192-307.] EARLY CHRISTIAN ART. 245 similar cheerful truths. The Church is generally represented by a ship; the anchor denotes the firm ground of faith; the stag implies the soul thirsting for the water-brooks of life; the horse the rapidity with which men ought to run and embrace the doctrine of salvation; the hare the timid Christian hunted by persecutors; the lion prefigures strength, or appeared as the emblem of the tribe of Judah; the fish is a Greek anagram of the SAVIOUR'S name (Ichthus, Jesus Christ, Son of God, the Saviour); the dove indicates the Christian's harmlessness and simplicity, the cock his vigour, the peacock or phoenix his resurrection. There is no attempt at representing the SAVIOUR, except by some emblem, such as the Good Shepherd, bearing on His shoulders the lost and recovered sheep; or a figure of Orpheus with a lyre, as the civiliser of men. The Apostle Paul is represented bald, with a high nose, and wearing the gown of a Roman citizen; Peter has a single tuft of hair on his bald forehead. Each has a book, the only symbol of his Apostleship. Peter has neither the sword nor the keys, inseparable with his figure in the dark ages; John is remarkable for youthful beauty and sweetness of expression. Thus the majesty of age and its dignity are attributed to Paul and Peter, while all the grace of youth, and the exquisite gentleness of perfect love, are centered in John. It is remarkable, that the acts of martyrdom, as well as the display of our Lord's crucifixion, did not become the subjects of Christian art, till far down in the dark ages. Their Greek origin, however, exposed the faith of the early Roman Christians to be corrupted by the subtle sophistry to which the Greek mind was excessively prone, and which was specially dangerous at Rome, where every error had, but too early, its advocate and its party; and where Ancient Romanism had its chief stronghold, so that the chief pastor of the Christians dared to exercise little authority; but, in the dimness and obscurity which generally veiled them from their persecuting Emperors, he held his unmarked dwelling in the distant Transteverine suburb, or in the lowly and unfrequented Vatican. The basest court sycophant, buffoon or gladiator attracted more attention in the streets than the Roman bishop, except when his life was sought by some politic or fanatic Emperor. The total absence of literary genius in the Roman bishops of the three first centuries, and the fact, recorded by Sozomen, that neither bishop nor any one else publicly preached to the people in Rome' during that period, have left such darkness on their early history that little more, as Dean Milman's researches have clearly proved, can be produced by the eager, and, but too often, unscrupulous efforts of Romish historians to glorify them, than barren lists of their names, and transparently fabricated legends of their martyrdom. So, as soon as the obscurity which veils its early Church history begins to clear a little, we find heretics of all sorts here, face to face in fierce controversy. It was in Rome that Judaizing teachers flourished, and not in Jerusalem, where the bitter hostility of the Jews prevented Christians from adopting their usages and opinions. Here too they were most successful in their efforts to propagate that Judaizing doctrine that man's salvation mainly depends upon obedience to the law-the error which St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, combats as an attempt to "establish their own righteousness, not submitting to the righteousness of God.' (Rom. x. 3.) But church-government had, as might be expected, most interest for the Roman bishops, practical men of business as they naturally were; and it was a controversy which arose between the Eastern and Western Churches, in the year 196, as to the true time for keeping Easter, which first drew a 192-307.] EARLY ROMAN BISHOPS. 247 bishop of Rome, Victor, into an assertion of authority over the other Churches of Christendom, when the Emperor Severus was absent from Rome. The letter of Bishop Irenæus, rebuking Victor for his arrogance, is still extant, recommending a milder tone to him; and asserting the right of the Churches to maintain their own usages on ceremonial questions, with the remark, 'It is not right to tear asunder the bonds of Christian communion on account of festivals, knowing already from the prophets, that festivals celebrated in hatred do not please God.' Victor and his successors, Zephyrinus and Callistus, have recently emerged into light in the curious contemporary work which the learned Bunsen has traced to the pen of Hippolytus, bishop of Portus, near Rome, whose name figures as Saint and Martyr in the Roman Calendar, and whose statue stands in the Vatican. The mischievous attempts of Greek converted philosophers to explain the Mystery of the TRINITY, had already raised two heresies, of which Rome was, as usual, the battle-field. In the graphic pages of Hippolytus, Victor stands forth as a stern, arrogant, and unlearned man, stunned and bewildered by the controversial clamour, and saved only by the brave interposition of the bishop of Portus from making shipwreck of his faith. Bishop Zephyrinus appears just as unskilful in argument, mean-spirited, venal, ever wavering between the adverse parties and governed by the crafty Callistus, whose secret history is exposed in such a manner as to give a singular picture of the Christian life of that day in Rome, with that air of minute truthfulness so valuable in history. Callistus had been slave of a rich Christian, who set him up in a bank from which he embezzled the savings of some Christian widows; was detected, fled, embarked in an outward-bound ship, was pursued, threw himself overboard, was rescued from the waves, dragged back to Rome, and sentenced to penal servitude in the Workhouse. He was released on pretext of collecting money due to him, raised a riot in a Jewish synagogue, in order to gain the credit of martyr-zeal, was publicly scourged, and transported to the mines in Sardinia, whence he escaped by the forged insertion of his name upon the list of pardoned exiles. Victor, desirous to screen the scandal caused by his infamous conduct, supported him by a small pension at Antium, whence he was recalled by bishop Zephyrinus, who placed him over the Cemetery, and gradually yielded to his crafty counsels for courting popularity, and for escaping the odium of collision with the powerful heretics. Callistus succeeded him as bishop, and but for Hippolytus' able opposition, he would have introduced and established a fatal heresy into Rome. And yet the Romanist annalists have elevated this unworthy bishop to the rank of martyrdom, seizing on the ironical application to him of that title when he was dragged by the police before the præfect of Rome, to be tried as a rioter in the Jewish synagogue! Hippolytus is called by his contemporaries 'most sweet, most benevolent, most eloquent;' and his extant works, which were till recently attributed to Origen, indicate a wide heart for the universality of God's love in Christ to mankind, with a glowing love of religious liberty, founded generally on the free agency of man, and specifically on the true Christian, as the organ of the Holy Spirit. In place of the then generally adopted title of 'Catholic,' he calls Christians by the sweet name, 'God-lovers' (Philotheists). His style is oratorical and fanciful, like that of Origen, but also luminous. There is not a trace of modern Romanism in his works. His interpretation of the Apocalyptic Woman (Rev. xii. 1) makes her emblematic of the Church; the twelve stars the twelve Apostles, her founders; and the wondrous Child the SAVIOUR, 192-307.] THE ORIGIN OF THE POPEDOM. 249 whom the Church continually brings forth by her preaching. He knew no title to supremacy in the bishop of Rome, but speaks of the office as of course elective; and that, though the presbyters had the primary right to vote, the people exercised their primitive right of confirming the election, either consenting by acclamation, or rejecting by a tumultuary veto. The legislation of the Roman Church was then in the hands of its forty-two presbyters and seven deacons, and the judicial power in the bishop, but his jurisdiction did not extend above one hundred miles from the capital. During the twenty-three years which passed between the death of Hippolytus and that of Cyprian, provincial Synods had considerably raised, as Mosheim shows, the power of the bishops of the chief cities; for, as representing more important churches, they acted as presidents, were styled Metropolitans, and exercised authority over the bishops of smaller cities who had been' of equal dignity;' and this movement, of course, raised the bishop of the capital to more commanding influence. Whilst the Decian persecution raged, the Christians of Carthage, which, by its corn trade, had more regular and more rapid intercourse with Rome than any other city of the Empire, were drawn by common sympathies and common sufferings into the closest alliance; and the clergy constantly corresponded with each other in despatches still extant, especially when the bishops of both cities had been cut off by one common martyrdom. Indeed, Fabianus was the first martyr-bishop of Rome whose death rests on certain testimony. It was then that the Roman Christians were induced by those of Carthage to use the Latin language in their public worship, and to adopt Cyprian's system of Church discipline, thoroughly suited as it was to Roman sternness and respect for law, and so flattering to the predominant national vanity, by making their favourite Apostle, |