No More Learning

(3) Pagan teachers, priests and doctors were already exempt from
certain civil charges on the ground of professional usefulness. To this
list Constantine added first the African, and later all Christian, clergy;
and them he allowed to engage in trade untaxed because they could give
their profits to the poor. Clerical families and property were likewise
excused all the ordinary responsibilities of curiales. Many citizens sought
this immunity from taxation, even after the State, fearing the loss of
useful service, had forbidden the ordination of curials; and the Church
came to welcome the exclusion of the well-to-do from her ministry as a
protection against unworthy ministers, as she also did the removal of
exemption from trade-taxes, for the age was averse from any interference
with the spiritual duties of the clergy. But the fact that privileges
were withdrawn from the heathen priesthood and bestowed on the
clergy enhanced the position of the latter as a favoured class.
(4) The Church was distinguished as a corporation capable of
receiving donations and bequests. Earlier confiscations and restorations
prove that the Church had held property long before the time of
Constantine. But Constantine bestowed upon it a more extensive privilege
than was known to any heathen religious foundation. Whereas the
latter could only be endowed under special circumstances, and, with few
exceptions, never acquired the right to receive bequests, “the sacred
and venerable Christian churches” might be left anything by anybody.
Abuse of the privilege gradually led to its withdrawal under Valentinian
III, and Christian writers deplore the cause more keenly than the result;
but the growing wealth was as a rule generously applied to philanthropic
work started by the Church, and Augustine was justified in calling upon
churchmen to remember Christ as well as their sons. They were the
more likely to listen, since the old Jewish belief that alms win heaven
had taken root and sprung up in the doctrine of merit.
(5) The Church secured another prerogative, which was fraught
with serious consequences, in the establishment of episcopal courts as an
integral part of the secular judicial system with final jurisdiction in civil
cases. But it had analogy with the Roman institution of recepti arbitri,
an extrajudicial arrangement allowing the civil authority to step in and
enforce the decision of the arbitrator. At a time when, as we learn from
CH. XX.


## p. 592 (#622) ############################################

592
The Empire and the Church. Justice
Salvian and Ammianus, the courts were monuments of justice delay
and of chicanery, it was no small boon to be allowed to carry a civil sus
to the arbitration of a bishop whose equitable decision had the force o
law. The early history of this remarkable legislation is obscure an.
complicated, but it clearly contained in germ the clerical exemption froi
criminal procedure which formed one of the most difficult problems . n
medieval politics. The episcopal jurisdiction underwent considerable
limitations and bishops lost their position of privilege before the liw;
but appeal to the episcopal court became a tradition in the Church.
(6) There are other indications of the great influence acquired by
bishops in the administration of justice. Into their hands passed the
right of intercession formerly exercised in behalf of clients by wealthy
patrons or hired rhetoricians. One of their duties, according to Ambrose,
was to rescue the condemned from death, and he himself was active in
its discharge. So Basil interceded for the unfortunate inhabitants of
Cappadocia at the partition of the province in A. D. 371. So Flavian of
Antioch, with better success, stood between his flock and the emperor,
not unjustly irritated by the riot of 387.
(7) Closely connected with episcopal intercession was the right of
asylum, transferred from heathen temples to Christian churches, which
afforded protection to fugitives, pending the interference of the bishops.
One out of many instances, and that the most romantic, is the case of the
miserable Eutropius (A. D. 399), who benefited by the privilege which he
had himself in the previous year sought to circumscribe.
Such are some of the points at which the Empire touched the Church.
The effect of the Church upon the Empire may be summed up in the
word “freedom. ” Obedience to authority was indeed required in every
department of public and private life, provided that it did not conflict
with religious duty. But the old despotic attributes were gradually
removed, the Roman patria potestas suffered notable relaxation, and
children were regarded no longer as a peculium but as "a sacred charge
upon which great care must be bestowed. ” In a word, authority was
seen to be a form of service, according to God's will, and such service
was freedom. This great principle found expression in many ways,
and first in respect of literal bondage. The better feeling of the
age was certainly already in favour of kindness towards the slave.
Stoicism, like Christianity, accepted slavery as a necessary institution,
more clearly discerned its baneful results than
Seneca. And Seneca was still listened to. It is in his words that
Praetextatus in Macrobius' Saturnalia pleads the slave's common
humanity, faithfulness, and goodness, against the old feeling of contempt
of which there were still traces in Christian and pagan writers. It was,
however, not from Seneca but from Christ and St Paul that the fathers
took their constant theme of the essential equality of men, before which
slavery cannot stand. Not only do they establish the primitive unity
but no
one
ever


