So careful, indeed, were the early Christian artists to avoid any representation of “the King eternal, immortal, invisible,” that in the scenes where God spake from heaven to Abraham and to Moses he is only symbolically indicated by a hand stretched out to stay the knife of the patriarch, or surrounded by clouds, as if to show more strongly its figurative character, giving the tables of the law to the leader of Israel. The annexed suggestive example of this treatment, of which many others might be adduced, is from a sarcophagus in the Lateran. See also Fig. 71, p. 290.

Throughout the whole range of sacred mosaics at Rome from the fourth to the fourteenth century, according to Mr. Hemans, the Supreme Being is never represented except symbolically by means of a hand, usually holding a crown over the head of Christ, the Virgin, or the saints. In later art the hand is sometimes surrounded by a cruciform nimbus, to indicate more clearly its divine character. It is also seen stretched out from heaven in pictures of Christ’s baptism and transfiguration, of the agony in the garden, the passion, and ascension.[604]

It was long before the most audacious hand dared to represent in painting or sculpture the omnipotent Jehovah or the infinite Spirit, who sustain and pervade the universe. M. Emeric David says that the French artists of the ninth century had first the “happy boldness”—heureuse hardiesse—to depict the Eternal Father under human form.[605] M. Didron asserts that it was not till the twelfth century that the Divine Being was personally represented,[606] being previously invariably indicated by the symbol of a hand, or by the divine name written in a triangle surrounded by a circle. Previous at least to the earlier of these dates, the work of creation and other acts popularly regarded as proper to the Father are always represented as performed by the Son, “who is the image of the invisible God,” “by whom also he made the worlds.”[607] Christ is also painted as commanding Noah to build the ark, as conversing with Abraham, and as speaking to Moses out of the burning bush. He is frequently represented also in the gigantic frescoes of the Byzantine cupolas clothed with awful majesty and bearing the title Ο ΠΑΝΤΟΚΡΑΤΩΡ, the Almighty; but the addition of the letters IC XC, the contraction for Jesus Christ, assure us that it is not the Father but the Son who is meant.

But the literal conception of the age was not content with a symbolical indication of the Deity. By degrees the arm as well as the hand was portrayed, and art, gradually growing bolder, attempted the representation of that face which inspiration declares no man can see and live. But at first it is the face alone that is shown.[608] Then, with progressive daring, the bust and upper part of the body are painted as reaching forth from the clouds, and finally the entire figure appears under various aspects and in different characters. The Almighty is represented armed with sword and bow, as the God of battles; as crowned, like a king or emperor;[609] and finally, as Pope, wearing the pontifical tiara and vestments. In the following example from a stained-glass window of the sixteenth century, at Troyes, in France, the everlasting Father, throned in glory, crowned with a quintuple tiara and robed in alb and tunic, supports a cross on which hangs the lifeless body of the Divine Son.

The omnipotent Jehovah is sometimes portrayed as “the Ancient of Days,” under the form of a feeble old man bowed down by the weight of years, and fain to seek support by leaning heavily on a staff, or reposing on a couch after the labours of creation.[610] The treatment becomes more and more rude, even to the borders of the grotesque,[611] and the conception becomes mean, coarse, and vulgar, till all the Divine departs and only human feebleness and imbecility remain, indicating at once the degradation of taste, decline of piety, and corruption of doctrine.

But this grossness of treatment reaches its most offensive development in the impious attempt to symbolize the sublime mystery of the Holy Trinity by a grotesque figure with three heads, or a head with three faces joined together, somewhat after the manner of the three-headed image of Brahma in the Hindoo mythology.[612] In other examples the Trinity is represented by three harsh stiff and aged figures,[613] identified by the attributes of the tiara, cross, and dove, enveloped in one common mantle, and jointly crowning the Virgin Mary in heaven, whose flowing train the angels humbly bear. By this degradation of Deity and exaltation of Mary we may mark the infinite divergence in faith and practice of the modern church of Rome from the simplicity, purity, and orthodoxy of the ancient church of the Catacombs, as evidenced by that primitive art and symbolism whose priceless monuments we have been examining.

