Early Christian art means the first works through which Christians made their faith visible: frescoes painted in the half-light of the catacombs, reliefs carved on sarcophagi, mosaics climbing little by little to the apses of basilicas. The term, formed from the Greek palaios ("ancient"), covers about four centuries, from the end of the 2nd century to the threshold of the 7th — between the almost total silence of the first generations and the flowering of Byzantine and medieval art.[1][2]
This art is first of all a witness. Before theologians wrote treatises on images, anonymous hands had already painted Christ in the guise of a young shepherd, drawn a fish on a tombstone, engraved an anchor on a ring. These objects tell what the first faithful believed: the resurrection of the dead, the deliverance of the just, the presence of Christ the Shepherd. They often tell it better than texts do, because they say what was hoped for at the very moment of death.
For a Catholic, the art of the catacombs has a particular significance. It establishes, through matter itself, that the Christian image is not a late corruption: even before Constantine, even in the time of the persecutions, the Church depicted Christ, the Virgin, the saints and the mysteries of salvation. This answers in advance two opposite accusations: the one that would make religious art a deviation inherited from paganism and the Middle Ages, and the one claiming that the first Christians were fierce iconoclasts. The walls of the catacombs say otherwise. The underlying question — why the Church can and must use images — is treated separately in Why does the Church use images? and in The difference between icon, idol and sacred image; the present article describes what this art actually was.
What is early Christian art?
A definition and its boundaries
Early Christian art is the name given to all Christian artistic production of late Antiquity, from the earliest surviving witnesses — around 200 — to the end of Antiquity, toward the 6th or 7th century, when Christian art divided into a Byzantine tradition in the East and a Latin tradition in the West.[3][4] It is not a single style but a period: it contains both the swift, luminous brushwork of the catacomb painters and the golden solemnity of imperial mosaics.
This art shares its techniques and formal vocabulary with the rest of late Antiquity: materially, it is late Roman art placed at the service of a new content.[5][6] The first Christian workshops were the same ones that produced pagan art; what changes is not the hand, but the meaning.
Why "early" Christian?
The scholarly term early Christian (from palaios, "ancient") imposed itself in the 19th century, as Christian archaeology — founded notably by Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822–1894), rediscoverer of the Roman catacombs — constituted this period as a field of study in its own right.[7] It is also called "primitive Christian art" or "art of Christian origins."
The two great moments
The whole history of this art is governed by one date: 313, the Edict of Milan, by which Constantine and Licinius granted Christianity freedom of worship.[8] Before and after that date, it is almost not the same art.
- Before 313 — the art of persecution. Modest, intimate, funerary. It hides in the catacombs and on sarcophagi, speaks in veiled symbols, avoids anything that might resemble an idol. It is the art of a Church that prays for its dead and awaits the resurrection.
- After 313 — the art of peace. Suddenly monumental, public, glorious. It covers the walls and apses of the great basilicas, shows Christ in majesty, borrows from imperial ceremonial. It is the art of a Church become visible, proclaiming the triumph of Christ before the eyes of the whole Empire.
| Before 313 | After 313 | |
|---|---|---|
| Places | Catacombs, houses, tombs | Basilicas, baptisteries |
| Media | Fresco, sarcophagus, small objects | Monumental mosaic, grand decoration |
| Tone | Intimate, funerary, veiled | Public, triumphal, imperial |
| Christ | Young shepherd, philosopher, wonder-worker | King in majesty, judge, emperor of heaven |
| Function | Hope of the resurrection | Proclamation and catechesis |
Why did Christian art appear so late?
The silence of the first two centuries
One riddle strikes the historian: for nearly two centuries, almost no Christian image survives. The earliest datable frescoes go back only to the turn of the 2nd–3rd centuries.[9][10] Several reasons combine: the smallness and secrecy of the persecuted communities, the absence of buildings of their own, but above all a Jewish heritage wary of all representation.
