The GLORY, NIMBUS, or AUREOLE—the Christian attribute of sanctity, and used generally to distinguish all holy personages—is of pagan origin. It expressed the luminous nebula (Homer, _Il._ xxiii. 205), supposed to emanate from, and surround, the Divine Essence, which stood, ‘a shade in midst of its own brightness.’ Images of the gods were decorated with a crown of rays, or with stars; and when the Roman emperors assumed the honours due to divinity, they appeared in public crowned with golden radii. The colossal statue of Nero wore a circle of rays, imitating the glory of the sun. This ornament became customary; and not only the first Cæsars, but the Christian emperors, adopted the same divine insignia; and it became at length so common that we find it on some medals, round the heads of the consuls of the later empire. Considered in the East as _the attribute of power only_, whether good or evil, we find, wherever early Art has been developed under Byzantine influences, the nimbus thus applied. Satan, in many Greek, Saxon, and French miniatures, from the ninth to the thirteenth century, wears a glory. In a psalter of the twelfth century, the Beast of the Apocalypse with seven heads has six heads surrounded by the nimbus; the seventh, wounded and drooping, is without the sign of power. But in Western Art the associations with this attribute were not merely those of dignity, but of something divine and consecrated. It was for a long time avoided in the Christian representations as being appropriated by false gods or heathen pride; and when first adopted does not seem clear.[7] The earliest example cited is a gem of St. Martin of the early part of the sixth century, in which the glory round his head seems to represent his apotheosis: and in all instances it is evidently intended to represent divine glory and beatitude.