[465] Das sind die ältesten Bilder von dem Ende des irdischen Lebens Jesu und seiner Erhöhung.... Bald darauf kommen sie hin und wieder auch in Abendlande vor.--_Ueber den Christlichen Bilderkreis_, pp. 26, 27. [466] Est et apud Narbonensem urbem pictura quæ Dominum nostrum quasi præcinctum linteo indicat crucifixum.--_De Glor. Mar._, i, 23. [467] Crux benedicta nitet Dominus qua carne pependit.--_Carm._, lib. ii, 3. [468] The earliest example of a dead Christ is in a MS. of date A. D. 1059. The oldest mural picture of this awful theme, now so common throughout Roman Catholic Christendom, and which was prescribed as necessary for every altar by Benedict XIV, 1754, is the Church of Urban at Rome, and bears the date A. X. R. I. MXI.--Anno Christi 1011. Few of those in the Italian churches are older than the fourteenth century. [469] The inclination of the apse from the axial line in some churches is said to represent this drooping of the head. [470] Didron, _Iconog. Chrét._, pp. 226, 505. [471] Die also dem Morgenlande entstammen, says Professor Piper.--_Ueber den Christlichen Bilderkreis_, p. 27. [472] The Council of Constantinople, A. D. 754. [473] Hemans, _Sacred Art in Italy_, p. 534. [474] See the reliefs upon the marble pulpits of Pisa and Sienna. [475] See one at Lucca, ascribed by tradition to the workmanship of Nicodemus, which was so famous as to be sworn by in the oath, a favourite one with the Plantagenet kings, “by Saint Vult of Lucca.” Hemans, _Sac. Art_, p. 534. Another at Naples is said to have spoken in approval to St. Thomas Aquinas. Perhaps the most revolting extant representation of Our Lord is one in the Cathedral of Burgos, in Spain. It is a stuffed human skin, with a wig of false hair and a crown of real thorns. Elsewhere are Ecce Homos in wax with enamel eyes, and other puerile and unartistic modes of treatment of this solemn theme. [476] Refrigerante mundo, says the Roman office for St. Francis’ day. CHAPTER III. 282 THE BIBLICAL CYCLE OF THE CATACOMBS.