawn harvest scene, with wreaths of roses, vine, and laurel, and with birds flitting about their nests. A fresco of the Good Shepherd and an inscription attest its Christian character. The drapery and drawing of the figures in the earlier examples are also exceptionally good.

Several of the Christian symbols were common also to pagan art; as the palm, the crown, the ship, and others to be hereafter mentioned. They acquired, however, under Christian treatment a profounder and nobler significance than they ever possessed before. But there are other and more striking examples of the adoption, when appropriate to Christian themes, of subjects from pagan art. Orpheus charming the wild beasts with his lyre is a frequently recurring figure in the Catacombs, and is referred to by the Christian Fathers as a type of Him who drew all men to himself by the sweet persuasive power of his divine word. The victory of Our Lord over death and hell, and probably an ancient interpretation of his preaching to the spirits in prison,[337] may have found a sort of parallel in the beautiful legend of the faithful lover seeking in the under-world the lost Eurydice bitten by a deadly serpent; while, at the sound of his wondrous harp, gloomy Dis was soothed, Ixion’s wheel stood still, Tantalus forgot his thirst, and the stone of Sisyphus hung poised in air.[338] The Orphic verses were 212 also said by the Fathers to have contained many true prophecies concerning Our Lord. These, however, like the testimony of the Sibyls, were pious forgeries of post-Christian date.

Another fable of the pagan mythology reproduced in early Christian art is that of Ulysses and the Sirens. A sarcophagus in the crypt of Lucina represents the “much-planning” wanderer of Ithaca, bound to the mast, deaf to the blandishments of the rather harpy-like daughters of the sea, and so sailing safely by. Maximus of Turin, in the fifth century, explained the ship of Ulysses to be “a type of the church, the mast being the cross, by which the faithful are to be kept from the seductions of the senses. Thus,” he says, “shall we be neither held back by the pernicious hearing of the world’s voice, nor swerve from our course to the better life, and fall upon the rocks of voluptuousness.”[339]

These reminiscences of pagan art are more frequent in the sculptures of the sarcophagi, in which the classic type seems more persistent than in the paintings. Thus, in a bas-relief, in the Lateran Museum, of the ascent of Elijah in the fiery chariot to heaven, by a strange solecism Mercury is represented standing at the horses’ heads. This was probably the result of an unconscious imitation of some heathen design. On a sarcophagus from the Catacomb of Callixtus, in a harvest scene, is what seems to be a representation of Cupid and Pysche. This, however, was found buried beneath the floor, and bore indications of having been coated with plaster, as if in concealment of the heathen figures. On others have been observed bas-reliefs of Bacchus attended 213 by cupids, fawns and satyrs, the unfortunate Marsyas, the desertion of Ariadne, and the return of Ulysses. It is probable that some of these incongruities resulted from the sarcophagus having been carved by a pagan artist, inasmuch as sculpture was less likely to be practised by the Christians than painting. Indeed, some of these subjects, offensive to Christian feeling, have been carefully defaced with a chisel, or turned to the wall; as one in the crypt of Lucina, on which is a bacchanalian scene, while on the rough side, exposed to view, is inscribed the Christian epitaph. The sarcophagi of Constantia and Helena, daughters of Constantine, now in the Vatican Museum, bear vintage and battle scenes and Bacchic masks; and on that in which the Emperor Charlemagne was buried, probably of pagan origin, is represented the rape of Proserpine. On the gilded glasses of the Catacombs, some of which were evidently employed for festive purposes, pagan influence also appears in such representations as Achilles, Hercules, Dædalus, Minerva, the Graces, Cupid and Psyche, Neptune with his trident, and a river-god as the symbol of the Jordan.

