This sacred fish is sometimes represented, as in Fig. 54, from the crypt of St. Lucina, bearing what seems to be a basket of bread and a flagon of wine on its back, or occasionally a loaf of bread in its mouth. In these cases there is probably a reference to the bread of life which Christ breaks to his disciples, or possibly to the holy eucharist. Sometimes a bird is pictured as deriving nourishment from the mouth of a fish, the symbol of a soul receiving refreshment from Christ. The eucharist is also thought to be indicated by frequent representations of a fish and bread on a table, sometimes with a figure in prayer standing by; and also by a picture of seven persons eating a repast of bread and fish together, probably Christ dining with the disciples by the sea-shore after his resurrection.

Melito of Sardis speaks of Our Lord under the figure of a fish broiled on the fire of tribulation.[420] A mystical interpretation was also given to the loaves and fishes multiplied by Christ for the feeding of the multitude, as indicating the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit and the dispensations of the law and the gospel.[421]

A remarkable Greek inscription, found about thirty years ago in an ancient Christian cemetery at Autun, in France, throws much light on the profound religious significance of the symbol of the fish.[422] Its date, as indicated by the character of the epigraphy, in the opinion of the most eminent critics, is about the year 400.[423] The language is of Homeric purity and vigour, which is accounted for by the fact that Autun was, during the fourth and fifth centuries, a sort of “French Eton,” where Greek, the tongue “of Homer and the gods,” was sedulously cultivated. The following is the text as restored and translated by Marriott. It will be perceived that the word ΙΧΘΥΣ occurs acrostically in the initial letters of the first five lines, and is found four times in the body of the inscription. It is conjectured that the figure of a fish was also engraved, though now unhappily obliterated, at both the lower corners, where spaces for it seem to have been left.

“Offspring of the heavenly Ichthus, [Christ,] see that a heart of holy reverence be thine, now that from divine waters thou hast received, while yet among mortals, a spring of life that is to immortality. Quicken thy soul, beloved one, to ever fuller life, with the unfailing waters of wealth-giving wisdom, and receive the honey-sweet food of the Saviour of the saints. Eat with longing hunger, holding Ichthus [the Divine Food] in thy hands. On Ichthus [Christ] my hands are clasped; in thy love draw nigh unto me and be my guide, my Lord, and Saviour; I entreat thee, thou Light of them for whom the hour of death is past. My father, Aschandeius, dear unto my heart, and thou, sweet mother, and all I love on earth, oft as you look on Ichthus [the holy sign of Christ] so often think of me, Pectorius, your son.”[424]

In this beautiful expression of primitive faith and hope Romish interpretation has discovered evidence of prayers for the dead, of the invocation of the Virgin Mary, the doctrine of transubstantiation and communion in one kind, and mention of the “sacred heart of Jesus.” Marriott has well shown the grammatical and other difficulties which these forced interpretations create, and the absurdity of importing into antiquity “controversial phrases of comparatively modern theology, utterly unknown to the early church.”

Sometimes, by a confusion of metaphor common to both pictorial and literary figurative expression, the symbol of the fish is applied to men as well as to Our Lord. Indeed, this may have been its primary application, and has the sanction of the scriptural designation of the apostles as “fishers of men.” The Greek liturgy adopts the same figure, and, in pursuance of the metaphor, speaks of the rod of the cross, the hook of preaching, and the bait of charity.[425] There are also frequent representations on the sarcophagi and in the frescoes of the Catacombs, doubtless in allusion to this function of the Christian ministry, of men drawing fish out of the water. These, however, must not be confounded with the occasional fishing scenes copied from pagan art; and the symbolical fish must be carefully discriminated from the dolphins which frequently occur on the sarcophagi, and from the “great fish” which swallowed Jonah. It is remarkable that a bronze image with a chalice and fish was found at Autun, in the neighbourhood of the inscription above given. The figure occurs also on certain ancient coins, and in representations of the Phœnician Dagon or fish-god.

