§ 111. IMAGES OF MADONNA AND SAINTS, 571
noble countenance, dark hair parted in tlie middle, fair fore* nead, clear eyes, faultless mouth and nose, and reddish beard. An older, and in some points different, description is that ot John of Damascus, or some other writer of the eighth century, who says : " Christ was of stately form, with beautiful eyes, large nose, curling hair, somewhat bent, in the prime of life, with black beard, and sallow complexion, like his mother." *
No figure of Christ, in color, or bronze, or marble, can reach the ideal of perfect beauty which came forth into actual reality in the Son of God and Son of man. The highest creations of art are here but feeble reflections of the original in heaven, yet prove the mighty influence which the living Christ continually exerts even upon the imagination and sentiment of the great painters and sculptors, and which He will exert to the end of the world.
§ 111. Images of Madonna and Saints.
Besides the images of Christ, representations were also made of prominent characters in sacred history, especially of the blessed Virgin with the Child, of the wise men of the east, as three kings worshipping before the manger,' of the four Evangelists, the twelve Apostles, particularly Peter and Paul,* of many martyrs and saints of the times of persecution, and honored bishops and monks of a later daA^^
' The letter of Lentulus has been rightly known in its present form only since the eleventh century. Comp. Gabler: De avStefria Epistolae Publii Lentuli ad Senatum R. de J. C. scriptse. Jenae, 1819, and 1822 (2 dissertations).
' Epist. ad Theoph. imper. de venerandis imag. (of somewhat doubtful original in Joh. Damasc. Opera, torn. i. p. G31, ed. Le Quien. A third description of the personal appearance of Christ, but containing nothing new, occurs in the fourteenth century, in Nicephorus Callisti, Hist. Eccl. lib. i. cap. 40.
' Into the representation of the child Jesus in the manger the ox and ass were almost always brought, with reference to Is. i. 3 : " The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider."
* Usually Christ in the middle, and the leading apostles on either side. Augu» tii:e, De consensu Evangelist, i. 16: "Christus sunul cum Petro et Paulo in pictia parielibus."
* Especially the pillar-saint, Symeon. The Antiochians had the picture of their deceased bishop Meletius on their seal rings, bowls, cui."«, and on the walls of theii apartraents. Comp. Chrysostom, Homil. in Miletium.
572 TDERD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
According to a tradition of the eighth century or later, tlie Evangelist Luke painted not only Christ, but Mary also, and the two leading apostles. Still later legends ascribe to him even seven Madonnas, several of whicli, it is pretended, still exist; one, for example, in the Borghese chapel in the church of Maria Maggiore at Rome. The Madonnas early betray the effort to represent the Virgin as the ideal of female beaut v. purity, and loveliness, and as resembling her divine Son.' Peter is usually represented with a round liead, crisped haii and beard ; Paul, with a long face, bald crown, and pointed beard ; both, frequently, carryijig rolls in their hands, or the iirst the cross and the keys (of the kingdom of heaven), the second, the sword (of the word and the Spirit).
Such representations of Christ, of the saints, and of biblical events, are found in the catacombs and other places of burial, on sarcophagi and tombstones, in private houses, on cups and seal rings, and (in spite of the prohibition of the council of Elvira in 305) ' on the walls of churches, especially behind the altar.
Manuscripts of the Bible also, liturgical books, private houses, and even the vestments of officials in the large cities of the Byzantine empire were ornamented with biblical pictures. Bishop Asterius of Amasea in Pontus, in the second half of the fourth century, protested against the wearing of these " God-pleasing garments," * and advised that it were better with the proceeds of them to honor the living images of God, and support the poor ; instead of wearing the palsied on the clothes, to visit the sick ; and instead of carrying with one the image of the sinful woman kneeling and embracing the feet of Jesus, rather to lament one's own sins with tears of contrition.
The custom of prostration * before the picture, in token of
' The earliest pictures of the Madonna with the child arc found in the Roman catacombs, and are traced in part by the Cavaliere de Rossi (Iraagini Scelte, 1868) to the third and second centuries.
' Cone. EUberin. or liliberitin. can. 36: "Placuit pictuias in ecclesia esse non debcre, ne quod coUtur aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur. " This prohibition eeems to have been confined, however, to pictures of Christ ITiicself ; else we miiat euppose that martyrs and saints are accounted objects of ciiltiu arid adoratio.