Even in distinctively Christian subjects it is sometimes apparent that the artist had not freed himself from the influence of pagan types. Thus the Good Shepherd is represented with the short tunic and buskins of the Roman peasant, and often with the classic syrinx or rustic pipes, probably from some reminiscence of the popular rural deity, the god Pan. In the Lateran Museum is a manifest example--the sarcophagus of Paulina--of a pagan sculpture having been adapted as a Christian Good Shepherd. In a bas-relief of Jonah, in the Vatican Library, the classic influence is seen in the Triton blowing his horn, and Iris floating over the vessel with her fluttering scarf, to indicate the 214 subsidence of the storm. The ship is like the barges that navigate the Tiber, and the sea-monster that swallows the recreant prophet is like that which menaced Andromeda.

Christianity thus preserved amid the wreck of ancient civilization some germs of classic art, over which she brooded till they quickened under the more genial influences of later times. She became thus, as Dr. Lübke remarks, the mediator between the antique heathen life and the art of modern Christendom. That distinguished critic, Raoul-Rochette, has, however, attributed to pagan types too great an influence on the art of the Catacombs, and almost denies the latter all originality or distinctiveness of treatment; and he is certainly quite in error in speaking of the almost pagan physiognomy of the decorations of the Catacombs.[340] He was misled in forming these opinions in part by certain monuments in the Catacomb of Prætextatus, discovered and described by Bottari, and at first supposed to be of Christian origin.[341] This opinion, however, has been since refuted in an able monograph on the subject by Padre Garrucci.[342]

The exceptional and unique character of these monuments deserves a somewhat detailed examination. They occur in a gallery of the Catacomb, not far from the Appian Way. In the vault of an _arcosolium_ is a representation of Venus--a subject never found in early Christian art--accompanied by two genii as infants. Near these 215 are the following epitaphs of a pagan priest and his wife:

NVMENIS ANTISTES SEBASIS VINCENTIVS HIC [EST] QVI SACRA SANCTA DEVM PIA MENTE CO[LVIT].

Here lies Vincentius, a priest of the deity Sebasis, who with pious mind has observed the sacred rites of the gods.

VINCENTI HOC OLIM FREQVENTES QVOD VIDES[343] PLVRES ME ANTECESSERVNT OMNES EXPECTO MANDVCA BIBE LVDE ET VENI AD ME CVM VIVES BENEFAC HOC TECVM FERES.

O Vincentius, many formerly in crowds, as you here see, have gone before me; I await all. Eat, drink, play, and come to me. While thou livest act well: this thou shalt bear with thee.

The _arcosolium_ to which this is attached contains the remarkable paintings represented in the accompanying engraving.[344] The first picture to the left represents the death of Vibia, wife of Vincentius, and is labeled ABREPTIO · VIBIES · ET · DESCENSIO. She is depicted as being borne off by Pluto, to indicate that her death was premature. The god is standing upright in his _quadriga_, conducted by Mercury and holding in his arms the form of Vibia. In the original picture, issuing from an urn at the foot of Mercury, is seen the river Acheron, by which Pluto is about to descend to the infernal regions, as indicated by the word DESCENSIO.

At the top of the vault is represented the judgment of Vibia at the tribunal of Pluto. The god is seated on his throne, with his wife Proserpine, and over their heads are written the words DISPATER and ABRACVRA--titles of the deities. To the right of the throne we see 217 three fates--FATA · DIVINA--and to the left Vibia preceded by Mercury--MERCVRIVS · NVNTIVS--and accompanied by Alcestis, the heroine of conjugal love. The figures all have their names written above their heads.

The principal painting of the series, that in the tympanum of the arch, represents the introduction of Vibia to the banquet of the blessed. This is shown in the left hand corner of the picture, and is designated INDVCTIO · VIBIES. She is introduced by a youthful figure crowned with flowers, and holding in his hand a floral wreath. His name--ANGELVS · BONVS--the good messenger--is perhaps less an indication of Christian influence than of the Greek and Oriental ideas which have presided over the whole of these scenes. Vibia next appears seated at the banquet in the midst of those who have been judged worthy of the recompense of the good--BONORVM · IVDICIO · IVDICATI. They are ranged around a crescent-shaped table formed of cushions, and wear festive crowns upon their heads. In the foreground are seen the servants.

