realized and operative, into that limbo where so much of the ancient belief now lies. The "Eternal City" had forsaken her gods; her age of faith was over. Those consolations, once suggested by vivid realization of a natural trust that the just should in the hereafter be recompensed for all they failed to receive as their reward here, no longer confirmed the good in their virtues, or warned the vacillating and vicious of the consequences that attach to crime. The persons of their pantheon were but poetic fancies, and their dead were dead forever! During the continuance of that strange process by which religions slowly pass away, resignation replaced hope, and the Roman adorned the resting-place of his beloved with effigies that show how his heart instinctively turned to the only consolation within his reach, and how universal was the effort to relieve the pain of an eternal separation by believing that the departed were at peace. "After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well," this contains the very essence of all the best classic epitaphs. The symbols that adorn the sarcophagus uniformly suggest serenity, and were intended to give calmness in that " inevitable hour" whose coming should be expected with fortitude and whose arrival celebrated by sacrifices to Jupiter the Liberator. Upon the tomb they carved the festal wreath, as emblematic of pleasures as evanescent as its bloom; Bacchic dances, hunts and battle scenes, in which the very violence exhibited showed that human energy, directed to whatever pursuit, must soon be exhausted and come to an end. By these were banquets that ended in satiety and sleep-the winged genii of the seasons who warned man that the circle of his life was quickly run-the ripened cluster and full year, ready to fall at their appointed time, and the masks that brought to mind Petronius's words, that the world was but a stage, whereon "to strut and fret his hour, and then be seen no more." These were the symbols of that naturalism which is religion's oldest form, and whose development into a quasi-philosophical system expressed the only faith the Roman retained. The inscriptions which accompanied these emblems of human fragility were all in correspondence with their trust that death brought tranquillity, and that the grave was but a sleeping-place. Upon the slab that covered a friend, affection could place no kinder wish than that he might "rest in peace." Beneath the inverted torch, so soon extinguished, which was carved upon his daughter's tomb,

On other occa

her father wrote "Sweetest Aurelia, sleep well.” sions, and in the spirit of that corrupted Epicureanism prevalent in Rome, an epitaph might resemble that which Claudius wrote for himself: "Ti. Claudi Secundi. Hic secum habet omnia. Balnea, vinum, venus, corrupunt corpora nostra, sed—vitam faciunt, B. V. V."

Passing by the Appian Way to the Basilica of St. Sebastian, we find the entrance to the catacombs of that name. Here the peasant from the Campania, the sailor from the quays below the Janiculum, the stranger and the slave, found depicted the easily understood emblems and illustrations of his new faith. Over the crypt was placed the tree of life, the olive branch of peace, the crown of martyrdom, the palm of victory. Here, where, if anywhere, it might have been expected that some evidence of an anticipated retribution upon their persecutors would have revealed the common instincts of human nature, the place of such devices was filled by delineations of the miracles of mercy. It is a fact conveying a deeper significance than all that has been since written about it, that this should have been the case-that, in lieu of the revengeful horrors that disgraced Christian art at a later period, Christ should have been represented, not as the avenger of His people, but as the "Good Shepherd," as conversing by the well with the woman of Samaria, protecting and forgiving the Magdalen, and calling back Lazarus from the dead. The dove of mercy and the winged spirit were present, and the crosses of the Resurrection and Passion were carved everywhere upon the walls of the catacombs ; but no crucifix served as a memento mori of His death, or appealed to any beholder against those who offered the bitter chalice and mocked at the agonies of Calvary! Besides the paintings and sculptures referred to, there were many symbolical devices, either original or borrowed, in use among the Christians. To those already described, may be added the monogram of Christ, plain or inscribed, or the simple word "PAX,” standing for " In pace Domini dormit," He sleeps in the peace of the Lord." Sometimes, with what seems like a disregard of their just claims to be remembered, we find a dateless slab, with an inscription such as this, " Marcella et Christi martyres, CCCCCL.,"-" Marcella and five hundred and fifty martyrs of Christ." In other cases, what are evidently, from their position, the graves of those who had died for their faith,

remain perfectly blank, or the iconograph affords no information concerning their occupants. The lamb, the lion and the cross were the only true symbols of Christ; but, as time went on and the influence of the East and increasing ignorance made itself more felt in Rome, these multiplied and assumed mystical meanings; all gradually became invested with magical powers, and were regarded as amulets or talismans. Thus, Christ was represented by a fish, because the Greek word for this, "IXOry," contained the letters of his title, “Ιησούς Χριστὸς Θεὸν Υἱὸς Σωτήρ”“ Jesus Christ, the Son of God, our Saviour." The peacock was similarly taken, because its flesh did not decay. In other instances, a contracted form of the Saviour's name is used, as the Latin "I. C." or Greek " X. C." When represented as the messenger of God, the cruciform nimbus has the inscribed words, “ ̔Ο ΑΓΓΕΛΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΜΕΓΑΛΗΣ BOYAH"-" the angel of the great will;" and when, in His hypostatic union with the Father and Holy Spirit, Christ appears in the character of Creator and Preserver, the inscription is usually « the ancient of days”—“ο παλαιὸς τῶν ἡμερῶν.”

