iff Faciiih, *- «M»m>iaTniinnn)nniunh I'wnTiiigMMamiiiirnnrM'iirjiiiV KEV.R.Sf JOHN.TYK! T"T*n *** *"" ttrrmi V THE CRUCIFIXION" AND RESURRECTION. LAUriFNTIAN M.S., A.D. DJ THE ART TEACHING PRIMITIVE CHURCH: Jfnto* of Subjects, |]istoatntl ana (Emblematic. REV. R ST. JOHX TYEWHITT, M.A.. FORMERLY STUDEXT AMD TUTOR OF CHRIST CHURC3, OXFORD. Published under the Direction of the Committee of General Literature and Education appointed by the Society for Promoting i iiristian Knowledge. LONDON : SOCIETY FOB PBOMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE. SOLD AT THE DEPOSITORIES : ^£>£_> 77, On eat Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields; 4, Royal Exchange ; 48, Piccadilly ; and by all booksellers. LONDON : R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, BREAD STREET HILL. I 010 PREFACE. This volume contains some notes of the traditionary- subjects of Early Christian art as far as the first Italian Eenaissance. That period, it seems, may be best marked by the name of Niccola Pisano. Whatever the unknown artists of the earliest Lom- bard churches may have done, the careful study of Ancient or Attic-Greek models, as distinguished from those of the Byzantine school, is held to begin with that great master ; whose life marks the commencement of Modern art. By his time, the Gothic or Mediaeval choice of subject and treat- ment was fully established. It is an object of this work to point out some of the differences in these respects, between mediaeval and primitive Church- art, and to give, some notes of the progressive in- trusion of legend and polytheism into the ancient cycle of Scriptural art-teaching. The various references have of course cost some labour. For the Catacombs, the works of Bosio, vi PREFACE. Arinffki, and Bottari are all clue to the labours of the first, and his plates were used to illustrate them all : Aringhi's Symbolic Index is a mine of learned comment and reference. One book or the other will generally be found accessible. Though these plates give no idea of the present appear- ance, or rather the gradual disappearance, of the buried frescoes, they may probably be accurate records of the subjects once represented. Cardinal Bosio's integrity was equal to his enthusiasm, and he had no polemical motive in his work of re-discovery. It is therefore generally assumed in this book, that his authority is sufficient to prove that such and such subjects (of often un- certain date within the first eight centuries) have been found in Christian sepulchres, whether the latter were of greater antiquity than their decora- tions or not. For modern text-books on this subject, Alt's " Heiligenbilder," and Martigny's " Dictionnaire des Antiquites Chretiennes," will supply the reader with ample information, and open to him a vast range of reference for more extended study, which is sure to increase in interest, as the connection between early art, archaeology, and history is better understood. PEEFACE. Vll For the present state of monuments and examples, Mr. J. H. Parker's collection of Eoman and other photographs stands by itself as a unique and in- valuable addition to modern means of accurate knowledge. I have expressed my obligations to Professor Westwood more than once in the text ; hut I have to thank him particularly for access to his large collection of ivories ; and for a sight of a valuable monograph on Christian sculpture, by Dr. Appell, of the South Kensington Museum. E. St. J. T. CONTENTS. FAQF. INTRODUCTORY 1 CHAPTER I. RELIGIOUS AST-HISTORY 7 CHAPTER II. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM 35 CHAPTER III. 1CONOCLASM AND CREATURE-WORSHIP 67 CHAPTER IV. THE CATACOMBS AND THEIR PAINTINGS 99 NOTE ON FRESCO-PAINTINGS AT. NAPLES, IN THE CATACuMBS OF ST, JANUARIUS 134 CHAPTER V. MOSAICS 137 CHAPTER VI. CHRISTIAN SCULPTURE 177 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER VII. PACK THE moss 193 CHAPTER VIII. EUCHARISTIC SYMBOLISM AND REPRESENTATION .... 217 CHAPTER IX. THE cnrciFix 229 CHAPTER X. THE LOMBARDS 255 CHAPTER XI. GENERA! 290 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS OF SACRED ART IN THE rUIMITrVE CHURCH 307 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PA UK THE CRUCIFIXION AND RESURRECTION Front. THE GRAFFITO BLASFBMO 7 VINE HO. I. — t'ALLIXTINE I ATACOMK 3:2 THE STATION CBO88 AT MAYENCE 34 VINE NO. II. — CHAPEL OF GALLA PLACIDIA 67 CALMXTINE HEAT) OF CHRIST 98 THE TWO NOAHS 135 THE STATION CROSS AT MAYENCE (BACK VIEW) .... 136 STATUE OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD 174 ADAM AND EYE. — FIGURES FROM SARCOPHAGUS . . . . 176 THE LATERAN CROSS 192 THE ASCENSION 306 EAGl.E SYMBOI PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. INTRODUCTORY. The ancient relics and monuments of Christian art are a portion of the history of the Primitive Church. All historians acknowledge their impor- tance as documents ; and several attempts are made in these pages to illustrate their connection with doctrine. But the chief practical object of this work is to indicate and appeal to that tradition of sacred art, for the plain purposes of Gospel education, which the writer believes to have been continued in use in the Church from her earliest paintings, — the " Ciclo Biblico" of the Catacombs. The religious paintings and carvings of any race of men are, in fact, evidence of the belief of the people, and let us know the actual thoughts and hopes of ordinary persons about the faith they hold. The Catacomb pictures are a standard of religious in- telligence, which show us how people received and understood the word preached and written. To a prac- tical man, interested in, yet distressed by, the ways of common life in any age, thoughts of the Christian B <**. 2 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. faith are inseparable from thoughts of death: and in the earliest paintings we have the ideas which martyrs and hearers of Apostles themselves dwelt on and commended to others in the hour of death. They attempted no description of Paradise or of Heaven ; they did not, for centuries, dwell on the Glory of Christ the Lord, as seen in Apocalyptic vision : they scarcely appealed to the judgment to come, they denounced no vengeance from Heaven on those who sought their lives. These were not the great and leading thoughts of the faith, which the early Church desired plain men to dwell on in the most solemn hours of life, and at its end. She continued the teaching of St. Peter and St. Paul, and appealed to the ancient Law and the Prophets, asserting the connection of the Mosaic and the Christian dispen- sations. If the multitude of the first Pentecost believed the witness of the patriarch David about the Holy One Who should not be suffered to see corruption, they must repent and be baptized every one in the name of Jesus Christ. If the Sanhedrim would hearken, Stephen would tell them the history of their fathers from Abraham, and its real meaning for them. If King Agrippa believed the Prophets, his place, in logic and right reason, was in the Church with St. Paul. There had been, from the time of the Fall, a promise of deliverance from corruption, evil, and pain ; some great good had been determined by God's fore-knowledge for man. Since Abraham, the " lively oracles " concerning it had been in Abraham's race, not dumb, but speaking. Accordingly the first lesson of Apostolic preaching was sustained appeal to the Old Testament, as typical and confirmatory of the INTRODUCTORY. 3 New. This was enforced by the earliest paintings ; and St. Paulinus of Nola, about a.d. 400, wrote in the spirit of the earliest Gospel when he said, " The Ancient Law confirms the New, the New fulfils the Old." It seems to have been the special work of this remarkable person to call the attention of the Italian Church, in its hours of intense suffering and terror, to those powerful means of instructive appeal to the barbarian mind, which the relics of Graeco-Eoman art yet afforded. 1 Accordingly we have evidence of the 1 His reasons for church painting are very simple — the poor people understand the pictures, and can think about them, and so learn better behaviour in church. " Forte requiratur, quanam ratione gerendi Sederit base nobis sententia, pingere sanctas Raro more domos ammantibus adsimulatis. turba frequentior hie est Rusticitas non casta fide, neque docta legendi Haec adsueta diu sacris servire profanis, Ventre Deo, tandem convertitur advena Christo, Dum sanctorum opera in Christo miratur aperta. Propterea visum nobis opus utile, totis Felices domibus pictura illudere sancta ; Si forte attonitas h;ec per spectacula mentes Agrestum caperet fucata coloribus umbra Quse super exprimitur literis, ut litera monstret Quod manus explicuit ; dumque omnes picta vicissim Ostendunt releguntque sibi, vel tardius esca? Sunt memores, dum grata oculis jejunia pascunt ; Atque ita se melior stupefactis inserit usus, Dum fallit pictura famem, sanctasque legenti Historias castorum openim subrepit horcstas Exemplis inducta piis; potatur hianti Sobrietas, nimii subeunt oblivia vini : Dumque diem ducunt spatio majore tuentes, Pocula rarescunt, quia per mirantia tracto Tempore, jam paucae superant epulantibus horse." In Natal. Felic. poem ix. On the Ark, &c. : " Quo duce Jordanus suspenso gurgite fixis Fluctibus, a facie divinse restitit arcae, Vis nova divisit flumen ; pars amne recluso [Constitit B 2 4 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. energies of the Church, indomitable at the time when all else was crushed by Alaric's capture of Rome, in the great historical mosaics of St. Sabina, commenced in 424, and those of St. Maria Maggiore in 432 ; the litter setting forth the history of the Hebrew Law from Abraham downwards. There can be no doubt that the lost paintings by Paulinus in the Church of St. Felix at Nola must be connected, as history, with the mosaics of St. M. Maggiore. Among them were scenes from the Old Testament ; the Passage of the Red Sea ; Joshua and the Ark of God ; Ruth and Orpah, as typical of the faithful and the backsliders from faith. " These," says Milman, " must have involved decided attempts at landscape, composition, and expression." ' There can be no doubt to anyone who has seen the Old Testament mosaics of St. M. Maggiore, that if the spirit and vigour of those works had continued in a succession of students, a powerful school might have risen from them; as the great school of Florence, in after days, struck its roots in the Lombard work along the southern spurs of the Alps from the 8th to the 11th century. And, indeed, it is hard to say that these mosaics may not Constitit, et fluvii pars in mare lapsa cucurrit, Destituitque vadum : et validus qui forte fuebat Impetus, adstrictas alte cumulaverat undas, Et tremula compage minax pendebat aquae mons Despectans transire pedes arente profundo, Et medio pedibus siccis in riumine ferri Pulverulenta hominum duro vestigia limo." Orpah and Ruth: " Quum gemina? scindunt sese in diversa sorores ; lluth sequitur sanctam, quam deserit Orpa, parentem ; Perfidiam nuras una, fidem nurus altera monstrat, Praefert una Deum patriae, patriam altera vita;. "— Nat. F- ix. 1 See Parker's Photographs, and Ciampini's plates there repeated. INTRODUCTORY. 5 have influenced the monk Jacobus, or Torrita, or the various and undistinguishable authors of the Pisan and Florentine inlayings. But the careful appeal of the earliest art to Hebrew history and prophecy is our main point ; together with the fact that it repeats the arguments of St. Peter and St. Paul from the Old Testament to the New. Their preaching was argumentative and not emotional, as far as we know ; aud the same remark applies to the early paintings. Similar principles of teaching are greatly to be desired in our own days. There is an unity of purpose and of theology, which runs from the first century to our own, and expresses itself in marble, mosaic, and painting. For centuries it was altogether good or harmless, while it expressed the faith of the people, that God had come on earth as Man to deliver them from evil, and had lately submitted to human life and death with them and for them : that the New Testament was the history of that endurance and action, and the Old the record of the world's pre- paration for it. A parallel degeneracy in pictorial expression marks the failure of the popular standard of faith. Personal trust in Our Lord dies away ; saints, martyrs, angels, and the Virgin Mother are invoked to mediate with Him. His Form, first symbolized, then painted with artless imaginations of human beauty, recedes by degrees ; and constantly the images of saints take His place, or He appears, after the tenth century, as the unpitying Judge : while the Christian ideal of Him becomes that of sad severity , as if mourniug over the inefficacy of His own Act of Iiedeniption. But yet again, with the early Eenais- 6 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. sance of Pisa and Florence, the strength of young Italy resumes much of the ancient hope and joy in Him ; and by the side of His sufferings and His judgment it is asserted, vividly and gloriously, that He rose and ascended, and that His mercy endureth for ever. When Primitive Art is not historical, for narrative- teaching of the facts of the Old and New Dispensa- tions and their mutual relation, it is symbolical, for enforcement of Doctrine ; — that is to say, of the facts or truths in possession of the Christian soul, and teachable by man to man. The Corruption or Fall of man, and the Cross as the sign of the Redeemer ; x sin, and deliverance by sacrifice — these were the key- notes of Christian art for the people, because they were the broad and fundamental truths which upheld the personal hope of every individual of the people. So it was in the earliest days, when Our Lord's Person and Life were most dwelt on ; so in after time, from the 6th century, when the manner of His Death filled men's hearts ; and so it is, down to the Sacramental instructions of Bishop Wilson, the " Christus Consolator " of Ary Scheffer, and that im- portant relic of mediaeval Christianity, the Passion- play of Ammergau. The Christian use of art, graphic or scenic, is not for emotion or sensation ; it is to enforce the reality of History, and the permanence of Doctrine. 1 Not, in the first instance, of the manner of His death. See Chapter on Crosses and Crucifixes. Ca£w< CRUCIFIX. — THE GRAFFITO BLASFBMO CHAPTEE I. ^ %/t>^- RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. It is a remark of the late Dean of St. Paul's in a note to his "History of Christianity," 1 that the Iconoclasts had, probably, more influence in bar- barising the East, than the Barbarians themselves had in the West. The observation has all the in 1 Book iv. chap. iv. Compare "Christian Remembrancer," vol. Iv. pp. 333-4, where the connection between Manicheism and Iconoelasm is pointed out. The author calls attention also to the sweeping nature of the destruction of Christian documents in the eighth century, including great numbers of precious MSS. ; and to the lconodulist influence, in Italy and the Western world, of the great number of monastic artists who sought refuse from Eastern persecution. 8 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. terest which an apparent paradox by a great writer al- ways possesses ; and it is, after all, highly probable as a conjecture. The chief inference to which it leads is the principle which justifies the writing, or compi- lation, of this book. It is that no means of popular education, religious or secular, is to be neglected ; that to refuse means of right development and instruction to one's neighbour, when it is fairly in our power to give them, can come to no good ; and, that instruction of the most varied and valuable character is to be conveyed (and with especial force and clearness in the case of rude and simple minds), by means of symbols in form, or colour, or both. They appeal to the imagination ; and through it they set the mind in action, and supply it with matter to work on. It is appointed for man, by his Maker, that he should learn and teach through the eye, through the sense of likeness and the sense of beauty ; for likeness or resemblauce is the lowest form of pictorial beauty, and the pleasure of observ- ing a resemblance is really that of studying two forms by comparing them. If this means of teaching be neglected or forbidden, a means of instruction is closed, which all Theists must consider Divinely appointed. The world suffers accordingly ; men are deprived of light, of sweetness, of fresh and right thought. Iconoclasm, certainly, had this result in the East, urged as it was to its results by Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans ; and with the more sustained violence, as the latter conquering race insisted on it with the most crushing vigour ; forbidding, even to this day, all the wholesome secular uses of naturalist art in representing the RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 9 works of God on earth. I am unable to find this definite prohibition in the Koran ; but it certainly has been stringently carried out in the Mohammedan world. The common derivation of the word arabesque turns on it. The Lions of the Alhambra are an exception to it, and are believed to be a dubious indulgence in representative art; neither they nor the building of which they form a part require notice here. Much conventional ornament, founded on nature, and executed by Greek mosaicists or carvers, will be found in Saracenic work at Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusalem. It is probable that the rule of prohibition was originally adopted from Hebrew law, and given in the Hebrew sense, which admitted certain exceptions in practice, and, in deed, in the text of Holy Scripture. 1 " It was con- trary to the religion of the Arab to introduce any animal form into his ornament, but though all the radiance of colour, and all proportion and design were open to him, he could not produce any noble work without an abstraction of the forms of leafage, in his capitals, and as the ground-plan of his chased ornament." Eastern art perished or grew monstrous by neglect of nature, for want of faithful study of present beauty, through the merciless prohibition, insisted on with all the vehemence of ignorance, to record, at all or for any purpose, the form of any living thing which God has made. Though they seem to have given but little trouble, the questions of religious art must have been before the Church of Christ from the very earliest times. Pictorial decoration of every kind, from the 1 See infra, and "Stones of Venice," vol. i., end of chap. xx y B 3 10 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. statues of gods and heroes to mosaics of ducks and doves, and from thence again to the "inscripta Iintea* of wine- shops and gladiators' schools, was the rule of Greek and Eoman life. In the very- earliest days of the Church, Christian congregations must have met in decorated rooms, without noticing or caring for their decoration. To the Pauline or Gentile school of converts, filled, through long spaces of life, with one all-sufficient idea, that their God had come to them and was theirs, the graven image was what it was to him of Tarsus — nothing at all. The easy way in which Christians adopted heathen ornament is noticed by writers of all views. " I have constantly observed," says the Commendatore de Eossi, " in the subterranean cemeteries, that the early Christians possessed sculptured sarcophagi which bear no sign of Christian faith, and seem to have issued from Gentile workshops ; adorned with images of the firmament, scenes of shepherd-life, agricul- ture, the chase, games, &c. The Christian interpre- tation given to agricultural or pastoral scenes, to personifications of the seasons, to dolphins and other marine creatures, is obvious and universally ac- knowledged. When the faithful could not obtain sarcophagi adorned with sacred sculpture, it is evident that they took great trouble in selecting those which contained nothing directly offensive to the faith, and did not represent idolatrous rites, images of false gods, or subjects too evidently belonging to Pagan theogony." There was, how- ever, another great class of Christians — perhaps, as Milman suggests, it existed in every city — which would feel differently. To the Hebrew Christian, RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 11 still zealous of the law, the representation of any uncommanded and unprescribed form in any place of worship would be matter for alarm and earnest protest, at the least. And later on in time, the austerer and harsher minds among Gentile Chris- tians would object to picture-ornament as an indulgence, as lust of the flesh and of the eye. Tertullian's condemnation of all images and forms whatever 1 seems connected with the natural severity of his temper. There can be no doubt, however, that the strictness of Hebrew rule and feeling against idolatry would and did postpone the use of art by the Church, even for instruction in historical pictures of events. The well-known decree of the Council of Illiberis forbids them generally (Can. 36), as it, seems by way of caution : — " It is ordered, that there be no pictures in Church, lest that which we worship and adore (come to) be painted on the walls." Still Hebrew usage itself had its well-remembered exceptions, of which the brazen serpent is perhaps the most striking. The cherubs, the oxen, the pome- granates and flower- work of the ancient Temple were doubtless repeated in that of Herod — they certainly never could be forgotten by the Jewish people : and thus the difference between symbolic ornament (however significant) and idolatrous creature-wor- ship, was virtually understood by the Hebrew. Even Tertullian 2 is checked in his sweeping condemnation of all representation whatever, by his recollection of the serpent in the wilderness, which he excuses as virtually a Christian symbol. But all the casuistry of the subject, all the distinctions 1 "De Idolatria," c. iii. * Ibid. c. iv. 12 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. between the use of emblems for instruction, their misuse to excite feeling, and their final abuse as objects of worship, must have been only too familial to a race in whose history the calf- worship (or pro- bably cherub-worship) of Jeroboam formed a part. 1 It seems likely that in his day the cherubs on the veil and doors of the Temple, seen there daily with- out harm by priests and people, were set up as objects of worship in Dan and Bethel. It is pro- bable, however, that in the first and second age of the Primitive Church both Hebrew and Gentile. Christians may have been accustomed to use vari- ously decorated rooms without scruple. They may have met, even for prayer and the Eueharistie celebration, without giving a thought to the fact that vines, or boys, or pictures of the seasons, or of shepherds, may have been painted on their walls, roughly or elaborately. This is virtually proved, for the western world, by the quotation given above from De Rossi, founded on the earliest known works in the catacombs ; as in that of St. Prsetextatus, a.d. 150.- It is admitted on all hands that Pagan decorations were accepted, and invested with meaning by the Christian imagination. There is little or no doubt that vines and shepherds adorned Roman chambers of all kinds before the Christian era : there is no doubt at all that, after the Lord's words " I am the Vine," " I am the Good Shepherd," those images were repeated continually in all places where Christians met to worship Him. But when decorations began to be widely adopted by the 1 See Chapter on Symbolism. 1 Parker, 615, 1822, and Chapter on Catacombs. RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 13 Church, we must believe that the Hebrew dread of idolatry in all representations, at least in all por- traits or images of mankind, arose in the earlier Christian world, as it has existed ever since ; not as an apprehension confined to the Hebrew or Semitic mind, but as the reasoning scruple of all who, like ourselves, are or should be zealous of the moral law. The second commandment does undoubtedly stand on primal revelation of God's will to man ; and it was repeated and ratified to Moses on the Mount. In the Christian Church, as among all worshippers of One God, questions have arisen, and will for ever arise, on this great point of conscience. It cannot, in logic, right reason, charity, or common sense, be absolutely ruled either way. There is no doubt that from the second or third century the Christian imagination began to employ itself in picture — first for instruction and declaration of the faith, then for splendour and for dedicative sacrifice ; that excesses created alarm from time to time, though rarely at first ; that sometimes an ornament may have been held to express a wrong or false idea, as did the Gnostic symbols ; that sometimes human or animal figures may have appeared in themselves idolatrous. On the other hand, few sects or parties have ever been able to dispense long with pictorial means of teaching and self-expression. Doctrinal formulae, definitions, and developments, as well as error and heresy, began to be set forth in decorative art, almost as soon as they were expressed in forms of words. Had the printing- press been in use in that age to express and propagate opinion, Christianity, heresy, and Paganism would have used it alike : and picture-symbols and letter- 14 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. symbols are really different forms of the same thing ; connected with each other by the derivation of letters from drawings. 1 And exactly as the unde- finable pleasure called beauty (to use the term in its widest and vaguest sense) was sought for in picture- teaching for the sake of impressiveness, as soon as the artist was able to produce it ; so in all ages and to all times beauty, so-called, of spoken or written words will be used for the sake of power. At all times, perhaps, scrupulous-minded and excellent men, entitled to great attention, have expressed natural suspicion or objection to pictorial beauty as an abuse, while they adorned their philippics against it with all the flowers of rhetoric ; and perhaps tampered more with truth and the simplicity of the faith in speech or writing, than those who wrote the Lord's parables on the wall in colour, or carved His miracles of mercy on their sarcophagi. The existence, at a very early date, of many Gnostic emblems need not surprise anyone who will take into consideration the necessary secrecy so long practised in the Christian Church. Orthodox Christianity had its mysteries, too great and precious to the be- liever to be freely named to the Gentiles. These were embodied in Christian symbols as the Fish, the Bread, and the Monogram — the Vine, the Lamb, and countless others, being at the same time adopted from Gentile fancy. But meanwhile all manner of intricacies of Cerinthian and Gnostic opinion flourished either just within or just without the assembly of the Church ; and new brotherhoods were formed, which in some degree imitated or 1 See Chapter on Symbolism. RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 15 emulated the original brotherhood in Christ. These would either submit to the faith in the end, or die away without it, or take new forms of error : but meanwhile there seems to have been a great variety of Gnostic symbols and passwords, which are enumerated and described with great learning by Mr. King ; to whom Christianity seems to appear rather in the light of a variety of Gnosticism, than Gnosticism as a reflection of Christianity. 1 There can be no doubt, however, that necessary secrecy was a principal cause, alike of the Church's use of symbo- lism, and its occasional adoption of heathen emblems. There was another reason for the use of art which had special application in Eome. Christians of all nations and languages met in the central city of the world ; and pictures of the Gospel history and the Lord's preaching told their tale with equal force to all. Art was an universal form of expression, and the artist not only spoke in all men's tongues, but spoke in them with a force of his own. The difference between having a story told and having a scene before one is very great to simple-minded people, to all, in fact, whose minds are not vivid enough to realize and represent the facts of history on the retina of imagination. And this brings us to our first and broadest division of Christian art, into historical and symbolic representations. Of sym- bolisms we must speak hereafter — for the present, there are a few observations to be made on the general use of pictorial art for historical teaching, and educational purposes in general. We can then give some account, either in the body of this work or. 1 "The Gnostics and their Remains." C. "W. King, M.A. 1G PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. in its descriptive Index, of the historical pictures and bas-reliefs of the early Church ; especially of that large and important class of them which has reference to prophecy, and those typical events in Hebrew history which are specially connected with the Christian faith in which they find fulfilment. It has often seemed to us, that what clergy and teachers of religious history are apt to complain of as diluted scepticism, and haziness of belief in facts, extends, in the British mind, to all history alike. It is as if nobody thought there ever had been any past at all. History, the bygone reality of great and noble things and men, seems alto- gether unlikely — in a country where all things grow daily newer, meaner, more crowded and common, less abiding or deserving of continuance. An age of journalism, or of contemporary history told in party interests, is sure to be fruitful in general scepticism and disgust about history altogether. When every daily sketch of daily events is coloured or distorted by the political connections and interests of the day, men cease, in fact, to believe each other. Con- temporary history is universally written by political attorneys or advocates ; and nobody in his heart ever believes an advocate. Accomplished scholars and students of history say it is a Mississippi of false- hood. We are taunted with religious panic, because Christian men are startled, and alarmed at each other's alarm, about the literal truth of parts of the sacred narratives. Their panic is really a sign of faith : it proves the paramount importance which they attribute to those narratives, as bearing on their own lives. The Bible has a practical meaning for them, of RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 17 which they do not intend to be deprived. For secular history, men let it slip altogether, and are content to be not only incredulous but ignorant of it. One can hardly be surprised, when one considers how it used to be taught : for though great improvement has been made by earnest and brilliant teachers, their efforts are still isolated, and they have a heavy balance of dulness against them. In our own day. at all events, we were taught to "get up" history by rote, rather than to make use of the feelings and the imagination to assist the memory. \Ve had to try to remember men and facts by the dates, instead of the dates by the men and their great deeds. It is obvious that if knowledge is to be acquired by the imagination, which, as metaphysicians say, deals with individual men and events, then pictures which represent either are the most forcible means of impressing the imagination into the service of knowledge. When imagination is deficient, and the rote-memory powerful, what we say does not apply ; but there can be no doubt that in most schools the rote-memory is or was encouraged at the expense of the imagination, even in the study of history. A framework of dates was insisted on, and the facts were to be learnt by them : the dates were somehow got up, generally by some hateful memoria technica of horrid misspelt sounds, and we learnt to sort kings and heroes out among them as well as we could. It certainly seems to us now that it would have been better to remember the period by the men than the men by the period : first to possess the imagination with the sense of good or heroic presences in history, doing and suffer- ing great things ; then to group the events round the 18 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. men, and let the chronological arrangement come last. What is a name in a school-book now was once a man ; and what he did or said may have something to do with us still. To be taught early to realize the personality of men, to have some image of the actuality of an event, must be of unlimited advantage to the student : and it is here that art bears so strongly on historical knowledge. Every pilgrimage to the scene of great events, or to the habitat and faint visible traces on earth of some great one, is a testimony to the power of imagination over the understanding, and virtually of art over the imagina- tion. It is true that the first lessons in the use of the latter are best given, not in school, but in the preliminary teaching of mothers and nurses; but they, too, appeal indefinitely to pictures and prints, to rhymed verses, to everything which can call out the imaginative power ; and the impressions they thus convey are often indelible. " Pictures are poor men's books," says John Damascenus ; and the principle of illustration or illumination of books to help instruction and memory was recognized in the first ages, in the very infancy of Eecord, as well as now. It appears certain, in fact, that if letters be universally derived from hieroglyphics, as in Egypt, the pictorial records are the earliest. Those Eastern travellers who have visited the ancient turquoise, iron, and copper mines of Wady Magharah, in the Desert of Mount Sinai, will remember the great Egyptian tablets, beginning with the earliest kings of the fourth or Memphite dynasty, which are cut in the sandstone cliffs of that strange and rough valley, neither eared nor sown. "We RELIGIOUS ART- HISTORY. 19 saw five in 1862, some near the mine and the traces of the Pharaonic entrenched camp, others at some distance up the valley. They are some of the most ancient historical documents in the world, and their authenticity is absolutely without dispute. They are picture-hieroglyphics of considerable beauty ; partly relating to the conquest of the country by Egypt, partly to its zoology and metallic products. Cheops and Kephren hew down their prisoners in person, according to the prevailing tradition of Egyp- tian record, which makes every king his own butcher. Considerable graphic power and comprehension of cha- racter are shown in the bas-reliefs of animals, which are not for the most part intaglioed or engraven, but raised in clear, sharp, and shallow projection. They are done on tablets carefully prepared at considerable height, and in situations specially chosen to avoid those rapid eddies of the mountain winds, which, carrying the sharp sand before them, act in the course of years like a file on the plane surface of the weathered rock, and make clean round holes like an auger or centre-bit, wherever the polishing medium is whirled round by eddies of wind. The tablets were of course cut and smoothed in the selected places first, and had their surface removed according to drawings then made on it. The results are so near being imperishable as to remain quite intelligible to the present time ; and are still so far distant from civilization and so difficult of discovery that their still further endurance may be hoped for. 1 1 There is a cursory and imperfect account of these turquoise mines in a paper by the author, in " Vacation Tourists" (1862, Macmillan) ; but it is entirely superseded by the complete and most raluable description (accompanied by admirable photographs 20 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. It will be seen that the main principle of transi- tion from picture-writing to letter-writing is to make the picture of an object represent the initial sound of its name. The picture sign can thus be used for other words in which the same sound occurs. The Hebrew 3 is the rude picture of a house, black tent, or goat's-hair screen, such as is used in the desert to this day. The corresponding name is Beth in Hebrew, Beyt in Arabic. Let the picture stand for its initial sound B ; it may then be used as a letter to write down the names Bara, Ben, &c, and any other words or names in which the B sound occurs. It is like the all- important change from printing-blocks to' movable type. History then was all pictures in the earliest times, and is now greatly assisted by such records in the present, if she is not dependent on them. It is not in our way now to consider how our modern historical teaching seems to suffer from neg- lect of the imaginative power. Indeed, that power is now appealed to in education through poetry and romance, and archaeology begins to be called to their aid ; so it may be hoped that this book may fall in with and supplement others. But that great depart- ment of the world's records called Church History is, was, and for ever will be, specially associated with art ; if for no other reason, because many works of art in churches or cemeteries are historical docu- and drawings) lately issued by tlie authors of the Sinai Survey. The change or progress from earlier to later hieroglyphic, arrange- ment in columns, &c, is very interesting. A short and clear account (with illustrations) of the transition from hieroglyphics into characters, will be found in the Appendix to Kawlinson's " Herodotus," vol. ii. book ii. RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 21 ments of special value and indisputable genuineness. There can be no doubt that the catacombs them- selves, as places of Christian burial, and sometimes of refuge and martyrdom, have had vast influence on Christianity. 1 Their undiminished importance to Christian thought in our own days rests on the paintings they contain, which give us at least an approximative idea of the personal hopes and ex- pectations in death of whole generations of believers. The credibility of history may depend on contempo- raneous evidence of this kind, especially in our own days, when the increase of knowledge appears to be the increase of doubt, if not of sorrow. One may judge of the value which time gives to picture-record from the importance which the blasphemous scrawl of some unknown slaye assumes, when treated as what it really is, a decisive proof of Christian worship of the Crucified Lord in the days of Severus or Caracalla. 2 That a Pagan caricature of the rudest 1 "Dum essem Romae puer, et alibenilibus studiis erudirer, solebam cum cieteris ejusdem aetatis et propositi, diebus Dominicis sepulcra Apostolorum et Martyrum circumire ; crebroque cryptas ingredi, quae in ten-arum profundo defossae, ex utraque parte ingredientium per parietes habent corpora sepultorum, et ita obscura sunt omnia, ut propemodum illud Fropbeticum eompleatur, ' Descendunt in infernum viventes,' et raro desuper lumen admissum, horrorem tem- perat tenebrarum ; ut non tam fenestram, quam foramen demissi lurninis putes ; rursumque pedetentim acceditur, et caeca nocte circumdatis, illud Virgilianum proponitur — ' Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia terrent. ' " Continual pilgrimages, from St. Paulinas of Nola's time to the 11th century, testified to the interest of the Christian world in these monuments of the early Church. The above often-quoted passage from St. Jerome (Com. in Ezech. xii. c. 40) applied to many besides himself, as he says. Migne, t. xxv. p. 375. 