The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858

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[Footnote 1: The Cavaliere de Rossi, in his very learned tract,
_De Christianis Monumentis [Greek: IChThUN] exhibentibus_,
expresses the belief that these pictures, besides their direct and
simple reference to the Lord's Supper, exhibit also the Catholic
doctrine of the Real Presence in the Eucharist. The bread he
considers as the obvious material symbol, the fish the mystical
symbol of the transubstantiation. His interpretation is at least
doubtful. The bread was to be eaten in remembrance of the Lord, and
the fish was represented as the image which recalled his words, that
have been perverted by materialistic imaginations so far from their
original meaning,--"This is my body which is given for you." But the
date of the origin of false opinions is a matter of comparative
unimportance.]

There are several instances, among these subterranean pictures, of a
symbolic representation of the Saviour, drawn, not from Scripture,
but from a heathen original. It is that of Orpheus playing upon his
lyre, and drawing all creatures to him by the sweetness of his
strains. It was a fiction widely spread soon after the introduction
of Christianity among the Gentiles, that Orpheus, like the Sibyls and
some other of the characters of mythology, had had some blind
revelation of the coming of a saviour of the world, and had uttered
indistinct prophecies of the event. Forgeries, similar to those of
the Sibylline Verses, professing to be the remains of the poems of
Orpheus, were made among the Alexandrian Christians, and for a long
period his name was held in popular esteem, as that of a heathen
prophet of Christian truth. Whether the paintings in the catacombs
took their origin from these fictions must be uncertain; but driven,
as the Roman Christians were, to hide the truth under a symbol that
should be inoffensive, and should not reveal its meaning to pagan
eyes, it was not strange that they should select this of the ancient
poet. As he had drawn beasts and trees and stones to listen to the
music of his lyre, so Christ, with persuasive sweetness and
compelling force, drew men more savage than beasts, more rooted in
the earth than trees, more cold than stones, to listen to and follow
him. As Orpheus caused even the kingdom of Death to render back the
lost, so Christ drew the souls of men from the very gates of hell,
and made the grave restore its dead. And thus from the old heathen
story the Christian drew new suggestions and fresh meaning, and
beheld in it an unconscious setting-forth of many holy truths.

A subject from the Gospels, which is often represented, and which
was used with a somewhat obscure symbolic meaning, is that of the
man sick of the palsy, cured by the Saviour with the words,
"Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house." It belongs,
according to the ancient interpretation, to the series of subjects
that embody the doctrine of the Resurrection. It is thus explained
by St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and others of the fathers. They
understood the words of Christ as addressed to them with the meaning,
"Arise, leave the things of this world, have faith, and go forward
to thy abiding home in heaven." Such an interpretation is entirely
congruous with the general tone of thought and feeling exhibited in
many other common paintings in the catacombs. But later Romanist
writers have attempted to connect its interpretation with the
doctrine of the Forgiveness of Sins, as embodied in what is called
the power of the Church in the holy sacrament of Penance. They lay
stress on the words, "Be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee,"
and suppose that the picture expresses the belief that the delegated
power of forgiving sins still remained on earth. Undoubtedly the
painting may well have recalled to mind these earlier words of the
narrative, as well as the later ones, and with the same comforting
assurance that was afforded by the emblem of the Good Shepherd; but
there seems no just reason for supposing it to have borne any
reference to the peculiar doctrine of the Roman Church. The pictures
themselves, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to
contradict this assumption; for they, without exception, represent
the paralytic in the last act of the narrative, already on his feet
and bearing his bed. [2]

[Footnote 2: One picture of this scene in the Catacombs of St. Hermes
is said to be in immediate connection with the sacrament of Penance
"represented literally, in the form of a Christian kneeling on both
knees before a priest, who is giving him absolution." We have not
seen the original of this picture, and we know of no copy of it. It
is not given either by Bosio or in Perret's great work. Before
accepting it in evidence, its date must be ascertained, and the
possibility of a more natural explanation of it excluded. How is one
figure known to be that of a priest? and in what manner is the act
of giving absolution expressed?]

