Catacomb Paintings: Progress in Style and Subject. Second part

By the middle of the fourth century the medieval pattern is relatively well established—Christ is the source of life and power, which operates within the context of the Church and is especially manifested by the victories and influence of the saints. Something of this spirit seems to appear in a series of small-scale pictures, painted on plaster covering a background of brick, that may be seen in a shrine beneath the church of St John and St Paul in Rome. The various scenes are neatly arranged in panels enclosed by red lines. Placed centrally and within half-raised curtains denoting the close interplay between this world and the hereafter stands the Oratis, clothed in a white robe with tw^ro vertical stripes of black ending in a bold leaf-pattern on each shoulder.

The lines of his face suggest dignified contemplation rather than entreaty, and two persons crouching at his feet are an additional reason for supposing that this Orans is a saint rather than a suppliant. The upper panel on the left contains five figures, all women, the central one being clearly the leader of the group and regarded with respectful awe by the others; meanwhile a stag drinks at the waters of life. The lower panel is much damaged, but enough remains to show a woman bearing a vase. On the right side three martyrs, with hands tied behind their backs, are about to be executed while, below, a female figure stretches out her hand in greeting to another who stands doubtful and irresolute. While not all the details are clear, the paintings of this diminutive shrine seem clearly designed as a homily on the virtues and spiritual power of the saints.

Other steps made in the fourth century towards the viewpoint of medieval art include a lively interest in the Labours of the Farmer's Year, so that reapers and olive-pickers appear together with the more obviously symbolic shepherds. Pictures of the professional grave-diggers continue, but they are joined by other bands of craftsmen, quite in the manner of the guilds shown in the thirteenth-century glass of Bourges, including bakers and the coopers who, in the Catacomb of Priscilla, stand in a huddled group confronting two enormous casks.

Even more striking is the extension of subjects represented. Here again, the Scriptural scenes of deliverance—Daniel among the lions or Lazarus raised from the tomb—remain a frequent choice, but to them is added a considerable number of incidents drawn mostly from the Old Testament: Noah drunken, Absalom hanging from the oak tree, Elijah in his fiery chariot, Job seated on the dung- heap and so forth. It may be that some of these representations owe their form to Jewish originals, but the doctrine was inherent in the Church from very early times that Old Testament happenings, apart from their own particular interest, hint at and prefigure New Testament fulfilments.

As early as the third century, philosophers of the Platonist school complained that their Christian counterparts 'boast that things said plainly by Moses are riddles and treat them as divine oracles full of hidden mysteries', while St Augustine laid it down as a principle for the interpretation of Scripture that 'In the Old Testament the New lies hid; in the New Testament the Old becomes clear.

Some of these Old Testament stories make their first appearance as subjects of Christian art in tombs which can hardly be thought to represent orthodox faith but rather indicate a wide variety of bizarre speculations for which the vague term 'Gnostic' may conveniently be used. For two opposing tendencies were at work during the fourth century. There was on the one hand a desire, shown by Christian philosophers and ecclesiastical statesmen alike, for precise definitions of dogma which might be upheld and made obligatory as the standard of religious truth. But there was also, within the wide embrace of the Roman Empire, a multitude of cults; some of these could be said to exist on the fringe of Christianity, others were pagan but willing to accept many of the stories and symbols of the Christian tradition.

A tomb which invites comparison with Christian examples is that of Trebius Justus, a young man who died at the age of twenty-one. Trebius is depicted twice; the bolder of the two portraits shows him standing on a stool between his father and mother, who spread before him a richly ornamented cloth on which are laid plates and a wine-cup, suggesting the festival to be enjoyed in Paradise. Most of the descriptive painting nearby is drawn not from literature but from the everyday life of home and farm, with reapers, bricklayers and other workers going about their business in a grave and dignified manner.

Though the boy and his parents have about them a solemn and watchful air, the rest of the decoration recalls the keen practical Roman interest in agriculture and building and in the careful guardianship of possessions rather than spiritual yearnings. There is nothing distinctively Christian in the tomb of Trebius Justus, but it is more difficult to interpret those tombs where straightforward Biblical pictures mingle with scenes drawn from a classical mythology which the Fathers of the Church were at pains to discredit. It may be that such burial-places were prepared for members of heretical or sub-Christian sects, though a casual and wide- ranging choice of subjects is sometimes found in apparently orthodox surroundings.

Concerning the half-dozen catacombs which display a complete mingling of Christian and pagan themes, it is difficult to know whether the work reflects the patronage of Christians admitting stock types which the artists had forced upon them from the classical repertory, or of pagans who were attracted to Christian art-forms because they provided an agreeable supplement, with a certain spiritual vitality, to the standard scenes of Roman mythology. Comparison is sometimes made with the emperor Severus Alexander (222-35 ^AD)' who 'set up in his private chapel a statue of Christ along with those of Abraham, Orpheus, the philosopher Apollonius and his own deified ancestors'. But this report is now recognized as a fourth-century hoax.

The Catacomb of the Aurelii, on the Via Labicana, provides an example of mixed religious ideas. Some of the paintings, from the end of the third century, display the conventional Christian scenes; within one small panel, a human figure, now nearly obliterated, raises his hand to point to a cross. Elsewhere within the catacomb a bearded man, seated and wearing tunic and pallium, clasps the open scroll of philosophic knowledge while, below, rams wander in a pastoral landscape. This might be a unique variant on the theme of Christ, the Lord of truth, guarding his flock. But it could equally well represent a philosopher of quite different type. The same doubt exists in the case of another splendidly painted head of a bearded man whose eyes are fixed, in rapt contemplation, on wonders invisible to the spectator.

Whether he is a Christian apostle or some thinker trained in the discipline of the Muses remains undecided, but the decoration of the vestibule in this catacomb is of clearly non Christian character. Within a graceful pattern of late Pompeian style four solitary figures, each standing on a pedestal, clasp the scroll and the wand which seem to be the marks of one qualified to teach rites and mysteries. This interpretation is confirmed by the large central medallion, which shows two grave philosophers, in tunic and pallium, standing at either side of a less clearly drawn figure over whose head one of the philosophers raises a long wand; the whole scene suggests a solemn initiation into secret arts.