SCORPION

To be sure, there had been other human
images of God the Father before this, by four
or five centuries, but generally in paintings or
sculptures of the Trinity ; never before, however,
had Christian art ventured on such a profanation
as this. Christian doctrine. Christian morals, and
Christian art degenerated together, and it is
called development ! Even dear old Hans Hol-
bein, in his Dance of Death, must needs follow the fashion of his times, and repre-
sent God the Father as the Sovereign Pontiff crowned and in full royal robes
creating Eve ; and as appearing to Job seated in clouds, thus attired and holding
the globe in His hands, as well as in his representation of the Trinity, in his Old
Testament leanest

All this is but a repetition of the degeneracy and the debasement of the old




Fig. 40.— The Creator as Pope, in full canonicals.



' pp. 63-6. Pickering. London, 1830. Dance 0/ Death, 1st cut. Id, 1833.



io8 Monumental Christianity.

Patriarchial faith into Pagan idolatry ; of simple truth as taught by symbols per-
verted into falsehood by images and idols.

But I must close this chapter with some notice of a few out of many like
inscriptions, and of two other symbols that state or imply the belief in God the
Father Almighty. Gerbet cites this, Cassius Vitalio Qui vixit Ann, Lviii. Mensibus
xu Dies X, Bene me, FiL Fecerunt. In Pace, Qui in Uno Deo Credidit in Pace^ u e,. To
Cassius Vitalius, who lived fifty-eight years, eleven months, ten days. His children
made this tomb for a well-deserving father. In peace. Who believed in One God.
In peace." Gruter gives this, Hie Positus est, Florentinus, Infans, Qui vixit.
Annos Septem, Et Requiem Adcepit. In Deo Patre. Nostro et. Christ o Eius, i, e,j
Here the infant Florentinus is placed. Who lived seven years, and who received
rest in God our Father, and in His Christ.*

These inscriptions look like traces of the Creed, especially the latter ; and this
child must have been taught it and have been baptized.

What is still more interesting is to notice this inscription on an old stone from
Carthage, evidently a liturgical one from the most solemn part of the service, Gloria
in excelsis Deo et in terra paxhominibus bonae voluntatis^ i, e,. Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace to men of good will, which must be the true reading.
Le Blant, who cites this in his book of Gaulish Inscriptions, thinks it must have
been placed in some church, judging from the presence of the same inscription in
the Basilica of St. Clement, the oldest church in Rome ; and therefore belonging to
the same period."

And here is another from the same liturgical source, or suggestive of it, Deus
qui sedes ad dexteram Patris descripisti in loco Sanctorum tuarum Animulam
Nectarei, God, who sittest at the right hand of the Father, allot the soul of
Nectareus in the place of Thy saints. This is cited by Boldetti in the old Greek
character, who gives the above Latin translation.* Was there, indeed, a Liturgy
so early as this? And did it teach so well the doctrine of God's unity and Christ's
Divinity? And is it the same essentially that has come down to our times in the
Communion office of the Prayer Book?

Among De Rossi's dated Christian inscriptions, one was found in the cemetery
of St. Agnes in 1857, on the fragment of a sarcophagus, to this effect, ** Before the
Kalends of July, Constantius, ever faithful, went to God. He stands worthy at the
throne of God the Fat Iter** ' The date is A. D. 294. And here is another containing
one of the opening sentences of the Burial Service, from the book of Job, *'The

* Esquisse, ii. pp. 121-2. * Imaiptunus, p. 1052, No. 12. * Inscriptions Chr/titnnts de la {^«/,i.p. d8.

* Osservamoni, i. p. 58. ^ Inscriptiones, &c., I. No. 1133. P- 521.



God, the Father Almighty. 109

Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord.

Constantius, who lived years, in peace." * There is one respecting the Trinity

to this effect, ** Quintilian, a man of God, confirming the Trinity {confirmans

Trinitatetfi), loving purity, renouncing the world, rests with . Who lived

, in the consulship of Theodosius, Augustus, and Rumoridus, illustrious men,"

I. e.y A. D. 403.* The blank spaces indicate obliterations in the monument ; and the
date is after the pacification of the Church, and the relaxation of the Discipline of
the Secret.

But the same belief in God the Father Almighty was also expressed by the
first and the last letters of the Greek alphabet used as symbols, viz. : A and ?i. " I
am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, anid
which was, and which is to come, the Almighty." (Rev. i. 8.) The received text
omits the word God, and is followed in our English version ; but in the best texts,
as the Sinaitic, the Codex Vaticanus, Griesbach, Tischendorf, and others, the read-
ing is, " saith the Lord God, the Almighty," o 7tayroKpar<M>p. This is also the
reading of St. Jerome's Vulgate ; it is WicUff's, the Rheims', and the Lusitanian.
It is a remarkable fact that the word navroxparoop is used in direct connection
with God the Father, in the very first symbol of the Christian Faith of which we
have any account, viz.: that of St. Irenaeus, A. D. 180, Bishop of Lyons, who says
that the Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends
of the earth, has received from the Apostles and their disciples this faith," viz. : the
belief in one God, the Father Almighty, &c.'