The Jewish heritage and the ban on images
Christianity was born within a Judaism marked by the second commandment:
"You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." — Exodus 20:4[11]
This ban targeted idolatry, not art as such — Solomon's Temple displayed sculpted cherubim, palms and lions. But it had made Jewish circles very cautious. The first Christians inherited from it a lasting reserve toward "images of the gods." And yet the discovery of the synagogue of Dura-Europos, covered in biblical frescoes, showed that in the 3rd century certain Jewish communities themselves painted abundantly: the boundary was not so clear-cut.[12]
Clement of Alexandria: the first permitted signs
The oldest Christian text regulating the use of images is precious. Around 200, Clement of Alexandria, in The Paedagogus, tells his readers which motifs they may have engraved on their seal-rings — and which are forbidden to them:
"Let our seals be either a dove, or a fish, or a ship scudding before the wind, or a musical lyre, [...] or a ship's anchor; and if one is fishing, he will remember the apostle. Let us not engrave the faces of idols, we to whom it is forbidden to attach ourselves to them; nor a sword, nor a bow, we who follow peace; nor drinking-cups, we who are temperate." — Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus, III, 11[13]
This text is decisive: it proves that around the year 200, Christians already carried a coded iconography — dove, fish, anchor, ship — and that the Church framed it instead of forbidding it. These are exactly the symbols found, shortly after, on the walls of the catacombs.
Tertullian and Eusebius: images despite reluctance
Other testimonies confirm this early presence of the image, sometimes reluctantly. At Carthage, around 210, Tertullian, in a treatise of great moral severity, reproaches his adversaries for painting the Good Shepherd on their chalices — proof, through the very criticism, that this image already decorated the sacred vessels.[14]
More surprising still, Eusebius of Caesarea, at the beginning of the 4th century, reports having seen at Caesarea Philippi (Paneas) a bronze group showing Christ stretching out his hand toward the woman healed of her haemorrhage, and notes that Christians kept painted portraits of Christ, Peter and Paul:
"They say that this statue is an image of Jesus. It remained standing even to our time, and we saw it with our own eyes when we stayed in that city. [...] We have also been shown likenesses of the apostles Paul and Peter, and of Christ himself, preserved in paintings in colour." — Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, VII, 18[15]
These texts, scattered and sometimes critical, together prove one thing: the Christian image exists before the Church's freedom, before the great councils, before the iconoclast quarrels. It appears from the first Christian generations.
Where did this art unfold? Places and media
The catacombs of Rome
The great home of primitive Christian art is underground: the catacombs, those networks of galleries dug outside the walls of Rome to bury the dead. On the walls of the burial chambers (cubicula), painters left the oldest Christian frescoes preserved in large numbers: Good Shepherd, orants, biblical scenes, banquets.[16][17]
The catacombs of Priscilla, Callixtus, Domitilla, and Saints Marcellinus and Peter are today under the care of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.[18] The detail of the symbolic language read there — fish, anchor, dove, monogram — is treated in the article The Christian symbols of the catacombs. Let us retain the essential here: these images are not decoration, but a prayer in colour laid beside the departed, while awaiting the resurrection.
The house-church of Dura-Europos
Outside Rome, the most extraordinary witness lies at the edge of the Empire, on the Euphrates. At Dura-Europos, in Syria, a private house was adapted into a Christian place of worship, with a painted baptismal hall. Since the city was destroyed by the Persians in 256, these frescoes are earlier than that date: they are, with those of the oldest catacombs, the oldest dated Christian paintings known.[19][20]
There we see the Good Shepherd, the healing of the paralytic, Christ and Peter walking on the water, and a procession of women toward a tomb. The house-church of Dura — more than half a century before the Church's peace — proves that Christian art already existed far from Rome, in the heart of the persecutions, and that it dared to depict Christ himself.[21]
Sarcophagi
Wealthy Christians had themselves buried, like their pagan neighbours, in carved marble sarcophagi. But they changed the programme: biblical cycles replaced mythological scenes. The masterpiece of the genre is the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, a Roman high official baptised shortly before his death in 359, kept in the treasury of St Peter's Basilica.[22]
On its two column-framed registers, ten scenes mingle the Old and the New Testaments: the sacrifice of Abraham, Daniel, Job, the entry into Jerusalem, the arrest of Christ — and, at the upper centre, Christ enthroned between Peter and Paul, his feet resting on the canopy of heaven (Traditio legis, the "giving of the Law").[23] Here the transition can be seen in progress: the shepherd-Christ of the catacombs gradually becomes the sovereign Christ.