2 See p. 7 : for festivals held in the cemeteries see the note on Agapte, Chapter on the Catacombs. 22 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. kind should become an interesting point of Christian evidence, when its only intention was to express and excite feelings of dull ridicule and hatred of the Christian faith, is at least a remarkable coinci- dence. 1 This rude appeal to passion may lead us to another part of our subject ; which is that the principle of early Christian art was instruction rather than emotion ; and that commentless statement of the facts of the faith, and pictorial repetition of the Lord's words, furnish between them the whole original stock of Christian subjects for artistic representation. Beauty is faintly attempted ; the workman does as well as he can for the work's sake : but his motive is plain narrative. Such a parable the Lord spoke about Himself, and it is painted ; such a miracle of mercy He wrought, and it is carved in bas-relief. To pursue beauty and the associations which are connected with it ; to throw out power and delight from one's own spirit and appeal to others through delight — these are the gifts and the aspirations of men who live in ages of culture, of physical progress, of national energy. But the Christian faith was made for all races, periods, and conditions of the human mind and body ; it was meant to avail man in his need, the weakest of men and women in the most extreme need. Such persons seem to have made use of the language of picture in the primitive ages, for the sake of its vividness, because it assisted oral teaching. What i See Dr. Liddon's " Bampton Lectures," p. 396, ed. 1868, with reference to the paper of Father Garrucci, Rome, 1862; aud compare woodcut in this volume, p. 7. RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 23 remnants of beauty in execution or design they possessed, were really inherited from ancient Greece and Eome. By the end of the sixth century, an Eastern sense of colour and some faint relics of graphic power, were all the gifts which were left to Christian art from the heathen ages ; and men made the best of these in preaching the faith they held, exactly as St. Chrysostom and St. Augustine may have obeyed the rules of the Ehetoric of Aristotle and the Institutions of Quintilian. They had no scruples in using the traditions of heathen skill ; they were easily able to draw the dis- tinction between Gentile and Pagan art — between the witty inventions of human genius, itself the gift of God, and their misapplication to image- worship. They were willing to bury their dead witnesses, and celebrate the Communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, surrounded by rude paintings of shepherds and vintagers; which they understood with reference to Him, and which the heathen did not understand at all. But rather than do reverence or burn incense to the marble Jove or Apollo, they would face the lions and endure the violence of fire. We are concerned in this chapter with the his- torical division of primitive art as distinguished from the symbolical : and it has seemed best to include in this volume a descriptive index of subjects of Christian art, particularly of such representations of persons and events in the Old Testament as are and have been held to be typical of others in the New. And the author must state a conviction here, which liigher authorities have expressed before 24 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. hini, 1 that the scope of primitive subject, so far as the ancient cemeteries go, is almost entirely Scriptural. The Monogram and the Anagram ; the initials of the Lord's name, and the Fish, which indicates the initials of His name and titles, are not important as exceptions to this rule, though in them- selves so deeply interesting. Xor, on the other hand, is there any sign of trenchantly exclusive rule, forbid- ding non-Scriptural subjects. As has been observed, Greek and Roman Christians were well used to ornament of all kinds, and seem for the first four centuries to have habitually drawn the motives of their pictures from Holy Scripture, without rejecting any detail or ornament which was not obviously con- nected with Polytheism. The progress from the sym- bolical representation of Our Lord as Shepherd of Israel to portrait forms of Him (though we can hardly suppose that any actual likeness to His bodily coun- tenance was ever attempted) — the surrounding Hi- conventional portrait with choirs of angels and the holy fellowship of the Apostles — the gradual intro- duction of His Virgin Mother as a proper object of worship, and hearer and grantor of prayer : and, finally, the increasing definiteness given to her cultus and that of the saints, until the media- torial office of Our Lord Himself was forgotten, — this is all matter of ecclesiastical history. Some account will be found of this transition in the Charter on Mosaics ; and the evidence given by those monuments to a certain progress in the direction of creature-worship is there in some degTee made out. 1 See De Rossi, Rom. Sott. part 1, with Mr. Wharton Marriott's preface to " The Testimony of the Catacom l RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. difficult to say how far the introduction of figures of saints like those of St Prassede and SMI Pudentiana, was felt to be an innovation in churches of the sixth century. It is probable that the Anglican Church resembles the primitive, in permitting repre- sentations of saints engaged in ministry, as actors in historical pictures, or - ornamental forms — in any position and gesture, in fact, save that of stand- ing to accept the worship of the people, or, in the mediatorial office, to receive and present their pr before God. The Portrait, whether its features be traditional or ideal, is defended alike by Hindu and Italian inge: as an assistance to devotional feeling. And had any record been left in Holy Scripture of the outward appearance of the Divine Man or of any of His follov would have been doubtless both i _ and advisable to rep^ if not theirs, in temple of the faith ; such portraits would then have been matter of historical record. It is matter of likened Himself to the Shepherd of Mankind; and we are right in setting forth the likeness of the symbol. [tis nly repeating >le about Himself. But to look for sacred emotion from picture- g cession, and we should like to know what it really means. In as far as the pictui . the mind md we defend it 1 conventional portrait figoif ssertsno historic fact and s a doubtful proceeding either to stimulate or allow baseless, or at least unreasoning, emotion in the act of prayer, either to ourselves or others. The beaut imarily, nothing I 26 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. the matter, unless we are to adore the picture. To allow oneself to feel, or persuade oneself that one feels, greater devotion to Christ our Lord before a Eaffaelle than before a Byzantine mosaic, or before a mosaic than before nothing at all, is to make Eaffaelle or the mosaicist our mediator with the Eedeemer. Prayer is too serious a matter for this, to those who know need and pain, and are really calling for help to body and soul. In as far as a picture helps us to realize facts of the faith, its function is historical, and the mind may proceed from it as a theme of meditation, and so wax earnest and aspire. But to make use of a picture methodically and regularly to excite a dubious devotion by its beauty must be a questionable proceeding, for it involves the making the picture a means of grace in itself. To ourselves, the real principle of edification in pictures, considered as beautiful things, seems to be the devout or earnest spirit of the painter, if we can see it in his work. Some of Angelico's or Perugino's works seem to demonstrate that their author believed, with deep happiness, in what he painted, so that his life and being went into his hands and eyes, and every stroke of his brush was like a pulse of delight. Some of Botticelli's, in the Early Renaissance, show the happiness of a Christian lay-mind of great power, in joyfully repeating, by painted symbol, the main facts of its own faith. Some of Michael Angelo's, in the Late Renaissance, are the troubled and painful utterance of a suffering and misled genius to a suffer- ing Lord, to Whom he holds, and by Whom he is held, against all trial. Of all modern .men, perhaps, Holman Hunt has most in common with RELICIOUS ART-HISTORY. 27 the last. But all these men's sacred works appeal to the emotions of the spectator, as it seems to us in a perfectly right way, as follows. They show him, beyond doubt that another man, of the highest powers, has here and hereby given his heart to God : they plead with the spectator, whatever be his humour for the time, that a man like him, or abler than he, did exert all the powers of his spirit, felt and was upborne beyond his normal state of mind, in realizing thoughts of sacred things, and writing them down for a record to all men, in the universal speech of colour and form. The picture is a monument of the soul's desire of its author : sometimes it is an evidence that his soul desired the Kingdom of God ; and so far it is his witness on earth to that Kingdom. All these men, however, excepting perhaps Peru- gino, have principally left behind them historical groups in action, records of what God has done, rather than quasi-portraits of saints standing to receive adoration. The distinctions between latria (worship), veneration, &c, whether they were known to them or not by any name or formula, may have been real to their minds ; as indeed they may be to us in the English Church, or to other Protestant bodies. For those who believe in the existence of saints, and in the Communion of Saints, cannot surely repudiate feelings of reverence, at least, towards their elder brethren in Christ. But it can hardly be right now, — it certainly was wrong in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Church, — to expect whole crowds of zealous untaught people to hold by this distinction. Latria, dulia, hyperdulia, "worship, serving, devotion," are words invented for the exigencies of controversy, and c 2 28 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. point to shades of difference which the popular eye can hardly see. Moreover, if these classifications of the council and the library were rightly made "by the people (as the teachers of the people assert them to be, when pressed by controversy),. a change of things would at once ensue which is simply incalculable. Moreover, as has been hinted, parallel uses of the Image-portrait are constant (and somewhat scandalous and dreadful) in other than Christian countries ; the setting up a signum or statue of the object of worship being a simply human propensity. Hindu idolaters, for instance, defend themselves as ably, and to a certain extent as justly, as John Damascene himself on this matter. " Let us hear," says Professor Max Midler, 1 " one of the mass of the people, a Hindu of Benares, who, in a lecture delivered before an English and native audience, defends his faith and the faith of his forefathers against such sweeping accusations " as that Indian popular religion is idol-worship and nothing else. " ' If by idolatry,' he says, ' is meant a system of worship which confines our ideas of the Deity to a mere image of clay and stone ; which pre- vents our hearts from being expanded and elevated with lofty notions of the attributes of God ; if this is what is meant by idolatry, we abhor idolatry, and deplore the ignorance or uncharitableness of those who charge us with this grovelling system of worship. But if, firmly believing, as we do, in the omnipresence of God, we behold, by the aid of our imagination, in the form of an image, any of His glorious mani- festations, ought we to be charged with identifying them with the matter of the image, when during 1 "Chips frcm .1 German Vforkshop," vol. i. prof. p. 17. RELIGIOUS ART-HISTORY. 29 those moments of devotion we do not even think oi' matter ? If at the sight of a portrait of a beloved and venerated friend no longer existing in this world, our heart is filled with sentiments of love and reverence — if we fancy him present in the picture, still looking upon us with his wonted tenderness and affection, and then indulge our feelings of love and gratitude, should we be charged with offering the grossest insult to him — that of fancying him to be no other than a piece of painted paper ?'" This, it will be seen, is a valid protest against the accusation of fetich ism, or attributing virtue and power locally to this or that particular image. It also appears to involve an excuse for the idolater, which his Master and ours will well know how to appre- ciate, and which we have no further business with than to remember that it exists. For ourselves, we can only say that in the south of Europe, from the fifth and sixth centuries, there has been frequent and general identification of the matter of the image with the saint, 1 and of the saint himself with God, as a hearer of prayer. But let us, if we can, suppose that the Hindu's heart is filled with sentiments of love and reverence at beholding a dragon-bodied and many- handed image ; hideous and degrading as it seems, alike to us and to his Mohammedan kindred. Let this pass for a sincere though clumsy symbolism of omnipotence. Is it the same to all Hindus, educated and unedu- cated ? and might not a devout Hindu, possessed of the subtle power of mind which the Benares lecturer showed, go so far as to dispense with the image itself, and tell others like himself that they might 1 See passage from Milman, infra. 30 PRIMITIVE CHUECII ART. do so as well ? Was lie not addressing himself ad homines, to the English part of his English and Hindu audience ? While we ourselves acknowledge the difficulties and temptations which led to the error of Christians in past time, we cannot follow them in error, from motives of historical charity ; and we cannot but see that the use of the por- trait-image has led, and leads, masses of the people into a worship of the image as a present Deity. For its beauty, that seems to have little to do with the matter. In modern times, appeals have been made to Beauty in religious art ; sometimes, as it seems to us, in a luscious and abominably wicked manner. There are impersonations of Saints and Magdalens which we are thankful to pass, and not look on. But as to the more beautiful picture excit- ing the more devotion, or, at least, drawing the greater crowds of worshippers, experience is practically against it, as Goethe observed. Miraculous pictures are sel- dom well painted ; nor are wonders of healing wrought before the Dresden Madonna or the Paradise of Tin- toret. The fact is that the idea of local and personal virtue, inherent in the image, belongs to times and states of society which are generally unable to under- stand artistic beauty, or to ally it with religion at all. " Let the Pope and Cardinals reform the times," quoth Michael Angelo, " and the times will reform the pictures." It is so ; the spirit of pictures depends on the spirit of the men who produce tin in. The most elaborate and learned compositions may be done in a religious spirit, as many of Overbeck's and Ary Scheffer's works ; and then they have their RELIGIOUS AltT-HISTOBY. 31 value as efforts of devout intellect, whatever grade of power that intellect may possess. And the simplest and rudest image only proves that those who made and who use it are rough and simple persons, not that they are good Christians ; on the contrary, the most elaborately insinuated blasphemy in modern polemics does not spring from a fiercer hatred than the scrawled graffito of the slave of Severus's household. 1 For ourselves, there is one sufficient ground for the use of religious art/ that it instructs in the facts and doctrines of religion. Further, where great human genius, labour, and sacrifice have evidently been applied to works in this department of intellect, we are or ought to be edified ; because the painter evidently desired to be, and ipso facto has made himself, a Christian preacher. If this were generally acknowledged and understood, as it is in part, how great would be the encouragement and support in heart and spirit, which such thoughts would convey to the painter. To find that his daily work does spiritual good ought, at all events, to make a man's heart to sing for joy over it ; it should teach him the greatness of life, in a way to make life happy ; and that in the highest sense of the word happiness. But such work is not done, nor such happiness gained, by painting religious pictures for the market ; and the path of sacred art is straiter and narrower than it may seem. It is useless to dedicate impotence to God's service instead of power; and of all distressing things in the world, nothing can be more so than mistaken ambition in this matter. A school of church decoration possessed of some power and patronage, 1 See p. 7. 32 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. and directed by critics alike able and just, well read and technically skilled, would go far to adjust all questions about the historic or instructive use of religious painting for generations to come. VINF. NO. 1. — CAI.LIXTlNi: CATACOMH C 6 STATION CHOSS OF MAYEKOE CHAPTER II. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. The word Symbol, av/x^oXov {avfi^dXKoi, to put together, guess, conjecture), possesses a very wide range of meanings ; through all which there seems to run a leading notion of the av^i(3o\.ov, or present and visible object, standing for something of greater importance not actually producible. Ta av^^oXa were strictly the two halves of a bone or coin, which two gevoi, or any two contracting parties, broke between them and preserved. The tickets given the Athenian dikasts on entering a court, in exchange for which they received their fee at the end of the day, bore this name ; and it was applied to many similar uses : thence it came to bear the meaning of a verbal signal or watchword, like tessera in Latin ; and to be applied at last to the Creed or Confession of Faith of the Christian body, as their distinguishing mark (Lat. symbolum), and generally, to any outward sign of a conception or idea. In this sense symbolism, or the use of such signs, has been employed in the Church since the earliest times. Though verbal symbolism and figurative expressions are of course coeval with spoken language, and anterior to either writing or painting, there can be no doubt that the parable or metaphor corresponds to the carved or 36 PRIMITIVE CHURCH AIIT. painted symbol, and conveys ideas in the same way, by analogy, or similar relation. It has been observed that letters themselves are symbols based on representative arts, and originally formed from hieroglyphic pictures of objects. Again, as a matter of fact, art has, from its very earliest periods, been employed in symbolic teaching, almost entirely on religious subjects. Further, the teaching of our Lord by spoken parable involves His sanction to instruc- tion by painted parable and allegory, which is virtu- ally the same method. The connection between hieroglyphics, or picture-writing, and phonetics, or letter-writing, is perhaps not always clearly under- stood, and may be again briefly repeated here. First comes the hieroglyphic representing an object ; that, in course of time, is taken to mean the initial sound (t. e. the first letter) of the name of that object. Beth or Beit is the name of a house ; and B, its initial sound, is represented by 2, a rude sketch of an Arab screen or tent, the house of the desert, as it is still called. The camel's neck and foreleg remain in the letter Gimel. Sin or Shin, S, is the coiled and hissing serpent ; and so forth, till a limited alphabet of written sounds has taken the place of an endless quantity of rudely drawn signs. The advantage is of course that the letters are inter- changeable; and that the B sound, once represented by a commonly- agreed sign, will do for Bara, for Ben, and for" omne quod incipit in JB." 1 Yet though letters are fittest for the intercourse of common life, 1 Ingenious symbolical meanings were added or deduced from primary hieroglyphs ; as in Egypt the hawk stands for the Sun, and the two lily-stems for Upper and Lower Egypt ; but this must have involved great complication and inconvenience. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 37 pictures have still an expressive force of their own ; and a few seem to have been used from a very early time of the Church. There is no saying on what principles, or by what steps of progress, painted or carved objects were allowed in Christian assemblies, or places of assembly for prayer and Sacraments. Christians in the first instance met where they could, and almost all halls and large rooms were more or less ornamented by painting or carving in the larger towns of Greece and Rome. It is possible that most congregations of the Church were early accustomed to pictures, with subjects of every-day character, on the walls within which they assembled. The question of decoration in the Primitive Church was probably never raised at all for two centuries; and it should be considered, that during that time the faithful had grown tho- roughly accustomed to the graceful, and perhaps, in many places, somewhat unmeaning, grotesques and flower-ornaments of ordinary Greek or Eoman life. It is fully understood, how in the earlier tombs and catacombs — as that of St. Domitilla, with the catacomb attached to it, and particularly in the catacomb of St. Prsetextatus — we have instances of Gentile work invested with Christian meaning. The same thing occurs very frequently in the earlier work of other cemeteries, and it seems probable that the vine mosaics of St. Constantia at Borne are instances of the adoption of heathen imagery, to express Chris- tian ideas. The transition from merely tolerating heathen ornament as unmeaning, to this way of utilizing it, was a natural one, and probably was made very early. And this would probably be, 38 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. correctly speaking, the origin of Christian art-sym- bolism : that congregations long accustomed to ani- mals, flowers, landscapes, and figures of all sorts on the walls of rooms of all kinds, at length chose special subjects of their own for decoration — such as the Dove, Fish, Vine, or Shepherd — all gene- rally known and favourite representations, which awakened no particular attention on the part of the heathen, and in fact must often have appeared to all parties in the light of harmless concession. But as greater attention, more thought and intellectual power began to be applied to symbolic teaching, both verbal and pictorial, so must various questions, as to the clanger of approximation to idolatry, have risen on the Christian mind. Some brief account of these must be given in this chapter. What is to be here noticed in this connection is that idolatry is a matter of actual and direct representation ; and that true symbolism represents an object of worship indirectly. This distinction was made in the Hebrew Church, and recognized from the first in the Chris- tian symbolisms ; which appealed to the thoughts as the actual or direct picture does to the senses. The actual image is supposed to be like its subject, the symbol is not. This distinction, that the supposed portrait-image represents the outward form of its subject, and the symbol makes you think of the inner essence or being of its subject, is, we apprehend, real and vital. But it is unsatisfactorily subtle, and difficult of practical adjustment ; and it is continually infringed on, and finally destroyed, when the aesthetic spirit is abroad calling for visible images of objects of faith ; as from the fifth to the fifteenth century ; RELIGIOUS AKT.— SYMBOLISM. 39 and at the present time in the Roman Catholic Church, and of late in the Anglican. It is not to be wondered at, then, if in the first and second centuries, the turn of the Churches' practice in the Roman, or Grreco-Roman world, was to tolerate, or perhaps enjoy trivial ornament; and latterly to attach special meanings to such de tails^ /■ of it as could be made into Christian tokens. And fV here we enter on two distinctions, one of which will have to be carried through the whole of this in- quiry : between adopted and invented symbols, Scrip- tural and non-Scriptural emblems, or visible signs. It should be noticed, that the earlier Christian em- blems were for the most part taken from the Lord's mouth, and that it is a leading feature of His para- bolic teaching to adopt the employments, the sights and thoughts of ordinary life, and invest them with , / spiritual meanin^J This is familiar to every school- ** child ; and as our matured knowledge and experience in spiritual matters does little more than enable us to realize in part what we learnt as children, so it is with the imagery of the Gospel. All remember the awful contrast between the sheep and the goats, and how it has impressed itself on the Christian imagination : but few are aware of how vividly it returns to the mind of the traveller, probably in his very first day's journey through the land of Israel. The terraces of the low hills are dotted with white sheep and black goats ; so white and so black, that their contrast of colour must attract even careless eyes, and add force to our Lord's description of the judgment. Again, on the way from Jaffa to Jeru- salem, generally the first ride in the Holy Land, the 40 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. wayfarer will probably see the flocks watered from deep wells, like that of Sychar, where the hidden fountain springs up unto life, and the thin limestone strata are pierced through by living waters. The ancient vines which are still dressed on the slope of Olivet, recall the parable of the Vine, there delivered to all Christian eyes ; the Shepherd and his stray flock are everywhere in the hill-country and through- out Palestine ; the Fig-tree, the Sower and his Seed, the nets and fish of Tiberias, all point to Our Lord's custom of adopting daily things to the purposes of His teaching. Less frequently, He invented parables or symbolic relations of possible events ; as those of the Steward, the Talents, and the Wise and Foolish Virgins, &c. — seldom or never descending to fable or apologue, like Jotham, in his story of the Trees. Both these classes of symbol were well known to the early Church. A [any were adopted from the Lord's own words, a few were invented, as the Ship, the Anchor, and the Lyre. Some were adopted from heathen or secular use, as the Peacock, Olive and other trees, and much bird and flower decoration, and these of course appear in the most ancient ex- amples we possess. [The Monogram of the Lord's name ; the anagrammatic Fish, IX0T2, of the ini- tials of His name and titles; the palm-branch of death in Christ ; and the adopted imagery of birds and flowers, are the oldest Christian symbols yet remaining. The Vine and the Good Shepherd accompany them in the earliest paintings of the cata- combs, though the brief and easily-cut letter-symbol of the monogram is naturally more frequent in in- scriptions. Setting this last aside, it may be repeated RELIGIOUS ART.— SYMBOLISM. 41 that the two former emblems were sanctioned by our Lord's use of them with reference to Himself. Considered as the substitution of a producible or visible idea for another, verbal and pictorial sym- bolisms are the same thing. It can hardly be denied, that the symbolic picture of the Vine, or the Pastor bearing the lost lamb, are simply picture-writing of the words " I am the true Vine," or " I am the Good Shepherd." They attempt to impress a personality ; they call to mind certain Divine Functions of the Divine Man ; they make no appeal to the emotions through the eye ; only indicating to the spectator the thought of the artist, and his desire that that thought might pass through other Christian souls also. The Lord's speech in parables, "because of the hardness of the hearts " of his hearers, is strictly an anticipation and a parallel of the use of pictured symbols for gradual instruction, because of the dul- ness and the weakness of men's souls. He has not given to us to exchange ideas like pure intelligences ; and the use of symbolism is a mere question of language, of the conveyance and transmission of ideas. Words are defined in logic as arbitrary signs of things, or of our ideas of things. They pass instead of things ; they manifest and communicate ideas. Paper money is an arbitrary symbol of gold ; leather might have been, and has been, used instead, and has answered the purpose of being exchanged for labour as well as gold. The words "five pounds" cannot be substituted in the market for the things they represent : nevertheless they manifest to the hearer, that the speaker has the idea of that sum before his mind. Words pass instead of things in the 42 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. mind ; they cannot be used instead of things in fact. And for this we have reason to be thankful, as other- wise the truth of the comfortable maxim, that hard words break no bones, might be seriously disputed ; — and indeed it is so, by the lamenting bitterness of the Psalmist's symbolism, " His words were smoother than oil, and yet be they very swords." Now, when the symbol stands instead of the tiling symbolized as a word for a thing, or as a note fur money, and is identified with it in the mind, it may come under the imputation of idolatry, or of approach to idolatry. When the symbol only mani- fests to the mind of the spectator that the painter intended him to think of the thing symbolized, that imputation cannot hold. No man (probably) ever fell down and worshipped a picture or image of a Vine or of a Fish : no man for six centuries ever worshipped the wood, stone, or metal of the Cross. But the portrait-representation of Our Lord (not that in symbolic form, of the Good Shepherd) became, though it ought not logically to have become, the first step in a course of image-worship. This will be hereafter traced through the Eoman mosaics of the Greek school. There can be no doubt, moreover, that the ancient Hebrew dread of the graven image, of every form of idolatry or approach to it, was present, through the first five centuries at least. As we shall hereafter observe, this scruple is one of the points of diver- gence between the Eastern and the Grseco-Eoman, or afterwards the Gothic, mind; the Mediaeval Church being more impressed by the value of eye-art and picture-teaching, and also being led by her veneration EELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 4b for Rome to follow, as Rome followed, the ancient ( rreek tendency to Personification of the Deity or His manifestations. The Eastern mind, and that of the Byzantine,or later Greek Church, has, however, greater facility in understanding the difference between sym- bolism and personification in art, and in reducing it to practice. That difference or distinction has been already hinted at ; the symbol indicates the thought of its object ; the personification calls up a visible image of its object. Athene was thought of by the earlier Greek races, perhaps, as the queen of the air, or the breath of life and of thought, of the health, spirit and wisdom of man. And so she was thought of as a part of Zeus, the one supreme being ; as something coming from him, springing unborn from him, to be the guide and helper of man. Some such thoughts and worship of the spirit of health and wisdom, with a name, but without an image, are conceivable, and probably were entertained for a time by the earlier Aryan races. But the Greek was impelled by the intensity of his perceptions and conceptions, or by the very perfection of his senses to desire, to see, and to touch. Like a child, he desired to have in his own hands that which he most desired ; and he would be content no more with the majestic symbols of Egypt; he not only per- sonified the powers of nature, but realized that per- sonification in wood and stone, in his own image, according to the fashion of the beauty of man. 1 The final compromise of Iconoclasm, 2 as the late 1 See Euskin, "Queen of the Air," and Max Miiller, "Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i. 2 Milman's "Latin Christianity," chap. ix. book xiv. (ed. i. p. 597, vol. vi. ). It appears not how far sculpture had dared to embody 44 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Dean of St. Paul's points out, may illustrate this distinction. The carved image seems to have been felt to be nearer to the idol ; as more solidly and literally representative of its subjects, and in fact more like a living being ; the picture appears more in the light of an emblem, a purely sym- bolic aid to thought and emotion. This distinc- tion, however subtle, has been maintained thus in the Eastern Church ever since the ninth century ; and it leads us to notice the necessary inaccuracy with which the words Greek and Eastern have to be used on this and kindred subjects. There is no doubt that the art of ancient Greece was in brass or in marble the hallowed and awful objects of Christian worship. * * * Probably statues of this kind were extremely rare ; and when image-worship was restored, what may be called its song of victory is silent as to sculptures. See Poem in the Anthologia, XpicrtaviKct 'ETTiypapLfxara, Jacobs, i. 28. 'EAa,ui|(6f oktIs ttjs dA.r)06i'as ird\iv * * * iSov yap avdis Xptaros eiKoi'MTfj.i'vos Aa.fj.Trei irpus mj/os ryjs KadeSpas rov KpaTjvs * * rijs elaoSov 8' vTrepOev, ais dela ttvKt) i/Aa|, ?j TrapOeioi, &.C. "The Lord, the Virgin, the angels, saints, martyrs, priesthood, take their place over the portal entrance ; but shining in colours to blind the eyes of the heretics. To the keener perception of the Greeks there may have risen a feeling that in its more rigid and solid form the image, was more near to the idol. At the same time the art of sculpture and casting in bronze was probably degenerate and out of use ; at all events it was too slow and laborious to supply the demands of triumphant zeal in the restoration of the persecuted images. There was, therefore, a tacit compromise : nothing appeared but painting, mosaics, engraving on cup and chalice, embroidery on vestments. The renunciation of sculpture grew into a rigid, passionate aversion. The Greek at length learned to contemplate that kind of lull representation of the Deity or the Saints with the aversion of a Jew or a Mohammedan." See also Bingham, xii. eh. 8, and chapter on Christian sculpture. On Ferret's work, and the Catacomb paintings, see note in Miluian, vol. vi. book xiv. chap. 9, p. 604. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 45 linked with idolatry, from the natural tendency of the Greek to set forth to himself gods in his own image. The unconscious personifications of the ele- ments and their working, which are the basis of Aryan mythology, were developed and realized by that wonderful race, with their acute senses, their great personal beaut} T , and their intense appreciation of all outer loveliness. The root of Western idolatry seems to be man's specially Greek tendency to set himself up as an anthropomorphic sign of Deity, rather than accept the signs already given — the rain and sunset and sunrise which Our Lord Himself pointed as the works of His Father. Greek art, then, till the absorption of Greece into Rome, was idola- trous, and the cause of idolatry. But after that event, Borne adopts and imitates Athens, and the centre and stronghold of the making and worship of the graven image is in the central city. From the day of the Empire, in fact, Greek or Graeco-Rornan art has repre- sented the principle of idolatrous personification ; and so far we speak of Greek work as that of ancient Athens, modified by time, degeneracy, and transfer- ence to Italy. But after Constantine, Greek means Byzantine, as Byzantium gradually becomes the centre of the Eastern part of the Church of Christ. It is there, accordingly, that we may expect to see the Eastern tendency to pure or non-representative sym- bolism, in the first place ; and in the second, suppos- ing symbolism to have degenerated into image- worship, we may look to Byzantium for a revival of the Hebrew protest against idolatry; which is, in fact, found in the Iconoclasm of the eighth century. The use of the word " Greek " for the Eastern Church 46 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. is so immeasurably different from all its other uses as to lead to confusion of ideas. One may say that on the question of images the Eastern element in the Byzantine Church was protesting against the ancient Hellenic, or idolatrous Greek, for great part of the eighth century. But a further question has exercised the Christian Church from the third or fourth century at latest, as to the degeneracy of symbolism — that is to say, the natural tendency of mankind either to turn symbols into images or fetiches, or to substitute beautiful personifications or supposed portraits of divine or sacred persons, for ancient symbols of Deity and the Presence of the Invisible Lord. Considering that the distinction between symbolism and personifi- cation, or actual resemblance, is not likely to be rightly understood by large masses of the people, who cannot see the difference between that which indicates and that which represents, it is held best by many to dispense with art and symbol altogether. 1 This is arguing from abuse of a thing to its disuse, as is so frequently done; but the Church has never yet consented to lose illustrative art or emblematic means of instruction. 2 This prohibition, in its strictest 1 "Latin Christianity," book iv. vol. ii. p. 344, quoted in Chap. iii. on Iconoclasm. - Fairly argued thus by John Damascene. De Imag. Orat. ii. p. 747, on /3i'/3Aot to?9 aypa.[x/j.a.TOLS eicriv al e'tKOVes eV drixv p Tepnet tt}p opaffiv, &c. &C. Pope Gregory II., in his letter to Leo Isaurian, enumerates a list of subjects which instruct and edify him personally. All are. his- torical and Scriptural: the Madonna and choirs of angels, The Minnies of Mercy, Last Supper, Loaves in the Desert, Transfigu- RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 47 form, is more Mohammedan than Hebrew, and is by- no means Scriptural ; for the distinction between symbolic teaching and idolatrous representation is recognized from the first under the Mosaic dispen- sation. The cherubic forms used in the Ark, in the Tabernacle, and in the Temple, are the earliest in- stances of permitted or enjoined symbol ; and on their use all Christian use of art in the same way may rest. 1 First, the cherubic emblem or symbol was not only permitted, but enjoined and dictated to Moses on the Mount. No contradiction to the spirit of the Second Commandment seems to have been felt by the use of it, either during the period of the Tabernacle or that of the Temple of Solomon. We are led to suppose, also, from the vision of Ezekiel (chs. i. and x.), that the forms represented, as well as symbolized, real existences, glorious and awful created beings superior to man. Still, it is probable that the carved or embossed cherubs were understood as sym- bols only by the people : though Ezekiel, who was a priest, was able to recognize the hieratic Form, as it may be called, which he had seen upon the Ark of God. It will be remembered (see Numb. iv. 5, 19, 20) that this form was known only to the priests, as the Ark was always covered threefold, and by their hands, before it was moved. Its bearers might ration, Sacrifice of Isaac, Pentecost, Crucifixion, and Eesurrection. He appeals to the use of the Cherubic forms in the Hebrew Dis- pensation . 