The small catacombs in their primitive arrange ments can be studied in those of Domitilla (near the entrance). of Priscilla, 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 Naples. 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 comes the rich catacomb of Prmtextatus. with its superb ambu Incrum, 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 afterwards becomes stiff and geometric in its composition, is here free and gracefully naturalistic. The same decorative feeling is shown 'in some landscape.; in the same chambers. There is a flavor of the Augustan Age. The paintings that have a more definite religious character are also treated with naturalism—pastoral scenes of fishing and shep herding, symbolic of baptism and redemption; Noah and Daniel. both types of saved souls; two figures :it a banquet of loaves and fishes. either of eucharistic significance or representing the joys of Paradise. The crypt of Lueina has the most beautiful and well-preserved 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 partments with single figures. Were it not for well-poised figures of the Good Shepherd and the ()runs in the spandrels, and of Daniel in the the rest of the decoration, with its flying genii, heads of the Seasons, doves, vases, fruits, and dowers, 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 catacomb 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 Gond Shepherd 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 fur the dying of an early liturgy: "Deliver, 0 Lord, the soul of thy servant, as thou deliveredst Enoch and Elijah from the common death, . . . Noah 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 Jonah. 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 defunct 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 Orans (orure, to pray). The companion figure to the Oruns is Christ 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 Lucina. But the soul was also represented in other obvious ways—as a iamb, 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 Living. In almost every such symbol the meaning is com plex, and with subtle but simple transitions. Thus, the dove is: ( ) The emblem of the 'Holy 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 Saha Calixtus, where the soul, as an Orans, is receiving an olive branch from a dove; (3) 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 are combined in some compositions, where in Noah's ark, rep• resenting the Church, stands, not Noah, but the soul of the deceased, toward which the dove is flying with the olive branch. Another series of is that embodying the cardinal Christian beliefs—the anchor is hope and the cross; the fish is the divine food and Christ, as well as the believer: the peacocks are immortality; the phm nix is resurrection; Movers are paradise. The regeneration by baptism and by partaking of the Eucharist are also themes represented from first to last, beginning in the cham ber of the Catacomb of Domitilla.
The sepulchral inscriptions or epitaphs dis covered in the catacombs ladling to every stage of their history and to every variety of technique. Some arc beautifully engraved, others irregular ly; some are scratched rather than cut on the marble slab; some of the earliest are not cut, but painted in red or Mack; while others are traced on the fresh mortar. At times the front of the locus is closed by a single inscribed slab, and the lettering, is inclosed in a frame; at times the tubella is made up of two or three pieces, or is even of terra-cotta. It is extremely interest ing to note that the majority of the earliest in scriptions, befitre the middle of the Third Cen tury, are not in Latin, but in Greek—a sign of the preponderance of Greeks among the early converts, and of Greek as the sacred tongue. The earliest are the simplest; they also are least often dated. Often the bare names of the de ceased are given. without mention of age, day of death, or the relative who set up the memorial —facts that are very common in the Third and Fourth centuries. Very usual, in these earliest cases, are the exclamations of simple faith and prayer, which later go out of fashion. One feels that the early formulas were more personal; the later ground out by an official registry mill. In Northeote's selected specimens (page 33) are examples where the one name stands alone as the whole inscription—llonorata'; or the usual triple name—'C. Munatius Octaviarms'; a sim ple acclamation. "0 Eusebius, mayest thou live." Other acclamations added to the name are: "May God refresh thy spirit;" or "Pray for thy husband:" "Sweet soul, mayest thou live:" "Live in Christ and pray for us." We obtain from these inscriptions the clearest conception of simple Christian faith and eonstancy. The early liturgies, when they say, "Gather them, Lord. in a green pasture, by waters of rest, in a paradise of joy, whence all trouble, all sadness. and sighs are banished," and the like, give a picture of which these inscriptions are the counterpart. and which find a naif illustration in catacomb freseoes which depict the elect in paradise. Such is a fresco in the catacomb of Saint Sote•.