Small objects: gold glass, lamps, rings, flasks
Early Christian art is not only monumental or funerary; it is also domestic and portable. The gold-glass roundels (vetri dorati), found sealed in tomb mortar, bear portraits of saints and biblical scenes. Oil lamps of baked clay are adorned with the chrismon or the Good Shepherd. The seal-rings described by Clement, the flasks from the Holy Land brought back by pilgrims, endlessly multiply the same signs.[24][25]
| Medium | Technique | Typical example |
|---|---|---|
| Fresco | Painting on plaster | Good Shepherd, Catacomb of Priscilla |
| Sarcophagus | Marble relief | Junius Bassus (359) |
| Mosaic | Glass and stone tesserae | Basilica apses (after 313) |
| Gold glass | Gold leaf between two glasses | Saints' medallions from tombs |
| Ivory | Low-relief carving | Passion plaques (c. 420–430) |
| Small objects | Baked clay, metal | Lamps, rings, pilgrimage flasks |
The language of symbols
Before depicting scenes, Christian art speaks in signs. In a hostile world, the symbol has a twofold advantage: it tells the faith to those who can read it, and veils it from the others. The detail of these symbols belongs to the article devoted to the symbols of the catacombs; the principal ones are recalled here to make the overall iconography intelligible.
Fish, anchor, dove, ship
The fish is the most famous. The Greek word ICHTHYS (ἰχθύς, "fish") forms the acrostic Iēsous Christos Theou Hyios Sōtēr — "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour."[26][27] The anchor speaks of the "sure and steadfast" hope of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb 6:19). The dove evokes the soul at peace and the Holy Spirit. The ship figures the Church crossing the age. These are, word for word, the motifs Clement allowed on seals.[28]
The Good Shepherd
The most widespread image is that of the Good Shepherd: a young man carrying a sheep on his shoulders. It illustrates the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15) and the words "I am the good shepherd" (John 10:11).[29]
To show him, artists baptised a pagan form: the moschophoros or criophoros ("ram-bearer") of Greek art, and the bucolic shepherd of Roman art. Likewise Christ sometimes took on the features of Orpheus charming the beasts, or of the Sun (Sol) on his chariot.[30][31] Far from being a shameful syncretism, this device manifests the logic of the Incarnation: the Church does not destroy the culture of men, she assumes and converts it, making the beauties paganism had sensed serve the true God.
The orant
The figure of the orant — a woman standing, arms raised and open in prayer — is the other great motif. It represents the soul of the departed at prayer, or the Church herself, suppliant and trusting.[32] It is the purest image of what the catacombs meant to say: not death, but the soul turned toward God.
The young, beardless, philosopher Christ
Before the bearded and majestic face that would later prevail, the early Christian Christ is often young and beardless, dressed in the philosopher's tunic, a scroll in his hand: he is the Master of truth, the sage who teaches, the wonder-worker who heals and raises. There is as yet no fixed "realistic" portrait: the image states a function (shepherd, master, saviour) before claiming to show features.[33][34]
The great depicted themes
Images of deliverance
The most constant programme of funerary art is that of deliverance: God saves his own from death. The same scenes return, chosen for their paschal significance, as so many pledges that the God who saved yesterday will save the departed again.[35][36]
| Scene | Biblical source | Meaning for the departed |
|---|---|---|
| Jonah cast up by the sea-monster | Jonah 2 | Three days in the abyss, then life — figure of the Resurrection |
| Daniel in the lions' den | Daniel 6 | The just man saved from the jaws of death |
| The three young men in the furnace | Daniel 3 | Preserved in the heart of the fire |
| Noah in the ark | Genesis 7–8 | Saved from the waters of judgment |
| The sacrifice of Isaac | Genesis 22 | The son given back to life |
| The raising of Lazarus | John 11 | Explicit promise: "I am the resurrection" |
| Moses bringing water from the rock | Exodus 17 | The water of salvation, figure of baptism |
The Jonah cycle is by far the most frequent: swallowed, cast up, then resting under the gourd-vine, he offers a complete figure of death and resurrection which Christ himself had claimed ("the sign of Jonah," Matthew 12:39–40).[37]
Eucharistic scenes
Several frescoes show meals: guests around a dish of fish and loaves, baskets set around. The most famous, called the Fractio panis ("the breaking of the bread"), is found in the Greek Chapel of the Catacomb of Priscilla.[38] These images link the heavenly banquet, the funerary meal and the Eucharist: the fish and bread that feed the crowd (John 6) become the sign of the Body that nourishes unto eternal life.