[477] In the bas reliefs of Chartres Cathedral and in other mediæval churches, a biblical cycle somewhat analogous in character to that of the Catacombs is represented. In the former case the whole drama of time from the creation of the world to the last judgment is set forth in a series of pictures in stone comprising 1,800 figures, often with a touching naiveté and simple grace.

[478] Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte.

[479] History of Christian Art, vol. i, p. 47.

[480] In an ivory diptych, probably of the fourth century, which is figured in Marriott’s Testimony of the Catacombs, is a very spirited bas relief of Adam in the garden giving the beasts their names.

[481] Is there any allusion here to Noah as a “preacher of righteousness?”

[482] 1 Pet. iii, 20, 21. The dove is the symbol, says Tertullian, of the Holy Spirit bringing the peace of God after the mystical lustration of the soul in baptism.—De Baptismo, vii.

[483] It is difficult to conceive how such a wide departure from historic truth took place in these representations. It has been suggested that they were copied from some pre-existing type, upon which this form was imposed by the conditions of space in which it was executed. Such a type occurs in the celebrated Apamean medals, of date A. D. 193-211. See Fig. 67. It probably commemorated the Deucalion deluge; and the design was apparently modified by the Christian artists to represent the preservation of Noah.

[484]

Hostia viva Deo tanquam puer offerar Isaac,

Et mea ligna gerens, sequar almum sub cruce patrem.

[485] E. g., Greg. Nazianz., Orat. 42.

[486] 1 Cor. x, 4.

[487] Paulinus of Nola, in the beginning of the fifth century, describes in spirited lines certain paintings analogous to those of which we have been speaking, but including some subjects not treated in the Catacombs. Among these are the passage of the Red Sea and the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, Joshua and the ark of God, Samson bearing away the gates of Gaza, the Israelites crossing Jordan, and the pathetic episode of Ruth and her sister-in-law, the one following and the other forsaking the stricken Naomi, the emblem, as the worthy bishop remarks, of mankind, part deserting, part adhering to the true faith:

Ruth sequitur sanctam, quam deserit Orpa, parentem;

Perfidiam nurus una, fidem nurus altera monstrat.

Præfert una Deum patriæ, patriam altera vitæ.

[488] Job xix, 17. This subject is also fantastically treated in Mediæval art. In a Byzantine MS. of the ninth or tenth century Job is exhibited as sitting in lugubrious melancholy amid the ruins of his house, while Satan is dancing before him in fiendish joy over the desolation he has caused, and is torturing his victim with a red-hot goad. Didron, Iconog. Chrét., p. 158.

[489] Roma Sotterranea, i, 310. The newly elected pope receives the investiture with the words, “Receive the pallium, to wit, the fullness of the apostle’s office.” Pallia are sent to foreign bishops from the tomb of St. Peter, and those who receive them keep them “in obsequium Petri”—in obedience and devotion to Peter.

[490] Hom. ii. In Ascens. Dom.

[491] Several Romanist writers interpret, with doubtful propriety, a fresco in the cemetery of St. Priscilla as a representation of the Annunciation. True to its gentle genius, the art of the Catacombs passes over the tragical scenes of the Slaughter of the Innocents, whose horrors later art has delighted to portray.

[492] In the church of the Ara Cœli, at Rome, is a miraculous image of the infant Christ, carved, it is said, out of wood from the Mount of Olives, and painted by St. Luke. It is known as the Santissimo Bambino, or Most Holy Babe, and is taken in its state-coach to visit the sick. At one time it received more fees than any physician in Rome. Its fête is celebrated by theatrical representations of the scenes of the Advent. The apocryphal Gospel of the Infancy tends to popularize this feature of Romanism.

