[Illustration: Mosaic of St. Praxedes, V Century, Showing the Lamb
Christ.]
[Illustration: The Lamb Slowly Becoming Human.]
[Illustration: The Lamb Multiplying the Loaves and Fishes, IV Century
Sarcophagus.]
The first representations of a human form on the cross differ considerably from those which prevail at the present time.
[Illustration: The Lamb Resurrecting Lazarus, IV Century Sarcophagus.]
While the figure on the modern cross is almost naked, those on the earlier ones are clothed and completely covered. Wearing a flowing tunic, Jesus is standing straight against the cross with his arms outstretched, as though in the act of delivering an address. Frequently, at his feet, on the cross, there is still painted the figure of a lamb, which by and by, he is going to replace altogether. Gradually the robe disappears from the crucified one, until we see him crucified, as in the adjoining picture, with hardly any clothes on, and wearing an expression of great agony.
[Illustration: Modern Christ.]
[Illustration: Christ and the Twelve Apostles, Carrying Swastikas and
Solar Discs Instead of the Cross. Sarcophagus, Milan.]
THE SILENCE OF PROFANE WRITERS
In all historical matters, we cannot ask for more than a reasonable assurance concerning any question. In fact, absolute certainty in any branch of human knowledge, with the exception of mathematics, perhaps, is impossible. We are finite beings, limited in all our powers, and, hence, our conclusions are not only relative, but they should ever be held subject to correction. When our law courts send a man to the gallows, they can have no more than a reasonable assurance that he is guilty; when they acquit him, they can have no more than a reasonable assurance that he is innocent. Positive assurance is unattainable. The dogmatist is the only one who claims to possess absolute certainty. But his claim is no more than a groundless assumption. When, therefore, we learn that Josephus, for instance, who lived in the same country and about the same time as Jesus, and wrote an extensive history of the men and events of his day and country, does not mention Jesus, except by interpolation, which even a Christian clergyman, Bishop Warburton, calls "a rank forgery, and a very stupid one, too," we can be reasonably sure that no such Jesus as is described in the New Testament, lived about the same time and in the same country with Josephus.