## p. 593 (#623) ############################################

The Church and Society. Slavery. The Stage
593
VO
Sur
e o
an
To
5
and dignity of man, but, seeing in slavery a result of the Fall, they find
in the sacrifice of Christ a road to freedom that was closed to Stoicism.
They offered a more effective consolation than the philosophers, for they
pointed the slave upward by recognising his right to kneel beside his
master in the Lord's Supper. Close upon the Church's victory follows
legislation more favourable to the slave than any that had gone before.
Constantine did not attempt sudden or wholesale emancipation, which
would have been unwise and impossible. Nor is there any sign that
he recognised the slave's moral, intellectual, or religious needs. But
he sought to lessen his hardships by measures which with all their
inequalities are unique in the statute-book of Rome. He tried to
prevent the exposing of children, though he could not stop the enslave-
ment of foundlings; he forbad cruelty towards slaves in terms which
are themselves an indictment of existing practice; he forbad the breaking
up of servile families ; he declared emancipation to be “most desirable”;
he transferred the process of manumission from pagan to Christian
places of worship in a way and with words that testify to his view of it
as a work of love belonging properly to the Church. But the Church
was not content to influence the lawgiver and preach to master and
slave the brotherhood of man and the duties of forbearance and patience.
She struck at all the bad conditions that encouraged slavery.
The stage and the arena had always been the objects of her hate as
hotbeds of immorality and nurseries of unbelief. Attendance there
was forbidden to Christians as an act' of apostasy. Julian caught the
feeling and forbad his priests to enter theatres or taverns. Yet Libanius,
Julian's friend and mentor, defends not only comedy and tragedy but
even the dance, exalting it above sculpture as a school of beauty and a
lawful recreation. But dancing, as Chrysostom points out, was inseparable
from indecency and, far from giving the mind repose, only excites it
to base passions. The ban of the Church accordingly was proclaimed
against the ministers of these arts upon the public stage; it followed
them into private houses when they went to enliven wedding or banquet,
forbidding them baptism so long as they remained players. This
apparent harshness, which can be matched from civil legislation, was in
reality a kindness. The actor's state was at this time incompatible with
purity, and the Church sought to deliver a class enslaved to vice. А
notable victory was won when it was ruled that an actress who asked
for and received the last sacraments should not, if she recovered, be
dragged back to her hateful calling. The only way of escape from it
in any case lay in the acceptance of Christianity. As the theatre
gratified low tastes, so the arena stimulated tigerish instincts. Both
Pliny and Cicero apologised for it as being the proper playground of a
warrior race; it certainly held the Roman imagination. The story of
Alypius (a friend of Augustine) is well known, whom one reluctant
look during a gladiatorial show enslaved completely to the lust for blood.
C. MED. H. VOL. I. CH. XX.
38


## p. 594 (#624) ############################################

594
The Church and Society. Games. Luxury
Attempts to suppress the shows were made, doubtless under Christian
influence. They met with little response, except in the East, where the
better spirits (like Libanius) repudiated them as a Roman barbarity,
unworthy of a Greek. But the action of Constantine in forbidding
soldiers to take part in gladiatorial shows, and of Valentinian in
exempting Christians from suffering punishment in the arena, prove
that earlier regulations were a dead letter. The show which Alypius
attended was at Rome in A. D. 385. Symmachus as urban praefect speaks
with pride of the games he gave, and when the Saxon captives with
whom he had hoped to make a Roman holiday committed suicide in
prison he had to turn to Socrates and his example for consolation. The
sums spent on these games is an index to the wealth of noble Romans.
The same Symmachus spent £80,000 on the occasion of his son's
praetorship; a festival given in the reign of Honorius lasted a week and
cost £100,000. Ammianus Marcellinus and Jerome paint the same
picture, and even when their charges have been discounted by the more
sober pages of Macrobius, it is still clear that the dying Roman civilisa-
tion was marked by general luxury and self-indulgence. The Church could
not stop this waste; sumptuary laws lay outside her competence; but
leaders practised and encouraged simplicity and frugality and reproved the
tendency towards ecclesiastical display. Jerome meets the argument that
lavish hospitality would strengthen the hand of clerical intercessors by
answering that judges will honour holiness above wealth, and simple
clergy more than luxurious ones. “Golden mediocrity" doubtless had
its devotees. There were many Christian men of the world to whom
monasticism was a riddle, as it was to Ausonius, whose prayer was, “give
me neither poverty nor riches. ” But better than moderation was renun-
ciation of the world, and the ascetic element of early Christianity,
reinforced by the example of all exponents of high thought, led many to
turn their faces from the luxury around them and flee to the desert.
To those who remained behind the Christian writers tried to teach the
view of poverty as a probation and of wealth as a trust, the mutual depend-
ence of rich and poor, and the lesson that men should be one in heart as
they are one in origin-caritas qua in uno incommunicabili unum sumus.
They frequently recall the communion recorded in the Acts, and now that
change of conditions had rendered community of goods impossible, a new
means of applying the principle was sought, first in feasts of charity and
regular collections for the poor, in the private munificence of the bishop,
or in a proportionate and elaborately organised distribution, under the
bishop, of church revenues. These by dint of careful administration
and continual accessions grew to an immense property, till by the fifth
century the Church had become the greatest landowner in the Empire.
In general, promotion to a bishop's stool meant merely entry into a
large fortune. “Make me Bishop of Rome and I will become a Christian”
was Praetextatus' reply to Damasus, and it reflects the public opinion.


