Originally published in St. James's Magazine (W. Kent) vol.2 #7 (Oct 1861).
The evidence to the doctrine and practice of primitive Christianity that has hitherto lain confined (though not indeed concealed) within the gloomy retreats of the Roman catacombs is, perhaps, more telling, from its naïve simplicity, than all the arguments of controversy, or all that collated authorities can convey, towards impressing and convincing. It is, therefore, a signal service rendered to the science of sacred antiquity, truly to be classed among the fasti of the present Pontificate, that has been achieved by Pius IX., in providing for public uses a full abstract from this range of consecrated monuments, classified and specified in the Lateran Palace, where the unique collection was first opened, about five years ago, to be continually receiving additions, and now celebrated among the unrivalled art-treasures of Rome, as the CHRISTIAN MUSEUM. Without the necessity of spending many hours in dark and awful subterraneans, mostly entered at considerable distances, we shall soon be enabled to examine these records of the primitive Churches with the advantages of intelligent interpretation,—thanks to the descriptive catalogue forthcoming from the pen of the Chev. de Rossi, than whom no more efficient guide could be desired for this sphere of archæologic study. But we have still to regret that want of liberality which has hitherto prevented the appointing of public days for this new Museum—just as the base object of "turning a penny" has been allowed to cause the discontinuance of those for gratuitous admissions to the Vatican picture-gallery, since its removal to an upper and much finer suit of rooms.
The Christian Museum is entered on the ground floor from the quadrangular court with porticoes; and we first find ourselves in a long narrow vestibule, where a work of recent production arrests attention—the seated Statue of the Saviour, in attitude of blessing, with outspread arms, distinguished by some dignity, and a just simplicity of treatment, though, altogether, a certain heaviness in style and form may be objected to the figure. More interesting is the collection of casts from reliefs on various sarcophagi, placed here instead of the originals, which it has not been desired to disturb within consecrated walls, the most valuable presenting a series of Christian sculptures, I believe, more complete than any other preserved from its period, or any other before the fourth century, being the adornments of the Sepulchre (date 359) of Junius Bassus, Prefect, and five times Consul, in Rome, buried at St. Peter's, where that splendid mausoleum, now to be seen in one of the corridors of the crypt, near to the confessional (or shrine of the apostle's tomb), had remained for centuries concealed and forgotten, till restored to light, 1595, during the works for constructing the new Basilica. Without the least chronologic order, numerous scriptural subjects are here arranged, on two levels, treated in high relief with a degree of freedom and finish rarely equalled in this primitive phase of Christian art, the historic themes ranging from the sacrifice of Abraham to the earlier acts in the Passion—as the apprehension at Gethsemane, and the scene before Pilate's judgment-seat—but no attempt to introduce the dread consummation, neither the Cross nor Crucifixion being seen.
Most curiously is displayed the devotional idea of the age in the central figure of Christ as a beautiful youth, seated between the standing apostles, SS. Peter and Paul, and resting his feet on the earth, personified in the half-figure of an old man emerging from the ground, with robe floating in semicircular folds over his head. This blending of the mythologic with the scriptural, in various examples supplied by catacomb paintings as well as later sculptures, shows how remote from sterile puritanism, or iconoclastic rigour, was the feeling of the early Church, which, at once actuated by attraction or repulsion, abhorrent of idolatry, yet craving symbolism, seemed ever ready to appropriate the morally beautiful and mystically expressive in Paganism. This manifests itself in the Orpheus playing on his lyre of five chords, to charm the wild beasts into tameness (a picture in the catacombs of SS. Nereo and Achilli), adopted as the favourite Gnostic symbol, but also admitted by the orthodox to personify the virtues and powers emanating from the Redeemer's doctrine or influences; likewise in the frequent representation of the Four Seasons (Autumn usually with her cornucopia), and the naked Genii floating in air on butterfly wings, sometimes rising out of the chalices of flowers, or terminating by metamorphosis of lower limbs, in the garlands or wreathed interlacings of folial arabesques. In treatment, this classical influence is still more frequent and obvious; so that the Jonas Asleep under the Juniper Tree might often be taken for Endymion about to be visited by Diana; the Apostle in flowing toga, for a Greek philosopher; the Madonna, for a Juno or Cybele; whilst the species of beauty given to the youthful Saviour not a little reminds us of the Apollo or Bacchus in many antique reliefs. From another sarcophagus, among the casts in this vestibule, is the group of the Saviour consigning a single key to St. Peter, whilst the woman kneels to touch the hem of his garment for its healing virtues, on the other side; and here we see, in the hand of Our Lord, that sacred monogram of His holy name, which, though first publicly displayed in the Labarum of Constantine, was certainly adopted by the faithful in early ages, and found by Bosio and Aringhi (the great restorers of archæologic studies in reference to the catacombs), on the tombs of martyrs who suffered under Adrian, Alexander, and Antoninus. Buonarotti supposes it to have been used by the Oriental Church before Christianity had yet penetrated into Western Europe; an hypothesis its invariable formation in Greek, never in Latin, letters seems to support.