1 For an exhaustive dissertation on this subject, reference should be made to the word " Cherub " iu Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, by Dr. Hayman ; but some of its leading facts may be repeated here. 48 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. not enter till it was covered. Josephus says no one can conjecture of what form (oirolai rives), these cherubim of Glory were. This expression must relate to those on the Ark ; since the larger forms of those made by Solomon must have been seen by both Levites and people, as well as the cherubs on the Temple doors, along with the forms of lions and palm-trees, and those which supported the great lavers (1 Kings vii.). This crucial example of enjoined and commanded symbolism has, of course, been cited throughout all the long Iconoclastic divisions of Christendom. It was referred to throughout the second Council of Nice ; and Gregory II. makes especial reference to it. In the passages quoted in Milman's " Latin Christi- anity," and repeated above, from that Pope, and from Joannes Damascenus, the case in favour of some use of painting for purposes of instruction is fairly stated. The Dean seems, however, to have doubted the possibility of maintaining the distinction between a symbolic representation and an actual portrait-image in an age of undiscriminating devotion. It had cer- tainly ceased to be felt in the age he is describing, when to all intents and purposes the image was the saint. But it must be remarked that the Hebrews were expected to understand and abide by it, even immediately after their escape from the image-worship of Egypt. Though graven images stood in their Holy of Holies, they were forbidden to address them in prayer, or to think of them as representing Him of Whose state they were a part. And it would seem that there were what may be called precautions which secured the people from the danger of cherub-worship ; RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 40 at least till the time of Jeroboam, whose calves at Dan and Bethel may be supposed to have partaken of the cherubic form, most probably that known to the people as represented on the doors of the Temple. That form must have borne some relation or resem- blance to the vast images of Assyria, and Egypt, and Persia. There is no necessity for regarding it as a mere Hebrew adoption of Egyptian ritual: it is more like a special sanction of the use of a world- wide symbol, which is represented in the imagination of the Greek and Gothic races by the various forms and stories of the Griffin or gryps. This word is doubtless connected by its etymology with the Hebrew MT3 Cherub ; and the universality of the traditional idea of these composite creatures is a highly significant fact. It would seem, in truth, that all the chief races of men have been taught to set forth to their own sight such mysterious forms, not believing in them as existing beings, and therefore without incurring the guilt of idolatry ; not wor- shipping their vast images, but expressing to them- selves by forms of bull, lion, and eagle, combined with the human face of thought and command, some of the attributes of the Divine Being. Some form of this kind, of which the winged bulls or lions of Nineveh, or the sphinxes of Egypt, may be taken as types, must have been the popular form of the cherub known to the children of Israel. They were guarded from worshipping this form, though it was used as a part of their ritual, partly by the fact that two images, not one, were placed by command in the Tabernacle : partly by these two being represented as attending on and ministering to some actual and D 50 PRIMITIVE CHUKCH ART. special Presence of God ; and again, probably, by their appearing to be without share in human sym- pathies. They stood forth as adoring, admiring, and contemplating beings ; angels of knowledge, as Hebrew tradition calls them, not, as like the seraphim, angels of love and protection to mankind. Their number is suggested as two or four in the Old Testament, as the Apocalyptic creatures are four in the vision of St. John. It will be remembered that in the Temple of Solomon, the Ark, with its two cherubs of glory, was overshadowed by a second pair of colossal size. But when we come to the description by Ezekiel of his visions of the glory of God, w T e are led further : ' " In ch. i. he speaks of them as living creatures, " animal forms. In ch. x., v. 14, the remarkable ex- " pression ' the face of a cherub ' is introduced ; and " the prophet refers to his former vision, and identi- " fies these creatures with the cherubim. ' I knew " ' (v. 20) that they were cherubim.' On the whole, it " seems likely that the word cherub means not only " the composite creature form of which the man, lion, " bull, and eagle were the elements ; but, further, " some peculiar and mystical form, which Ezekiel, " being a priest, would know and recognize as the " ' face of a cherub ' icar i^o^rjv, but which was kept " secret from all others — and such, probably, were " those on the Ark, which, when it was moved, was " always covered, &c. This mysterious form might " well be the symbol of Him "Whom none could behold " and live. And as symbols of divine attributes, not " as representations of actual beings (Clem. Alex. " Strom, v. p. 241), the cherubim should be regarded." 1 See Smith's Diet, of the Bible, s. v. "Cherub." RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 51 This is exactly the saving distinction between sym- bolism and idolatry ; that the symbol is fully under- stood not to represent to the eye that which it calls to the mind. It may be like nothing in nature ; but at all events it must be such an image or form as never can be supposed to possess or contain an actual supernatural presence. It is a visible sign of the Invisible : pointing onwards to Him, for ever teach- ing things concerning Him, proclaiming itself not to be Him. This is the principle of Christian sym- bolism, and it appears to be identical with that laid down for Hebrew worship. Xo one would ever think of worshipping the Vine or the mystic Fish ; even the Good Shepherd is not represented as standing to receive the worship of His people. He is always engaged in this work for them, laying them on His shoulders or bearing them in His arms, and the figures only repeat His parable of Himself as the King and Shepherd of His people : that image also being Homeric and universal, probably from the earliest days of Aryan herdsmen. As regards the Cherub form, connected as it is with the Apocalypse, it is useless and idle to attribute it to actual existences. Though the prophet seems to have recognized them in his vision as beings far above man, his description conveys no definite idea to man. Xo Hebrew or Gentile can ever frame or record images in words or on canvas, which shall give clear conception of the fourfold faces and wings ; or of the wheels in whom was the spirit of the living creatures, to whom was said, Wheel. The great cloud out of the north, the fire enfolding itself, the shapes of fire and lightning, the firmament above as d 2 52 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. the terrible crystal, the brightness of amber and flame, the likeness of a throne and One sitting thereon — these are the expressions of a man who, having seen the glory of God, finds his powers of conception and expression, the thought of his brain and the language of his fathers, all fail him together ; and if speech failed the prophet, the language of art may well fail also. Seldom, and rightly but seldom, has this sub- ject been attempted. Raffaelle's attempt at the subject confesses the inadequacy even of his gifts ; it is not a failure of power — it is a misapplication of power ; and one feels it to be beside the mark, a wondrous thing of nought. One other attempt we remember, strange and archaic, to many eyes probably too contemptible for notice, the work of a Syrian ascetic of 1200 years ago. It is in the great Medici or Laurentian MS. of Florence, known by the name of its copyist, as the MS. of Eabula the monk, dated 587. 1 We have to refer to it frequently ; and quaint and extra- vagant as the Ascension woodcut in this volume may be, it gives, like all the other illustrations in the MS., a very strong sense of the author's originality, of his intensity of conception, vigour of thought, and graphic power of expression, which anticipate, not only the best MS. work, but the highest art of Europe. As is observed in our Chapter on Mosaics, this MS. is the type and highest example of the genius of Eastern- Greek or Byzantine work, where it possesses any genius. No one can doubt the connection of Byzau- tine work and thought with Orgagna's ; nor of Or- gagna's with that of Michael Angelo. 2 1 See Assemanni's Catalogue of the Laurentian Library and woodcut facing Index. s See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, i. p. 447. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 53 It seems that safety is only secured in religious art when this rule is made absolute; that pictures shall be symbolic and not representative ; that they shall point to that which they do not resemble; shall suggest but not portray ; shall appeal to thought, and not to emotion. Dean Milnian's view, quoted in Chapter III., points to a rule of this kind. He looks for- ward with hope to a time of greater intelligence and greater faith and reliance on God's written Word, when illustrations of it in form and colour shall be no temptation ; when the artist shall be able to appeal to all the emotions which the sense of beauty can give the soul, without misleading or con- fusing the soul. And he most rightly looks to the prospect of an improvement, an elevation and puri- fication in art, which may conduce to this. To follow the line of thought thus indicated, is in great mea- sure the purpose of this book. What seems best to say in a popular work on the subject is said in its last chapter. For the present — and speaking very briefly — there is no doubt that religious painting (symbolical or historical, for under these two heads we include all right church decoration) ought at its best to be a kind of artistic preaching, a proclama- tion of truth in Christ. It is felt to be always an appeal from -the spirit of the painter to the spirit of the spectator. And if there has been true desire of the glory of God in the painter, it will somehow be felt by the spectator ; he will under- stand, that is to say, that a man gone before him has devoutly sought to serve God by his art : and that feeling ought to be the chief value, if not the chief beauty, of the picture to him. This is the 54 PRIMITIVE CHURCH AET. true emotion of religious art, the sense of the earnest self-dedication and faithful work of the painter or preacher. Like everybody else's faith and devotion, it admits endless mixtures of motive, and is thwarted by a thousand peculiarities and frailties ; but if the spirit of devotion to God's service be in the painter, he will some way or another show by his picture that he was doing his best in that service. He will have a definite purpose and a determinate idea ; he will tell his tale and express his idea faithfully, 1 and not be always appealing, straightforward or sideways, to the critic's emotions about loveliness. The essence of sacred art is not to work on the spectator, but at the great Subject. It is well in all art to forget one- self, but in this department it is indispensable. The self-consciousness of learning, and natural egotism of delight in his own skill, vitiate all the later works of Eaffaelle, or indeed he fails in earnestness of motive altogether. Laborious pride of science, and half- conscious, unavoidable, incessant rivalry with others, infected and harassed Michael Angelo through all 1 The latest confusion in which the words Idea and Ideal have been involved seems to consist, first, in making Ideal excellence of painting identical with technical excellence. Pictorial "noclurns" and " symphonies " mean nothing, but are technically admirable in the highest degree. Still, do not let us confound the ideal with the unmeaning. We have somewhere seen Mr. Whistler's beautiful studies of colour called ideal, whereas we should be inclined to call them charming, but to say they contained no intellectual conception or idea whatever. One hears, again, of ideal style or manner of painting and the like, meaning for the most part, that the painter in the given work realizes his fancies in a charming way, like Sandre Botticelli in his Spring or Aphrodite, or Mr. Burne Jones, or Mr. Spencer Stanhope. In this case the word ideal seems to be in collision with the word imaginative, or even passionate. At all events, Holbein's portrait of Wyatt, with all its literal resemblance to an actual and most practical description of man, is as ideal, in the wider sense of suggestive or expressive of spiritual fact, as any picture that ever was painted. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 55 his long and glorious labours. At least, it is only in Florence, and particularly in tbe great works of the Medici Chapel, where he was undisturbed by competition, that his highest spiritual powers are seen in purity. In many pictures, of the Madonna and St. John in particular, all higher aims are sacrificed to beauty, with disastrous effect. The work ceases to be sacred at all, even in the eyes of the most ignorant or simple. The painter has obviously no religious intention in what he calls a religious work, and his work becomes therefore not only neutral, but irreligious. And it is really this which accounts for Goethe's celebrated saying, that miraculous pictures are generally ill- painted. He had learnt to think that no well- painted picture could produce devotion, or conduce to belief in. miracle. His idea of good painting was probably formed on the works of Raffaelle or his immediate followers in Germany or Italy: and his remark is correct enough. Those who are capable of believing in winking pictures, are persons for the most part unable to appreciate Raffaelle, and there is no special connection between beauty and super- stition. A picture painted simply as a piece of good painting falls short of high motive and inspi- ration, and is not likely to awake emotion, or raise influence of any kind. Those who can understand its technical merits will consider them its main object and purpose : those who cannot will have no sincere feeling about it ; and its proper place is a picture-gallery, and not a place of Avorship. It is not our business now to consider what may be the qualifications of miraculous works of art; we are 56 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. rather concerned that no objects of the kind should ever appear, by any accident or circumstance, within the disciplinary range of the Church of this country. Nor yet do we wish to pass any sentence on artists who paint secular pictures, or who even treat sacred subjects in a technical or academic spirit. For the former, as every act of right-doing is also an act of well-doing, their work is right and honourable, and may probably be done in zealous service of God. There is room for much casuistry in the matter, and one finds some difficulty in accepting Etty's con- viction of the sacredness of his displayed beauties as exhibitions of the fairest divine work on earth. But the faithful purpose to work with honest exertion of power, and with sense of the workman's honour, is enough to make any picture a good work, in the most important sense. But he who has gone through the usual artistic training of the school of this country, — now a tolerably severe one — and who faithfully gives himself up to realizing a subject from the Old or New Testament, believing or desiring to believe in his subject, and wishing to impress it on others, is attempting a higher thing : and he is likely to have success, whether he sees it or not, and whether it is accompanied by personal applause and profit or not. But there is another danger, or dangerous ten- dency, in the use of symbolism, which we trust, for our own Church and period, may be considered historical rather than actual. Yet it is a risk the recurrence of which is possible. It is true that symbols, in the second or some subsequent generation, are apt to become first conventional realisms, then personifica- tions, then idols. It is well known, for instance, that RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 57 at one time in the Middle Ages, the Cross became a personification and object of worship in itself, in- stead of the Symbol of the Death of Christ for man. The names of St. Cross and St. Sepulchre bear wit- ness to this in our own country, as the Dean of St. Paul's observes. The popular, or Gentile Cherub — the " wise " or " mighty one," in all its varieties of combination — aquiline, leonine, and human — may have been originally a pure symbol of Divine Attri- bute Next, and by easy transition, the composite is supposed to have a real existence corresponding to it, and resembling it, in the visible or invisible world. It gets personified. From this may follow — indeed, by the worship of the calves at Dan and Bethel, it seems that there did in this instance follow — actual worship of the graven image : still of the God of Israel, but by means of prayer addressed to a Per- sonified representation of Him. There is a kind of Pagan's Progress, from the sign of Divine Attribute to the fetiche or image worshipped for its own sake. It has been too often made even in the Christian Church, and it may be observed in full completion in our own days. It seems to belong to all religious systems in which a caste in any form is retained or sought after ; where the priesthood are definitely and absolutely separated from the people. The real nature of the Symbol may be indeed remembered and understood by an initiated caste, or by an edu- cated or privileged class of persons. In Egypt, the hieratic body retained a sense of the One God, leaving the people to gross idolatries. In Greece, under happier auspices, a philosophic laity, and a national temper alike speculative and hard-headed, may be D 3 58 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. thought to have clung to the idea of a greater and perfect Zeus, who was identical with Fate, and the true Lord and Restorer of all things. 1 There is no doubt, that to the educated priesthood, and perhaps laity, of the Roman Catholic Church, the distinctions of worship, service, and devotion, are intelligible enough. They are probably an after-thought, a series of differences set up to explain or palliate an evi- dently indefensible state of things. There is no par- ticular comment to make on them ; except that wor- ship or Appeal of Prayer for help in need can only be made by the soul to one object at a time ; and that, consequently, to entreat a saint or saints to mediate for us with Christ the Lord, is to refuse worship or personal appeal to Him. Well-trained and thought- ful priests or laity may possibly be able to maintain such distinctions, and to keep the unseen Beings of the spiritual world in some right relation to each other in their creed. It may have been so under the hieratic despotism of Egypt ; possibly afterwards, with the higher and better spirits of the sophist or phi- losophic teaching of ancient Greece. All these alike, on close examination as to what the idol or image was, before which they knelt, might perhaps have answered, that to them the idol was nothing at all ; nothing Divine, no Hearer of Prayer to Whom all flesh should come. Yet there can be no doubt of the absolute and degrading idolatry of the mass of the town population of Egypt, Greece, and Rome ; or that the personified and representative Image did really receive worship and aspiration due to God, and 1 See Dr. Zeller's Essay in ' ' Contemporary Review," voL iv. p. 359 ; and compare Prof. Ruskin's " Queen of the Air." RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 59 debase the minds of the worshippers. We have already referred to Prof. Muller's Brahmin, who defends Hindu Iconodulism, and asserts the use of images as portraits, disclaiming all fetichism or belief in the efficacy of the wood and stone itself. As an excuse for the untaught, as a consolation to the Christian mind — sad because of the heathen, and living in the hope of our Litany that it may please God to have mercy upon all men — this justifi- cation is weighty and most valuable. But it could only be addressed to educated and thoughtful people, and it is only true when said of or by the educated and thoughtful. It is excellent ad hominem ; it puts the Christian on his charity, and reminds him that he is not to condemn the heathen. But in the first place, to acquit our neighbour is as much an act of judgment as to pronounce him guilty ; and we can but state his case as it appears to us, and leave it to the Judge of all the earth. And the plea is open to this exception, that the portrait is a record of the appear- ance of somebody who has been seen of men with eyes, whereas no man hath seen God at any time. If any authentic likeness of Christ the Lord remained on earth, we cannot suppose that to look on it in prayer to Him would be an act of idolatry. Having been manifest in the flesh, He had a human body and likeness. It is doubtless part uf His scheme and care for men, that no such image should ever have existed ; that His people may learn to face the life-long difficulty of walking by faith and not by sight. But a portrait of the Invisible Father of Spirits is a contradiction in terms. If the Hindu really believes in a hundred-headed being in the 60 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. heavens, bearing dagger and axe, hurling quoits, and brandishing skulls, and " wielding all weapons in his countless hands " — his worship of the monstrous por- traits of that Being can hardly be such as we can be satisfied with ; we cannot leave him in it without such protest as is possible, and such attempts at better teaching as we can make. When the religious sym- bolism of a highly intellectual race is very rude and degraded, a natural suspicion arises that it is kept so for the poorer and less informed by some govern- ing class who know better. It is clear that a man who could speak thus of the quasi-symbolic idols of his race would be able to dispense with their use him- self in prayer; while the vulgar would continue to worship in abject fetichism. Would he say that a large proportion of the Hindu population of India understood the matter as well as he understood it himself ? In short, the plea of symbolism may excuse the idolater, but it does not justify idolatry. As soon as the symbol is looked on as anything more than an assistance to thought or understanding, invented by man for man's convenience, without actual likeness to God, it is on the way to become an idol, whether it be set up in a Heathen Temple or in a Christian Church. A brief account of the symbolisms most freely used in the primitive Church may close this chapter. They seemed to have been used entirely for instruc- tion or suggestion of thought, and the beginnings of idol- worship are to be traced, not to them, but to the portraits, or supposed portraiture, of saints in the various churches, especially of Eome. 1 1 See Chapter on Mosaics. For permitted symbols, Clem* Alex. Pasdag. iii. c. 11. RELIGIOUS ART.— SYMBOLISM. 61 As has been already so often observed, the Vine, the Dove, the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, are the most ancient emblems ; together with the Monogram of the Lord's Name, the Fish in both its senses, and probably the hastily-inscribed or engraved palm-branch of the Martyr's or confessor's grave. The first four were sanctioned or virtually prescribed in Holy Scripture itself, and the others are sufficiently obvious images. Thus the Fish, as an anagram, represents the Lord Himself, and, as a symbol, the believer, according to the parable of the net ; the Dove and the Lamb are used both as signs of the Second and Third Per- sons of the Trinity, and also to represent His faithful followers. All these forms are found in the earliest cemeteries and catacombs, sometimes with the most archaic and barbarous treatment. In a few cases — and those, of course, the most ancient — they are in beautiful Grseco-Eoman fresco or stucco, admirably composed in decorative patterns, and so well executed, with scientific preparation of the wall-surface before- hand, as to have lasted better than much more recent work by less skilful hands. Such works are the paint- ings in the tomb of Domitilla and the catacomb of St. Prsetextatus. 1 The probability of their having been executed by heathen hands is generally recognized ; and, as has been suggested above, it seems not unlikely that the Christian community accepted the decora- tions of the halls and rooms in which they met, simply as they found them ; and then began to make special choice of ordinary subjects, as vines and doves, which spoke a double language, and reminded them of events in the Gospels or of words from the Lord's mouth. 1 See Chapter on Catacombs. 62 PKIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Other emblems more rarely found, and not im- mediately derived from Holy Scripture, the ship and chariot, the anchor and lyre, the dolphin, phoenix, peacock, and pelican, are all used on Christian sepul- chres. From Scripture, the cock, stag, lion, dragon, and serpent occur in various relations. The olive, fir-tree, and fig-tree are rarely seen ; the palm is found on all tombs, and on the sarcophagi it accom- panies the subject of Our Lord's Entry into Jerusalem. The various symbolic or parabolic events are men- tioned in the Chapters on the Catacombs and on Sarcophagi and Christian Sculpture, and in the index of our subjects. The principal ones are the Agape of bread and fish, or the Fish carrying loaves ; Adam and Eve with the Serpent ; Noah in his square area or chest ; the sacrifice of Abraham ; Pharaoh and the Red Sea; Moses and the rock; Elijah in his chariot ; Jonah with gourd or whale ; Daniel with the lions; and once 1 administering the balls of pitch and hair to the dragon, according to the nar- rative in the Apocrypha. To these may be added, from the New Testament, the adoration of the Magi, the miracles of Cana and of the Multiplied Loaves, and other miracles of mercy — in particular, the Cures of the Talsy and of the Issue of Blood. These, however, are historical rather than symbolical, and records of actual events rather than suggestive of the future. Various attempts at setting forth the imagery of the book of Revelation are spoken of in the Chapter on Mosaics. The increasing alarms and distresses of the declining Empire from the end of the fourth 1 Bottari. i. tav. 15. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 63 century naturally inclined men to think of the latter days of Imperial Rome as indeed the beginning of the world's end. It is no wonder if workmen, whose style was formed in so stern a school as the Byzan- tine period, should look willingly at the future world rather than the present, and dwell in imagination on spiritual hope ; being hopeless in this life. Still, within a period of ten centuries there are no antici- pations of judgment in authentic painting or carved work ; the rejoicings of the saints in and with Christ, in open vision in Heaven, are not as yet contrasted with the torments of the lost : only with the state of the faithful as sheep on earth, on the other side of the mystic Jordan. The most commonly-used symbolism of the Apo- calypse, if we except the mystic Lamb, is of course the fourfold sign of the Evangelists — the Tetramorph, as it is called — when, as frequently happens in ancient art, the four are combined in one form. They thus in- volve a peculiarly impressive connection between the beginning of the visions of Ezekiel and the first unveiling of heaven to the Beloved Disciple. It can- not be mistaken, though in the prophet's vision the Living Creatures were not only four in number, but each was fourfold in shape. " They four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side ; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side ; they four had also the face of an eagle : " while in the Apocalypse " the first beast was like a lion, the second was like a calf, the third had the face of a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle." This con- nection is said by Mrs. Jameson l to have been noticed 1 "Sacred and Legendary Art," p. 79. 64 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. as early as the second century, though no representa- tions are found till the fifth ; nor is it till the fifth that the four creatures were taken to represent the four Evangelists. It was not, indeed, till long after that each was separately assigned to each writer. The united Tetramorph connects them more closely with the vision of Ezekiel, and is represented (evidently with that connection present in the mind of the workman) in the great MS. of Kabul a. (See woodcut.) But the original emblem of the four Evangelists 1 is the four rivers of Paradise. These are found in some of the earliest specimens of certainly authentic Christian decoration, as in the Lateran Cross. 2 The four books or rolls are also found in early art. The stag is generally placed by the four rivers, especially when they are united in the one Jordan and combined with baptismal imagery ; as so fre- quently happens. The upraised hand of blessing, as a sign of the presence of God the Father, is constant in the early mosaics of Rome and Bayenna. Some account of this and other Christian emblems will be given in describing the places where they occur, as of the Orantes or praying figures so often found in the Catacombs. 3 It is difficult to lay down, or rather to suggest, any rules or limitations for the use of symbolism in the Anglican Church, nor would they probably have much authority with any builder or decorator of any sacred building, nor obtain much attention from that 1 See Aringhi, vol. ii. p. 285. 8 See Chapter on the Cross and Sacramental Emblems. 3 See Index. RELIGIOUS ART. — SYMBOLISM. 65 section of our clergy or people whose minds are most employed on the aesthetic part of Christian worship. But it is correct, at all events, to say that Scriptural subjects, and those alone, contented the Church of the first five centuries. It is not that others were forbidden, for Christian Church ornament either began, or was from the first mingled, with the deco- rations of Pagan halls and Pagan cemeteries. But in those days the Christian imagination could dwell contentedly and continuously on a prescribed series of images, within the ample limits of Scriptural illustration. We earnestly desire to restrict Anglican decoration within the same bounds as those of the primitive Church, and may fairly ask if the histories, emblems, and parables of the Old and New Testa- ment are not, after all, enough to employ the mind of an English worshipper in the intervals of church service, or at times of private meditation in church ? And, setting aside for a moment all the vast mass of historical subject which invites the artist — and has quite vainly invited the English artist, till very lately — it may be said that Scriptural symbolism will find quite subject enough to call out and to reward the greatest efforts of the greatest man — that is to say, of the greatest believing man ; for it is not desirable that our sanctuaries be adorned with the paintings of men who do not believe what they paint, and who despise their own labour ; or even with works whose technical excellence is their only appeal to thought. Earnestly as we may admire Michael Angelo and his great deeds, none of us can wash (if such a thing were possible) ever to see another Christian Church adorned entirely like the Sistine, 06 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. where glorious histories and mighty ideals of Pro- phet, Apostle, and Sibyl, are mingled everywhere with problems in Titanic anatomy. If a poet wished to form an idea of the noblest imagery conceivable, and of its expression in the mightiest words, he would at least see it in the prophecies of Isaiah or Ezekiel. The words and diction should enter into him, and be an element of strength to him, though he would not think of imitation. The thoughts and expressions, ever so imperfectly under- stood, will certainly take possession of the reader, and feed his imagination with ideas. The Scriptures are to afford, as Mr. Arnold most weightily and pithily tell us, the whole and sole intellectual cul- ture of large masses of the people ; and they are a part of it which no class of the English people can spare, because they appeal with matchless power to the imagination, which requires more culture than any other spiritual faculty in our own race and time. That which inspired the mighty poet, may fill also with inspiration, with hope, and faithful imaginings, the brains of poor men and women, pupil -teachers and school-children. It may inspire the painter also ; and the best men of our day have known how to drink at the source of all this strength. In short, the range of human imagination working on God's Word is vast enough to supply any painter or number of painters with happy work for life ; if they be fit and willing men to undertake any sacred subject at all. Tr^ VINE NO. 2. — CHAPEL OF GALLA PLACIDIA. CHAPTER III. ICONOCLASM AND CREATUliE-WOKSHIP. The subject of pictorial or other representative ornament in Christian churches has been made specially difficult by the controversies of so many centuries. It has probably been debated in one form or another from the earliest times of patriarchal worship ; but it would seem that the Church of the first three centuries suffered as little from it as any assembly of devout persons could possibly do. Their art was artless and unexciting : their faith was both art and poetry to them, because it kept continually before their imaginations the highest subjects which they could possibly aspire to. The Hebrew and the Greek element in the Church may have differed somewhat in this matter; but it 68 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. seems very probable that symbolic ornament was used in the earliest catacombs, even while the strongest feeling against representative images, or forms set up in church to assist devotion, was felt and expressed on all hands. For the present it may be said; that as (a.d. 180) Irenaeus 1 urges it against the Gnostics that they made use of pretended portrait- images of Our Lord ; while Celsus urged it against the Faith 2 that Christians endured neither altars nor images ; — the practice of image-worship, or addressing any visible form in prayer, is contrary to the theory and practice of the primitive saints. But painting and sculpture may have been used for instruction, and may have aided sermon and catechism, if not prayer. We cannot say what was the date of the first Good Shepherd, or Vine — both existed in heathen art, and were adopted symbols, in which Christians recognized the words of their Lord written in colour by heathen hands. Tertullian 3 (a.d. 300) speaks of a Good Shepherd on a chalice : and the sign of the Cross 4 was used from the very first, as a badge of Christ's followers, though it may have originated in » Adv. Hser. i. 24 ad f., 25 ed. Migne. * Origen contra C. viii. pp 396 Lat., 400 Gk. ed. 1605. 3 De Pudicit. c. 7. " Ovis perdita a Domino requisita, et humeris Ejus revecta. Procedant ipsse picturse calicura vestro- rum," &c, &c. The longer passage which immediately follows, seems to apply to heathen imagery and its consequences. There can be no doubt, either, of his view as to the nse of images for devotion in churches ; but he lets Scriptural symbolism pass without comment. Origen argues on the side of spiritual wor- ship against Celsus, who seems to have raised the same artistic objections against Christianity, for not having produced a Phidias, which have been urged covertly or openly ever since. He says man is made in the image of God, and is His best Agalma. Man is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and His fittest abode. 4 See p. 6. ICONOCLASM AND CREATURE-WORSHIP. 69 the Monogram. 1 So that, for a time, perhaps for nearly 300 years, Christian worship and Sacraments maybe thought to have been conducted in spirit and in truth, so far that the faithful needed no stimulus to their devotion, and sought no other sign of God's presence with them than the Sacraments of His ordaining. The first public sign of alarm, or rather of pre- caution, appears in the Council of Illiberis (Grenada) in Spain, about 305. One of its canons ordains that no picture shall be in the church, lest that which ia worshipped or adored be painted on the walls. At the end of the fourth century we find Paulinus of Nola ornamenting his church of St. Felix, and painting a catacomb with Scriptural histories, and with pictures symbolic of the Holy Trinity. Nor does he seem to have raised alarm, though it must have been "nearly at the same time," says Bishop Harold Browne, 2 " or a little earlier, that Epiphanius, going through Anablatha, a village in Palestine, found there a veil hanging before the door of the church, whereon was painted an image of Christ, or some saint, he did not remember which. 3 When he saw in the church of Christ an image of a man, contrary to the authority of Scripture, he rent it, and advised that it should be made a winding-sheet for some poor man." This would scarcely have happened in Italy ; and indeed the distinction between history and symbolism on the 1 Minucius Felix, quoted in Chapter on the Cross. 2 Exposition of xxxix. Articles. Art. xxii. p. 507. Epiphanius' letter is in Jerome. Ep. 60. 3 Epist. ad Johan. Hierosol. Bellarmine and Baronius dispute, this passage as an Iconoclastic interpolation, but it is acknowledged by Petavius. See Bingham, book viii. chapter viii. 6, 7. 70 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. one hand, and emotional idolatry on the other, is somewhat fine, though perfectly real; and has often been sternly rejected in the East. The use of pictures depends, for good or evil, on the characters of the people who use and the artists who supply them; a growing superstition in demand leads in- fallibly to a supply of more and more dangerous decorations. In the fourth and fifth centuries, the instructive use of pictures must have begun to be mingled with picture-worship, as the tendency to adoration of saints and martyrs declared itself. St. Augustine says 1 there were many worshippers of tombs and pictures in his day: that the Church condemned them and strove to correct them. Chalices and patens, he says, are gold and silver, the work of men's hands ; there is no fear of their being wor- shipped ; it is the lifelike form which has power to make itself adored. And at the end of the fourth century, Bishop Browne concludes, both historical pictures, and, soon after, commemorative portraits of Apostles, saints and martyrs, and even of living kings and bishops, were hung up ; and the use of statues followed. In the sixth century there is evidently serious alarm among bishops and thoughtful heads of the Church at the popular devotion to these visible forms ; and Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, seems to have ordered all the images in the churches of his diocese to be broken ; on which Gregory the Great writes to him to say that 1 " Novi multos esse sepuloronim et picturarum adoratores quns et ipsa (Ecclesia) condemnat,'' &e. (Aug. De Moribus Eccl. -1. c. 54, 74, 75). ICONOCLASM AND CREATURE-WORSHIP. 