Not so in the earliest ages of the church. It was then the badge of infamy and sign of shame—the punishment of the basest of slaves and the vilest of malefactors. It was regarded with a loathing and abhorrence more intense than that in which the felon’s gibbet is held to-day. Its very name was an abomination to Roman ears,[426] and it was denounced by the prince of Roman orators as a most foul and brutal punishment, an infamous and unhappy tree.[427] Hence this Christian emblem became the object of scoffing and derision by the persecuting heathen. An illustration of this is seen in the blasphemous caricature of the Crucifixion, found upon the walls of the palace of the Cæsars and attributed to the time of Septimius Severus.[428] It represents a figure with an ass’s head attached to a cross, which another figure, standing near, salutes by kissing the hand, or adores in the classical sense of the word. Beneath is a rude scrawl which has been interpreted thus: Ἀλεξόμενος σέβετε (sic) Θεὸν—“Alexomenos worships his god,” probably the sneer of some Roman legionary at a Christian soldier of Cæsar’s household. Lucian also contemptuously speaks of Our Lord as a “crucified impostor.”[429]

The Christians, therefore, reverently veiled this sacred sign from the multitude; but they cherished it in their hearts, and in times of persecution gladly bore its reproach. The early Fathers, both Greek and Latin, recognize the occurrence of this symbol everywhere throughout the universe, and expatiate with fervent eloquence on its mystical meaning. The points of the compass, says Jerome, and the fourfold dimensions of space as mentioned by the apostle,[430] set it forth. Its form was assumed by birds in their flight, by men in the act of swimming and in the attitude of prayer, and is seen in the masts and yards of vessels.[431] “The cross,” says Justin Martyr,[432] “is impressed on all nature; there is scarcely a craftsman but employs the figure of it among the implements of his industry.” It was seen in the beam and share of the plough, and in the forms of flowers and leaves. It was typified in countless analogies of Scripture, in the measurement of the ark, the number of Abraham’s servants, the shape of Jacob’s staff, and the roasting of the paschal lamb; in the rod of Moses, the seven-branched candlestick, and the wave-offerings of the temple service; and it was the hallowed sign marked in blood on the lintels of the Hebrews’ houses. It healed the envenomed wounds of the serpent-bitten Israelites in the desert, routed the Amalekites in battle, and restored to life the son of the widow who gave bread to the prophet. It was the mark of God on the saints of Jerusalem, and was to be the sign of the Son of man in the heavens. The Christians wore the sacred token like a banner on their foreheads,[433] and the form at which men once shuddered, says Chrysostom, became the badge of highest honour, so that even emperors laid aside the diadem to assume the cross. “Let him bear the cross,” says Paulinus, “who would wear the crown.”[434] Christians were known as “devotees of the cross,”[435] and this sign of Christ[436] was employed to hallow every act of their lives, their down-sitting and up-rising, their going out and coming in.[437] It was especially adopted, as several of the Fathers remark,[438] as the attitude of prayer, and Chrysostom quotes in explanation the words of the Psalmist, “Let the lifting up of my hands be as the evening sacrifice.”[439] Tertullian and Asterius Amasenus[440] expressly declare that thus is set forth the passion of Our Lord.

This symbol acquired at length in popular apprehension the power of a sacred talisman to banish demons, vanquish Satan, avert evil, protect in time of danger or temptation, and to shut the mouths of lions about to devour the intrepid confessors of the faith.[441] The sign of the cross on the forehead and heart, says Prudentius, banishes all evil.[442] Another poet of the fifth century recommends the mystical charm as an antidote to diseases of cattle. Into such superstition had Christianity already degenerated.[443]

More common than any other Christian symbol in the Catacombs is the so-called Constantinian monogram, ☧. The first certain example of this is the following, which bears the date A. D. 331:[444]

A somewhat similar form occurs with the date A. D. 291, but De Rossi thinks it is only an ornamental point.[445] The following fragment may possibly belong to the year 298, when one of the consuls was named Gallus; but it cannot be proved that he is the one mentioned in the inscription: [VI]XIT ... ☧ ... GAL . CONSS.—“He lived in Christ ... and Gallus being consuls.”[446]

In the year 339 the second dated example occurs, enclosed in a circle. In A. D. 341 three examples are found, and in A. D. 343 it occurs four times in one inscription. After this it becomes exceedingly common, and is even employed as a mark of punctuation between the words.

