![]() In his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin uses a list of Jewish scriptures that he claims predict the coming of Christ, his life, death and resurrection. The writings of Justin Martyr and other early Christian writers may help us better understand its simple, powerful message. Art historians lament its lack of style compared to the sophisticated Roman art of its day. Its simple symbolic style can leave its powerful religious significance unappreciated. The art of the catacombs, which are located mostly around the city of Rome, comes down to us in a fragile state and can be hard to decipher after being underground for centuries. Moses strikes the Rock, Noah saved by the wood. Before that, Christian art is found mainly in the catacombs, where Christians buried their dead. Great Christian churches and shrines were not built till the 4th century, after emancipation by the Emperor Constantine. ![]() They worship, though, in their own homes and pray there to a God who cannot be imagined or adequately portrayed. But Christians were loyal Romans who believed in God, Justin argues. Justin acknowledges they had no temples, no statues of gods, and did not participate in the rites of prayer as other Romans did. The 2nd century writer Justin Martyr also offers another explanation in his Apology disputing Roman claims that Christians were atheists and a danger to society. For one thing, it inherited a strong iconoclastic tradition from Judaism. The first centuries of Christianity, in fact, produced little art. The Greek inscription from about the year 220 AD reads: “Alexander worships his god.” Undoubtedly, an instance of a Christian being mocked for belief in Jesus crucified. The oldest known portrayal of the crucifixion of Jesus, (left), is a mocking graffiti found on the wall of a barracks on the Palatine Hill in Rome, showing a crucified man with the head of a donkey, and before him a man with hand raised to the image. Oldest known portrayal of The Crucifixion With crucifixion still before their eyes, Christians would hardly want it portrayed realistically in art, even if it were the crucifixion of the Savior. One reason early Christians hesitated to portray the crucifixion of Christ realistically was because the practice was still common in the Roman world until the Emperor Constantine banned it in the 4th century. “Eucarpus is with God” we see in another below. “Pax tecum,” “Peace be with you” the inscription (above) next to an anchor on one of these grave sites reads the name of the deceased has been half-destroyed by grave robbers looking for valuables long ago. It’s the most common and sometimes only mark found on the earliest Christian graves in the ancient Roman catacombs of Priscilla, Domitilla and Callistus. The anchor closely resembles a cross and early Christians surely saw its resemblance. The anchor became the symbol of safe arrival, and so ancient seaports on the Mediterranean like Alexandria and Antioch adopted the anchor as a symbol for their city.Įarly Christians used the anchor as a symbol of their hope of reaching a heavenly port, the kingdom of God they inscribed it on their burial sites in the catacombs to express their hope in Jesus Christ. Travelers from one port to another on the Mediterranean Sea at the time of Jesus were never sure of a safe passage until they dropped anchor.
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