with simplicity and affection: the other is eating grass; he has something else to do; he is occupied with the cares and pleasures and riches of this world.

Then, for the ways in which the Apostles, both at first and afterwards, communicate to those good sheep which hear them the living waters from the rock, we have in the lateral painting A 2 an allusion to Baptism, and in A 3 an allusion to the Eucharist; that is, allusions to the two sacraments of the new or spiritual birth, and the new or spiritual food. But birth and food, beginning and continuance, are our whole life.

In A 2 we again see the Rock, that is, Christ, now no longer, as on the day of Pentecost and as in the central painting, pouring down its streams of water spontaneously, but under the stroke of the rod of Moses held in the hand of Peter; that is, through the ministry of the hierarchy which he represents. The mark like an

on his robe is said by antiquaries to have come into fashion at Rome under Commodus, in the latter part of the second century. The proselyte, too, from the Gentiles, whether Greek or Latin, is represented twice over, first behind the Apostle, as Moses in the wilderness, taking off his sandal, that is, preparing himself for initiation by reverence. For when Moses saw the burning bush, which was a type of the Incarnation, and was moved by natural curiosity to draw near, the voice of God, represented in the painting by a hand reaching from above, warned him that if he would approach unhurt he must first prepare himself by reverence, which in the East is still signified by taking off the shoe. The Christians therefore, transferring to the New Testament this history, as they did also that of Moses striking the rock, signified by this younger Moses painted in the act of taking off his sandal, that

whoever would approach as a proselyte to the mysteries of the incarnation, must not come in a spirit of curiosity, but must first prepare himself by reverence: else his soul would be only scorched instead of being benefitted and saved. Having then thus prepared himself, the proselyte runs up to the rock and catches in his joined hands, and for the first time in baptism, that living water for his own salvation which in the central painting A 1 the Apostles and the hierarchy catch in their hands for the benefit of the world. The difference in age and dress between Moses striking the rock and Moses taking off his sandal is of itself a hint that neither the one figure nor the other are the historical Moses. The difference, too, in dress between the proselyte preparing himself and the proselyte running up to catch the water may have a meaning, the former being perhaps a Latin the latter a Greek, hinting the double language and race of the Gentile population at Rome; while in many sculptures of the same subject the caps on the heads of those that catch the water show them to be proselytes from the Circumcision. And if any one observe that the proselyte who in this painting is catching the water is not barefoot, but has either never taken off his sandals, or has resumed them, the answer is easy, that the shoe to be taken off is not the bodily shoe of the foot, but the shoe of the heart: the indispensable preparation is that of inward reverence; and this being made, it matters nothing whether the proselyte has shoes on his bodily feet or no.

After the new birth by Baptism there is need of a corresponding food. So in the opposite lateral painting A 3, in allusion to the Eucharist, we see once more the Rock twice repeated as in the central painting A 1; and the two men; no longer now with beards and full robes

as teachers, but clad in a simple tunic, and youthful, as servants, bringing each of them, as if from the Rock, a basket of bread to a central figure which is Christ himself; and he touches the bread with the rod of his power (the same rod that he delegates to Moses and to Peter) to change it from natural to spiritual food. The Rock itself, though the Apostles seem to be coming and bringing the bread as if from it, has now no streams of water flowing down, since the grace which comes from it is in this painting represented under the form of bread. The baskets of bread in this picture, if we count them, are the seven baskets of the miracle in the Gospel with an eighth added, the sense of the eighth being this, that we are not to think of the literal historical miracle, nor of the mere multiplication, though miraculous, of ordinary bread, but of something spiritual beyond, that is, of the Eucharistic change of natural into divine food. The creation of all things in the natural order having been completed in seven days, the eighth day, the octave, is a repetition of the first, introducing the new and spiritual creation by the resurrection of Christ the true Light from the dead, answering to the production of the natural light on the first day in the old creation. This sense, which is alluded to and explained by the Fathers, we shall find frequently recurring in the paintings and sculptures of the Catacombs. So too the six waterpots of the miracle of Cana are seen repeatedly with a seventh added, to show that it is not the change of water into wine for the guests of any earthly marriage, but the change of natural wine (which is as water by comparison) into that wine which is spiritual and divine, and which is drunk at the marriage feast of the Lamb.

II. COMPOSITION B.-Of the Woman.

THE central painting B 1 represents an arched tomb in the Cemetery of SS. Marcellinus and Peter, and is taken from vol. II. pl. cxxiii. of Roma Sotterranea; (the references are always to the edition published at Rome in three vols. fol. 1737-1754.) In the arch over the tomb one sees, to the right of the spectator, the fall of our first parents; the tree of knowledge with its fruit; the serpent coiled round the tree; on either side Adam and Eve already conscious of their shame; while to the woman is promised a son who in time shall bruise the head of the serpent. In the middle, at the top of the arch, instead of seeing the fulfilment of this hope, the world is drowned for sin by the Flood; and Noah in a box representing the Ark (a conventional form borrowed from a pagan medal struck at Apamea in Syria) receives a renewal of the original promise in the olive-leaf brought to him by the dove. On the left, answering to the Fall, we see Moses, here the historical Moses, striking the rock, which S. Paul explains to be a figure of Christ the Saviour to come, the son promised to the woman, the peace received in type by Noah. And in the midst of these three representations, upon the end wall over the tomb there are two men, one on either side, with one hand concealed in their robes, and the other arm and forefinger extended, pointing to a woman in the attitude of prayer.

In these two men (who are of very frequent recurrence, and on the Glasses are often accompanied by their names) we recognise, without doubt, the two Apostles Peter and Paul; and when we come to Composition D, we shall see that they stand not so much for the persons

of the two Apostles as for the whole Apostolate and hierarchy, and for the Church itself which they founded. Who then, one may ask, is that woman to whom the Apostles or the Church, or to whom any two men, not aliens from Christ, may be conceived to point our attention, in the midst of paintings alluding to the promise made and repeated from the beginning? Manifestly what they point to, must be the accomplishment of the promise, the Incarnation: and the central figure of the woman praying must be she to whom the promise was made, and in whom it is accomplished; that is, abstractedly, Eve in her daughters, human nature in its female aspect, the Church of the elect, the daughter of Sion, which, after ages of travail and expectancy, at length bears the promised seed, but literally and personally the blessed Virgin, who is the mother of the man-child Jesus Christ, and herself the first and most glorious member and most perfect type of the Church. The two senses are in reality but one; nor is any inscription needed to assure us of the sense of the paintings about this tomb, which are of themselves a Composition, and the parts of which explain one another.

In B 2, from the end wall over a tomb in the Cemetery of S. Cyriaca or Domnica, afterwards renamed from S. Lawrence, there is a painting copied by Bosio (see vol. II. pl. cxxx. of Rom. Sott.), but now no longer extant. In it we see again the same group of the woman in the attitude of prayer, with the two men, one on either side, who are the Apostles representing the Church; but now no longer in the same attitude of pointing our attention to the mother of the promised Saviour. Now they are coming under her extended and uplifted hands, with which she prays, and