Among the favorite subjects from the Old Testament are four from the
life of Moses,--his taking off his shoes at the command of the Lord,
his exhibiting the manna to the people, his receiving the tables of
the Law, and his striking the rock in the desert. Of these, the first
and the last are most common, and the truths which they were
intended to typify seem to have been most dwelt upon. Moses was
regarded in the ancient Church as the type, in the old dispensation,
of our Saviour in the new. Thus as the narrative of the command to
Moses to take off his shoes was immediately connected with the
promise of the deliverance of the children of Israel from the land
of bondage, so it was regarded as the figure under which was to be
seen the promise of the greater deliverance of the world through
faith in Jesus Christ, and its freedom from spiritual bondage.
Moreover, the shoes were put off, "for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground"; and it is a natural supposition to regard
the act as having been considered the symbol of that Holiness to the
Lord which was the necessary preparation for the great deliverance.
Like so many other of the paintings, it led forward the thoughts and
the affections from time to eternity. And this figure was also, we
may well suppose, taken as an immediate type of the Resurrection, in
connection with the words of Jesus, "Now that the dead are raised
even Moses showed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord" (or, as it
should be translated, "when, in telling you of the bush, he says
that the Lord called himself") "the God of Abraham, and the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For God is not the God of the dead, but
of the living." With this interpretation, it affords another
instance of the constancy with which the Christians connected the
thought of immortality with the presence of death.

So also the smiting of the rock, so that the water came forth
abundantly, was adopted as the sign of the giving forth of the
living water springing up into everlasting life. "The rock was Christ,"
said St. Paul, and it is possible, that, with a secondary
interpretation, the smiting of the rock was sometimes regarded as
typical of the sufferings of the Saviour. The picture of this
miracle is repeated again and again, and one of the noblest figures
in the whole range of subterranean Art, a figure of surpassing
dignity and grandeur, is that of Moses in this sublime scene in one
of the chapels of the Cemetery of St. Agnes. In the performance of
this miracle, Moses is represented with a rod in his hand; and a
similar rod, apparently as the sign of power, is seen in the hands
of Christ, in the paintings which represent his miracles. It is a
curious illustration of the gradual progress of the ideas now
current in the Roman Church, that upon sarcophagi of the fourth and
fifth centuries St. Peter is found sculptured with the same rod in
his hands,--emblematic, unquestionably, of the doctrine of his being
the Vicegerent of Christ,--and on the bottom of a glass vessel of
late date, found in the catacombs, the miracle of the striking of
the rock is depicted, but at the side of the figure is the name, not
of Moses, but of Peter,--for the Church had by this time advanced
far in its assumptions.

The story of Jonah appears also in four different scenes upon the
walls of the chapels and burial-chambers. In the first, the prophet
appears as being cast into the sea; in the second, swallowed by the
great fish; in the third, thrown out upon dry land; and in the fourth,
lying under the gourd. They are not found together, or in series;
but sometimes one and sometimes another of these scenes was painted,
according to the fancy or the thought of the artist. The swallowing
of Jonah, and his deliverance from the belly of the whale, has
already been referred to as one of the naturally suggested types of
the Resurrection. When the prophet is shown as lying under a gourd,
(which is painted as a vine climbing over a trellis-work, to
represent the booth that Jonah made for himself,) the picture may
perhaps have been read as a double lesson. As God "made the gourd to
come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to
deliver him from his grief," so he would deliver from their grief
those who now trusted in him; but as he also made the gourd to wither,
so that "the sun beat upon the head of Jonah that he fainted and
wished in himself to die," it was for them to remember their utter
dependence on the will of God, to prepare themselves for the sorrows
as for the joys of life. Nor was this all; the story of Jonah was
one especially fitted to remind the recent convert of the
long-suffering and grace of God, and to suggest to those who were
enduring the extremities of persecution the rebuke with which the
Lord had chastened even his prophet for his desire for vengeance upon
those who had long dwelt in evil ways. It recalled to them the new
commandment of love to their enemies, and it bade them welcome with
rejoicing even the latest and most reluctant listener to the truth.
It repressed spiritual pride, and checked too ready anger. Was not
Rome even greater "than Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more
than six-score thousand persons that cannot discern between their
right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle"? Such were some,
at least, of the meanings which the Christians of the catacombs may
have seen in these pictures. It would be long to enter into the more
subtile and less satisfactory interpretations of their symbolic
meanings which are to be found in the works of some of the later
fathers, and which afford, as in many other instances, illustrations
of the extravagance of symbolism into which the studies of the cell,
the darkness of their age, and the insufficiency of their education
often led them.