The fourth scene, to the extreme right of the vault, represents the funeral banquet in honor of Vibia. It is given by her husband Vincentius, who is designated by name, to the priests of Sebasis, over whose heads are written the words, SEPTE · PII · SACERDOTES. All these paintings, not only by their inscriptions, but by their conception and treatment, demonstrate their pagan origin. They are not in any sense or degree Christian; nor is there any reason to infer, as has been asserted, that they are of Gnostic execution, but decidedly the reverse.

But how are we to account for the presence of this pagan monument within the limits of a Christian cemetery? There are two things to be 218 observed, says M. Perret, in explanation of this circumstance. First, the _arcosolium_ is not exclusively Christian in character. M. de Saulcy has given examples of several Jewish and pagan tombs in the form of _arcosolia_.[345] In the second place, there is nothing strange in a family practising an oriental rite, like the worship of Mithras--which with the Phrygian and Isiac mysteries were widely prevalent in Rome in the early Christian centuries--having a private place of sepulture, as this seems to have been. It is situated near the Appian Way, from which there was probably a separate entrance. Near by is a pagan _columbarium_ which now forms one of the entrances of the Catacomb, of which it seems part equally with the gallery containing this tomb. This space may possibly have been originally usurped from the Christian cemetery; but it is more probable that the gallery and tomb were independently constructed, and that the fossors came unexpectedly upon it in their excavations. This conjecture is confirmed by the indications of its having been subsequently shut off, but the obstructions have long since been removed. It is impossible to admit that the Christians, in contempt of the sacred usages of the primitive ages, have commingled their sepulchres with those of the pagans.[346]

But Christian art, though affected by pagan influence, did not servilely follow pagan types. It introduced new forms to express new ideas, or employed existing forms with a new significance; just as Christianity itself introduced new words, or gave new meanings to old ones, not only in the classic tongues but in every language which it has adopted as the vehicle of its sublime truths. It created a cycle of symbolical types of especial Christian significance; and became 219 more enriched and enlarged in its scope by allegorical representations of religious doctrine, and by illustrations of Old and New Testament history and miracles. But Christian art soon lost that freedom of treatment which it inherited from its classic parentage, and fell into fixed and conventional forms, which were endlessly reiterated. “Before many years,” says Maitland, “the empire of imagination passed away, and the genius of art, with ‘torch extinct and swimming eye,’ had to mourn over the introduction of the hieratic style which, wherever it has appeared throughout the world, has cramped and almost annihilated the inventive faculty.” Like the hieroglyphs of Egypt and of India, or like the picture-writing of the lost races of Central America, though in a less degree, the objects of Christian art became not so much representative as symbolic. Individual genius can only struggle hopelessly with the shackles of a conventional system. From the freedom of nature it sinks into a servile copyism which can hardly be called art at all.

Yet the symbols of the Catacombs, though often rude and uncouth, must not provoke our contempt. They fulfilled their purpose no less fully than the triumphs of art in the _Camera Raphaele_ or the Sistine Chapel. They were addressed not to the external sense, nor to the critical taste, but to the inner eye of the soul and to the sublime faculty of faith. They were not mere representations of the outward semblances of things, but suggestions of eternal verities which transcend the limits of time and space. The rudely scratched anchor told of a hope that reached forward beyond this world and laid hold on the great realities of the world to come; the dove spoke of the brooding peace of God, which kept the heart and the mind amid persecution and affliction with the power of an everlasting life; and 220 the palm was the symbol of the final victory over death and hell.

