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T HE name we know best, in all history, is that of Christ,and yet no one knows what He looked like. More paintings have been made of Him than of any man that has ever lived,but they are all imaginary. If we did have an actual picture of Him, it would probably be the most valuable picture in the world. The earliest picture of Him was made long after the time when He lived. It was painted by artists who never saw Him, so they had to guess how He looked.
The greatest city in the world at the time of Christ was Rome, Italy, and soon there were more Christians in Rome than in the country where Christ was born and lived. The early Christians were a secret society. Their society had to be secret, because the rulers of the people thought them dangerous and tortured them and even put them to death on the slightest excuse.
So the Christian society in Rome cut tunnels and cellarlike rooms — thousands of them — underneath the ground and there they held meetings. They were buried there, too,in places cut into the walls. These dark, damp caves, lighted only with small, dim lamps, were called catacombs. On the ceilings and sides of the catacombs the Christians painted pictures. One was a picture of Christ as the Good Shepherd,carrying a sheep across His shoulders. And where do you suppose they got the face they used for Christ? It was the picture of a Greek god!
Other pictures these early Christians painted were of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, Jonah and the Whale, and the Greek god Orpheus charming the wild animals with his magic music.
But most of the paintings in the catacombs were not what you would call real pictures. They were just decorations, but decorations that had some meaning to a Christian. They made pictures of a dove because that represented the Holy Ghost, which they believed came down from heaven in the form of a dove. They painted the cock that crew when Peter denied that he knew Christ. They painted an anchor which meant their religion was like any anchor that kept a boat in a storm from being dashed on the rocks. The anchor was their safeguard. They painted a fish because in the Greek language the first two letters were Christ’s initials. They painted a vine because Christ said, “I am the vine.” And so on.
About three hundred years after Christ died, a Roman emperor named Constantine became a Christian himself.Then, for the first time, the Christian society no longer needed to be secret. The Christians had no further fear of harm, so they came out of the catacombs to do their worshiping openly and built churches above ground and covered the walls with pictures and mosaics. Then for over a thousand years they painted pictures of people and scenes from the Bible.
The Greeks painted pictures chiefly of people without any clothes on, because they thought the human figure the most beautiful thing in the world and they did not want to cover it up. The Christian painters thought such figures immodest,and in the pictures they made they covered up the entire body with clothing, so that only the face, hands, and feet showed. They spent all their efforts in trying to make the face soulful and holy — not just beautiful. Often the background was painted in gold. Sometimes the pictures, instead of being painted, were made of mosaic. Paintings on plaster walls would peel and crumble and rub off, and mosaic would last.Mosaic pictures were often made on the floors of churches because such a picture made of stones was the only kind that would stand the tread of countless feet. It would not wear out, it would not wear off!
NO.6 MOSAIC OF CHRIST,
But the best paintings the Christian artists made were tiny illustrations or decorations for their Bibles and holy books.Some of these pictures were no larger than a postage stamp. Most of them were made by the monks, pious men who gave their lives to the service of the Church. All books were written by hand (we call them manuscripts), for printing had not been invented. These pictures for books were called illuminations and were made in gold and bright colors and were much more beautiful than the larger pictures on church walls and ceilings.