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Lazarus, Christ teaching the Apostles. There are also
purely typical figures, the woman praying with up-
lifted hands representing the Church, harts drinking
from a fountain that springs from a chi-rho monogram,
sheep. And there are especially pictures of Christ as
the Good Shepherd, as law-giver, as a child in His
mother's arms, of His head alone in a circle, of our
Lady alone, of St. Peter and St. Paul — pictures that
arc not scenes of historic events, but, like the statues
in our modern churches, just memorials of Christ and
His saints (for all this see Palmer, "An Introduction
to Early Christian SjTnbolism", ed. Brownlow and
Northcote, London, 1900; Kraus, op. cit., I, 58-224;
and especially the classified list in Leclercq, op. cit., I,
529-8JS). In the catacombs there is little that can be
described as sculpture; there are few statues for a
verj- simple reason. Statues are much more difficult
to make, and cost much more than wall-paintings.
But there was no principle against them. Eu.sebius
describes very ancient statues at Caesarea Philippi rep-
resenting Christ and the woman He healed there
("Hist, eccl.", VII, xviii; Matt., Lx, 20-2). The earii-
est sarcophagi had bas-reliefs. As soon as the Church
came out of the catacombs, became richer, had no fear
of persecution, the same people who had painted their
caves began to make statues of the same subjects.
The famous statue of the Ciood Shepherd in the Late-
ran .Museum (Kraus, I, 227) was made as early as the
beginning of the third century; the statues of Hippoly-
tus and of St. Peter date from the end of the same cen-
tury (ibid., 230-232). The principle was quite simple.
The first Christians were accustomed to see statues of
emperors, of pagan gods and heroes, as well as pagan
wall-paintings. So they made paintings of their reli-
gion, and, as soon as they could afford them, statues
of their Lord and of their heroes, without the remotest
fear or suspicion of idolatry (Leclercq, op. cit., II, 245-
78).
The idea that the Church of the first centuries was in any way prejudiced against pictures and statues is the most impossible fiction. After Constantine (.306- 37) there was of course an enormous development of every kind. Instead of burrowing catacombs Chris- tians began to build splendid basilicas. They adorned them with costly mosaics, carving, and statues. But there was no new principle. The mosaics represented more artistically and richly the motives that had been painted on the walls of the old caves, the larger statues continue the tradition begun by carved sarcophagi and little lead and glass ornaments. From that time to the Iconoclast persecution holy images are in posses- sion all over the Christian world. St. Ambrose (d. 397) describes in a letter how St. Paul appeared to him one night, and he recognized him by the likeness to his pictures (Ep. ii, in P. L., XVII, 821). St. Augustine (d. 430) refers several times to pictures of our Lord and the saints in churches (e. g. " Dc cons. Evang.", x, in P. L., XXXIV, 1049; "Contra Faust. Man.";xxii, 73, in P. L., XLII, 446) ; he says that some people even adore them ("De mor. eccl. cath.", xxxiv, P. L., XXXII, 1342). St. Jerome (d. 420) also writes of pic- tures of the Apostles as well-known ornaments of churches (In lonam, iv). St. Paulinus of Xola (d. 4 !1 ) paid for mosaics representing Biblical scenes and saints in the churches of his city, and then wrote a poem describing them (P. L., LXI, 884). Gregorj' of Tours (d. .594) says that a Prankish lady, who built a church of St. Stephen, showed the artists who painted its walls how they should represent the saints out of a book (Hist. Franc, II, 17, P. L., LXXI, 21.5). In the East St. Basil (d. 379), preaching about St. Barlaam, calls upon painters to do the saint more honour by making pictures of him than he himself can do by words ("Or. in S. Bariaam ", in P. G., XXXI, 48S-4S9, (juoted in Hefele-Leclercq, "Histoire des Conciles", III, p. Oil). St. Nilus in the fifth century blames a friend for wishing to decorate a church with profane
ornaments, and exhorts him to replace these by scenes
from Scripture (Epist. IV, 56, in Hefele-Leclercq,
ibid.). St. Cyril of Alexandria (d. 444) was so great a
defender of icons that his opponents accused him of
idolatry (for all this see Schwarzlose, "Der Bilder-
streit ", 3-15). St. Gregory the Great (d. 604) was al-
ways a great defender of holy pictures (see below).