71 he altogether approves of his forbidding image- worship ; but blames him for breaking them, as things harmless in themselves and useful for instruction. St. Gregory clearly looked on them as historical pictures of events, not as Personifications of the Creator. 1 A superstition resting on foundations so deep and wide as the human longing for a sign from God could have only been coerced by the determined efforts of the whole clergy and conventual orders. The latter in particular were the last persons to make any attempt of the kind ; and the lamentable struggle of Iconoclasm and Iconodulism in the eighth century was a contest between military and monastic power, which anticipated in the East the papal contests with the House of Swabia in the West. It is not here necessary to follow its course historically. 2 Leo, the Isaurian, and his son Constan- tine Copronymus were the great Iconoclast emperors ; the Empress Irene lived to undo their work. The Council of Constantinople in the reign of Coprony- mus, a.d. 754, is called by the Greeks the Seventh General Council ; but it is rejected by the Latins. It condemned all worship and use of images. Thirty years after, in the reign of Irene, the Second Council of Nice reversed its decisions, ordaining that images should be set up, but not adored with the worship of latria ; which John Damascenus vigorously protests had never been paid them. Charlemagne and the Gallican bishops replied to Pope Adrian, who sent 1 Epp xi. 13. p. 1127 vol. 77 ed. Migne. 1849. 2 Alt's " Heiligenbilder," Leipsic, 1845. This work, with Dr. Piper's " Einleitung in die Monunientale Theologie," Gotha, 1867, are complete and exhaustive works. 72 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. thein a copy of this decree ; allowing images for ornament and history, but condemning all worship. Their formal reply is called the Libri Carolini, and was published by Charlemagne a.d. 790. The British bishops fully confirmed this in 792, abhorring the worship of images ; and Charlemagne, two years after, assembled the Synod of Frankfort, consisting of 300 bishops from France, Germany, and Italy, who formally rejected the Synod of Nice, declaring it not to be the seventh general council ; nor was it received in the "Western Church, except in churches specially under Eoman influence, for five centuries and a half. It is clear that the distinction between decorative or even historical painting or sculpture, and use of idolatrous objects for worship, was perfectly well understood in the primitive Church, though there was no necessity for express statements on the matter. Tertullian's language * seems sweeping and violent ; but he is addressing himself to Pagans or their imitators, or, as it seems, to Christians in the artistic employments, w T ho were in danger of being led to seek gain by sculpture and painting of heathen subjects. " There was a time long past when the idol did not exist ; the sacred places were unoccupied, and the temples void. . . But when the devil brought in makers of statues and images and all kinds of likenesses on the world, all the raw material of human misery, and the name of idols followed it. And ever since then any art which produces an idol in any way is the source of idolatry. It makes no 1 De Idolatria, c. iii. ICONOCLASM AND CREATURE-WORSHIP. 73 difference whether the workman makes it in clay, or a sculptor carves it, or if he weaves it in Phrygian cloth, because it is of no consequence as to the substance an idol is formed of, whether it be plaster, or colours, or stone, or brass, or silver, or canvas." 1 Such is his trenchant and inclusive comment on the pictorial or other representation of any human form, and in his next chapter he adopts the language of the second commandment, and seems to apply it to the whole range of art; nothing is to be represented at all. As he proceeds, however, on the grounds of the Hebrew Law, he is reminded of the Brazen Serpent ; and at once "justifies it as a symbol or type of the coming Redeemer "Who should be lifted up for mankind. Without seeming to be aware of the logical bearings of the important exception he has made, he returns to the charge to show that all employments connected with idolatry or the temples are forbidden, and then (ch. viii.) suggests various trades or crafts to which the artists of his time (who seem to have been numerous) might apply them- selves. They may become painters and glaziers in the literal sense — at most they can find other orna- ments to paint on the walls than " simulacra " — likenesses of human or animal life. It is pretty 1 " Idolum aliquamdiu retro non erat," he exclaims; "sola templa et vaciue redes. . . At ubi artifices statuarum et imaginum, et ormris generis simulacrorum diabolus seculo iutulit, rude illud negotium human* calamitatis, et nomen de Idolis consecutum est. Exinde jam caput facta est Idololatrise ars omnis quse Idolum quo- quoniodo edit. Xeque enim interest, an plastes effingat, an caelator ex(s)culpat, an Phrygio detexat ; quia nee de materia refert, an gypso, an coloribus, an lapide, an aire, an argento, an filo formetur Idolum." The sentence of the Apostolical Constitutions on this matter, as Alt remarks, is brief (viii. c. 32), 'Ei5a>A.o7ro ovKois Kal iv waffTaaiv, £v aKfuecrtu dpyvpoTs, iv toixw ypcupais. THE CROSS. 199 Julian reproaching the Christians for making ges- tures in the air of the sign of the Cross on their foreheads — aKiaypacpovvre^ iv to> fiereoTrw — and by the accusation of worshipping it as a fetiche. See the words of the Pagan Caecilius : " They also tell us wondrous tales of a man who suffered capital punish- ment for his crimes, and (that they adore) the doleful tree of his Cross with solemn rites — a tree befitting such wretches and villains ... so that they wor- ship that which they deserve." 1 He is answered simply : " We neither worship nor desire the Cross." 2 This is referred to also by Molanus, 3 which, with many other passages, is enough to show that Con- stantine, in accepting the Cross as his symbol and personal cognizance, was assuming a despised and unpopular emblem to which he need not have given prominence, and which he would hardly have felt compelled to retain, but by understanding the importance of the Death of the Lord in Whom he im- perfectly believed. He avowed to the Pagans, and therefore more vigorously enforced on Christendom, the sacrificial act of death for man. The office of Christ, marked by the Cross, was now distinguished from His Person, marked by the Monogram. And though the further advance from the purely symbolic cross which indicates the Lord's Death, to the Crucifixion- picture which attempted to represent it, and s-till further to the portrait Crucifix, may have taken nearly 300 years, as it did, that advance seems highly 1 "Etqui hominem suramo supplicio pro facinore punitum, et cruris ligna feralia eorum cseremoniis fabulantur, congruentia perditis sceleratisque . . . ut id colant quod merentur." (Minucius Felix Octav. cc. ix. and xxix. ) 2 "Crucem nee colimus nee optamus." 3 " De Picturis," c. v. 200 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. natural. With whatever reverence the Lord's cor- poreal sufferings may have been veiled in symbolism — though reticence and distant contemplation of that awful subject may have been as desirable then as it is now — the progress of large sections of the Church to actual representation of Him in the act of death seems to have been logically and practically certain, from the time when His execution as a malefactor was avowed and proclaimed to the heathen. The transition from the symbol to the representation will be traced out, in the several steps of which we have evidence, when we come to speak of the Crucifix. What is principally to be said here is, that as the words Cross and Crucifix are in great measure confounded in their popular use in most European languages, the following distinction may be taken between them, generally speaking ; — that a Cross with any symbol or other representation of a Victim attached to it or placed on it, passes into the cruci- ficial or sacrificial category. The usual threefold division of the form of the Cross into the Crux Decussata, or St. Andrew's Cross ; the Crux Commissa, Tau, Egyptian or patibulary, Cross ; and the Immissa, or upright four-armed Cross (Greek or Latin), seems most convenient. It is probable that the distinction between the Greek or Latin, Eastern or Western symbol, belongs to the time succeeding the Iconoclastic controversy. The Latin Cross, as all know, has the upright of greater length than the transverse limb : the Greek is equal in all four limbs. The Latin mind continued to insist specially on the Cross as the actual instrument of the Lord's Death, and carefully selected that particular form of THE CROSS. 201 it on which in all probability He suffered. The symbol of intersecting bars was enough for the Greek, who stood at more reverent and mystic distance from the manner and details of the Event, and viewed the Cross as a symbol of Eedemption, or of the Person of the Lord in full Humanity. Perhaps the chief examples of this wide, and in fact truly Catholic meaning are to be found in the sixth and seventh centuries. At that time, speaking generally, the symbolism of the Cross seems to have been nearly as follows: — The Cross itself represented the Second Person of the Trinity in His Divinity and Humanity, as God made Flesh, even to the death appointed for all flesh, for the salvation of all men. We find it accordingly, as in some examples given below, ornamented to the utmost power of the mosaicist or painter ; and if it occur in sculpture, it begins to be varied in form, or is borne in triumph by the Lord Himself, or an Apostle, affording the earliest examples of what is called the Triumphal Cross, the Sign of His accomplished work, which is often placed in the hand of figures of Christ at the present day. It seems to have been to every believer the sign of the whole New Covenant, and of his own personal share in it. It had also been asso- ciated (as will be seen almost immediately) with Baptism since the time of Constantine, so that the leading idea of Death, with which it was still con- nected, was that of Christian baptism into Christ's death. Consequently, though now long separated from the Monogram, and confessed as the penal Cross, it only developed the idea of the Monogram, and was expressive of the Lord's Work, as that k 3 202 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. expressed His Name. Meanwhile pictures of the Crucifixion, and Crosses bearing the Apocalyptic Lamb, were coming into use, and formed another class of symbols with further import, leading to deve- lopments of meditation, if not of doctrine, on the Manner and Nature of the Death of the Sacrifice for Man. Still the Cross itself meant that and more ; for it stood for Christ and all His work. The best example of this is the great mosaic of St. Apollinaris in Classe, near Eavenna, a.d. 545, so often referred to in these pages. Its subject is the Transfiguration, and photographs of it are to be had in this country ; but it is sufficiently represented in Ciampini's " Vetera Monumenta." It covers the vault of an apse, and is described in the chapter on Mosaics. Its Cross is of the Western form, lightly widened (pattee) at the extremities, and so tending towards what is called the Maltese form. It is ornamented in colour as brilliantly as possible, and at its intersection appears (for perhaps the first time) a Face of our Lord. It is scarcely discernible in Ciampini's small engraving, but it is clearer in the photograph, and the author has personally verified it. It seems to import no more than the name or Monogram ; but it is found again on the oil-vessels of Monza. 1 The figure of St. Apollinaris in this mosaic con- nects the upper and lower divisions of the composi- tion in the beautiful and time-honoured arrangement which may be observed in Orgagna's Last Judgment, in Michael Angelo's (in tripled form), and (in its frankest and most beautiful shape), in Titian's As- sumption of the Virgin. The ascent of the mountain 1 See Martigny, s. v. Crucifix et infra. THE CROSS. 203 is indicated by trees and birds, accompanied by the sheep of the Gospel. The Holy Dove is not repre- sented, the mosaic having reference to the Trans- figuration only, as described in the three first Gospels. Above the Cross are the letters 1MDUC, which Ciampini interprets as " Immolatio Domini Jesu Christi." Below it is "Salus Mundi." Didron however asserts, in " Christian Iconography," 1 that the upper inscription is really the usual IX9T2, on the authority of M. Lacroix, who has given particular attention to the Church of St. Apol- linaris in Classe. A very curious silver cross in the Duomo of Eavenna, composed of medallions, is referred to the sixth century, and called the Cross of St. Agnello. The central medallion is larger than the others, and represents Christ seated in Glory in the act of blessing. He is standing with the same gesture on the back of the same piece of metal. In the Pontifical, or Bishop's Office-book, of Ecbert, brother of Eadbert, King of Northunibria (consecrated Archbishop of York in 732), there 1 Diction. Icon. Christ, vol i. 367. Bohn. " Christ is embodied in the Cross as He is in the Lamb, or as the Holy Spirit in the Dove * * * In Christian iconography, He is actually present under the form and semblance of the Cross. The Cross is our crucified Lord in person, &c. &c." In the ninth century the praises of the Cross were sung as of a god or hero, and expressions of this kind descend into modern hymns. Hrabanus Maurus, the pupil of Alcuin and Abbot of Fulda, wrote a poem in honour of the Cross, de Laudibus Sanctse Crucis. See his complete works, fol. Col. Agrippinse (Cologne), 1626, vol. i. pp. 273 — 337. He quotes St. Jerome's comparison (Comment, in Marcum) of "species crucis forma quadrata mundi," — embracing the four quarters of the universe ; and of the birds, who, when they fly, take the form of the Cross in mid-air — of the swimmer, of a person in prayer, of the ship with squared yards. "The letter T," he continues, "may be called the sign of the Cross and of our salvation," 204 PKIMITIVE CHURCH ART. is an office for the dedication of a Cross, which makes no direct mention of any human form thereon. 1 " We pray Thee to sanctify to Thyself this token of the Cross, which the religious faith of thy servant hath set up, with all devotion of his spirit as for a trophy of Thy victory and our redemption. Here let the splendour of the Divinity of Thy only- begotten Son be bright in the gold ; may the glory of His Passion shine forth from the Tree, may our redemption from death burst forth in the Blood, and in the brightness of the jewel- work ; may (He or It) be the protection of His own, their certain confi- dence of hope ; may it confirm them {suorum appears to be restricted to clergy) in the faith, along with nobles and commons ; may it strengthen in hope, and make fast in peace ; may it increase their victories, enlarge them with prosperity, avail them for ever in time, and unto the life of Eternity." This passage indicates a curiously mingled state of thought or feeling. The Cross is a symbol of Christ and a token of His victory : it is of material wood, gold, jewels, &c. ; but a sacramental power seems to be considered as adherent to the symbol ; its conse- cration gives it personality ; and it is to be addressed in prayer as if possessed of actual powers. For a time this state of ideas might do but little harm, at 1 (V. Surtees Society, 1853, pp. 111—113.) " Quaesumus ut consecres Tibi hoc signum Crucis, quod tota mentis devotione famuli tui religiosa tides construxit trophseum scilicet victoriae tuae et redemptions nostra. Radiet hie Unigeniti Filii Tui splendor divinitatis in auro, emicet gloria passionis in ligno, in cruore rutilet nostras mortis redemptio, in splendore cristalli nostra mortis redemptio, ut suorum protectio, spei certa fiducia, eos simul cum gente et plebe fide confirmet, spe solidet, pace con- societ ; augeat triumphis, amplificet secundis, proficiat eis ad perpetuitatem temporis et ad vitam asternitatis," &c. &c. THE CROSS. 205 least among the educated clergy ; but one cannot help seeing in it the germs, not only of idolatrous repre- sentation of a person, but of gross fetichism, in sup- posing virtue inherent in the wood and metal. If the Cross were once allowed to be sacred for any reason except its meaning, the worship of Christ would be obstructed, as it were, and directed to the material image. And this is tested, as in the case of different statues of the Blessed Virgin, by the fact of one statue being popularly preferred to another, as more blessed, or sacred, or powerful for good. THE CROSS OF BAPTISM. The Cross, of course, conveyed, to the earliest Christians as to ourselves, the personal lesson of sacrifice, or self-dedication to Christ, and the thought of His command to " take up the Cross." Hence doubtless its constant use in times of actual or remembered persecution, when the idea of Death in Christ was a terribly practical and familiar one, and when baptism into His death had a literal meaning of personal danger, and of sharing His sufferings. Ac- cordingly we find the earliest Crosses associated with all ideas involved in the rite of Baptism. As the sign of the Lord's life and humanity, the Cross is connected with both the Sacraments ; but the con- tinual and exclusive contemplation of it as a sign of sacrifice, which is involved in the use of the Crucifix, tends to forgetfulness of its close connection with Baptism. This, however, is observable, in particular, in the ancient and celebrated Lateran Cross, so called; which is referred to the time of Constantine, and 206 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. apparently accepted as of that date by Archbishop Binterim. 1 A reproduction of the frontispiece of this volume, representing the Cross in question, is given at p. 192. The original was in mosaic, and though restored by Nicolas IV., was not probably modified as to subject. It is a plain cross, with flattened and widening extremities, having a medallion of the Lord's Baptism at its intersection. The Holy Spirit, in form of a Dove with the Nimbus, hovers above ; and from Him seems to proceed the baptismal fountain, which at the Cross-foot becomes the source of the Four "Rivers, Gihon, Pison, Tigris, Euphrates. Between the rivers is the Holy City of God, guarded by the archangel Michael, behind whom springs up a palm- tree, on which sits the Phoenix (with the Nimbus) as a symbol of Christ. Two stags below, near the waters, represent the heathen, seeking baptism ; and three sheep on each side stand, as usual, for the Hebrew and Gentile Churches. This relic should be compared with a similar one given by De Bossi, 2 where the Cross stands on a hill, and the four rivers and spring form its foot, with stags, &c, and also with the Baptism-painting in the Cemetery of St. Pontianus (eighth century), and the similar collec- tion of emblems on a seal or medallion, given by Dr. Northcote. 3 All have special reference to Bap- tism, and connect the Cross with the Baptism of the Lord, rather than with His death. In later times, Crosses were made like that of Mainz, orna- mented with elaborate metal-work, and containing 1 " Denkwurdigkeiten, " vol. iv. parti. , 2 "De Titulis Carthageniensibus. ' 3 Iu " Horna Sotteranea. " THE CROSS. 207 almost the whole Biblical cycle of Old and New Testament images, type and antitype answering to each other. 1 The familiar image of the Kiver or Pavers of Baptism of course reminds us of the actual stream of Jordan. It is well worth the consideration of any thoughtful person of our own day, how Hebrew eyes have looked on that strange river, since the feet of the priests touched it in the days of Joshua ; and then how, since the Priest and Sacrifice of Humanity entered it for Baptism, it has drawn to it the thoughts of all His followers ; so as to continue to this day the symbol of Death and the new birth ; even to the Puritan mind, in its peevish rejection of all the his- torical Past of the human Church and the human race. Overwork and idleness, mutiny and oppres- sion, vice and monotony, and the unspeakable and unavoidable dulness of their lives and thoughts, have not taken away entirely, either from the British artizan and ploughman, or the transatlantic negro, some glimmering of strange hope in the name of the mystic Jordan. It represents to them the greatness of Death without his terrors. It is the river they yet hope to pass in the Spirit, when they shall be gone forth to the presence of Christ, from the dull and terrible world in which they have to look for Him unseeing. In their imaginations Jordan is the boundary stream between penal labour and the rest of reward, — between the promised land and the outer Edom. Associations of this sort have at all times directed the thoughts of Christians in all places towards that separated and 1 See account below of the Station-Cross of Mainz. 208 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. unknown river, so far away from and so unlike any- other stream : not charged, like any other stream, to fulfil the common wants of man and bless him with ordinary blessings, but having its source and its outflow, and all the line of its tortuous and violent wanderings in desert places where no man dwells. It may be said with but little exception, that no permanent habitation of man .gver stood beside Jordan, no home except the tent of the shepherd and the robber ; that scarcely any boat ever floated on its waters ; that none except wild men who have never seen the world, or hermits who have quitted it for ever, or travellers and pilgrims for a season, ever drank of them or bathed in them. Yet to this day it is the special Water of solemn Baptism ; and the whole Greek Church desires immersion in its waters, without which pilgrimage to Jerusalem is incomplete. The traveller observes the curious analogies of its appearance, which remind him of the life and death of man ; how it flows through desert lands and falls into a desolate sea, ending to all appearance all in vain and in bitterness, as life so often does. He notices that feature which the ancient illuminators dwell on with special energy of drawing, the strange tortuousness of its course ; and in particular, how the many turns of its whirling and vehement stream appear from time to time sud- denly at his horse's feet, like the coils of a snake gliding through cover, so that the Eiver of death opens before hirn as a pitfall ; how the cliffs of its steep banks allow no passage or landing for the strongest swimmer. Thus it always has impressed those who have seen it : it is one of the most THE CKOSS. 209 striking and important natural objects in the world, because, perhaps more than all other objects, it bears witness to the visible Presence of God of old, and to His interference in the world. It is like no other river ; no other place or thiDg is to this day in the same sense and degree a Sign to men. The use of the ribbon-like stream of Jordan in the ancient mosaics has been fully described in the chapter on that subject, as the death-stream separating the Church militant from the Church Triumphant. In these, too, the Cross represents the person of our Lord ; as in the great picture of the church of St. Puden- tiana at Ronie. Another baptismal Cross worthy of special notice is that of the catacomb of St. Ponti- anus, where it is found as one of the chief ornaments of a regular baptistery, with the A and a> hung from its arms, and flower-work on each side. Near it is a Baptism of the Lord in Jordan, which appears to have been restored in the eighth century, but, to judge by the photograph, gives signs of a more ancient and able picture below. It is- now an unanswerable question whether the Christians of the primitive or martyr 1 ages made use of th« Cross in private ; that is to say, on rings or gems, or by wearing actual Crosses for ornaments. Martigny refers to Perret l for certain stones ap- parently belonging to rings, on which the Cross is engraved, and which appear to be of date prior to Constantine. At that time, perhaps, the prin- cipal distinction between the Cross and the com- plete Monogram, was that the Cross was felt to remind the believer of the prospect of suffering for 1 " Catacombes de Rome," iv. pi. xvi. 74. m 210 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Him Whose name the Monogram expressed. The Tau-Cross is combined with the Monogram, in an engraved stone of the earliest epoch, given by Didron. 1 The serpent is coiled round the cross foot, the A and a> are on each side above, and two doves below with the word SALVS. The general use of the Cross in all times of public and private suffering is well described by Tertullian (above) and by St. Paulinus of Nola, who placed the following inscrip- tion under a cross at the entrance of the church of St. Felix : — " Behold how the crowned Cross stands above the vestibule of the house of Christ the Lord, promising high wage for hard toil. Take thou the Cross, who wouldest fain bear the Crown." 2 Perhaps the most interesting small Cross for per- sonal wearing now in existence is the pectoral or ijK6\7TLov in gold and niello, last described by M. St. Laurent. 3 It is said to contain a fragment of the wood of the true Cross, and bears on its front EMANOTHA NOBISCVM DEVS ; on the back, " Crux est vita mihi ; mors, inimice tibi ; " in the same characters. It must date from near the time of the Empress Helena, when many like Crosses began to be worn. There is a passage from Severus Sanctus Endel- echius or Entelechius, a Christian poet, 4 probably of 1 " Iconographie Chretienne," vol. i. p. 396. 2 " Cerne coronatam Domini super atria Christi Stare crucem, duro spondentem celsa labore Pmemia. Telle crucem, qui vis auferre coronam." ' (See Binterim, vol. iv. part i. and Molanus De Imaginibus, s. v. De Ficturis.) 3 Didron's " Annales Archeologiques," vol. xxvi. p. 7. 4 Seyerus Sanctus Endelechius. Poema de Mortibus Bourn, an eclogue in choriambic metre. Gottingen, 8vo. The editor appears to consider the authenticity of the poem and the personality of its THE CROSS. 211 Aquitaine, in the latter part of the fourth century, where a Christian shepherd has secured his flock from disease, by planting or marking between their horns or on their foreheads (signum mediis frontibus additum) the Cross of "the God whom men worship in the great cities." " The sign which they tell us is that of the Cross of the One God Who is worshipped in the great cities, Christ, the glory of Eternal Deity." l This is interesting in more than one particular, as it confirms, accidentally to all appearance, what we know of the prevalence of the faith in the cities of the empire rather than in the country, so that Pag anus came to mean an untaught believer in the old gods ; and also, supposing the works of Entelechius to be genuine, the passage illustrates the tendency of the first disciples to seek for a sign, or expect miraculous tokens of God's presence with them ; and further, that lingering heathen propensity to call for special interference in everyday matters, which arose from the ancient belief in the local deity of ^Nymphs, Sylvans, Penates, and the like, and which re-appeared in after-time in the universal appeal to patron-saints. Count Melchior de Vogue 2 gives a highly interest- ing account of the ruins, or rather the scarcely injured remains, of four ancient Christian towns, on the left bank of the Orontes, between Antioch and Aleppo. They contain many ancient crosses, and were pro- author sufficiently well ascertained. St. Paulinus of Nola mentions him (Ep. ix. or xxviii. Ad Sulp. Severum) as " benedictuiu , i.t. Christianuni virum, amicum meum Entelechium. " " Signum, quod perhibent esse crucis Dei Magnis qui colitur solus in urbibus Christus, perpetui gloria numinis," &c. 1 "Revue Archeologique, " vol. vii. p. 201. 212 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. bably deserted at the same time, on the first Mussul- man invasion. " We are transferred," he says, " to the centre of a Christian society : it is no more the hidden life of the Catacombs, nor an existence of humiliation and fear, yet in its infancy : the tone of these sculptures is that of a period not far removed from the triumph of the Church. . . The ' graffito ' of an obscure painter, who, in decorating a tomb, has traced on the inner surface of the rock, Monograms of Christ, to try his brush and in the enthusiasm of a Christian freeman writes, altering the motto of the Labarum, ' This conquers.' " We have already glanced at the feeling of subdued triumph with which the Cross was regarded in the earliest times, as a symbol, first of the Lord's life and death, and then of man's life and death, of hope in Him. It is evidenced by the constant addition of flowers and leaves to the emblem. As late as the oil vessels preserved at Monza, it is represented as a twining and budding tree ; and the cross of the baptistery of St. Pontianus, which is probably at no great distance of time from them, breaks out in golden or silver flowers half way up its stem. It is very difficult to assign a date for the public display of the Cross, out of Constantinople ; at least for the time when its display became an ordinary 1 "On est transporte au milieu de la societe Chretienne, non plus la vie cachee des catacombes, ni l'existence humiliee, timide, infante ; inais une vie large, opulente, artistique Des croix, des mono-grammes du Christ sont sculptes en relief sur le plupart des portes ; le ton de ces inscriptions indique une epoque voisine du triomphe de l'Eglise. . . . Le graffito d'un peintre obscur, qui decorant un tombeau, a, pour essayer sou pinceau, trace sur le paroi du rocher des monogrammes du Christ, et dans son enthousiasme de Chretien emancipe ecrit, en paraphra- eant le labarum, toito ui/ca, Ceci triomphe." THE CKOSS. 213 matter. Boldetti gives an instance of a Tau-Cross, dating A.D. 370, according to the Consuls; but this is after the earlier sarcophagi. This question cannot be decided in the Catacombs, from the unfortunate re- moval of the sarcophagi for arbitrary arrangement in museums, and from the fact that pilgrims of all ages and nations, have habitually inscribed Crosses on the walls of the subterranean cemeteries. The Tau appears in the Callixtine Catacomb, in a sepul- chral inscription referred to the third century, thus : ireT^e. This is frequent. 1 It occurs in black marble mosaic of early date. 2 The Tau is certainly earlier than the Eastern or Western Cross, and may have been used even by Christians, in its pre-Christian sense as the emblem of the future life. In many ancient crucifixions, it is appropriated to the robbers. St. Paulinus of Nola, whose life closes the fourth and extends far into the fifth century, speaks of the Cross as displayed or set up on the ship which was to convey Nicetas, bishop of Daria, on his return voyage from Italy. 3 But from the passage it seems a little doubtful whether Paulinus may not have been thinking, with Jerome, that the squared yard of a Roman vessel under sail was a vivid re- presentation of the Cross : — " And thou shalt go forth victorious, safe from waves and winds, in thy ship, furnished (in or on) its yard-arm with the Token of Salvation." 4 The idea of the Cross as Anchor of the Christian 1 De Rossi, Bullet. 1863, p. 35. 2 Boldetti, lib. ii. c. iii. p. 353. 3 See Gretzer de Cruce, c. xxiv. 4 " Etrate armata Titulo salutis Victor antenna Crucis ibis undis Tutus et Austris." 214 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. soul is found very early, and carried out in numerous inscriptions, gems, &C. 1 Its earlier and freer use in Africa is spoken of by M. Laurent, who quotes De Eossi, 2 where fourth-century marbles are mentioned as bearing the Cross. That of Probus and Proba, we believe, is the only sarcophagus within that age on which the Western Cross appears. The Monogram in its older form, with the decussated Cross, appears on the reverse of a medal bearing the name and laurelled bust of the younger Licinius, which must therefore be earlier than 323, the date of the victories near Byzantium which terminated his father's reign. 3 The Cross alone appears, probably for the first time, in the hand of a Victory on the reverse of a coin of Valentinian I. : — the upright Monogram J^ on that emperor's sceptre about 364. Both Greek and Roman Crosses, and in particular cruciform Churches, 4 sometimes possess one or two additional cross-limbs, shorter than the main or central one. The upper additional bar is supposed by Didron to stand for the title over the head of the Crucified One. If this be so, the lower one may be taken to represent the suppedaneum, or support for His feet. In cases where the shorter limbs are both placed above the main cross-bar, as in Boldetti, 8 they certainly represent the crosses of the male- 1 See "Annales Archeologiques" (Didron aine), vol. xxvi. , frontispiece. 2 " De Titulis Christianis Carthageniensibus." 3 See Father Garrucci, Appendix to his works on gilt glasses of the Primitive age — " Numismatica Constantiniana, portante segpi di Christianismo." 4 Constantine's ancient Churches of St. Peter, St. Paolo fuori della Mura, and Sta. Maria Maggiore, were all built in the form of the Cross : in the last, the apse alone projects from the upright bar. * Lib. 1. cii. p. 271. THE CEOSS. 215 factors. There are two coins of Yalens and Anthemius 1 one of which, a nummus cereus, has three crosses, the other has one with two smaller cross- beams under the larger one. The term Station-Cross is derived from the Eoman military term Statio, and is applied to a large Cross on the chief altar, or in some principal place in a Church, which may be removed or carried in procession to another place, which it then constitutes a special place of prayer. 2 The distinction between the Tri- umphal and the Passion Cross is connected with this ; the former of course symbolizing the victory gained by the sufferings which the other commemorates. The statement of Bede 3 relating to the four kinds of wood of which the Cross of our Lord was made — the upright of cypress, the cross-piece of cedar, the head-piece of fir, and the suppedaneum of box — departs from the tradition that the smaller parts were respectively of olive and of palm. For this, Curzon * refers to the apocryphal Gospel of Mcodemus. It is part of the Legend of the Cross ; beginning with Adam's prayer at the gates of Paradise for a branch of the tree of life in his last sickness, which was planted on his grave, and from whose wood, in the fulness of time, the Cross was made. With this, or the mediaeval history of the Cross, when the sign became more to men than the event it represented, we are not now concerned. The only remarks to be made by way of conclusion or summary of this chapter are much as follows. Whatever the various meanings of the decussated 1 Angelo Rocca, Bibl. Vaticana, vol. ii. p. 253. 2 See above on the subject of the Labaruro. 3 Binterim, vol. iv. i. p. 501. 4 "Visits to Monasteries," &c, p. 163. 216 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. symbol may have been in Egypt and elsewhere, before the Lord's coming, the cross letter X was the initial of His Name or Title. As such, it came to mean, as we say, or recall to the Christian mind, all the thoughts and associations which that Name can awaken — and stood in the place of a portrait-figure, as a symbol of the God-Man. For a time it was, as it were, all things to all men. To the first members of the Church it represented their Master, Who was all in all to them : and in that view, a somewhat wider and happier one than any of later days, it represented all the Faith; the Person of Christ; His death for Man; and the life and death of man in Christ. The Lateran and other Crosses point to Baptism and all its train of Christian thought, without immediate reference to the manner of the Lord's Death. Con- stantine indeed 1 seems to have attached the symbolic Lamb to the Baptist, and the Sacrament he adminis- tered; as well as to the Lord's Supper and the shewing forth of Christ's Death. The tendency of Christian feeling towards special or exclusive contemplation of the Lord's suffering and death is matter of ecclesias- tical history: — and its effect on Christian emotion, and therefore on Christian art, is the transition from the Cross into the Crucifix. That transi- tion seems to have been a certainty, from the substitution of the penal Cross in the Monogram ; and from that earnest meditation on the sacrifice of the Apocalyptic Lamb, to which the great mosaics bear special witness. The use of the Crucifix, or representations of the Crucifixion, in the Early Church, is matter for a subsequent chapter. 1 See Anastasius, Vita Pontificum, Sylvester. CHAPTER VIII. EUCHARISTIC SYMBOLISM AND REPRESENTATION. The Cross has been connected in the last chapter, as it undoubtedly was in the earliest art of the primi- tive church, with the Sacrament of Baptism. Being the symbol of our Lord's Person, and of His death it stood also for our Baptism unto Death in Him. Before we enter on the history of the Crucifix, or the various crucifixion-scenes in painting or sculpture which remain from the earliest date of such works, it seems best to answer, as well as we can, the ques- tion ; — what examples are left us of attempts at re- presenting Eucharistic rites, or the earliest Breaking of Bread, the repetition of the Lord's Supper, accord- ing to His command, and the commemorative sacri- fice of His Body and Blood ? It may be repeated here, though it has been repeatedly observed before, that the key-note and connecting principle of Primi- tive Church Art is the interpretation of the Old Testament by the New, and the confirmation of the New by the Old. Accordingly, the promise to Adam at the fall, the sacrifice of Isaac, the de- liverance of Joseph from Egypt, the Eock stricken in the Wilderness, the Brazen Serpent, the history of Jonah, and the' deliverance of Daniel, with many other subjects, are again and again insisted on as directly L 218 PRIMITIVE CHUECH ART. prophetic of the coming and the sacrifice of Jesus ' Christ of Nazareth. These pictures were indisputably drawn among the graves of martyrs, or witnesses to death, by other men of like creed and temper ; who were prepared to die in attestation of their belief that these episodes of Hebrew history were meant, as God would have it, to shadow forth the Life and Death of His Only Begotten Son. That is their witness to us. We have now to consider what symbolical images or adumbrations of the Paschal Supper are left to us. For if anything in the ancient covenant is symbolical of the new, it is that. And though the Death of the Lord closed and sealed the testimony of anticipatory Sacrifice, it becomes, for that reason, of the greatest interest for us to know in what form the Church took up and obeyed His plain and unmistakeable command to repeat the breaking of the Bread and outpouring of the Cup in remembrance of Him. The Agape, so frequently represented in the Cata- combs, is of course the first thing in early art which appeals to our notice on this subject. These meet- tings undoubtedly took place in apostolic times (1 Cor. xi. 20) and may be for the present, described as suppers which preceded the actual Eucharistic breaking of bread at that early date. For it is at least to be presumed that at solemn assemblies to obey the Lord's commemorative injunction, the order of His Last Supper would be followed ; and that the celebration, the breaking and pouring forth, took place after the meal, and towards its end. 1 The two latter passages seem only to prove that when the Church was assembled in private houses, the Eucharist was 1 See St. John xii. 2. 