## p. 595 (#625) ############################################

The Church and Society. Charities
595
Ammianus Marcellinus waxes scornful over the episcopal splendour and
extravagance at Rome, but he qualifies or points his sarcasm by the
admission that there were bishops in the provinces who,“ moderate in
eating and drinking, simple in dress, shew themselves worthy priests
of the Deity. " Instances of fine and unselfish philanthropy are
equally common in the theory held by great churchmen and in their
practice?
Perhaps the most striking justification of the common claim that
bishops are the proper and recognised helpers and guardians of the poor,
the widow, and the orphan, is found in their readiness to convert the
communion plate into money for the distressed. “It is better to save
living souls than lifeless metals. . . the ornament of the sacraments is the
redemption of captives," are the words with which Ambrose defended
himself against the charge of sacrilege. Refuge from the tax-burthened
world was afforded by the monasteries, which are too often judged, not by
the circumstances which called them into being, but by the abuses which
attended their decay. And side by side with the strictly religious houses
there sprang up innumerable charitable institutions-orphanotrophia,
ptochotrophia, nosocomia, gerontocomia, brephotrophia_intended to
relieve the wants of every class and every age and not merely those of
citizens, as had been the case in heathen Rome and Athens. Not the
least of the debts which the world owes to fourth century Christianity is
this invention of open hospitals. Julian felt its power and summoned
his followers to imitate in this respect the hated Galilaeans. But with
superior organisation the old spirit of voluntary charity waned.
Individual effort disappeared; a steward discharged the philanthropic
activities of the bishops; deaconesses waited less on the poor and more
on the worship of the Church. Charity became less discriminating and
aped the pagan largesses. Begging now finds a place in the statute-
book, and the first law against mendicancy was issued by a Christian
Emperor (Valentinian II)? . Yet the Church sought to meet this evil
also by restoring labour to honour. Slavery had degraded it, and
commerce had always been despised at Rome. Before the eyes of an
idle and unprofitable multitude was now displayed the example of
Christ and his apostles, workmen all, an example which was actually
followed in the monasteries where the “perfect” life joined prayer
with work, both to charitable purposes. The Pachomian houses,
as self-sufficing communities, provided regular work, not merely as
a penitential exercise, but as an integral part of the life. Basil would
have his ascetics despise no form of labour ; Augustine reproved African
monks who were deserting work for prayer. Sloth was assuredly no
1 Cf. Ambros. Ep. 3 contr. Symm. ; Aug. Ep. 50; Jerome, Ep. ad Pammach.
26; Greg. Nyss. Or. de paup. amand. ; Basil, Ep. 151; Socr. H. E. vii. 26; Soz.
H. E. . 16; Theodoret, Epp. 42–45; Conc. Sardica, c. viii. etc.
3 Cod. Just. lib. XI. tit. 26 de mendicantibus validis.
OH. XX.
38—2


## p. 596 (#626) ############################################

596
The Church and Society. Women
inmate of the cloister then, though the work done cannot be described
as always useful or rational.
But the efforts of Christianity in behalf of the weak are nowhere seen
more clearly than in the uplifting of women. The Church gave them a
place of consideration in her ministry, not however the privilege of
preaching or administering the sacraments, though a deaconess was allowed
to assist in the baptism of women. Besides the carefully regulated orders
of deaconesses, virgins, and widows, there arose towards the end of the
fourth century classes of widows and virgins of higher rank who gave
themselves to voluntary work under church auspices, without taking
regular vows or living in communities. Such were Jerome's friends and
correspondents, Paula and Eustochium. In the East, where this class
attained a position of greater prominence than in the West (the Roman
spirit was averse from the public ministry of women), they approximated
to an order and were finally assimilated to the deaconesses.
Outside the ministry of the Church women were made the subject of
special legislation. Constantine was austere in morals. The age was
loose. The antique ideal of the Roman nation had long since disappeared.
Constantine determined to restore it. The severity of his measures
against adultery and rape shews his zeal in the cause of morality,
while the terms of those which regulate the relations of women to the
courts exhibit his care for their good fame and the matris familiae
majestas. Thus to spare their modesty wives were forbidden to appear
in court at all. His tenderness is also seen in his forbidding a son to
disinherit his mother, and in the exemption of widows from the penalties
visited on coiners. On the other hand there are signs, both in contem-
porary legislation and literature, of unchristian and brutal contempt for
the women who had most need of protection. Tavern-keepers and barmaids
are set free from the operation of the laws against adultery, “ since
chaste conduct is only expected of those who are restrained by the bonds
of law, and immunity must be extended to those whose worthless life has
set them beyond the pale of the laws. ” Again, it is difficult to under-
stand the mind of Augustine, who loves his natural son Adeodatus as
David loved the child of Bathsheba, and who yet has regret, but no word
of pity, for the mother whom he cast off. So Sidonius Apollinaris, the
aristocratic bishop of Auvergne, is very lenient towards the irregularities of
a young noble, and quite heartless towards the victim. But in the latter
case it must be remembered that the Christianity of Sidonius was
not very deep, that the girl was a slave, and that for all their good inten-
tions and growing instincts of humanity the Church and churchmen did
not yet regard slaves as free; and in the former, that concubinage, i. e. the
association of one man with one woman, was recognised by Roman law
and by the Council of Toledo (A. D. 400) and hardly differed from
wedlock except in name. What is astonishing to modern notions in the
case of Augustine and his mistresses is not so much his own conduct as