This monogram is formed, as will be perceived, by the combination of the Greek characters Χ and Ρ, the first two letters of the word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ, or Christ. It may, indeed, be regarded rather as a contracted form of writing that word than as a proper symbol, just as we sometimes write Xt. and Xmas. for Christ and Christmas. Indeed, it most probably originated in the prevalent practice of contracted and monogrammatic writing, of which we have so many examples in these inscriptions. That the monogram stands for the name of Our Lord will be apparent from an examination of a few of the inscriptions in which it occurs, as, for instance, the very first dated example, above given. See also the following: IN PACE ET IN ☧ DEO—“In peace and in Christ God;” BIBAS IN ☧—“May you live in Christ;” IN ☧ VICTRIX, which probably meant “Victrix (a woman’s name) victorious in Christ.” Marangoni gives the accompanying impression of a seal on the plaster of a grave. See figure 56.

This monogram soon became almost universal in the Catacombs, on sepulchral slabs, lamps, vases, rings, seals, weights, gems, etc., and in every conceivable modification of form, some of which are shown in the illustration on next page. See also the vignette on title page, copied from an alabaster slab in the Collegio Romano, originally from the Catacombs.

Frequently the Greek letters Alpha and Omega accompany the monogram, as in numbers 1, 4, and 6 of Fig. 57, in allusion to the sublime passage in the Revelation descriptive of the eternity of Christ.[447] Sometimes the order of the letters is reversed, probably through the ignorance of the artist, as in the accompanying rude example, Fig. 58. The whole was sometimes placed obliquely, or even turned upside down, doubtless for the same reason. Even in its simplest form it was considered sufficient to give a Christian character to a tombstone which had been originally pagan. Such inscriptions are called opisthographæ, that is, written behind. In the following example from Aringhi the letters D. M., for the heathen formula DIS MANIBVS,—“To the Divine Manes,” are partially obliterated, and the consecrating sign substituted instead.

This monogram has been supposed to have been adopted from the celebrated Labarum, or battle-standard of Constantine, which bore this sacred figure. This was derived in turn, it was feigned, from the image which the imperial convert saw, or thought he saw, traced in the sky in characters of fire brighter than the noon-day sun, before the battle of the Milvian Bridge. Probably a solar halo of unusual splendour was magnified by the eager imagination of Constantine into a token of divine assistance, and the legend Ἐν τούτῳ νίκα was an after addition of the credulous historian. The Christian emblem, according to Prudentius,[448] was worn upon the shields and helmets of the whole army as well as on the imperial standard; “and so,” says Milman, “for the first time the meek and peaceful Jesus became a God of battle; and the cross, the holy sign of Christian redemption, a banner of bloody strife.”[449]

Probably there is allusion to the above mentioned legend in the following inscription from Bosio:

On a remarkable sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum is a representation of the monogram[450] supported on a cross and surrounded by a wreath, at which doves are pecking; probably a symbol of the souls of the blessed feeding on the hope of an immortal crown and the sweetness of eternal bliss. Beneath are crouched two soldiers, types, it is thought, of the Christian warriors not yet entered into rest, whose only place of safety is at the foot of the cross; or they may refer to the Draconii, or imperial guard of the Labarum, who, according to Eusebius, passed unhurt amid showers of javelins.

The following enlarged copy of an early Christian seal exhibits the triumph of the cross over the Old Serpent, the Devil, while it is the symbol of salvation to the saints represented by the doves at its foot. In later art the figures of lions, eagles, falcons, peacocks, doves, and lambs, grouped around the cross, seem to signify its power to subdue evil passions and to inspire holy virtues.

