as we have just seen, into a support for the doctrine of Purgatory, is the more evident, when it is known that the early Church were in the habit of offering commemorative prayers for all the dead,— Apostles, Prophets, Martyrs, and even for the Virgin Mary, whom no one will affirm to have been submitted to the purifying flames. A prayer to this effect is quoted from the so-called Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, by Basnage. * Sometimes, instead of the ejaculatory prayer, we find some consolatory sentiment, as DAMALIS HIC SIC V·D Here lies Damalis, so God wills. (Boldetti.) Or one of a more Pagan character: EYYYXI CEKOYNAOY AICAOANATOS PHTITANA Be of good cheer, Secunda, no one is immortal. Mabillon† has given a sarcophagus with the words: Θύδεις αθάνατος, θάρσει Ευγενεια, Be confident, Eugenia, no one is immortal. The manner of expressing death was also varied, as in these instances: IN PACE ET BENEDICTIONE SVFSVATI In Peace and Blessing. Suesatis lived thirty years, more or less. He paid [the debt of nature] the eleventh Kalends of February. * Hist. de l'Eglise. liv. 19. chap. 10. †The learned Benedictine has read this epitaph, “None is immortal by boldness or nobility." The inscription to Secunda was first translated by Raoul Rochette. AGATE FILIA DVLCISSIMA QVE VIXIT ANN PM · VIIII ET DLXIII FATVM FECIT PRID. IDVS MART Agate, our sweetest daughter * * * fulfilled her destiny, &c. (Lap. Gall.) The usual Greek form is seen in the next: (Lap. Gall.) ΙΟΥΛΙΑ MAPKIA ΕΝΘΑΔΕ KEITAI Julia Marcia lies here. The principal events which affected the Church of the third and fourth centuries are, as might be expected, scarcely noticed in the Christian cemeteries. If the persecutions have been left unmentioned by the survivors of martyrs, so also has the most striking incident of secular history, the sudden and universal establishment of Christianity over the Roman world. No record of this circumstance can be found in the catacombs, where the Church appears as little elated by triumph, as before depressed by adversity. The increased number of epitaphs after the conversion of Constantine, indicates a sudden spread of Christianity in the metropolis, although the worship of the gods lingered in the pagi or smaller villages: hence is generally derived the term Paganism. Every means short of actual persecution was adopted to erase the ancient superstition; and as the character of the augurs had sunk extremely low, they were summarily abolished by law. Divination 238 OFFICES AND CUSTOMS OF THE CHURCH. was made a capital crime, and the use of lights, frankincense, and garlands in worship was forbidden. The civil privileges of Heathen priests were abolished, and corresponding immunities conferred upon the regular clergy. But the religion of the Cross, in its first plenitude of worldly power, did not forget its heavenly character: the manumission of slaves, as an act of mercy, was the only business permitted on Sundays; and the crime of cursing the Emperor was treated with magnanimous indifference: "If the curse be uttered in levity," decreed Theodosius, "it is to be despised; if in madness, to be pitied; if in malice, to be forgiven.” IMPERIVM-IN-IMPERIO 239 CHAPTER VII. THE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN ART. THE fine arts had not long arrived at maturity in Rome, when they were encountered by a power before which they were destined to be humbled to the dust. Apart from their connection with idolatry, they were themselves an object of adoration to the civilised world: sculpture had long led captive the imagination of men: and those works which even now tempt the Christian to "bow down and worship" the genius, if not the productions, of their authors, were almost universally appreciated. The severely regular drama, the most lofty style of sculpture, whose restoration to the world is the day-dream of the enthusiastic lover of art, were then living elements of society: the villa of Adrian still displays the small theatre where Greek tragedies were intoned before the Emperor and his household and the Antinöus of the same date attests the perfection to which sculpture had attained in the Roman metropolis. Before many years, the empire of imagination passed away: and the genius of art, with "torch extinct, and swimming eyes," had to mourn over the introduction of the hieratic style, which, wherever it has appeared throughout the world, has cramped and almost annihilated the inventive faculty. Throughout the works of Egypt, Hindostan, and the Byzantine school, restrictions, similar to those which appear in the remains of the Catacombs, confined the artist to an unvaried round of repetition, beyond which it was forbidden to pass. The greatest efforts of individual genius have only displayed most glaringly the defects of the system: the intaglios of Karnac, almost the best hieratic work in existence, exhibit, perhaps the most forcibly, the hopeless struggle. In those gigantic outlines, devoid of perspective, anatomy, and truth, some persons have thought to trace the original of the Parthenaic friezes. And notwithstanding these capital defects, so vigorous is their conception, so terrible is the writhing of the captives whose entangled hair fills the grasp of their conqueror, that it is difficult to refuse to the performance a high place among works of art. With such scenes an Egyptian monarch might at pleasure decorate his palace: but the choice of subject, scale, and arrangement alone belonged to him: the imitation of nature lay altogether beyond the legitimate province of art. While we find in the better class of obelisks, execution absolutely perfect, and an admirable exactness in copyism, in vain do we seek, from the time of Moses to that of Ptolemy, the least approximation to natural forms. The Lateran obelisk, brought from the city of the Pharaohs, and supposed to have stood where Moses, learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, must have daily passed beneath it, is in no way behind the Ptolemaic Denderah, |