Leaving the outer room, we pass into the principal hall, or gallery, entirely filled by sarcophagi of marble, and original reliefs taken from such, divided by steps into three different levels, and canopied by a vaulted ceiling painted in the gay eighteenth-century style, so conspicuous in the ornamentation of Roman palaces—an apartment seeming as little appropriate to the grave character of its contents, and about as unlike the locality for a Christian Museum as the great painted chamber of the Vatican Library is unlike a sanctuary for studious pursuits. Here attention is first attracted to the largest and most variously sculptured sarcophagus, placed isolated at one end, removed hither from the crypt of St. Paul's on the Ostian Way, where it was necessary to disturb it for laying the foundations of the great alabaster columns that now support the Baldéchino over the high altar. There it had probably stood ever since the erection of the original church over the apostle's tomb, in the fifth century, by Theodosius, but from the first in an unfinished state, the relief-heads in the central compartment (no doubt portraits of the married pair for whose remains it was destined) merely blocked out in the marble. For the rest, its reliefs, though inferior to those of the Vatican sarcophagus, present one of the most complete successions of the sacred subjects admitted within this range of primitive art; so that, indeed, this one monument might be regarded as an epitome of all the rest. First appears, in the groups on its front, one of those examples rarely ventured, and soon condemned, by the Church, of the personification of the Triune Deity in three human figures, of like aspect and about equal years, each with severe and strongly-marked features and short bushy beard;—the Father seated in the midst; the Holy Spirit standing behind His throne; the Son in front, engaged in the act of giving life to Eve, whose figure emerges from the side of the sleeping Adam; both these last of miniature size compared with the Divine Persons. Again appears the Son; but now with different aspect—youthful and beautiful, as manifest in the flesh, interposing after the Fall, to give to each culprit an emblem of punishment and labour—to Adam, a wheatsheaf; to Eve, a lamb, whose wool was to be wrought in the share of toils assigned to female hands. Next follow the other subjects from the Old and New Testaments, almost invariably included where a complicated series is introduced on any of these sarcophagi. Daniel in the Lion's Den, with the personified Holy Spirit, again represented of venerable aspect, as if to sustain by his presence the inspired martyr; Habacuc carried by the hair of his head, by the angel, with the bread to be his preternatural sustenance in the wilderness; the Adoration of the Magi, with the Holy Spirit again in human form, standing about the chair on which the Mother is seated; the changing of water into wine; the multiplication of loaves and fishes; the raising of Lazarus; the restoring of sight to the blind.