The change of the monogram into the cross was very gradual. First one stroke of the X became coincident with the vertical part of the P, and the other at right angles to it, as in No. 6, Fig. 57. At length the loop of the P disappears and the Greek cross results. In the other examples of Fig. 57 the cross, if cross it was at all, was neither in the Greek nor Latin form, but in that known as St. Andrew’s. Finally the lower arm was lengthened till it assumes the form shown in the accompanying engraving, which was found on the grave of a neophyte four years old. The first dated example of a simple undisguised cross in the Catacombs does not occur till A. D. 407;[451] but during the latter part of the fifth century it became quite common. It also became more ornate in form, and was frequently adorned with gems and wreathed with flowers, especially in the later bas reliefs. In the fourth century it had already become an object of such superstitious veneration as to call forth the reproaches of Julian and the extravagant laudation of many of the Christian fathers.[452] In the time of Chrysostom the alleged discovery of the true cross by the Empress Helena was universally received, and “materialized at once,” says Milman, “the spiritual worship of Christianity.”[453] Its position was revealed in a vision and its genuineness proved by the miraculous cures which it performed, as recorded by St. Cyril, afterward bishop of Jerusalem, a reputed eye-witness of the event. The precious relic, distributed throughout Christendom[454] and in minute portions worn as sacred talismans, did much to cultivate a spirit of superstition which culminated in the Romish festivals of the Invention and Exaltation of the Cross, and in the hymns and offices of the church, often bordering, at least, upon idolatrous homage.[455] It also led to the conception of the marvelous legend of the cross in the apocryphal gospels and ancient traditions.[456]

The cross thus gradually assumed the form in which it is now generally represented; but it was a sign of joy and gladness, crowned with flowers, adorned with precious stones, “a pledge of the resurrection rather than a memorial of the passion.”[457] It was like the rainbow in the cloud to Noah after the flood—a promise of mercy, not a symbol of wrath. It was not the dead Christ but the glorified Redeemer that the primitive Church presented to the imagination. She lingered not by the empty sepulchre, but followed by faith the risen Lord. The persecuted saints shared the triumph of His victory over death and the grave, and felt that because He lived they should live also.

The early believers carefully avoided, as though prevented by a sacred interdict, any attempt to depict the awful scenes of Christ’s passion, the realistic treatment of which in Roman Catholic art so often shocks the sensibilities and harrows the soul. This solemn tragedy they felt to be the theme of devout and prayerful meditation rather than of portraiture in art. Hence we find no pictures of the agony and bloody sweat, the mocking and the shame, the death and burial of Our Lord. “The Catacombs of Rome,” says Milman, “faithful to their general character, offer no instance of a crucifixion, nor does any allusion to such a subject of art occur in any early writing.”[458] “The passion is not represented literally,” says Dr. Northcote, a strenuous advocate of Roman Catholic views, “but under the veil of secresy. It is not our Beloved Lord, but some other who bears his cross. The crown which is placed on his head is of flowers rather than of thorns, and corresponds better with the mystical language of the Spouse in the Canticles[459] than would a literal treatment.”[460] With this agrees the assertion of the distinguished Prussian archæologist, Prof. Piper, of Berlin. Speaking of the series of art representations, belonging to the first five centuries, of scenes in the life of Our Lord, which extend from his nativity to his appearance before Pilate, he says, “Further, however, this series does not go: the death and resurrection of Christ have not at all been made the subject of representation in this period.”[461]

In the fifth century Paulinus of Nola speaks of Christ as represented by a snowy lamb standing at the foot of the cross.[462] Sometimes a lamb bore the cross, at others it was couchant in the midst of it; and, as if to bring the sacrificial emblem more vividly to mind, the lamb was represented as wounded and bleeding, an innocent victim given to an unjust death.[463]

In A. D. 692 the Quinisextan Council decreed that the historic figure of Christ in human form should be substituted for paintings of the lamb[464] —an evidence that the earlier representations were purely allegorical. The lamb, however, still continued to be employed, and it required the reiterated injunction of Pope Adrian, in the eighth century, to enforce uniformity of usage; and even after that time a reversion to the former practice sometimes occurred.

