[598] Orig. Eccles., bk. vi, chap. viii, § 10.
[599] Northcote’s Catacombs, p. 116.
[600] Rom. Sott., p. 300.
[601] Ibid., 301.
[602] Dissertazioni Archeologiche di Raffaelle Garrucci, (Roma, 4to., 1865,) vol. ii, p. 1.
[603] Dr. Northcote describes a bearded figure standing behind the chair of Mary as a representation of the Holy Ghost. Surely the more natural interpretation is that it is intended for Joseph.
[604] Ezekiel speaks of the manifestation of God by a “hand sent unto him.” Ezek. ii, 9. The inspiration of Isaiah, and the divine judgments inflicted on Ananias and Sapphira, are thus indicated. In a Greek painting at Salamis, executed as late as the eighteenth century, the souls of the righteous in a state of beatitude are represented by five infant figures held in a gigantic hand projecting from the clouds.
[605] Discours Sur les Anciens Monumens, pp. 43, 46. The instance he refers to occurs in a Latin Bible presented to Charles the Bold in A. D. 850. The interpretation, however, is not certain.
[606] Iconog. Chrét., pp. 55, 205.
[607] In a Greek painting of as late date as the twelfth or thirteenth century, Christ, indicated by the letters IC XC, is represented as stretching out his hand over a prostrate figure labeled ΑΔΑΜ Ο ΠΡΩΤΟΠΛΑϹΤΟϹ—“Adam, the first-born,” or rather “the first-formed.”