Two subjects are of frequent repetition in the catacombs, which bear
a direct reference to the personal circumstances in which the
Christians from time to time found themselves. One is that of Daniel
in the lions' den,--the other that of the Three Children of Israel
in the fiery furnace. Both were types of persecution and of
deliverance. "Thy God, whom thou servest continually, he will
deliver thee." Daniel is uniformly represented in the attitude of
prayer,--the attitude adopted by the early Christians, standing with
arms outstretched. Very often single figures with no names attached
to them are thus represented above or by the side of graves. They
were probably intended as figures of those who lay within them,
figures of those who had been constant in prayer; and this conjecture
is almost established as a certainty by the existence of a few of
these figures with names inscribed above them,--as, for instance,
"HILARA IN PACE."

Noah in the ark is also one of the repeated subjects from the Old
Testament; the ark being represented as a sort of square box, in the
middle of which Noah stands, sometimes in prayer, and sometimes with
the dove flying towards him, bearing a branch of olive. It was the
type of the Church, the whole body of Christians, floating in the
midst of storms, but with the promise of peace; or, with wider
signification, it was the type of the world saved through the
revelation of Christ. It bore reference also to the words of St.
Peter, in his First Epistle, concerning the ark, "wherein few, that
is eight souls, were saved by water; the like figure whereunto, even
baptism, doth also now save us by the resurrection of Jesus Christ."
Sometimes, indeed, the act of baptism is represented in a more
literal manner, by a naked figure immersed in the water; sometimes,
perhaps, by still other types.

Paintings of the temptation and the fall of Adam and Eve, in which
the composition often reminds one of that adopted by the later
masters, are often seen on the walls; and the sacrifice of Abraham,
in which with reverent and just simplicity the interference of the
Almighty is represented by a hand issuing from the clouds, is a
common subject. Less frequent are pictures of David with his sling,
of Tobit with the fish, of Susanna and the elders, treated
symbolically, and some few other Old Testament stories. Their
typical meaning was plain to the minds of those who frequented the
catacombs. From the Gospels many scenes are represented in addition
to those we have already mentioned: among the most common are the
miracle of the multiplication of the loaves; our Saviour seated,
with two or more figures standing near him; and his restoring sight
to the blind. Every year's new excavations bring to light some new
picture, and our acquaintance with the Art of the catacombs is
continually receiving interesting additions.

There appears to have been no definite rule in respect to the
combination of subjects in a single chapel. The ceilings are
generally divided into various compartments, each filled with a
different subject. Thus, for example, we find on one of them the
central compartment occupied by a figure of Orpheus; four smaller
compartments are filled with sheep or cattle; and four others with
Moses striking the rock, Daniel in the lions' den, David with his
sling, and Jesus restoring the paralytic. At the angles of the vault
are doves with branches of olive; and the ornaments of the ceiling
are all of graceful and somewhat elaborate character. The purely
ornamental portions of the paintings, though obviously formed on
heathen originals, are almost universally of a pleasing and joyful
character, and in many cases possess a symbolic meaning. Flowers,
crowns of leaves, garlands, vines with clustering grapes, displayed
more to the Christian's eyes than mere beauty of form. In these and
other similar accessories the symbolism of the early Church
delighted to manifest itself. On their terracotta lamps, fixed in
the mortar at the head of graves, on their sepulchral tablets, on
their rings, on their glass cups and chalices, the Christians put
these emblems of their faith, keeping in mind their spiritual
significance. Many of these symbols have preserved their inner
meaning to the present day, while others have long lost it. Thus,
the crown and the laurel were the emblems of victory; the palm, of
triumph; the olive, of peace; the vine loaded with grapes, of the
joys of heaven. The dove was at once the figure of the Holy Spirit,
and the symbol of innocence and purity of heart; the peacock the
emblem of immortality. The ship reminded the Christian of the harbor
of safety, or recalled to him the Church tossed upon the waves; the
anchor was the sign of strength and of hope; the lyre was the symbol
of the sweetness of religion; the stag, of the soul thirsting for
the Lord; the cock, of watchfulness; the horse, of the course of life;
the lamb, of the Saviour himself.