4 ; Acts ii. 46 ; xx. 11. SACRAMENTAL PICTURES. 219 celebrated in them. The real question, of course only to be answered with grave limitations, is what constituted such a congregation or assemblage of the Church as had a right to hold the Agape ; supposing that it was always a prelude to the Eucharist, which in all times of Apostolic purity and discipline it must have been. No doubt the presence of an Apostle, or of the bishop, or chief person in a given church would be required. St. Ignatius's letter to the Srnyrnean Church says, "It is forbidden either to baptize or to hold Agape without your bishop." 1 Doubt- less, in all their churches there would be a ten- dency to irregular f eastings of this description, chiefly from old heathen habit. For though Mar- tigny justly calls attention to Hebrew 7 customs of funeral festivity, and argues that the Christian assemblies were derived entirely from them, there can be no doubt of the close resemblance of Hebrew, Christian, and heathen funeral feasts alike. This is M. Eaoul Eochette's view, and it is fully con- firmed by Prof, Mommsen's essay. 2 It is possible that in the days of persecution this resemblance may have been welcome to the Christian congregations, as avoiding dangerous observation. And, from among the various representations we possess, there is no disputing the close resemblance between the Agap& of the St. Domitilla catacomb, or those of St. Callixtus, and the certainly heathen or gentile ban- quet of the seven priests in the Gnostic catacomb. In the earliest times the Agapoe naturally began to 1 " Xon licet sine episcopo, neque baptizare, neque agapen cele- brare, noielv." Cap. viii. 2 "Coutemp. Review," May 1871. L 2 220 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. be celebrated in the Catacombs, the tombs of martyrs being used as altars, having arcosolia hollowed out above them. Consequently, as might be expected, the Agape is freely represented in the catacomb of St. Domitilla, as has been said ; and repeatedly in that of St. Callixtus. Nor can there be much doubt that Eucharistic celebration is implied. Yet it seems that the last repast of the Lord with the six disciples (St. John xxi. 2) was present in the mind of the designer ; as well as the last paschal supper of the first Eucharist ; since bread and fish are invariably placed on the table (seven or more baskets of the former). In one instance in the Callixtine, a man is in the act of blessing the bread. Again, it is probable that the Vine, so early and so often represented, was con- nected in Christian thought not only with St. John xv., where the Lord speaks of Himself as the True Vine, but with the Eucharistic blessing, where He speaks of the fruit of the Vine as His Blood. If, as we cannot well avoid doing, we connect the in- stitution of the Lord's Supper with the equally mysterious language of St. John vi. — it is difficult not to connect the similitude of the Vine with both of them. In St. John vi. 5, 6, 8, He speaks of His followers eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood ; in the words of consecration, He says the bread is His Elesh, and the fruit of the vine His Blood. We cannot suppose that His earliest followers failed to notice this ; and if so, it follows of course, that their symbolical vines and grapes had Eucharistic meaning. But so it is, that until the sixth century and the Melchisedech picture of St. Vitale at Ravenna, all representations of the memorial banquets seem to SYMBOLISM. 221 point rather to the Agape or commemorative love- feast, than to the memorial sacrifice of bread and wine. It may have been possible that the feast of bread and fish was allowed to be eaten in more pri- vate meetings, without the presence of a bishop or a priest, for whom the sacrificial act was, of course, reserved. This would imply a separation of the Agape from the Eucharist ; but there can be no doubt that such separation took place when the Agap« were discontinued ; and, in all human probability, it had taken place long before, wherever the Agapre had become hopelessly ill-regulated and disorderly, as we shall find below they did become. Moreover, it is forcibly argued by the Eev. M. F. Sadler, 1 that a tradition existed (orally preserved, we must suppose, as a mystery of Christian mysteries) of some directing words of our Lord's, concerning the rites of the prin- cipal act of His worship. For this he relies on the annexed quotation from St. Clement of Borne, 2 and it certainly seems to prove well-known and fixed customs dating from Apostolic times, if not preserved to us in Holy Scripture. These, and their celebra- tion, would of course be reserved to the higher orders of the Church ; while there evidently was a tendency to hold love-feasts in a less regular manner. " It behoves us," says St. Clement, " to do all things in order which the Lord has commanded us to per- form at stated times. He has enforced these offer- ings and services to be performed {rdahe 7rpoaut the modern Crucifix and its use form no part of our subject. Within the limits of our period, all representations of the cruci- fied Form of our Lord alone — as well as pictures, reliefs, and mosaics, in which that Form is the central object of a scene — may be considered alike sym- bolical; without historical realism, or artistic appeal 232 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. to emotion. There is doubtless a divergence in the direction of realism ; and appeal to feeling by actual representation is begun, -whenever the human figure is added to the symbolic Cross. 1 The use of the sculp- tured, moulded, or enamelled crucifix or crucifixion in early times, is a development of that of the cross, and the transition between them may have been a certainty from the first ; but the rude efforts of earlier days, with which alone we have to do, can neither call on the imagination by vivid presentation of the actual event, nor awaken passion by appeal to the sense of beauty, nor distress by painful details of bodily suffering. While the primitive rules of repre- sentation were adhered to, as they are to this day in the Greek Church, the picture or Icon dwells on the mean- ing of the event rather than on its resemblance, and shadows forth, rather than represents, the God-Man in the act of death for man. These rules were first infringed by, or naturally collapsed in the presence of, increased artistic power. The paintings of Cima- bue and Giotto, and the reliefs of N. Pisano, brought the personality of the artist into every work, and introduced human motive and treatment, in the artistic sense of the words. To those whose minds 1 De Rossi (vol. ii. tav. v. p. 355) gives a Cross, with two lambs apparently contemplating it, below one of the usual pictures of the Good Shepherd. Aringhi, "Rom. Subt." ii. 478 (see his index, s.v. Crux): "Crux, cum Chris to illi tixo, neutiquamefiigiariolimsolebat." The Crucifixion he calls " mysticis res coloribus aduinb rata. . . . emblematicis figuratisque modis ; sub innocui videlicet agnijuxUt crucis lignum placide consistentis typo." See Bottari, taw. xxi. xxii. See, however (ib. tav. cxcii.), the crucifix found in the tomb of St. Julius and St. Valentine in the Catacombs, which so much resembles the mosaic crucifix of John VIII. that it can hardly be of very early date. It is generally assigned to Pope Adrian, about 880. THE CRUCIFIX. 255 are drawn to ascetic thought and practice, it has always been natural to meditate, and to communicate their thoughts, upon the bodily Death of the Saviour of mankind. This was done by Angelico and other painters naturally and freely before the Eeformation ; since that period a somewhat polemical and artificial use has been made of this line of thought ; and paint- ing and sculpture have been applied to embody it accordingly, in the Roman Catholic Church. It may be remarked, before retiring within our proper limits of time, that the use of blood by Giotto and his followers down to Angelico, has doctrinal reference to the Holy Communion, and to Scriptural promises of cleansing by the blood of Christ. 1 Giotto is less inclined to dwell for terror's sake on the bodily suffering of the Passion, than to dwell with awe on its mystery as a sacrifice for Man. But the rise of medi- aeval asceticism, and its attribution of sacramental efficacy to bodily pain, carried painters along with it as well as other men. And in later times, when Christian feeling on the subject was lost, many men seem to have considered the final scene of the Eedemption of Man chiefly as a good opportunity of displaying newly-acquired powers of facial ex- pression and of a knowledge of anatomy. If Hallam's division of periods be accepted, which makes the end of the fifth century the beginning of the Middle Ages, the public representation of the Crucifixion may be said to be a mediaeval usage in 1 As in the Crucifixion over the door of the convent of St. Mark's, Florence, where the blood issues from the feet, in a conventional form, as a crimson cord, which is twined strangely beneath about a skull. Ruskin, "Mod. Paint." vol. ii. p. 125. 234 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. point of time. Further, Martigny * claims for France the honour of having possessed the first public crucifix painting which ever existed ; for which he refers to Gregory of Tours, 2 and which he says must have been at least as old as the middle of the sixth century. But he says above, probably with great correctness, that all the most eminent Crucifixes or Crucifixions known were objects of pri- vate devotion ; instancing the pectoral Cross of Queen Theodolinda, and the Syriac MS. of the Medicean Library at Florence, both hereafter to be described. The official or public use of the Cross as a symbol of Redemption begins w T ith Constantine, though of course it had been variously employed by all Christians at an earlier date. 3 Crucifixes, according to Guericke, did not appear in churches till after the seventh century. Such images, probably, in the early days of the Church, would produce too crude and painful an effect on the Christian imagi- nation ; and to that of the more hopeful Pagan they would be intolerable ; not only because his mind would recoil from the thought of the punish- ment of the Cross, but from superstitious terror of connecting the Infelix Arbor with a Divine Being. This feeling is very frequently referred to, and is described in Dr. Liddon's Bampton Lectures, 4 in relation to the Palatine Graffito, a wood-cut of which will be found in this volume. 5 " It is the scrawl of some Pagan slave in the earliest years of the third 1 Diet. desAntiq. Chretiennes, p. 190, s.v. 2 De Glor. Martyr, i. 23. 3 See chapter on the Cross. 4 Page 397, ed. 1868. B See p. 6. THE CRUCIFIX. 235 century. A human figure with an ass's head is represented as fixed to a cross, while another figure in a tunic stands on one side, in the customary Pagan attitude of adoration ; underneath runs a rude in- scription : " Alexamenos adores his God. " This is a work of heathen malevolence : but Christian teachers may have refrained from any addition to the Cross, as a symbol of divine humiliation and suffering, from purely charitable motives. The Cross itself may have been felt to be temporarily unwelcome to persons in certain stages of conversion. If we set aside the various Mono- grams of His name, and the emblematic Fish, which is an anagram of it, there are but two classes of representations of Our Lord — those which point to His Divinity and lordship over all men, and those which commemorate His Humanity and sufferings for all men. The earliest of the former class is the Good Shepherd ; the earliest of the latter the Lamb ; and both are combined in the painting given by T)e Eossi. 1 The symbolic Lamb, as will be seen, 2 con- nects the Old Testament with the New, and unites in itself all types and shadowings of Christ's sacrifice, from the death of Abel to St. John's vision of the slain victim. It is well said by Martigny to be the Crucifix of the early times of persecution, and its emblematic use grows more significant as time ad- vances. The Cross is first borne by the Lamb on its head, in the monogrammatic form, about the latter half of the fourth century. 3 The simple Cross occurs 1 Vol. ii. tav. v. s Gen. iv. 4, xxii. 8 ; Exod. xii. 3, xxix. 38 ; Is. xvi. 1 ; 1 Pet. i. 18 ; Rev. xiii. 8. 3 Bottari, tav. xxi. v. 1. 236 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. thus in the fifth century. 1 In the sixth century the Lamb bears the Cross, 2 and rests sometimes on a book, sometimes at the foot of an altar, 3 above which is the Cross ; and then it is represented " as it were slain," with evident reference to the Pas- chal feast. 4 Towards the end of the sixth century the Wounds of the Cross are represented on the sides and feet of the Lamb. The Lamb is raised on a throne, itself bearing resemblance to an altar-table. 5 The famous Vatican Cross 6 is the sixth- century type of symbolic representation. A medallion of the Lamb bearing the Cross, and with a nimbus, is placed at its central point of intersection, and it is accom- panied by two half-length figures of our Lord, with the cruciform nimbus, at the top and foot of the vertical limb. Two others at the horizontal ends are supposed to represent Justin II. and his Empress Sophia. The upper half-length of the Lord holds a book in the left hand, and blesses with the right ; the lower one holds a roll and a small Cross. The embossed lily-ornaments are of some beauty, and 1 Bottari, tav. xxii. 2 Ariughi, ii. lib. iv. p. 559, " Roma Subterranea. " 3 Campiani, "Vetera Monument a," vol. i. tab. xv. p. 26; vol. ii. tab. xv. p. 58. 4 Ibid. vol. ii. tab. xv. xlvi. 5 Ciampini, " De Sacris yKdificiis," tab. xiii. 6 For which, and for the Cross of Velletri, see Cardinal Borgia's monographs, Rome, 4to, 1779 and 1780. The Cross of Velletri, which Borgia attributes to the eighth or tenth century, contains the symbols of the four Evangelists. The Vatican Cross is photo- graphed inM. St.-Lanrent's paper in Didron's Revue Archeologiipie (vol. xxvi.). The result reflects great credit on the accuracy of Borgia's illustration; and M. St. -Laurent speaks highly of Ciam- pini, as does Mr. Parker. The integrity and accuracy of the elder Roman antiquaries is of great importance, as their works are valid testimony on the subject of Catacomb paintings in their day. Great destruction has since taken place. THE CRUCIFIX. 237 there is an inscription on the back. 1 As it is impossible to determine which is the earliest re- presentation of the Crucifixion or Crucifix now in existence or on trustworthy record, a few of the oldest known may be briefly described here. They will be found in woodcut in Angelo Eocca, 2 though the copies have been made by a draughtsman skilled in anatomy, who has quite deprived them of the stamp of antiquity which their originals undoubtedly possessed. The first and second are said by Eocca to be the workmanship of Nicodemus and St. Luke. The first is evidently of the time of Charlemagne. The Crucified is clothed in a long tunic, and bears a crown of radiating bars, closed at top, rising from the circlet. A chalice is at its feet, and A co is on the title overhead. This appears to be a copy of the great Lucca Crucifix, to be described immediately. If the separate Crucifix be systematically made use of in the Church of England, we would plead earnestly for the employment of this symbolic form of it ; which both represents the manner of the Lord's death as far as is desirable, and also insists on His Divinity and Office of Priest and King of all men. The head of the second of these Crucifixes, attri- buted to St. Luke, is crowned and surrounded by a nimbus. It is almost entirely naked, — the waist- cloth, at least, seems to have been purposely con- tracted : this of itself would place it at a later date. The third example is historical; it is called the Cru- cifix of John VII., and is or was a mosaic in the old 1 Which Borgia reads thus : — " Ligno quo Christus humanum suhdidit hostem Dat Romae Justiuus opera " (et sociat decorem ?). 2 "Thesaurus Poutificiarura Rerum," vol. i. p. 153. 238 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Basilica of St. Peter's. Eocca dates it 706. It bears the cruciform nimbus with the title I.N.R.I. It is clothed iu a long tunic, the form and folds of which are most graceful; and bears a great resemblance to the painted Crucifix found in the Catacombs, assigned to Pope Adrian III., 884. The fourth is the celebrated Crucifix of Charlemagne, given to Leo III. and the Basilica of St. Peter's, and dated 815 ; it is clothed in an ample waistcloth, the wound in the side is repre- sented, and the head surrounded by a cruciform nimbus. Four nails are used in all these Crucifixes. A Crucifix is described by the Piev. F. H. Tozer which, as he thinks, has a decided claim to be con- sidered the most ancient in existence, and which he saw in the monastery of Xeropotami at Mount Athos. It is a reputed gift of the Empress Pulcheria (414-453), and has been spared, no doubt, for that reason. It is a supposed fragment of the true Cross ; and consists of one long piece of dark wood and two cross-pieces, one above the other, the smaller intended for the superscription. The small figure of our Lord is of ivory or bone. Near the foot is a representation of the Church of the Ho]y Sepulchre ; in gold plate, and set with diamonds and sapphires of extraordinary size and beauty. Below that, the inscription Kov- (navrivov Ev (<£&>?) occurs, as well as LVX MVNDI, frequently accompanied by the symbols of the sun and the moon, as a red star or face and crescent, or in the Rambona ivory as mourning figures bearing torches. They are in- troduced as emblematic of the homage of all nature, or in remembrance of the darkness at the Cruci- fixion. The Blessed Virgin and St. John appear in the Medicean MS. and very frequently in older works ; the soldiers rather less so, though they occur in the above MS. and in the reliquary of Monza. The typical figure of the first Adam rising from the earth as a symbol of the resurrection of the body, with the Hand of Blessing above indicating the Presence of God, is given in Ciampini. 1 The skuli, whether human or that of a lamb, placed at the foot of the cross, either as an emblem of sacrifice or in reference to the place Golgotha, is of late use ; and is almost the only late addition of symbolic detail. The rare addition of the soldiers casting lots on their fingers is said to be found in an ivory of the eighth century from Cividale in 1 De Sacr. Aedif. tabl. xxiii. p. 75. THE CRUCIFIX. 249 Friuli. 1 The only other representation of it is in the Medici MS. The wolf and twins are in the Bam- bona diptych alone. The types of the four Evan- gelists are on the back of the Cross of Velletri, in the Gospel of Egbert of Trier, and on numerous Crosses of later date. Some additional inscriptions have been mentioned, as well as the addition (in the Vatican Cross) of medallion portraits. Considerable liberty in this matter seems to have been allowed in the earliest times, as is indicated by Constantine's introduction of the words of his Vision ; and still more strongly in an instance referred to by Borgia, in Anastasius, 2 of a cross given by Belisarius to St. Peter — " by the hand of Pope Vigilius" — of gold and jewels, weigh- ing 100 lbs., "on which he wrote his victories." But even the Vatican Cross yields in interest to two German relics of the same character, lately described and well illustrated. 3 The first of these is the Station-Cross of Mainz. It is of gilded bronze, of the Western form (commissa), and rather more than one foot in height. Herr Heinrich Otte refers it to the end of the twelfth century, a date far beyond our period. But its interest is paramount; more particularly from the evident intention of the de- signer to make it embody a whole system of typical instruction, and to leave it behind him as a kind of sculptured document, or commentary, connecting the Old and New Testaments. Thus, at the middle or 1 Mozzoni, " Tavole Crouologiche della Clriesa Universale," Venezia, 1856-63. 2 Tom. i. li. 2 ed. Vigilii. 8 In No. 44 of the " Jahrbucher des Verehis von Alterthums- freunden im Rheinlande," p. 195, Bonn, 1868. M 3 250 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. intersection of the arms of the Cross, the Lamb is represented in a medallion, his head surrounded with a plain nimbus. On the back of the Cross in the same place there is a square plate, with an engraved representation of Abraham offering up Isaac, the angel, and the ram. Eound the latter is the beginning of a hexameter line — Cui patriarcha mum — which is completed round the medallion of the Lamb in front, thus : Pater offcrt in cruce natum. In like manner, four engravings on each side at the extremities of the Cross refer to each other, and are described by corresponding halves of hexameters. The New Testament subjects are all in front, with the Lamb in the centre, as antitypes ; the Old Testament or typical events or persons are at the back. Thus on the spectator's left at the back of the Cross is an engraving of Moses receiving the Tables of the Law on Mount Sinai, with the words Qui Moysi legem. Corresponding to it on the right front is the Descent of the Holy Spirit, with dat alumnis Pneumatis ignem. The remainder as under — IIKAD. MOTTO. 1 l; "n^S ijah ." ,rried . up . t0 S ** ievat Eiiam - Front-The Ascension j P™1™\ sublimat usiam Back — (right hand of spec-) tator) Samson, and gates of > Que portas Gaze. Gaza ) Front — (left ditto) The descent ) . p , i T i into Hades j vis aufert claustra Jehenne, Foot. Back -Jonah and the Whale.... Qua reJit absumptus. Front— Resurrection surgit virtute sepultus. ' Elias and Ascension. — He who uplift Elias, raises on high His own Substance. Gates of Gaza and Descent. — The pow< . THE CRUCIFIX. 251 The decorative scrollwork is rather sparingly dis- posed, with great judgment, and on the spike, ferule, or metal strap, probably intended for fixing the Cross on a staff for processional or other purposes, is an engraving of the probable designer and donor. The graphic power and exceeding quaintness of the Scriptural engravings are those of the finest miniatures of the twelfth or thirteenth century. The second of these most interesting works, inferior as a work of art from its barbaric wildness, and the preference for ugliness so often observed in Northern- Gothic grotesque, is of even greater interest as a transitional Cross; especially when viewed in relation to the changes enforced by the decree of the Council in Trullo. This is the Station Cross of Planig, near Kreuznach, of the same size and form as that of Mainz, but referred by Otte to the tenth century. The ancient symbol of the Lamb is pre- served on the back of this Crucifix, which is of bronzed copper, and displays the human form in front, as in many other Eomanesque Crosses. On this combination — perhaps a compromise between the feeling of older times and the more modern spirit of the Quinisextine Council — Otte quotes Durandus : " For the Lamb of God ought not to be represented in the chief place on the Cross : but when the Man is placed there, there is no objection to depicting the Lamb on the lower part or on the back." * He also which destroys the gates of Gaza destrc^'S the bolts of Gehenna. Jonah and Resurrection. — The Buried One rises by the same power as the devoured. 1 "Non enim agnus Dei in cruce principaliter depingi debet : sed homine depicto, non obest agnum in parte inferiori vel pos- teriori depingere." (Rationale, lib. i. c. 3, n. 6.) 252 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. gives the express words of Adrian I., in his letter to Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, in 785 : "There- fore we give orders that the true Lamb, our Lord J. C, be represented on the images in the human form, instead of the Lamb as of old." * He refers also to a splendid work on Rhenish antiquities 2 for the Essen and other roods, which much resemble those of Kreuznach aiid Mainz; combining the Lamb with the human form, and adding personifications of the sun and moon which remind us of the Diptych of Eambona ; and the symbols of the four Evangelists, as in the Crucifix of Velletri. Space forbids us to give accounts of these most interesting relics, but the subject appears to be treated with exhaustive fulness and illustrated to perfection in the two German works referred to. The Planig-on-Nahe rood, however, is entitled to a briefly-detailed de- scription. In front is the Crucified Form, severely archaic in treatment ; the long hair is carefully parted and carried back ; the head is without nimbus ; and the limbs are long, stiff, and wasted, the ribs being displayed, as is so commonly done in mediaeval Crucifixes, to complete the illustration of the text, " They pierced My hands and My feet : I may tell all My bones." A triple serpentine stream of blood runs from each hand, and also from the feet, being there received in a cup or chalice, the foot of which is a grotesque lion's head. The back of the Cross bears on its centre the Lamb with cruciform nimbus ; 1 "Verum igitur agnum Dominum nostrum J. C. secundum imagincm humanam a modo etiam in imaginibus pro veteri agDO dcpingi jubemus." (De Consecr. Dist. iii. c. 29; Labbe, vi. 1177.) * " Kunstdenkmaler des Chiistliehen Mittelalters," by Ernst aus'm Werth, Leipzig (Weigel), 1857, taf. xxiv.-vi THE CRUCIFIX. 253 below it is a medallion of the donor, " Euthardus Gustos;" and four other bas-reliefs, now wanting, occupied the four extremities of the arms, and almost certainly represented the four Evangelists. As in the Diptych of Eambona, the navel resembles an eye. Scarcely inferior to these is the tenth-century miniature of a single Crucifix with the title IHS NAZAEEX EEX IUDEOEUM; the sun and moon are above the Cross-beam, within circles, and re- presented with expressions of horror, seated in chariots, one drawn by horses, the other by oxen. It is impossible to omit the Crucifixion-picture from the Gospel of Bishop Egbert of Trier, 975— 993, 1 now in the Stadtbibliothek there. Here the Lord is clad in a long robe to the ankles ; the robbers are also clad in loose tunics girded so close to the form as to give the appearance of shirt and trousers. Above, are the sun and moon hiding their faces. The Cross has a second Cross-piece at top, forming a Tau above the western Cross. The robbers are on Tau Crosses ; suspended, but with unpierced hands ; the passage in the twenty-second Psalm being referred to the Eedeenier alone. Their names, Desmas, the penitent, and Cesmas, the obdurate, are above their heads. The Virgin-mother and another woman stand on the right of the Cross, St. John on the left. The soldier " Stephaton " is presenting the sponge of vinegar ; 2 two others are casting lots below. This detail re- minds us of the great Florentine miniature of the 1 Mooyer's " Onomasticon Chronographicon Hierarchic Ger- manicae," 8vo. Minden, 54. ' Longinus is always the lance-bearer. See Medici (Laurentian) Crucifix, supra. 254 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. monk of Eabula, excepting that the game of Mora is there substituted for dice. These works are some- what beyond our period: yet as a chapter on Crucifixes must contain some account of the things whose name it bears, and the first eight centuries supply us with so few examples of what are popularly called Crucifixes, a short inroad into early medie- valism may be allowed. The Iconodulist transition, formally made at the Council in Trullo, was well suited to the Northern mind, and to the sacra- mental theory of pain ; but it fell in also with that tendency to 'personification advancing on symbolism, which the Western races inherit, perhaps, from ancient Greece ; and which Mr. Kuskin, in his late Oxford Lectures, points out as the idolatrous ten- dency of Greek art. With Cimabue and Giotto, and from their days, artistic skill and power over beauty are brought to bear on the Crucifix, as on other Christian representations, for good and for evil. Of the cautious and gradual compromise of the Greek Church we have already spoken. UHAPTEE X. THE LOMBARDS. The important distinction between definition and development, of objects of faith and doctrine, is marked, as might be expected, by modifications in Church Art. After the Council of Nice, certain symbols, as the A to, the Cross as representing the Second Person of the Trinity, and the Dove for the Third — mark the effect of the definitions of the Great Council. In the next two centuries we observe, and have partly described, the advance from the Mono- gram, or from the Good Shepherd ; and we have followed the advance from those symbols to the Crucified Form, as representations of the Saviour ; and have implied that such a change points to new habits of thought concerning Him. It would not have taken place, unless men's minds had turned to the per- severing contemplation of His Death rather than of His Life, and of the Manner and Sufferings of His Death rather than of its Efficacy. The extra- ordinary distresses and depression of the Christian world, which made Death a familiar and welcome subject of meditation for the whole Church, seem to have been the chief cause of this transition. It may be said to be the work of the dark ages, so called as ages of affliction; because it synchronised 256 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. with them, it was completed by the time they were over, and it was in a great degree the reflection of their darkness. Parallel with this change from Primitive to Mediaeval faith, and from Primitive to Mediaeval 'art, is another great development in both, which has had an almost equal effect on the religion of the whole Christian Church ; and which certainly brought art to bear on men's personal reli- gion and faith with extraordinary power, though with dubious or evil result. This was the worship of the Saints, and of the Blessed Virgin as Chief of Saints, and finally, as a Divine Person. Speaking generally, it may be said that this misdirection of the prayers and spiritual hopes of mankind makes the main and crucial difference between Primitive and Mediaeval faith ; and this book is happily not concerned with the endless and distressing task of following its progress beyond the sixth or seventh century. The dawn of the earliest Eenaissance, or revival of art, through the means and under the auspices of the Christian Faith, is like an Eastern sunrise, begin- ning with a false dawn while it is yet deep night. A faint reflection appears in the east, and departs, and for a while all is as dark as ever. The rule of Theodoric at Ravenna, and his willing encourage- ment of Graeco-Roman and Byzantine workmen there, gave an appearance of revival to the expiring genius of form and colour, which died away and vanished with him. It was not till the greater desolations of the Lombard conquest were fulfilled, till Autharis and Theodolinda were seated on the throne of Alboin, that it was found that the new con- querors and colonists of Northern Italy possessed a THE LOMBARDS. 257 cenius of their own. and were barbarians who could learn and improve upon the lessons they found in ancient models. This extraordinary race of men have furnished almost a majority of the chief masters of Christian art, if not poetry ; and a Chro- nicler of their own blood has written the early history of his people, as far as he himself knew it. He claims a Scandinavian origin for them, yet con- siders German to be the generic name which they shared alike with the Gepidee and the Eastern and Western Goths. Like Jornandes, who speaks of the North as the quiver i of races and forge of nations, he has a general idea of the shores of the Baltic and the Northern Ocean (Septentrionalis plaga) as the original hive of Goths, Wendels, Heruli, Eugii, and all the younger races of Europe. But his geogra- phical information is vague, and goes but little further north than Scandia or Gothland ; an island or peninsula which he conceived of as sufficiently extensive to be the birthplace of his nation. He thinks the Northern cold favourable to health and population, having, perhaps, seen with sorrow that the Italian sun had diminished the energies of his countrymen, and made them an unequal match for the West Franks. He had shared in the retributive calamities which befell them from Pepin and Charle- magne. 2 He had lived at the Court of the three last Lombard kings at Pavia, being a gentleman of 1 Vagina nationum et officina gentium. De Rebus Geticis, c. 4. 1 See Muratori's Preface. It is useless to revive the extinct controversy, -whether the Lombards were Brandenburghers (see Cluverius), or Northmen (as Grotius). Sismondi says, " lis se oroyaient originaires de la Scandinavie, mais depuis 42 ans (before Narses' invitation to Alboin in 567) habitaient la Pannonie : " whieh seems sufficient. 258 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. the blood of Alboin, with whom Leuphis (?), his great-grandfather, had crossed the Eastern Alps. He was taken prisoner by Charlemagne after the final defeat of Desiderius or Didier; and was long im- prisoned in France, for faithful adherence to the latter. On his final deliverance or escape, he became a Benedictine of Monte Casino, where he seems to have written his chronicle and many ingenious copies of Latin verses, to the praise and glory of his patron, and the not inconsiderable wonder and amusement of their infrequent students. " I have framed a list of his (St. Benedict's) miracles one by one, in separate couplets of elegiac metre, as follows," says the Deacon : — " Where, holy Benedict, shall I begin thy triumphs ? Thy heaps of virtues, where shall I begiu V 1 and so on for about a hundred and forty lines. Also a hymn in Iambics, not unlike Prudentius. The introduction of his chronicle is enough to show that he was neither careless of knowledge like a bar- barian, nor incurious like an ascetic, but a man who sought and accumulated information, and had formed habits of observation and inference. He appears to have heard of reindeer ; he speaks of his ancestors as inhabiting some Arctic region, and being accustomed to the use of snow-shoes, or perhaps skates : and this, and their skill in the manufacture of arms, seems to establish their Scandinavian origin. It is a curious coincidence, supposing this great race to be descendants of the hammer-men of the North, 1 " Singula ejus miracula per singula disticha Elegiaco metro hoc modo contexui : — " Ordiar unde tuos, sacer Benedicte triuniphos ? Viitutum cumulos ordiar unde tuos?" THE LOMBARDS. 259 cunning in all iron-work, that they should have shown such early and vigorous taste for sculpture. Yet it seems likely that a nation of smiths should make the easy transition from hammer and anvil to hammer and chisel. They were probably accustomed to rude carving in wood. Like the Franks and Ostrogoths, they showed their superiority to the Huns and lower races of barbarians by willingness to learn, even from the Romans wdiom they despised. Their final con- version to orthodox Christianity may be placed in the time of Autharis and Theodolinda, whose Bap- tism both by immersion and aspersion, in a large laver or " pelvis," was commemorated in an extra- ordinary mosaic, of which a plate will be found in Ciampini's " Vetera Monunienta. " 2 It seems as if they had but few ideas on the subject of art beyond the making of goblets from the skulls of their enemies, before they passed the iSToric Alps, in the neighbour- hood of Forum Julii or Friuli. One singularly grim relic of that kind the Deacon tells us he has him- self seen — the identical " Scala," or goblet made by Alboin from the head of Cunimund, and mounted in gold. 2 " Let not this seem impossible to any man. I speak the truth in Christ. I have seen King Rachis holding that cup in hand, to display it to his guests on a certain feast day." 3 This early history of Turismond and his knighthood of Alboin is very remarkable ; as one of the earliest instances of chivalric institutions, and also of the highest chival- 1 Tab. iii. part i. p. 20. 1 De Gestis Longobardorum, II. 28. 3 Hoc ne cui videatur impossibile : veritatem in Christo loquor, ego hoc poeulum vidi, in quodam die festo, Rachis (sic) principem, ut illud convivis suis ostentaret, inanu tenentem. 1>G0 I'KIMITIVE CHURCH ART. ric feeling, in the midst of ferocity and brutality. The name and memory of Alboin seem to have been especially dear to his descendants in the Deacon's time ; and his occasional acts of clemency are specially dwelt on by his Chronicler. But the great progress for the better in Lombard civilization may be best estimated by comparing the foul and murderous story of his valiant life and death with that of the first and, indeed, the second wooing of Theodolinda. She was daughter of Garibaldus (of all names in the world), — King of the Bajoarii or Bavarians. Autharis of Lombardy is courting her : he comes disguised as his own ambassador to her father's Court, to ask her in marriage. She pours out his wine at the feast; he takes her hand and passes it gently over his own face. She consults her nurse on the subject of such a strange liberty ; and is told that none but the King, her future husband, could have dared to take it. The pretended ambassador is honorably escorted to the frontier of his own land ; and as he crosses it, he swings his heavy battle-axe and drives it deep in a pine trunk, saying, " Such a blow deals the King of Lombards." Meanwhile it is prophesied to Agilulf, who rides in his train, that the King's bride shall be his bride. Happier and better times begin with the reign of Autharis and Theodolinda, and on his death the voice of her nobles and people invites her to remain on the throne, and choose another spouse. She consents, and her peers do her homage in succession, with some feudal ceremonial which includes kissing her hand. And her choice is made known for the first time to its object, Agilulf THE LOMBARDS. 