It is not said that angels were visibly present at the baptism of Christ; but it appears to me that they ought not therefore to be supposed absent, and that there is a propriety in making them attendants on this solemn occasion. They are not introduced in the very earliest examples, those in the catacombs and sarcophagi; nor yet in the mosaics of Ravenna; because angels were then rarely figured, and instead of the winged angel we have the sedge-crowned river god, representing the Jordan. In the Greek formula, they are required to be present ‘in an attitude of respect:’ no mention is made of their holding the garments of our Saviour; but it is certain that in Byzantine Art, and generally from the twelfth century, this has been the usual mode of representing them. According to the Fathers, our Saviour had no guardian angel; because he did not require one: notwithstanding the sense usually given to the text, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone,’ the angels, they affirm, were not the guardians, but the servants, of Christ; and hence, I presume, the custom of representing them, not merely as present, but as ministering to him during his baptism. The gates of San Paolo (tenth century) afford the most ancient example I have met with of an angel holding the raiment of the Saviour: there is only one angel. Giotto introduces two graceful angels kneeling on the bank of the river, and looking on with attention. The angel in Raphael’s composition bows his head, as if awe-struck by the divine recognition of the majesty of the Redeemer; and the reverent manner in which he holds the vestment is very beautiful. Other examples will here suggest themselves to the reader, and I shall resume the subject when treating of the life of our Saviour. * * * * * In one account of our Saviour’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane, it is expressly said that an angel ‘appeared unto him out of heaven, strengthening him;’ therefore, where this awful and pathetic subject has been attempted in Art, there is propriety in introducing a visible angel. Notwithstanding the latitude thus allowed to the imagination, or perhaps for that very reason, the greatest and the most intelligent painters have here fallen into strange errors, both in conception and in taste. For instance, is it not a manifest impropriety to take the Scripture phrase in a literal sense, and place a cup in the hand of the angel? Is not the word _cup_ here, as elsewhere, used as a metaphor, signifying the destiny awarded by Divine will, as Christ had said before, ‘Ye shall drink of my cup,’ and as we say, ‘his cup overfloweth with blessings’? The angel, therefore, who does not bend from heaven to announce to him the decree he knew full well, nor to present the cup of bitterness, but to strengthen and comfort him, should not bear the cup;—still less the cross, the scourge, the crown of thorns, as in many pictures.