| Fig. 168.—The “tchakra,” or sacred wheel of Brahma and Vishnu, also called the “wheel of fire.” |
Fig. 169.—Kiku-Mon, badge of the empire of Japan. |
Christian art, from the beginning of the first century of our era to the fourth, consisted almost entirely of symbols. The first Christians were fearful lest their new converts should relapse into Paganism, and so avoided images; and being persecuted they used only a few symbols such as the fish, the dove, the lamb, and the monogram of Christ. This last consisted of two Greek letters X and P (Chi and Rho), the Chi forming the cross as shown at A in [Fig. 170]; another form of this is shown at B, in which a cross has the Rho formed on the upright stem, and has the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet (Alpha and Omega) written beneath the arms. This form sometimes appears on the nimbus over the head of a lamb; the latter sometimes stands on a round hill, at the bottom of which issue four streams, the whole symbol signifying “Christ the first and the last, the Lamb of God,” the streams “the four evangelists whose gospels are the water of life to the whole world.”
At C, Fig 170, we have the monogram that the Emperor Constantine placed on the labarum, or
Fig. 170.—Sacred Monograms in Christian Art.
Imperial standard, after his conversion; it was woven in gold on purple cloth. Christ was sometimes represented as Orpheus, with a lyre in his hand, amid the birds and beasts; the commonest personification of Him was, however, as the Good Shepherd caring for His sheep, in which He was always represented young and beautiful. Every allegorical representation of the Founder of the Christian religion was rendered pleasing to the eye of the new converts, and anything pertaining to the dreadful scene of the Crucifixion was avoided. The Christian Church was symbolized under the form of a ship, with our Lord as the pilot and the congregation as the passengers; whence we may have the word nave (of a church), from navis, a ship; naus, a ship, was also the Greek name for the inner part of a temple.
