From time immemorial the German universities have been regarded as the seats of patient, persevering, indefatigable, but also unprofitable, erudition. They have been the homes of men whose lives were one long day of toil—a continual course of labour, the sole reward of which was a secret consciousness of worth, and a fame, circumscribed it is true, yet still spreading wide amongst the elect of science in all civilised countries. Lost, not in the day-dreams of romance, but in the depths and amongst the mazes of science, it was but seldom that these men of the study and the library found leisure and nerve to escape from seclusion, and to take their share of the duties of active life in which their less reflective brethren were feverishly engaged. And when they attempted the competition, their failure was signal. They presented an extraordinary exhibition of awkward genius and blundering sagacity, and exposed themselves at once to the painful ridicule of those whose calling and pursuits taught them to prize mere worldly wisdom above all human lore.

Their country owes them a heavy debt of gratitude. Though little known, they ought never to be forgotten. They were unpopular, but they worked for the popularity of science. The results of their labours are not to be looked for in their own creations, but must rather be traced in the productions of their children's children. Generations to come will acknowledge them for their lawful progenitors, nor will future ages lose by confessing the obligations which they owe to so noble an ancestry. If our task to-day is comparatively easy, it is because the men of whom we speak never shrank from the difficulties attending theirs. We may smile at the childish simplicity of Neander, but we deeply venerate the profound erudition and the subtle discernment of that extraordinary critic's mind. We may feel shocked at the clownish sallies of a Blumenbach, the stinginess of Gesenius, and the rude manners of Ernesti. But with the first, we connect vast realms in natural philosophy unconquered before him; to the second, the student of Hebrew refers with reverential affection and gratitude; whilst we know, that the burly demeanour of the last could never hide the treasures of a Latin style, which, for purity and power, competes with that of Tully, and like that may well be compared to a precious sword, pure in metal, and as lasting as it is flexible and cutting.

The greater number of those to whom we refer have long since passed from the silence of their study to that of the grave. They have died as they lived—poor and honoured. Of them all, there is scarcely one whose departure was generally lamented; not one whose death was generally known. For the bulk of mankind, they never existed. Their works, unpalatable to the many, had always been the delight and instruction of the few. Yet, let not their unpopularity be quoted against them. They knew the extent of their mission. It was to collect and hoard bullion for future coinage and circulation. They prepared the path along which a whole nation was hereafter to travel. They were modest but meritorious labourers, who built a massive and powerful foundation, that another age might be left at ease to erect the brilliant superstructure.

That other age is here. The proud fane for which they cleared the way, and saw as the prophet of old beheld the Land of Promise, is rising now before us. In the author of the "History of the Fine Arts in the Early Ages of Christianity," we greet a worthy follower of those great masters whose works have somewhat rashly been pronounced more curious than useful. Professor Gottfried Kinkel is a true disciple and no imitator. He understands the period which has produced him. He knows its wants. General diffusion of knowledge is its distinguishing feature. Science leaves the closet to communicate her benefits to the forum. Neither the centralisation of wealth, nor that of knowledge, can now secure a nation against poverty and ignorance. People may starve, though the royal coffers are bursting with their weight of gold; they may be ignorant, though their chiefs luxuriate in the possession of unbounded knowledge. Rapid circulation of the currency has been found to constitute national wealth. A general diffusion of knowledge is the necessary condition of civilisation. Poesy is no longer content to dwell at court. Chemistry has chosen the path which Bacon pointed out to her; and whilst she has found a new field of action, has been enriched by treasures of knowledge hitherto concealed from her view. The sneering exclamation of Persius—

is the great truth and motto of this our century.

Even the universities of Germany have begun to popularise the results of their laborious researches; although it cannot be said that they have taken the lead of the age, we may at least affirm that they have gone along with it. They have not lingered in the rear. They have adapted their instruction and language to homely understandings, and have increased rather than lessened their dignity by the condescension. They have become more honoured and respected as the benefits of their labours have grown more palpable to common sight; they have been more renowned since the many have been permitted to appreciate the merits of the few. Instruction itself has been more courted and made more welcome since it took courage to cast aside its cumbrous wig and gown, and ventured to appear before the world with the natural graces of pure humanity.

