It is singular that the symbol of the fish continued to be used in Germany up to the middle age. In the Hortus Deliciarum of the Abbess Herrad, written in the XIIth century, and still preserved in the Strasbourg Library, there is a representation of the sacrament of the altar, by means of a small basket with a loaf and a fish. In a picture in the cathedral library at Einsiedeln, there is the symbol of a fish whose blood is represented as opening the gates of limbo.
Northern Africa, once so celebrated in the annals of the church, did not escape the research of Rossi. Léon Rénier has collected, in a work entitled Roman Inscriptions of Algeria, published at Paris, A.D. 1838, most of those documents which caused Rossi to undertake his second great work, A Letter to J. B. Pitra, Benedictine Monk, on the Christian Titles found at Carthage. These documents are very important as explaining the symbol of the cross. The Christians, for various reasons, were unwilling at first to represent the cross among their symbols. The cross was the damnata crux of Apuleius, the infelix lignum of Seneca, the teterrimum, crudelissimumque supplicium of Cicero. The Christians, therefore, did not wish to give the pagans an occasion of insult, nor to give scandal to the weak faith of the catechumens. Prudent respect, as well as wise foresight, induced them to conceal their most holy symbol in the interest of the progress of faith. Consequently, as Rossi proves, we find the cruces dissimulatæ among the symbols, which, by their similarity with the real figure of the cross, became Christian symbols, but, on account of their being also recognized as heathen symbols, excited no scandal or suspicion. Such concealed symbols, or cruces dissimulatæ, are, according to Rossi, the Tau or crooked cross, the oblique or S. Andrew’s cross, the anchor cross, and the monogram of Christ with all its varieties.
The oldest monogram is the simple Χ, the first letter of Christ’s holy name. At a later period, the Χ was united with the Ι, the two together standing for Ιησοῦς Χριστός. Before the time of Constantine, the monogram was represented by the union of the Greek letters Χ and Ρ, the two first letters of the word ΧΡΙϹΤΟϹ. After the conversion of Constantine, when the punishment of the cross was abolished, and all that was offensive or scandalous in it removed, the symbol became more striking by the introduction of a cross-line. In the second half of the IVth century, in spite of the Julian persecution, the symbol of the cross became more plain. But when Christianity, in and since the time of Theodosius the Great, took possession of the laws, and ordinances, and customs of the empire, the symbol became so clear that all could understand it. Therefore, after the end of the IVth century, and in the beginning of the Vth, we find the simple figure of the cross on all public monuments, without any attempt to conceal it.
The progress of this symbol of the cross was not so slow in development in some of the remote provinces as in the city of Rome and its environs. In some of the distant provinces, the power of paganism ceased to control the people at an earlier date than in the city, and, consequently, allowed the Christians to manifest their symbols without fear. This happened as early as the IId century in Northern Africa, where the Christians were powerful at a very early date. Rossi, in the same work, gives us valuable documents and proofs to show the important place which the symbol of the triangle should hold in archæological disquisitions. It was a recognized symbol of the Holy Trinity.
It is a common custom among certain prejudiced modern writers to speak of the “hatred of the early Christians for art.” By degrees, however, the bandage begins to fall from their eyes, and the truth becomes clearer. To Rossi much credit is due for having labored to destroy this prejudice also. The attention of the early Christians was called to works of sculpture rather than to works of painting. And this was quite natural. The statues were mostly naked. And “among the entirely naked Aphrodites of the later Greek and Roman artists, there is hardly one in which the woman does not predominate over the goddess. Sensuality and grossness are conspicuous in most of them.”[117] Some of them also knew that the Venus of Praxiteles, which he represented at first entirely unclothed, was copied after a model of Phryne.
It is different with painting—after music and poetry, the most spiritual of arts. “By the blending of light and shade, and the laws of perspective, it can give a tone of spirituality to the bodily form, and an ethical appearance to the inanimate. Painting is the art of soul impressions. Everything great, noble, and refined can be better expressed on the canvas than in marble.” The Christian muse, therefore, naturally took to painting. Hence on the walls in the catacombs we find the first efforts of the Christian painters. Likenesses of the Mother of God are among the first which we meet. These pictures, in which virginal innocence, maternal tenderness, holy worth, tender grace and piety, are manifested, have been collected and published in 1863 in large chromo-lithographs in his work entitled Imagine Scelte della B. Vergine tratte dalle Catacombe Romane.
The earliest likeness of the Mother of God is found in the catacombs of Priscilla. On account of the many likenesses of the Blessed Virgin found in them, these have been called the Marian Catacombs. There is no doubt that these pictures are of apostolic date, and originated with that Priscilla who was known both to Peter and Paul, the mother of the Senator Pudens, and grandmother of the holy virgins Praxedes and Pudentiana. In the arch of the central crypt, the adoration of the magi is painted. The Blessed Virgin holds the Infant Jesus in her bosom; before her in the sky is the star whose light leads the three wise men from the East to visit the divine Child.
In another crypt is delineated the annunciation of the angel. The Blessed Virgin sits on a throne like the ancient episcopal chairs; before her stands the archangel as a beautiful, ethereal youth, without wings, dressed in tunic and pallium, his right hand raised, and the index finger of it pointed at the Virgin. In her face there is a look of surprise and holy, virginal shyness. On the ceiling of another grave-niche, in the very oldest part of the catacomb, close to the graves of the family of Pudens, we find a painted picture of the Virgin and Child in the pure classic style. Rossi, supported by the most various archæological and historical documents, places this picture in the time between the second half of the Ist and the first half of the IId century. The Blessed Virgin, clothed with many-folded drapery and cloak, bears on her head the veil usually worn by the married or betrothed. Over her hangs the star of Bethlehem; before her stands a young, powerful-looking man, with a prophet’s mantle thrown over his shoulders. In his left hand he holds a scroll, and with the right he points to the star and the Virgin and Child. He is Isaias the Prophet, pointing out the favored Virgin, the branch of the root of Jesse, who was to conceive and bring forth the blessed Fruit; and showing the great light which was to shine over Jerusalem. The beauty of the composition; the grace and dignity of the figures; the swelling folds of the drapery; and the correctness and spiritual beauty of the expression, make this, although the oldest picture of the Madonna, one of the most striking which we possess. The elder Lenormant did not hesitate to compare it with Raphael’s best productions.
The picture of the Madonna in the second table of Rossi is of more recent origin. In this picture, the Mother of God sits on a chair of honor, holding the divine Child in her lap. The three kings, led by a star, come to meet her. It is from the cemetery of Domitilla. We omit the other pictures of the adoration of the magi in the other catacombs of Callistus, Cyriaca, etc.
The assertion of the Calvinist historian Basnage, that the pictures of the Blessed Virgin were not introduced into the church until after the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, sinks to the ground in the face of Rossi’s documents.