Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/373

CATACOMBS. of catacomb frescoes that seemed to support Catholic dogmas. Sehultze has been the most vigorous of the Protestant arthie(>k>gists. How- ever, the general unprejudiced consensus of opin- ion is in favor of De Rossi's views. Since his deatli little has been done, but the recently or- ganized conventions of Christian archæology have reawakened interest, excavations are being re- newed, and the patient and original investiga- tions of Vil|x'rt promise a new advance, when we shall possess a work in which the catacomb frescoes will be reproduced in photographic plates for the first time. The decorative art of the catacombs is confined to the cliambers where the most distinguished persons received burial ; the long galleries, or ambulacra, where the masses were buried re- mained perfectly plain, with straight sides and arched or pointed roof, roughly hewn. The burial cavity, the locus or loculus, was closed with a tabrlla, or slab, on which was cut the tHulus, or funerary inscription, usually accom- panied by one or more emblems, or even figures. To it were also attached a variety of objects in the shape of oft'erings, such as terracotta lamps, that were kept burning on anniversaries, as well as glass vases or bottles, medals, coins, etc. At inter-als a shaft was cut connecting the gallerj- with the surface, and letting in light and air. They were called himinaria. and were funnel-shaped. They were also used for extract- ing the material excavated from a gallery, and for letting down sarcophagi. The chambers open- ing at intervals from the galleries were either the smaller cubicula, which were private burial rooms for families or associations, or the larger cryplcE, used for religious services and for the burial of great personages and martyrs. These crypt-s were provided with altars and seats, and were often double, so as to provide for the sepa- ration of the sexes. Tfere are to be found the majority of the grafpti, scratched by pious pil- grims; here are the monumental inscriptions, and the pious desecration of earlier tombs to bury others near the martyr. The small catacombs in their primitive arrange- ments can be studied in those of Domitilla (near the entrance), of Priseilla. the Ostrian, and that of Lucinda, in the Calixtus group: to these must be compared the two superb halls of the catacombs of Saint Januarius at Xaples. They date almost certainly from the close of the First Century, from the generation after the Apostles, and here some of the earliest converts were buried. In the Second Century eomes the rich catacomb of Prcetextatus, with its superb andju- lacrum, and three others that are not yet ex- plored. This is, from the purely artistic point of view, the Golden Age. The frescoes in the catacomb of Domitilla are the most artistic yet found; the motif of the vine with Cupids gath- ering the vintage, which aftenvards becomes stiff and geometric in its composition, is here free and gracefully naturalistic. The same decorative feeling is shown in some landscapes in the same chand)ers. There is a flavor of tho Augustan .ge. The paintings that have a more definite religious character are also treated with naturalism — pastoral scenes of fishing and shep- herding, sjTnbolie of baptism and redemption ; Xoah and Daniel, both types of saved souls: two figtires at a banquet of loaves and fishes, either of cucharistic significance or representing the joys of Paradise. The crypt of Lueina has the most beautifvd and wellpre.sered of painted crypt ceilings, which reminds one of such pagan ceilings as those of the baths of Titus. It has a graceful, symmetrical arrangement of com- [)artments with single iigures. Were it not for well-poised figures of the Good Sheplicrd and the Dnins in the spandrels, and of Daniel in the centre, the rest of the decoratitm, with its Hying genii, heads of the Seasons, doves, vases, fruits, and llowcrs. might very well belong to some pa- gan tomb of the Via Latina. Almost as charming is another ceiling of the same character in the cataxiomb of Calixtus, with a decorative frame of concentric circles and spandrel ornaments, within which are peacocks, doves, winged genii, shells, and vases, and with nothing but the Good Sheplicrd in the centre as a proof of Chris- tianity. To understand the reason for the selection of certain themes for the frescoes, it must be re- membered that their object was to commemorate the departed. The key is given in the prayer for the dying of an early liturgy: "Deliver. O Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Enoch and Elijah from the common death, Xoah from the deluge, . . . Job from his torments, . . . Isaac from the sacrifice, . . . Moses from the hand of Pharaoh, . . . Daniel from the den of lions, . . . the three youths from the fiery furnace," etc., to which other prayers add the examples of Tobit and .lonah. These are precisely the themes from the Old Testament most commonly depicted in the fres- coes, always with this symbolic meaning. The portrait of the deceased is very .seldom given, either in painting or in outline on the slab, because it did not harmonize with the stress laid by Christian sentiment upon the future life. It was the soul, not the body, of the defimct that was, therefore, typified in different forms. The female figure, with both hands raised in prayer, is the main symbol both of the individual soul and of the whole body of believers — the Church. She is called the Oraiis {orare, to pray). The companion figure to the Oraus is Clirist as the Good Shepherd. These two — the Saviour and the saved, the Shepherd and the sheep — are substantially the whole of the sig- nificant part of earliest Christian imagery, as we see it on the ceiling of the crypt of Luciiia. But the soul was also represented in other obvious ways — as a lamb, mainly emblematic of the elect on earth, not in heaven; as a dove, the soul in heaven; as a fish, in the image of Christ, the divine fish, who is called the Fish of the Ijiving. In almost every such symbol the meaning is com- plex, and with subtle but simple transitions. Thus, the dove is : ( 1 ) The emblem of the Iloly Ghost, and as such descends on Christ at baptism, and on the Apostles at Pentecost: (2) the Divine ^Messenger, like the dove of the ark. and as such brings assurances of peace and .salvation to the soul, as in the epitaph of Irene at vSaint Calixtus, where the soul, as an Orans, is receiving an olive branch from a dove; (."?) as the transfig- ured soul after death, palumbus sine fel, in which sense the twelve Apostles are represented as doves. Of all these facets the central idea is that the dove is the vehicle of the spirit, whether sent from God or returning to God. Two of these separate meanings are combined in some compositions, where in Xoali's ark, rep-