## p. 597 (#627) ############################################

The Church and Society. Women
597
the line taken by his friends and the saintly Monnica, and too readily
adopted by himself. Something like a mariage de convenance was pro-
jected for him while he was still attached to a woman whom there is no
reason to suppose unworthy to become his wife, in the hope that as soon
as he was married he might be washed clean in saving baptism. Monnica
was indeed more concerned by his Manichaeism than by his irregular
life. The incident reveals a flaw in a great character. But if that were
all it would have no place here. It is of value to our purpose as illus-
trating the view of the relation between the sexes held at this time,
and as a witness to the vastness of the task that lay before the Church
in purifying and uplifting society.
a
CH. XX.


## p. 598 (#628) ############################################

598
CHAPTER XXI.
EARLY CHRISTIAN ART.
Nor many years ago Greek art seemed to be marked off from Roman,
and Roman from Early Christian by wide intervals. The art of Greece
was typified by the buildings of the Athenian Acropolis, Roman art by
those of the imperial Forum and the Palatine, and Christian art by the
catacombs. Unceasing exploration and fruitful discoveries have since
brought to light so many works of the transitional periods that art
history has become rather the account of a continuous process than
of clearly defined epochs and schools.
The art of Rome itself under the new light appears rather as one
of the many later Hellenistic schools, than as purely indigenous.
Part
of the transition from Classical Greek may be traced in the art centres
of Asia Minor, and part, again, in the non-Roman city of Pompeii. As
to the latter, it is held that the sequences of style which have been
distinguished in its wall-paintings were probably fashions imported from
Alexandria. The covering of internal walls with thin slabs of rare
coloured-marbles and porphyries, and the incrustation of vaults with
mosaics of gilt and coloured glass, had the same origin.
This process of change in classical art carries us to some point in the
early centuries of Christianity, and many groups of facts shew that it
was long continued. Not only did Egypt and the East export their
porphyry, ivory, glass, bronze and textiles, but craftsmen were drawn to
the Roman capital from every Hellenistic city.
The works used or made by the Early Christians could at first have
been differentiated in no obvious way from the current classical works
of the time. When anything emerges which we can entitle Christian Art,
the change is, for the most part, manifest in a new spirit dealing with
old forms. The art was necessarily shaped externally by the modes and
codes of expression of the time. In many cases new ideas were expressed
under old forms ; thus the winged angel derives from the antique Victory;
the nimbus is classical as well as Christian; the story of Orpheus is
interpreted as a type of Christ; and Amor and Psyche are adopted as
symbols of the Divine Love and the soul.