[493] According to an ancient tradition mentioned by Origen and Leo the Great the number of the Magi was three. In the mediæval miracle plays they are called three gipsy kings, and their names are given as Gaspar, Melchior, and Belshazzar.

The early Fathers all refer to the adoration of the Magi as a proof of the divinity of Our Lord, not as any homage to Mary. See Clem. Alex., Pæd., ii, 8; Origen, c. Cels., i, p. 46; Chrysos., in Matt.; Jus. Mar., Dial. cum Tryph.; Iren., c. Hær., iii, 2; Hieron., in Esaiam, vi, 19; Ambr., in Luc., ii; Aug., Epiph. Serm.

[494] Rom. Sott., p. 261.—One of these devout fictions, known as the Proto-Evangelium, and attributed to St. James, was the source of those legends of the early life of Mary which furnished so many subjects to Italian art. According to this tradition she was dedicated while yet an infant to a religious life, and remained till twelve years of age in the temple, where she was daily fed by angels. See an inscription in Provence: MARIA VIRGO MINISTER IN TEMPLO GEROSALE. Later legends assert the angelic pre-annunciation of her birth and her immaculate conception, which has at length become a formulated dogma of the church, though contrary to the opinion of the ancient Fathers. (Kayes’ Tertul., p. 386 and postea.) St. Joachim and St. Anne, her parents, are invoked in the Missal, which also asserts her freedom from original sin, an exemption shared only by Our Lord, John the Baptist, and Jeremiah.

In her youth, says the Proto-Evangelium, Mary was consigned to Joseph, not for marriage, but for parental guardianship. A number of suitors claimed her hand, but the apparition of a dove flying from the top of Joseph’s rod indicated the divinely chosen spouse. In course of time, in consequence of the growing superior regard for celibacy, the legends of her perpetual virginity were developed, although some, at least, of the Fathers held a contrary opinion. See Tertul., De Monogamia, c. 8, and De Carne Christi, c. 23; Neander’s Antignostikus, Whedon’s Commentary, Matt. xiii, 55. The word πρωτότοκον, first-born, applied to Jesus, Matt. i, 25, implies a second born afterward, as in Rom. viii, 29, “first born of many brethren;” otherwise the word μονογενής, only born, would be used, as in Luke vii, 12; ix, 38.

[495] De Rossi and some other writers call this figure Isaiah without any good reason.

[496] Rom. Sott., p. 260.

[497] Imagines Selectæ Deiparæ Virginis, pl. iv. This picture is thought to be of the sixth century.

[498] Test. of Catacombs, p. 27.

[499] One of these has a saffron-coloured robe, and soft brown eyes and hair. The other wears a deep crimson robe with purple stripes. Both are richly embroidered and bejeweled.

[500] Northcote’s Catacombs, p. 77.

[501] Rom. Sott., p. 255.

[502] Rom. Sott., pl. viii.

[503] The circumstance above mentioned is another evidence that no logical nor historical difficulties are any obstacle to the devout credulity of Rome, in discovering proofs of its favourite dogmas where a rational criticism is unable to find them.

[504] These figures are given in minute detail in Perret, tom. iii, planches 16 to 20. On the arch and on the other lunettes will be seen the “great fish” and the prophet Jonah, the Good Shepherd bearing a goat, not a lamb, on his shoulders, and the ever-recurring peacocks and doves.

[505] In Byzantine art, pictures of the Virgin Mary are generally inscribed with the letters ΜΡ ΘΥ for ΜΗΤΗΡ ΘΕΟΥ—Mother of God.

[506] A literal interpretation of the Scripture: “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own soul also.”—Luke ii, 35.

[507] Mater æque non demonstratur adhæsisse illi, cum Marthæ et Mariæ aliæ in commercio ejus frequentantur. Hoc denique in loco (Luke viii, 20) apparet incredulitas eorum cum is doceret viam vitæ.—De Carne Christi, c. 7.

[508]

Solus labe caret peccati conditor orbis,

Ingenitus genitusque Deus, Pater et Patre natus.

