The story of Lazarus, as we may easily conceive, was an especial favourite of the early Christian artists. It spoke to the deepest feelings, and inspired the loftiest hopes of the primitive believers. Rescued from the darkness and despair of paganism as to the future state of the soul, they grasped with intensest fervour the glorious doctrine of its immortal existence and of the resurrection of the body. Amid the gloom of the Catacombs, and surrounded by the silent congregation of the dead, they heard with joy the thrilling words, “I am the Resurrection and the Life,” and laid their loved ones to their rest, not with everlasting farewells and passionate complainings at the gods, but exulting in the hope of a blessed immortality. Therefore they engraved on the funeral slab, or painted on the tomb, this record of Christ’s triumph over death, as a symbol of that hope which kept their hearts strong in life’s trial hour. These representations are 330 of every degree of artistic merit, from the rudely scratched and scarcely intelligible outline, to the elaborately sculptured bas relief on the costly sarcophagus. Of the former the annexed is perhaps the simplest example to be found. It is of date A. D. 400. [Illustration: Fig. 98.--Lazarus.] Lazarus is generally exhibited as a mummy-like figure, “bound hand and foot with grave-clothes,” standing in a temple-shaped tomb or _ædicula_, like those which line the Appian Way. This figure Our Lord, the Prince of Life, is touching with the rod of his power, as shown in the accompanying fresco from the Catacomb of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus. [Illustration: Fig. 99.--The Raising of Lazarus.] The figure of Mary, frequently of very diminutive size, setting all proportion at defiance, is often depicted as crouching at the feet of Jesus, and sometimes as kissing his hand in gratitude for restoring her brother to life. Sometimes, also, Martha is seen standing by the tomb, and the disciples standing around Jesus. The following engraving, from a sarcophagus in the Lateran, is a characteristic example of the ordinary type. A much less frequent subject of art-presentation was Mary Magdalene 331 holding in her hands the “alabaster box of very precious ointment,” wherewith she anointed Our Lord. [Illustration: Fig. 100.--Raising of Lazarus.[550]] [Illustration: Fig. 101.--Christ’s Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem.]