They live no longer in the faith of reason!”[160]
It is not remarkable, therefore, that delineations of the doctrine of the resurrection should not have been unusual in the church of the Catacombs. Two such representations, one from the Old Testament, and the other from the New, will exhibit the forms under which it was presented. Jonas as a type of the resurrection of our Lord has its authority from S. Matthew.[161] “For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Four scenes from the history of Jonas are found in the chapels and on the tombs of the Catacombs, sometimes represented singly, sometimes all compressed under one type. The first is the prophet being thrown into the deep, the second as swallowed by the great fish which “the Lord had prepared,” the third as “vomited out upon dry land,” the fourth as lying under the shadow of a gourd. As we have seen, according to the Gospel of S. Matthew, the swallowing of Jonas by the whale, and being cast forth in safety after three days, was typical of the burial and the resurrection of our Lord himself; and may not the pictures of the fourth series denote not only the sufferings of the individual Christian, and the care which his risen Master bestows upon him, but also the vicissitudes of the Church Catholic in every age of the world? “Sometimes she gains, sometimes she loses; and more often she is at once gaining and losing in different parts of her history.... Scarcely are we singing Te Deums, when we have to turn to our Misereres; scarcely are we in peace, when we are in persecution; scarcely have we gained a triumph, when we are visited by a scandal. Nay, we make progress by means of reverses; our griefs are our consolations; we lose Stephen to gain Paul, and Matthias replaced the traitor Judas.”[162] When the eye of the early Christian rested upon this fourth representation from the prophet's life, it caught another and a more subtle signification, which is read perhaps oftener in the night of affliction and persecution than in the day of joy and prosperity. Our century, Catholic and Protestant alike, needs to study its outlines as much as the first century and the worshippers in the Catacombs. “Should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left?”[163] Here is a beautiful symbolism of the tender mercy of our God for all who are in error and in sin. It opposes the spiritual Pharisaism of our day, and exacts meekness and charity from all men. It is the destroyer of malevolence and anger and strife.[164]
Another picture, taken from the New Testament, and of frequent representation, is the “man sick of the palsy.” It is generally regarded by Protestant writers as belonging to that series of symbolical illustrations which embody the doctrine of the resurrection; and, to give greater force to their interpretation of the painting, they place much stress upon the words of the sacred text: “Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.” So far as we have examined copies of this picture, we are inclined to believe that it is connected with these which refer to the resurrection, except in one remarkable instance, in which it clearly symbolizes the sacrament [pg 377] of penance as it is taught in the Roman communion. In the Catacombs of S. Hermes is a representation of a Christian kneeling before another, which seems from its close proximity to the series of pictures of the Paralytic to point more directly to that other passage of the Gospel narrative: “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” If our Lord delegated “such power unto men”—and the only logical and intelligent interpretation of the words of S. John[165] conveys this doctrine or it conveys nothing—here is a clear illustration of the power of the priesthood, which admits of no evasive contradiction, of no complicated and artificial hypothesis for the sake of escaping the recognition of the belief of the early Christians in the doctrine of sacerdotal absolution.
As resurrection is the portal of the church triumphant, so is baptism to the church militant. The former is but the complement and fulfilment of the latter. “Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death.”[166] The blessedness of the final consummation of the faithful departed was pictured in the symbols of the resurrection, and, as baptism is the foreshadowing of that glorious change which shall come over our vile bodies, it became a common subject of Christian art in the Catacombs. Its types are somewhat complex, and often susceptible of a twofold explanation. From the four scenes in the life of Moses, which are constantly repeated in the different Catacombs, we select that which prefigures Christian baptism—the miraculous supply of water in Kadesh. Art critics who have bestowed any attention upon the sacred pictures of the early ages place the representation of this miracle of Moses in the Catacombs of S. Agnes among the finest specimens of primitive delineation. Moses is pictured as bearing a rod, the emblem of power, with which “he smote the rock twice, and the water came out abundantly.” It is worthy of remark in passing that on vases found in the Catacombs, and on the sarcophagi as early, perhaps, as the IVth century, this same scene is depicted, and the rod, instead of being in the hand of Moses, is in that of S. Peter, and, in a few instances, the two are represented together, but the person who smites with the rod has inscribed over his head the name of S. Peter. Catholic writers on subterranean symbolism draw from it an artistic argument, which, coupled with the historical, seems an unanswerable statement of the question of the primacy of S. Peter. Quando Christus ad unum loquitur, unitas commendatur; et Petro primitus, quia in Apostolis Petrus est primus.[167] S. Peter bears the same relation to the Christian church that Moses did to the Israelitish. The one received from God the decalogue, which was to govern the actions of the Jews; the other, the keys, which were to open the kingdom of heaven. Nam et si adhuc clausum putas cœlum, memento claves ejus hic Dominum Petro, et per eum Ecclesiæ reliquisse.[168] Another type of baptism taken from the Old Testament, and capable of two expositions, is Noah in the ark. Here again, on the authority of an apostle, the church in the early ages read the history of Noah by the light of the new revelation made through the institutions founded by Christ. S. Peter, speaking of the small number saved by water at the deluge, adds: [pg 378] “The like figure whereunto, even baptism, doth now also save us,... by the resurrection of Jesus Christ,”[169] The ark is generally represented by a small box in which Noah sits or stands, receiving from the dove the olive branch of peace. Some writers on Christian archæology find in it a secondary meaning, regarding it as typical of the church, and the danger of those who are without the ark of safety.
Among favorite Old Testament subjects familiar to art students of the Catacombs are—Daniel in the lions' den, and the three children of Israel in the fiery furnace at Babylon. Both are types of persecution, and of final deliverance through the miraculous interposition of God. In the cemetery of S. Priscilla, each of these pictures is to be seen, varying but slightly in the details of the portraiture. The three children appear clothed, and standing on the furnace. In a compartment beneath, the figure of a man is represented as feeding the fire with fresh fuel. Daniel, in the same cemetery, stands with outstretched arms between lions. The attitude in both these scenes from Jewish history appears to exhibit the ancient posture of the suppliant when in the act of prayer. A late writer on the Roman catacombs, the Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D., formerly of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, spent much time, in company with the Cavaliere de Rossi and M. Perret, the French artist, in collecting materials for his small work on the burial-places of the early Christians in Rome. He is so trustworthy a guide in everything that appertains to their archæology, that we gladly accept the explanation which he suggests of the position of Daniel and the three children of Israel. Speaking of the ancient attitude of Christian prayer—the hands extended in the form of a cross—he says:[170] “This form, which, as we learn from the Fathers, was universal among the early Christians, is still retained in some measure by the priests of the present day in the celebration of Mass, by Capuchins and others in serving Mass, and by numbers among the poor everywhere; it is worth noticing that S. Gregory Nazianzen expressly speaks of Daniel overcoming the wild beasts by stretching out his hands, meaning, of course by the power of prayer; but the explanation might almost seem to show that S. Gregory himself was familiar with this usual way of representing him.”
The publication of the Cavaliere de Rossi, which has so greatly alarmed the Protestant controversialist, is Immagine Scelte della B. Vergine Maria, tratte dalle Catacombe Romane. It is most beautifully illustrated with chromo-lithographic engravings, and reflects great honor on the present state of art in Rome. The purpose of the work is to exhibit the veneration with which the Christians of the Catacombs esteem the Mother of our Lord. At a period of time in the history of the church, almost apostolic, that purest of human feelings, maternal love, subdued the soul of the artist, and kindled his imagination to trace with the brush or carve with the chisel the Blessed Virgin and her Divine Son.
The Virgin Mother,
“Who so above
All mothers shone,
The Mother of