We notice, however, in the first centuries a certain reluctance to express the pain and humiliation of the Passion of Christ. Whether to spare the susceptibil- ity of new converts, or as a natural reaction from the condition of a persecuted sect, Christ is generally rep- resented as splendid and triimiphant. There are pic- tures of His Passion even in the catacombs (e.g.,the crowning of thorns in the Catacomb of Prsetextatus on the Appian way — Leclercq, I, 542), but the favourite representation is either the Good Shepherd (by far the most frequent) or Christ showing His power, raising Lazarus, working some other miracle, standing among His .\postles, seated in glor}\ There are no pictures of the Crucifixion except the mock-crucifix scratched by some pagan soldier in the Palatine barracks (Kraus, I, 173). In the first basihcas also the type of the tri- umphant Christ remains the normal one. The curve of the apse (concha) over the altar is regularly filled with a mosaic representing the reign o{ Christ in -some symbolic group. Our Lord sits on a throne, dressed in the tunica talaris and pallium, holding a book in His left hand, with the right lifted up. This is the type that is found in countless basilicas in East and West from the fourth century to the seventh. The group around him varies. Sometimes it is saints, apostles, or angels (St. Pudentiana, Sts. Cosmas and Damian, St. Paul at Rome, St. Vitalis, St. Michael); often on either side of Christ are purely .'Symbolic figures, lambs, harts, palms, cities, the symbols of the evangelists (S. Apollinare in Classe; the chapel of Galla Placidia at Ravenna). A typical example of this tradition was the concha-mosaic of old St. Peter's at Rome (de- stroyed in the sixteenth centurj ). Here Christ is en- throned in the centre in the usual form, bearded, with a nimbus, in tunic and pallium, holding a book in the left hand, blessing with the right. Under His feet four streams arise (the rivers of Eden, Gen., ii, 10), from which two stags drink (Ps. xli, 2). On either side of Christ are St. Peter and St. Paul, beyond each a palm tree; the background is sprinkled with stars, while above rays of light and a hand issuing from under a small cross suggest God the Father. Below is a frieze in which lambs come out from little cities at either end (marked Hierusalem and Betliem) towards an .\gnus Dei on a hill, from which again flow four streams. Behind the .\gnus Dei is a throne with a cross, behind the lambs is a row of trees. Figures of a pope (Innocent III, 1198-1216) and an emperor preceding the processions of lambs were added later; but the essential plan of this mosaic (often restored) dates from the fourth century (see illu.stration in S. Beissel, S.J., " Altchristliche Kunst", p. 130).
Although representations of the Crucifixion do not occur till later, the cro.ss, as the symbol of Christianity, dates from the very beginning. Justin Martyr (d. 165) describes it in a way that already implies its use as a symbol (Dial, cum Tryph., 91). He says that the cross is providentially represented in every kind of natural object, the sails of a ship, a plough, tools, even thehumanbody (.\pol. 1,55). According to Tertullian ^ (d. about 240), Christians were known as "worship- pers of the cross" (.\pol., xv). Both simple crosses and the chi-rho monogram are common ornaments of catacombs; combined with palm branches, lambs, and other sj-mbols they form an obvious sjTnbol of Christ (see illustrations in Kraus, op. cit., I, 85, 93, 94. 95, 105, 119, 121, etc., especially 130-3; Leclercq, op. cit., .544-8, etc.). After Constantine the cross, made splendid with gold and gems, was set up tri- umphantly as the standard of the conquering Faith.