The earliest Marian images
Early Christian art also left the oldest images of the Virgin Mary. In the Catacomb of Priscilla, a 3rd-century fresco shows a mother nursing her child, beside a figure pointing to a star — interpreted as a Marian scene, perhaps the oldest known.[39] Other scenes depict the Adoration of the Magi presenting their gifts to the Child seated on his Mother's lap. Very early, then, the Christian image made room for Mary.
The discretion of the Cross: why no crucifix before the 5th century?
One feature disconcerts the modern visitor: for centuries, Christian art does not depict the Crucifixion. The Cross is suggested by the chrismon, by the anchor, by discreet crosses, but Christ nailed and dying is not shown.[40][41]
The reasons run deep. In the eyes of the ancient world, the cross was the most infamous punishment, reserved for slaves and rebels; the mocking graffito known as Alexamenos (c. 200), showing a donkey-headed crucified man worshipped by a believer, says well the scandal this idea inspired.[42] The Church preferred first to proclaim the living and victorious Christ rather than the tortured one. Only in the 5th century do the first avowed crucifixions appear: a panel of the wooden doors of the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome (c. 430–432) and one of the so-called Maskell ivories (c. 420–430, British Museum) — and even these show a Christ with open eyes, standing and triumphant, not a dead man.[43][44][45] Meditation on the Cross in art would unfold much later: see The Way of the Cross in art.
The Constantinian turning point: from catacomb to basilica
The peace of the Church and monumental art
With the Edict of Milan (313), everything changes.[46] The Church emerges from secrecy, receives imperial lands and funds, builds great edifices. Art, which until then was content with funerary walls and small objects, suddenly becomes monumental, public, sumptuous. Constantine founds in Rome the Lateran Basilica, the first St Peter's over the apostle's tomb, and many other sanctuaries.[47][48]
Basilicas and their apses
For their assemblies, Christians do not adopt the plan of the pagan temple — too bound up with the cult of idols — but that of the civil basilica, the vast elongated hall of courts and markets.[49] The focus of decoration becomes the apse, the half-dome above the altar which the believer's gaze meets on entering.
The oldest surviving Christian apse is that of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, c. 390: Christ enthroned there like an emperor, clothed in gold, surrounded by apostles in senatorial togas and by the four Living Creatures of the Apocalypse.[50] Shortly after, under Pope Sixtus III (432–440), the basilica of St Mary Major received its extraordinary early Christian mosaics: thirty-six Old Testament panels along the nave, and, on the triumphal arch, the cycle of Christ's childhood, celebrating Mary Theotokos in the aftermath of the Council of Ephesus (431).[51]
The emperor-Christ: a new face
Christ changes face. The young shepherd of the catacombs gives way to the Pantocrator, a bearded sovereign, judge of the world, enthroned in glory. Christian art borrows from imperial ceremonial — the nimbus, the throne, the purple, the gesture of authority — to say that the true King of the world is Christ, not the emperor.[52][53] This shift reads strikingly in the mosaics of Ravenna, treated separately in The mosaics of Ravenna.