261 of Turin or Taurini, by her bidding him proceed to her lips, for he was the chosen of Lombardy and of herself ; her Lord and King. 1 The story is certainly charming; and the lady appears to have been still more so, almost throughout her long life. At a period like the present, when the civilizing influence of Christianity is roundly denied, and its precepts of self-denial and purity pronounced on the whole mistaken and deleterious, Christian writers may be permitted to call attention to the difference between the history of Alboin and Eosamond, and that of Agilulf and Theodolinda. It is certainly as if the savage conqueror had determined the conditions and character of his race, when he spared Pavia after his three years' siege, moved by the black monks' prayers. At all events, in less than twenty-five years occupied in the settlement of Northern Italy, the change of character in the rulers of the con- quering race is very strongly marked. The earliest specimens of Lombard art still in existence, or on record, date from the reign of Theodolinda. Her second marriage took place in 599 ; according to Gibbon ; — the year of Gregory I.'s accession to the Popedom : and his earnest and pathetic appeal to her husband and herself, setting 1 The story of Theodolinda's wooiug is thus related in Rose's " Biographical Dictionary," vol. i. p. 149 i "Without announcing her intentions, she requested the pleasure of his (Agilulf s) company at her court. She touk with her an escort to meet him as far as Somello. When they met, she called for a cup of wine, and having drunk half of it, she offered the other to the Duke. On returning the cup, he kissed her hand as a mark of respect ; w r hen, turning to him covered with blushes, she said, ' That is not the salute I ought to expect from my lord and husband.' She then acquainted him with the wishes of the Lombards, and her own choice — and the Duke became a king." 262 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. forth the misery of Italy, and their power for good or evil, seems to have been the beginning of an influence over them which must have been as bene- ficial as it was uninterrupted. Some curious and most interesting vessels, which once contained sacred oil, sent by Gregory to the Lombard queen are still pre- served in the treasury of Modcetia or 5Ionza, with the reliquary which accompanied them. Both are de- scribed in our Chapter on the Crucifix ; and the vessels are represented in Martigny's Dictionary under that word ; and on a larger scale and with greater clearness by M. Grimoard de St.-Laurent. 1 Another relic of the same age, of world-wide reputation, is the famous Iron Crown ; this, with the plain diadem worn by Theodolinda herself, is represented in Muratori's edition of Paul the Deacon- But a still more in- teresting record of that age is his plate of the bas- relief (tabula marmorea) which once stood over the door of the ancient Duomo of Monza, dedicated to St. John Baptist by the Lombard king and queen. A basrelief we presume it to have been, though the original building (entirely renewed in 1396) was Byzantine, and some of the figures bear a certain resemblance to the mosaics of Ravenna. It seems to have filled the tympanum of the great doors. There is little composition or arrangement of the symbols and figures. Agilulf kneels in prayer on the spectator's left, wearing a long tunic appar- ently over his mail, and what seem to be rowdlnl spurs. There are jewelled crosses over royal crowns, and an eagle with an ampulla. Theodolinda is offering her crown on the other side ; there are other 1 In "Annates Archeologique?," vol. xxvi. ! "Scriptores Italici," vol. i. THE LOMBARDS. 263 Crosses resting on chalices, and the singular and in part unique symbol of the Hen and Chickens. In such a place, one cannot hut suppose that this is an allusion to St. Luke xiii. 34, — in which case the Chioccia, or silver-gilt hen of Theodolinda (still pre- served in the Cathedral treasury) must have the same meaning, rather than a mere reference to the arch- priest of Monza or the seven Lombard Princes. The lower range is flanked by St. Peter with the keys and St. Taul bearing a sword: in the centre is the Bap- tism of Our Lord with an attendant angel, the water rising pyramidically up to the middle of His Body . on either side, the Blessed Virgin and (most pro- bably) St. John the Evangelist. This carving must have been of the greatest interest, as a specimen of Byzantine work done under Lombard patronage ; as the figure of Theodoric at Pavia, and many Eavennese carvings and mosaics, were produced lor Ostrogoths. 1 The Deacon appeals to this, or to another carving, in Theodolinda's palace, as an interesting record of the dress of his ancestors, and their manner of cutting their hair short behind and wearing longer front and side-locks. " Their garments," he says, " were loose and of linen, such as English Saxons are wont to wear, ornamented with borders (institis) woven in divers colours. They had sandals open almost to the end of the great toe, and kept on by lacing with leathern thongs (laqueis corrigiarum alternatim). But' 1 Paul the Deacon, iv. 22. This latter was certainly a mosaic (mensa tessellis ornata), and it, or another similar portrait of Theodoric, is mentioned by Procopius, de Bello Gallico, xxiv., as. " Ex lapillis compacta, minutis admodum, et versicoloribus fere singulis." Its head fell away just before Theodoric's death, the middle at Amalasuntha's, and the legs and feet crumbled at the coming of Belisarius. 264 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. afterwards they began to wear hose (hosis uti) ; over which when on horseback they used to put on " tubrugi birrei " — which last singular expression seems to denote red or tan-leather overalls. 1 But it is of importance to observe so early an example of the Lombard insistence, in pictures, on the dress and arms of their own life. They were evidently from the first determined to have an art-school of their own. The church of St. Michele at Pavia, mentioned by Paul the Deacon as a sanctuary in 661, is one of their earliest works, and must be placed in the seventh century, with the Church of St. Ambrose of Milan. Their naturalism and in- sistence on fact, their vigorous imagination of truth, and wild play of fancy in fiction, their delight in action, motion, and contest, their taste for hunting and battle, their irresistible or unresisted taste for the humorous grotesque, are described by a master- hand.' 5 But Professor Kuskin also notices in this passage (a knowledge of which is almost essential to a good understanding of Italian- Gothic or Eomanesque architecture) how rapidly the Lombard character toned down, as it were, under their new civilization and in their new climate. That their conversion to the Faith had even more to do with the change, we can see no reason whatever for doubting. But in the seventh century the condition of the Lombard artist seems to have been one of continued excitement, the feeling of one of a conquering race which has just won its land. "The Arab feverishness," says Pro- fessor Euskin, " impels the Lombards in the South, 1 Birrei = irv^ai. Muratori. 1 In Append. 8 to Vol. I. of "The Stones of Venice," and there' gra- phically contrasted with the Byzantine work of St. Mark at Venice. THE LOMBARDS. 265 showing itself, however, in endless invention, with a refreshing firmness and order. The excitement is greatest in the earliest times, most of all shown in St. Michele of Pavia, and I am strongly disposed to connect much of its peculiar manifestation with the Lombard's habits of eating and drinking, especially his carnivorousness. The Lombard of early times seems to have been exactly what a tiger would be, if you could give him love of a joke, vigorous imagi- nation, a strong sense of justice, fear of hell, know- ledge of northern mythology, a stone den, and a mallet and chisel. Fancy him pacing up and down in the same den to digest his dinner, and striking on the wall, with a new fancy in his head, at every turn ; — and you have the Lombardic sculptor. As civiliza- tion increases the supply of vegetables, and shortens that of wild beasts, the excitement diminishes ; it is still strong in the thirteenth century at Lyons and Rouen ; it dies away gradually in the later Gothic, and is quite extinct in the fifteenth century." But the most complete and important example of the earlier Lombard style 1 is St. Zenone at Verona. The excitability and grotesque humour of the older workmen are still there, in considerable force ; but the characteristic of the sculpture which covers the whole facade of the Church, and is lavished on every part of its interior, is historical realism. The instruction which is conveyed in the Book-Temple of Venice by means of mosaic, at Verona is given in sculpture. Mr. Buskin's Oxford Lectures on 1 Called Romanesque from the roiuid arches which it derived from Old Rome, as Byzantine takes its name from Byzantium, New Rome or Constantinople. N 266 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Sculpture contain an excellent photograph of this wonderful Church front ; particularly happy in its absence of heavy shadow and clearness of detail; even to the castings of the wonderful bronze doors which anticipate Ghiberti. They show an imagin- ative realism in their rendering of Old and New Testament history, like nothing which precedes them, excepting only the mosaics of Sta. Maria Maggiore. The choice of subjects is particularly interesting, inasmuch as we find the ancient Scriptural cycle of the Catacombs almost complete in it, though expanded into a pictorial History of the Redemption of Man from both Testaments. There is less pure symbolism, and more attention to type and pro- phecy : — the Good Shepherd is no longer to be seen, nor the Vine, nor the various emblems of Dove or Lamb which shadowed forth the relation of Man to God in the earliest days of faith, with yet unde- veloped doctrine. But Adam and Eve are sent forth from Paradise, as on the sarcophagi — Cain fells Abel with a short bludgeon ; Abraham sits under the tree with the Three Guests ; and in another compartment, the Angel is staying Abraham's hand (armed with a formidable Gothic war-sword, straight and pointed), from sacrificing his only son. The Brazen Serpent is also crucified on a Tau Cross. But the most curious instance of derived treatment, connecting the new barbaric Christianity with the old classic teaching, is the Lombardized Noah ; standing in his square " area " or chest, as of old, but now tossed on a rather stormy sea, in a tabernacled and gabled structure, and stretching forth his hands to a dove, of the size of an albatross, and drawn with the skill of THE LOMBARDS. 267 one who must often have watched the falcon's flight. The Divine Lamb is on the keystone of the round arch which forms the high porch ; and in the low gable, or pediment above, is the Hand of Blessing. Tall Corinthian pillars support this porch, based on lions or griffins. In the lowest course of sculpture on the facade, now entirely destroyed by wanton mischief, was once the strange allegory called the Chase of Theodoric ; the hunter striking his quarry, and himself watched for by the Evil One. "Within the church, quaint grotesques, and knights in combat, alternate with Scriptural subjects : the transition from devotion to jest seems to have been as easy to the first Lombards, as to Florentines in Giotto's day, and centuries after. It is through this Church of St. Zenone and the Veronese Gothic in general, that the relationship of the thirteenth-century work of Florence, and the after glories of the early Re- naissance, can best be traced to their real origin. After the close of the ninth century darkness settles over Rome for ages more, and mosaic seems to have been attempted no further. The name of Beno de Rapiza occurs in the eleventh century, in a charter of 1080. 1 An inscription on one of the rude paint- ings of the legend of St. Clement, in the Church bearing that Saint's name in Rome, records that it was his donation and his wife's : EGO BENO DE RAPIZA CVM MARIA VXORE MEA PRO AMORE DOMINI ET BEATI CLEMENTIS. The pictures in this church are eleventh century; with the exception, perhaps, of the paintings on the outer wall of the south aisle, representing the Ascension, the 1 Parker, " Church and Altar Decorations," p. 58. N 2 268 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Crucifixion, and the Descent into Hades, which appear to be considerably earlier. There is with them a Madonna apparently of the seventh century, about the same time as the mosaic picture in the apse of St. Agnes. The family of Cosmati were the great Eoman mosaicists of the thirteenth century and worked also in cities of northern Italy. The name of Buschetto is connected with the Cathedral of Pisa in the eleventh and twelfth centuries : those of Niccola and Giovanni Pisano with the sculpture of the thirteenth. In these great Italians the Lombard energies began to be trained by the study of ancient models of Greek art ; and it is with them that the true Eevival or Eenais- sance of art begins. This book does not enter on the subjects of Gothic or Mediaeval art, further than to assert what will be universally admitted — that the primitive, typical, historical, and symbolic teaching was not discontinued, but overlaid and obscured by legendary painting ; by the increasing attention paid to subjects connected with the Passion of our Lord and the Last Judgment ; and by the rise of the lay or artistic spirit. Art ceased to be conventual, because monks were no longer the only artists. But art was still religious ; first because its chosen subjects were of a religious character, and secondly because the painters were men of definite Christian belief. However non-religious, or anti-religious, or abominably sensual, or profane, art may have since become, her historical connexion with the Christian Faith cannot be disputed. It seems to us that the same tradition of Christian graphic art remains through all the Lombard works, THE LOMBARDS. 269 though changed by innovations in subject. History and doctrine were still taught in form and colour ; the illuminated church stood instead of the painted Evangeliary, for men who perhaps could not read, or whose reading, like children's in our own day, was greatly assisted by pictures. It needs but little acquaintance with ancient MSS. to understand how difficult, through the varieties of hand, character, and contraction, the art of reading must have been, even to the comparatively few who knew lines and letters at all. Meanings imperfectly apprehended from the written page might often be mastered with the help of the inlaid walls or sculptured porches and columns ; and the poor would have the assistance of sermons or catechizings, which would probably instruct them in the Scriptural account of their own condition and hopes ; at least while the clergy cared to teach it them, or until mere legend had superseded it. To inquire how far this really took place would re- quire volumes of somewhat disputable statement. But there can be no doubt that a body or substratum of Christian history and doctrine was always taught in Italy and Germany ; nor yet that art was employed to express and impress it, as in former days. Men could not worship Mary without some instruction concerning the Son of Mary, nor adore the Saints without know- ing \Vhose Saints they were. The advancing cultus of the Blessed Virgin has been traced in the Roman mosaics in our chapter on that subject : for a fuller account of it, illustrated both from history and from other monuments of early art, we must refer to the late Rev. "Wharton Marriott's valuable work. 1 The effects 1 "The Testimony of the Catacombs." 270 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. on painting and sculpture of the ever-increasing de- votion to the Mother of the Lord, and of the easier and more familiar worship of patron Saints, appear to us specially lamentable. Not only severity, but earnest- ness, seems to have been gradually withdrawn from religious art ; Church painting was conventionalized more and more ; the Virgin became a Queen of Heaven, and the hagiology of Saints a mythology of inferior deities, with special tastes and employments. It was often found easier and more attractive to the painter to range at will in legend, and indulge princes and people with unattested miracles and martyrdoms, than to continue in the ground of Scriptural narra- tive, and walk in the old paths of symbolism or history. As the people's taste went after Legends and Last Judgments, Infernos and Assumptions, the painters showed themselves no wiser or stronger than the people. Their work was often paid chiefly by abbots and priors, who were compelled to minister to the people such religion as seemed to please them best. They would often require religious pictures which were, or represented, incredible nonsense. It was a lamentable consequence that the painter lost faith in religious work. He had to paint what he did not really believe : and in consequence, the sub- jects of his art seemed less and less to him, and he could but rest on its technicalities. Mauy would (for a time) live happily on the subtle and delicate pleasures of colour and form, not caring what they painted : as Botticelli or Benozzo Gozzoli. But as soon as it was understood that the end of art was pleasure, without reference to religion, evil enjoy- ment and sensual subjects were certain to break in THE LOMBAKDS. 271 overpoweringly, and they did so. The course of our own days is not a very different one ; but the object of this book is not polemical. "Whether art be openly or consciously dedicated to the service of God or not, it will depend, after all, on the character of the artist whether its effects be Christian or atheistic, godly or godless. No Theist can feel what is most rightly called the inspiration of art, without asking whence it comes, and answering himself that, being so good a thing, it must come from the Giver of all good gifts, and be one of the choicest of the ordinary or natural gifts of the Spirit. He who thinks thus of his work may yield to natural passion, or stumble over that impalpable barrier which divides the artist's taste in beauty from the sensualist's. But he will return and repent ; and until he has finally .cast off the Giver, he cannot use the gift pur- posely for suggestive temptation. Michael Angelo yields to, or boldly asserts, natural passions from time to time : but no man ever yet was led to impu- rity or lowered in tone of honour by studying him. And why not ? In the end, because the vehement and misled master desired through all, and in spite of all, to serve Christ with his great gifts. There is a connection, last worked out in Dr. Woltmann's admirable Life of Holbein, but not un- noticed by former writers, between the Church art of the fourteenth and the sixteenth century — between the Reformation and the post-Reformation workers, between Orgagna and Holbein. It goes back, indeed, to the mosaics of Torcello, 1 or even to the unknown painting of Methodius for Bogoris of Bulgaria. It 1 See Index, s. v. "Last Judgment." 272 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. consists in the habit of dealing with thoughts of Death ; in attempts to realize the final change, the separation of soul and body, with all its pangs and dismal outward signs ; and in the efforts to realize the Final Judgment as a scene. All attempts of this kind fall, naturally, under the head of the Grotesque ; be- cause strangeness and imperfect conventionality must necessarily be the result, where a subject beyond human thought is essayed by human hands and con- ceptions. But in the hands of powerful men their impression is powerful at all times. There can be no doubt that such representations were an innovation ; not earlier than the eighth century, or probably than the eleventh ; beginning at a time when all adherence to the ancient Scriptural cycle of the early frescoes and carvings had long ceased. Yet the subject of the Judgment is not unscriptural, while St. Matt. xxv. and the book of the Revelation are part of the Canon. It seems that that increasing attention paid to illus- trations of the Apocalypse, which has been noticed in the chapter on Mosaics, would necessarily lead artists to try to represent those parts of it which involved the strongest personal terror and warning : and such attempts once made, would have great power on the minds of barbarians accustomed to scenes of horror and desolation ; and perhaps would have an un- confessed attraction for polemical disputants, who desired to terrify their opponents with Hell as the penalty of their errors, if not to doom them to it finally. Certain it is that the Fire-stream or Eiver of God's Wrath, and the worms which die not, are strangely and rudely inlaid at the west end of the Duomo of Torcello. Whether that church dates THE LOMBARDS. 273 from Attila, or from Alboin's invasion (both which seem improbable) — or from after the destruction of Altinum in 641 by the Lombards, or from the general restoration in 1008, mentioned by the Marchese Selvatico — the mosaics must be part of its original ornaments. 1 But from this mosaic of Judgment there begins a succession of such like representations ; down to Giotto's frescoes at Padua, or Orgagna's in the Campo Santo of Pisa ; and from Orgagna again to Holbein's Dance of Death, or of the Dead. As we by no means desire to have this subject perpetuated in our Sacred Buildings — mainly because the Primitive Church refused it, under cir- cumstances which might seem to point specially to its use — there is no reason for dwelling on it at length : but one or two special observations may be permitted. In the first place, the Torcello representation is still symbolic. The Fire and the Worm are ideas drawn from the written word of Holy Scripture ; but they are accepted as they are given, and only, as it were, repeated verbally in the painting. The work is Eastern, ascetic and contemplative : its severity is sharpened by the sense of corruption in the Christian life itself, by painful strife with heresy and schism, and by external distress. The treatment of the subject 1 See "Lectures on Christian Art and Symbolism," by the author of this work, pp. 88-95. A critic in the Saturday Review calls attention, with much irritation, to the contradiction between passages, where two of these dates are suggested. It really arises from the fact that it is impossible to say whether any original church was built at Torcello by those who fled before Alboiu in 568. If so, it formed a part of the duomo of the next century ; with its mosaics, if any. At all events, those which are there now must be of the same date as the original part of the present church, and may be earlier. N 3 274 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. develops in Lombard or Frank hands, and becomes wildly grotesque, horrible, grand in despair and agony of expression, loathsome in details of torment ; as Giotto's work, in a great degree, and still more in Orcrasna's, who seems to have thrown himself into his Infernos ' with a sort of enjoyment which casts a disagreeable kind of firelight on the faith of the Middle Ages. One is inclined to think that men who handed their neighbours over, in deliberate thought, or even in elaborate jest, to eternal torment; or who played with the idea of so doing, cannot have had much conviction of its reality, or of the fearfulness of actual judgment of men for their deeds. Orgagna might perhaps plead the ex- ample of Dante for placing his political or private enemies in the Inferno ; but it is clear, if any attention whatever is to be paid to Vasari, that he stood accused of a kind of personal malice, which was never attributed to the author of the Divine Comedy. A personal Inferno, or anticipation of the Judgment of God, by either poet or painter, really appears to be an act of presumptuous wicked- ness ; which He may doubtless pardon, but which ordinary men are bound to protest against. There does, and must, remain in all spiritual thought of the future, a certain fearful looking for of indignation which no faith or definite form of religion ever denies or avoids. The Christian Church of the first three or four centuries seems certainly to have dwelt less on 1 In the Campo Santo, at Pisa : that in Sta. Maria Novella in Florence has been repainted, it is believed by Ghirlandajo (Vasari, vol. i. p. 204. — Andrea Orgagna); that in Sta. Croce has perished. THE LOMBARDS. 275 this subject than on any other popular creed. But it was never denied or ignored. The sense of future justice and judgment is human, inevitable, and irre- sistible ; and it is, to say the least, inaccurate, to talk as popular writers do now, about Christian priests having fabricated a penal doctrine, which every priest on earth would gladly deny, if he could, in the name of his Master. However, this penal doctrine is a subject unfit to be dwelt on by art, as the temporal inflictions of disease, famine, or legal punishment are unfit for her : — but if it must be set forth, the grim vagueness and terrors of the Torcello mosaic are sufficient. There is great difference between emblematic pictorial repetition of the Lord's words, letting them mean what He meant by them, and painting law-officers in hell, for having been engaged against one. 1 One might suppose that this kind of revenge indicated levity or scepticism rather than deliberate malice, and probably amounted to little more than the profane oaths in which the last gene- ration of English gentlemen indulged so freely. Still, the elaborate painting of a picture like the Inferno of Pisa is a proceeding far more deliberate than any verbal curses ; and it must remain, while the plaster and colours last, one singular monument out of many among the moral contrasts of mediaeval character. It is humbling to reflect that the author of the mighty Presence of the flying Death, and the great angels of Judgment, could endure to labour over such 1 See Vasari, Orgagna, 210. ed. Bohn. Whether this fresco be the work of Orgagna or the Lorenzetti of Siena has nothing to do with this volume. (See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, vol. L ; also Vasari, Orgagna, 310, ed. Bohn.) 276 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. filthy and hideous details of torment. Things which are unnameable ought at least to be unpaintable. Something may be attributed to what are called the habits of the time, and its butcheries of public execution and private murder ; and much to the deadly enmities of Florence. To this day her glorious architecture bears the ancient tokens of a city divided against itself, house against house; marked by the gloomy strength and heavy windowless rustications of the outer walls of her palaces, meant to defy siege, and harbour garrisons for offence and oppression. Orgagna died before 1376-7; and two years after that date broke out the desperate struggles of the Albizzi and the Parte Guelfa, with the Eicci and other Arnnioniti or disfranchised families — followed by the contest of the middle classes against the Minor Arts and the Ciampi. The names of Silvestro da Medici, Filippo Strozzi the elder, Benedetto Alberti, and not the least of Michael Lando, the wool- carder who saved the state, are among those of the chief actors of the time. It is singular, and certainly points to the uncon- trollable, yet sometimes fatal fierceness of Italian temper, that Michael Angelo himself was guilty of the same profane folly as Orgagna, in painting his enemies or foolish critics among the condemned, in the Last Judgn nt of the Sistine. And as almost every weakness or error of the great masters has been 1 The remarkable passage in Hallam's "Middle Ages," vol. i. pp. 240 249, ed. 1846 (chap. iii. parti.), may be read with advan- tage "u this point. Ii speaks of the "dark long-cherished hatreds, and that implacable vindictiveness which distinguished the private manners of Italy. . . . Forrevenge she threw away the pearl of great price, and sacrificed uvea the recollection of liberty," &c. THE LOMBARDS. 277 religiously imitated, while their great deeds are inimit- able and unrecognized, this absurdity has been re- peated by no less excellent a follower than Cornelius of Diisseldorf and Munich; who showed his zeal for the Papacy by introducing a corpulent caricature of Luther among the lost, in the great fresco of the Ludwig's Kirche in the latter city. Few artistic errors can be more demoralizing to the painter, or better calculated to make a thoughtful spectator infer that he believes in no future state or judgment whatever. Orgagna's subject of the Triumph of Death may be taken as heading the long list of Dances of Death or of the Dead, or " Danses Macabre," led by the great Egyptian ascetic Macarius, who presides in Orgagna's work. 1 That at Lucerne on the old w r ooden bridge is still in existence ; and there is an elaborate one preserved in the French " Histoire des Arts du Moyen Age." 2 But the Dance of Death is always associated with the memory of Hans Holbein, who. though his name is less generally beloved, and less popular than Eaffaelle's in sacred-decorative art, is greater as a guide and model, from his matchless invention and energy of graphic power. It is better, too, to close this work with some account of a part of his labours ; first from his connection, through Orgagna, with the earliest pictures of Judgment, and so with the early mosaics of the Apocalypse ; secondly because, as the first and greatest of Protestant painters, 1 The derivation of the word Macabre is uncertain. Dr. AVolt- maun thinks that " Machabseorum chori" is the real etymology. 2 Chap. viii. p. 35. De Sommerand. Album 5" — 7° serie. Illustration of a " Danse Macabre " in a MS. belonging to Anne of Bretagne (sixteenth century), "Oh est demonstre tous etats estre du bransle de la mort." 278 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. he marks a final stage in the history of Sacred or Keligious Art' ; when it became polemical as well as theological. For the first three or four centuries, in the time of the Biblical cycle, Church art repeats and strives to impress the teaching of Holy Scripture. As doctrine is defined, art becomes theological. As developments of doctrine are demanded by the people, and accepted, and enforced by the failing fulers of the Church, she becomes ecclesiastical ; and is claimed accordingly by the Roman system, as a kind of property or private engine of its own. With the Eeformation, art is made polemical on both sides : — and its first employment thus, or perhaps rather the most noticeable of its early ap- plications in this direction, is the work of Hans Holbein. For his are the great wood-cuts which express to our minds at this day, as to the minds of all the German people at his period, the thoughts of the religious laity of northern Europe on the subject of the Eeformation. The three works of his, the Dance of Death, the Indulgence-mongers, and Christ the True Light, seem to claim precedence in descrip- tion, even before the great Passion subjects, from that vast mass of Scriptural illustration in all forms, which exercised his immeasurable imagination. His Dance of Death, or of the Dead, comes first, with its Last Judgment. It is not with the frescoes on the cloister walls at Basle that we are concerned, but with that wonderful series of wood-cuts of his drawing (cut probably by Lutzelburger the admirable " form-schneider ") which will carry down his name for ever in connection with the contrast of Death and Life. Two or three of these cuts have been repro- THE LOMBARDS. 279 duced for Prof. Euskin by the exceeding skill of Mr. Burges, and are facsimiles utterly undistinguishable from the original print. 1 As in all the more solemn Dances of Death, Holbein's is accompanied by his foreshowing of the Judgment of Mankind. And he alone seems to have formed, and to acknowledge the thought, that though condemnation be real, and Tophet assuredly prepared of old, it does not become a painter to let his imagination run riot on horrors he has not seen. And as in the great Pisan fresco, Hell seems to have the better, and few are saved, so in the last of Holbein's wood-cuts, the just alone stand before their Lord rejoicing. Yet he goes on warning throughout, by one threatening text after another, that the sinner risks dying in his sins, even to infinite loss or perdition unless he repent. " What will ye do in the end thereof ? " 2 is the motto of the whole work. But there is a tone of half humor- ous reflection through it all, on the grand equality of Death, so just and mighty, subtle and searching. There is no democratic spitefulness, though the diffi- culty and piteousness of the great change to the fair and luxurious is steadily dwelt on. But the starving hind and his worn-out horses are in deadly terror at the grim unknown, who strides to them across the heavy furrows, bringing rest, " bringing pleasant time to weary team ; " 3 and the poor pedlar, with his heavy pack, is hurried off as pitilessly, and goes as unwillingly, as the stern old noble who turns on the Destroyer, sword in hand, and rejoices once more in fierce unavailing battle. Indeed, in some of the later 1 See "Fors Clavigera," No. 4. 2 Gedenk das End — Memorare novissima. s " Bobus fatigatis amicum tempus agens." 280 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. verses, which are supposed rightly to express the painter's mind, Death speaks kindly to his valiant victim, " Come thou with me, good sword and true." But go we all must, quoth the painter; and each will go from his daily life, from ploughing or grinding at the mill ; and undoubtedly, ye shall go from the midst of your sins, if ye will practise them. 0, king and emperor, cardinal and pope, burgher, soldier, old crone and little child, painter, scholar, apothecary, ploughboy, thief; and you, all-privileged Fool — you must depart for good or evil. And therefore — what? Do not, as Orgagna says, turn hermits and live on hind's milk, but do justly, love mercy, walk humbly in Christ's name ; and above all, fear not. There lingers in Holbein's mood the same defiance of death which the Lombards learnt from their Scandinavian fathers. It is the spirit of the wanderer, Viking or Varang, who rose up ready to seek another land ; and faced the last enemy like an earthly foeman, with scornful welcome; meeting the inevitable as Antar the Arab met his enemies, "even as the ground receives the first of the rain." Allowing for changes of period, race, circumstance, and instruction, there is much in this which is nearly allied to the spirit with which Christians of the Martyr-ages seem to have looked on death. Willingness to depart, through hope in Christ, is more pronounced, of course, in those who were preaching His name within memory of actual witnesses who had seen and handled, than in men accustomed to be told that Alexander VI. and Leo X. were Vicars of Christ. Yet the early symbolisms of the anchored ships or unyoked chariot, the flower- wreaths, and winged creatures rejoicing in liberty, THE LOMBARDS. 281 and the absence of inquiry about the sensations and phenomena of their change : the general and unde- fined hope in Christ for all who repent and believe in Kim, seem to have been nearly the same in the martyrs of the Empire, as in the martyrs of the Curia. The invention of wood-cutting and copper-en- graving has had this important bearing on church decoration, that it has withdrawn the absolute. necessity for wall-paintings of the Sacred Histories. Not only are there more books, but those books may be illustrated, and appeal vigorously to the learner's imagination : and this not only here and there, at great expense, through manuscript illumination, but by all the countless devices of the Press, with at least some excellence, and at the cheapest rate. This seems to us in no sense to diminish the value of instructive decoration in churches, only to make it more necessary that the Primitive standard and a list of subjects involving Primitive doctrine, should be thoroughly recognized in our own Church. But if Holbein were a far less remarkable man, he would be remembered in Religious Art, perhaps for ever, by the originality and power of his Protest in wood- cut, 1 The True Light dates 1524, and Holbein was in London in 1527, the year before Diirer's death. 1 The word " Protestant " has many meanings in our own day, varying greatly with the matter which a person may protest against. Aggressive infidelity claims the title, for the purpose of exciting popular passion against High Anglicanism. In one man's mind, Protestantism seems to mean personal religion; in another's, personal irreligion. Speaking as Christians, we use it in the sense of the ancient Christian brotherhood of the early English Refor- mation, about 1526. There is a Protestantism of the German and English Reformation, and another of the French Revolution ; the one against the Pope, the other against the existence of God. And it is time for Anglicans, in their turn, to protest against atheistic assumptions of Puritan language. 282 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Six years before, the tale had come to Antwerp of Martin Luther's imprisonment, and had provoked the great Nureinberger's prayers and lamentations over his supposed danger. We have Dlirer's protest in that bitter and pathetic outburst x — it is that of personal belief in Christ as God and Lord ; nor do we recognize the word Protestantism in its negative sense. Holbein's declaration of what he held, and what he did not hold, in the day of spiritual trial and con- fusion, is recorded in the Indulgence-shop and the True Light. In the one, the sale of pardons is going on. Those who can pay for forgiveness of sins are paying, and money down is the strict order of the day : those who cannot pay are left in their sins : there they may stay unforgiven. The real sting of the picture is not that the rich man is fined for his offences, or that the monk gets the money ; but that the poor man, for as much as he has not to pay, shall not be frankly forgiven. But Holbein's is no merely negative Protestantism ; for on the other side, and apart from the dealer, the " Offen Synder," the repentant man, self-convicted, and avowing his sin, is following David and Manasses, who kneel before Christ, and is making his prayer, not unheard. This is the practical side of the Reformation, and a simple assertion of personal reliance on the Redeemer for forgiveness. In the True Light, we have the speculative side of the renewed faith, as it appeared to painters, burghers, and nobles, weary of the Papacy but by no means weary of the Faith. The Lamp of 1 See Mr. Scott's " Life of Diirer. - ' The passage is fouud in Weale's folio work, London, 1846. See Contemporary Review, vol. ii. p. 398. THE LOMBARDS. 