Professor Kinkel, to whom we owe the work whose title is placed at the foot of the present article, is in every respect a specimen, and perhaps a prototype, of the German professor of the nineteenth century. To the deep and solid learning of a former generation, he adds the good taste and social accomplishments indispensable in these more advanced times. Thirteen years ago he was a student of theology in the university of Bonn, and even at that period the extraordinary application and the commanding faculties of the "studiosus Kinkel" had earned for him a scholastic reputation, and won the respect of his fellow-students and of the professors of the university. Indefatigable, then, in his theological pursuits, he was the subject of general admiration on account of the vast extent of his acquirements, and of the enthusiastic interest with which he engaged in the sacred study of the fine arts. No less general was the complaint that a mind so happily formed to range through the boundless realms of philosophy, a genius so brilliant, a soul so deeply imbued with a love of the beautiful and the great, should be suffered to pine beneath the monotonous duties of a theological professorship, and dissipate unparalleled energies in splitting the straws of a controversy, or deciding the dusty quibbles of an antiquated lore. At the close of his academical career, Gottfried Kinkel was admitted into the university as a licentiate in theology; but shortly after his promotion, he quitted his native country, and was for some years a wanderer amongst the splendid ruins of Italy. The treasures of art which mock the nakedness of this ill-starred country were to him what they are ever to the mind of the artist,—they revealed a new world. Unlike many others, however, Kinkel was not bewildered by the beauty which so suddenly burst upon his view. He was not surfeited. His enthusiasm, tempered by the metallic reasoning of the Hegel school, was closely allied with the subtlest criticism. His admiration was never an obstacle to comparison. Whilst he admired he remembered: individual faults or excellencies, he found to be reducible to common causes. His conclusions he drew from the objects: he did not force the one upon the other.

In like manner, and intent upon the same purpose, the theological licentiate travelled through France, Belgium, and Holland; and when he returned to Bonn, his spirit as well as his habits of life were more than ever wedded to the critical contemplation of the results of the creative faculty in the mind of man. The annual exhibitions of paintings in Cologne, DÜsseldorf, and Frankfort, found in him an indulgent and impartial critic. His researches on the monuments of ancient sacred architecture were at intervals published in The Domban Blatt, and immediately secured the attention and regard of all antiquarians.

The cherished pursuits, however, were ill calculated to reconcile Kinkel to his adopted profession. In 1845, the licentiate in theology doffed his gown, and was forthwith appointed a professor of philosophy in the university of Bonn. It is to his lectures in this capacity that we owe the treatise on Art in the Early Christian Ages. This remarkable book was written with the purpose of instructing the public mind, and of enabling the many to participate in the intellectual enjoyment as yet confined to a favoured few. Its objects were to vindicate the merits of Christianity as a fosterer of the arts, and to encourage, all lovers of art by opening new fields for exploration.

The productions of real art are the most universally instructive of all creations. Nothing acts so powerfully on individual and national character; nothing so beneficially. Wherever art has been without these consequences, we may be sure that art was false. Its prophets were false prophets. The assumption of charlatans, however, is no condemnation of the art itself. The abuses of idolaters is no argument against religion. M. Kinkel's introduction to the plan of his work has but one fault. It is a national one. His mode of reasoning is conclusive; but the English reader, less accustomed to metaphysical phraseology than his German neighbours, will find some difficulty in grasping it. According to our author, two conditions are necessary to true art, which he defines to be "the incorporation of the spirit in a beautiful form." Beauty, then, and spirit are, the two conditions of true art. If one be wanting, true art is likewise wanting. The spirit, separate from beauty of form, may be religion and ethics—it can never be art. Beauty of form without the spirit, is likewise not a work of art. It remains on a level with matter; but the production of the artist soars higher. Hence true art is capable of yielding more universal satisfaction both to the artist and to the spectator than all other intellectual creations. The reason is obvious. We express and meet with the two grand constituents of our being; and, whilst other branches of knowledge are apter to separate than to unite—whilst science is exclusive, and even religion herself is sometimes productive of discord, true art asserts her right to be regarded as the great Pantheon of mankind. No idea is universal property unless expressed by art. Even the vast abyss which separates the lower orders of men from the ranks above them is overcome by art, for all are sensible of the joys which art produces. To know, therefore, what and how the mind and hand of man have hitherto worked, is a necessary, if it be not an indispensable, investigation and pursuit. "We are not ambitious," says M. Kinkel, "to conquer fame by profound hypotheses concerning things which, both by time and place, are indeed far from us. It is not our object to look for art in its infancy amongst nations which have long ceased to exist, nor shall we at once turn to Greece and Rome. Our desire is to contemplate those creations, which from their time and spirit are kindred to our feelings, and to speak of that branch of art with which Christianity has been busy within the last eighteen hundred years."