The repetition of these subjects, on other sarcophagi, is so familiar that we need only recapitulate the few others, also common, and evidently prized for their profound meanings by the early Church, to complete the catalogue of sacred themes admitted—namely, Moses striking water from the rock, and receiving the law from Mount Sinai; the sacrifice of Abraham; the story of Jonas; the three Israelites in the fiery furnace, affectingly appropriate (like the oft repeated story of Daniel) to the then circumstances of the Church, or rather to those from which she had recently been emancipated; the Nativity; Christ entering Jerusalem seated on an ass; the apprehension of St. Peter; the betrayal by Judas; Christ before Pilate; and (in fewer instances) the Passage of the Red Sea; also, where no historic grouping is attempted, the Saviour between two or more Apostles; the Good Shepherd, generally dressed in a short tunic and buskins, with a lamb across his shoulders. This selection of subjects strongly evinces the preference for that class of facts and divine promises adapted to convey consoling truth or assurance—redemption, immortality, support under trial, &c.; or to illustrate in every respect the Person and Office of Our Lord, who, it may be said, immediately or typically, is the central figure throughout the entire series, every other being only admitted as subordinate, or for the sake of reference to Him.
We observe, also, a peculiar and oft-repeated lesson conveyed in the juxtaposition of Moses and St. Peter, the one striking the rock, the other usually standing between two Jews, a cock placed here to indicate the moment of his "denial; the aspect given to both Lawgiver and Apostle being actually identical, thus strikingly to imply the relationship of rank and office in the headship over two systems, the Old and New Covenant. Nor could St. Peter's supremacy be otherwise more clearly expressed than by the wand, symbol of authority, placed in his hand as well as in that of Moses, and frequently also in that of Christ, an implement in various acts of miracle-working; the conversion of water into wine, the raising of Lazarus, &c. Near the extremity of this hall stands a sarcophagus, bearing evidence of origin at least later than the conversion of Constantine, in the Labarum, with its holy monogram, guarded by two soldiers, representing that company formed by the first Christian Emperor, expressly to escort and defend the sacred standard; and here is also seen a progressive treatment of the story of the Passion; not, indeed, attempting its last dread scenes, but showing us the Redeemer crowned with thorns by Roman soldiers, and the bearing of the cross to Calvary.
At the end of this hall, on a raised level, is conspicuous the seated statue of St. Hippolytus Bishop of Porto, whose name and writings have been rendered familiar to English readers in a very suggestive work by Bunsen—a noble figure, considered by Winckelmann the finest specimen of Christian sculpture, and probably in date not much posterior to that of the Saint's lifetime. Hippolytus, appointed to the Bishopric of Porto, near Ostia, by Pope Calixtus, though by birth an Oriental, suffered martyrdom, A.D. 230, and was celebrated for his writings, but especially for the Paschal Cycle drawn up by him, and still used by the Church for determining the recurrence of Easter—a computation chiselled on one side of the chair this statue is seated on. Discovered in excavations, near S. Lorenzo, beyond the walls of Rome, a church communicating with extensive catacombs now closed, this sculpture is supposed to have originally stood in those subterraneans (where the Saint was interred) or some oratory connected with them; it had long remained in the Vatican Library, till moved to this Museum for more appropriate location: the head finely characterised by power and thought, with brow lofty and bald, and curling beard; the age represented apparently about fifty; the dress, an ample toga, disposed with dignified simplicity. Two small rooms are appropriated to paintings copied from originals in the catacombs—some historic, some monumental (portraits of the deceased), others purely emblematic. We see here four groups of the Virgin with the Child worshipped by the Magi, who are severally represented as four, three, and only two persons—invariably attired in tunic, wide trousers, and Phrygian cap, their countenances youthful, while the aspect of the Mother is characterised by a matronly and rather severe dignity. The story of Susanna is represented simply by an allegory—a lamb between two wolves, or foxes—but no room is left for doubt as to its subject, thanks to the inscription above—Susanna-Seviores.
