of writing current there. They were neither Jews nor Christians, but worshippers of heathen deities, and par- ticularly of the heavenly bodies. They were mostly pilgrims on their way to certain celebrated sanctuaries, which were for centuries resorted to at special seasons by the pagans resident in this region. The inscriptions in the old native character belong to the period imme- diately preceding and following the Christian era ; and they come down to the time when the Gosjiel and the Christian Church penetrated these localities, supplanted heathenism, and suppressed its sanctuaries. They then yield to legends in Greek and Latin, and even more re- cent tongues, the work of Christians, who, in imitation of their heathen predecessors, have left the record of their pilgrimage to hallowed spots graven on the same imperishable works." Hence we find crosses and other marks of Christianity mingled in the pagan names and symbols. Similar inscri])tions have been found scatter- ed, but not so profusely, nor in such confusion, in various other portions of the Sinaitic peninsula, and even in the outskirts of Palestine. (See the literature in the Prince- ton Berieu; ut sup.) See Sinai.
INSCRIPTIONS, Christian. There are but few Christian inscriptions that remain extant from an early date, but these few yet suffice to convey to us a pretty accurate idea of the history of the e^rly Christian Church, and of the customs and belief of the first fol- lowers of the Lord Jesus Christ. " They express," says Maitland, in his justly celebrated and now quite rare work on The Church in the Catacombs (Lond. 1840, 8vo, p. 13), " the feelings of a body of Christians whose lead- ers alone are known to us in history. The fathers of the Church live in their voluminous works ; the lower orders are only represented b}' these simple rccon'.s, from which, with scarcely an exception, sorrow and complaint are banished ; the boast of suffering, or an appeal to the revengeful passions, is nowhere to be found. One ex- presses faith, another hope, a third charity. The gen- ius of primitive Christianity, ' to believe, to love, and to suffer,' has never been better illustrated. These ' ser- mons in stones' are addressed to the heart, and not to the head , to the feelings rather than to the taste ; and additional value from being the work of the
Engraved Kocks in Wady Mokatteb.
INSCRIPTIOXS
608
INSCRIPTIONS
purest and most influential portion of the ' catholic and apostolic Church' then in existence." In the early years ol' the Christian Church the inscriptions were, with few exceptions, confined to the memory of deceased persons and to sacred objects.
1. The custom of tomb-stone inscriptions was borrowed by the early Christians from the Romans and Grecians ; they simplified them, however, verj' much, and indicated the" Christian knowledge, life, and rank of the deceased partly by significant symbols, partly by written signs, words, and expressions. These symbols, as they are found in Italy, France, and the countries on the Khine, pertain partly to the designation of the Redeemer by means of pictorial representations, partly to the life after death, hope for the same through Christ and the cross. The name of Christ, their Lord and Master, is, as would be expected of his followers, everywhere the most prom- inent, and is " repeated in an endless variety of forms, and the actions of his life are figured in every degree of rudeness of execution." But remarkable it certainly is, that in the inscriptions contained in the Lapidarian Gal- lery, selected and arranged under papal superintendence, containing one of the largest, if not the largest collec- tion of Christian inscriptions, there are no prayers for the dead (unless the forms " May you live," " jMay God refresh you," be so construed) ; no addresses to the Vir- gin Mary, nor to the apostles or earlier saints ; and, with the exception of " eternal sleep," " eternal home," etc.. no expressions contrary to the plain sense of Scrijitiirc. Neither is the second person of the Trinity viewed in the Jewish light of a temporal Messiah, nor is he de- graded to the Socinian estimate of a mere example, but he is ever represented as invested with all the honors of a Redeemer. On this subject there is no reserve, no heathenish suppression of the distingiiishing feature of the Christian religion as professed by the evangelical sects. On stones innumerable appears the good Shep- herd, bearing on his shoulders the recovered sheep, by which many an illiterate believer expressed his sense of personal salvatitm. One, according to his epitaph, " sleeps in Christ ;" another is buried with a prayer that " she may live in the Lord Jesus." But most of all, the cross in its simplest form is employed to testify the faith of the deceased ; and whatever ignorance may have pre- vailerl regarding the letter of Holy Writ, or the more mysterious doctrines contained in it, there seems to have been no want of apprehension of that sacrifice " where- by alone we obtain remission of our sins, and are made partakers of the kingdom Of hcrven" (Maitland, Cliurch in the Catacomhs, p. 14, 15). One of the principal signs used in referring to Christ is a monogram of the initial letters of the Greek name Xpiuroc. INIost generally it is found to be composed of X and p, the latter placed in the heart of the former. Strange to say, we pre- serve in our own language a vestige of this figure in writing Xmas and Xtiav, which can only be explamed by sujiposing the first letter to stand for the Greek X. ^^^^ p^ This fac-simile of a monogram of