When the age of persecution passed away, this childlike and touching simplicity of Christian art gave place to a more ornate character. Called from the gloomy vaults of the Catacombs to adorn the churches erected by Constantine and his successors, it gradually developed into the many-coloured splendour of the magnificent frescoes and mosaics of the basilicas. It became now more personal and historical, and less abstract and doctrinal. The technical manipulation became less understood, and the artistic conception of form more and more feeble, till it gradually stiffened into the immobile and rigid types which characterize Byzantine painting. It exhibited the weakness not of infancy but of decrepitude, and might almost be called the last sigh of art till its revival after the long slumber of the Middle Ages. It is of importance, however, as enabling us to trace the development of religious error, and the introduction of unorthodox additions to Christian belief, and as showing the slow progress toward image worship. It demonstrates the non-apostolicity of certain Romish doctrines, the beginning of which can be here detected. It utters its voiceless protest against certain others which are sought for in vain in the places where, according to the Roman theory, they should certainly be found. Where still employed in the Catacombs, art shared the corruption and degradation above described.

It is to this period that most of the condemnations of art, or rather of its abuse, in the writings of the primitive Fathers must be referred. Toward the close of the fourth century Augustine inveighs against the superstitious reverence for pictures, as well as the growing devotion to the sepulchres, which he says the church condemned and endeavoured to correct.[347] His contemporary, Epiphanius, 221 stigmatizes the employment of painting as contrary to the authority of Scripture.[348] About the same time Paulinus of Nola made use of biblical pictures for the instruction of the rude and illiterate multitude who visited the shrine of Felix. “Perhaps it may be asked,” he says, “for what reason, contrary to the common usage, I have painted this sacred dwelling with personal representations?... Here is a crowd of rustics of imperfect faith, who cannot read, who before they were converted to Christ used profane rites, and obeyed their senses as gods. I have, therefore, thought it expedient to enliven with paintings the whole habitation of the saint. Pictures thus traced with colours will perhaps inspire those rude minds with astonishment. Inscriptions are placed above the paintings in order that the letter may explain what the hand has depicted.”[349]

The feeblest intelligence might rise through the material to the conception of spiritual truth.[350] But this ecclesiastical employment 222 of art speedily became the source of religious corruption and the object of superstitious worship. At length it provoked the stern iconoclasm of the Isaurian Leo and his successors, and was formally prohibited by the general Council of Constantinople in the eighth century. Even early in the fourth century the Council of Elvira, as if with a prescience of the dire result that would follow, prohibited the use of pictures in the churches, “lest that which was worshipped and adored should be painted on the walls.”[351]

The iconoclastic spirit, however, was principally directed against _graven_ images, which were regarded as the special objects of idolatry. The earliest examples of these have been attributed to the Gnostics, who so strangely blended the doctrines of Christianity with pagan superstition. They claimed to possess contemporary images of Christ from the collection of Pontius Pilate! But doubtless, like 223 the alleged statue of Christ at Cæsarea Philippi, mentioned by Eusebius,[352] even if they had any reference to Our Lord at all, they were of much later date. According to Augustine,[353] the Carpocratian heretics had similar images; and Marcellina, who belonged to that sect, exhibited in the Gnostic church at Rome figures of Christ, Paul, Homer, and Pythagoras. In a similarly eclectic spirit the emperor Alexander Severus placed among his lares the images of Our Lord and Abraham, with those of Orpheus and Apollonius.[354]