Many of these symbols were, it is plain, derived from the Scripture,
but many also had a heathen origin, and were adopted by the
Christians with a new or an additional significance. It was not
strange that this should be so, for many associations still bound
the Christians of the early centuries to the things they had turned
away from. Thus, the horse is frequently found upon the funeral vases
and marbles of the ancients; the peacock, the bird of Juno, was the
emblem of the apotheosis of the Roman empresses; the palm and the
crown had long been in use; and the funeral genii of the heathen
Romans were in some sort the type of the later Christian angels. But
although this adoption of ancient symbols is to be noticed, it is
also to be observed that there is in the Christian cemeteries on the
whole a remarkable absence of heathen imagery,--less by far than
might have been expected in the works of those surrounded by heathen
modes of thought and expression. The influence of Christianity,
however, so changed the current of ideas, and so affected the
feelings of those whom it called to new life, that heathenism became
to them, as it were, a dead letter, devoid of all that could rouse
the fancy, or affect the inner thought. A great gulf was fixed
between them and it,--a gulf which for three centuries, at least,
charity alone could bridge over. It was not till near the fourth
century that heathenism began, to any marked extent, to modify the
character and to corrupt the purity of Christianity.

And with this is connected one of the most important historic facts
with regard to the Art of the catacombs. In no one of the pictures
of the earlier centuries is support or corroboration to be found of
the distinctive dogmas and peculiar claims of the Roman Church. We
have already spoken of the pictures that have been supposed to have
symbolic reference to the doctrine of the Real Presence in the
Eucharist, and have shown how little they require such an
interpretation. The exaltation of St. Peter above the other Apostles
is utterly unknown in the works of the first three centuries; in
instances in which he is represented, it is as the companion of St.
Paul. The Virgin never appears as the subject of any special
reverence. Sometimes, as in pictures of the Magi bringing their gifts,
she is seen with the child Jesus upon her lap. No attempt to
represent the Trinity (an irreverence which did not become familiar
till centuries later) exists in the catacombs, and no sign of the
existence of the doctrine of the Trinity is to be met with in them,
unless in works of a very late period. Of the doctrines of Purgatory
and Hell, of Indulgences, of Absolution, no trace is to be found. Of
the worship of the saints there are few signs before the fourth
century,--and it was not until after this period that figures of the
saints, such as those spoken of heretofore, in the account of the
crypt of St. Cecilia, became a common adornment of the sepulchral
walls. The use of the _nimbus_, or glory round the head, was not
introduced into Christian Art before the end of the fourth century.
It was borrowed from Paganism, and was adopted, with many other
ideas and forms of representation, from the same source, after
Romanism had taken the place of Paganism as the religion of the
Western Empire. The faith of the catacombs of the first three
centuries was Christianity, not Romanism.