The author proceeds to point out the two grand directions in which all original art branches off. It serves either religion or history. The first productions of art were idols and monuments. Palaces, theatres, paintings, are the work of progressive civilisation. Christian art has one principal feature in common with pagan art,—its origin. They are alike the offspring of religion. They are also similar in their progress; they acquired an inclination towards history, and both have at last taken a decided realistic direction. But the vast difference between Christian and antique art is no less palpable. The art of antiquity was far more deeply imbued with the principle of nationality than the former. Nations were isolated; each had its proper gods and its peculiar history. The diversity of religion and of political institutions engendered a difference of feeling. This civilised world of ours, on the other hand, has a community of feeling, in as much as it has one religion common to all. The Celtic, Sclavonian, and German nations exhibit far greater diversities of origin and climate than the inhabitants of Persia and India in ancient times; yet the artistic productions of the former are more alike. Their religion furnishes one point at which all meet, and in respect of which they are inseparable. The prevalence of the ecclesiastical element in modern art, is, however, liable to one great objection. For many years it served to exclude historical art, which even in our own time has not attained so high a perfection. It is true that Christianity makes amends in some degree for the want of this historical development. A total absence of historical facts is the great characteristic of the religions of antiquity. The Son of David, on the contrary, is in himself the greatest of historical facts. The Apostles are no mythical personages. The great men of Judaic history, the family of our Saviour, and the people with whom he conversed, all form one large group of historical personages, and religion and history, formerly separated, are here united. Christ on the cross is an object of touching adoration, but he is also the monument of the greatest event in the history of the world. But that this is no national history is undeniable. Offspring of a foreign soil, it had no connexion with the state.

The exclusively ecclesiastical character of early Christian art, is another grand feature which at once destroys all analogy between this art and the creations of pagan antiquity. In Hellenic paganism, we behold the triumph of humanity. The human form in its most ideal beauty is the type of all things divine. Christianity starts at once with the peremptory condition of a renunciation of individual beauty and strength. Christianity counted sensual beauty as nothing: she regarded the mind alone. She permits the human form only as the incorporation of some hidden thought divine. In the one instance, the form was all in all; in the other, it is the expression. The heathen delighted in naked bodies, for every single part might convey the sensation of beauty. The face sufficed for Christian art, as solely expressive of divine beauty. And since the adopted Jewish custom excludes nudity in life, it must needs die in art. In the new order of things, sculpture is lost, and painting is better adapted to the narrow limits of early Christian art.

Upon the question whether this fear of the world, as exhibited in the rejection of the world's material forms, be truly the character of real Christianity, Professor Kinkel answers with a decided negative. He rather favours the opinion of those who hold the fear and hate of the world which distinguished the early Christian ages, to have been founded on an erroneous comprehension of the doctrine and example of the great Founder, who, as far as we are able to learn, facilitated the creation of real art. The misconception, so fatal to the civilising influence of art, M. Kinkel, explains by reminding us of the fears of idolatry, so justly entertained by Christianity in its first existence, of the oppression and persecution which the early church experienced, and of the natural desire entertained by the oppressed, to be as little like the oppressors as possible.

The extreme opinions, however, could not last. They began with the fury of persecution, and they died with it. An earnest admiration of the beautiful is implanted deeply in the soul of man for noble purposes, which Providence will not suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth again. Faint at first in its appearance, it gained strength with every passing lustre; and however sweeping the condemnation pronounced by early believers against vain signs and images expressive of the objects of this fleeting world, the voices of the cursers gradually hushed, and the mind of man, asserting its prerogative, was active again with new and regenerated power. The history of civilisation must needs count by centuries, and it took ages to effect the transition. From our present lofty and unprejudiced height, from that height at which modern art strives to emulate that of antiquity, it may not be wholly uninstructive to look back towards the first trembling attempts of the early Christian people.

