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Chapter VI: Christian Art

§ 78. Other Christian Symbols

Page 77 of 201

The following symbols, borrowed from the Scriptures, were frequently represented in the catacombs, and relate to the virtues and duties of the Christian life: The dove, with or without the olive branch, the type of simplicity and innocence;480 80 the ship, representing sometimes the church, as safely sailing through the flood of corruption, with reference to Noah's ark, sometimes the individual soul on its voyage to the heavenly home under the conduct of the storm-controlling Saviour; the palm-branch, which the seer of the Apocalypse puts into the hands of the elect, as the sign of victory;481 81 the anchor, the figure of hope;482 82 the lyre, denoting festal joy and sweet harmony;483 83 the cock, an admonition to watchfulness, with reference to Peter's fall;484 84 the hart which pants for the fresh water-brooks;485 85 and the vine which, with its branches and clusters, illustrates the union of the Christians with Christ according to the parable, and the richness and joyfulness of Christian life.486 86'

The phoenix, the symbol of rejuvenation and of the resurrection, is derived from the well-known heathen myth.487 87

Notes

  1. 480

    Comp. ; ; ; .

  2. 481

    . The palm had a similar significance with the heathen, Homace writes (Od. I. 1): "Palmaque nobilis Terrarum dominos evehit ad deos."

  3. 482

    . Likewise among the heathen.

  4. 483

    Comp. .

  5. 484

    , and parallel passages.

  6. 485

    .

  7. 486

    . The parables of the Good Shepherd, and of the Vine and the Branches, both recorded only by St. John, seem to have been the most prominent in the mind of the primitive Christians, as they are in the catacombs. "What they valued" (says Stanley, Christ. Inst., p. 288), "what they felt, was new moral Influence, a new life stealing through their veins, a new health imparted to their frames, a new courage breathing in their faces, like wine to a weary laborer, like sap in the hundred branches of a spreading tree, like juice in thousand clusters of a spreading vine." But more important than this was the idea of vital union of the believers with Christ and among each other, symbolized by the vine and its branches.

  8. 487

    The fabulous phoenix is nowhere mentioned in the Bible, and is first used by Clement of Rome, Ad Cor. c. 25, and by Tertiillian, De Resur. c. 13. Comp. Pliny Hist. Nat. XIII. 4.

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, Volume 2: Ante-Nicene Christianity, AD 100–325 (1883). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.