Mosaic, which in classic times was used only for the decoration of floors, was employed in Christian art in the more honourable task of adorning the walls of the stately basilicas and churches. This intractable material was not adapted for the delineation of objects requiring delicacy of expression, but was admirably suited for representing strongly pronounced types and solemn figures of Christ and the saints, analogous to those in the stained-glass windows of gothic cathedrals and minsters. Hence the mosaics, and gradually all Byzantine art, stiffened into an expression of severity and gloom, filling the mind of the beholder with solemnity and awe.[355] This character is still strikingly seen in the art of the Greek church, especially in Russia, where there is an intense and superstitious 224 reverence for pictures, known nowhere else. Many of the churches are completely covered with paintings, which are valued, not for their execution, for they are often hideously ugly, but as a sort of talismans on account of their supposed religious sanctity.[356] Thus art, which is the daughter of paganism, relapsing into the service of superstition, has corrupted, and often paganized, Christianity, as Solomon’s heathen wives turned his heart from the worship of the true God to the practice of idolatry. Lecky attributes this degradation of style to the latent Manicheism of the dark ages, to the monkish fear of beauty as a deadly temptation, and to the terrible pictures of Dante, which opened up such an abyss of horrors to the imagination. But by means of this mediæval art, imperfect, and even grotesque as it often was, would be brought vividly before the minds of the people of a rude and barbarous age an intense conception of the scenes of Christ’s passion, and a realistic sense of the punishment of the lost.

It will be convenient to treat the art of the Catacombs under the two heads of symbolical and biblical paintings, and to discuss separately the gilt glasses and other objects of interest found in these crypts. De Rossi divides the subject into symbolical, allegorical, biblical, and liturgical paintings; but some of these divisions, as for instance, the last, assumes the whole question of the purport and interpretation of these pictures.

[325] M. Didron’s _Iconographie Chrétienne_ is a valuable contribution on this important subject.

[326] In the beautiful figure of Pressensé, all art is an Æolian harp, shivering with the breezes that pass over it.

[327] _Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte_, p. xii.

[328] One of the earliest indications of human existence on the planet is a sepulchral cave in the post-pliocene drift at Aurignac, in France, in which are evidences of the celebration of the funeral banquet and other sepulchral rites. “The artificially closed Catacomb,” says Dr. Wilson, “the sepulchred dead, the gifts within, the ashes and _débris_ of the last funeral feast without, ... all tell the ever-recurring story of reverent piety, unavailing sorrow, and the instinctive faith in a future life which dwells in the breast of the rudest savage.”--“Prehistoric Man,” by Daniel Wilson, LL.D., Toronto University, p. 84.

[329] “History of Art,” by Dr. Wilhelm Lübke, vol. i, p. 275.

[330] “History of Christian Art,” vol. i, p. 39.

[331] _Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte_, p. 14.

[332] Mr. J. H. Parker refers to the fifth or sixth century many paintings which De Rossi ascribes to the second or third. These eminent authorities represent two extremes of opinion. Probably the truth lies between them.

[333] No example of the former is known before A. D. 312. The nimbus is given to Our Lord in the fourth century, to angels in the fifth, but did not reach its widest application till the seventh. (Martigny, _Dict. des Antiqs. Chrét._) It was employed in ante-Christian pagan art, both Egyptian and classical. In Byzantine art it is a symbol of power and of office, and was therefore given alike to Pharaoh, Saul, Herod, Constantine, Judas, the apocalyptic Dragon, and Satan. Sometimes that of Judas is _black_. (Didron, _Iconog. Chrét._ in _loco_.)

[334] Certain Gnostic images will be hereafter mentioned.

[335] Ex. xx, 4. פֶּסֶל is a _carved_ image, from the root פָּסַל, to cut, or carve.

[336] These pictures were generally on smooth white plaster, and in beautiful bright colours, for the most part in spaces limited by lines of vivid blue, yellow, or red, or by bands of Egyptian-like lotus or lily pattern. If on the ceiling, they were in _lunettes_ similarly divided. These bands frequently run around the _loculi_ and _arcosolia_, and divide the walls into panels. Occasionally the latter are covered with a reticulated or lattice-like pattern in bright opaque colors. The paintings are now often much faded and defaced.

[337] 1 Pet. iii, 19.

[338] The Mediæval conception of Christ’s “Harrowing of Hell” and delivery of our first parents, ruined through the guile of the serpent, is a striking analogue of this myth. Compare also Bacon’s rather fantastic explanation of this legend by the principles of natural and moral philosophy. See his “Wisdom of the Ancients,” chap. xi.

