There are, however, one or two peculiarities in its mode of treatment which require a word of explanation. The shepherd is generally represented as a young man lightly clad, with his tunic girt high about his loins, denoting thereby his unwearied activity; he is surrounded by sheep, or he carries one on his shoulders, bearing it home to the fold,—the most tender act of his office. And there is nothing in this but what we might naturally have expected. But he is also sometimes represented with a goat instead of a sheep upon his shoulders; and, in later paintings, he has the pastoral reed or tuneful pipe either hanging on the tree by his side or he is playing on it. Now this last particular has no place in the gospel parable, and the former seems directly opposed to it, since the goat is the accepted symbol of the wicked, the sheep only of the good. Hence these points have been taken up by some critics, either as tokens of thoughtless carelessness on the part of the Christian artists, or as proofs that their work, whether consciously or unconsciously, was merely copied from some Pagan original. Neither of these remarks appears to be just. The images of a shepherd in Pagan art, with scarcely a single exception, are of a very different kind; and the particular details objected to are not only capable of receiving a Christian interpretation, they even express consoling Christian truths. St. Gregory Nazianzen speaks of the anxious care of the shepherd as he sits on the hillside, filling the air with the soft notes of his pipe, calling together his scattered flock; and he observes that in like manner the spiritual pastor, desirous to recall souls to God, should follow the example of his Divine Master, and use his pipe more frequently than his staff. Then, as to the substitution of the goat for the sheep, it was probably intended as a distinct protest against the un-Christian severity of those heretics, who in very early times refused reconciliation to certain classes of penitent sinners.
Not many, however, of the most ancient Christian paintings are of the same simple and obvious character as the Good Shepherd. The leading feature which characterises most of them is this, that they suggest religious ideas or doctrines under the guise of artistic symbols or historic types. One doctrine specially prominent in them, and most appropriately taught in cemeteries, is that of the resurrection and the everlasting life of happiness which awaits the souls of the just after death. It is in this sense that we must understand not only the frequent repetitions of the stories of Jonas and of Lazarus—the type and the example of a resurrection—but also of Daniel in the lions’ den, and the three children in the fiery furnace. These last, indeed, very probably had reference also to the persecution which the Christians were then suffering, and were intended to inspire courage and a confident expectation that God would deliver them, even as He had delivered His chosen servants of old; but, as they are spoken of in very ancient Christian documents (e.g., in the hymns of St. Ephrem and in the Apostolic Constitutions) as foreshadowing the future triumph of the body over death, whence these too had been in a manner delivered, we prefer, in obedience to these ancient guides, to assign this interpretation to them; at any rate, it is certain that this interpretation cannot be excluded. Figures also of the deceased, with arms outstretched in prayer, sometimes accompanied by their names, or standing in the midst of a garden, or, again, figures of birds pecking at fruits and flowers, we understand as images of the soul still living after death, received into the garden of Paradise, and fed by immortal fruits.
Sometimes there may be a difference of opinion perhaps as to the correctness of this or that interpretation suggested for any particular symbolical painting; but the soundness of the principle of interpretation in itself cannot be called in question, nor will there often be any serious difficulty in its application, among those who study the subject with diligence and candour. The language, both of Holy Scripture and of the earliest Fathers, abounds in symbols, and it was only natural that the earliest specimens of Christian art should exhibit the same characteristic. More was meant by them than that which met at first the outward senses; without this clue to their meaning, the paintings are scarcely intelligible,—with it, all is plain and easy.
Tombstone from the very ancient Crypt of St. Lucina, now united with the Catacomb of St. Callixtus.
Take, for example, the figure of an anchor, so repeatedly represented on gravestones and other monuments of the Catacombs; so rarely, if indeed ever, to be found on Pagan monuments. What influenced the early Christians in the selection of such a figure? what meaning did they attach to it? This enquiry forces itself upon our minds, if we are intelligent students of Christian archæology, anxious to understand what we see: and if we are also prudent and on our guard against being led astray by mere fancy, we shall conduct the enquiry by the same laws and principles as we should apply to the interpretation of some perplexing riddle in heathen art. We should first examine the literature of the age and people to whom it was supposed to belong, and see if any light could be thrown upon it from that source. In the present instance, therefore, we turn to the sacred literature of the Christians, and we find there a passage which speaks of the duty of “holding fast the hope that is set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm.” We assume, then, provisionally, as a basis of further enquiry, that an anchor may perhaps have been used as an emblem of Christian hope. Continuing our search in the same sacred books, we find that there was a special connection in the Christian creed between hope and the condition of the dead. It is written that Christians are not sorrowful about those who die, “as others who have no hope.” The conclusion is obvious, that a reference to hope is just one of those things which might not unreasonably be looked for on a Christian’s grave-stone, since it was something on which they prided themselves as a point of difference between themselves and others. This greatly confirms our conjectural interpretation of the symbol, and we proceed with some confidence to apply it to every example of its use that we can meet with; for if it is the right key, it cannot fail to unlock all the problems that will come before us. In doing this, we are first struck by the fact that in several instances the very names of the deceased persons on whose epitaphs the anchor is engraved, themselves also meant the same thing. They were called Spes, Elpis, Elpidius, Elpizusa; all names coming from the Latin or Greek word for hope. Next, we observe that many of these anchors are so fashioned as to contain a hidden yet unmistakable representation of a cross; and, reflecting that the one only ground of a Christian’s hope is the cross of Christ, we hail this also as lending further support to our theory. Yet once more, we find many of the epitaphs contain the same idea, expressed in distinct words written in the ordinary alphabet and not in these hieroglyphics, so to call them,—we find Spes in Deo, Spes in Deo Christo &c. Finally, we often find the anchor united with one or more of several other symbols, to which, by a similar but independent process, we can assign a certain signification. We try, then, whether our rendering of the anchor as equivalent to “hope” will make sense, as a schoolboy would say who was trying to translate a piece of Greek or Latin into English, in all these other places; and if it does, we are satisfied that our interpretation can be no longer disputed. A false reading of a single symbol might chance to fit one monument, or two, or three; but to say that any false reading will fit hundreds of separate monuments, fit all equally well, and succeed in extracting a consistent meaning from each, is to assert what no sane man can believe.