283 Truth divides the picture in two. By it stands the Lord, with willing followers crowding to Him, of all sorts ; laity, clergy, and women. He is opening their eyes, and they receive sight from Him. On the other side, popes, cardinals, monks, and doctors are leading each other away from the Lord among dark mountains, which remind one of the fate of the Hypocrite in the Pilgrim's Progress, who stumbled and fell, and rose no more. Plato and Aristotle are the leaders of the blind ; the former has just fallen into a pit, and the other, turbaned like a " malig- nant " Turk, is following him straightway. This is the protest of energetic lay-thought ; of newly-gained knowledge of nature ; of fresh enterprise and desired learning, against the Aristotelian limits and barriers of thought. " Men saw," as Mr. Maurice has said, " that the popes were governed by the doctors, and the doctors by the Categories." The Categories were classifications of all things for the purposes of formal logic, and men found that they themselves, and a vast number of newly found thoughts and things, could not be thus arranged and dealt with secundum artem any longer. They rose and said : On many new things we must have truth, if God will. We must have new arrangements of new phenomena, and inferences will follow from them. Let us look at facts as we find them ; either at human facts of old, at the Greek language, at its literature, and at the remnants of its art; or more particularly at the present facts of nature ; at all which God has given lis to know on earth of earth. In evil hours and for evil reasons, through worldly interests which could not be avowed, and for selfish or panic terrors which 284 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. should not have been felt, Theology was set against Knowledge ; and the quarrel has never been healed. But for all that it never should have existed ; and firm ground will be reached for its adjustment, when rival professors of spiritual and natural science shall mutually concede to each other (as in many cases they are beginning to do) that both the results of physical experiment, and the facts of spiritual experience, are after all true and real things. With Eaffaelle and with Holbein the higher sym- bolism and the historical testimony of Church art seem both to have passed away, or to have run wild ; on the Eoman Catholic side into polemical assertion of the Deity of Mary, and of prayer to Saints and Angels, aided by every kind of luscious appeal to beauty ; or into the unscrupulous exploitation of the doctrine of the material purgatory, by general repre- sentation of souls in torment. The German Catholic- art revival, though the work of highly instructed and conscientious men, has not altogether escaped this ; but there can be no doubt that it has done infinitely more good than harm. On the Protestant side, art has run astray into foolish unmeaning allegory ; and altogether fallen into disuse and suspicion as a means of Christian instruction. If a course of subjects, directed to illustration of the Primitive Faith and the fufilment of prophecy, and to reverent realism of the events of Holy Scripture, were either defined and laid down, or tacitly accepted for Church decoration — to be treated of course as the different genius of different artists should direct them — that would be the foundation of an English school of high- aimed art. It may be visionary to hope for one ; THE LOMBAEDS. 285 but it must be said that loftiness of aim appears to be at present the great want of English artists. The contemplation of the highest subjects of human thought can at least do them no harm. Two papers, one on Liturgical Books, the other containing some remarks on Miniatures and Illumi- nation, have been added to the Index of Subjects ot Primitive Art. They hardly form a part of this book, considered as an account of the decorative principles and records of the Early Church. The works of Professor Westwood, so frequently referred to, are the best source of information which is generally accessible. But it is probably the case that most persons who are interested in early art, and read this book, would, rather than not, have a few few facts on the subject of early caligraphy and book-ornament : and the addition has been made accordingly. The arts of illumination and of architectural carving, preserved in the dark ages, and fostered in their mediaeval infancy under shade of convent walls, always remained in full practice. They had their chief professors still, in monastic workshops and scriptoria, while fresco, oil-painting, and sculpture broke into artistic liberty, and then advanced to the license of the later Renaissance ; so that for a time art passed into the service of pleasure instead of religion. 1 But this work would be incomplete without some brief allusion to a deeply interesting relic of the Later Middle Ages, which not only throws a favourable light on the Christian teaching of the 1 Those times of transition are best commented on in Prof. Buskin's works, especially in volumes iii. and v. of " Modern Painters ; " — best described, perhaps, by Messrs. Crowe and Caval- caselle, and in the works of Kiigler, Liibke, and Woltmann. 286 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. German peasantry in very early ages, but preserves and repeats many of the subjects of the Catacombs and Sarcophagi, with reference to Messianic type and prophecy — we mean of course the Passions-Vorstel- lung of Ober-Ammergau. Its music and mise en schie are its only modern features ; and it possesses the deepest interest from the light which it throws on the lay-religion of the German peasantry. So many accounts have been given of it that we can but refer to the Eev. Malcolm McColl's as the standard one ; and to a highly interesting article signed Karl Blind in " The Dark Blue Magazine." * The latter points out its truly Catholic or non-Papal character, which was certainly and fully maintained when the author visited it in 1871. Those who would understand it fully should read the article on German literature in Prof. Max Mtiller's " Chips from a German Workshop," which points out a thing difficult to understand, the German maintenance of pure Scriptural teaching, in spite of ignorance and neglect, before the Information. He attributes it to the lower clergy, and — to their great credit — to the fraternization of the preaching friars with the people against the higher clergy. " The people were hungry and thirsty after religious teaching. They had been systematically starved or fed with stones. Part of the Bible had been translated for them ; but what Ulfilas was free to do in the fourth cen- tury was condemned by the prelates assembled at the Synod of Trier in 1231. Nor were the sermons of the itinerant friars in towns and villages always to the taste of bishops and abbots. Brother Bert- 1 July 1871. THE LOMBARDS. 287 hold (died 1 272) was a Franciscan. He travelled about the country, and was revered by the people as a saint and a prophet. The doctrine he preached, though it was the old teaching of the Apostles, was as new to the peasants who came to hear him as it had been to the citizens of Athens who came to hear St. Paul. The saying of St. Chrysostom, that Christianity had turned many a peasant into a philosopher, came true again in the time of Eckhart (d. 1329), and Tauler (1361;. Men who called themselves Christians had been taught, and had brought themselves to believe, that to read the writings of the Apostles was a deadly sin. Yet in secret they were yearning after that forbidden Bible. They knew that there were translations ; and though those translations had been condemned by Popes and Synods, the people could not resist the tempta- tion of reading them." The character of German Catholicism is still moulded, after all changes, by the reading of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels. Xor could anything prove this more vividly than the Ammergau exhibition, which is in fact an acted homily on the connection of the Old and Xew Testaments ; of type with antitype, and Messianic prophecy with the Messiah. The same subject supplied motives of ornament for the Catacomb-paintings and carven tombs. Paulinus of tola's motto x would be a suitable motto for the performance, theologically speaking. It begins;- — as the history of Piedemp- tion begins ; — as the Catacomb-cycle begins ; — as the time-honoured Sacramental instructions of 1 "Lex antiqua novam firmat,veterem nova complet." 288 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. Bishop Wilson begin — with the fall and corruption of man and the institution of sacrifice ; it ends with the Crucifixion and Eesurrection. The Fall, the Promise of the Bedeemer, and the Sacrifice of Isaac, are its first tableaux from the Old Testament; and they are followed at once by the opening of the Passions-spiel proper, with the Lord's Entry into Jerusalem. The Bock and the Manna are compared with the Lord's Supper ; the thirty pieces of silver, and the sale of Joseph are set over against each other. Daniel's condemnation to the Lions followed by the Lord before Pilate ; Moses, Aaron, and the Scapegoat by the " Ecce Homo ; " the Brazen Serpent by the actual Crucifixion ; Jonah by the Eesurrection ; the passage of the Eed Sea, by the Ascension, as the return of our Forerunner where He was before. All these illustrations of type and prophecy, with others, are in the Passions-spiel; and nearly all the subjects will be found in the Primitive cycle. The doctrines of Incarnation and Sacrifice govern both : and both illustrate the convergence of the Christian- mind of all races and ages on the central and primaeval doctrine of Salvation in the life and death of Christ for Man. In spite of evil, man hopes for all things through the Lord's life and death ; he has had that hope from the beginning of evil ; and Christian art and symbolism are one great means of its expres- sion. It never fails, it reaches all minds. It labours for ever at its manifold answer to the great question, " Cur Deus Homo," from the earliest paintings of the martyrs' graves, through Eavenna and the fall of old Eome, and the rise of Byzantium ; through the irrup- tion and conversion of the Lombard race; through THE LOMBARDS. 289 the Pisan and Florentine outburst of intellect, and poetry, and graphic powers, from Xicolo Pisano and Cimabue to Michael Angelo ; and from Bellini to Tintoret and Veronese in Venice ; — even to its last regularly descended offset, the multitudinous pageant of the Bavarian Highlands. This adds to primitive subjects the actual representation of the Crucifixion, and so far rests on sixth-century precedent. But no one word in it that we ever heard speaks of prayer to Mary or to Saints, of the deity of Mary, of pur- gatory, or of legend. Each scene of the New Testa- ment was preceded by its typical scene from Hebrew history, expounded in recitative or choric hymn, with noble voices and modest gesture : and the argument was still the Whole Humanity for man's sake, to atone for and do away with evil. Its logical gist or argument was exactly that of Bishop Wilson's first chapter on the Holy Communion, reasoning from the Fall to Sacrifice for sin, and from typical sacrifice to the conclusive sacrifice. Few scenes — at least in Europe — can better illus- trate the difference between things of the senses, which seem so real, and yet change hour by hour, and things of the spirit, which endure — than the ancient Passion-play, set forth in the solemn presence of the blue pine-woods of the Ammer-thal, under the frown of its steep unchanging hills. Unchanging as men call them, they crumble and alter under storm and frost, and the quaint ceremonial marks new decades, and actors and audience pass away from the shows of things into silence and reality. What is there that will last ? — At least, the Argument of the Play alters not, for the word of the Lord endureth for ever. o CHAPTER XL GENERAL. The modern system of divided labour possesses great advantages for production, and perhaps for scientific research, though men's minds appear to be often somewhat cramped and narrowed by exclusive study. It has been remarked — we believe by Mr. Fitzjames Stephen — that the principle of division of labour is now being carried on so quickly in almost every department of thought, that it seems probable that we may at last arrive at a state of things in which the claim to any other sort of knowledge than a microscopic acquaintance with some particular department of some one branch will be regarded as an absurd presumption. This, he apprehends, and so do we, would have very little tendency to elevate and enrich the minds of the possessors of these separate stores of mutually un- intelligible discovery. But in fine art, where the in- ventive faculty has so much to do with combination and composition, separate and exclusive studies have already done harm enough. They have led to the great decorative difficulty of the present day, that architects on one hand, and painters and sculptors on the other, are always at variance in Church ornament. The necessity that a great architect should also be a sculptor, and indeed a painter, has GENERAL. 291 already been expressed, not in vain, by Professor Ruskin in this country ; but we are glad to refer to Dr. Liibke's and Herr Burckhardt's "Geschichte der Renaissance" for a parallel observation. Ghiberti's remark, on the all-embracing Giotto, is quoted; 1 and the authors observe on it that " the many-sidedness of the earlier artists, which is quite a riddle to our age of division of labour, was of extraordinary value in architecture .... when architects were also sculptors, painters and carvers in wood ; accustomed to express form in every way." Venturing no further at present on this grave matter, than to express the hope that our architects will at least become students of organic form, and more especially of colour ; and that our painters will remember that the construction of a building is its organic form, which they are to express and embellish under the architect's direction, and not to thwart him by disguising — we still take leave to set down here a few distinctions and reflections for the popular mind, which may help the building public, sub- scribers, promoters, and well-wishers to Church art, to understand what they really wish for or ought to desire ; and how much of that they ought to have according to their funds ; that is to say, according to their willingness to sacrifice money to education, spiritual and temporal. It seems to us, in the first place and of course, that the decoration of every consecrated building should be planned from the first by the architect in subject, colour, and form, or thoroughly arranged by him, 1 Quando la natura mole concedere alcuna cosa, la coneede seuza veruiia avarizia. " When it pleases Nature to grant a tiling, she bestows it without any manner of grudging." o 2 292 PRIMITIVE CHURCH AET. with painters and sculptors, as to its execution ; and with employers and clergy, as to its subjects and purpose. The practical object of this book has been to suggest to clergy and laity the ancient standard and list of subjects represented in the first six or seven centuries. But whatever choice may be made in the matter, we think there are a few remarks to be made about things to be understood on both sides. Let us start with the assumption that sub- jects of Church ornament have been arranged between subscribers, architect, artists, and clergy ; and that a style has been selected. Then, for internal decora- tion, we think it at least convenient to begin with the consideration of colour. For the selected style, whatever it may be, determines in a great measure where the sculpture is to come ; and the powers and acquired knowledge of the architect will be shown in its proportions and arrangement. But he should know, and ought to be able to convey the idea to his patrons, how much colour he will have, and where, and on what means he will rely for introducing it. Colour, as we take it here, is either solid or trans- parent ; you either see light through it, or you do not. You must either get the charm and glow of varied hue into your stone building through painted windows, which is using transparent colour ; or obtain them by fresco or mosaic, or opaque glass work on the walls, which is using opaque colour. 1 Now — architects will excuse the utterance of tru- isms for popular use — 1 Transparent pigments may, of course, be used in wall-painting. All we can regard here is, that the wall is not transparent, only reflecting light, while the window transmits it. GENEEAL. 293 First, in northern, or high-gabled, or " vertical " architecture — French, German, or English — more light is, on the whole, desirable than in a round- arched, Eoman, or " horizontal," or low-gabled building — for the round arch is Eoman, and so is all that is built therewith. All such work is derived from the vaultings of baths and cloacse. Secondly, and in consequence, your windows will be more important features, in construction and decoration, in Gothic than in Byzantine or Eoman- esque ; and in French Gothic than Italian Gothic. Thirdly, you will have to make up your mind whether the colour shall come in through the win- dows, or be laid or inlaid on the walls ; that is to say, whether you will call chief attention to the one or the other. Both cannot go first as vehicles of colour ; they must be harmonized, and that by subduing the one in favour of the other. I have known the other principle asserted ; of exaggerating hue in wall-paint- ing, because brilliant windows were used in the same building ; and that by an able architect of great and deserved name ; but I remain totally unable to under- stand him, so far. • Fourthly, in Northern Gothic you will have to insist on the windows for colour ; and as they there- fore, infallibly, will draw the eye to them, you must put your most important subjects, the principal arguments of your art-preaching, in your principal windows. And your walls should not be made to rival them, but toned down to equal richness, with less brilliancy. Fifthly : If your architecture is to be that of the hotter countries of Europe, where excess of light is 294 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. to "be avoided, rather than where every ray of it must be courted, you will have small windows and large surfaces of wall. In this case you will rely on your spaces of wall for colour and subject; the colour of your church will be opaque ; you will use fresco or mosaic; and have to deal with the far greater difficulties of treatment which are in- volved in their use. But in any case the help of an educated painter or professional colourist is highly necessary, unless the architect be one himself. On this subject, we are inclined to think that decorators, as a rule, seem hardly sensible of the value of the natural tints of the materials they em- ploy. One of the great beauties of Saracenic structure is its banded architecture, as observed in Cairo and Damascus ; in red and white, or red, black, and white material. It has been well imitated in this country, as in Mr. Butterfield's chapel at Balliol College, Ox- ford ; but internal colour as well might be bestowed on the cheapest buildings, by lining them with red and white bricks in the barred form, and simply omitting the plaster. Great attention, we hope, is now being bestowed on moulded brick and terra-cotta ornament for such interiors. Mere repetition of patterns in paint is not satisfactory; and until fresco-painters are more numerous, and fresco-colours more decidedly perma- nent, there is reason for effort to do all which can be done with the natural hues of brick, stone, and tile. The author would prefer them, in all cases, to merely decorative forms without symbolical or historic mean- ing. Moreover, in our large and smoky cities, he hears strong complaints against all paint whatever ; it fouls and will not clean. Those who have seen the GENERAL. 295 little chapel at Lynmouth, North Devon, will see how much can be done at slight expense in a land of granite and red sandstone, without a touch of paint or a line of gilding. The latter means of orna- ment would take a book to itself ; and the mention of paint opens up the whole subject of interior decora- tion, religious and domestic. But thus much he may say to church-builders- — spare paint and plaster alto- gether; study the star-and-cross pattern of the Doge's Palace, and try it in limestone and sandstone, or even in good red and white brick. Compare it with the barred Egyptian work : have bands if you will, or pattern if you will, but beware of both together. The repetition of an easy idea is the secret of simple pattern, where no high thought is expressed; and the popular eye is too indolent to follow pattern, if interrupted and complicated by stripes and stars. Gilding, as the richest form of ornament, should be on the leading lines, and direct the eye. But we have not yet seen how much may be done by incrus- tation and the use of tile-mosaic and opaque glass. There is no reason why moulded tiles should not be used as freely as moulded bricks : on walls as well as pavement. And, with really good designs, sym- bolic or other, an honestly- built church, lined with these materials and rejoicing in well-arranged hues of its own structure, ought to be felt to be successful and beautiful, whether light and clearness, or dark- ness and richness, be its tone of colour-decoration. Again, if the artistic effect of the whole thing is not to suffer grievously and continuously, some un- derstanding ought to exist as to the use of violent colour in temporary decorations, such as flowers, 296 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. hangings, altar vestments, and the like. If colour © © ' is used in the ceremonial of our Christian worship, it must be used well or ill. If well, it proves that time, thought, and artistic effort have been faithfully devoted to God's service ; and it gives a lofty and true pleasure to all. If ill, it at least vexes or distracts those worshippers, few or many, who are not protected by colour-blindness, real or acquired. To have a large light church with all the colours of the rainbow in its windows, as in a Xorman Gothic cathedral — to add to this fresco and mosaic, excel- lent of their kind, but adapted from the colours of Venice or Ravenna, contending desperately with showers of transmitted hue at every gleam of morn- ing or evening sunshine — and then to put in altar- cloths and hangings in different styles and tints, with niediseval vestments, variegated flowers, and gilding regardless of expense — supposing, moreover, that the colours employed include the metallic greens and acrid mauves and magentas of modern glass work and weaving; — this is to make a picture by sitting on a set palette. Whereas if you will have plenty of grisaille in your windows, and study harmonies of one or two colours in them, rather than contrasts of many — if you will avoid violent greens as you would deprecate a steam whistle in an orchestra ; if you would try what could be done in a small window with olive-greens and ivy-greens, white and yellow alone, allowing sparks of the emerald tint, or one touch of crimson, in fear and trembling — then, at all events, the immediate effect would be chastened and soft- ened. Such windows, too, especially if placed low on church walls, would not interfere with the opaque GENEKAL. 297 colours of the interior. The use of rich brown varied to purple, and olive to green, with a small quantity of crimson, excluding all other colour, is much to be desired. In blues all violent mazarines and " university" " colours are to be avoided, except in their faded form, in which indigo takes part : but even the deep hues of Eavenna mosaic are unsuited for window colours, through which light passes ; though the varied play of their own hue is so very striking. The present writer has just had the pleasure of contemplating the progress of some tolerably well- guided, though very quiet church decorations for Easter. He has been struck with the good effect of green ivy or even box wreaths, studded with white and yellow immortelles in little bundles. He observes that daffodils alternating on green with primroses have a delightful effect. He has succeeded in exclud- ing any colours from the reredos except white, two or three greens, and pale crimson azaleas. He is thankful to have seen the altar of a well-beloved church not loaded with tier on tier of ill-arranged nose- gays like an inn sideboard. And it occurs to him that any part of a congregation (more especially any sister- hood, numbering among them ladies well trained in embroidery or painting) might greatly assist the decorations of chancels and altars all over England by framing a good set of rules for natural-flower ornament ; founded on the succession of ordinary and " country " blossoms, such as they can best obtain, as ' ' The daughters of the year, Each garlanded with her peculiar flower, Dance into the light, and die into the shade." o 3 298 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. He cannot help thinking that throughout the or- dinary year crimson and white should be the only colours of flowers used on the altar. Of course, every variety of shade and hue in one colour should he used. Eed berries and white immortelles, in not too large quantity, would supply the need in Autumn, if scarlet geranium, white aster, or chrysanthemum, or Christmas-rose, failed. Violet or even blue, well combined or mixed with black (violets, dark hya- cinth or pansies), would be substituted for crimson in Lent. Yellow, white and orange would be a chord of colour to admit the early spring flowers — and red roses and white pinlp would last the summer through. Green leaves, he thinks, will be better round or behind the altar than upon it, unless in fringes to distinguish the white flowers from the snowy coverings. The quantity of blossoms is highly unimportant, if they be rightly massed and opposed to each other, and he would plead for a few vessels of white opaque glass or alabaster to contain them. Great mingled bunches of hyacinths, primroses, peonies, wallflowers, anemonies and daffodils will doubtless be observed at this season — stuck in brass chimney ornaments, and backed by thickets of box and laurel ; disguising the reredos of many an English church, and vying with masses of candles to eclipse or hide the vessels of the Eucharist altogether. It is supposed, of course, in these remarks, that flowers are admissible on, or above, or around An- glican altars, or credence tables. It seems strange that when whole churches have been decorated with flowers time out of mind, their presence in that part of the church should call for protest or legal inter- GENERAL. 299 position. The actual state of law on the subject is hard to define ; but treating the question as a matter of archaeology, there is no doubt that flowers were the ornaments of the earliest Christian sepulchres, and that the earliest sepulchres were frequently used as altar tables for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, whatever rite may have been used. The use of red and white flowers, or of violet and white in Lent, seems equally harmless and appropriate. If it were possible to employ ladies in mosaic work instead of embroidery, the results of their labours in church ornament would be more per- ceptible to the grosser sex, and, as the author thinks, more valuable. Educated labour of this kind will assuredly increase rapidly in value ; for if churches are ever to be decorated on the Venetian model, having the principal events of the Old Testa- ment at the west end, and their fulfilment in the New, to the east ; — or, if in others, the ancient sym- bolisms are to be set forth that men may remem- ber that their Church and her services are really not things of yesterday, but an inheritance from Apostolic days — then art work of high character must be cheapened, for it will be needed in great quantity. The evidence of Messrs. Watts, E.A., and Armitage, E.A., before the late Eoyal Academy Commission, is very weighty and apposite on this subject. Both assert, with immaterial differences, that designs of high merit would be willingly sup- plied by some of our leading artists at a moderate rate ; and that each might be executed by students (properly trained, we presume, either in the school of the Eoyal Academy, or in the higher grades of 300 PRIMITIVE CHUECH AET. the departmental instruction) under the superinten- dence of some one competent man. The only reason, Mr. Watts thinks, why the taste for mural decoration in churches and schools does not rapidly increase in the country is because such things are not enough seen ; they are only executed where the public do not see them. " To employ students upon them, and to scatter them abroad as much as possible, is what is wanted in the first instance. The Eoyal Academy should, by way of developing taste, do something to- wards placing before the eyes of the public at large the best specimens of art. . . . The students of the Eoyal Academy who made good designs and gained medals should be given a set of designs, and, with a certain small allowance, required to carry them out on the walls of some public building." We cannot but hope that somewhat of a British school of fresco and grand mosaic may arise from the national contribution to the decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral. The preliminary difficulties are very great; strong rivalries must necessarily be involved ; and personal friendship and interests must hamper great works now, as heavily as in the days when Ghiberti was set up against Brunelleschi, or when Bramante pitted Baffaelle against Michael Angelo. But in those days, at all events, the immortal labour was accomplished ; and we will hope for the best now. Another means of national progress in graphic art, specially adapted to Gothic or Romanesque archi- tecture, and to which the great mediaeval churches owe most of their sculpture, is the formation of a class of artist workmen ; by proper instruction in GENERAL. 301 drawing and modelling, which, is now accessible, we are most thankful to say, in all our cities and considerable towns. No one has spoken so elo- quently on this point, nor with such practical acuteness and fulness of suggestion, as Prof. Euskiu, in his dissertation on the Nature of Gothic. 1 The following observation appears specially important with relation to the large number of artizans and their sons who might in time form schools of orna- mental sculpture which might adorn not only our cathedrals, but our country churches : — " It is perhaps the principal admirableness of the Gothic schools of architecture that they thus receive the results of the labour of inferior minds ; and out of fragments betraying imperfection in every touch, indulgently raise up a stately and unaccusable whole. To every spirit which Christian architecture summons to her service, her exhortation is, do what you can and frankly confess what you are unable to do : neither let your effort be shortened for fear of failure, nor your confession silenced for fear of shame/' It certainly seems to the writer a possibility that English artisan-art may yet culminate in works like the stony hawthorn of Bourges, or the bossy figure- sculpture of St. Zenone. "We shall not see it : — yet art would lose all its interest for lovers of our England, if it were not for the hope that it will yet do some- thing to teach and elevate the poor, and all the others " whose souls cleave to the dust " either for want of means, or for greed of money. To get men lifted into the art-world seems in fact as great a matter even as the production of great isolated works 1 In " The Stones of Venire," vol. ii., 2nd period, chap. i. p. 158. 302 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. of art. And it certainly does appear, that if any places be specially fitted to convey the teaching of beauty to poor English people much in need of it, it is the churches which are their own ; whose doors invite them continually, from which no man can be shut out ; which appeal by painting or sculpture, without letter or line, straight to the heart and understanding. One suggestion only we have to make about sculpture; and that especially to artist-workmen and their employers — to be specially careful and sparing of deep cutting and black shadow, in diffused lights like those of most of our own great churches. New builders ought to remember the singularly unconsidered truism that their buildings cannot be old, or have the deep-marked features of age, all at once. Let them be patient, and have large faith in time and dirt. We really have often noticed, in the many criticisms on new buildings which have reached our ears in the last decade or so, that a class of critics exists who seem to think a thirteenth-century cathedral can be built with the grey honours of all its ages, in a few years' work in the nineteenth. They decline to remember that the thir- teenth-century Gothic, when it was new, looked new ; and that it would not have been impressive by reason of historical connections and hoar antiquity to us, if we had seen its first stones laid. So we hear very good modern Gothic virulently abused, not because it is ill-designed or ill-cut, but because it does not produce all the same varied associations of thought which old and historical work necessarily does, whether it be good art or bad. Every builder worth GENERAL. 303 his salt, works for posterity ; others shall enter into his labours, as he has gained his inspiration and his science from those who have gone before. The Slade Professor's "Aratra Pentelici" 1 ought to be read with great attention on this subject, and the beautiful thirteenth engraving carefully studied. Perhaps no other work can give so clear and prompt understanding of the immense power of good drawing, as distinguished from deep cutting. Depth and shadow of relief, the mere vulgar pleasure of seeing white against black, are very unimportant indeed when balanced against power and Tightness of line. The bas-relief is to all in- tents and purposes a light and shade picture ; and it is as wrong to force the pitch of shade, without good reason, in the one as in the other. More- over, time and its stains always act in favour of the artist's light and shade, as the projecting parts get worn white with exposure, and dust accumulates in the hollows. Another and highly important reason for shallow cutting in exterior carvings, is its far greater solidity and the enduring nature of the work. Far too much modern English Gothic bears witness sadly, by its premature decay, to the zealous and misapplied ambition of the workman ; who has honestly wished to do his work thoroughly, or in- dulged vanity in his manual skill, and so under-cut everything to obtain dark shadow (when an outline incised round each object would make it tell quite sufficiently), treating stone as if it were as tough as bronze, to its certain destruction in years or even months. Steady practice of animal-drawing, 1 Prof. Ruskin, Fifth Lecture, pp. 164-175. 304 PRIMITIVE CHURCH ART. where the slightest incisions mark the play of broad surfaces of muscle, would probably be the best discipline to cure the pupil of too constant search for edges and shadows. This book has reached a sufficient length, and the writer is unwilling to encumber it here with remarks on several works of modern artists, which appear to him to give evidence, in various grades of sacred art, of power of high character and degree. 1 But one painting he has been allowed to see, to which the public is now admitted, and which seems to him a work of the gravest import. It is the chief result of five years' labour; — by one of the men strongest to labour in all toiling England. It is Holman Hunt's picture, called " The Shadow of Death." Our Lord rises from toil in the late after- noon, in the carpenter's shop at Nazareth, stretching His arms lightly on each side with a natural gesture of slight fatigue ; and the slant rays of the early sunset, bathing a wonderfully realised landscape of the thymy terraces of the Galilean hill-sides, enter the wide open window, and cast the shadow of the Crucified on the opposite wall. The Virgin-Mother kneels below at an open chest, which contains the presents of the three kings w T ho had come to the brightness of His rising. She may be recalling words of theirs, or thoughts of that time, and asking Him about the fulfilment of His Father's business. We must altogether decline description or criticism of any part of this picture, and most of all of the face with which He looks towards her. But it falls 1 For this he may refer to an essay in the First Series of ".The Church and the Age," pp. 15i, 155. GENEEAL. 305 in with what we have already said 1 to make one observation on this great work : — that, beyond any others with which we are acquainted, it unites in harmonious realism the two great schools or styles of ideal representation of the Son of Man. On both sides of the Alps there has always been the classical or quasi-traditional ideal of Him, which endowed Him with the greatest beauty of face and form which the artist could picture to his invention, or embody by his graphic skill. On the other hand, among Byzantines in the East and German Goths in the West, the ascetic ideal has been followed, which passed from melancholy grace to grimaces of feature and unsightly emacia- tion or convulsion of body. Mr. Holman Hunt's great skill and experience, and a peculiar happi- ness, in this instance, in the selection of his model, have enabled him to produce a face of su- preme beauty and power, and a form alike ascetic and athletic ; where brilliancy of skin and low con- dition of flesh produce all necessary effect of delicacy on the long, grandly- formed and sinewy limbs of the Fairest of all men. To an archasologist the appearance of this picture is an era : what it is to the painter only a skilled painter can tell. Whatever it is or may become to the Christian spectator, this work is the thought and object to which five years' labour has been dedicated by the first painter of sacred subject which this gene- ration has produced. 1 See the chapter on tlie Catacombs, and the Index article on Portraits of the Lord. THE ASCENSION. FROM MS. OP THE MONK RABULA. INDEX HISTORICAL AND EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS Sacrcb %xi in iln ipriimtita Chtrtjj. A and w. Of these symbolic letters the w is always given in the minuscular or " small" form. They are generally ap- pended to the Monogram of Christ, or suspended from the arms of the Cross, whether from the St. Andrew's or decussated symbol, or the later upright or penal Cross. For the first see De Rossi, Inscr. Xo. 776 ; for the latter Bottari, tav. xliv. This is a sixth or seventh century Cross in the Catacomb of St. Pontianus, and is given in photograph of its actual present condition by Parker. These letters are found, with or without the Monogram, on all kinds of works of Chx-istian antiquity ; on sepulchral monuments, especially those of ancient France (see Le Blant's " Monuments Chretiennes de la Gaul," passim); 308 IXDEX OF HISTOEICAL AND on cups (Boldetti, from Callixtine Catacomb, tav. iii. 4, p. 191) ; on rings and sigils (v. Martigny, " Diet, des Ant. Chretiennes," s. v. Anneaux) ; and on coins (Do. Numismatique), immediately after the death of Con- stantine. Their use amounts to a quotation of Rev. xxii. 13, and a confession of faith in Our Lord's assertion of His own Infinity and Divinity. See Prudentius, Hymnus Omn. Hor. 10, Cathemerinon, ix. p. 35, " Corde natus ex parentis ante mundi exordium, Alpha et co cognominatus, Ipse fons et clausula Omnium quce sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt." No doubt the symbol was more common after the outbreak of Arianism ; but it seems pretty clear from the above- mentioned cup in Boldetti, and from the inscription by Victorina to her martyred husband Heraclius (Aringhi, i. 605), that it was used before the First Nicene Council. It will be found (see "Westwood's "Palseographia Sacra") in the Psalter of Athelstan (703) and in the Bible of Alcuin, both in the British Museum. Abel, Cain and See Bosio, III. v., p. 159, on a sarcophagus from the Cemetery of Lucina, and not unfrequently in bas-relief, Bottari, tav. exxxvii. Abel offers the Lamb ; and Cain ears of corn, or a bunch of grapes. The presentation of the Lamb by Abel may doubtless have been an Euchar- istic symbolism in the mind of the artist : whether the grapes are substituted for the corn in the above-quoted picture with the same idea seems doubtful. Abei, in the act of Sacrifice. With Cain, see Bottari, tav. exxxvii. 