In the description of Wren’s finds on the site of St. Paul’s, given in Parentalia, is mentioned “a sepulchral earthen lamp figured with two branches of palms, supposed Christian.” Comparing the description with Figs. 165 and 166 there cannot be any doubt that Wren’s lamp was Christian. In the British Museum is a little rough lamp found at Tidworth, Wilts, which has a pair of palm branches, and I think that there is another in Canterbury Museum; the former is so like others from Syria in the Early Christian Room at the British Museum that there cannot be a doubt that it is not a native work; possibly it was brought back by a pilgrim from the Holy Land. Fig. [a]165] illustrates the seal of a ring found at Fifehead Neville, Dorset, now in the British Museum; on it we find the sign of Christ in the later form (in which the X has become a cross) surmounted by a dove, and between two palms. It means something like “the Believer resting on the victorious Cross of Christ.” The earlier form of the monogram was made of the first two letters of the name Christ, XP; the later form was formed by a cross and XP or P, and this seems to have meant the Crucifixion.
Fig. 165.
These comparisons will help to interpret a fascinating fragment of a symbolical design engraved on a glass cup found at Silchester. Here, instead of the sign for Christ, we find the upper part of a letter, which can hardly have been anything else than T, for nothing else would be central in the design, and in place of the dove we have a fish. T was the early form of the sign of the cross, and is found several times in the Catacombs; the fish is a rebus for the words Jesus Christ, God’s Son Saviour (ΙΧΘΎΣ); the palms are again signs of victory. It seems to be an early symbolical representation of Christ on the cross, and one of the most interesting which exists (compare Figs. 46 and 47 in the British Museum Guide to Christian Antiquities). Another tiny fragment of the same glass has the letter O on it, and there must have been some short inscription as well as the fish symbol and palms (Fig. [166]).
Fig. 166.
Figs. 167, 168, 169.
In the London Museum is an enamelled brooch in the form of a fish (Fig. [167]). As the fish was a well-known Christian symbol, we may hardly doubt that this brooch must be counted among our Christian antiquities. It is exactly similar to a brooch illustrated by Mr. Ward (Roman Era, Fig. 75) as having been found in Rotherley. They are duplicates, and must have come from the same “shop.” In V.C.H. it is recorded that a fish-shaped enamelled fibula was found in excavations at London Wall in 1901-5 (compare Builder, December 13, 1902). This may be the same piece. At Silchester a plain bronze brooch in fish form was found (Fig. [168]). The fish symbol in an almost identical form is found engraved on a pewter dish, one of a set found at Appleshaw (Hants) and now in the British Museum (Fig. [169]); the dish itself on which it appears is sometimes described as fish-shaped, but it was rather a long oval with projections at the ends. Another of the same set of pewter pieces has the XP monogram engraved on it (Fig. 170). As a third of the pieces is of the form of a chalice, there seems to be every reason to regard the whole set as church plate, and I find this definitely asserted in an article in the Athenæum (August 11, 1906): “In 1890 a body was found at Reading lying east and west, together with Roman British relics, and a lead plate bearing three crosses; near by was another skeleton with a small pewter chalice. This may be accepted as the grave of a Christian priest. This chalice should be compared with that of a Roman altar set of pewter recently found at Appleshaw.”