[339] Hom. i, _De Cruce Domini_.

[340] “La physionomie presque payenne qui offre le décoration des Catacombes de Rome.”--_Discours Sur l’origine des types imitatifs de l’Art du Christianisme._ Paris, 1834, p. 96.

[341] _Sculture e pitture sagre_, etc., t. iii, pp. 193, 218.

[342] _Le Mystère de Syncrétisme Phrygien dans les Catacombes Roman de Prétextat._ (_Nouvelle Interprétation._) Paris, 1854.

[343] Another reading is: HIC ORO NE INQVETES QVOT VIDES.

[344] Fig. 31, from Perret, tom. i, planche lx. The description in the text is translated from his account, founded on Garrucci. See also _Tre sepolcri con pitture ed iscrizioni appartenenti alle superstizioni pagane del Bacco Sabazio e del Persidico Mitra_. Napoli, 1852.

[345] _Voyage dans les terres bibliques_, pl. 5.

[346] _Perret_, i, p. 44.

[347] Novi multos esse sepulchrorum et picturarum adoratores ... quos et ipsa ecclesia condemnat, et tanquam malos filios corrigere studet.--Aug., _de Morib. Eccl. Cathol._, lib. i, c. 34.

[348] Contra auetoritatem Scripturarum.--Epiphan., _ad Johan. Hierosol._

[349] Forte requiratur, quanam ratione gerendi Sederit hæc nobis sententia, pingere sanctas _Raro more_ domos animantibus adsimulatis. Turba frequentia his est Rusticitas non casta fide, neque docta legendi. Hæc adsueta diu sacris servire profanis, Ventre Deo, tandem convertitur advena Christo. Propterea visum nobis opus utile, totis Felicis domibus picturâ illudere sanctâ: Si forte attonitas hæc per spectacula mentes Agrestes caperet fucata coloribus umbra, Quæ super exprimitur titulis, ut litera monstret Quod manus explicuit. --Paulin., _De Felice Natal. Carm._, ix, vv, 541, _et seq._

[350] Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus. --Hor., _de Arte Poeticâ_.

Mens hebes ad verum per materialia surgit Et, demersa prius, hac visa luce resurgit. --_On doorway of St. Denis, Paris._

During the Middle Ages much religious truth was doubtless conveyed by these storied basilicas or “gospels in stone.” Of St. Mark’s, Venice, Dr. Guthrie says, “It is not more remarkable for its oriental splendour than for the flood of gospel truth set forth to all eyes in the mosaics that cover and adorn its domes and walls.... Here the grand central, saving doctrine, the glory of Paul and hope of sinners, ‘Jesus Christ, and him crucified,’ is exhibited with wonderful fulness and fidelity.” In A. D. 483, Pope Sixtus dedicated to the people of God--_plebi Dei_--the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore at Rome, executed for their instruction.

[351] Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur aut adoratur in parietibus depingatur.--_Concil. Eliber._, A. D. 305, c. 36.

[352] Τοῦτον δὲ τὸν ἀνδιάντα εἰκόνα τοῦ Ἰησοῦ φέρειν ἔλεγον.--_Hist. Eccles._, vii, 18.

[353] Sectae ipsius (Carpocratis) fuisse traditur socia quædam Marcellina, quæ colebat imagines Jesu et Pauli, et Homeri et Pythagoræ, adorando incensumque ponendo.--Aug., _de Hæresib._, c. vii; cf. Iren., _advers Hæres._, i, c. xxv, § 6. Rochette figures one of these Gnostic tessaræ or amulets with a head of Christ and the word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, accompanied by the symbolic fish.

[354] In larario suo ... Christum, Abraham et Orpheum, et hujusmodi ceteros, habebat ac majorum effigies, rem divinam faciebat.--Lamprid., _in Alex. Sever._, c. xxix.

[355] Lübke, vol. i, p. 316.

[356] Stanley’s _Eastern Churches_, _passim_.