The oldest extant representation of the crucifixion is a miniature in a Syrian evangelarium, of date A. D. 586, now in the Laurentian Library at Florence. The treatment of the subject is exceedingly rude, bordering on the grotesque. The figure of Our Lord is crowned with a nimbus and clothed with a long purple robe The soldiers on the ground are casting lots for his garments, and the sun and moon look down upon the scene. A companion picture represents the ascension of Christ and the effusion of the Holy Spirit. “These are the oldest pictorial representations,” says Prof. Piper, “of the earthly life of Jesus and of his exaltation.... At a somewhat later period,” he continues, “they appear also in the west.”[465]

Gregory of Tours, about the end of the sixth century, mentions, apparently as an unusual innovation, a picture in the church at Narbonne which represented the crucifixion of Our Lord.[466] About the same time Venantius Fortunatus mentions what seems to have been a metallic cross bearing the image of Christ.[467]

The figure of Jesus first appeared standing at the foot of the cross, frequently with outstretched arms as if in prayer, which type was common in the eighth century. Sometimes the bust only was exhibited at the top of the cross, or even hovering over it, as in a reliquary presented to Theodelinda by Gregory the Great, the head being crowned with a nimbus, but without any expression of pain.

In the ninth century the form of Christ is raised to the centre of the cross; but he is still alive, with open eyes and head erect, as if to indicate that the divine nature was not subject to death. The hands are not nailed, but extended in prayer; the darkened sun and moon look down upon the awful tragedy; but still a feeling of reverence prevented the depicting of any expression of suffering on the countenance of the Redeemer. It was not till the eleventh century that art attempted to represent either the agony or death of the Son of God.[468] From this time he is exhibited lifeless upon the cross, his hands and feet transpierced with nails and a spear wound in his side, from which the flowing blood sometimes falls on the head of the spectators, as if indicating the efficacy of the atonement; and in the thirteenth century the head drops heavily to one side.[469]

The arrangement of the drapery differs greatly in these paintings. In the tenth century the form of the divine victim is entirely clothed with a long robe with sleeves, the hands and feet alone being uncovered. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the robe becomes shorter and the sleeves disappear; in the thirteenth it is reduced to a short tunic; and in the fourteenth it is little more than a narrow girdle about the loins, at which stage it has since remained. The suppedaneum, or support for the feet, is generally represented. It is frequently in the form of a globe, or of a chalice. The support for the body is never shown in art. Sometimes the sepulchre, with the angel and the two Marys, is seen in the background. One example, in St. John’s Lateran, exhibits the gate of paradise and the tree of life.

The expression of the face also underwent a change—a dire eclipse of woe—no less painful to behold. In the earlier pictures of the crucifixion the countenance of the Redeemer is still gentle and benign, the type of tenderness and truth; but it gradually becomes more and more strongly marked with the expression of sorrow and physical anguish, till all the divine fades away, and only the human agony of the wan and furrowed face remains. The serene and joyous aspect which, as we shall see, the representations of Our Lord always wore in the Catacombs, vanishes, and he is depicted as the “man of sorrows,” crushed with hopeless grief, crowned with thorns, transpierced with nails, and stained with dropping blood from the ghastly spear-wound in his side. Art exhausted its power in delineating the intensest forms of anguished suffering, sinking lower and lower in the depths of a brutal materiality and ferocity of treatment of this sacred theme. Even the genius of Michael Angelo only renders more painful the contrast between the tender and pitiful Good Shepherd of the Catacombs and the relentless Judge of the Sistine Chapel, menacing the guilty with the thunderbolts of wrath—a pagan Zeus rather than the Christian God of Mercy. This striking change but too faithfully represents the corresponding degradation and materialization of religious belief.

The crucified Christ was not only depicted in his dying agonies on earth, but this human anguish is even introduced into representations of heaven, bringing gloom upon its glory and sadness amid its joy. The Divine Father is frequently portrayed as sitting on the throne of his majesty, and holding in his hand a cross on which hangs the agonized body of his Son.[470]

In the East the development of image worship seems to have been earlier than in the West.[471] During the eighth century its corruptions provoked the iconoclastic zeal of the Isaurian Leo; and a general council condemned as idolatrous all symbols of Christ except the holy Eucharist.[472] Their destruction was rigorously prosecuted in the Eastern Empire; but Gregory II. became the champion of image worship in the West, and Italy, adhering to her ancient pagan instincts, substituted this new idolatry for that which she had abandoned.

