In accordance with Roman custom,
Christians had to be buried outside a city’s
walls on private property, usually purchased
by a confraternity,or association, of Christian
families pooling funds. Each of the catacombs
was initially of modest extent. First, the build-
ers dug a gallery three to four feet wide around
the perimeter of the burial ground at a conve-
nient level below the surface. In the walls of
these galleries, they cut loculi(openings to
receive the bodies of the dead, one above an-
other, like shelves). Often, small rooms carved
out of the rock, called cubicula (as in Roman
houses of the living), served as mortuary
chapels. Once the original perimeter galleries were full of loculi and
cubicula, the Christians excavated other galleries at right angles to
them. This process continued as long as lateral space permitted, at
which point they opened lower levels connected by staircases to
those above. Some catacomb systems extended as deep as five levels.
When adjacent burial areas belonged to members of the same Chris-
tian confraternity, or by gift or purchase fell into the same hands, the
owners cut passageways between the respective cemeteries. The gal-
leries thus spread laterally and gradually occupied a vast expanse.
After Christianity received official approval, churches rose on the
land above the catacombs so that the pious could worship openly at
the burial sites of some of the earliest Christian martyrs (individuals
who chose to die rather than deny their religious beliefs; the Church
declared many of them saints).Painting
As already noted, Early Christian art is Roman in style but Christian in
subject. The painted ceiling (FIG. 11-5) of a cubiculum in the Cata-
comb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus in Rome, for example, is similar
in format to the painted vaults of some third-century apartment
houses at Ostia that have a circular frame with a central medallion and
lunettes (semicircular frames) around the circumference. The lunettes
in this Early Christian cubiculum contain the key episodes from the
Old Testament story of Jonah. The sailors throw him from his ship on
the left. He emerges on the right from the “whale.” (The Greek word is
ketos,or sea dragon, and that is how the artist represented the mon-
strous marine creature that swallowed Jonah; compare the sea crea-
ture,FIG. 10-30,right.) Safe on land at the bottom, Jonah contemplates
the miracle of his salvation and the mercy of God. Jonah was a popu-lar figure in Early Christian painting and sculpture, especially in fu-
nerary contexts. The Christians honored him as a prefiguration
(prophetic forerunner) of Christ, who rose from death as Jonah had
been delivered from the belly of the ketos, also after three days. Old
Testament miracles prefiguring Christ’s Resurrection abound in the
catacombs and in Early Christian art in general (see “Jewish Subjects
in Christian Art,” page 293).
A man, a woman, and at least one child occupy the compart-
ments between the Jonah lunettes. They are orants (praying figures),
raising their arms in the ancient attitude of prayer. Together they
make up a cross-section of the Christian family seeking a heavenly
afterlife. The central medallion shows Christ as the Good Shepherd,
whose powers of salvation are underscored by his juxtaposition with
Jonah’s story. The motif can be traced to Archaic Greek art, but there
the pagan calf bearer (FIG. 5-9) offered his animal in sacrifice to
Athena. In Early Christian art, Christ is the youthful and loyal pro-
tector of the Christian flock, who said to his disciples, “I am the good
shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep” (John
10:11). In the Christian motif, the sheep on Christ’s shoulders is one
of the lost sheep he has retrieved, symbolizing a sinner who has
strayed and been rescued. Early Christian artists almost invariably
represented Christ either as the Good Shepherd or as a teacher. Only
after Christianity became the Roman Empire’s official religion in
380 did representations of Christ in art take on such imperial attri-
butes as the halo, the purple robe, and the throne, which denoted
rulership. Eventually artists depicted Christ with the beard of a ma-
ture adult, which has been the standard form for centuries, sup-
planting the youthful imagery of most Early Christian portrayals of
the Savior.292 Chapter 11 LATE ANTIQUITY11-5AVia Dino
Compagni
Catacomb,
Rome,
ca. 320–360.
11-5BCatacomb
of Commodilla,
Rome,
ca. 370–385.Image not available due to copyright restrictions