The most common portraits of the catacombs are those of St. Peter and St. Paul, both of which are altogether conventional. No authentic picture of Christ exists, and the manner in which the present universally received likeness originated cannot be certainly discovered; but, among the highest as well as the most orthodox authorities on Christian iconography, it is considered probable that we are indebted to the Gnostics for this, as well as for the first hymns and the earliest sacred music. It has already been said that the first epoch of the Church was not that in which doctrine was formed; and, if further evidence of this fact were needed than is supplied by its religious literature, the extreme simplicity and uniform character of Christian art would attest its truth. Dogmatic theology was the outgrowth of those conflicting opinions which afterward distracted both the East and West, and all of these phases of belief have been recorded in the different modes by which artists represented polemical ideas. This was done with a fidelity which justifies the assertion that "la religion d'une peuple, etant l'expression la plus complète de son individualité, est, en un sens, plus instructive que son histoire." Of course, the observation is defective because by implication religion is assumed not to be as much a historical fact as politics or commerce; and in respect

of the early Church it fails because of the absence of any consensus of doctrinal opinion for several centuries after Christ. It might be added that during a long period art was as much the interpreter of the general faith as were the decrees of councils, and the meaning it conveyed much more commonly understood! Roman art was the expression of Roman opinion, and for a long time the city was the centre of religious discussion. Mather believes that Gnosticism was not so much a Christian heresy as a separate and complete system of religious philosophy. Be this as it may, its influence upon Christianity was great and lasting, and it introduced into religious art the refined symbolism of the NeoPlatonism upon which it was based.

With Origen commenced a school of allegorical commentators. Father after Father was occupied in detecting correspondences between religious symbols (especially the cross,) and natural objects that were quite as baseless as any of Swedenborg's fancies. Every popular theological hypothesis found at once an artistic expression, so that after the second century art finally ceased to be completely orthodox. It would form a curious chapter in the history of opinion to trace the revolt against authority through the only connected record now accessible,-that is to say, the comic art of the Middle Age,-and to see how it supplements the written remains of the time. It is not generally known, perhaps, that the purest and most noble artistic expression of religious feeling— a Gothic cathedral,-usually contains among the details of its ornamentation comments in caricature of the Church and its discipline, and various and keenly satirical illustrations of its doctrine and ritual. These represent an undercurrent in popular sentiment; they are the criticisms which have never been written,—the mental reservations not otherwise expressed.

From the condemnation of the Apocalyptical Books by Gelasius I. to the time of the repeal of this sentence by Paul IV., i.e., from the fifth to the sixteenth century, Popes, Saints and Fathers united in anathematizing them. Athanasius, Cyril, Tertullian and Augustine have taken up their testimony against them, but not more emphatically than Baronius, Bellarmine and Du Pin. Since religious art derived its subjects exclusively from Christian literature, it is evident that, during that period in which what was canonical had not been discriminated from apocryphal writings, there must

have been some contrast between artistic representations of liturgical formularies. But the object of religious art remained the same; it was not beauty the artist sought to create, but religious emotion; and, although genius must have expressed itself here as elsewhere, except in cases where the form is borrowed from classic models, it is useless to look for the beautiful, either in composition or design, before Europe awoke from the intellectual torpor of the Middle Age.

Besides the influence due to polemical differences, there was another cause at work to hamper æsthetic development, and one that has been common to all religions and operative in every era. The conservative spirit that accompanied each form of faith, and which, in the absence of revolutionary impressions, has, and will always, degenerate into conventionalism, contributed greatly to the delay of artistic advancement. If we compare the earlier portraits of Christ-the Gnostic abraxes and Christian tessera, tomb paintings and ancient mosaics,-with the illuminated MSS. and windows, cathedral sculptures, the capitals of Romanesque columns, and Gothic vaultings, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the rude and ofttimes grotesque art of the catacombs has been intentionally reproduced; probably, from an impression of its greater sanctity, just as the monstrous and impossible figures of the Asiatic gods still disfigure the beautiful temples of a more advanced age.

What remains to be said of Christian iconography will be contained in the following outline of the symbols and forms belonging to the central figures of Christianity, the Trinity and the Virgin.

In the dearth of genius that is so conspicuous during the dark ages, no higher conception of artistic results than those possible of attainment by pictographic illustration or homilies in stone seems to have visited the instructors of the world. From the pon

tificate of Gregory the Great to that of Nicholas V., the supremacy of the Roman Church is unquestionable. For eight centuries, her cergy formed a caste as distinct from, and in many important particulars as antagonistic to, the laity, as if they had been set apart by a law of nature. "Their corporate spirit and laws, their education, rights, privileges and immunities, were all different." Their