It would appear that the first attempts of the early Christians were of a symbolical and allegorical kind. The same figures, with little or no variation, were constantly repeated to express ideas which, whilst they led the thoughts of the believer into the channel which to him appeared most satisfactory, were mere forms, and void of meaning to pagan eyes. Chief amongst these was the Cross, but without the body of Christ affixed to it. The crucifix is an invention of the seventh century. In the beginning, the Cross did not expose the Christians to suspicion, for it was known to many religions of antiquity. The nations of Egypt adored the cross as a sign of their salvation, since they placed it in the hands of one of their idols as a key to the annual flux of the Nile. The Persian worshippers of Mithras considered the cross a sacred symbol. When pagan persecution finally discovered the exclusive and peculiar signification of the sign amongst the Christians, the latter ingeniously contrived forms of the cross translatable by the eyes of the elect alone. To these, the image of a flying bird was a cross; the human figure in a swimming attitude was the same thing, and so also the cross-trees of a sailing ship; the letters ? and O are seen frequently engraved at the extremities of these disguised emblems in remembrance of Revelation, i. 8. Doves, ships, lyres, anchors, fishes and fishermen, are recommended by Clemens Alexandrinus, as the most fitting objects for Christians to contemplate, and for representation on seals. Amongst other symbols we find the seven-branched chandelier, though originally a Jewish sign, employed as a type of our Saviour, who calls himself (John, viii. 12.) the "light of the world." A wreath of flowers was expressive of the crown of life. A pair of scales, in remembrance of the last judgment, and a house, have been occasionally discovered on ancient grave-stones; and once, a simple curriculum has been traced with the pole thrown backwards and a whip leaning against it,—an unmistakable allusion to a departure for that place where "the weary are at rest." Amongst plants, the olive, the vine, and the palm were favourite symbols, the latter being generally reserved for the grave-stones of martyrs. Birds, too, are frequently met with on the walls of houses: the phoenix and the peacock being emblems of immortality. The fable of the phoenix is minutely told by Clemens Romanus; but the common superstition which ascribes imputrescibility to the flesh of the latter, easily rendered this bird a symbol of the resurrection of the body. Saint Augustine is said to have subjected this peculiar quality of the peacock's flesh to a practical test. He ordered one to be roasted, and at the close of a twelvemonth requested it to be served up. Tradition does not inform us whether he ate it, and with what appetite.

The dove occurs more frequently than any other bird. Two doves bearing olive branches, are seen on Christian grave-stones in the Cologne museum, and on the porta nigra at Treves. The meaning of the sign of a fish will not readily occur: but the frequency of its appearance establishes its character as a secret mark of recognition. It was used to signify both Christ and his church. Of quadrupeds we find the stag,[20] the ox,[21] the lion,[22] and the lamb,[23] constantly in connexion with the cross. The lion and the lamb are typical of Christ. The transition to his representation in human form is rendered by two figures, which, whilst human, are still symbolical. In the catacombs of Saint Calintus, in the Via Appia at Rome, Christ is discovered in the character of Orpheus, whilst at other places he is represented as a shepherd.

Two paintings were found in Herculaneum, and may at present be seen in the Museo Borbonico at Naples, which are of undoubted Christian origin, and present a curious specimen of Christian art in the first century. Each of these two paintings is divided into an upper field, and into a lower smaller one. The smaller field of one of them is destined to expose the folly and corruption of paganism, and Egyptian mythology is selected for the purpose. We behold temples. In front of one of them stands a statue of Isis; another is devoted to Anubis the dog-god: two figures of crocodiles lie stretched across the entrance. On the left, we see a live crocodile waiting for its prey amongst the bulrushes: an ass is in the act of walking into the open mouth of the monster, in spite of the efforts of the driver, who vainly endeavours to pull the animal back by its tail. This might be intended to satirize some Roman pagan, were it not for the counterpart. To the right, and immediately opposite the idolatries on the field already spoken of, we see a well into which a rope is being lowered, whilst a naked man, standing by, is seeking to cover himself. An allusion is here made to fishing and baptism. On the left, the crocodile of the former picture is again met with, but a warrior with lance and shield advances with the view of slaying it. In the middle of the painting a net is spread between two trees, and behind it, and in direct opposition to the Isis on the pagan picture, we behold a tall and erect cross. The upper fields harmonise with the lower. The Christian painting displays a vigorous and stately tree between two younger palm-trees; the pagan picture has the same symbols; but the middle tree is in the sere and yellow leaf, whilst a Dryad issuing from the roots flourishes an axe to cut it down. The allusion is not to be mistaken. The sun of paganism has set: the axe is already at the root.