## p. 599 (#629) ############################################

The Catacombs
599
In so far as there was novelty it is clear that, as Christianity itself
was from the East, so the changed forms must themselves have held in
them much that was oriental. Early Christian art is Roman art in the
widest sense, purified, orientalised, and informed with a new and epical
content which held as seed the possibilities of the mighty cycle of
Byzantine and Medieval art.
It is still in Rome and in the catacombs that the best connected series
of works of the first three or four centuries of this early art is found.
The great roads of approach to Rome were lined by countless tombs
of every degree of magnificence: rotundas, pyramids, cellae, and sarco-
phagi. Amongst them stood vestibules to underground tomb-chambers
where large numbers were buried in common. Along their walls, tier
upon tier, urns of ashes were packed like vases in a museum. The Jews
and other oriental peoples followed the custom of burying the unburnt
body in subterranean galleries, and appropriate sites for these also were
obtained round about Rome. The Christians, following the same usage,
at first shared such catacombs, and in other cases formed groups of their
own. The catacombs were primarily not places of hiding, however much
they may have been so used. Frequently there was a space above
ground planted as a garden, and made use of as a cemetery. In some
were small burial chapels from which access was obtained to the catacombs
beneath. The ruins of two or three such chapels have been discovered
and described. They agree in having had a central apse and two lateral
apses grouped together at one end.
There were also subterranean chapels, the most famous of which is
the Capella Graeca of the Catacomb of Priscilla. It has, roughly, the
form of a small nave or body, 8 by 25 ft. , ended by an apse with lateral
apses on each side of it. It opens from a long vaulted apartment
or atrium. The walls are decorated with paintings of the usual
subjects—Daniel, and Lazarus, Moses, Susannah, and the Adoration of
the Magi. On the vault over the nave are four heads representing the
Above the central apse is represented the Eucharistic repast.
This recently-discovered Fractio Panis is not only one of the most
interesting, it is also one of the most beautiful of the catacomb paint-
ings, as may be seen in the large photogravure published by Wilpert.
The forms and features of the seven participants are classic and gracious.
It is painted in a masterly way in a few simple colours on a vermilion
ground. The inscriptions on the walls are in Greek, hence the name of
the chapel. In the apse was an altar-tomb. It belongs to the second
century
Another catacomb church is probably of the third century, and a
third, the largest, in the catacomb of St Hermes is probably of the
fourth. The catacombs themselves are complexes of subterranean passages
and galleries excavated for the disposal of the dead, who rested one above
another along the sides. The chambers, more or less square, were
seasons.
CH. XXI.


## p. 600 (#630) ############################################

600
Christian Paintings
a
roughly vaulted above, and the vaults and walls were for the most part
decorated with painting, and occasionally with stucco reliefs. This
ornamentation was a branch of the ordinary house and tomb decorator's
work of the time, and the painted subjects were clearly executed with
the swift mastery which came of long practice in repeating a limited
stock of ideas. The vaulted ceilings were usually decorated by some
geometrical arrangement of panels, radiating from the centre and bounded
by a large circle. In these panels were little figures, groups, birds and
foliage. The colours were reds, greens and ochres and a little blue, the
whole mellow yet bright.
The subjects of these paintings have been most thoroughly illustrated,
and their chronology analysed, in Wilpert's large work. Under the first
century he groups several schemes of vault decoration in which the
motives consist of the geometrical division of the field, and of little
putti and foliage. One vault is entirely covered with a branching vine.
On others of the same century are landscapes and burial feasts, while
the cycle of Biblical subjects begins with Daniel standing between two
lions, and the Good Shepherd. To the second century he assigns vaults
on which appear the Three Children in the furnace, Moses striking the
rock, the Eucharist, Noah and the Ark, scenes from the story of Jonah,
and subjects from the life and miracles of Christ; the raising of Lazarus,
the cure of the paralytic, the cure of the woman, and the meeting with
the Samaritan. The most noticeable and beautiful is in the cemetery of
Priscilla, and represents the seated Virgin and Child, with a prophet
standing by, and a star or the sun above. This is a small group at the
side of a central composition of the Good Shepherd, from which it is
divided by a flowering tree. This central subject and the trees on either
hand of it were roughly modelled in the plaster before colouring. The
modelling of the tree is but a few swift marks of the tool defining the
trunk, and the leaves and flowers are painted. The Virgin and Child
are beautifully drawn with some remaining tradition of classical feeling.
The figures are only about a foot high, and unhappily the lower part
is much injured. The whole is very like a sketch by Watts. Belonging
to this century are two or three versions of the Baptism. Another
subject is the mocking of Christ; others are symbolical, a ship in a
storm, Orpheus charming the beasts, and orantes who represent souls
rather than persons. One beautiful vault is decorated by a series of
bands, on the lowest of which, on the four sides, are four typical
occupations of the seasons-picking Aowers, cutting corn, the vintage,
and gathering olives—while the upper bands are ornamented successively
with pattern-work of roses, corn, vine, and olive.
Amongst the third century paintings may be noticed Christ enthroned,
the Virgin and the Magi, and Amor and Psyche gathering flowers. In
the fourth century Christ is represented enthroned amidst the twelve
apostles, as in the apses of the early basilicas. In the fifth century the