If, therefore. Alpha {A) and Omega (/2) were Apostolic symbols denoting God
the Father as the Almighty Creator, and this term was used in the earliest formula of
the Faith as expressive of His eternal power and Godhead, we must expect to find
these symbols in frequent use in the early Christian monuments. Accordingly we do
find them everywhere, on seal rings, on glasses, on tablets, on lamps, in paintings,
on sarcophagi, and gravestones. Between these two letters the whole alphabet or all
knowledge is comprehended. The alphabet, in its various combinations, simply
reveals or expresses thought, and gives it a body. So when Alpha {A) and Omega
{P) occur in connection with the monogram or the cross, as they so often do, they
stand for all that God is as revealed or embodied in Jesus Christ. All that we can
possibly know of God is through Him.

As Alpha, God is the beginning of all things in creation ; as Omega, He is the
last of all in redemption, or the consummation and restoration of all things. He

> Id. I. No. 1241. p. 548. * Id. I. No. 523. p. aaa*

* Contra Ilaer, I. c. lo, and Heurtley's Harmonui, p. 7, ftc.



no Monumental Christianity.

is Alpha in Genesis; He is Omega in the Apocalypse; from first to last all Scrip-
ture is full of Him. As first and only begotten Son of the Father, His going forth
was from everlasting, or ever the earth was ; eternal and unchangeable, He shall
order, rule, and restore all at last. (Eph. i. 3-1 1.) And because from first to last
Christ Jesus is the brightness of the Father's glory, Alpha and Omega were used
so frequently by the early Christians, with the monogram or the cross to express
this truth ; and wearing it on their persons, or glittering on their lamps, or before
them in their subterranean chapels on almost every gravestone, or blazing from the
vaulted ceiling or arch of every early church of Christendom, this monogram with
A and d taught the persecuted saints of old that their own lives were bound up in
the life of Christ their Lord ; that although this life's A looked onward here to a
whole alphabet of changes and chances, yet there was the ?1 of complete and
perfect excellence in the changeless and eternal Logos of God, in the Book of Life
elsewhere. Not only were these alphabetical symbols a protest against Polytheism
and Arianism, but they were also expressive of faith in God as a common Father,
making no distinction between His earthly children, save on the score of fidelity
and obedience to Him, and of love to one another. Alpha taught them that their
own life, natural and spiritual, had its beginning in God through Christ ; Omega
directed their hope and desire to life's perfect consummation and bliss in God's
eternal kigdom. Starting as that life had done from God, its whole alphabet had
been most painfully conned, studied, and learned in that severe school of the
Church's early childhood ; it had been spelled and read in manifold combinations
of joy and sorrow, of fear and peace, of trial and bereavement, consolation and
recompense, smiles and tears, until at last the Omega of all human knowledge,
suffering, and patient waiting, was reached by martyrdom in the blessed infinitude
that lay beyond, of God's rest and reward.

TertuUian, citing Ephesians i. 10, as to all things in heaven and earth center-
ing in Christ, says, " The two Greek letters, the first and the last, the Lord takes
to Himself as figures of the beginning and the end which concur in Himself." * St.
Augustine says, ** Just as no letter precedes Alpha, so the Son of God is second to
none." And Prudentius says, ** That Alpha and Omega are synonyms of Christ,
who is the beginning and the end of al! things, present, past, and future."* But
Bede gives this better explanation," Ego sum A et il initium et finis, dicit Dominus
Deus. Initium, quem nullus pracedit ; finis, cui nullus in regno succedit. Qui est ^
et qui erat, et qui venturus est omnipotens. Hoc idem dixerat de Patre, Deus enim
Pater et venit et venturus est in Filio, i. ^., " I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning

' De Moncgamia, c. 5. • Cathemerinon^ H. 9. * Tom, V. p. 1063. Basle, 1563.



God, the Father Almighty. iii

and the end, saith the Lord God. The beginning, which nothing precedes ; the
end, to which nothing in the kingdom succeeds. Who is^, and who was, and who is
to come, the Ahuighty. This same thing is spoken concerning the Father. For
God the Father both has come, and will come in the Son** The Son is the wisdom and
the power of God unto salvation; the beginning of the creation ; the end of re-
demption ; first of all God*s almightiness in the one ; last of all His goodness and
mercy in the other.

When, therefore, the early Church by her art, her symbols, and her inscribed
monuments, taught the spirituality and unity of God, she was doing no more than
making a complete restoration of His lost and forgotten Being in the Pagan world,
and striving to bring erring men back to His true worship. And to this end the
Church did not hesitate to use familiar Pagan symbols adapted to her need and to
the expression of truth, just as she made use of Pagan letters and Pagan language.
All honour to her wisdom and to her large-hearted liberality ; she won and con-
quered, not by withholding, or disguising, or compromising the truth of God, but
by teaching it clearly and fully by such means as the Pagan mind could compre-
hend, and in all alluring ways of illustration and artistic beauty. Puritanic stiffness
and sourness did not then beget repulsion and disgust ; for the King's Daughter had
arrayed herself in her beautiful garments, and was all glorious within. Nor had
Papal pride and pretentiousness yet arisen to turn the truth of God into a lie, and
pervert His worship into idolatry ; for rejecting all images of God the Father, the
Church worshipped Him, and believed in Him as the Maker of heaven and earth,
through Jesus Christ His Son our Lord.

'^ SStbom ibeiteloiie ye ignoitanily woii$b{pi him deolatie X unio non.''

Acts, xvii. 23-



112 Monumental Christianity.