The St. Cecilia, in a rich, jewelled dress (we may suppose that of a Roman lady of rank in the third century—more gorgeous than graceful), and Pope St. Urban, near her, are from the chapel of her entombment, in the catacombs of St. Calixtus, re-opened, through the discovery of their site by De Rossi, about six years ago. And from the same subterranean is the large head of Christ—a stern and darkly-complexioned countenance, with the hands introduced (very ill drawn), holding a bound and jewelled book,—this picture supposed, from its barbaric style and ascetic expression, to belong to that epoch when the Byzantine school was beginning to preponderate. Among the emblematic paintings are none so remarkable as those illustrating the Eucharistic doctrine: the Agape, with the usual viands, the fish sailing in water with a large basket of bread on its back; and, more significant still, a male and female, the latter with arms outspread, in attitude of prayer—perhaps a personification of the Church, or the devotional principle—beside a tripod-table, on which is placed the fish, together with loaves marked by a cross—most significantly asserting the mystery in this doctrine by adding to the proper substance of the Sacrament another emblem, the ἰχθους, universally understood to imply the Person and Office of Christ. Of the sixth or seventh century may be considered also the Virgin and Child, the former richly dressed and crowned, copied from one of the archæic frescoes in the recently-opened subterranean church under that of St. Clement, unquestionably one of the earliest places of Christian worship yet preserved intact among all in Rome; but in regard to the precise dates of whose paintings, only analogy can be taken to guide us. From these rooms is entered a larger one, containing several frescoes from the waggon-roofed passage into the basilica of St. Agnese on the Nomantana Way, so much injured that many would be unintelligible but for the familiarity of their subjects, when taken from leading scenes in the legends of the virgin martyr, and further particularized, also, by inscriptions in Gothic letters below; not of an early period, these works display the less felicitous characteristics of the fifteenth century to which one among them is distinctly referred by the date 1456.
Entering the corridor, from the other side, on the first floor of the porticoes carried round the quadrangle, we here find another vast collection of Christian monuments, epigraphs, and sculptured emblems from catacombs and cemeteries, mostly added to this Museum during the last two years. Classified as they appropriately are, each set has its general purport specified in an inscription above, though, indeed, much more is wanted for that elucidation we may hope to find fully in the promised synopsis. First, we notice those from the catacombs of St. Priscilla, epigraphs simply painted in large black letters on brick: obviously the most primitive. Another set, supplying indication of dates with computations by consulates, ides and kalends, range over the periods from A.D. 426 to 557, over each being inscribed its date by the modern mode of reckoning. Another is arranged with a view to the illustrating of dogmas—not, indeed, that all in this series are really of significance in such bearing, many being without doctrinal allusion, direct or indirect; but it struck me that one bore the distinctest assertion of the Godhead of Christ I had ever seen in such early records: Autriculus (with affecting reference to the dead) Deo Christo marturibus. Another compartment is quite unique in its wealth of types and emblems, displaying the delicacy and tenderness of feeling that seem characteristics of the religious mind at this period of primitive faith, far more justly directed, indeed more poetically pure, and less prone to superstitious application, than the symbolism of the Middle Ages. Here we see the whole range of Christian emblems, referring to the Chureh, to the Grave, and to Immortality: the ship sailing towards a lighthouse, on which is a flowing beacon, for that mystical track guided by heavenly truth through the world's tempests; the lamb and peacock, to typify redemption and immortality; the dove for the sanctified souls; and the same, or other birds, standing on the brim of vases, for the soul and fidelity; the bird perched on a vine-branch, pecking at a radiated disk, to represent the soul supported by the sun, or life-giving powers of Truth; figures rising from tombs, stretching out hands to receive the palm or crown from doves, indicate the martyr's reward in another world—those in attitude of prayer between candelabra, the faithful enlightened by the teaching from on high.
Another section is entirely filled with inscriptions to Popes and Priests, with the simple affix EP. (for episcopus), that satisfied the dignity of the bishops of Rome in primitive ages—a calmly severe sative, as we might interpret, on the pompous, worldly-ostentatious style of their successors' mausolea in the modern St. Peter's. Several poetic inscriptions by Pope St. Damasus, either in chiselled copies, or restored originals, occupy another compartment, admirable for the pathetic and grave tenderness with which they refer to the dead—the sorrow lit by faith and hope, that finds its expression in some of these first-fruits of Christian poetry.