Mosaic, art of light
For these grand programmes, early Christian art brings one technique to its summit: glass mosaic, in which thousands of tesserae, many gold-leafed, catch and return the light of lamps and windows. The wall becomes a wall of light, an image of heaven come down to earth. Ravenna in the 5th–6th century, then Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, would be its direct heirs.[54]
A theology in images
The "Bible of the poor"
Early Christian art is never purely decorative: it teaches. In a society where most could not read, walls told the holy story. The medieval formula of Biblia pauperum, the "Bible of the poor," condenses a very ancient intuition: the image is a book for those who have none. Saint Gregory the Great would state it classically around 600:
"What Scripture presents to readers, a picture presents to the unlearned who behold it; for in it the ignorant see what they ought to follow, in it those who know no letters read." — Saint Gregory the Great, Letter to Serenus of Marseilles[55]
Proclaiming salvation and resurrection
The choice of scenes is never neutral. The art of the catacombs hardly shows suffering; it shows deliverance, salvation, life. Jonah cast up, Daniel spared, Lazarus raised: everything says that death does not have the last word. It is a preaching of hope laid beside the tombs, the visual translation of the creed: "I look for the resurrection of the dead."[56]
The image is not a late corruption
Here lies the Catholic stake of the whole dossier. Certain readings, Protestant or modernist, maintain that the first Christians were hostile to every image, and that religious art is a later drift, contaminated by paganism. The canon 36 of the Council of Elvira (Spain, c. 305–306) is sometimes quoted: "It seemed good that there should be no pictures in the church, lest what is worshipped and adored be painted on the walls."[57]
But this canon, isolated and local, does not carry the meaning lent to it. Its interpretation is disputed: it probably aimed to protect images from sacrilege in time of persecution, or a precise type of portraits exposed to an ill-regulated cult — not Christian art as such.[58] Above all, it is contradicted by the facts: by that date, the catacombs were already covered in frescoes — and Dura-Europos, half a century earlier, had already painted its baptistery. Canon 36 was moreover not taken up by later councils.[59]
The conclusion stands: far from being a medieval invention, the Christian image accompanies the Church from her first centuries. The Council of Nicaea II (787) would only theologically justify a practice attested for nearly six centuries, distinguishing the adoration (latria) due to God alone from the veneration (dulia) given to the saints through their images — a distinction developed in The difference between icon, idol and sacred image and grounded in Why does the Church use images?. The Catechism sums it up:
"The contemplation of sacred icons, united with meditation on the Word of God and the singing of liturgical hymns, enters into the harmony of the signs of celebration so that the mystery celebrated is imprinted in the heart's memory." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 1162[60]
Legacy: what early Christian art bequeathed
To Byzantium and the West
From this art of origins came the two great Christian traditions of the image. In the East, it gives birth to the Byzantine icon and the golden world of Ravenna and Constantinople. In the West, it supplies the repertoire taken up by Carolingian, Romanesque then Gothic art: the Good Shepherd, Christ in majesty, biblical cycles, the apse mosaic. The illuminations of manuscripts would prolong the same work of visual memory — see Biblical illuminations and Monastic manuscripts.[61][62]
What the believer still sees there
To go down today into a Roman catacomb is to meet faith in its nascent state. The Good Shepherd carrying his sheep, the orant with raised arms, Jonah given back to life, the fish engraved beside a name: all this was painted by Christians who sometimes died for their faith, and who entrusted to stone their hope of rising again. Early Christian art is not an archaeologist's curiosity; it is the first visible preaching of the Gospel, and it still speaks.
To go further
- The Christian symbols of the catacombs — the detail of the coded language (fish, anchor, dove, chrismon) read on Rome's funerary walls.
- The mosaics of Ravenna — the apogee of early Christian mosaic and Christ in majesty.
- Why does the Church use images? — the theological foundation of the Christian image.
- The difference between icon, idol and sacred image — adoration, veneration and idolatry.
- St Mary Major Basilica — a treasure of early Christian mosaics still visible in Rome.
- The Way of the Cross in art — how Christian art would at last contemplate the Passion.