The greater number of the symbols named, however rich they may be in thought, are sadly deficient in form, and we can discover but little progress in this respect from the origin of Christianity to the time of Constantine. Architecture, and especially ecclesiastical architecture, may be said to be the only branch of the fine arts which was successfully cultivated, and architecture itself was insignificant for three centuries subsequently to the birth of Christ. Painting and sculpture could elude cruelty and take refuge beneath the cloak of symbols: but churches could not be masked. It was difficult to hide them. In the earliest periods of Christianity, too, their absence was not seriously felt; people prayed where they thought proper. Scripture tells us that the apostles taught in the temple of Jerusalem. Christianity, a sect of Judaism in its origin, dwelt for a long time in the synagogues. Wherever St Paul came, he preached first in the Jewish schools. In times of persecution, the believers sought refuge in the catacombs. They assembled in the solitude of forests to pray and to exhort one another. When the Jews opposed themselves to the new creed, congregations met in the houses of the more wealthy. The apartment usually employed for divine purposes is supposed to have been the triclinium, or large dining-room of the richer classes amongst the Greeks and Romans. The want of churches was first experienced when frequent conversions swelled congregations beyond the limits of a large family; and this, as we have hinted, occurred in the course of the third century. The existence of a church expressly devoted to Christian worship in the reign of the Emperor Severus Alexander, has been proved beyond a doubt. It was a reign remarkable for its spirit of toleration. The Christians were suffered to hold offices in the state, in the army, and even at court. Churches rose rapidly under the mild light of toleration. Even in the western provinces of the empire, in Gaul, Spain, and Britain, we meet with churches erected at the commencement of the fourth century. In Nicomedia also, under the very eyes of Diocletian, a church was built that surpassed in splendour the very palace of the Emperor. The army of Diocletian destroyed the holy building in the last grand persecution. It was the last convulsive effort of paganism in its agony.

No particulars of these churches have come down to us. Of that in Nicomedia we know nothing, save that it was splendid. None had, we are inclined to suppose, any fixed style. The style of the original triclinium in which believers first congregated, was, in all likelihood, imitated. Even in private houses, these triclinia were magnificently adorned. The walls were ornamented with rows of lofty columns, and where the Egyptian style prevailed, two rows of columns were constructed, one above the other; an effect of this last arrangement was the formation of a two-storied passage between the walls and the columns. In the beginning of the tenth century, Pope Leo III. constructed a dining-room after this fashion. We may fairly conclude that nothing grand or extraordinary in architecture was attempted in a period of great trouble and poverty. The real glory of Christian architecture dates from the reign of Constantine. Christianity, legalised by him, might venture to display her rites and her art. Under the government of Constantine the church was enriched. He endowed it with the spoils of defeated and expiring paganism. In the third century, the church of Rome, when summoned to yield its treasures, produced its poor as the only treasures it possessed. In the fifth century, that same church appointed a clerical commission to watch over and inspect its possessions in foreign countries.

The change of circumstances was not without a great and lasting influence. Paganism threatened no more. It was conquered. No further danger was to be apprehended from the departed religion of a gloomier age. The clerical profession, warmed and nourished by the rays of imperial favour, was soon effectually distinguished from the crowd of laymen which surrounded it. The desire to render this separation systematic and all-pervading was too natural to slumber for any length of time, and the absence of an order of architecture peculiar to the ministers of the new religion came to be severely felt. Rank and wealth have ever delighted in drawing towards them the eyes of the world. The worldliness and splendour of the church have been long the subject of violent animadversion. But how could it be otherwise? From the moment that Christianity became a favoured creed, conversions were rapid and frequent; but not all the neophytes converted in form, had undergone a similar change of spirit. Millions flocked through the open gates of the church. To teach all, before they entered, was an impossibility. If there was time to awe, that was something. If general conviction was out of the question, universal respect was easily attainable. The charms, the sensual enjoyments of the pagan altars, were once more offered to the heathen. The smoke of incense filled the church; the spoils of antiquity adorned its roofs and columns; the robes of the clergy were covered with gold; the rites of the church delighted in colours. But decoration and ornament alone were borrowed from paganism. The temples of the heathen could not be copied in form: they could not serve the purposes of Christian worship.

The destination of the temple was different from that of the church. The temple was the house of an idol: limited in extent, it received sufficient light through the open door. The rites of paganism were performed in the colonnade surrounding the temple, not in the temple itself, and the crowd of spectators stood beyond the limits of the sacred building. The sanctuary of Pandrosus at Athens, admits only of a few persons; and even the temple of AthenÆ is not to be compared for size with our modern churches. The Christian religion is essentially didactic. It requires space for its hearers and disciples. But its sacraments were mysteries, and none but the elect were admitted to them. Thus, it was necessary to separate true believers from the bulk of the congregation. No buildings were so happily adapted to this double purpose as the houses of public justice and traffic, which, originally of Grecian origin, had arrived at a high state of perfection in the Roman empire. The most ancient of such houses—called Basilika—stood in Athens at the foot of the Pnyx. It was in such a building that Socrates appeared before his judges, and Christ was judged by Pilate. In the history of art, we trace the workings of omnipresent Nemesis. The sign of curse and infamy—the cross—has for centuries graced the banners of humanity. The Basilikon in which Christ was condemned, has lent its form to the churches in which his name is adored.