## p. 601 (#631) ############################################

Sculpture
601
treatment of the figures becomes more rigid and hieratic, while their
costumes are much bejewelled, in a manner distinctly Byzantine. There
is little in the catacomb paintings which has peculiar application to the
grave. The raising of Lazarus or Daniel between the lions belong to a
series of “deliverance” subjects which were in general use in all forms of
“
Early Christian art; when we come to the fourth and fifth centuries
the decoration resembles that which we are accustomed to in the churches
of those centuries, and the decoration of the earlier catacombs would
have been equally according to the general custom of the time when
they were built. That is, the pre-Constantinian churches and earlier
domestic oratories must have been painted in like fashion with the cata-
combs. The ideas underlying the choice of subjects are of resurrection
and salvation, thoughts which are further expressed in the simple epitaphs,
which speak of hope, peace, and eternal welfare. Some of the subjects
chosen have, indeed, been compared with the ancient prayers for the
dying, “ Deliver, O Lord, Thy servant as Thou didst deliver Enoch and
Elias from the common death, as Thou didst deliver Noah from the
Deluge, Job from his torments, Isaac from the Sacrifice, Moses from the
hand of Pharaoh, Daniel from the lions, the three young men from the
furnace, and Susannah from false accusation. . . . So deign to deliver the
soul of Thy servant. ”
The orantes, who were figured with extended arms amidst such
scenes, are types of supplication. They are generally feminine, and are
symbols of the soul in prayer. Thus understood they go far to explain
the scope and meaning of the art of the catacombs.
There is little sculpture in the round extant from our period, but
it is almost surprising that there is any. The examples are three or four
figures of the Good Shepherd bearing the lamb on His shoulder. The
most perfect of these, in the Lateran Museum, is a sweet pastoral figure.
They have been compared with statues of Hermes bearing the ram.
The composition is clearly derived, but the sentiment is very different.
As usual, the Christians were using old symbols in a new spirit.
The early sarcophagi furnish us with a series of relief sculptures
parallel in extent and interest to the paintings of the catacombs. Some
are so little differentiated from late classical art that it is hardly possible
to
say whether they are indeed Christian. Others have quite a collection
of the usual triumph subjects which appear in the catacombs as paintings.
The most noteworthy of all of them is a fragment, now in the Berlin
Museum, which was lately brought from Constantinople. On it appear
Christ and two apostles, standing in niches, separated by columns.
Christ is unbearded and the head has a cruciform nimbus. The figures,
which are about four feet high, are draped in a dignified style like
classical statues of philosophers. This remarkable work has the closest
relation of style with the series of late antique sarcophagi, one of which
is in the Mausoleum Room of the British Museum, another in the Cook
CH. XXI.


## p. 602 (#632) ############################################

602
Engraved Gems
Collection at Richmond. The Berlin relief probably belongs to the
third century, and had its origin at Constantinople or in Asia Minor.
Another famous sarcophagus is that of Junius Bassus, praefect of
Rome, who died in 359. It has several scenes sculptured on it, amongst
which are, Christ enthroned, the Entry into Jerusalem, Christ brought
before Pilate, and Pilate washing his hands; also Adam and Eve,
Daniel, etc. The sculptures are in panels divided by columns, some of
which are covered with scrolls of foliage among which climb amorini.
This ornamentation is noteworthy, as the columns thus decorated resemble
the celebrated sculptured columns at St Peter's which are usually thought
to be antique. These columns formed a screen in front of the altar of
Constantine's basilica ; they were saved, and re-used in the new church.
The motive of Cupids climbing amidst vines is also found on the mosaics
of Santa Costanza (c. 360) and on many tombs.
Two more most famous sarcophagi must be spoken of— those of the
Empress Helena and of Santa Costanza. Both are of royal porphyry
with sculptures in high relief, and they are now in the Vatican. That
of the Empress is sculptured with a military triumph, that of Costanza
with amorini and the vintage, peacocks and lambs. With the latter
Strzygowski has lately compared fragments of other porphyry sarco-
phagi at Constantinople and Alexandria, and has shewn that they must
all have come from Egypt, the land of the porphyry-quarries and the
place of origin of other porphyry sculptures such as the well-known group
at the south-west corner of St Mark's, Venice.
A class of objects which dates from the time of the catacombs, if
not from the apostolic age, is that of engraved gems. Of these the
British Museum has a good representative collection.
“ The use of
rings as signets or ornaments was as widely spread among the early
Christians as among their Pagan contemporaries. St James speaks of the
man who wears a gold ring and goodly apparel, and the Fathers of the
Church were obliged to reprimand the community for extravagance in this
respect. ” The devices engraved on these gems are for the most part of
a simple symbolic character as befits the small field which they occupy.
In the British Museum collection we have anchors and fish, doves and
trees, sheep, branches of olive and palm, shepherds' crooks, ships, sacred
monograms, the word IXOYC, and the inscription Vivas in Deo. Of
more pictorial subjects we have the Good Shepherd bearing the sheep,
Adam and Eve, Daniel, Jonah, and the Crucifixion.
Two are
especially important. One of them contains quite a collection of the
favourite subjects brought together on its narrow space. The Good
Shepherd with the sheep, Daniel and the lions, the dove with the olive
branch, and the story of Jonah, as well as two trees, fish, a star and a
monogram. The other is probably the earliest representation of the
Crucifixion known, and must date from the third century at latest.
On either side of the Crucified Christ are six much smaller figures, the