Those who know the way in which the interpretation of the Egyptian hieroglyphics was first guessed at, and then triumphantly established against all gainsayers, by a similar process of reasoning, will not dispute the soundness of the argument by which the meaning of the anchor has been arrived at. We cannot attempt to vindicate our interpretation of all the other symbols used by Christian artists with the same minuteness of detail, neither is it necessary. All will accept the dove as a fitting symbol of the simplicity, the gentleness, purity, and innocence of a Christian soul gone to its rest, and a sheep as fitly representing a disciple of Christ.
Another emblem, the fish, requires more words of explanation, because it is capable of receiving a double meaning. At first sight, our thoughts at once recur to the words of our Blessed Lord to St. Peter and his brother, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,” and no doubt this will sufficiently explain many old Christian paintings or sculptures in which the fish appears. Taking this idea for our guide, we can understand why a man angling and catching a fish should find a place on the walls of a church, whether above ground or below. Such a representation in these sacred places was inspired by the same doctrinal teaching, and suggested the same ideas, as were present to the old Christian preachers when they spoke of men being caught by the bait of charity and the hook of preaching, and being drawn out of the bitter waters of this world, not to have their life taken from them, which is the fate that awaits the natural fish when it is caught, but that they may be made partakers of a new and heavenly life. This, however, will not enable us to decypher other symbolical paintings into which the fish enters, and which are found with equal frequency among the decorations of the Christian cemeteries. It is necessary that we should learn another, and, as it would seem, a still more common use of the fish. Just as the dove might stand for the Holy Ghost, and also for a soul sanctified by the Holy Ghost—just as the lamb or sheep might stand either for the Lamb of God, or for those who are “the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand”—so the fish, too, was used not only to represent a Christian, but also, still more frequently perhaps, Christ Himself. To understand how this could be, we must study a little Greek, which may be easily apprehended, however, even by those who are not scholars, if they will fix their attention for a few moments on the accompanying plan:—
| Ι ΗϹΟΥϹ | = | Jesus |
| Χ ΡΙϹΤΟϹ | = | Christ |
| Θ ΕΟΥ | = | of God |
| Υ ΙΟϹ | = | Son |
| Ϲ ΩΤΗΡ | = | Saviour |
The Greek for fish is here written perpendicularly, one letter above another, ΙΧΘΥϹ; and it is seen that these five letters are the initial letters of five words, which, together, contain a tolerably complete account of what Christ is. He is Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. Thus, this one word, ιχθυς, or fish, read in this way, tells a great deal about our Lord’s name and titles; it is almost a miniature creed, or, as one of the Fathers expresses it, “it contains in one name a whole multitude of holy names.” It would take us too long to enquire into the origin of this device for expressing our Lord’s name and titles in so compendious and secret a form. Clearly, whoever may have invented it, it was very ingenious, and specially convenient at those times and places where men dared not speak of Him freely and openly. We cannot say when it began, but it was in universal use throughout the Church during the first three hundred years of her life, and then, when she was in the enjoyment of peace and liberty, it gradually dropped, first out of sight in Christian monuments, and then out of mind also in Christian literature. But, during the ages of persecution, it had sunk deep into the habits of Christian thought and language; it became, as it were, a part of the very Catechism,—every baptized Christian seems to have been familiar with it, whether he lived on the banks of the Tiber or of the Po, of the Loire, of the Euphrates, or of the Nile. In all these parts of the world, writers in books, poets in hymns, preachers in sermons, artists in painting, the very masons themselves on gravestones, made use of it without a word of explanation, in a way that would utterly mystify any modern Christian community. Who would now dream of carving or painting a fish upon a gravestone in a Christian churchyard? yet scores of graves in the Catacombs were so marked, and some of them with hardly a word or an emblem upon them besides. Or what meaning could we attach to the picture of a dove or a lamb standing on a fish’s back, if we did not understand that the fish represented Christ, and the dove or the lamb a Christian, so that the whole symbol stood for a Christian soul supported by Christ through the waves and storms of life? Or again, only imagine a Christian in these days having buried with him, or wearing round his neck during life, a little figure of a fish cut in ivory, or crystal, or mother of pearl, or some still more costly material? Yet a number of those who were buried in the Catacombs did this; and some of these fish even bear an inscription, calling upon the fish to be a Saviour!