Notes and References
André Grabar, Le Premier Art chrétien (200-395), Paris, Gallimard, "L'Univers des formes" series, 1966. Reference work on the birth of Christian art in late Antiquity, by one of the founders of Byzantine art history (Collège de France, Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres). The chronological bounds appear in the very title: 200–395.
1 3 6 10 25 31 34 36 48 53 54 61Robin Margaret Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art, London-New York, Routledge, 2000. Major scholarly synthesis on primitive Christian iconography (Good Shepherd, orant, deliverance scenes, Eucharistic meals, use of pagan forms).
2 5 9 24 27 30 32 33 35 52 56 62English Wikipedia, "Early Christian art and architecture": periodisation (c. 2nd century – c. 525/6th–7th c.), continuity with late Roman art, adoption of the basilican plan, Constantinian programme (Lateran, Old St Peter's), development of apses and mosaic.
4 47 49Giovanni Battista de Rossi (1822–1894), Roman archaeologist, founder of scientific Christian archaeology and rediscoverer of the Catacomb of Callixtus; author of La Roma sotterranea cristiana (1864–1877). The category of "early Christian art" was largely constituted on the basis of his work.
7Edict of Milan (313): agreement of Constantine and Licinius granting Christians freedom of worship and the restitution of confiscated property; it ends the persecutions and opens the era of monumental Christian art. Reported notably by Lactantius (De mortibus persecutorum, 48) and Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History, X, 5).
8 46Book of Exodus 20:4–5. Second commandment, forbidding carved images destined for idolatrous worship. To be read with Exodus 25:18–20 (the golden cherubim of the Ark) and 1 Kings 6:23–29 (cherubim, palms and flowers of Solomon's Temple), which show that the ban targets idolatry, not religious art as such.
11Synagogue of Dura-Europos (Syria, c. 244–256): its walls covered in figurative biblical frescoes overturned the idea of an entirely aniconic ancient Judaism and illuminate the context of the neighbouring Christian house-church.
12 20Clement of Alexandria, The Paedagogus, book III, ch. 11 (c. 198–203). The Christian master recommends lawful motifs for seal-rings — dove, fish, ship scudding before the wind, lyre, anchor, fisherman (allusion to the apostle) — and proscribes the faces of idols, sword, bow and cups. Greek text and English translation on newadvent.org (Church Fathers); critical edition Sources chrétiennes no. 158.
13 28Tertullian, De pudicitia (On Modesty), ch. 7 and 10 (c. 210–220). In his rigorist polemic, Tertullian reproaches his adversaries for depicting the Good Shepherd on their Eucharistic chalices — indirect but firm testimony to the Christian decoration of sacred vessels from the beginning of the 3rd century. Text on tertullian.org and newadvent.org.
14Eusebius of Caesarea, Ecclesiastical History, VII, 18 (written c. 311–325, after the Sources chrétiennes edition). Eusebius describes at Caesarea Philippi (Paneas) a bronze group showing Christ and the woman healed of her haemorrhage (cf. Mark 5:25–34), which he says he saw, and mentions painted portraits of Christ, Peter and Paul preserved in his day.
15Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology (Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra), institution of the Holy See in charge of the Christian catacombs: conservation and study of the catacombs of Rome and Italy. Official site archeologiasacra.va.
16 18English/French Wikipedia, "Catacombs of Rome" / "Catacombes de Rome": funerary galleries outside the walls, oldest Christian frescoes preserved in numbers, principal ensembles (Priscilla, Callixtus, Domitilla, Marcellinus and Peter).
17Dura-Europos, Christian house-church and baptistery (Syria). The city was taken and destroyed by the Sassanians around 256, which provides a terminus ante quem: the frescoes (Good Shepherd, healing of the paralytic, walking on the water, procession of the women to the tomb) are among the oldest dated Christian paintings. Fragments kept at the Yale University Art Gallery.
19 21Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (c. 359), marble, Museum of the Treasury of St Peter's Basilica, Vatican. Junius Bassus, prefect of Rome, baptised shortly before his death at 42; two registers of Old and New Testament scenes, including the Traditio legis (Christ enthroned between Peter and Paul, feet on the veil of heaven). Often called the most famous early Christian relief.