Whilst the groundwork of the Basilikon remained unchanged, Christian art added steeples and cupolas to increase the solemnity of the impression. The most perfect building of the kind is, without doubt, the church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. For chastity and purity of style, it can never be surpassed. The numerous churches erected by ostentation and devotion in basilikon form are all inferior to that incomparable temple. Many, it is true, have been disfigured, robbed, and half-burned; but their faults are not accidental. The greater number were built at a time when Pagan art, their prototype, had sunk very low indeed. Moreover, since the days of Constantine, Pagan temples had fallen into disuse. They stood deserted, and were suffered to crumble away beneath the influences of neglect and time. Christian builders took all they wanted from the ruins; a fragment from this temple, a block from that. Ionian and Corinthian columns were placed in the same line. If a pillar was too long for its companion, it was shortened without reference to its diameters or form. Columns of different stones were jumbled together in a row. Thus, amongst a number of columns of purple granite in the church of Ara Celi at Rome we discover two Ionian columns of white marble. In Saint Peter's, granite and Parian and African marbles are grouped together without the smallest attempt at harmony or adaptation. San Giovanni in Porta Laterana boasts ten columns of five different kinds of stone.

A more interesting employment cannot be found than that of watching the slow and cautious progress of ancient painting and sculpture in connexion with Christianity. The slowness is indeed remarkable, when we reflect upon the high perfection which these arts had generally attained even during the reigns of the first emperors. Christianity dealt far differently with painting and sculpture, than with architecture. In the latter, the Pagan form was adopted and improved; but with respect to the former, she made a tabula rasa, and descended to the rudest efforts of daubing and carving. The shapes, both of men and animals, were awkward, cumbrous, and unnatural; every part was out of proportion, and the most solemn scenes acquired a ludicrous grotesqueness. But the strangest phenomenon is, that Pagan art itself, of its own accord, descended to as low a level. The productions of Paganism in the time of Constantine were altogether as barbarous as the clumsy attempts of the untutored hands of Christianity. The new religion had created a new world. The forms of the old might indeed survive for a time, but its spirit was gone. Paganism was a corpse. Altars might be crowned with garlands, sacrifice might be offered to the gods: but all in vain. A voice came forth from an island in the Ægean Sea; a voice of sorrow and complaint, but of truth also. It wailed the death of the great Pan. The mighty were indeed fallen, and so vast was the gulf between Paganism in the days of Titus, and Paganism in those of Constantine, that the creations of the former period could be no lesson to the idolaters of the latter. These clung to the worship of a departed age, but in spite of themselves. The new and mighty river of thought swept them onward, and carried them on to the very same parting point from which Christian art was struggling for perfection.

Christian art started with one grand error. It was warring for ever against itself. In portraying the world, it hated it. Of all its creations, there is not one which can be said to be really beautiful; the effusions of symbolical enthusiasm are without all plastic truth. Ideas were incorporated, but they did not prove men with flesh and blood. The paintings and carvings were hieroglyphics. The same figure expressed the same idea, and the idea once expressed, there was no desire to extend the circle of figures or to alter their wretched appearance. The same uncouth forms return with a killing monotony. Centuries do not change them. The uniformity of monastic life by no means tended to relax the inflexibility of invention. Religion, not art, was the sculptor's or the painter's object; his production was a creation of faith, not of beauty. Such is the character of almost all the carvings in wood and stone which have been found in the catacombs of Rome and Naples.

Christianity has the great merit of having discovered the poesy of the grave. From the outset it abhorred the Pagan custom of burning the dead, and faithful to its Jewish origin, and mindful perhaps of Christ's burial, it renewed the old Roman custom of interring the departed. This was the origin of the catacombs. The early Christians loved to be deposited with, or near the Martyrs, and grounds for burial capable of receiving a large number of the dead were wholly wanting. The population of Rome, Naples, Alexandria, and Syracuse was so great, that there was scarcely room enough for the living. To find new receptacles for the dead became an urgent necessity. It is true, that digging into the bowels of the earth for the purpose of entombing the bodies of the dead was no new operation. Egypt and Etruria had in their time set the example. The one idea of immortality, led to similar results in different creeds. The early Christians found their cities of the dead already prepared for them. Paris, in our own time, stands upon a soil which is hollowed throughout. The limestone upon which Paris stands was taken from beneath to supply the wants of the builders. Rome, in like manner, has a second and subterraneous town of vast extent, with its streets and squares in endless number. Nor is it without its inhabitants. In this town did Christians seek refuge from Pagan persecution, and here did they likewise inter their dead. The caves and passages were not dug by Christian hands, but were discovered already made. They date from the last century of the republic, when the clay upon which Rome stands, was required by the mania then raging for extensive and magnificent structures. The Christians took possession of the hollows and enlarged them; the work was by no means difficult, for the clay was soft and plastic.