—Apotheosis, 894.

[509] Nec sumpsit [Christus] carnem peccati quamvis de materna carne peccati.—De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione, lib. i, c. 24. He further beautifully says: Solus unus est qui sine peccato natus est in similitudine carnis peccati, sine peccato vixit inter aliena peccata sine peccato mortuus est propter nostra peccata.—Ibid., c. 35.

[510] Φιλοτιμία καὶ ἀπόνοια.—Hom. in Matt., xii, 47.

[511] See the words of Our Lord on this very subject, Luke xi, 28: “Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it.”

[512] “Infanda.”—Theol. Dogmat. de Incarn., lib. xiv, c. i.

[513] These heretics receive their name from the κολλύρα, or cake, which they offered to the deified Virgin. Thus early was a new paganism substituted for that which was passing away. In modern Rome, cook-shops are dedicated to Mary under the title of “Our Lady of Cakes and Sugar-Plums,” thus literally “baking cakes to the Queen of heaven,” like the idolaters of Palestine denounced by the prophet. Madame de Staël has truly said, “The Catholic is the Pagan’s heir.”

[514] Iren. adv. Hæreses, lib. iii, c. 33; lib. v, c. 19.

[515] See the hymn in the office of the Virgin:

Quod Eva tristis abstulit
Tu reddis almo germine.

Compare also the “Ave maris stella.”

[516] De Spectaculis, c. 30.

[517] See Shelley’s Notes to Queen Mab.

[518] Maitland, p. 333.

[519] The letters B. M., so frequently recurring in sepulchral inscriptions, have no reference to the Virgin Mary. They stand for Bene Merenti—To the well-deserving, or Bonæ Memoriæ—Of pious memory.

[520] Ut ipsa corporis facies simulacrum fuerit mentis, figura probitatis.—De Virgin., lib. ii, c. 2.

[521] Neque enim novimus faciem Virginis Mariæ.—De Trin., c. 8.

[522] Aringhi (tom. ii, p. 195) copies a crucifixion from the Catacomb of “Julii Papæ," in which Mary appears crowned with a nimbus, and bearing, after the Byzantine manner, the label Dei Genetrix—Mother of God. It was probably painted by a Greek artist of late date. The miraculous images of Mary are too numerous to mention. Among these are the winking Madonna of Rimini; that of St. Peter’s, which shed blood when struck; that of Arezzo, which wept at the profanity of some drunkards; another at Rome, which shed tears at the invasion of the French; stranger still, one at Lucca, which transferred the infant Christ from one arm to the other to preserve him from danger; and one mentioned in the Fablieux of Le Grand, which, when a scaffold broke, stretched forth a painted arm to rescue from death the artist to whom she owed her existence! The practical and undevout curiosity of the Czar Peter of Russia exposed the fraud of one of the weeping Madonnas of the Greek church by the detection of a reservoir of water behind her eyes. In popular legend, also, Mary has often come down from her throne of glory, not to communicate lessons about sin and salvation, but to secure some trivial gain or to recover some lost money.

[523] Peinture, tom. ii, p. 38.

[524] Harduin, iv, 430, A. D. 712.

[525] In the church of St. Cecilia at Rome. The homage of the Virgin was now called ὑπερδουλεία—the highest degree of veneration.

[526] This legend is first mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the sixth century, (De Gloria Mart., lib. i, c. 4,) next by John Damascenus in the eighth century, but is most fully detailed in the Legenda Aurea in the fourteenth. Some of the earlier paintings represent with touching naiveté the translation of the soul of Mary as a new-born infant to heaven, where it is received in the arms of her Divine Son. In later art the assumption is more literally represented, and Mary is received and crowned by the three persons of the Holy Trinity, while angels bear her train. Bodily assumption was also attributed to John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene.

[527] E. g., Psa. lxviii, 1: “Let Mary arise, and let her enemies be scattered.” On one of the principal churches of Rome may still be read the awful perversion of Scripture: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of Mary, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

[528] The expression of Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem in the seventh century.