51, and vol. iii. p. EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 309 41. x See Mosaics of Kavenna, by Parker, and Chap. vii. on the Sacramental Picture in St. Vitale, of Abel and Melchisedech. Abraham. Bottari, tav. xv. Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, also xl. cxi. xxxvii. &c. Most frequently with Isaac, in the interrupted Sacrifice, as in St. Vitale at Ravenna, where the Visit of the Three Angels is also represented. Both Abraham and Isaac are generally clad in tunics ; in Bottari, tav. lix., Abra- ham wears a long tunic, and Isaac the pallium. In tav. clxi. Abraham is clad in high-priest's robes. As might be expected, this is a very frequent subject in the Catacombs : occurring in the earliest and least disputed parts of the Callixtine. It is of course repeated through- out all Christian illustrative art, in all MSS. &c. tfcc. ; and finally, is one of the first pictures of the Ammergau representation. Adam and Eve. Among the earliest subjects of Christian sculpture : on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Bottari,, vi. tav. xv., also on that in taw. xxxi. xxxvii. xl. No. 2. Some- times, as Aringhi, pp. i. 613, 621, 623, the ears of corn, or the mattock, are delivered to Adam, the distaff or lamb to Eve. The motto of Jack Cade, " VThen Adam delved and Eve span," may be connected with mediaeval repetitions of this treatment. The serpent appears in Bottari, taw. xxxi. li. and lxxx. Agape. See chapter on Sacramental Representations. Agnes,' St. See chapter on Mosaics. 1 This seems rather dubious : two young men are offering, one ears of wheat, the other a lamb, to a seated Person, not advanced in years. Another face is dimly seen behind — possibly Adam's,. as Bottari interprets. 310 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND Anchor. A frequent emblem on tombs, conveying tbe idea of rest in hope. De Eossi (" De Monum." IxOvg, p. 18) thinks that it is used as a symbol of the names Elpis, Elpidius, &c. ifec. The mystic fish is often added to it. See Bottari. Its form is constantly associated with that of the Cross. See De Eossi, vol. i. pi. 18, 20. Angels. See Cherub, chapter on Symbolism. The Abbe Martigny admits that few, if any, represen- tations of Angels are to be met with before the fourth century. The genii and winged boys (Aringhi, ii. p. 29, 167), see also Bottari, ii. taw. Ixxiv. and xciii., and the catacombs of St. Prsetextatus, *fec. &c. cannot be thought to have represented the heavenly hierarchy in the mind of their painters or their first spectators. The figures in the fresco in St. Priscilla (D'Agincourt, Peinture, pi. vii. n. 3) may represent the Angel with Tobias : but Mr. Parker's photograph of the present state of the fresco makes this a matter of the merest conjecture. Again (Aringhi, ii. 297) there is a picture of a wingless Angel of the Annunciation. In Sta. Maria Maggiore (fifth century), and in St. Vitale at Eavcnna in the sixth, the Three Angels are appearing to Abraham. From early times of Neo-Eoman or Byzantine art, two Angels supporting a medallion have been a symbol of the special presence of the First Person of the Trinity. This is the case in St. Vitale, and also in the well-known diptych of Eambona, representing the Crucifixion. See Gori, " Thesaurus Diptychorum." Angels wear the pal- lium, and are often represented as of gigantic stature, like the Apostles. This simple distinction between mortal and supernatural presences extends into the Byzantine and even Gothic art of Venice. Euskin, " Stones of EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 311 Venice," vol. iii. p. 78. " Aratra Pentelici," p. 75, and plate. Annunciation. Found in the Cemetery of St. Priscilla, Bottari, tav. clxxvi., and in the fifth-century mosaics of Sta. Maria Maggiore, on the Arch of Triumph. Ciampini, "Vetera Monu- menta," vol. i. tab. ii. p. 200. D'Agincourt gives a sixth-century miniature from the Laurentian Library at Florence. Peinture, pi. xxvii. No. 2. In a diptych published by Bugati, a tradition is repeated, which is familiar to most visitors to Nazaretb, where the Well of the Virgin is named in accordance with it. It is that the Annunciation took place, not in the house of the Virgin, but when she had gone forth to draw water. Apocalypse. See chapter on Mosaics, and Bio, "L'Art Chretienne," Introd. p. xliv. Apostles. In the earliest Church-art the Apostles may be said to be represented without personal distinction or character- istics. SS. Peter and Paul are the first to be specially designated, the first in particular by his keys. Martigny names two examples which he places in the fourth century ; one of these is in Bottari, tav. xxi. 5 ; for the other he refers to Perret's plates, vol. i. p. 7. Tbe date of both is somewhat uncertain, as the drawings are virtually restorations, and the unhappy removal of the sarcophagi from their places in tbe cemeteries makes their real period matter of the vaguest conjecture (see chapter on Catacombs, &c.) On a vase of uncertain date (Bottari, i. 185), St. Peter is receiving one key from our Lord. He is apparently presenting them before the Lamb in the mosaic of Sta. Maria in Cosmedin at Ravenna. 312 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND The Apostles are frequently symbolized as twelve doves or sheep, often representing the Church of believers (with reference also to Luke x. 3 : "I send you forth as lambs among wolves.") See Ciampini, " Yet. Mon." vol. ii. tav. xxiv. for the great mosaic of St. Apollinaris ; and Parker's photograph for those of SS. Cosmas and Damiau and St. Prassede at Rome. The same is repeated on various sarcophagi (Bottari, tav. xxviii. 22 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND in his hands ; Jonah is being thrown from a boat into the sea next him. This is one of the most frequent of all symbolic works in the Catacombs, no doubt on account of the Lord's own comparison of Himself to the Prophet. For representations in the Catacomb of Callixtus and elsewhere, see De Rossi and Bottari, passim. The ship " covered with the waves," is represented in Martigny, from a fresco lately discovered in St. Callixtus. A man stands in the waist, or near the stern, of a sharp-prowed vessel with a square sail, such as are used in the Medi- terranean to this day. The waters are dashing over her close to him, and he is in an attitude of prayer ; far off is a drowning man who has made shipwreck of the faith. The vessel in full sail (Boldetti, pp. 360, 362, 373) is also common as the emblem of safe-conduct through the waves of this troublesome world ; that with sails furled, as quietly in port resting after her voyage (as in Boldetti, pp. 363, 366), is the symbol of the repose of individual Christians in death. An even more interesting symbol- ism is where not only the ship is painted as analogous to the Church, but the actual fabric of a Church is made like a ship. This was the case with some of the early Romanesque churches, where the apse which completed the basilica had the bishop's throne placed in the centre, as the steersman's place, with semicircular benches below for the clergy ; so that a real and touching resemblance followed. See the memorable passage in Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," vol. ii., on the ancient churches of Torcello, the mother-city of Venice, and a passage in the Apostolical Constitutions (ii. 57) l to the same effect, — the bishop being likened to the steersman, and the deacons to seamen. " First, let the building he 1 Kal irpSirov (x.tv & oIkos o iiri/xrfK7]s, Kar' dvaro\as rerpanfitvos . . . ScrTii eoi/ce vt)1. KiiaOw 8e /iteVoy 6 rov eiriaKSwov 6p6vos nap' c-Karepa 8e avTov KaQf£t rh irpeofivTipiov, na\ ol StaKovot irapia- jaftwaav . . . eot/carrj yap vaurais na\ toix&PX ois - EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 323 turned lengthways to the East, 1 ... it is like a ship. And let the bishop's throne be set in the midst ; and on each side of him, let the presbytery be seated : and let the deacons stand beside : for they are like to sailors and their petty-officers." 2 The ship placed on the back of a fish is found in a signet illustrated by Aleandre (" Nav. Eccle3. referent. Symb." Eomse, 1626 ; see also s. v. Fish). A jasper given by Cardinal Borgia ("De Cruce Velitern." p. 213 and frontispiece) places the Lord in a galley of six oars on a side, holding the large steering oar. This rudder-oar — or rather two of them — are inserted in the rudest ship-carvings, where other oars were omitted. Cock. Representations of this bird occur frequently on tombs from the earliest period. When not associated with the figure of St. Peter, as Bottari, tav. lxxxiv., or placed on a pillar, as Boldetti, p. 360 ; Bottari, taw. xxxiv. xxiii. «fcc, it appears to be a symbol of the Resurrection, our Lord being supposed by the early Church to have broken from the grave at the early cock-crowing. A peculiar awe seems always to have attached to that hour, at which all wandering spirits have through the Middle Ages been supposed to vanish from the earth. " Hamlet," and the ancient ballad, called " The Wife of Usher's Well," occur to us as salient examples of a universal superstition. Prudentius' hymn, "Ad Galli Cantum " ("Cathem." i. 16), adopts the idea of the cock-crowing as a call to the general judgment ("Nostri figura est judicis"), and further on (45 seqq.) he says : — ' ' Hoc esse signum prsescii Noverant promissse spei Qua nos sopore liberi Speramus adventum Dei." Or, " somewhat long-shaped and turned to the East." a Toi'xapx oy ) the boatswain, who gave orders to the " wall," or bank of oars on each side. 324 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND And again, 65 seqq.: — " hide est, quod omnes credimus I Ho quietis tempore, Quo gallus exultans canit, Christus redisse ex inferis." See Aringhi, vol. ii. pp. 328-9, for a complete list of animal symbols. Fighting-cocks (see the passage last quoted) seem to symbolize the combat with secular or sensual temptations. The practice of training them for combat has probably always existed in the East, and certainly was in favour at Athens (cf. Aristoph., Av. alpt Trkrj^Tpov, el /ja\et). For a symbol drawn from such a pastime, compare St. Paul's use of the word vTruiridZw (1 Cor. ix. 27). See Bottari, tav. cxxxvii. Two cock9 accompany the Good Shepherd in Bottari, tav. clxxii. (from the tympanum of an arch in the cemetery of St. Agnes). Corn, ears of. Corn is not so often used in early Christian art as might be supposed. (Bread, Loaves, &lc.) The thoughts of early iconographers seem to have gone always to the Bread of Life with sacramental allusion ; as Bottari, tav. clxiii. vol. iii. et alibi. In Bottari, vol. i. tav. xlviii., the corn and reaper are represented in a compartment of a vault in the cemetery of Pontianus. Again, in vol. ii. tav. lv. the harvest corn is opposed to the vine and cornucopia of fruit (Callixtine Catacomb). The more evidently religious use of the ears of corn is in various representations of the Fall of Man. On the Sarco- phagus of Junius Bassus (supp. a.d. 358), Bottari, vol. i. tav. xv. 9, Adam and Eve are carved ; the former bearing the corn, in token of his labour on the earth (see Bread). Cnoss. See text. EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 325 Crucifix and Representations of the Crucifixion. See text. Daniel in the Lion's Den. One of the most common as well as the most interesting subjects of the earliest art. Like the deliverance of the three children in the Furnace, it is evidently chosen in times of persecution and suffering for the Truth. It is found in the earliest frescoes in the Callixtine Catacomb, and on most of the sarcophagi. See Bottari, passim. Daniel is generally placed between two lions, and some- times he is receiving food from the prophet Habbacuc, as in a curious sarcophagus at Brescia, of which Dr. Appel gives a woodcut: in another (Bottari, tav. xix.) he is represented in the act of administering the balls of pitch and hair to the Dragon, according to the narrative of the Apocrypha. Death, symbolically represented either by birds, denoting the deliverance of the soul from evil (see Bird), or by a vessel with furled sails (see Ship), or by an unyoked chariot (see s. v. Car). The skeleton forms of death are unknown to primitive Christian art ; but the wreaths and ornaments of flowers on the early tombs were willingly adopted from Gentile decoration. The skulls and worms in the Judgment of Torcello, eighth or eleventh century, are the earliest examples of the terrors of death. With Giotto's crowned skeleton at A—isi, and the Triumph of Death by Orgagna at Pisa, a whole pictorial course of ascetic exhortation begins, which took a new form with Holbein and the transalpine Dances of Death or the Dead, Danses Macabres, &c, &c. See Text, Chapter X. Doctors, dispute with. See Bottari, tav. xv. Tomb of Junius Bassus, a.d. 358, and taw. xxx. and liv. from the Callixtine Catacomb. Also taw. cxlvi. clxxviii. 326 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND Our Lord is generally represented as seated on a cathedra in the centre • in the Callixtine pictures with rolls or books at His feet. On the sarcophagi, the figure raising its veil, and representing the firmament, is at His feet. Dolium or Cask. See Boldetti, pp. 164, 368. Bottari, tav. Ixxxiv., ci:nts. the Holy ; Massacre of. Represented in the mosaics of Sta. Maria Maggiore, and in two ivories, one of which (from a diptych in the Cathe- dral of Milan) is given by Martigny, sub verbo. Also on a Sarcophagus at St. Maximin, South of France. Issuk of Klood. The cure of the woman thus afflicted is repeated on many Sarcophagi. See Bottari, taw. xix. xxi. xxxiv. xxxix. xli. lxxxiv. lxxxv. lxxxix. cxxxv. She has been taken to repre- sent the Gentile Church, specially by St. Ambrose (Lib. Q 3 346 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND ii. in Luc. c. viii.). She is of small stature in the carvings, like the other subjects of our Lord's miraculous cures. In Euseb. "Ec. Hist."vii. 18, mention is made of the bronze statue of our Lord, supposed to have existed at Ca^sarea Philippi, Dan (or Baneas at this day), attributed to this woman, who was represented kneeling at its feet. Jerusalem. (See Bethlehem and House.) Jesus Christ, Representations of. See chapters on Cata- combs, Mosaics, the Monogram, Cross, and Crucifix. Job. Pictures of Job occur in the cemeteries of Domitilla, St. Callixtus, and SS. Marcellinus and Peter " inter dims lauros." They are attributed to the third century, but a certain uncertainty hangs over these paintings. However, their antiquity is confirmed by a carving of Job (on the dunghill or heap of ashes, with his wife and one of his friends), on the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a.d. 359. This is of high merit, like the rest of the tomb. It insists on the painful and offensive suffering of the Patriarch ; his wife is covering her nose and lips with her garment, while she offers him a pain's decussatus, or cross-cake, at the end of a stick. Tins is Martigny's conjecture, fully borne out by the sculp- ture, and far more satisfactory than Pere Garrucci's (" Hagioglypt." p. 69, note) that she is preparing to beat her husband witb her distaff. Jonah. Is represented, passim, in the Catacombs and on the Sarcophagi. He is either cast into the sea, or ejected by the Whale on the shores of Joppa, or reclining under his gourd. Aringhi, i. p. 315, ii. 143, i. 533, ii. 5i), Ac. EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 347 Botfari, tav. xlii. lvi. As a parable or figure con- cerning Himself, from our Lord's mouth, the greatest reverence must always have been felt for this subjeet, and it is repeated constantly, in consequence, espe- cially in the earliest times, as His solemn promise of the Resurrection. St. Augustine (Ep. ad Deo gratias qmest. vi. De Jona) carries the typical resemblance much fur- ther, and affords a most ingenious and harmless, though perhaps not perfectly satisfactory, example of comment, out-running the words of our Lord, instead of contem- plating them. "Christ," he says, " passed from the Wood of the Cross, as Jonah from the ship, to the whale (or power of Death) ; the endangered crew are the human race battered by the tempests of the world — and as Jonah preached to Nineveh after his return to life, so the Gentile Church only heard the Lord's word after His Resurrection." The fresco at Bott. tav. lvi. from St. Callixtus is perhaps the best typical representation of this subject. For the Whale, or Fish, all manner of draconic, hippo- campic and other forms are assigned it, which are not very important to our purpose; nor yet is the controversy as to whether the Hedera of St. Jerome, or the Cucur- bita of the Vulgate, be the proper term for the plant which overshadowed him. The early Church painters seem to have adhered to the later idea of it. JORDAN. (See chapter on Sacramental Emblems.) The Jordan is often personified as a River-God, as in Bottari, tav. xxvii. with Elias ; in the Baptisteries of Ravenna, on the Borghese sarcophagus at the Louvre, and in various early MSS., particularly that of St. Mark's Library at Venice. Its violent windings are generally dwelt on, and sometimes two of its sources, named according to the fanciful etymology of its name 348 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND (Jor or Gh6r? and Dan) are inserted. The four Evangelical Rivers sometimes unite in the Baptismal •Jordan, as below the Lateran Cross. (Woodcut, p. 192, and pp. 153 and 207.) Jordan, as River God. Represented, Bottari, tav. xxix. from a sarcophagus from the Vatican Cemetery, in an Ascension of Elijah. Also in various Baptisms of Our Lord, as in the Baptisteries at Ravenna. Joseph, Saint. Appears in the Nativity, the Adoration of the Shepherds and of the Magi, and in the discovery of Our Lord in the Temple, Bottari, taw. lxxxv. and xxii. Joseph, the Patriarch. As a typical person standing for the God Man, rejected and sold by his brethren to the Gentiles for thirty pieces of silver, we might expect that Joseph would be more frequently represented in early art than he is. But he is hardly seen on mural decoration or on the Sarcophagi. There is a painting given by D'Agincourt (Atlas, pi. 19. Peinture) from a MS. in the Imperial Library at Vienna, which seems to represent the Blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh. Another dubious fresco (Bottari, tav. Mi.) from the Callixtine Catacombs is considered by him and Aringhi to represent the funeral of Jacob. The ivory chair in the Duomo at Ravenna contains events of Joseph's history ; but it is not till the Mosaics of the Atrium of St. Mark's at Venice that it is fully dwelt on. Judgment, Last. It may also be said that representations of this tremendous subject hardly belong to early Christian art, that is to EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 349 say, to that period of Christian art which ends with the death of Charlemagne. The great mosaic of the Duomo at Torcello, the mother-city of Venice, still exists ; and if (as is Mr. Ruskin's opinion, agreeing with that of the Marchese Selvatico) the present Duomo is identical with the earliest building in 641, the mosaic cannot be considered of much later date. It was in that year that Altinum was finally destroyed in the Lombard invasion ; the first flight to the Lagoons having been from Attila in the tilth century. (Appen- dix 4 to vol. ii. of " Stones of Venice.") The original Duomo of Torcello was restored in 1108 ; and certain carvings appear to have been altered, as also the pulpit and chancel screen j but the mosaics are supposed to form part of the Church as first built. That of the Last Judgment is quite an anticipation of the conceptions of Giotto and Orgagna, the latter of whom certainly gave an inspiration, by his works in the Campo Santo at Pisa, to Michael Angelo for his Sistine frescoes. The Torcellese mosaic is of the rudest, yet most forcible, description. Skulls are in the foreground with worms issuing from the eyes, enforcing the victory of Death over our flesh ; and there is this peculiarity about the conception of the Everlasting Fire, that it is not re- presented as a conflagration, or monstrous prison-house, as in other works, but as a red stream issuing from beneath the Throne of God. This work is perhaps the earliest known pictorial imagination of the Judgment. If it be of the early twelfth century, it is of course posterior to the celebrated painting of Methodius for Bogoris of Bulgaria, 853-861. This would seem to have been a direction of art untried before; as the King's taste for pictures of battles, and other exciting subjects, is said to have given the painter-apostle of Bohemia the idea of representing the puuishment of the 350 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND wicked to him. Whatever we may think of the direc- tion thus given to sacred art, there is no duuht it has heen followed too eagerly, and with deplorable result. And it is remarkable that the first paintings of this nature, entirely different in spirit from the peaceful works of praise, faith, and rejoicing found in the Catacombs, should be found at the corner of Europe, where Eastern theology, and asceticism, found their first and strongest bearing on the animal fierceness of the Teutonic races. The monk's indifference to suffering and the Gothic recklessness of infliction seem united in many Last Judgments. (See Orgagna's Triumph of Death, Inferno, &c. in Kiigler, and Lasinio's Campo Santo of Pisa, and elsewhere ; also Lecky's " History of Rationalism," ch. iii. ^Esthetic Social, and Moral Developments, &c.) The present writer remembers no representation of the Last Judg- ment at Mount Sinai, and the one or two at Mar Saba seem of late date. There are many at Mount Athos, but Mr. Tozer considers them entirely out of our period. A heathen painting of Judgment or Presentation of the Soul after death to the Lower Powers has been found in the Catacomb of St. Prsetextatus. See Perret, i. 73. Diespiter and Mercurius Nuntius are named in it, as also Alcestis. See also the " Inductio Vibies" in the Gnostic Catacomb, which certainly represents the Presentation of the buried Vivia to some assembled Divinities. Lamb. As the sheep accompanying the Good Shepherd, and the doves, stand for human members of the Church, so the Lamb is the emblem of the Lord submitting to death for man ; the victim "Whom every Paschal sacrifice prefigured. In this sense it occurs most frequently EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 351 in Sarcophagi and mosaics after the time of Constantine. It was not, perhaps, till the triumph of the Cross under Constantine, when the upright or penal Cross had taken the place of the decussated symbol (which really was the Monogram, or name of Christ) — that the Lamb, as the victim of the Cross, came to be an object of constant contemplation ; and its image was frequently combined with the Cross. See chapter on the Cross ; also Ciampini, de Sacr, ./Ed if. tab. xiii. where the Lamb is represented "as it were slain" bearing the nimbus, and with the chalice receiving His blood. This begins as early as the first part of the sixth century, and about this time the Lamb is placed in a medallion at the inter- section of the limbs of crosses, as the celebrated Vatican Cross. See Borgia, de Cruce Vaticano. On the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus. or rather on its pillars, there is a most curious sculpture of the symbolic Lamb performing miracles and acts, mystically selected from the Old and Xew Testament. He is striking water from the Rock, multiplying the Loaves, adminis- tering baptism to another Lamb, touching a mummy with a wand, as Lazarus, and receiving the Tables of the Law. As accompanying representations of the Fall of Man, see Adam and Eve. The Apocalyptic Lamb occurs frequently in the great mosaics of Home and Ravenna, in St. Frassede for example (see chapter on Mosaics), and in the Sarcophagi of the chapel of Galla Placidia. Lazarus, Raising of. This great miracle, amounting to anticipation of Our Lord's final Triumph over Death, is one of those most frequently represented in all kinds of Christian art, alike in sculp- ture, mosaic and fresco painting. Metallic or ivory images were fastened to the outer doors or lids of tombs 352 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND with actual or symbolical representations of it (Boldetti, "Cirnit. di Santi Morr. et antichi Christ, di Roma," p. 523.) Lazai'us is generally represented as a small figure swathed in linen, exactly like a mummy ; as in the re- presentations of other miracles the human figures present are often made much smaller than that of Our Lord, Who sometimes touches Lazarus with a wand, some- times (Bottari, tav. xxviii. 42) holds a volume, or blesses him with the Latin benediction (two fingers raised), Aringhi, ii. 121; sometimes the hand is laid on the head, Aringhi, ii. 183. In this as in many of the earliest representations of the Crucifixion, the sepulchre is represented as a small house ; sometimes it is hollowed in natural rock, Aringhi, ii. 331. In several instances, Aringhi, i. and 335, 323, 423, Bottari, tav. xlii. Martha with Mary, or one of them alone is present ; generally kneeling before the Lord, and of small stature. The idea of a Chrysalis, Aringhi, i. 565, is supposed by Martigny to be attached to one of these representations (in a cubiculum of the Callixtine). The allusion to the Resurrection is obvious, as the little mummy-figure recalls that of an infant in swaddling clothes. Moses and the Rock are frequently opposed to this miracle on Sarcophagi. Letters on Apostolic Ronrcs. In some of the Roman mosaics of Byzantine type, and particularly in the Baptisteries of Ravenna, it will be observed that letters are placed on the skirts of the figures of Apostles and Saints. The reason is very doubtful ; the only probable conjecture is Aringhi's, that they involve a reference to Ezekiel, ix. 4. But as the mark there mentioned is set on the foreheads of the mourners for iniquity, the passage cannot be thought an explanation of the symbol. He refers to Origen, EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 353 Serm. 8, De Epiphania; and also to the beginning of Boethius de Consolationc, where the heavenly visitant has the letters P and T on her robe. H, A, N, and Z occur at Ravenna, and T is spoken of by Aringhi as most frequent of all, representing the Cross, " Rum. Sott." ii. 592. The fossor or grave-digger in Bottari, vol. ii. p. 126, certainly bears a Cross on the skirt of his long vestment, though of irregular or disguised form. Lion. The earlier ideas connected with this animal appear to regard principally the nobler qualities generally attri- buted to him. He is taken to symbolize watchfulness, and vigour, or authority in the faith. Until Raffaelle's St. Margaret, he is rarely coupled with the Dragon in art, or made symbolic of the Evil One, as in Ps. x. 9. and xci. 13. See however Gori, " Thes. Diptychorum," vol. ii. His head appears, of course, as an ornamental carving, in all work, Christian and Gentile, Bottari, ii. lxix; Boldetti, 369. As a supporter to columns of ambons (see Ciampini, i. tab. xvii. and many later Lombard carvings) it is to be hoped that he was not needed or used in early times as a hortatory symbol of wakefulness. He appears with Daniel very frequently on the Sarcophagi, and in mosaics as the symbol of St. Mark (see Evangelists). For his form as compounded with other animals, see the description of the Lombard Giitiins in "Modern Painters," vol. iii. p. 106. Liturgical Books, Decoration of. Kvangeliaries or MSS. of the Gospels, with the P.-alters, are stated by Dom Gueranger ("Institutions Liturgiques," 8vo. Le Mans, 1840) to be the earliest examples of ecclesiastical decorative art now in existence. The Rabula or Laurentian MS. is one of the very first (see Miniatures, Crucifix, &c). This work, invaluable in 354 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND every respect, is particularly so in a historical point of view, as a premonitory sign of the divergence of Eastern and Western art. In Eastern MSS. as Professor AVestwood remarks (" Palajographia Sacra," In trod.) the miniatures are of rectangular form let into the text, and unconnected with the writing ; whereas in Western work, miniature-art begins as decorative writing ; and is, in all the best early examples, associated with it and dependent on it. (See s. v. Miniature). The greater number of the richer MSS. are not at very early dates decorated with miniatures, but written altogether on purple or azure vellum in letters of gold. The Evan- geliary of Ulfilas, on purple vellum, and those of Brescia, Verona, and Perugia, are all referred to the sixth century ; as also the Psalters of St. Germain des Pies and Zurich ; these are all in gold or silver writing on purple vellum, though the Psalter last mentioned has faded into a kind of violet tint. Silver- ink MSS. are much rarer than the chrysographs. The MSS. of Ulfilas, of Verona, and Brescia are examples, gold being used for the initials. Other very ancient works still in existence are the Greek Evangel iary of St. John de Carbonara of Naples, now in the Library at Vienna, of the eighth century, the Antiphonary of St. Gregory at Monza, which once belonged to Queen Theodolinda ; one belonging to Charlemagne at Aix- la-Chapelle, and another of his, now at Abbeville. The purple vellum begins to be economized in or before the ninth century, as in Charlemagne's Psalter presented to Adrian VIII. about the end of the eighth (now at Vienna). This MS. has a limited number of purple pages. Evangeliaries of this time are still purple throughout. The use of this colour, however, may be said to go out in the tenth century. There is in the Bodleian a purple vellum MS. of the eleventh century, EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 355 which contains whole-page miniatures. Of chrysographs on white vellum, in gold and silver characters, the Evangeliary of St. Martin des Champs,' of the time of Charlemagne, and that of St. Mtdard of Soissons, are mentioned with great admiration by Gueranger, as also that of the monastery of St. Emmeran, near Ratisboa, now at Munich. Gold writing in great measure dis- appears in the eleventh century, gold backgrounds taking its place. Iu the Western Church, miniature ornament (see s. v.) begins, and runs parallel with splendour of caligraphy, from the eighth century. In the ninth, design begins to prevail, as in the Missale Francorum. The stories of Alfred's being inclined to learn to read by the beauty of an illuminated book, and of Charlemagne's vigorous but unsuccessful attempts to learn the art of caligraphy himself, are in all proba- bility well founded: for the latter, see Egiuhard, "De Vita et Gestis Caroli Magni," cap. 25. " Tentabat et scribere, tabulasque et cudieillos ad hoc in lectulo sub cervicalibus circumferre solebat, ut cum vacuum tempus esset, manum effingendis Uteris assuefaceret. Sed pariini prospere successit labor prueposterus et sero inchoatus." " He used to try to write, and was wont to carry about tablets and pocket-books in his bed, under his pillow, that when he had spare time he might accustom his hand to shaping the letters. But it was vexatious labour, and begun too late, and did not turn out successfully." Desijm and miniature of course be^an with the initial letters. The " Sacramentaire de Gellone," ninth cen- tury, contains a miniature of the Crucifix iu the Canon of the Mass ; the Cross forming the T m tue words Te igitur. In the same MS. the Mass of the Invention 1 The MSS. of St. Medard and St. Martin are beautifully illus- trated iu Count Bastard's first volume. 356 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND of the Cross has in its initial letter the figure of a man squaring a tree-trunk, as if to form the upright stem. The "Leofric" Sacramentary, ninth century, in the Bodleian, has highly ornamented initials in the Canon of the Mass, but is without figures. There are whole-page Illuminations of the Four Evangelists in the Hours of Charlemagne ; and in the Evangel iary of St. Medard, Our Lord sits in the initial of the word Quoniam, with which the Gospel of St. Luke commences. Such are the earliest steps of the transition from caligraphy to painting, and Lange's remark appears a valuable one, that the labours of the later miniaturists or illuminators who worked from nature, gave much originality and confidence to the rising efforts of the fresco or panel painters ; who were very commonly skilled in MS. decoration, as well as iu their special work. So late an example as Angelieo'a may prove how both branches of art went together. A point of interest on this subject is the frequent use of ancient consular diptychs as bindings of service-books, &c. The "Diptychon Leodiense " of the Consul Flavins Astyrius was made into one of the side covers of an Evangeliary ; so also that of Flavius Taurus Clementinus, now at Nuremberg. But the most in- teresting of these adaptations occurs in the well-known Antiphonary of Monza, where the two consular figures of the fifth century have been altered into represen- tations of David and Gregory the Great, by means of cutting the names in the ivory. A tonsure has also been pratique, as Gueranger calls it, on the head of the consul who represents the Pope. See Gori, "Thes. Diptych.," t. ii. tav. vi. A grotesque Eagle of the early ninth century at the end of this book is traced from Count Bastard's second volume. See Miniatures. EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 357 Lyre. A symbol of the human body and physical frame, to he kept in harmony with the precepts and duties of the Faith. The Lyre of Orpheus (Aringhi, ii. 562) is likened to the Cross of Christ, as "drawing all men unto Him." See article Calf. The lyre is of course in the hands of Orpheus and, as an ornament adopted from common use, is often, perhaps, without meaning 1 . Bottari gives many different forms of the instrument. Magi. The representation of the Three Sages or Kings of the East, who were led to the presence of the Sayiour soon after His birth, is very commonly found in fresco and on the sarcophagi. It was evidently felt to be an assertion alike of the Divinity of Our Lord, and of His Incarnation; and it introduced the Virgin Mother in the most impressive manner, without setting her forth with Divine attributes as a Receiver of Prayer. As an Epiphany also, or manifestation of the object of their Faith to the Gentile Church in particular, it must also have claimed attention from the first. The pictures and carvings greatly resemble each other and are described in the chapter on the Catacombs. See Bottari, pxssim, especially tav. lxxxii, where the Magi wear boots and spurs, and exxxiii. &c. where they lead their horses. They almost always wear the Phrygian cap and ana- xyrides, or leggings, or Roman caligse ; and are com- monly of youthful appearance. Martigny refers to Perret, vol. ii. pi. 48, for their appearance before Herod, from a fresco in St. Agnes : on a Sarcophagus given by Millin ("Midi de la France," pi. 70), and on the gates of St. Zenone they are observing the star. The great pro- cession of Holy Women in St. Apollinare Nuova at Ravenna ends at the altar-end of the church with an 358 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND adoration of the Magi, evidently intended to introduce the Blessed Virgin, as Mother of the Lord, and blessed among women on the female side of the Church. Milk or Milkpail. Often represented in the Callixtine Catacomb in connection with the Eucharist. Bosio, p. 249 : third Cubiculum of St. Callixtus ; also in De Rossi, "Roma Sotteranea," with apparent allusion to the Good Shepherd, and the pastoral life of the ministry. Miniatures. This term, in its modern sense, signifies only portrait painting on ivory, or on a small scale. It is derived from minium or red lead, the pigment universally made use of, in the earliest days of ornamental writing, in order to decorate the capital letters, titles, and margins of various MSS. This is a parallel etymology to the word Rubric ; as the service-books, which employed the attention of the most skilful copyists, were generally must freely ornamented. The use of this term indicates the principle, long sustained in the best illuminations, that the pictures they contained were to be considered only as ornamental adjuncts to the writing, by no means as earnest attempts to represent real scenes or things. The beautiful work of Count Bastard contains every necessary gradation of examples of the progress made in the first eight centuries, from simple writing in red letters, with dotted borders or strokes, — to ornamented letters, — then to letters composed of natural objects, or grotesques of them, — finally to completed pictures of persons or things. The term miniature also serves to distinguish two classes of the most ancient MSS., those in which colour is used for the ground of the page, and those in which the letters and ornaments are in metallic EMBLEMATIC SUBJECTS. 350 or coloured relief on a white page. For some of the earliest service books on purple or azure vellum, see Art. Liturgical Books, and Dom Gueranger 's work on Liturgies. The Chrysograph of St. Medard of Soissons in the Biblio- theque Nationale, a purple MS. of extreme beauty, is mentioned by Gueranger as containing architectural drawings of great interest, affording much information on Byzantine buildings, and displaying curious feelings after perspective. This Evangeliary contains, as he says, various "gracieux et etonnants edifices." The "Menologe de Basile" he says, is the store-house of examples of Byzantine architecture, resembling the buildings found in some of the earliest Italian paintings, as in Giunto's of Pisa at Assisi (in the lower Church of St. Francis). The necessity for arrangement in columns, in Liturgical books, gave great occasion for the use of architectural forms in decoration. These will be found in Count Bastard's work, passim, and in the MS. of Rabula ; for a full account of which see Dom Gueranger, " Instit. Liturgiques," vol. iii. Appendix. A beautiful copy in colour of the Miracle of Bethesda in this MS. will be found in Professor Westwood's " Palaeographia Sacra." The division of subjects by columns and arches, Arc. may be connected with the carvings on ancient Sarco- phagi ; see Bottari, passim. The strict distinction between the terms miniature and illumination seems to be that the latter word applies to the earliest realist miniatures, or representations of natural objects. It cannot indeed be denied that the Eastern Church used actual picture miniatures, or re- presentations of events, from a far earlier date than the "Western, as the Laurentian MS. abundantly proves. The Illuminators (enlumineurs) and their system of realist decoration date from the ninth century. Their 360 INDEX OF HISTORICAL AND subjects for ornament were not confined to flowers, fruits, leaves, insects,