In the later catacombs, the change of belief, which was wrought
outside of them, is plainly visible in the change in the style of Art.
Byzantine models stiffened, formalized, and gradually destroyed the
spirit of the early paintings. Richness of vestment and mannerism of
expression took the place of simplicity and straightforwardness. The
Art which is still the popular Art in Italy began to exhibit its
lower round of subjects. Saints of all kinds were preferred to the
personages of Scripture. The time of suffering and trial having
passed, men stirred their slow imaginations with pictures of the
crucifixion and the passion. Martyrdoms began to be represented; and
the series--not even yet, alas! come to an end--of the coarse and
bloody atrocities of painting, pictures worthy only of the shambles,
beginning here, marked the decline of piety and the absence of
feeling. Love and veneration for the older and simpler works
disappeared, and through many of the ancient pictures fresh graves
were dug, that faithless Christians might be buried near those whom
they esteemed able to intercede for and protect them. These graves
hollowed out in the wall around the tomb of some saint or martyr
became so common, that the term soon arose of a burial _intra_ or
_retro sanctos_, _among_ or _behind the saints_. One of the most
precious pictures in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, precious from
its peculiar character, is thus in some of its most important parts
utterly destroyed. It represents, so far as is to be seen now, two
men in the attitude of preaching to flocks who stand near them,--and
if the eye is not deceived by the uncertain light, and by the
dimness of the injured colors, a shower of rain, typical of the
showers of divine grace, is falling upon the sheep: on one who is
listening intently, with head erect, the shower falls abundantly; on
another who listens, but with less eagerness, the rain falls in less
abundance; on a third who listens, but continues to eat, with head
bent downward, the rain falls scantily; while on a fourth, who has
turned away to crop the grass, scarcely a drop descends. Into this
parable in painting the irreverence of a succeeding century cut its
now rifled and forlorn graves.

But the Art of the catacombs, after its first age, was not confined
to painting. Many sculptured sarcophagi have been found within the
crypts, and in the crypts of the churches connected with the
cemeteries. Here was again the adoption of an ancient custom; and in
many instances, indeed, the ancient sarcophagi themselves were
employed for modern bodies, and the old heathens turned out for the
new Christians. Others were obviously the work of heathen artists
employed for Christian service; and others exhibit, even more
plainly than the later paintings, some of the special doctrines of
the Church. The whole character of this sculpture deserves fuller
investigation than we can give to it here. The collection of these
first Christian works in marble that has recently been made in the
Lateran Museum affords opportunity for its careful study,--a study
interesting not only in an artistic, but in an historic and
doctrinal point of view.

The single undoubted Christian statue of early date that has come
down to us is that of St. Hippolytus, Bishop of Porto, which was
found in 1551, near the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Unfortunately, it
was much mutilated, and has been greatly restored; but it is still
of uncommon interest, not only from its excellent qualities as a
work of Art, but also from the engraving upon its side of a list of
the works of the Saint, and of a double paschal cycle. This, too, is
now in the Christian Museum at the Lateran.

Another branch of early Christian Art, which deserves more attention
than it has yet received, is that of the mosaics of the catacombs.
Their character is widely different from that of those with which a
few centuries afterwards the popes splendidly adorned their favorite
churches. But we must leave mosaics, gems, lamps, and all the lesser
articles of ornament and of common household use that have been
found in the graves, and which bring one often into strange
familiarity with the ways and near sympathy with the feelings of
those who occupied the now empty cells. Most of these trifles seem
to have been buried with the dead as the memorials of a love that
longed to reach beyond death with the expressions of its constancy
and its grief. Among them have been found the toys of little children,--
their jointed ivory dolls, their rattles, their little rings, and
bells,--full, even now, of the sweet sounds of long-ago household
joys, and of the tender recollections of household sorrows. In
looking at them, one is reminded of the constant recurrence of the
figure of the Good Shepherd bearing his lamb, painted upon the walls
of these ancient chapels and crypts.

It was thus that the dawn of Christian Art lighted up the darkness
of the catacombs. While the Roman nobles were decorating their
villas and summer-houses with gay figures, scenes from the ancient
stories, and representations of licentious fancies,--while the
emperors were paving the halls of their great baths with mosaic
portraits of the famous prize-fighters and gladiators,--the
Christians were painting the walls of their obscure cemeteries with
imagery which expressed the new lessons of their faith, and which
was the type and the beginning of the most beautiful works that the
human imagination has conceived, and the promise of still more
beautiful works yet to be created for the delight and help of the
world.

[To be continued.]

* * * * *

BEATRICE

How was I worthy so divine a loss,
Deepening my midnights, kindling all my morns?
Why waste such precious wood to make my cross,
Such far-sought roses for my crown of thorns?

And when she came, how earned I such a gift?
Why spend on me, a poor earth-delving mole,
The fireside sweetnesses, the heavenward lift,
The hourly mercy of a woman's soul?

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