[529] In allusion to the woman in the Apocalypse, xii, 1.

[530] See a fresco in the Campo Santo, Pisa.

[531] In the church of Gesù e Maria at Rome.

[532] Janua Cœli.

[533] Stella matutina.

[534] Refugium peccatorum.

[535] Succurre miseris.

[536] Tu nos ab hoste protege, et mortis hora suscipe.

[537] Ora pro populo, interveni pro clero intercede pro devoto femineo sexu. See also in the “Ave Maris Stella,”

Salva vincla reis,
Profer lumen cæcis,
Mala nostra pelle,
Bona cuncta posce.

See also the “Regina Cœli,” and the “Ave Regina Cœlorum.”

[538] She has been actually designated the Fourth Person of the Trinity. In Rome there are twenty-seven churches dedicated to Mary for one dedicated to Christ.

“In dangers, in difficulties, in doubts,” says the Roman Breviary “in the abyss of sadness and despair, think of Mary, invoke Mary.”

[539] In the church of S. Maria Maggiore at Rome may be seen a restored mosaic of the adoration of the Magi, in which Mary is represented, with a golden nimbus and tunic, as sitting on a chair of state higher than that of the Divine Child. But in copies of the original mosaic of the fifth century, made two centuries ago, (Ciampini, Vet. Mon., i, p. 200,) Mary is standing, without any nimbus or other sign of honour, by the side of Christ, who, attended by angels, occupies the throne. This was evidently a vindication of the divinity of the Son of Mary against the heresies of the Arians, which has been perverted by modern Romanists to an exaltation of the Virgin to co-equal honours with the Son of God.

The figure of Mary as the Queen of heaven in the church of St. Nicholas at Rome is said by Papebrocius, a Roman authority, to have been originally intended for Our Lord, but afterward altered to the Madonna, a significant illustration of the substitution of her worship for that of her Divine Son.

[540] See the wrathful image of Christ in the Last Judgment of the Campo Santo and the Sistine Chapel.

[541] Wordsworth’s Eccles. Sonnets, xxi.

[542] Longfellow’s “Golden Legend."

[543] Dec., 1854. An inscription in St. Peter’s commemorates its publication.

[544] Luke ii, 46. Such is Didron’s opinion.

[545] See Fig. 132.

[546] Numerous references to these veils occur in the Fathers; e. g., Paulin., Natal. Felic., iii, 6: Aurea nunc niveis ornantur limina velis; Hieron., Epitaph. Nepot.: Vela semper in ostiis; Epiphan., ep. ad. Johan. Hierosol.: Inveni vela pendens in foribus. They were used also at the entrance of Pagan schools, “to conceal,” says Augustine, “the ignorance that took refuge within.”

[547] Prudentes quinque virgines olei vasa cum lampadibus deferentes.—Roma Sotteranea, tom. iii, p. 171.

[548] Plutarch, Quæst. Rom.

[549] Rock’s Hierurgia, p. 463.

[550] On an ivory diptych in the Educational Museum at Toronto, Ca., the raising of Lazarus appears exactly after this primitive type.

[551] Lord Lindsay, Christian Art, vol. i, p. 51.

[552] Rom. Sott., p. 307.

[553] See Book II, chap. ii, p. 269.

[554] Rom. Sott., p. 308.

[555] According to Romish tradition, the Divine Sufferer received five thousand stripes during his scourging. This, as they would be inflicted by Roman soldiers, would be beyond human endurance, and was far beyond what Jewish or Roman law would allow.

[556] Acts iv, 3.

[557] Aringhi, Roma Sotterranea, tom. ii, p. 273.

[558] Hence Augustine asserts that if the name of the apostle is not expressly mentioned, St. Paul is always understood by this title—Apostolus cum dicetur, si non exprimatur quis apostolus non intelligitur nisi Paulus.—Contra duas Epis. Pelag., lib. iii, c. 3. The apostles were sometimes represented by twelve men, but without any individual distinction.