22 23ICHTHYS (ἰχθύς, "fish"): Greek acrostic Iēsous Christos Theou Hyios Sōtēr, "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour." Major Christological symbol of primitive art, linked also to the Eucharist (the fishes and loaves of John 6) and to baptism.
26Gospel according to Saint John 10:11, 14: "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." To be read with the parable of the lost sheep, Luke 15:4–7. Direct scriptural source of the Good Shepherd iconography.
29Jonah cycle: the prophet swallowed then cast up by the great fish (Jonah 1–2), often depicted resting under a gourd-vine. Christ himself makes it the "sign of Jonah," type of his death and resurrection (Matthew 12:39–40; Luke 11:29–32). The narrative most frequently painted in the catacombs.
37Fresco known as Fractio panis ("the breaking of the bread"), Cappella Greca, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome (c. 2nd–3rd century): banquet scene interpreted as one of the oldest Eucharistic depictions. See the documentation of the Pontifical Commission for Sacred Archaeology.
38Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome: fresco of the "Virgin and Child" (nursing Mother, near a figure pointing to a star), dated to the 3rd century, often presented as the oldest known Marian image; Adoration of the Magi scenes in several catacombs. Documentation: archeologiasacra.va, Wikipedia "Catacomb of Priscilla."
39On the absence of crucifixion in ancient art: death on the cross, an infamous punishment, is not depicted before the 5th century; art favours the living Christ, master and wonder-worker. Synthesis: R. M. Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art, and The Conversation, "The crucifixion gap" (2023).
40 43Felicity Harley-McGowan, "The Crucifixion Conundrum and the Santa Sabina Doors," Harvard Theological Review (2009): study of the oldest narrative crucifixions, Santa Sabina doors and Maskell ivories, dated to 420–432, probably made in Rome.
41 44Alexamenos graffito (Palatine, Rome, c. 200): pagan caricature showing a man worshipping a donkey-headed crucified figure, with the mocking inscription "Alexamenos worships [his] god." It is not a work of Christian art, but the oldest figured testimony to the crucifixion of Christ — and proof of the scandal the cross inspired.
42Doors of the Basilica of Santa Sabina (Aventine, Rome), cypress wood, c. 430–432: one panel bears the oldest surviving monumental crucifixion (Christ and the two thieves, eyes open). Contemporary with the Maskell ivories (c. 420–430, British Museum), the first narrative crucifixion in ivory.
45Apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana, Rome (c. 390): oldest surviving Christian apse decoration. Christ enthroned in majesty, clothed in gold, between the apostles in togas and beneath the four Living Creatures (tetramorph) of the Apocalypse, before a heavenly Jerusalem. Influence of imperial ceremonial on the image of Christ the King.
50Mosaics of St Mary Major, Rome, under Pope Sixtus III (432–440): thirty-six Old Testament nave panels and childhood-of-Christ cycle on the triumphal arch, exalting Mary Theotokos in the aftermath of the Council of Ephesus (431). See the Ignispedia article St Mary Major Basilica.
51Saint Gregory the Great, Letter to Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles (Registrum epistularum, XI, 10, c. 600). Gregory reproaches Serenus for destroying the images in his church: "What Scripture procures for readers, painting procures for the illiterate who behold it." Reference text of the Western Magisterium on the pedagogical function of the image.
55Council (synod) of Elvira, Spain, c. 305–306, canon 36: "Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur." Disputed interpretation (protection against profanation in time of persecution? particular type of cultic portraits?). Local council, canon not taken up by later councils, contradicted by the contemporary abundance of catacomb frescoes and of Dura-Europos. See Catholic Encyclopedia (New Advent), "Council of Elvira," and R. M. Jensen on canon 36.
57 58 59Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1159–1162 and 2129–2132 (on holy images); no. 1162 quoted. Magisterial foundation: distinction between adoration (latria) due to God alone and veneration (dulia) given to images, in the line of the Council of Nicaea II (787).
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