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Symbols
603
apostles, and above is the word IXOYC. M. Brehier in Les Origines
du Crucifix (1904) suggests that the representation was of Syrian
origin and arose in opposition to merely symbolical interpretations. At
South Kensington there are several Early Christian, Gnostic,and Byzantine
rings, some of which are of importance. One is a ship with the XP
monogram on its sail, another has two saints embracing, probably the
Visitation. Another has a symbolic composition engraved on silver
which has been figured by Garrucci and others. Later writers copy it
from Garrucci and seem not to know of its being preserved now at
South Kensington. From a pillar resting on a pyramid of steps spring
branches of foliage above which, in a circle, is a Lamb with the XP
monogram. Below the branches stand two sheep, and two doves fly
toward the tree. It is inscribed IANVARI VIVAS.
The elementary symbols which are found on the engraved rings and
all the other objects of art are so direct and simple, as has been said,
that they are still perfectly obvious and modern. We have the anchor,
cross, crook, ship, light-house, fish and star; the dove, lamb, drinking
harts, palms and olive branches, trees, baskets of fruit, lamps and
candles, chalice, amphora, bowl of milk; the vintage, harvest, sowing
and fishing; the shepherd, the orantes, Eros and Psyche; the Heavenly
Sanctuary, the Celestial Banquet, and Garden of Paradise. Out of this
alphabet ideas were built up by combination. Thus we have a ship
with a cross-mast, and the sacred monogram on its sails; another ship
on a stormy sea approaching a light-house ; still another ship made fast
to land bearing vessels of wine, and with a dove holding a branch of
olive perched on the rigging. Or we have a Lamb lying at the foot
of the Cross, or another caressing an axe. There are combined anchors
and crosses, flowering crosses, crosses with birds perched on their arms,
and crosses rising from a mound from which flow four rivers.
Larger objects in metal work must be mentioned, if only that
attention may be drawn to the celebrated Casket of Projecta and the
excellent collection of bronze candlesticks and hanging lamps at the
British Museum. The silver toilet casket is entirely Pagan in style. On
the top are the portraits of a husband and bride in a wreath supported
by Cupids. On the front is embossed the Toilet of Venus and a lady
seated between handmaids who bring to her articles of the toilet. At
the ends are nereids; and the smaller spaces are filled by peacocks,
doves, and baskets of fruit. The most interesting subject is that on
the back, where the bride is being led to her new home, a house of two
stories covered above by several domes. The inscription, which is in
letters pricked on the plain border, is the only Christian thing about
the work, and it is possible, as in the case of some of the sarcophagi
with Pagan subjects, that it was shopwork, and that the inscription was
added for the purchaser. There are many indications that it was made
in Alexandria.
CH. XXI,


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604
Ivories
&
We have in our English museums a remarkably fine collection of
Early Christian Ivories. At South Kensington there is a leaf of a famous
diptych, inscribed Symmachorum, the companion of which in Paris is
inscribed Nicomachorum; it is not itself Christian, but it can be associated
with other works which are, and it can be accurately dated as of the
end of the fourth century. It is of extraordinary beauty both of design
and workmanship, and is the most perfect existing example of marriage
diptychs. It was made on the occasion of the marriage of Nicomachus
Flavianus with the daughter of Quintus Aurelius Symmachus, consul in
A. D. 391, or another marriage between the same families in 401.
Now there is an ivory in the Trivulzio Collection at Milan, sculptured
with a representation of the Holy Sepulchre and watching soldiers, on
which some of the details are identical with the one just spoken of_and
a third diptych of the same class, having exactly similar details, and
inscribed with the name of Rufinus Probianus is now at Berlin. They
are all so much alike in style that it would seem that they must come
from one shop and may even be the work of the same hand.
At the British Museum there are some pieces which formed the sides
of a casket which are sculptured with scenes from the Passion. Some
of the subjects have so much in common with the other ivories just
discussed that they may be assigned to the same school. On these
panels are represented Pilate washing his hands, St Peter's Denial,
Christ bearing the Cross, the Crucifixion, Judas hanged, the Women
at the Sepulchre, the Incredulity of St Thomas. Pilate washing his
hands is a fine classical composition which may be compared with the
same subject on the Brescia coffer, which also has the Denial of St
Peter, and the Death of Judas. This coffer is acknowledged to be early
fourth century work, which is further confirmed by the fact that on the
sarcophagus of Junius Bassus the subject of Pilate washing his hands is
treated in a similar manner. The Brescia coffer has often been called
the most beautiful of Christian Ivories. It has been pointed out that
the cycle of subjects from the Passion represented upon it stops before the
Crucifixion, and it has been held that this omission was a matter of
principle, but the London series, and other still earlier treatments of
the Crucifixion which are now known, contradict this view. The Holy
Sepulchre as it appears on the British Museum fragments is identical
with that on the Trivulzio tablet before mentioned, and the curious
costume of the watching soldiers is alike in both. In both the doors of
the tomb are burst open, and in both, on the panels of the doors, is carved
the raising of Lazarus.
These British Museum panels have been assigned by the Museum
authorities to the fifth century, but there can be little doubt that they
should be classed with the other fourth century works they so closely
resemble. They are distinctly earlier in style than the carved doors of
Santa Sabina in Rome which are usually dated about 425.