[559]

O Roma felix, quæ duorum Principum
Es consecrata glorioso sanguine;
Horum cruore purpurata ceteras
Excellis orbis una pulcritudines.

 —Office for the Festival of St. Peter and St. Paul.

St. Paul is designated the illustrious doctor, the vase of election, the teacher of the nations, and preacher of truth throughout the world.—Egregie doctor Paule, vas electionis, doctor gentium, prædicator veritatis in universo mundo.—Ibid.

[560] Of these types are the portraits on a bronze medal found in the Catacomb of St. Domitilla, in the so-called tomb of Sts. Peter and Paul at St. Sebastian’s, and in the early sculptures, mosaics, and paintings generally.

[561] The scoffing Lucian, who may have conversed with some who witnessed the execution of St. Paul, describes him as “the bald-headed and long-nosed Galilæan, who mounted through the air into the third heaven.”—Γαλιλαῖος, ἀναφαλαντίας, ἐπίῤῥινος, ἐς τρίτον ουρανὸν ἀεροβατήσας.—Philopatris. Nicephorus and the Acts of Paul and Thecla describe him as bald—ψιλὸς τὴν κεφαλήν. The apocryphal Acts and Malalas add the epithets γλυκύς and χάριτος πλήρης, sweet, and full of grace.

[562] The cultus of Peter, the result of the growing conception of his primacy, was developed to a degree second only to that of Mary. Its extent and character in the ninth century are indicated by a mosaic in the triclinium of San Giovanni di Laterano at Rome, in which the apostle, seated on a lofty throne, with the keys of heaven and hell lying in his lap, is bestowing the pallium, or symbol of ecclesiastical power, on the most holy lord, Pope Leo—so he is designated—and the standard of battle on the Emperor Charlemagne, both of whom are kneeling at his feet. Beneath is the following prayer, addressed to Peter as to God: BEATE PETRE DONA VITA LEONI PPE BICTORIA CARLO REGI DONA, “Blessed Peter, give life to Pope Leo, and victory to King Charles.”

This religious cultus culminated in the erection of that noblest of all earthly temples, raised to the honour of a lowly fisherman, and in the idolatrous homage paid to the great bronze statue cast from that of Jupiter Capitolinus, if it be not indeed the identical statue of the heathen deity transformed into that of the Christian apostle and Romish saint.

[563] We may here notice the precious Romish relic known as St. Peter’s chair. In June, 1867, the present pontiff ordered the bronze covering with which this object of veneration had been concealed for two hundred years to be removed, and the chair was found to be a solid oaken structure with iron rings, by which it could be carried like the sella gestatoria, in which the popes are borne in religious processions, and covered in part with ivory plates on which are engraved the labours of Hercules and other scenes. This chair, which is commemorated in one of the festivals of the church, Romish tradition asserts to be that in which St. Peter sat while exercising episcopal authority at Rome, and in which it is presumed he was borne in state, like those haughty pontiffs who claimed to be his successors. It is supposed to have been preserved during the ages of persecution in the crypts of the Catacombs; indeed, tradition identifies the Catacomb of Ostrianus on the Appian Way as the scene where this relic was venerated in the early centuries. Those who regard the fact of Peter’s presence in Rome as exceedingly hypothetical, and who altogether reject the notion of his episcopal authority, will regard any refutation of this legend as superfluous.

An inscription is shown said to have been engraved by St. Peter himself, also the font at which he baptized! (See Fig. 131.)

[564] It will be observed that in this chamber the Good Shepherd occupies the position of prominence and dignity in the compartment over the arcosolium, balanced by Daniel in the lions’ den and the three Hebrews in the furnace. On the left hand is a shelf for lamps, magnified in Romish imagination into a credence table for supporting the elements of the eucharist. In the ceiling are oranti and lambs.

[565] Rom. Sott., p. 268.