It was after the time of Constantine that the catacombs came into more general use. Martyrs were more revered subsequently to the reign of this Emperor than before it, for martyrdom became less easy of achievement. The chief martyrs had found a resting-place in the catacombs. Churches rose above their remains, from which secret and sacred doors led into the City of the Dead, the cemetery of the saints. It was at the period to which we refer that the regularly formed spacious catacombs were first fashioned—a fact established by the date of the coffins, all of which belong to a time later than that of the Emperor Constantine. The wealthier members of the community constructed small chapels in the catacombs for the reception of the bodies of their relations and friends. These chapels are for the most part situated at the crossing of passages or at the end of them, in which latter case the chapel forms the termination of one particular passage. They are most important as indices to the development of art. Besides the curious character and beauty of the architecture, they afford specimens of the most ancient grave paintings that we know of. Their walls and ceilings are covered with a thin crust of gypsum, upon which the colours were laid. Not unfrequently we find ornaments of stucco and marble. Altars and stone seats, too, are found in these chapels. An astonishing number of skeletons have been discovered in the passages by which the chapels are connected: it was not the custom, as now, to bury the dead beneath the floor and to cover the grave with a stone slab. The bodies were placed in niches of from three to six feet in length. Sometimes four and six together, one above the other. The corpse of a departed brother was thrust into one of these niches; a lamp and some tool, explanatory of the trade he had followed in life, were placed beside him, and then the aperture was walled up, and lastly covered with a thin marble slab, bearing an inscription and the particulars of the life and death of the departed.

Church service was frequently performed in the catacombs, yet not in the days of persecution. It was after Constantine that these tombs were used for such a purpose. On Sabbath days they were open to the public and were much visited. Devotion, love for departed relatives, and mere curiosity, carried vast numbers to these silent halls. Saint Jerome, tells us of his having often explored them with his comrades whilst he was still a student in Rome; and he lived some three hundred and fifty years after the death of Christ. The catacombs were but badly lighted at first, light being admitted by a few apertures only in the roofs of the chapels. At a later period, great care was taken to prevent visitors losing their way amidst the labyrinth of passages. The guardianship of the catacombs was confided to a certain body of the clergy, who went under the name of fossores, or grave-diggers. It was their office to inspect the chapels and passages, to point out the places where new passages might be formed, and to portion out and sell the spots in which burials might take place. The water in the wells of the catacombs was subsequently found to possess the virtue of healing to a marvellous degree. Nay, even the use of the drinking-cups found in the catacombs was sufficient to cure several diseases.

In later days, many of the catacombs were opened, and a vast number of curious and interesting objects brought to light. Not the least valuable amongst these objects were the paintings and carvings to which we have above adverted, and which throw some light upon the history of the portraiture of the great Founder of our religion. Still in the great bulk of the subjects represented the symbolical prevails; and since the earliest masters were for a long time forbidden, by a pious awe, from producing the figure of Christ, we find in the more ancient carvings a decided preference given to the Old Testament over the New. Noah's ark, Abraham sacrificing his son, Moses taking off his shoes upon receiving the tablets of the law, the destruction of Pharaoh, and the miracle of the water starting from the rock—in short, all the subjects of our modern illustrated Bibles are of frequent occurrence in these ancient houses of the dead, and one and all are intended to represent the mission and person of Christ. The suffering of Christ, in the delineation of which the masters of later times have so much delighted, formed no subject for the artist in the earliest selections from the history of the New Testament. The controversy in the temple, the entry into Jerusalem, and the most celebrated of the miracles, were subjects that better suited the ancient master's pencil. The infancy of Christ was an inexhaustible subject to a later age. The Nestorian controversy brought the religious pretensions of the Holy Virgin to an issue; and after the church in the fifth century had bestowed upon Mary the title of Mother of God, artists took pleasure in representing her either as lying-in, or as holding the babe in her arms. The Eastern Kings are not unfrequently found in the Virgin's company. M. Kinkel presumes that the number of these wise men was first determined by the early masters, who in all probability conferred the royal dignity upon them. Holy Writ does not inform us that these personages were kings, and in the more ancient carvings, they wear ordinary Phrygian caps. At a later period, and no doubt inadvertently, these caps were changed into crowns. The four evangelists are constantly represented either as four rolls of papyrus, or as four fountains issuing from a hill beneath the feet of Christ. When seen in the guise of the four apocalyptical animals, they belong to a later period. The apostles also are found on ancient coffins, surrounding Christ, at whose left side Peter is placed, whilst Paul stands on his right. They all wear sandals tied with ribbon to their feet. Some paintings represent scenes of early Christian life, the sacred rites of the Church, and the love-feasts of the first Christians.