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Ivories
605
There are other points which go to shew that these Ivories were
wrought in Rome, although possibly by a school of Eastern ivory-carvers.
A domed building practically identical with the upper part of the Holy
Sepulchre on the British Museum Ivory is found on a fourth century
Roman sarcophagus now in the Lateran. While the Trivulzio tablet
has the symbols of the four evangelists appearing in the sky, which are
remarkably similar to the same symbols in the apse mosaic of Santa
Pudentiana, wrought about 390, these symbols hardly appear in
Byzantine work, but they do in Egyptian wall-paintings. Another
casket at the Museum which is carved with the stories of St Peter
and St Paul has much in common with the one last described. Moses
striking the Rock seems at first an intrusion amongst these subjects,
but it was in fact a favourite Early Christian type of the Gospel,
and is frequently found in the catacombs ; Christ is the Rock, St Peter
is the Moses of the New Law, and the water is that of Baptism. In
some cases, indeed, the name of Peter is written over what appears
to be the figure of Moses. This treatment occurs again engraved on
the glass vessel from Cologne in the Museum. At South Kensington
are sides of a casket sculptured with scenes from the Life of Christ, and
known as the Werdan casket. The subjects comprise the Annunciation,
the Angel appearing to Joseph, the Visitation, the Presentation of the
Virgin, the three Shepherds, the Nativity, the Magi, men going out of
Jerusalem toward the Jordan, the axe laid to the root of the tree, the
Baptism. The Annunciation is represented after a form which appears in
the Apocryphal Gospel of St Matthew, according to which the Virgin was
drawing water at a fountain when the angel appeared. The Ox and
Ass of the Nativity come from the same source, as also does the
Presentation in the Temple. On this casket Christ at the Baptism
is represented as small and youthful as compared to the Baptist.
Mr Cecil Torr has founded on this the conjecture that an account different
from that in the Gospels was followed, but it may be suggested that it
came about through some stylistic formula like that of the old Egyptian
monuments, whereby some persons might be bigger than others.
(Compare three Ivories, 373-5, in Cabrol's Dictionary. ) It is true that
we should expect the Christ to be the dominating figure, but may it
not in this instance be the Baptist's office which is magnified ?
A famous ivory book-cover at Milan has subjects which resemble
those of the Werdan casket so closely that they must have come from
the same shop. Except for slight changes called for by the different
spaces to be filled, the Nativity, the Wise Men, the Shepherds, and the
Annunciation, the Presentation of the Virgin, and the Baptism, are all
practically identical. There is also at the Bodleian an Ivory of the
same school which contains a Baptism.
The Early Christian “Gilt Glasses” (Fondi d' oro) were shallow glass
bowls and other vessels decorated with figures, inscriptions, etc. , in gold
CH. XXI.


## p. 606 (#636) ############################################

606
Gilt Glasses
leaf, the detail drawing being made out by removing parts of the gold,
and the whole fixed by a film of glass fused over the surface. The
subjects shew that vessels so ornamented were used alike by Pagans,
Jews, and Christians. They have been more particularly associated
with the latter, as a large number of the decorated medallions which
formed the bottoms of the glasses have been found in the catacombs,
where they were stuck in the plaster, probably as one means of the
identification of the loculus. In the fine collection at the British
Museum is a medallion with a figure of the gladiator Stratonicus which,
together with some others, is evidently of Pagan origin, and one
with the seven-branched candlestick and other ritual objects of the
Temple, is Jewish.
In the main the Gilt Glasses belong to the third and fourth centuries of
our era. They were most popular from c. 300 to c. 350 and few were made
after 400. The method of decoration seems to have originated in the
glass-works of Egypt. Many of them are inscribed TIE-ZHCAIC which
on others is found in the corrupt form PIE-ZESES. This suggests
a Greek origin, and there is in the British Museum Christian Collection
a fragment of a glass bowl found at Behnésa in Egypt in 1903 which
bears part of the earlier form in large engraved letters. In the Slade
Collection, in the Glass Room, there are two most beautiful basins with
exquisitely refined classical decoration in gold. These it is said were
“probably made in Alexandria in the first century, and the method of
ornamentation by designs in gold foil enclosed between two thicknesses
of glass is similar to that employed in the case of Early Christian
Gilded Glasses. ” Probably the Christian, Jewish, and Pagan vessels
were sold together in the same shops. Amongst those at the British
Museum, for instance, there is one with profile heads of St Peter and
St Paul, and Christ between, crowning them. Another has a man
and wife with a small figure of Christ offering them garlands, and the
inscription “ Long life to thee, sweet one.