The next step was to represent the Apostles as twelve men all alike, each with a sheep, and Christ in the middle, also with a sheep, sometimes larger than the others. We find this on some of the sarcophagi.[146] Again, a little later, we have them represented as twelve venerable men, bearing tablets or scrolls in their hands, no emblems to distinguish one from another, but their names inscribed over or beside each. They are thus represented in relief on several ancient sarcophagi now in the Christian Museum in the Vatican, and in several of the most ancient churches at Rome and Ravenna, ranged on each side of the Saviour in the vault of the apsis, or standing in a line beneath.
But while in the ancient Greek types, and the old mosaics, the attributes are omitted, they adhere almost invariably to a certain characteristic individual representation, which in the later ages of painting was wholly lost, or at least neglected. In these eldest types, St. Peter has a broad face, white hair, and short white beard: St. Paul, a long face, high bold forehead, dark hair and beard: St. Andrew is aged, with flowing white hair and beard: St. John, St. Thomas, St. Philip, young and beardless: St. James Major and St. James Minor, in the prime of life, short brown hair and beard; both should bear a resemblance more or less to the Saviour, but St. James Minor particularly: St. Matthew, St. Jude, St. Simon, St. Matthias, aged, with white hair. The tablets or scrolls which they carry in their hands bear, or are supposed to bear, the articles of the Creed. It is a tradition, that, before the apostles dispersed to preach the Gospel in all lands, they assembled to compose the declaration of faith since called the Apostles’ Creed, and that each of them furnished one of the twelve propositions contained in it, in the following order:—St. Peter: Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem, creatorem cœli et terræ. St. Andrew: Et in Jesum Christum Filium ejus unicum, Dominum nostrum. St. James Major: Qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine. St. John: Passus sub Pontio Pilato, crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus. St. Philip: Descendit ad inferos, tertia die resurrexit à mortuis. St. James Minor: Ascendit ad cœlos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis. St. Thomas: Inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos. St. Bartholomew: Credo in Spiritum Sanctum. St. Matthew: Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam; sanctorum communionem. St. Simon: Remissionem peccatorum. St. Matthias: Carnis resurrectionem. St. Thaddeus: Et vitam æternam.
The statues of the apostles on the shrine of the Virgin in the San Michele at Florence exhibit a fine example of this arrangement. I give the figure of St. Philip holding his appropriate sentence of the Creed on a scroll (65).
In later times, the Apostles, instead of being disposed in a line, are grouped round the Saviour in glory, or they form a circle of heads in medallions: as statues, they ornament the screen in front of the altar, or they are placed in a line on each side of the nave, standing against the pillars which support it. From the sixth century it became usual to distinguish each of them by a particular emblem or attribute borrowed from some circumstance of his life or death. Thus, taking them in order, according to the canon of the mass,—
St. Peter bears the keys or a fish.
St. Paul, the sword: sometimes two swords.
St. Andrew, the transverse cross.