Fig. 74.—Moses Striking the Rock.
In two or three of the gilded glasses to be hereafter mentioned, which are of comparatively late date, this scene is rudely indicated, and over the head or at the side of the figure is the word Petrvs or Peter. From this circumstance Roman Catholic writers have asserted that in many of the sarcophagal and other representations of this event it is no longer Moses but Peter, “the leader of the new Israel of God,” who is striking the rock with the emblem of divine power—a
conclusion for which there is absolutely no evidence except the very trivial fact above mentioned.[487]
The sufferings of the patriarch Job form the subject of a few of these scriptural illustrations. In the accompanying illustration, taken from the cemetery of Marcellinus, he is seen sitting in his sorrow and bemoaning the day that gave him birth. Amid their fiery trials of persecution the primitive Christians doubtless often found comfort in contrasting their sufferings with the still more terrible afflictions of the patriarch of Uz.
Fig. 75.—The Sufferings of Job.
The sarcophagus of Junius Bassus exhibits a bas relief of Job comforted by his friends. The complaint of the patriarch that even his wife had abhorred his breath—so reads the Vulgate translation of Jerome, which was in use at this period—is grotesquely illustrated