In mediæval art uncouth and grotesque figures--“Gorgons and hydras and chimeras dire”--took the place of the bright and genial symbols of the Catacombs. To the terrified imagination of the age all nature swarmed with malignant and demoniac beings, which were bodied forth in the dragons and griffins, and monstrous forms and faces that haunt the gothic minsters and abbeys, especially in the northern countries of Europe, where the savageness of nature is reflected in the weirdness of art. Yet even in its distorted grotesqueness, this art proved its moral superiority to the gay and joyous spirit of heathenism. The intense consciousness of sin and evil, and of the mortal struggle of the human soul with the powers of darkness which it manifested, is essentially nobler than the frivolous sensualism of ancient art and life, without hope or fear of the future. [384] See Job xxx, 1; Psa. xxii, 16; Matt. vii, 6; Phil. iii, 2; Rev. xxii, 15. [385] Compare the prophecy of Belshazzar’s doom--Dan. v, 27. To this the weighing of the fates of Achilles and Hector in the Iliad is analogous. (McCaul, 49.) Several of these symbols are often associated together. Thus, on a slab bearing date A. D. 400, are crowded the Constantinian monogram, the balance, mummy, candelabrum with seven lights, a house, and fish. On a marble ambo at Ravenna are six series, ten in each, of sheep, peacocks, doves, stags, ducks, and fishes. Whether symbolical or not, the selection is a remarkable parallel to many of the figures of the Catacombs. [386] Psa. xxiii. [387] Psa. lxxx, 1. [388] 1 Pet. ii, 25. [389] See Fig. 105. [390] Pausanias, lib. x. [391] Tibullus, _Eleg._, ii, 11, 12; Calpurn., _Eclog._, v, 39. [392] Isa. xl, 11. [393] Patrocinabitur Pastor, quem in calice depingitis. A parabolis licebit incipias, ubi est ovis perdita, a Domino requisita et humeris ejus revecta.--_De Pudicit._, ii and x. [394] The later Christian poets also celebrated this tender theme. In lines whose lyric cadence charm the ear like a shepherd’s pipe Thomas Aquinas sings: Bone Pastor, panis vere, Jesu, nostri miserere, Tu nos pasce, nos tuere; Tu nos bona fac videre, In terra viventium. Tu qui cuncta scis et vales, Qui nos pascis hic mortales Tuos ibi commensales Cohæredes et sodales Fac sanctorum civium. Another Mediæval hymn runs sweetly thus: Jesu dulcissime, e throno gloriæ Ovem deperditam venisti quærere! Jesu suavissime, pastor fidissime, Ad te O trahe me, ut semper sequar te! [395] In a distich accompanying an _Agnus Dei_ in the church of St. Pudentiana at Rome, both characters are ascribed to Our Lord: