Take, for example, the figure of an anchor, so repeatedly represented on gravestones and other monuments of the Catacombs; so rarely, if indeed ever, to be found on Pagan monuments. What influenced the early Christians in the selection of such a figure? what meaning did they attach to it? This enquiry forces itself upon our minds, if we are intelligent students of Christian archæology, anxious to understand what we see: and if we are also prudent and on our guard against being led astray by mere fancy, we shall conduct the enquiry by the same laws and principles as we should apply to the interpretation of some perplexing riddle in heathen art. We should first examine the literature of the age and people to whom it was supposed to belong, and see if any light could be thrown upon it from that source. In the present instance, therefore, we turn to the sacred literature of the Christians, and we find there a passage which speaks of the duty of “holding fast the hope that is set before us, which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and firm.” We assume, then, provisionally, as a basis of further enquiry, that an anchor may perhaps have been used as an emblem of Christian hope. Continuing our search in the same sacred books, we find that there was a special connection in the Christian creed between hope and the condition of the dead. It is written that Christians are not sorrowful about those who die, “as others who have no hope.” The conclusion is obvious, that a reference to hope is just one of those things which might not unreasonably be looked for on a Christian’s grave-stone, since it was something on which they prided themselves as a point of difference between themselves and others. This greatly confirms our conjectural interpretation of the symbol, and we proceed with some confidence to apply it to every example of its use that we can meet with; for if it is the right key, it cannot fail to unlock all the problems that will come before us. In doing this, we are first struck by the fact that in several instances the very names of the deceased persons on whose epitaphs the anchor is engraved, themselves also meant the same thing. They were called _Spes_, _Elpis_, _Elpidius_, _Elpizusa_; all names coming from the Latin or Greek word for hope. Next, we observe that many of these anchors are so fashioned as to contain a hidden yet unmistakable representation of a cross; and, reflecting that the one only ground of a Christian’s hope is the cross of Christ, we hail this also as lending further support to our theory. Yet once more, we find many of the epitaphs contain the same idea, expressed in distinct words written in the ordinary alphabet and not in these hieroglyphics, so to call them,—we find _Spes in Deo_, _Spes in Deo Christo_ &c. Finally, we often find the anchor united with one or more of several other symbols, to which, by a similar but independent process, we can assign a certain signification.