Nor is the Third Person of the Trinity absent from these epitaphs. We read on some for instance: “In the Holy Spirit of God”; “Mayest thou live in the Holy Spirit.” Even the mention of all three Persons of the Blessed Trinity has been found engraved on these sepulchral tablets.
What, however, is most striking in these early records of the belief of the Christian congregation is the testimony they bear—a testimony repeated an innumerable number of times—to the primitive belief in the supreme Divinity of Jesus Christ. We find again and again such formulas as “In the name of Christ”; “In God the Lord Christ”; “In God Christ”; “The great God Christ” (“Deo Magno Christo”). In the earliest epitaphs the most common symbol is the fish, painted, carved, or written at the beginning or end of the epitaph, not as part of the sentence, but as a complete formula in itself. Now this was a declaration of faith in “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour”; the letters which form the Greek word Ichthus, as we have explained, being the initials[141] of the words of this formula.
There is no doubt that from the earliest times the fish was an acknowledged symbol of our Lord. It became at once a sacred “tessera” or sign—quite unintelligible to the pagan and official world, but to the believer a most precious symbol, containing with striking brevity and yet with striking clearness, a complete précis, so to speak, of the creed, a profession of facts as far as related to the Saviour.
The catacombs are full of Christ. It was to Him that the Christians of the age of persecution ever turned: it was on Him they rested—in gladness and in sorrow; in sickness and in health; in the days of danger—and these were sadly numerous in the first two centuries and a half—and in the hour of death. It was from His words they drew their strength. In the consciousness of His ever-presence in their midst, they suffered gladly for His sake. With His name on their lips they died fearlessly, joyfully passing into the Valley of the veiled Shadow. On the tablet of marble or plaster which closed up the narrow shelf in the catacomb corridor where their poor remains were reverently, lovingly laid, the dear name of Jesus was often painted or carved.
The catacombs are full of Christ. We have spoken several times of the paintings on the walls and ceilings of the corridors and chambers. There is great variety of these, the Old and New Testament supplying the majority of subjects. But by far the favourite subject of representation—certainly the leading type of Christian art in the first days—was the figure of the “Good Shepherd.” It does not only appear in the City of the Dead. It was often graved upon chalices used in the holy Eucharist. It was traced in gold upon glass, it was moulded upon lamps, it was carved upon rings. But it is to the catacombs that we must go to find it in its most varied and pathetic forms—now painted in fresco upon the walls of the corridors and chambers where the dead lie so thickly; now roughly, now more carefully carved on countless tablets; now sculptured upon the more costly sarcophagi.
Sometimes the Shepherd is represented with one sheep, at times with several; some listening to His voice—some turning listlessly away. We come upon it in a thousand places on the tombs themselves—in the little chapels or oratories leading out of the corridors where the more distinguished among the dead sleep. It is the favourite symbol of the Christian life and faith.
This constantly recurring figure of the Good Shepherd with His sheep in the catacombs throws much light on this deeply interesting and at the same time important question—What were the thoughts of that early Church in Rome respecting Christ and His teaching?
We must remember they lived very near the times when the greatest figure in history lived on earth, and talked with men. We shall do well to bear in mind that the first generation of these Roman Christians were taught by Peter and by Paul, and that through most of the second century men lived whose fathers must have seen and listened to these great servants of the Divine Master, certainly to their immediate disciples.