The development of the graven representation of the passion was more gradual than its treatment in graphic art. This was the work of the sculptors. At first the figure of Our Lord was merely painted on a flat surface of wood or metal. This was afterward incised in outline, and exhibited in low relief, as on an ivory diptych of date A. D. 888 in the Vatican Museum. In this the sun and moon, as genii, hold torches above the cross; and by a singular association of ideas, Romulus and Remus, suckled by the wolf, appear at its foot, probably in allusion to Christ’s spiritual subjugation of the Roman Empire.[473] The treatment of this sacred theme passed gradually through the stages of basso, mezzo, and alto relievo, becoming more and more detached, till, in the fourteenth century, the figure of Our Lord upon the cross stood out, the completed and portable crucifix.[474] From this, through rapid stages, we arrive at the gross and ghastly images which abound throughout Roman Catholic Christendom; in every church and at every shrine; in the homes alike of prince and peasant; at the street corners and by the way side; often in popular apprehension endowed with the power of weeping, motion, speech, and working miracles.[475] By such gradations between the soul of man and the living Saviour came the image of the dead Christ, diverting the thoughts from the faith in a living Lord to an idolatrous veneration of a lifeless symbol.

Thus, as Dr. Maitland remarks, in painting sight superseded faith, and in sculpture touch superseded sight. But still another resource of sensuousness was to be discovered; and in the year 1223, “when the world was growing cold,”[476] as the Roman Church, with a deeper meaning than it knew, asserted, Saint Francis of Assis is feigned to have received the stigmata of the five wounds of Christ, and thenceforth to have borne about in his body—a living crucifix—the marks of the Lord Jesus. This miracle was afterwards frequently repeated; but the Church, seeking amid the growing darkness of the times to walk by sight and not by faith, wandered ever further and further from the central source of light and power, and lost all ability to communicate to a cold and dying world any spiritual life and warmth.

The sad lesson of the history we have been tracing is but too plain. In the early ages, and in the fervent glow of primitive faith, no outward symbol was necessary to reveal to the soul the presence of the Divine, or to interpret the profound meaning of the atonement. The Church required no sensuous image of Him, whom having not seen she loved, to prevent that love from growing cold. As the fervour of faith failed she relied more on the visible sign to quicken her languid devotion; but not till six centuries of gathering gloom had passed over her head after her fatal alliance with imperial power did degenerate art dare to portray to the eye of sense the death pangs and throes of mortal agony of the suffering Son of God. In the church of the Catacombs these images of sadness and gloom have no place. All is bright, cheerful, and hope-inspiring. In the following chapter we shall see that these characteristics are strikingly manifested in all the representations of Our Lord that there occur.

[357] When persecution ceased, this veil of mystery was thrown off and a less esoteric art employed; but even when Christianity came forth victorious from the Catacombs, symbolical paintings celebrated its triumph upon the walls of the basilicas and baptisteries which rose in the great centres of population.

[358] Mémoire sur les antiquités Chrétiennes des Catacombes. (Mém. de l’Acad. des Inscr., XIII.)

[359] Sometimes this superzealous interpretation leads to absurd mistakes. Aringhi devotes two folio pages to the explanation of certain figures which occur in the inscriptions of the Catacombs, which he calls representations of the human heart. He illustrates the subject with much sacred and profane learning, and with many quotations from the Scriptures, the Fathers, and classic authors. Another archæologist, Boldoni, suggests that the figures signify the bitterest sorrow of heart—dolorem cordi intimum; and another believes them to be representations of a heart transpierced with a thorn, the symbol of profoundest grief. These mysterious figures, whose hidden meaning was sought with such empty toil—arcanam significationem inani labore investigarint, says De Rossi—were, however, nothing more than the leaf-decorations employed in both pagan and Christian inscriptions by way of punctuation! See the following example: