Two paintings were found in Herculaneum, and may at present be seen in the Museo Borbonico at Naples, which are of undoubted Christian origin, and present a curious specimen of Christian art in the first century. Each of these two paintings is divided into an upper field, and into a lower smaller one. The smaller field of one of them is destined to expose the folly and corruption of paganism, and Egyptian mythology is selected for the purpose. We behold temples. In front of one of them stands a statue of Isis; another is devoted to Anubis the dog-god: two figures of crocodiles lie stretched across the entrance. On the left, we see a live crocodile waiting for its prey amongst the bulrushes: an ass is in the act of walking into the open mouth of the monster, in spite of the efforts of the driver, who vainly endeavours to pull the animal back by its tail. This might be intended to satirize some Roman pagan, were it not for the counterpart. To the right, and immediately opposite the idolatries on the field already spoken of, we see a well into which a rope is being lowered, whilst a naked man, standing by, is seeking to cover himself. An allusion is here made to fishing and baptism. On the left, the crocodile of the former picture is again met with, but a warrior with lance and shield advances with the view of slaying it. In the middle of the painting a net is spread between two trees, and behind it, and in direct opposition to the Isis on the pagan picture, we behold a tall and erect cross. The upper fields harmonise with the lower. The Christian painting displays a vigorous and stately tree between two younger palm-trees; the pagan picture has the same symbols; but the middle tree is in the sere and yellow leaf, whilst a Dryad issuing from the roots flourishes an axe to cut it down. The allusion is not to be mistaken. The sun of paganism has set: the axe is already at the root.
The greater number of the symbols named, however rich they may be in thought, are sadly deficient in form, and we can discover but little progress in this respect from the origin of Christianity to the time of Constantine. Architecture, and especially ecclesiastical architecture, may be said to be the only branch of the fine arts which was successfully cultivated, and architecture itself was insignificant for three centuries subsequently to the birth of Christ. Painting and sculpture could elude cruelty and take refuge beneath the cloak of symbols: but churches could not be masked. It was difficult to hide them. In the earliest periods of Christianity, too, their absence was not seriously felt; people prayed where they thought proper. Scripture tells us that the apostles taught in the temple of Jerusalem. Christianity, a sect of Judaism in its origin, dwelt for a long time in the synagogues. Wherever St Paul came, he preached first in the Jewish schools. In times of persecution, the believers sought refuge in the catacombs. They assembled in the solitude of forests to pray and to exhort one another. When the Jews opposed themselves to the new creed, congregations met in the houses of the more wealthy. The apartment usually employed for divine purposes is supposed to have been the triclinium, or large dining-room of the richer classes amongst the Greeks and Romans. The want of churches was first experienced when frequent conversions swelled congregations beyond the limits of a large family; and this, as we have hinted, occurred in the course of the third century. The existence of a church expressly devoted to Christian worship in the reign of the Emperor Severus Alexander, has been proved beyond a doubt. It was a reign remarkable for its spirit of toleration. The Christians were suffered to hold offices in the state, in the army, and even at court. Churches rose rapidly under the mild light of toleration. Even in the western provinces of the empire, in Gaul, Spain, and Britain, we meet with churches erected at the commencement of the fourth century. In Nicomedia also, under the very eyes of Diocletian, a church was built that surpassed in splendour the very palace of the Emperor. The army of Diocletian destroyed the holy building in the last grand persecution. It was the last convulsive effort of paganism in its agony.
No particulars of these churches have come down to us. Of that in Nicomedia we know nothing, save that it was splendid. None had, we are inclined to suppose, any fixed style. The style of the original triclinium in which believers first congregated, was, in all likelihood, imitated. Even in private houses, these triclinia were magnificently adorned. The walls were ornamented with rows of lofty columns, and where the Egyptian style prevailed, two rows of columns were constructed, one above the other; an effect of this last arrangement was the formation of a two-storied passage between the walls and the columns. In the beginning of the tenth century, Pope Leo III. constructed a dining-room after this fashion. We may fairly conclude that nothing grand or extraordinary in architecture was attempted in a period of great trouble and poverty. The real glory of Christian architecture dates from the reign of Constantine. Christianity, legalised by him, might venture to display her rites and her art. Under the government of Constantine the church was enriched. He endowed it with the spoils of defeated and expiring paganism. In the third century, the church of Rome, when summoned to yield its treasures, produced its poor as the only treasures it possessed. In the fifth century, that same church appointed a clerical commission to watch over and inspect its possessions in foreign countries.
The change of circumstances was not without a great and lasting influence. Paganism threatened no more. It was conquered. No further danger was to be apprehended from the departed religion of a gloomier age. The clerical profession, warmed and nourished by the rays of imperial favour, was soon effectually distinguished from the crowd of laymen which surrounded it. The desire to render this separation systematic and all-pervading was too natural to slumber for any length of time, and the absence of an order of architecture peculiar to the ministers of the new religion came to be severely felt. Rank and wealth have ever delighted in drawing towards them the eyes of the world. The worldliness and splendour of the church have been long the subject of violent animadversion. But how could it be otherwise? From the moment that Christianity became a favoured creed, conversions were rapid and frequent; but not all the neophytes converted in form, had undergone a similar change of spirit. Millions flocked through the open gates of the church. To teach all, before they entered, was an impossibility. If there was time to awe, that was something. If general conviction was out of the question, universal respect was easily attainable. The charms, the sensual enjoyments of the pagan altars, were once more offered to the heathen. The smoke of incense filled the church; the spoils of antiquity adorned its roofs and columns; the robes of the clergy were covered with gold; the rites of the church delighted in colours. But decoration and ornament alone were borrowed from paganism. The temples of the heathen could not be copied in form: they could not serve the purposes of Christian worship.
The destination of the temple was different from that of the church. The temple was the house of an idol: limited in extent, it received sufficient light through the open door. The rites of paganism were performed in the colonnade surrounding the temple, not in the temple itself, and the crowd of spectators stood beyond the limits of the sacred building. The sanctuary of Pandrosus at Athens, admits only of a few persons; and even the temple of Athenæ is not to be compared for size with our modern churches. The Christian religion is essentially didactic. It requires space for its hearers and disciples. But its sacraments were mysteries, and none but the elect were admitted to them. Thus, it was necessary to separate true believers from the bulk of the congregation. No buildings were so happily adapted to this double purpose as the houses of public justice and traffic, which, originally of Grecian origin, had arrived at a high state of perfection in the Roman empire. The most ancient of such houses—called Basilika—stood in Athens at the foot of the Pnyx. It was in such a building that Socrates appeared before his judges, and Christ was judged by Pilate. In the history of art, we trace the workings of omnipresent Nemesis. The sign of curse and infamy—the cross—has for centuries graced the banners of humanity. The Basilikon in which Christ was condemned, has lent its form to the churches in which his name is adored.
Whilst the groundwork of the Basilikon remained unchanged, Christian art added steeples and cupolas to increase the solemnity of the impression. The most perfect building of the kind is, without doubt, the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. For chastity and purity of style, it can never be surpassed. The numerous churches erected by ostentation and devotion in basilikon form are all inferior to that incomparable temple. Many, it is true, have been disfigured, robbed, and half-burned; but their faults are not accidental. The greater number were built at a time when Pagan art, their prototype, had sunk very low indeed. Moreover, since the days of Constantine, Pagan temples had fallen into disuse. They stood deserted, and were suffered to crumble away beneath the influences of neglect and time. Christian builders took all they wanted from the ruins; a fragment from this temple, a block from that. Ionian and Corinthian columns were placed in the same line. If a pillar was too long for its companion, it was shortened without reference to its diameters or form. Columns of different stones were jumbled together in a row. Thus, amongst a number of columns of purple granite in the church of Ara Celi at Rome we discover two Ionian columns of white marble. In Saint Peter's, granite and Parian and African marbles are grouped together without the smallest attempt at harmony or adaptation. San Giovanni in Porta Laterana boasts ten columns of five different kinds of stone.
A more interesting employment cannot be found than that of watching the slow and cautious progress of ancient painting and sculpture in connexion with Christianity. The slowness is indeed remarkable, when we reflect upon the high perfection which these arts had generally attained even during the reigns of the first emperors. Christianity dealt far differently with painting and sculpture, than with architecture. In the latter, the Pagan form was adopted and improved; but with respect to the former, she made a tabula rasa, and descended to the rudest efforts of daubing and carving. The shapes, both of men and animals, were awkward, cumbrous, and unnatural; every part was out of proportion, and the most solemn scenes acquired a ludicrous grotesqueness. But the strangest phenomenon is, that Pagan art itself, of its own accord, descended to as low a level. The productions of Paganism in the time of Constantine were altogether as barbarous as the clumsy attempts of the untutored hands of Christianity. The new religion had created a new world. The forms of the old might indeed survive for a time, but its spirit was gone. Paganism was a corpse. Altars might be crowned with garlands, sacrifice might be offered to the gods: but all in vain. A voice came forth from an island in the Ægean Sea; a voice of sorrow and complaint, but of truth also. It wailed the death of the great Pan. The mighty were indeed fallen, and so vast was the gulf between Paganism in the days of Titus, and Paganism in those of Constantine, that the creations of the former period could be no lesson to the idolaters of the latter. These clung to the worship of a departed age, but in spite of themselves. The new and mighty river of thought swept them onward, and carried them on to the very same parting point from which Christian art was struggling for perfection.
Christian art started with one grand error. It was warring for ever against itself. In portraying the world, it hated it. Of all its creations, there is not one which can be said to be really beautiful; the effusions of symbolical enthusiasm are without all plastic truth. Ideas were incorporated, but they did not prove men with flesh and blood. The paintings and carvings were hieroglyphics. The same figure expressed the same idea, and the idea once expressed, there was no desire to extend the circle of figures or to alter their wretched appearance. The same uncouth forms return with a killing monotony. Centuries do not change them. The uniformity of monastic life by no means tended to relax the inflexibility of invention. Religion, not art, was the sculptor's or the painter's object; his production was a creation of faith, not of beauty. Such is the character of almost all the carvings in wood and stone which have been found in the catacombs of Rome and Naples.
Christianity has the great merit of having discovered the poesy of the grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pagan custom of burning the dead, and faithful to its Jewish origin, and mindful perhaps of Christ's burial, it renewed the old Roman custom of interring the departed. This was the origin of the catacombs. The early Christians loved to be deposited with, or near the Martyrs, and grounds for burial capable of receiving a large number of the dead were wholly wanting. The population of Rome, Naples, Alexandria, and Syracuse was so great, that there was scarcely room enough for the living. To find new receptacles for the dead became an urgent necessity. It is true, that digging into the bowels of the earth for the purpose of entombing the bodies of the dead was no new operation. Egypt and Etruria had in their time set the example. The one idea of immortality, led to similar results in different creeds. The early Christians found their cities of the dead already prepared for them. Paris, in our own time, stands upon a soil which is hollowed throughout. The limestone upon which Paris stands was taken from beneath to supply the wants of the builders. Rome, in like manner, has a second and subterraneous town of vast extent, with its streets and squares in endless number. Nor is it without its inhabitants. In this town did Christians seek refuge from Pagan persecution, and here did they likewise inter their dead. The caves and passages were not dug by Christian hands, but were discovered already made. They date from the last century of the republic, when the clay upon which Rome stands, was required by the mania then raging for extensive and magnificent structures. The Christians took possession of the hollows and enlarged them; the work was by no means difficult, for the clay was soft and plastic.
It was after the time of Constantine that the catacombs came into more general use. Martyrs were more revered subsequently to the reign of this Emperor than before it, for martyrdom became less easy of achievement. The chief martyrs had found a resting-place in the catacombs. Churches rose above their remains, from which secret and sacred doors led into the City of the Dead, the cemetery of the saints. It was at the period to which we refer that the regularly formed spacious catacombs were first fashioned—a fact established by the date of the coffins, all of which belong to a time later than that of the Emperor Constantine. The wealthier members of the community constructed small chapels in the catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations and friends. These chapels are for the most part situated at the crossing of passages or at the end of them, in which latter case the chapel forms the termination of one particular passage. They are most important as indices to the development of art. Besides the curious character and beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the most ancient grave paintings that we know of. Their walls and ceilings are covered with a thin crust of gypsum, upon which the colours were laid. Not unfrequently we find ornaments of stucco and marble. Altars and stone seats, too, are found in these chapels. An astonishing number of skeletons have been discovered in the passages by which the chapels are connected: it was not the custom, as now, to bury the dead beneath the floor and to cover the grave with a stone slab. The bodies were placed in niches of from three to six feet in length. Sometimes four and six together, one above the other. The corpse of a departed brother was thrust into one of these niches; a lamp and some tool, explanatory of the trade he had followed in life, were placed beside him, and then the aperture was walled up, and lastly covered with a thin marble slab, bearing an inscription and the particulars of the life and death of the departed.