Wherever our Saviour is found he is represented by two types. In the earliest paintings of the catacombs he appears as a beardless youth: this type of the Saviour was produced under the influence of antique art. The second and later type bears those oriental features which have been transmitted by sacred painting even to our own time. The features of the second face so closely resemble those of the first that the early theologians do not hesitate to proclaim them exact copies of the original. "Christ was well proportioned," says John of Damascus in the eighth century; "his fingers were slender, his nose mighty, and the eyebrows joined above the same; his hair was very curly, his beard black, and the colour of his face like his mother's,—viz. yellowish, like unto wheat." Later western writers change the colour of the beard and hair from black to blond. Both hair and beard are parted in the middle. There are two pictures of Christ thus represented, one in the cemetery of S. Calintus, and another in that of S. Ponziano. The former is partly, the latter wholly dressed. In both, the features are strongly marked, and the eyes are very large; the right hand is placed on the breast, whilst the left holds a book.

Apocryphal pictures ascribed to Saint Luke have asserted a considerable influence upon the traditions concerning the portrait of Christ. The same has happened in the instance of the Virgin Mary, although her type is far from attaining the degree of stability which we find in the representations of her divine son. The fathers, however, are unanimous in their opinion that the face of Mary bore a strong resemblance to that of our Saviour. She is seldom found in the Catacombs, but frequently in the Mosaic work of churches dedicated to her worship, and on Byzantine coins from the tenth century forwards. The face is oval, similar to that of a youthful matron of ancient Rome, and carrying always the expression of a calm benignity. The head is covered with a veil and surrounded by a nimbus. Next to Mary and her Son, Peter and Paul, the chief apostles of the Pagan and Judaic world, are most frequently represented. They were both objects of devotion, even to those who still lingered without the pale of Christianity. The Mosaics display them more frequently than the Catacombs. Their type is not fixed; although Peter may at times be known by his curly hair and beard, whilst the bald forehead and the pointed fashion of the beard render Paul at once recognisable. The other apostles, as well as the personages of the Old Testament, have not grown into individuality, and lack the distinguishing features by which sacred and historical characters of antiquity become objects of real life, and are rendered familiar to the most distant ages.

The most ancient Mosaic works of the Christian era are to be found in the mausoleum of Constantine. The subject is strictly symbolic. It is the vine, with birds perched on the branches and angels collecting the grapes. One of the tendrils encompasses the head of Constantine. The forms of the angels show a near affinity to Pagan art. Another great Mosaic work, more ecclesiastical in thought and execution, was promoted by Pope Sixtus III. in 443. It consists of historical representations from the Old and New Testaments, and ornaments the space below the windows of the Maria Maggiore. The costumes, the helmets, and cuirasses resemble those of ancient Rome; but where priests and Levites appear, the oriental character is followed. The composition is poor, and the human figures are rude and awkward. That little regard is paid to perspective is not a matter of surprise. Antique art is guilty of the fault. It would be difficult for any Mosaic work to overcome the difficulties which present themselves in the active scenes of real life and history. The Mosaics in the triumphal arch of the Church of St Paul create a favourable impression, simply because they confine themselves to that narrow and more suitable sphere, in which alone the Mosaic art can look to be successful.

The study of the period of Christian art, treated of and exemplified in Professor Kinkel's book, though apparently unprofitable to the artist, is full of interest to the curious observer, and to one who has pleasure in beholding the development of the human mind under the most varied circumstances. We have read the volume of the learned and accomplished professor with infinite satisfaction, and we can safely recommend it to the perusal of the student and the man of letters. The history of art, in the early stages of Christianity, is the history of intellectual cultivation in the most extraordinary period of the world's history. The state of the world during the first centuries after the departure of Christ, was essentially exceptional. It had never been; it never will be again. Art and civilisation were weighed and were found wanting—a new idea visited the earth and conquered it—old arts drooped and died: civilisation degenerated at once into barbarism; whilst a new art and a new civilisation, with the light of Heaven upon them, were already preparing to claim the dominion over future centuries.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] Geschichte der bildenden KÜnste bei den Christlichen VÖlkern. Von Gottfried Kinkel.